The Build Up, page 21
Chantay smiled again. Getting scolded by Nana was obviously not a novel event, but she obeyed, scurrying off behind the house, Dusty’s fob chain clutched in her hand.
‘Just a couple of–’ started Gerard, before he was again cut short.
‘Get off now!’ said Nana.
‘Let’s go,’ said Dusty.
‘Detective Bevan?’ Dusty inquired as she got back into the car.
‘Jezza?’ countered Gerard. ‘Did you get it?’
Dusty nodded.
‘What is–’
‘I’ll explain later, let’s just get our stuff and get out of here.’
Chapter 49
Dusty had often thought that Julien would like the morgue. He, who was forever railing against Darwin’s architecture, complaining how unsuitable most of it was for the tropics, would surely approve of its cool, uncluttered surfaces, its clean uninterrupted lines.
‘Brought you a coffee,’ said Dusty to Bethany, the thirty-something morgue attendant renowned for her surliness. Once Dusty had attributed this to her occupation – constant exposure to the dead had done ugly things to her psyche. In fact, for a while there Dusty saw Bethany as an examplar: what we’d all be like if we weren’t constantly shielded from death. Lately, though, she’d changed her mind – Bethany was just one of those grumpy lesbians.
‘How many sugars?’ she demanded, looking at the proffered cup with suspicion.
Dusty had been caught out before. ‘None,’ she said, fishing in her pocket for the sugar sachets. ‘I know you like to put your own in.’
‘Well, OK. Thanks, I suppose,’ said Bethany, tentatively taking the coffee, as if there were, literally, strings attached.
‘So that’s our fella?’ said Dusty, indicating the sheet-covered body on top of the stainless steel gurney.
Bethany nodded.
‘Don’t know how the fuck you pulled this off,’ she said, and you could hear the relief in her voice – she had a legitimate excuse to become grumpy again.
Dusty knew exactly what she was on about. Bodies were meant to be viewed in the viewing room, a pane of glass between the viewer and the viewed. There was no shortage of reasons for this – health, legal, moral. A pane of glass between the viewer and the viewed did not suit Dusty’s purposes, however. It’d taken her two frenetic days on the phone – trading favours like a Wall Street stockbroker, bullying, begging – until eventually, theoretically, she’d arranged it. Dusty checked her watch – she still had fifteen minutes until ten, the time she’d arranged to meet Flick.
‘Singhie in today?’
Bethany shrugged. How would I know? I only work here.
The door to his office was open. Dr Singh was sitting at his desk.
‘Knock, knock,’ said Dusty.
‘Who’s there?’ said the doctor, not looking up from the report he was engrossed in.
‘No, I really mean “knock, knock”.’
‘Come in, by all means.’
Despite its location, Singhie’s office was actually quite cosy. It smelled like the chai he was forever drinking, like cinnamon and cardamom.
‘You seen this?’ he said, waving the report at Dusty.
‘No.’
‘Ballistics.’
Unlike other pathologists, who took no further interest once they’d shoved the innards back in, sewn the body up and written up their report, Singhie liked to keep track of his customers as they progressed through the system. It could get annoying, Singhie ringing up offering all sorts of exotic theories, and Dusty did sometimes wonder whether he’d read one too many Patricia Cornwell novels.
‘Makarov,’ said Singhie. ‘Russian made. You don’t see those very often.’
Dusty’s knowledge of firearms only extended as far as her firsthand experience of them – the one she carried herself and the ones that had been used in the cases she’d worked on. A Makarov meant nothing to her.
Singhie was at his computer, typing ‘Makarov’ into Google. He hit return, clicked on one of the search results.
From the next door the sound of a buzzer. A door being opened. The voices of her former Homicide colleagues, their words bouncing off the tiled surfaces.
‘I’m up,’ said Dusty to Dr Singh, and that’s how it felt: as if she were the one being scrutinised, not the dead person on the gurney.
Bethany was sipping her coffee, Flick was on her mobile and Fontana was looking pissed-off.
‘This better be good, Buchanon,’ he said, ‘I’ve got work up to the eyeballs.’
‘Just keep close to Gardner, OK,’ said Dusty. ‘If I’ve got this right, he could do anything.’
