Truth (30 page)

In a short time, he was on the street, orange sun behind the haze, looking for Finucane, unaccountably thinking about the first horse Bob raced, the best horse he ever had, the lovely little grey called Truth who won at her second start, won three from twelve, always game, never gave up. She sickened and died in hours, buckled and lay, her sweet eyes forgave them their stupid inability to save her.

VILLANI sat at the desk, stared at the near-empty inbox. Kiely appeared in the door.

‘Checked the active files,’ he said. ‘Took the liberty. In case decisions were urgently needed.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Villani, ‘about a bad restaurant where the manager also wants to do the cooking.’

The pink of dawn on Kiely’s pale cheekbones. ‘A remark made in the heat of the moment,’ he said. ‘I accept that it was inappropriate. I would also like to say that I had not at that point sent a memo to command. And I did not do so subsequently.’

He’d heard something, he was looking ahead, thinking about the possible price he might pay.

‘So, not a dog?’ said Villani.

Kiely chewed saliva for a time. ‘Not a dog,’ he said.

‘Welcome to Homicide,’ said Villani.

Kiely did not know how to take it.

‘That’s well meant,’ said Villani.

‘Right. Thank you.’ Relief in his eyes. ‘Well, there’s progress on some fronts, the drowned woman in Keilor, the husband pumped water into her, he’s made a full statement. And the Frankston girl, we’ve got the two men lived there, so that should sort itself out. The man in the Pope mask, that’s proving difficult. Possibly
sailor-tossed from the fifth floor.’

‘See what’s in port,’ said Villani. ‘Check the
Spirit of Tasmania
crew. They’re tossers.’

‘Hah. Absolutely.’

He left.

Burgess knocked, files in hand. He was looking remarkably healthy, it was disconcerting. On the very worst of mornings, Burgess had always been someone you could look at and it made you feel better. The Australian Standard for visible hangovers, the benchmark.

‘Boss, the girl up there, at the snow? Just about forgotten.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing. It’s open.’

‘Read those?’

‘Not in detail, no. Bit pushed.’

Why at this time was it nagging at him, the icy day, the rutted track, the little body, why did these things arise from nowhere?

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘I moved on.’

‘Me too,’ said Burgess. ‘Singo wasn’t hot on it.’

‘Darwin, why do I think Darwin?’

‘They kind of ID’d her in Darwin,’ said Burgess. ‘There was a teenie hooker in Darwin, they said it looked like her. Darwin coppers. Probably fucked her. That was the extent of it. Yeah.’

‘Okay, leave those. Why you looking so healthy? Something I should take?’

Burgess winked. ‘Love of a good woman,’ he said.

‘Expensive?’

‘Can I tell the next deputy commissioner to fuck off?’

‘Where’d you hear that?’

‘The birds are singing it. In the trees.’

‘Bullshit. On your bike. Trike.’

There’s no upside there for you…Get on with important stuff. Career-enhancing stuff.

‘Get Dove for me, there’s a good public servant.’

‘Sad boy, the Lovey Dovey,’ said Burgess. ‘Not a mixer. The Abo
chip. Still, the boy took a bullet.’

‘Not too late for you to take one. Invite Mr Dove in. And keep taking the good woman.’

Time passed, Dove came, knocked air.

‘Close the door. Sit.’

Dove closed the door, sat in the cheap chair, locked his hands, the tendons stood out, thick as spaghetti.

‘I’ll say to you,’ Villani said, ‘I’ll say I have been told to drop any Koenig stuff, I have been told to put Prosilio on ice. I have been told my career is at risk.’

Dove looked at his hands. ‘I see,’ he said.

The gear changes, the big motor’s sound thinning, thinner, going, going, gone, the silence, Bob gone, he was alone with the boys, the horses, the dogs. No going back to sleep. Things to see to. Sometimes, in the early morning, the burden had felt so heavy, he had pulled the pillow over his head, stopped breathing.

Sometimes Mark would whine about something on a Sunday night and Bob would say,
Steve’ll fix it, Steve’ll see to it.

Bob never asked him whether he could do it. Steve would look after things. Talk to teachers, take boys to the doctor, the dentist, cut their hair, buy them clothes, shoes. Never mind that Steve was twelve years old. Perhaps Bob just didn’t give a bugger. No, he cared about Mark, came to care about Luke. The horses, he loved them. And then the oaks. They grew from his acorns, they were his beautiful and undemanding children. Water, that was all they asked for. And Steve would see to that too.

