Trust, page 8
Montifore takes this on board. ‘Why do you think Zelda Forshaw abducted you?’
‘I guess she thinks I know where the money is.’
‘So she doesn’t?’
Mandy shrugs. ‘I guess not. But she went to jail for it. They established she conspired with him.’
‘But if Tarquin Molloy was already dead, maybe she never got her share.’
‘Yes. So she says. But she’s mad if she thinks I know where it is.’
‘So what do you think happened to Tarquin Molloy?’
That gives her cause to pause, to take a deep breath, to re-centre herself. ‘I don’t know. If he was a cop, maybe there was no missing money, maybe it was something else, all those other things you mentioned. Money laundering, corruption. Maybe someone killed him to keep him quiet.’
‘That’s possible,’ says Montifore, his expression non-committal.
Mandy has the impression he’s about to wind up the interview. Before he does, she asks her own question. ‘Tell me one thing then. Tarquin Molloy was his name while he was undercover; what was his real name?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Why not? He’s dead. Has been for five years. It’s not going to hurt him now.’
Montifore looks genuinely apologetic. ‘It’s not possible.’
Winifred is frowning. ‘My client has been most forthcoming. She has helped you when she didn’t need to. You should tell her.’
Montifore looks at the table, unable to meet their twin gaze. ‘He was married. There are children.’
Mandy goes to say something, but finds herself unable to speak. Married? He was married? The whole time?
There’s a silence, an awful interregnum, before Ivan Lucic bursts into the room, eyes wide, ignoring the two women. ‘Boss, we’ve got to go. Two dead. And Scarsden is there.’
chapter nine
It’s like a slow-motion swarm, bees coming to a newly discovered source of nectar. No sirens, no urgency, just an efficient hum. Two more uniformed officers, then a woman weighed down with camera gear and a grim expression, followed by a van full of forensic investigators. Quietly, without comment, they don pale blue oversuits. Plastic, Martin thinks. Disposable.
He and Eileen leave the steps, clearing the way for the police, and move to a garden bench, from where they watch without seeing. Off in the distance, the harbour shimmers, that other Sydney, so far away now.
Ten minutes later, two men wearing suits walk through the gate.
‘Good morning, Martin,’ says the elder of the two, his face wearing a frown as if it has been cast that way.
‘Morning, Martin,’ says his younger colleague, apparently unperturbed.
‘Morris. Ivan.’
‘In there?’ asks Lucic.
Martin nods.
The young detective grimaces and heads up the stairs to the house.
‘You okay?’ asks Montifore.
Martin shakes his head. Inside him, something is starting to move, to shift. Beside him on the bench, Eileen Fuller is staring out into the uncaring beauty of the day.
Forensics start moving up past them and into the house. Montifore offers Martin a last look of concern then follows the plastic-encased team. Martin looks at his watch: more than an hour has somehow disappeared. A young policewoman, voice gentle, guides Eileen away. Montifore comes back some undeterminable amount of time later, his face pallid. ‘You okay?’
The question makes no more sense the second time around. Martin can only shake his head.
‘Come on. Let’s sit in the car.’ Montifore leads him back down through the still-open gate. Martin pauses to close it after him. Montifore watches him closely.
Inside the car, the detective speaks. ‘You saw. Inside.’
Martin nods. ‘Yes. I saw.’ The words feel foreign on his tongue, a language belonging to some other tribe.
‘Accidental death, then suicide,’ says Montifore flatly.
That has his attention, bringing him into the present. ‘You think so?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
Martin thinks it through. ‘If it was accidental, if Max choked, then surely the woman would have tried to free him, to revive him. Maybe if she failed, then she might have shot herself. But she didn’t try. He was still hanging there.’
Montifore examines him. Martin can feel the weight of the detective’s scrutiny, but he doesn’t care.
‘I agree,’ says Montifore. ‘Murder-suicide, then.’
‘Or made to look like it.’
Montifore lets more time pass. ‘What were you doing here?’