The buzzer buzzed again, Bethany opened the door and lawyer Stan Lavery appeared. Gruff and grizzled, he was an old Darwin hand who knew where the skeletons were buried, who’d buried them and what football teams they barracked for. With him was the prime suspect in the murder of Dianna McVeigh, Evan Dale Gardner.
‘Evan, how are you today?’ asked Dusty, pleasantly.
He grunted.
Some things never change, she thought. Hours and hours of questioning and that’s all she’d ever got from Gardner – grunts.
‘Owe you one,’ she said, shaking Stan Lavery’s hand.
‘One?’ he replied.
Dusty, Bethany and Flick stood on one side of the gurney while Stan Lavery and his client stood on the other, Fontana hovering behind them.
‘Mr Gardner, just wondered if you knew this person,’ said Dusty, motioning to Bethany.
She pulled the edge of the sheet back, exposing Jonsberg’s face.
Gardner didn’t react.
Dusty had half-expected that. Jonsberg had been shot, buried, disinterred and autopsied – he probably wasn’t looking his best. She could see the satisfaction on Bethany’s face, Flick’s face, maybe even Fontana’s face – Dusty’s fucked up again.
‘More,’ said Dusty to Bethany.
‘This is bullshit,’ she said.
Moving forward Dusty grabbed the sheet and yanked it down revealing the tattoo of a lynched blackfella on the mottled skin of Jonsberg’s right shoulder.
It wasn’t a scream, it wasn’t a bellow, but whatever it was it came from the very pit of Gardner’s being. And while it was not enough to stir the dead – they remained recumbent on their gurneys – it did bring one of their attendants, Omar, running in from the next room yelling, ‘What is matter?’
Gardner lunged at Jonsberg, digging his fingers into the waxy flesh of his face. Fontana moved quickly, grabbing him from behind, handfuls of King Gee, pulling him away. Stan Lavery got in on the act too, enveloping his client in a bear hug.
Dusty handed Flick two sheets of paper, on each of them a DNA profile. The first was from the report Flick had given her detailing the unidentified DNA from McVeigh’s body, the so-called contamination. The second was from the body in front of them. They were identical. Dusty knew she was grandstanding and would probably make Detective Roberts-Thomson hate her forever, but she couldn’t help herself. She took out a plastic exhibit bag. Inside was the necklace Chantay had been wearing, the one she’d swapped her own fob chain for.
‘What’s that?’ asked Flick.
Dusty pointed to the cadaver.
‘His daughter was wearing it.’
Flick shrugged. And?
Dusty held out a photo. The honeymooners about to embark on the trip of a lifetime. Flick took the photo, looking at it closely. At the necklace around Dianna McVeigh’s neck. She took the bag containing the necklace. Looked at it closely. They were the same.
‘This doesn’t mean he killed her,’ said Flick.
‘He fucking killed her all right,’ said Gardner, the words Dusty had been waiting more than two years to hear.
‘My client has nothing more to say here,’ said Stan Lavery, but he was mistaken, his client had plenty more to say.
Dusty was so accustomed to a Gardner that was mute, monosyllabic at best, that when he started talking – words, phrases, sentences spinning from his mouth – she thought it must be some trick of ventriloquism. That quickly passed, though, as she began to enjoy – and appreciate – this new garrulous version of the man who had caused her so much frustration.
‘Jonno was in one of those fucking moods, you know. His missus had shot through, left him with the kid. Usually, when we were working, we’d mix it up – a few beers, a few cones, a bit of whiz. Jonno was doing line after fucking line of goey. I told him, “All that chemical’s gunna fuck you up, mate. You need some of the green, as well.” He didn’t take no notice. On and on about how he was gunna find her. Track her down. Slice her up good. Then he gets it into his head he wants to go over to this other camp we seen earlier. Make ourselves known. “Go to bed you silly cunt,” I tell him. Couple more cones and I’ve had enough. I crawl into the back of the LandCruiser and I’m out like a fucking light. When I wake up, there’s this dead chick there. Just fucking lying there, you know. I freak, of course. I don’t want nothin’ to do with this shit. But Jonno’s out of his fucking tree. Waving this gun around. If I don’t help him get rid of her he’s gunna blow me fucking head off. I don’t have no choice in the matter.’
