The Tower (40 page)

‘We?'

Dutton worked for an offshoot of a big merchant bank that had been buying infrastructure around the world. Freeways, airports, toll bridges.

‘We've just taken over a stevedore company, Rice Turner. They're at Botany.'

Troy recalled the huge blue cranes and gantries he'd seen the last time he'd been down that way. ‘I've been asked to review security there, all those containers. It's a massive project, a huge responsibility. Key question is whether to keep the manager, bloke named Chris Sutherland. There was some sort of police investigation six months ago, all the docks in Sydney and Port Kembla. Spare car parts, fakes, out of China. Nothing released yet.'

Jesus, Troy thought. This is not good. ‘I'm sorry—'

‘What they found, whether it's ongoing? This means a lot to me.'

‘Look—'

‘No. I'm sorry I asked. Happens all the time though, wouldn't hurt anyone.'

‘I can't—'

‘It's okay. You're not like that, are you? Sorry I asked.' Dutton looked out to sea. Then he said softly, ‘You can be too pure, though.'

Troy wanted to ask why he didn't use one of his other police contacts, if this sort of thing was so common. If he was so respectful of Troy's feelings. But Dutton had rushed the end of the conversation, as though embarrassed by the whole thing and wanting to get it over as quickly as possible.

‘I am who I am,' Troy said, but regretted the words immediately. He wanted to make some sort of stand, but it just sounded pompous.

‘And we all love you for it,' Dutton said bleakly, slapping him on the back and turning to see where the others were.

Thirty-four

R
andall paid off the taxi and stood outside the block of flats, his back to the building, admiring the darkening harbour. He'd just spent hours in a hire car, driving back from the Hunter Valley. No CDs, he couldn't get his iPod to work with the car's sound system. Just radio station crap.

That stupid bloody woman. He picked up a case of wine and hoisted the strap of his bag awkwardly onto his shoulder, made his way up the stairs. At least his stash was waiting for him in the cabinet in his apartment. He deserved a treat.

As he opened the building's security door, the door of one of the ground-floor flats also opened: Mrs Crawley, single mother of a rather attractive schoolgirl he'd never spoken with. Robin, the mother's name was, and she was holding some DVDs and a brown paper bag. She'd always been sour towards him, but today there was a glint of happiness in her eyes that he didn't like at all.

‘These were on the stairs when we came in this afternoon,' she said, thrusting them at him. Wearily, he put the case down and took them. ‘Your door was open. I was going to call the police, but Derek Taplin said he'd seen a woman here earlier he thought was a friend of yours. We weren't sure what to do.'

He looked at the top DVD case and saw the word
Mexico
written on it, in his own hand. Wondered what was inside the brown paper bag.

‘Kristin and I broke up, and I'm afraid she's taken it badly,' he said, moving towards the stairs.

He'd come back later for the wine.

‘So she has a key to this building?'

Randall smiled ruefully. ‘I really thought she might be the one. On the stairs, you say?'

‘Here and outside. Some had fallen out of the cases. I put them back in for you.'

He could see the daughter now, down the hall behind her mother, having a peek at him.

‘Mrs Crawley,' he said, ‘you're a saint.'

Inside his flat, he saw that the cabinet had been levered open. There was no sign of the tool that had been used, but he had no doubt Kristin had come well prepared. She was so competent at everything, she'd probably done a course in burglary. She must have been looking for the DVD of herself, but it was in his bag and he felt a twinge of triumph. And she would have seen the others, realised she was not alone, which served her right. All the DVDs from the cabinet were gone. He was holding four plus the one in his bag. That left three missing. Bloody hell.

He put down the DVDs and looked into the brown paper bag. A collection of assorted condoms he recognised from his own supply. He wondered where the other DVDs were. Someone might have lifted them from the steps out front. Or Taplin, a neighbour on his floor, might have grabbed some. Then there was Mrs Crawley and her daughter.

