Liars, page 26
He had cultivated the Face Ache guys, got the audition for Which Duck?, worked hard and smashed it. Thank God it wasn’t Which Cat? because he was allergic, but honestly he’d been that desperate that if it had been, he would have pushed through until his throat closed up.
If Which Duck? got cancelled after only a couple of months, it would not be a good look, especially as it was a late-afternoon game show, already risky territory for a comedian. He would carry that loser’s stench, and everyone in the media had a very good sense of smell. Dominos would tumble and other work would dry up, destroying his optimistic (over-optimistic?) financial projections. His recent Tesla purchase was now looking less like an astute investment in good-vibes branding and more like economic recklessness.
His stomach churned. What if everything came crashing down? What if his career ended up in the toilet?
His therapist would tell him that this was just his tendency to catastrophise, but what if it was worse than that? What if all the bad things that might happen, did happen? Then he wasn’t fucking catastrophising, was he? He was just being realistic.
Deep breath in. Ooout. In. Ooout.
He tried to look at the positives. He was healthy. He had a boat. The show might not get axed. Dev had promised him a great return on his investment, although that was now dependent on Viv agreeing to sell, so he fucking well better.
His thoughts drifted to Joe. Poor Joe. Good guy. Talented, too. Gary respected talent, but you needed more than that. You needed discipline, single-mindedness and perseverance, all of which Joe lacked.
He stood up. Fuck them all. He would go for a run.
CHAPTER 51
Mid-afternoon, sun beaming, Andy wandered into Killara’s Greengate Hotel. It looked like an English manor house from the outside, but inside it was just another pub. He made his way past daytime drinkers, peering into the darkest corners, as that was where Donny would be, if here. A hired killer’s not going to sit at the bar with his back to the door.
To be good at his job Andy had to be inscrutable. A tightly closed book. He was, by nature, a pretty open, friendly guy, so it was something he’d had to work at. He had done an online course, and practised whenever he went into a shop. Now he was pretty good.
For hired killers, inscrutability was even more important. Andy felt some sympathy for them. Most were highly skilled at their job and, like everyone, appreciated a bit of external validation. However, unlike a doctor casually dropping into conversation the amazing piece of bowel untwisting they had done, or a teacher mentioning the child criminal they had moulded into a charity worker, if killers humblebragged, they got a non-parole period of twenty-three years.
Nonetheless, some were better at inscrutability than others. Donny – first name only, and Andy assumed it wasn’t his real one – had been in the army, developed a taste for killing, then watched a TED Talk about making your passion your job. He was excellent at killing people, but not quite top drawer at inscrutability, especially after a few beers, and he did like a few beers, often bedding down at the Greengate from lunchtime. Andy wasn’t expecting Donny to confirm or deny anything, but Andy was pretty good at reading people and reckoned he had a chance of getting some hint at whether he had killed Karen Kemp. Not that he was going to ask him outright. Subtlety was required.
He ordered a schooner of New and his phone pinged.
Far corner on your left
He might not be gold-medal at inscrutability, but Donny didn’t miss much.
‘Fuck me, a debt collector. Ooh, I’m scared,’ he mocked as Andy sat down in the booth, the darkest and furthest from the front door. Donny’s top half was slim, and covered by a smart jacket over a blue business shirt. He had a sensible haircut, side part, and tortoiseshell glasses. If Andy met him at a party, he would have guessed middle management at a bank.
‘I bet you are,’ replied Andy, smiling. ‘Just passing, felt like a beer, thought I’d pick a pub where I might know someone.’
‘How sweet.’
It was sarcasm, but Andy didn’t believe it. Killing was lonely work. There was the occasional psycho who hated everyone, but most of them liked a chat, same as anyone.
‘Why you round here?’ Donny asked.
‘On my way back from the Central Coast,’ Andy said, eyeing Donny closely, but trying not to show it.
No reaction.
‘Bullford Point, actually. Know it?’