When he’d finished, the only sound was the thrum of the air conditioner, then Fontana clearing his throat. Dusty could see the shock in Bethany’s face. Death she was familiar with but perhaps not the casual way it was delivered. Gardner had been so matter-of-fact, like he’d been describing a recent picnic he’d been on. Dusty felt strangely elated. After so long imagining what had happened that night in the desert at last she knew. And the truth – she had no doubt that Gardner had told exactly that – wasn’t dissimilar to what she’d thought.
Stan Lavery broke the silence. ‘My client has nothing more to say here.’
Bethany wheeled Jonsberg back into storage. Flick and Fontana took Stan Lavery and his client to the station to make a more formal statement. Dusty went back to the Shed.
Though she received a few congratulatory phone calls, nobody suggested that they should all go down the pub, customary practice after bringing a big case home. Go down the pub and drink litres of beer and drunkenly tell everybody how great they’d been, how this fucker of a case couldn’t possibly have been solved without them.
So Dusty invited Trace and Gerard for a drink at the Sailing Club instead.
They sat outside and watched the sun set over Fannie Bay. Nearby a gaggle of tourists were excitedly snapping away with their cameras, tracking the sun’s inexorable descent with their video cameras.
Dusty didn’t really get the sunset thing. Yes, inevitably, at the end of the day the sun did set, and that setting was often, like tonight, accompanied by an ostentatious display of colours, but didn’t these people have their own sunsets to go gaga at? Was Korea bereft of such things? Wasn’t Japan, in fact, the land of the rising sun?
‘Guess you won’t be in the Shed much longer,’ said Gerard.
‘Not so sure about that,’ said Dusty, pouring riesling into the three glasses on the table.
‘Anyway, here’s to you, Gerard, king of the yarndi.’
As they toasted Gerard, Dusty thought again of what Alex had said. Maybe it was true, maybe Gerard had lost his bottle. There had to be a very good reason why somebody with his undoubted skills wasn’t a Dee. Gerard deserved another crack at it. That much she knew. This was Darwin, after all, Capital of the Second Chance.
‘I reckon you should get back on the street,’ said Dusty.
‘Yeah, so do I,’ said Trace, giggling. ‘Get us some of that yarndi.’
Dusty had hesitated before inviting both Gerard and Trace – she’d thought that apart from their place of employment they didn’t have much in common. They seemed to be getting along well, however. Really well.
‘Dusty, can I ask you a question?’ said Gerard.
‘Sure.’
‘On the way to Kanulla, you said there was other stuff besides the phoney licence that linked Jonsberg to Kanulla.’
Dusty nodded. ‘Their tatts – I knew Gardner had a Ku Klux Klan tatt, and Singhie told me about Jonsberg’s tatt, the black-fella getting lynched.’
‘So they both hated blackfellas?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But so do a lot of people.’
‘Yeah, but they don’t get tatts.’
Dusty could see that Gerard was still struggling to understand.
‘You’ve been to Kanulla, you’ve seen how much money those blackfellas throw around. You can sort of understand why somebody, especially a battler, would resent them so much.’
‘It still seems, a bit, I don’t know . . . thin,’ said Gerard.
‘It was a lead, Gerard. That’s what policework is all about, following leads.’
‘I’ve gotta go,’ said Tracy, looking at the time on her mobile. ‘Kids, and that.’
‘I can give you a lift back to your car, if you like,’ Gerard said.
‘Great,’ said Trace, standing to leave. ‘Sis, you’re a star. Let’s have lunch tomorrow.’
Dusty was left by herself. For a moment she contemplated drinking litres of beer and drunkenly telling herself how great she was, how this fucker of a case couldn’t possibly have been solved without her, but she decided against it and went home, fed the dogs, and went to bed.
Chapter 50
It was during surya namaskar, the salute to the sun, that the thunder started. The weather bureau had predicted that the Build Up would end soon, but from Dusty’s experience the Build Up ended when it wanted to and not because some meteorologist with a pointy head and a computer model decided it should. As the yoga class continued, the thunder got louder and louder, filling the room. By shavasna time, as Dusty lay on her back, eyes closed, Vashti needed to yell to be heard.