Jesus, he thought, reaching for the Mylanta. And then it struck him there was something else missing. Something important in his life. He lifted up the papers still in the cabinet, found his passport, birth certificate, plans of some of his past jobs. But no coke. The bitch had taken his supply. It seemed out of character. But this must be about revenge, not theft.

He had a swig of the Mylanta to try to dissipate the anxiety gathering in his stomach. Foul stuff. My consumption of white substances has come to this, he thought. How the mighty are fallen. He pulled out his phone and called Gregor, but there was no reply. Rang Kristin and got her voicemail. That was the problem, she wanted to play with the boys but she was a coward at heart. Testosterone, physique, they mattered. Or something like that.

He went into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of vodka from the freezer. Got a shot glass and returned to the lounge, where he turned on the sound system, cranked up some Coldplay. The music made him feel better, it seemed to slow down the traffic through his brain, he found he had more control over his thoughts. He turned the volume up higher, so high he wouldn't hear the knocking even if Derek-fucking-Taplin came to complain. Sat on the sofa for a long time looking at the final lights come on in the city across the water. The water that he knew was full of sharks, cruising around just below the surface, waiting for victims.

The thing about Kristin was he had her on film, and she must hate that; it was something he would always have. The more he thought about this, the happier it made him. Later he decided to watch the film and fetched the DVD from his bag and took it over to the player. He opened the case and saw the disc inside wasn't labelled. This was the one Henry had returned a few days ago. Must have been some muddle, he must still have the one with Kristin on it. Typical of Henry's general bloody sloppiness. Randall wondered if anything was on this one. Slipping it into the player, he returned to his chair.

There was a woman but it was not Kristin. It was a pretty young Chinese woman and she was naked. After a few moments Randall realised she was terrified. There were marks on her skin that made you want to adjust the colour, but the rest of the image was perfectly fine, technically. The woman was cowering on a bed and he recognised it as a room on Henry's boat. Now the camera was moving in and a man came into the picture from the side. You could only see his back but Randall could tell it was Henry, his sleeves rolled up and reaching for the woman. You could see his hands and there was a strand of wire taut between them. She started to scream but there was no sound and then the man put his hands on either side of her throat and the camera went in closer, and the woman's eyes started to look strange. Randall hit the stop button on the remote and then turned his head away, unable to look at the close-up of the woman's face. He stumbled around until he found the other remote, the one that turned off the screen. Shakily, he ejected the disc and put it back in its case.

Sitting down again, looking out at the city, he wondered what had happened. Had Henry put the wrong DVD in the case by mistake or on purpose? He was a lazy, arrogant fucker, a mistake was quite possible. Henry wouldn't give a shit about the problems it might cause. Much later, after a lot more vodka, he saw that it didn't matter. Either way, he was in trouble. There was some rumour about Henry and a Chinese woman too, something Jamal had once mentioned. Randall thought about it, not sure if he really wanted to remember the details. But nothing came anyway.

What was there already was fear; it was everywhere and it was rising about him gradually. He took more vodka, far too much, but the fear was still there, like the water in the harbour. He could actually feel when it reached his chin.

MONDAY

Thirty-five

M
any of those crowded into the room for the briefing had not worked with McIver before, and Troy sensed that interest was at a high pitch. The man had a reputation. As he went over the investigation, heads were nodding: what he said made sense, and implied things were now under control. It was all very different from Stone's lurching and incomplete performances. You could feel the increase in confidence.

One of McIver's announcements was that Bazzi had been tracked to Lebanon. He'd landed at Beirut on Thursday, using a different name. Over the weekend an account had been found in that name at the Commonwealth Bank. It had had a balance of just over a hundred thousand, until it was cleared out the previous week. In the year before that there had been large monthly deposits.

‘We're assuming the money came from Sidorov,' McIver said.

There was a murmur of excited talk. Troy thought that, like so much in the case, it was interesting but it didn't take them forwards.

‘The Lebanese authorities don't know where he is now,' McIver said. ‘His escape was well planned. I doubt we'll see him again.' He waited for silence. ‘Now, I know you're all wondering where we go next. I have some exciting news. We're going back to the beginning. We'll go over the whole investigation again. This time with feeling.'

