Truth (35 page)

‘Could be Kidd talking to Larter.’

Birkerts went to the window, prised open two venetian slats, peered.

‘I find it hard to believe,’ he said, ‘that even a cross-trained killer would take on the Ribs and their mate by himself and then send for the other bloke. But that’s just me.’

‘It’s always just you,’ said Villani. ‘I wish it wasn’t always just you. What do we do with this?’

Birkerts turned. ‘Have you ever asked a question you didn’t have the answer to? Mind made up. Know how much that grates?’

‘That’s cheeky. Insubordinate. Know how much that grates?’

Birkerts didn’t look at him. ‘I’m quitting,’ he said. ‘Monday. Had it.’

‘Steady on,’ said Villani. ‘Don’t do this to me.’

‘Why not? Anyway, it’s not to you, it’s to the fucking job. You live in some kind of communion with the dead, you never get a decent night’s sleep, it’s always on your mind, people treat you like you’re an undertaker, mortician, it fucked my marriage, now it’s fucked the only decent relationship I’ve been in since then and another…’

Birkerts fell silent. ‘Yeah, anyway, I’ve had it.’

‘You’ll do what for a living?’

‘I don’t know. My ex-brother-in-law says he’ll give me a job selling real estate.’

‘Sell property? Are you mad?’

‘What’s wrong with real estate? You make money. You don’t get called out to some fucking shithole where a mental defective’s been burnt to death for fun, you can smell burnt meat a block away.’

Villani got up, went around the desk, no purpose, body humming with tension, kicked Singo’s box, full swing of the leg, his toecap dug into it, the boxer shot out, hit the floor with its head, which broke off.

‘Oh fuck,’ he said, bent and picked up the pieces. ‘Typical force shit, can’t even give you a bloody metal trophy. I’m supposed to send it to his nephew.’

Birkerts took the pieces from him. ‘I know a bloke can recast this. Do it in aluminium. The nephew won’t know.’

‘I don’t actually give a fuck about Singo’s nephew,’ said Villani. ‘I’m quitting too.’

‘Come on?’

‘Not the only one who’s had it, mate.’

Birkerts shook his head. ‘Boss of crime, the word’s out. You can be the complete bloody sun in all its glory.’

‘No,’ said Villani. ‘Sunset. My little girl says I did things to her. Sex.’

Birkerts frowned. ‘Jesus. Well.’

‘Smacked-out, on the street, feral scum,’ said Villani. ‘I’m finished. Fucked.’

Silence. In it, the radio was heard:

…the Morpeth–Selborne complex have been told to expect the worst tomorrow when extreme conditions are predicted, temperatures in the mid-to-high forties and winds that could approach…

‘On Kidd,’ said Villani. ‘He texts this stuff, changes nothing. Oakleigh is over.’

‘My Lord, what is this job?’ said Birkerts. ‘We drive an hour in the shitawful so you can sniff the fucking roadside and find this, now it means fuckall?’

‘Basically,’ said Villani.

‘I have work to do,’ said Birkerts. ‘Maybe we can have a drink on Monday when we’re both moving on to new careers. New lives.’

At the door, he said to Villani, ‘This is why the wife kicked you out?’

‘Keep moving,’ said Villani. ‘Sell inner city, can’t go wrong. Is that right?’

He rang Bob’s number. It rang out, he tried again, again.

‘Yeah, Villani.’ Bob.

‘What’s happening?’

‘I’m busy, on a bloody bulldozer.’

‘Where’d you get a bulldozer?’

‘Borrowed it. Me and Gordie’s putting in an airstrip in front of the trees. Talk later.’

End of call. Man in the door.

‘Boss, hospital just rang, there’s a lady, a Mrs Quirk…’

A WOMAN from hospital management met Villani and took him to the fourth floor, along a blank corridor to a room with eight beds, curtains drawn around them.

A young nurse, cheerful farm-girl face, was coming towards them.

‘Nurse, please show Inspector Villani to Mrs Quirk’s bed.’

Villani said his thanks, followed the nurse to the last bed on the left.

The nurse said loudly, ‘Mrs Quirk. Visitor.’

‘Who?’ said Rose from behind the curtains.

‘Me. Stephen.’

‘Well, come in the bloody tent,’ Rose said.

‘Not on her last legs?’ Villani said to the nurse.

‘Not just yet.’ She ran a curtain aside.

Rose on two pillows, head bandaged, face the matching colour. Her right forearm was in plaster to the first knuckles.

‘Jeez, ma,’ said Villani. ‘You’ve got to stop getting in these fights.’

She drew her mouth down. ‘Little shit run me down. What took you so long?’

‘Have a heart,’ said Villani. ‘Only got the message ten minutes ago. You could’ve said you were okay, not given me a fright.’