‘Max Fuller is my old editor. Semi-retired. He called to say he had a big story, wanted me to help with it. I couldn’t. Not with what happened with Mandy. Once I knew she was safe, I decided to drop round and tell him in person before we headed home.’
‘What was the story about?’
‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me over the phone.’
‘Nothing?’
Martin turns to look at him for the first time. ‘I asked him if he’d ever heard of Tarquin Molloy. He told me I should come and see him.’
‘When was this?’
‘Yesterday. When I was driving down. Mid-afternoon.’
‘And he knew about Molloy?’
‘He just said it was too big to discuss on the phone.’
‘Too big …’ he muses. ‘And that was the last time you spoke to him?’
‘I rang him last night, but it went through to voicemail.’
Now it’s Montifore’s turn to stare out the windscreen. When he returns his attention to Martin his face is stern, his voice heavy. ‘Mandalay Blonde encountered two men pretending to be policemen. They scared off her captors. Their names are Henry Livingstone and Joshua Spitt.’
‘And?’
‘These guys, they’re worse than ruthless. Psychotic. Livingstone killed his high school teacher at sixteen. Got out of prison in his mid-twenties, killed again. Spitt’s almost as bad. You need to get Mandy and get going. Back to Port Silver. Or New Zealand. Somewhere safe.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes.’
‘You think this is connected, that they killed Max?’
Montifore shrugs. ‘Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. But if whoever did kill your editor searched his phone, they would see he’s been talking with you.’ The policeman waits a couple of heartbeats before continuing. ‘This thing, whatever it is, it’s not finished. Livingstone and Spitt—these are men who operate in the shadows, using fear and intimidation. Now they’re out in the open; Livingstone even told Mandy his name. And I’m scared.’
‘What are you scared of?’
‘That more people are going to die.’
Through the windscreen Martin can see a helicopter come in low, close enough that he can see the camera operator in his harness. ‘Who was the other victim?’ he asks. ‘The woman with Max?’
Montifore begins to shake his head, then relents for some reason. ‘Not for publication?’
‘Agreed.’
‘Max Fuller’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth Torbett.’
‘Torbett? Isn’t she some sort of judge?’
‘New South Wales Supreme Court.’
‘Fuck me.’
Montifore leans forward, starts the car. ‘I’ll take you to the station. We’ll need a formal statement. Then you and Mandalay should make yourselves scarce. You and that boy of hers. If they’re killing Supreme Court judges, they’ll kill anyone.’
Martin waits until Montifore has navigated the smaller streets and is heading down Bellevue Road before he speaks. ‘How are Atticus Pons and George Giopolis connected to Molloy’s murder?’
Montifore looks at him, apprehension spread across his face, before returning his eyes to the road. Then he pulls over, bringing the car to a stop so he can give Martin his full attention. ‘Where did you hear those names?’
‘From you, as it happens.’
‘What?’
‘Winifred Barbicombe says you dropped them into an interview you conducted with Mandalay in Port Silver last year.’
Montifore says nothing, averts his eyes. Martin lets him stew on it; he’s not helping him out. The policeman is shaking his head as if in regret, some internal remonstration. Finally he turns back to Martin. ‘If you ever publish this, I’ll lose my job.’
‘Then I won’t publish it.’
‘Don’t even talk about it.’
‘Whatever you say.’
‘Did you ever wonder why I was sent to Port Silver last year to look into the death of a small-town real estate agent? I’m one of the state’s most senior investigators.’
‘We did. Winifred and I. We thought it might have something to do with Mandy.’
‘Correct.’ The policeman closes his eyes, squeezes them tight, an expression of discomfort, as if experiencing pain. ‘When I was assigned to the case, I was told to keep it out of the media.’
‘That worked well.’ Martin laughs at the memory of the media storm. Even Montifore cracks a smile. ‘Who assigned you?’
‘My boss. As usual. But I heard the request for me came all the way from the top. Roger Macatelli. Deputy commissioner. I asked around, spoke to a few trusted colleagues. A source told me your girl Mandy might be involved in some investigation involving Pons and Giopolis.’