There were groans but they were mixed with laughter. Troy saw two of the female detectives looking at McIver with open interest. He was wearing the dark blue shirt, beneath a tight black suit that emphasised his wiry body. The sling provided some lines of white across his chest. Occasionally the arm in it would lift out impatiently, to make a gesture or grab for a piece of paper, then fall back ineffectually.

‘And on the home front, we've finally had a useful contribution from a member of the public.'

McIver looked at Conti, who explained that a woman in Darlinghurst had found a security pass behind a box on her front porch over the weekend. It belonged to The Tower and an electronic check showed it had been allocated to Sean Randall.

‘In other words,' she said, ‘it was discarded by the shooter after he left via the tunnel and crossed Hyde Park. We're hoping there'll be DNA on it from his sweat, and we'll compare that with the skin scrapings from Margot's fingernails.'

There was another murmur of excited conversation.

McIver called for quiet. ‘Let's start with what we know about our victim.'

Troy looked at the photo of Margot Teresi on the board. Her attractive face, with a big smile full of white teeth, gave little suggestion of the obsessiveness that had taken her up The Tower at night to think about her father. Sometimes it took a while for a face to catch up with changes within. But then, maybe the obsession would have passed, had she lived. She might have become happy again, married. Had children.

McIver said, ‘A publisher at Allen & Unwin says Margot approached them with a proposal for a biography of her dad. They were considering it at the time of her death.' He paused and pointed to another photograph, a grainy shot of Jenny Finch. ‘Finch's parents are Margot's only surviving relatives; they've been on a walking tour in Spain and it took Foreign Affairs a few days to get hold of them.' He looked at Troy, who recalled Jenny Finch nodding eagerly when he'd suggested she call her mum. Everyone lies. ‘They returned yesterday, and I want Troy and Bergman to pay them a visit this morning.'

Before the briefing, McIver had asked Troy to take Bergman. Assuming there was no improvement in his work today, McIver would send the young detective back and demand a replacement. It was one of the routine tasks Stone should have done last week.

‘What about Mr A?' someone called out.

McIver frowned and pointed at the board, to the smudgy photograph of the man about to enter The Tower off Norfolk Street. The man who looked like he was ducking into a brothel. Despite the request they'd put out through the media last week, they still had no idea who he was.

Ruth had been taking a call at her desk while McIver was speaking. Now she hung up and pushed her way over to him, and whispered something in his ear. The sergeant looked up with a smile. ‘The Water Police recovered a body off Botany Bay this morning, it was spotted by some yachties. Nibbled by sharks and one foot missing. From the tattoos, they reckon it could be Andrew Asaad.'

More excitement in the room.

Troy said, ‘And the sea gave up the dead which were in it.'

McIver beamed. ‘How true. Sounds like our boy got a real Sydney Send-off.'

He assigned two detectives to visit Glebe to inspect the body, allocated some more tasks, and declared the briefing closed.

Ryan put up his hand. ‘What's happened to Sergeant Stone?'

The room, which had been getting noisy, fell silent again. A few people chuckled at the question, and McIver frowned.

‘Whatever occurred here,' he said, ‘Brad Stone is a brave man who's done things few of us could do.' He turned and walked in the direction of the office at the end of the room.

Troy followed him. ‘Do we know when Margot's funeral is?'

‘They're planting Jenny today, Margot on Friday. Want to keep the events separate. They're expecting a crowd for Margot.'

‘This is good, about finding Asaad.'

McIver shrugged. ‘It's the people behind Bazzi and Asaad we want now, whoever was paying them and running the shooter and his mate.'

‘Sidorov?' said Troy. The contractor was still saying nothing.

‘I had a go at him on the weekend,' said McIver. ‘He's too smart for us.' Talking to the police was the biggest mistake most criminals made when they were arrested.

‘Not a word?'

‘We need this bloke Jason. He provided the illegals and looked after them. My guess is our shooter and his mate worked for him.'