Rose made a noise, scorn. ‘Probably thought, good riddance, bloody old bag.’

Villani sat on a moulded plastic chair. ‘Yeah, that crossed my mind. What happened to your head?’

‘Can you believe it?’ said Rose. ‘The one little bastard knocks me over, the other one’s on a skateboard. I’m lyin there dyin, he rides over me head.’

‘Who saved you?’

‘Across the road come and put a cushie under me head, held me hand.’

‘Probably didn’t want the street’s free veggie supplier to cark it,’ said Villani. ‘Arm broken?’

‘Nah, the wrist.’ Rose craned towards him. ‘Listen, Stevie, can’t stay here, don’t want to die here, bloody germatorium. Tell em to let me go home. They’ll listen to you. Bloody inspector.’

‘Inspector doesn’t carry weight with the medical profession,’ said Villani. ‘Doesn’t carry weight with anyone actually.’

‘Please, love.’

Rose put her left hand out to him. He took it, chicken bones in a bag of skin, held it in both his big awkward hands.

‘They give me all this health shit,’ she said. ‘Blood pressure’s too high. The weight on me heart, surprised it don’t shoot out of me ears.’

‘I’ll lean on them, ma,’ Villani said. ‘Get you out of here. Those mobile nurses can come around.’

‘Don’t need em,’ said Rose. ‘I’m gone. Little arse hit me, saw me spirit float out of me body.’

‘Cigarette smoke,’ said Villani. ‘Out of the lungs. Time to cut down.’

She pointed at the tin cupboard beside the bed, winked. ‘Get me bag. We’ll have a little ciggy.’

‘No, ma. That’s the only reason you wanted me here. Got to go, attend to the dead, you’re the living.’

Rose sighed. ‘Stevie, Stevie,’ she said, ‘do somethin for me?’

‘What?’

‘Trust you? Cop scum.’

‘Depends. Maybe. No. What?’

‘I’m scared about me money.’

‘What money?’

She put her head back, closed her eyes, lids of old silk. ‘Little treasure chest. Savings. Me float.’

‘In the bank?’

She opened her eyes. ‘Jesus, mate, wake up to the bloody world. Under the kitchen table, lino comes up. There’s a trapdoor, stick a knife in.’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t bugger me knives either. Little treasure chest.’

‘Yes?’

‘Keep it safe for me, son? Had a nightmare, house burns down, it’s all ashes. Like Black Saturday, I’m walkin around there, pick up a cup. Promise?’

‘House locked?’

‘Left it locked. Get me bag.’

Villani opened the cupboard, took her bag from the top shelf.

‘Giss,’ she said. ‘Giss.’

‘I’m so dumb,’ said Villani, ‘I should join the police. Treasure chest, bullshit. You want your fags, don’t you? Forget it, ma.’

Her eyes closed in slow motion. ‘Take the keys, Stevie,’ she said, faint. ‘Go around and get me chest.’

Villani found the keys, put the bag back in the cupboard.

‘Do that, then,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, Rosie. I’ll be back.’

He stood. Her eyes remained closed.

‘Giss a kiss, Stevie,’ she said. ‘Giss a cuddle. Me only good boy. Come too late.’

Villani felt tears coming, he leaned over and took her shoulders in soft hands, pressed his face to her, kissed her riven cheek beneath the bandage and in himself there was a great resentment and a great feeling of the unfairness in his life.

On a winter day, in the big break, backs against the demountable, shelter from the ice wind, clever little monkeyface Kel Bryson said:

They ever find your mum?

In the car, his mobile rang.

Colby.

COLBY LOOKED as if he’d come off the golf course. ‘Searle says it’s pulled, does he?’ he said.

‘For tomorrow,’ said Villani. ‘The question is, did Ruskin get it from welfare or Sex Crimes? Or both?’

Colby opened a file on the desk, flicked to a page, put on thin rimless glasses. ‘I can tell you there’s no Sexual Crimes statement,’ he said. ‘Tell me what abused means.’

‘Made her suck me off.’

Colby showed nothing. ‘You do that?’

Villani stared at him for a while. ‘What do you think?’

‘Don’t know what to think.’

Villani rose, walked down the long room, prints on the walls, he registered every step, chewing the bile in his mouth.

Colby’s voice, raised but calm. ‘Hey, come back, sunshine.’

Villani turned, hand on the door handle.

Colby beckoned, four fingers tight as a bird wing. ‘C’mere, son.’

Villani hesitated. He went back, he could do no other. They sat, chins down, eyes locked, their history hummed. ‘Christ, this is hard shit,’ said Colby.

‘I’ll quit,’ said Villani. ‘Just got some things to finish.’