‘Relax all those hard-to-relax muscles in your body.’
‘I said relax them!’
It was easy to understand how Zeus, and Thor, those rumbling gods of thunder were so revered, so feared. If you were going to believe in a higher power, then why not one with some attitude.
But as suddenly as it had started, the thunder stopped. Dusty smiled to herself. Pointy heads. Computer models. The silence left behind was so crystalline that at the end of the class, when Vashti sounded her miniscule chimes, they tolled like cathedral bells.
Everybody was going to the pub – they all wanted to hear about Jonsberg. It had made front page of today’s NT News, relegating Shane Warne in Nude Croc Romp to page two, which in turn relegated Cane Toad Found in Casuarina Shopping Centre to page three. The story had come from the Media Unit, but it had the Big C’s managerial DNA all over it – best practice, desired outcome, all of them, of course, going forward. That she was only mentioned in passing did not upset Dusty. She understood the rules: police work was teamwork, there were no stars.
Against a sky that was a mountainscape of cloud, peaked and troughed, capped in black, the Beachfront blazed like a fun-palace. Drinks were ordered, small talk was talked, until Vashti looked at Dusty and said ‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’
‘Well, what’s the real story?’
Dusty often thought that modesty, as far as virtues went, was a touch over-rated. Usually she’d have no problem allowing herself credit if she felt she’d earned it. Tonight, however, she felt no such desire, a case had been solved, but it wasn’t the case. So Dusty followed the party line – dogged police work, procedure, process – enlivening the story with some choice titbits (she did have some responsibility as a storyteller, after all) but she made no mention of Kanulla.
‘So who shot Jonsberg?’ asked the ever-logical Sean.
Dusty was about to answer, but Zeus, Thor, whoever was on duty tonight, had other ideas. There a prolonged crack of thunder, the sky burst open and the rain came.
The Build Up could build up no more. The Wet had broken.
The patrons of the Beachfront Hotel, crowded under the available shelter, drank their drinks and watched. Old hands made old hand comments: I knew it’d break soon, eh?; while the newbies – as newbies tend to do – reiterated the everyday: there’s just so much fucking water! The downpour lasted an hour during which time dinners went cold, favourite TV programs went unwatched and babies’ shitty nappies remained unchanged as all over Darwin people tuned into the water-and-gravity extravaganza. After, Dusty joined the many people milling around the Nightcliff foreshore. For the first time in weeks the air felt, and smelled, fresh. Wet roads glistened under streetlights. Gutters burbled with water. There was a sense of celebration in the air. The Wet has broken! The Wet has broken! Long live the Wet!
Dusty sat on a damp bench seat, facing the sea. Having grown up in Adelaide, known as the City of Churches, but more usefully described as the City of Jetties, Dusty was very fond of a jetty. The one in front of her was relatively short, made of steel, and couldn’t hope to compete against the Grange Jetty, the Glenelg Jetty, the Semaphore Jetty, or any of the stately wooden structures of her birth city. It still possessed, however, some of the same pleasing qualities – it poked out into the water, lights twinkled along its length, fisherman fished from it.
Dusty checked her watch. It was almost nine, around midday in London. She took out her mobile and dialled the number – she knew it by heart.
This time Mr Maxwell answered.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Detective Buchanon, Mr Maxwell.’
‘I was hoping to hear from you, Dusty.’
Though the Maxwells no longer read the papers or watched the news – they’d had enough misery, they’d told Dusty – it would be impossible, in this information age, not to hear something.
‘So you know?’ Dusty asked.
‘I’d like to hear it from you.’
Dusty explained what had happened.
‘So there will be no trial?’ Mr Maxwell asked when she’d finished.
‘An inquest, not a trial.’
There was more talk, more explanation until eventually Dusty said, ‘Mr Maxwell, can I ask a favour from you?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Anything I can do to help.’
Chapter 51
The commander had underestimated Detective Buchanon – she was a much more formidable opponent than she’d first thought. Not that she was an opponent, of course. They were both on the same page, sharing the same mission statement, working to, if not exactly grow the business, at least achieve the target outcomes – to reduce crime and protect the community.