‘What investigation?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So why throw the names up in an interview with Mandy?’
‘To see if she knew who they were.’
‘You were fishing for information?’
‘Sure. I was trying to work out why I’d been assigned the case.’ He’s about to say something more, when his phone rings. ‘Montifore,’ he answers, voice dropping in pitch, assuming a more officious register. ‘Right.’ He pauses for a moment, glances at Martin. ‘I want full police protection. No one gets in or out without my say-so. Get the authorisation. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ He ends the call.
‘What is it?’ asks Martin.
‘Claus Vandenbruk. He’s regained consciousness.’
chapter ten
Right now, she hates this city. She feels it crowding in on her: the buildings, the people, the insistent past. She’d thought she’d left it all behind, the facts undeniable: Tarquin had fled overseas with his stolen money, leaving her bereft, unemployed and utterly gutted. He was never coming back, he would never contact her. There was no need to tell anyone of her heartbreak, least of all Martin. Why would she? But now it’s all come rushing back, to catch her out, to insert itself between them. What must he think of her now? And again her thoughts return to Port Silver, the house on the cliffs, her haven. She can’t wait to get back there, to start tending to the future once more and to seal Tarquin Molloy in the past, as surely as his killers had sealed him in his concrete tomb.
Right now she has more pressing concerns: clothes and toiletries. Martin brought her phone and her wallet, but nothing more. All she has is the ill-fitting charity wear Montifore gave her. So she walks along George Street, intent on finding some anonymous store where she can purchase a temporary wardrobe. A tram rolls past; she considers it for a moment but decides she needs to walk. To stand still, even inside a moving tram, would be intolerable.
Yet as she walks up the hill past the cinemas towards Sydney Town Hall, she’s not alone. Memories stalk her; memories of a younger, more naive Mandalay. Living the low life with Billy the bass player, living the high life with Tarquin Molloy, living the half-life after Molloy had disappeared and she’d lost her job. This city has always been her fair-weather friend: revelling in her highs, spurning her in her lows. She sees herself with Billy, living hand-to-mouth but still able to laugh, still able to dance in circles in the rain and splash in the Hyde Park fountain, busking together, her singing weak harmonies as he belted out enough standards to earn them drinking money. Sometimes they’d head to a Sydney City Mission soup kitchen for a free feed. They were desperate days but simple ones, driven by simple imperatives: get enough money to eat and drink, find somewhere to sleep, get hold of some booze or some gear to take the edge off. Simple.
She stops outside the town hall and sees herself stepping out from the back of a limousine onto a red carpet, armoured in the glamour of designer clothes, on the arm of Tarquin Molloy, her dashing and gallant beau, attending a ball. A charity ball: all proceeds going to the Sydney City Mission.
Outside the Queen Victoria Building she stops once again, staring into a shop window, studying her reflection, seeing the fractured ghosts of her former self. She was beautiful, they constantly assured her, all those Sydneysiders: ‘like a model’, ‘like a movie star’, ‘like a muse’. They said it so often there were times she’d begun to believe it. Billy would say it best, most sincerely, telling her she’d inspired some of his most memorable bass lines. She smiles, wishing she could recall even one of his riffs.
God, how she had loved Sydney back when she was with Tarquin, even when she’d been with Billy, believing its pulse was her pulse, that its energy belonged to her, that it was the source of the destiny she felt coursing through her veins. And yet it had never been real: the men were liars, actors in a scripted drama, the city a movie set. This city; those men. She wonders at herself: how could she ever have been so blind, so stupid, as to allow herself to be washed this way and that on the tides of happenstance? How had she allowed those men to shape her fate, to write her script, to feed her lines, instead of writing her own?