‘Heard of it, yeah.’
Neutral words, but had there been the briefest, smallest movement of eye and mouth before he replied? A micro-twitch?
‘It’s got it all, man. Bush, beach, bay. Never been there?’
‘Nah.’
Nothing unusual this time. Maybe he had imagined the twitch.
‘Go. You’ll thank me.’
Slight smile. ‘Maybe I will.’
Did the smile contain a certain knowingness? Or was he overanalysing?
Andy would have liked to linger on the subject, but didn’t dare. You don’t want someone like Donny thinking you were taking the piss. Instead they talked footy, cricket, the Hinge date Donny had been on the previous night (‘Dropped her home, but bottled out of the kiss.’).
After an hour, Andy made his excuses. As he walked out, he wondered about the twitch and the knowingness. Had he imagined them?
CHAPTER 52
As dusk fell, Barb sat inside and watched the rosellas eat seed through the glass doors. The cockatoos were yet to cotton on to the resumption of dinner service.
Her phone rang. ‘How nice to hear from you, Andy. Eaten the rest of the banana bread, yet?’
‘Yep. Very good, but listen. I spoke to a guy, and he twitched.’
‘It’s probably nothing, but worth getting checked out. I have a friend who has Parkinson’s, and that was an early sign.’
‘No. He twitched when I mentioned Bullford Point. But when I asked him if he’d been there, he said no, and didn’t twitch. But then I said he should visit, and he smiled in a sort of knowing way.’
‘Right?’
‘I think he was telling the truth that he hasn’t been there.’
‘So he didn’t kill Karen?’
‘I don’t think so. The twitch happened when I mentioned Bullford Point, not when I asked him if he’d visited.’
‘I’m usually quite good at keeping up, Andy, but I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’
‘He hasn’t been there, but Bullford Point means something to him. Maybe he’s planning a visit.’
‘You mean …?’
‘For a job. I might be wrong. I probably am. But I might not be. Do you know anyone up there who someone might think needs killing?’
‘No.’
‘I do. That nice lady who’s looking into two deaths that everyone thinks have been solved.’
Barb’s free hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh, goodness.’
‘So, be careful. Like I say, might be wrong, but thought I should tell you. Maybe a trip away for a few days?’
‘I’ll consider it carefully. Thank you, Andy.’
After he rang off she did a lap of the house, checking locks. Downstairs, in Julie’s room, the sliding window wasn’t shutting properly, so she fetched her toolkit and fixed it.
Back upstairs, she went to the fridge, extracted a bottle of wine, then thought better of it. Better to keep a clear head. She remembered the Strangler detective, John Mayne, saying that if you were the only one who knew something about a killer, you were in danger, because the killer had a reason to shut you up.
At first, investigating Joe’s death had been … not a game, it was too serious for that, but a puzzle to be solved. In addition, she supposed, it was her way of dealing with his death.
Now, she was more convinced than ever that Joe was murdered, and the only way to find out the truth was to keep asking questions. But what if one of the people she was asking them of had actually killed Sal, Joe or Karen? Would they be tempted to shut her up too?
Shadows lengthened, night closed in and she had no one to share it with. Even the birds had gone quiet.
CHAPTER 53
Barb sat in the bus stop at the bottom of the hill. She had often seen Viv riding his bike in the early morning, and was hoping he would do so today.
She had woken early after an uneasy sleep, relieved to find that she hadn’t been murdered, arrived at the bus stop at 7 a.m., and been waiting an hour, browsing news on her phone and trying to care about it.
She glanced up the hill for the eight hundredth time, and there he was, flashing past. Instead of hiding, which might invite suspicion, she waved brightly and then walked up the road to her car.
She knew he was a serious rider, so expected he would be out for around an hour. She would give herself half that. She drove up the hill, turned right off the main road, right again, along a pot-holed dirt road, and into the dirt driveway of a plain, small, dull brown brick house, without views, backing onto the national park.