‘Just a couple of–’ started Gerard, before he was again cut short.
‘Get off now!’ said Nana.
‘Let’s go,’ said Dusty.
‘Detective Bevan?’ Dusty inquired as she got back into the car.
‘Jezza?’ countered Gerard. ‘Did you get it?’
Dusty nodded.
‘What is–’
‘I’ll explain later, let’s just get our stuff and get out of here.’
Chapter 49
Dusty had often thought that Julien would like the morgue. He, who was forever railing against Darwin’s architecture, complaining how unsuitable most of it was for the tropics, would surely approve of its cool, uncluttered surfaces, its clean uninterrupted lines.
‘Brought you a coffee,’ said Dusty to Bethany, the thirty-something morgue attendant renowned for her surliness. Once Dusty had attributed this to her occupation – constant exposure to the dead had done ugly things to her psyche. In fact, for a while there Dusty saw Bethany as an examplar: what we’d all be like if we weren’t constantly shielded from death. Lately, though, she’d changed her mind – Bethany was just one of those grumpy lesbians.
‘How many sugars?’ she demanded, looking at the proffered cup with suspicion.
Dusty had been caught out before. ‘None,’ she said, fishing in her pocket for the sugar sachets. ‘I know you like to put your own in.’
‘Well, OK. Thanks, I suppose,’ said Bethany, tentatively taking the coffee, as if there were, literally, strings attached.
‘So that’s our fella?’ said Dusty, indicating the sheet-covered body on top of the stainless steel gurney.
Bethany nodded.
‘Don’t know how the fuck you pulled this off,’ she said, and you could hear the relief in her voice – she had a legitimate excuse to become grumpy again.
Dusty knew exactly what she was on about. Bodies were meant to be viewed in the viewing room, a pane of glass between the viewer and the viewed. There was no shortage of reasons for this – health, legal, moral. A pane of glass between the viewer and the viewed did not suit Dusty’s purposes, however. It’d taken her two frenetic days on the phone – trading favours like a Wall Street stockbroker, bullying, begging – until eventually, theoretically, she’d arranged it. Dusty checked her watch – she still had fifteen minutes until ten, the time she’d arranged to meet Flick.
‘Singhie in today?’
Bethany shrugged. How would I know? I only work here.
The door to his office was open. Dr Singh was sitting at his desk.
‘Knock, knock,’ said Dusty.
‘Who’s there?’ said the doctor, not looking up from the report he was engrossed in.
‘No, I really mean “knock, knock”.’
‘Come in, by all means.’
Despite its location, Singhie’s office was actually quite cosy. It smelled like the chai he was forever drinking, like cinnamon and cardamom.
‘You seen this?’ he said, waving the report at Dusty.
‘No.’
‘Ballistics.’
Unlike other pathologists, who took no further interest once they’d shoved the innards back in, sewn the body up and written up their report, Singhie liked to keep track of his customers as they progressed through the system. It could get annoying, Singhie ringing up offering all sorts of exotic theories, and Dusty did sometimes wonder whether he’d read one too many Patricia Cornwell novels.
‘Makarov,’ said Singhie. ‘Russian made. You don’t see those very often.’
Dusty’s knowledge of firearms only extended as far as her firsthand experience of them – the one she carried herself and the ones that had been used in the cases she’d worked on. A Makarov meant nothing to her.
Singhie was at his computer, typing ‘Makarov’ into Google. He hit return, clicked on one of the search results.
From the next door the sound of a buzzer. A door being opened. The voices of her former Homicide colleagues, their words bouncing off the tiled surfaces.
‘I’m up,’ said Dusty to Dr Singh, and that’s how it felt: as if she were the one being scrutinised, not the dead person on the gurney.
Bethany was sipping her coffee, Flick was on her mobile and Fontana was looking pissed-off.
‘This better be good, Buchanon,’ he said, ‘I’ve got work up to the eyeballs.’
‘Just keep close to Gardner, OK,’ said Dusty. ‘If I’ve got this right, he could do anything.’