Today, as if trying to win her back, the city is aglow, putting on its tourist livery, shining blue and white, the clear light and the seductive breeze, as if the facade might fool her one more time. As if. She knows that it’s all there waiting, easy enough to access, should she wish to: the city’s public face. Not the back lot but the big sets: the harbour, the bridge, the Opera House. Bondi Beach, the Manly ferry, Luna Park. On a day like this, they would be iridescent with assurance: the bright veneer, the cheery gloss, the self-deceiving face. The Sydney of the winners, the Sydney of Tarquin Molloy in his pomp. But today she doesn’t feel like a winner; today she feels like she belongs in the Sydney of Billy the bass player.
Another tram passes, bringing her back to the present. Martin is safe; she knows that much. He’d called, told her he wasn’t harmed, was never in any danger, but that Max Fuller, his old mentor, was dead. Murdered. He needs to help the police. Another victim amid the sunshine, another death behind the scenes. Montifore is right: they should leave this place.
She shops in David Jones. She’s rarely been through its doors, dismissing it as an old lady’s store. It holds no memories, houses no ghosts. She spends with practicality, not pleasure: underwear, jeans, flat shoes, nondescript tops, toiletries. Enough for a day or two, nothing more. It’s not easy: the store is too opulent, it offers too many temptations. She’d be better off in Kmart, where the necessary trumps the discretionary. A coat catches her attention, leather lined with quilting, a cut blending edge with quality, something to keep the winter chill out. She can afford it, of course she can; she can indulge all sorts of whims in this post-inheritance life. But she doesn’t buy the coat. It doesn’t feel right, spending money, not here, not now. She wants nothing to remember this trip by; she wants clothes she can rid herself of when she gets home. She returns to the perfunctory and the utilitarian.
Shopping done, she checks her phone. Nothing more from Martin. He must still be with the police. She texts through a burst of question marks, then hails a cab, deciding to head back to his apartment. But at the last moment, she has a better idea. He’s always going on about Aldo’s, how much better the coffee is than anything in Port Silver, or anywhere else. She asks the driver if he knows it. He doesn’t, but his GPS does. It’s not far from the apartment, smaller than she’s imagined, less impressive, but the moment she enters she feels its warmth, its welcome. She can see why it has survived when others haven’t. The wooden tables and benches have the patina of long use, polished by years of customers. On the wall are faded travel posters from a time when ocean liners were still glamorous and aeroplanes were the preserve of the wealthy. Even before tasting its brew, she understands why Martin likes the place.
She orders a skinny latte from a cocksure young barista, his flirtatious banter a welcome distraction, then takes a seat at a table in the corner. She has only just sat down when a woman slides onto the chair opposite her. Zelda Forshaw, wearing wraparound sunglasses.
‘You?’ Mandy can’t believe the woman’s gall. She looks around, but there is no man in a ski mask, no flunky. ‘What do you want?’
‘To talk. That’s all.’
‘You’re joking. After what you did to me?’
‘It was a mistake. We need to move on.’
‘Move on? The police are searching for you.’
‘So we need to talk before they catch me.’ Zelda removes her shades, and Mandy sees the accumulated evidence of the intervening years. Zelda was always pretty, there was never any doubt about that. She still is, but she’s aged. Mandy had thought her more or less the same age as herself, with her powdered face, large mascara-lined eyes and schoolgirl titter. Now the voice is half an octave lower, and husky with it: more Lauren Bacall than Marilyn Monroe. She looks closer to forty than thirty. Her hair is an unconvincing mix of brunette and something redder, her eyebrows over-plucked. A vein is pulsing between her left eyebrow and her temple. Prison cannot have been kind to her and, by the looks, neither has liberty.
‘You want to talk,’ says Mandy. ‘Why didn’t you try that at Port Silver, instead of drugging and abducting me?’
Zelda shrugs. ‘That’s what I intended, I swear. But that man was there. He warned us off.’
‘He’s a cop.’
‘Another one? He didn’t tell us that.’
‘What happened?’
‘He told us to fuck off. When he turned his back on us, Derek clobbered him. You don’t remember?’
‘No. Thanks to you drugging me. If you were only coming to Port Silver to talk to me, how come you had chloroform or whatever it was that knocked me out?’