‘What’s that mean?’ he said to Dove. A reflex, Singo question, no utterance unexamined.

What did he say exactly? The words. Tell me his words. I’m dying, I can’t live without her, I’ll kill myself? Did he say stuff like that?

Dove lifted his eyes.

‘They’re powerful people,’ he said. ‘They run the world. Why shouldn’t they get away with killing a whore?’

They sat without speaking, in the space enclosed from the bigger space, the tin desk, the tin filing cabinets, Singo’s trophy protruding
from the box, first-round knockout, that was rare in the force’s boxing at the upper weights, they were generally mauling affairs.

He thought about the day he told Birkerts he was thinking of looking at some of Singleton’s unresolved matters.

Birkerts said, ‘They’re dead, he’s dead, we can only shoot ourselves up the arse.’

‘If you don’t get it,’ said Villani, acid, ‘you don’t get it.’

Birkerts said, ‘I get the principle, I just don’t see the utility.’

‘The utility?’ said Villani. ‘Is that what you got your fucking degree in? Working out what the utility is?’

Justice for the dead. Singo’s message to new arrivals. ‘We’re the only ones who can get them justice. That’s our work. That’s our calling.’

These thoughts had begun to come to Villani in the small moments of his life—at the traffic lights, in the haunted space before sleep, in the wet womb of the shower.

For Koenig and DiPalma and Orong, the Prosilio girl was just a dead creature by the wayside. Roadkill. They didn’t get the principle and they didn’t see the utility.

He thought of the moment when he saw the dead girl and thought she was Lizzie. Was that some kind of foreshadowing, a premonition? Rubbish.

Singo wasn’t hot on it.

The girl on the snow road. No, forget it.

‘Well that’s it then,’ he said. ‘See what Inspector Kiely has waiting for you.’

Dove stood up, eyes on him, unreadable.

‘Yes?’ said Villani. ‘Something to say?’

‘Nothing,’ said Dove. ‘Boss.’

‘IF THIS is a few,’ said Villani, ‘it must get a bit crowded when all your friends come.’

Vicky Hendry laughed, expensive teeth. ‘This is nothing. Max’s great fear is that if we have a party and invite fifty, only ten might show up. So he asks a hundred and they all bloody come. But this is the TGIF gang. Work people. Stable around forty.’

Villani had arrived late, uneasy, regretting the decision long before the taxi stopped. He said his name into the brass grille on the street. The gate was opened by a big smiling man in a suit. Vicky Hendry was waiting at the front door, kissed his cheek, took his hand, led him along a passage and through two huge sitting rooms onto a terrace, he heard the laughter. They went down steps to join a crowd of people beside a pale green saltwater pool, men and women in equal numbers, suits, tieless.

To one side was a bar, a barman, beer and wine bottles in ice in wine barrels, a barbecue the size of a security door. Behind them were two long trestle tables.

Vicky Hendry looked after other guests but he felt that he was her point of departure and return. She made sure he was never alone. She appeared to find him amusing, sought his opinions in a direct way, a slow blinker, she stood close, just a few finger widths from provocative, intimate. His unease went away.

People drifted over, introduced themselves, all connected with Hendry enterprises, many of them to the AirLine project. They knew who he was, a new experience for Villani and it did not displease him.

‘Alice, meet Stephen Villani.’

She was north of sixty, overweight, red hair, dyed.

‘Alice is called Max’s secretary,’ said Vicky. ‘They have a thirty-year history. I had to be approved by Alice.’

‘Calculating bitch was my view,’ said Alice. ‘But he wouldn’t listen.’

‘And for not listening he pays every day of his life,’ said Villani.

The women laughed and Vicky put a fist against his chest in a mock-punch, pressed, he felt her knuckles, she kept them there the extra half-second and he knew it was flirting, Alice knew it, Vicky knew it.

‘Where is he?’

‘On his way back from Canberra we hope,’ said Vicky. ‘He’s been talking to the federal government about AirLine.’

Time passed, laughter, Spanish music, he felt easier than he had for, he couldn’t remember how long. He drank beer, they moved to a trestle table, platters of kebabs came, bowls of salad, bottles of red and white. Around him the talk was of politics, all sides represented, of the shrunken economy, the endless fires, films, holidays, current events, how bad the media were.