The buzzer buzzed again, Bethany opened the door and lawyer Stan Lavery appeared. Gruff and grizzled, he was an old Darwin hand who knew where the skeletons were buried, who’d buried them and what football teams they barracked for. With him was the prime suspect in the murder of Dianna McVeigh, Evan Dale Gardner.
‘Evan, how are you today?’ asked Dusty, pleasantly.
He grunted.
Some things never change, she thought. Hours and hours of questioning and that’s all she’d ever got from Gardner – grunts.
‘Owe you one,’ she said, shaking Stan Lavery’s hand.
‘One?’ he replied.
Dusty, Bethany and Flick stood on one side of the gurney while Stan Lavery and his client stood on the other, Fontana hovering behind them.
‘Mr Gardner, just wondered if you knew this person,’ said Dusty, motioning to Bethany.
She pulled the edge of the sheet back, exposing Jonsberg’s face.
Gardner didn’t react.
Dusty had half-expected that. Jonsberg had been shot, buried, disinterred and autopsied – he probably wasn’t looking his best. She could see the satisfaction on Bethany’s face, Flick’s face, maybe even Fontana’s face – Dusty’s fucked up again.
‘More,’ said Dusty to Bethany.
‘This is bullshit,’ she said.
Moving forward Dusty grabbed the sheet and yanked it down revealing the tattoo of a lynched blackfella on the mottled skin of Jonsberg’s right shoulder.
It wasn’t a scream, it wasn’t a bellow, but whatever it was it came from the very pit of Gardner’s being. And while it was not enough to stir the dead – they remained recumbent on their gurneys – it did bring one of their attendants, Omar, running in from the next room yelling, ‘What is matter?’
Gardner lunged at Jonsberg, digging his fingers into the waxy flesh of his face. Fontana moved quickly, grabbing him from behind, handfuls of King Gee, pulling him away. Stan Lavery got in on the act too, enveloping his client in a bear hug.
Dusty handed Flick two sheets of paper, on each of them a DNA profile. The first was from the report Flick had given her detailing the unidentified DNA from McVeigh’s body, the so-called contamination. The second was from the body in front of them. They were identical. Dusty knew she was grandstanding and would probably make Detective Roberts-Thomson hate her forever, but she couldn’t help herself. She took out a plastic exhibit bag. Inside was the necklace Chantay had been wearing, the one she’d swapped her own fob chain for.
‘What’s that?’ asked Flick.
Dusty pointed to the cadaver.
‘His daughter was wearing it.’
Flick shrugged. And?
Dusty held out a photo. The honeymooners about to embark on the trip of a lifetime. Flick took the photo, looking at it closely. At the necklace around Dianna McVeigh’s neck. She took the bag containing the necklace. Looked at it closely. They were the same.
‘This doesn’t mean he killed her,’ said Flick.
‘He fucking killed her all right,’ said Gardner, the words Dusty had been waiting more than two years to hear.
‘My client has nothing more to say here,’ said Stan Lavery, but he was mistaken, his client had plenty more to say.
Dusty was so accustomed to a Gardner that was mute, monosyllabic at best, that when he started talking – words, phrases, sentences spinning from his mouth – she thought it must be some trick of ventriloquism. That quickly passed, though, as she began to enjoy – and appreciate – this new garrulous version of the man who had caused her so much frustration.
‘Jonno was in one of those fucking moods, you know. His missus had shot through, left him with the kid. Usually, when we were working, we’d mix it up – a few beers, a few cones, a bit of whiz. Jonno was doing line after fucking line of goey. I told him, “All that chemical’s gunna fuck you up, mate. You need some of the green, as well.” He didn’t take no notice. On and on about how he was gunna find her. Track her down. Slice her up good. Then he gets it into his head he wants to go over to this other camp we seen earlier. Make ourselves known. “Go to bed you silly cunt,” I tell him. Couple more cones and I’ve had enough. I crawl into the back of the LandCruiser and I’m out like a fucking light. When I wake up, there’s this dead chick there. Just fucking lying there, you know. I freak, of course. I don’t want nothin’ to do with this shit. But Jonno’s out of his fucking tree. Waving this gun around. If I don’t help him get rid of her he’s gunna blow me fucking head off. I don’t have no choice in the matter.’