‘How long’s she been on the streets?’

‘About a week. But she was hanging out with the scum before. Wagging.’

‘Drugs?’

‘What else?’

‘How old?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Just a baby, really.’

For weeks and weeks, the baby Lizzie had colic, whatever colic was, her night cries entering his dreams, strange stories developing around the insistent sound. They took turns walking her in the dark, the passage, the kitchen, the sitting room, it was many times in a night, you walked her, she stopped crying, you put her down like landing a soap bubble, went back to bed, she made a sound, it became a cry, a skewer in your head, you got up again.

Sometimes Lizzie slept between feeds. Sometimes he cheated when the cries woke him, nudged Laurie, lied that he’d just had his turn, she rose, no idea of how long she’d been asleep. He said to himself that she’d probably done the same to him, they were both trying to survive. But he knew she wouldn’t, she didn’t know how to lie.

The difference was that if the phone rang, Laurie didn’t have to go to an in-progress. Could be doped drunk fuckwits had a gun and a brilliant 2am idea, could be hardcore, two, three jobs in a night, take a couple of months off, go north, fishing, whoring. Both lots could kill you.

Once it rang as he was changing Lizzie’s nappy, gagging on the smell of the yellow puree, first dirty light in the eastern window, everything about him numb, brain, feet, hands, only the nose functioning. Twenty minutes later he had his back against a wall in a lane off Sydney Road, listening to two braindeads come out of the roof, they had lifted a sheet of corrugated iron. Next to him, Xavier Benedict Dance was smiling his dog smile.

‘They stop being baby girls earlier now,’ Villani said. ‘They can go from baby girls to fuckpigs in a very short time.’

‘Hasn’t escaped me,’ said Colby. ‘But incest, that’s not a barbiestopper,
that’s the barbie blows up, kills seven. We have to look at the big picture here…’

A silence. Colby’s phone rang, a few words, grunts, eyes on the ceiling, goodbye, he stared at Villani.

‘So where’s she now?’

‘No idea.’

‘Tell me again it’s bullshit.’

‘Don’t believe me?’

‘Tell me.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Definite negative. I can probably arrange to squeeze the welfare attack-bitch kennel but we need Ruskin permanently squirrelled. Reckon your missus can talk sense into the girl?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Okay, we’ll find her. Stay nice with Searle. I don’t know why he’s doing this.’

Villani nodded. If only he could put his head back against the chair and go to sleep, someone else in charge, feel the way he felt when the Kenworth came through the gate on a Friday night, he saw Bob’s sharp face, the downturned smile, the raised thumb. It was as if angels had lifted a bag of lead sinkers from his shoulders.

‘There’s something else,’ said Colby. ‘Mr Barry tells me the popular belief is that you talked about Stuart Koenig to Ms Anna Markham while fucking her. Do that?’

‘I did not.’

‘That’s the talking, not the fucking?’

‘Who’s surveilling her building? Or her?’

‘How would I know? Who would tell me? Ask your mate Dance.’

‘Crucible?’

‘I have no fucking idea. What I have an idea about is Greg Quirk. Payback time, son. These babies get back in, new inquest. DiPalma wants to screw you till your earwax melts and you go to jail for twenty years and then the real fun begins. I, of course, remain confident that you and Dancer and fucking Vickery weren’t
making stuff up the first time around.’

Villani stared at Colby. He seemed less lined around the eyes, forehead smoother. Surely not?

‘This Prosilio hooker,’ Colby said. ‘I understood that was in the vault.’

‘It’s open, in progress.’

‘Yeah. But in the vault.’

‘Forgotten about the vault, boss.’

‘Stephen, only a brain-dead cunt forgets about the vault. With me?’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘And you should now personally beseech the blessed virgin several hours nightly for the voters to shaft these arses. And in the day you keep your hands out of your pockets and do nothing to offend the squatters.’

Koenig was there when the girl was killed. Villani knew it in his bone marrow. Never mind him being at home in Portsea. He wasn’t there. He was in Kew. How often had Koenig’s wife lied for him? Bricknell rang him and he went to Prosilio, parked underground. One girl each.

HE TOOK the fire stairs, millions of them, doors to push, he paced himself and as he went he thought about what the job had meant to him and remembered the moment when he sat back in Singo’s chair and thought: Stephen Villani, head of Homicide and he deserves to be.

Bob had no pride in him being boss of Homicide. Cop job, that’s all it was. Far beneath foreman, shift boss, night supervisor of anything. But the best his second-best son could do. Second-best until Luke arrived, then third-best. Just a useful body, a cook, guard dog, washer and ironer of clothes, homework checker, reading and spelling tutor, feeder of dogs and horses, mucker-out in chief, track rider, tree planter and waterer.