Given Andy’s warning that someone might – might – be out to get her, it felt oddly safer to be breaking into Viv’s house than to be at home.
They had been oiling a deck in Killcare when Joe had told her about breaking and entering.
‘You knock on the door first to check it’s empty.’
‘What if someone answers?’
‘Ask if Trevor’s there. They say no, then you look at your phone and go, “Sorry. I see what I’ve done. Wrong house.”’
‘What if there is a Trevor there?’
‘No one’s called Trevor anymore. If no one answers, go round the back. I carry a portable speaker, put on loud music, and smash a window. Then in. Dying art but, cos no one has cash anymore. Just jewellery and iPads, if you’re lucky.’
Barb didn’t have to worry about any of that; she used to clean Viv’s house. She walked around the side, lifted a watering can and picked up his spare key.
She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but expected she would know if she found it. Could the by all accounts ruthless way in which Joe had treated his family over the years have worn away all Viv’s brotherly affection? Add to that Viv’s inherent weirdness and his resentment at being short-changed by his mother’s will … was it enough for him to kill his younger brother?
Inside, the first door on the left was a bed-less, plain bedroom, containing a bike wheel, pump, various spanners and allen keys, and even a spare bike. She moved on. As she headed into the living room, she suddenly stopped and put her hand to her mouth. When Andy had warned her that danger might be coming, she had thought only of herself. What about Seb? If she was a potential target, surely he was, too. She grabbed her phone and texted him.
CHAPTER 54
The best part of Seb’s morning was his fifteen-minute walk around the bay to the station. He had a car at home and a police car at work, but he did almost all his commuting on foot. There wasn’t a footpath as such, just gravel between the edge of the road and the sloped metre-high rock wall that currently led down to half-metre-deep water, and at low tide led down to sand.
As he walked, he pulled out his phone and took another look at the photo of the man that Karen Kemp, he was sure, had seen meet her criminal ex-boyfriend in the park.
He stopped. ‘You idiot,’ he said aloud.
All he had to do was feed the photo into Google Image Search and he could probably discover who it was. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Because he was an idiot.
He opened Google Image Search and uploaded the photo.
One result. Gordon Houston, board member of Denex, a mining company. Seb googled him. Former CEO of a merchant bank, now also on the boards of a small telco, a big bank and an airline. Houston was quoted in lots of media, commenting on business and the economy. Seb checked the date Karen had taken the screenshot of him. That day, the Sydney Morning Herald had run a story on unemployment, quoted Houston, and included the photo that Tom had found on Karen’s phone. She must have seen it and recognised him.
A bolt of panic passed through him. He had been keeping a timeline of events in Notes on his phone and opened it.
‘Fuck. Oh, fuck.’
The screenshot of Houston had been taken three days before Karen had seen Inspector Drummond. That meant she would have had the photo of Houston when she saw Drummond, and would therefore have shown him the photo. Of course she would have. But Inspector Drummond had told his assistant, Perkins, that Karen hadn’t been able to identify the man she had seen meet her ex-boyfriend. However, Seb had just identified Houston as being the man in the photo in under a minute. Drummond could have, too. Drummond had lied to Perkins.
Then, two days after Karen had visited Drummond, she was killed.
Had Drummond acted to protect corporate high flyer Gordon Houston from being exposed as having links to organised crime? Why would Drummond do that? Did he have a link to organised crime too? Had Drummond had Karen killed? Seb remembered what Tom had said. That when he was hiding outside Joe’s house the night Karen disappeared, he had sensed another presence. Had that been someone Drummond had sent to kill her?
Seb couldn’t think of another explanation that made sense. He really wished he could, because he had found the same photo that, it seemed, had got Karen killed, and he had sent it to Perkins, who would have forwarded it to his boss, Inspector Drummond. If Drummond was protecting Houston, Seb was now in danger.