When he’d finished, the only sound was the thrum of the air conditioner, then Fontana clearing his throat. Dusty could see the shock in Bethany’s face. Death she was familiar with but perhaps not the casual way it was delivered. Gardner had been so matter-of-fact, like he’d been describing a recent picnic he’d been on. Dusty felt strangely elated. After so long imagining what had happened that night in the desert at last she knew. And the truth – she had no doubt that Gardner had told exactly that – wasn’t dissimilar to what she’d thought.
Stan Lavery broke the silence. ‘My client has nothing more to say here.’
Bethany wheeled Jonsberg back into storage. Flick and Fontana took Stan Lavery and his client to the station to make a more formal statement. Dusty went back to the Shed.
Though she received a few congratulatory phone calls, nobody suggested that they should all go down the pub, customary practice after bringing a big case home. Go down the pub and drink litres of beer and drunkenly tell everybody how great they’d been, how this fucker of a case couldn’t possibly have been solved without them.
So Dusty invited Trace and Gerard for a drink at the Sailing Club instead.
They sat outside and watched the sun set over Fannie Bay. Nearby a gaggle of tourists were excitedly snapping away with their cameras, tracking the sun’s inexorable descent with their video cameras.
Dusty didn’t really get the sunset thing. Yes, inevitably, at the end of the day the sun did set, and that setting was often, like tonight, accompanied by an ostentatious display of colours, but didn’t these people have their own sunsets to go gaga at? Was Korea bereft of such things? Wasn’t Japan, in fact, the land of the rising sun?
‘Guess you won’t be in the Shed much longer,’ said Gerard.
‘Not so sure about that,’ said Dusty, pouring riesling into the three glasses on the table.
‘Anyway, here’s to you, Gerard, king of the yarndi.’
As they toasted Gerard, Dusty thought again of what Alex had said. Maybe it was true, maybe Gerard had lost his bottle. There had to be a very good reason why somebody with his undoubted skills wasn’t a Dee. Gerard deserved another crack at it. That much she knew. This was Darwin, after all, Capital of the Second Chance.
‘I reckon you should get back on the street,’ said Dusty.
‘Yeah, so do I,’ said Trace, giggling. ‘Get us some of that yarndi.’
Dusty had hesitated before inviting both Gerard and Trace – she’d thought that apart from their place of employment they didn’t have much in common. They seemed to be getting along well, however. Really well.
‘Dusty, can I ask you a question?’ said Gerard.
‘Sure.’
‘On the way to Kanulla, you said there was other stuff besides the phoney licence that linked Jonsberg to Kanulla.’
Dusty nodded. ‘Their tatts – I knew Gardner had a Ku Klux Klan tatt, and Singhie told me about Jonsberg’s tatt, the black-fella getting lynched.’
‘So they both hated blackfellas?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But so do a lot of people.’
‘Yeah, but they don’t get tatts.’
Dusty could see that Gerard was still struggling to understand.
‘You’ve been to Kanulla, you’ve seen how much money those blackfellas throw around. You can sort of understand why somebody, especially a battler, would resent them so much.’
‘It still seems, a bit, I don’t know . . . thin,’ said Gerard.
‘It was a lead, Gerard. That’s what policework is all about, following leads.’
‘I’ve gotta go,’ said Tracy, looking at the time on her mobile. ‘Kids, and that.’
‘I can give you a lift back to your car, if you like,’ Gerard said.
‘Great,’ said Trace, standing to leave. ‘Sis, you’re a star. Let’s have lunch tomorrow.’
Dusty was left by herself. For a moment she contemplated drinking litres of beer and drunkenly telling herself how great she was, how this fucker of a case couldn’t possibly have been solved without her, but she decided against it and went home, fed the dogs, and went to bed.
Chapter 50
It was during surya namaskar, the salute to the sun, that the thunder started. The weather bureau had predicted that the Build Up would end soon, but from Dusty’s experience the Build Up ended when it wanted to and not because some meteorologist with a pointy head and a computer model decided it should. As the yoga class continued, the thunder got louder and louder, filling the room. By shavasna time, as Dusty lay on her back, eyes closed, Vashti needed to yell to be heard.