At some signal, Vicky left him and reappeared with Max Hendry, jacketless, tieless, white shirt with sleeves rolled up. He had a big arm around his wife.

Shouts.

About bloody time, mate.

Security, there’s a gatecrasher.

Show us the money, Maxie.

Hendry put up his hands.

‘You bloody freeloaders,’ he said.

Applause.

‘So you know where I’ve been today,’ he said. ‘Talked to the
bastards, six hours. Never met so many dumb people. But we reckon we’ve finally got it through their thick heads that any alternative that takes traffic off clogged roads is bloody national infrastructure.’

Cheers, clapping.

‘Now that is a small step for the dickheads but it’s a big, big step for mankind. Which is our cause.’

More cheers, whistles. Max did a boxer clasp, he said, ‘Get your snouts back in the trough, you animals.’

Vicky took her seat beside Villani. They watched Max patting shoulders, kissing cheeks, shaking hands, a loved ruler returning from exile.

‘They like him,’ said Villani.

She was silent. Max got to them, shook Villani’s hand.

‘Thanks for coming, mate,’ he said. ‘My dear lady’s looked after you?’

A waiter offered food, Max said he’d eaten. The barman came with beaded Coopers, uncapped two.

Max drank from the bottle. He let the world return to pre-Max, told stories about meetings with the prime minister, the treasurer, the federal transport minister.

He asked Villani questions, Villani had the feeling Max knew the answers, knew everything about him.

The dark crept across the space, the guests thinned, everyone saying their thanks, joking with the Hendrys. Villani made to leave. Max put a hand on his shoulder.

‘No, no, Steve, stay. Coffee. Quiet Friday nightcap.’

When Vicky had gone to see the last guests off, they moved to the terrace, to big wooden chairs. A smiling silver-haired woman in black brought coffee, chocolates, a bottle of cognac, balloon glasses.

Max poured. Before them lay the dark garden running to the river and then the city and its towers standing in their illuminated self-esteem.

‘Cigar?’ said Hendry. ‘I shouldn’t but I might regress. Good
word, regress. Sounds like regret, which comes after regressing.’

‘I might regress with you,’ said Villani.

Hendry left, came back with two cigars and a silver spike, pierced the dark cylinders, handed one over, a box of kitchen matches.

‘Thank God for Cuba,’ he said. ‘Cuba and France.’

They lit up. The smoke hung in the air.

Below them, paw prints of light came on, walking in big strides down to the river.

Villani picked up his glass, he was mellow. The light from portholes in the paving made the cognac a dark honey-gold. Something was coming from Hendry, you knew.

‘I want to ask you,’ said Hendry. ‘Bit of a nerve, really. Ever consider another line of work?’

Villani said, ‘Cop is all I know.’

‘Not exactly on the beat now,’ said Hendry.

‘I’ve got what I hear is called a restricted skill set. I copied my bosses, they copied theirs.’

‘That can work,’ said Hendry, ‘if you don’t copy something flawed. Then the copies get worse in every generation.’

‘That’s what I’m saying,’ said Villani. ‘I’m several generations flawed. The object will soon be unusable.’

He said it without thinking, drink taken, and he knew it was true. He was a blurred facsimile of Cameron, Colby and Singo. And, to begin with, he was a bad copy of Bob Villani. The looks, the height, the hair, the hands, they were accurate. But all the failings, all the imbalances, they were amplified: the selfishness, the faithlessness, the blindness, the urges, the rutting instinct.

All the worst bits.

But the spine, the guts, the courage, that went the other way. Those things that were large in Bob, they were stunted in his firstborn son.

Max laughed, small plosives.

‘You just saying that, it confirms my instincts,’ he said. ‘I like clever people, I can spot them a long way away. That’s really all
I’m smart at. If my old man had been a garbo, I’d be labouring on a building site.’

They smoked, sipped, the cognac fumes filled the nose.

Vicky came out.

‘Rascals at play,’ she said. ‘Much as I’d love to sit around drinking cognac and smoking a fat cigar,’ she said, ‘I’m not joining you. Exhausted. I’d say knackered if I wasn’t such a lady.’

Villani stood and said his thanks. She squeezed his arms and kissed him half on his lips. He caught the musk of her perfume through the cigar smoke.

‘Our pleasure, Steve,’ she said. ‘You’re now a member of the Friday mob. By popular demand, I have to say. Also you must come to the valley for a weekend. I’ll send an invite.’