His phone pinged. He heard a distant shouting and looked up. Viv was on his bike up near the corner, on his way back from the shop, riding hard toward him. Viv shouted again, but Seb couldn’t make out the words. Not like Viv to shout.
Viv took a hand from his handlebars and pointed at him.
Seb stared back and did an exaggerated shrug.
Then he realised Viv was actually pointing over his shoulder.
Seb became aware of another noise. An engine. He turned. A car was speeding toward him.
CHAPTER 55
He sat looking out the window. What a view. Across Parramatta and down the river toward the city. One he would never get sick of.
‘We need to settle these budget figures. How much of the pie for each of Homicide, the organised crime taskforce, cybercrime, the drug taskforce and the armed robbery taskforce?’
Decisions, decisions.
‘Armed robbery is down and will decrease further,’ he said. ‘Less cash about.’
‘Of course.’
‘How about we cut their budget by thirty per cent and reallocate it to cybercrime?’ He phrased it as a question. It was good to give others the impression they were part of the process, even if it was he who ultimately made the decisions. ‘Cyber is a big growth area. Organised crime is important, but we’re spending bucketloads and we only catch the occasional mid-level functionary, who never gives up anyone valuable because they’re scared of getting killed. I’d think fifteen percent less to organised crime and reallocate that to Homicide. The murder-solve rate is always our most visible KPI. Agree?’
‘Very sensible. What about the reorganisation of the Southern District?’
And on it went, as he tried to balance what was best for the NSW Police, the community and Veronica Daly, who ran drug and other illegal operations in Sydney’s north and west.
The thing about being corrupt – and there was no point pretending he wasn’t – is that you make one choice, in his case thirteen years ago, to get some extra money in return for doing something you shouldn’t, and that’s it. You’re in. Back then it had been a lifestyle choice. He had three kids, a mortgage, private school bills were about to kick in and, holy shit, electricity prices! These days, thanks largely to Veronica, he had a much nicer, un-mortgaged house, another one up the coast, and was able to take his family on the holidays they deserved. He didn’t spend recklessly. No flashy car, and he made sure to drop enough hints about a windfall inheritance from his wife’s wealthy, childless great aunt, so that a few weeks in Europe or South America wouldn’t raise eyebrows.
Even as the magnitude of his corruption grew, he had never been overly troubled by anxiety. To be honest, the daily tightrope he walked was exciting. It made him feel alive. Not only did he have the responsibilities and demands of his high-ranking police job, but also, lurking beneath, was a whole other set of competing priorities. Having to continually solve problems and find solutions that kept both his employers happy was endlessly challenging. How could he look like he was energetically trying to fight organised crime, whilst simultaneously protecting Veronica’s organisation? For thirteen years, he had given Veronica value for money whilst never giving anyone in the police any reason to doubt his commitment. It was quite the achievement, one that made him proud, although he doubted he would get an Order of Australia for it.
Fighting organised crime was a bit like the middle laps of the 1500-metre races he had run at school. The first lap was getting sorted out while trying not to trip over, the final lap was a mad dash, but in the middle, everyone marked time, and nothing much happened. It was difficult for spectators to tell whether a particular runner coming, say, seventh was running within themselves, conserving energy for the final sprint or, alternatively, was going as fast as they could as they desperately strived to stay in touch with the leaders. Both look pretty much the same.
And so it was with his job. Fighting organised crime was a slow, gradual process. It was hard for anyone to tell whether he was running, and pushing others to run, as fast as possible, or deliberately staying a couple of steps behind the crims, never going quite fast enough to catch them. He chased other groups as fast as he could, but when pursuing Veronica, ran within himself. He still expended effort and did everything he should. It’s just that he made sure that he didn’t get much closer.
Part of his success lay in keeping Veronica’s expectations realistic. At first he had had to educate her that just because she was paying him, it didn’t mean he could keep her organisation completely out of trouble. It just meant he could share certain pieces of information, and sometimes nudge an investigation a little off course.