‘Relax all those hard-to-relax muscles in your body.’
‘I said relax them!’
It was easy to understand how Zeus, and Thor, those rumbling gods of thunder were so revered, so feared. If you were going to believe in a higher power, then why not one with some attitude.
But as suddenly as it had started, the thunder stopped. Dusty smiled to herself. Pointy heads. Computer models. The silence left behind was so crystalline that at the end of the class, when Vashti sounded her miniscule chimes, they tolled like cathedral bells.
Everybody was going to the pub – they all wanted to hear about Jonsberg. It had made front page of today’s NT News, relegating Shane Warne in Nude Croc Romp to page two, which in turn relegated Cane Toad Found in Casuarina Shopping Centre to page three. The story had come from the Media Unit, but it had the Big C’s managerial DNA all over it – best practice, desired outcome, all of them, of course, going forward. That she was only mentioned in passing did not upset Dusty. She understood the rules: police work was teamwork, there were no stars.
Against a sky that was a mountainscape of cloud, peaked and troughed, capped in black, the Beachfront blazed like a fun-palace. Drinks were ordered, small talk was talked, until Vashti looked at Dusty and said ‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’
‘Well, what’s the real story?’
Dusty often thought that modesty, as far as virtues went, was a touch over-rated. Usually she’d have no problem allowing herself credit if she felt she’d earned it. Tonight, however, she felt no such desire, a case had been solved, but it wasn’t the case. So Dusty followed the party line – dogged police work, procedure, process – enlivening the story with some choice titbits (she did have some responsibility as a storyteller, after all) but she made no mention of Kanulla.
‘So who shot Jonsberg?’ asked the ever-logical Sean.
Dusty was about to answer, but Zeus, Thor, whoever was on duty tonight, had other ideas. There a prolonged crack of thunder, the sky burst open and the rain came.
The Build Up could build up no more. The Wet had broken.
The patrons of the Beachfront Hotel, crowded under the available shelter, drank their drinks and watched. Old hands made old hand comments: I knew it’d break soon, eh?; while the newbies – as newbies tend to do – reiterated the everyday: there’s just so much fucking water! The downpour lasted an hour during which time dinners went cold, favourite TV programs went unwatched and babies’ shitty nappies remained unchanged as all over Darwin people tuned into the water-and-gravity extravaganza. After, Dusty joined the many people milling around the Nightcliff foreshore. For the first time in weeks the air felt, and smelled, fresh. Wet roads glistened under streetlights. Gutters burbled with water. There was a sense of celebration in the air. The Wet has broken! The Wet has broken! Long live the Wet!
Dusty sat on a damp bench seat, facing the sea. Having grown up in Adelaide, known as the City of Churches, but more usefully described as the City of Jetties, Dusty was very fond of a jetty. The one in front of her was relatively short, made of steel, and couldn’t hope to compete against the Grange Jetty, the Glenelg Jetty, the Semaphore Jetty, or any of the stately wooden structures of her birth city. It still possessed, however, some of the same pleasing qualities – it poked out into the water, lights twinkled along its length, fisherman fished from it.
Dusty checked her watch. It was almost nine, around midday in London. She took out her mobile and dialled the number – she knew it by heart.
This time Mr Maxwell answered.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Detective Buchanon, Mr Maxwell.’
‘I was hoping to hear from you, Dusty.’
Though the Maxwells no longer read the papers or watched the news – they’d had enough misery, they’d told Dusty – it would be impossible, in this information age, not to hear something.
‘So you know?’ Dusty asked.
‘I’d like to hear it from you.’
Dusty explained what had happened.
‘So there will be no trial?’ Mr Maxwell asked when she’d finished.
‘An inquest, not a trial.’
There was more talk, more explanation until eventually Dusty said, ‘Mr Maxwell, can I ask a favour from you?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Anything I can do to help.’
Chapter 51
The commander had underestimated Detective Buchanon – she was a much more formidable opponent than she’d first thought. Not that she was an opponent, of course. They were both on the same page, sharing the same mission statement, working to, if not exactly grow the business, at least achieve the target outcomes – to reduce crime and protect the community.
