Moon free of cloud, silver light, sound of water. You bastard, Berglin.
How to be a halfway decent person. That’s the main question in life.
What would you know, Berglin, you worthless, faithless bastard?
‘Wait for it, Johnny,’ El Greco said. He laughed, the light, little-girlish laugh. ‘It’s going to hurt, really hurt. And there’s more. Much more.’
A shot. Close. Loud. Another shot.
El Greco looked up from the rifle. His mouth opened. I could see his tongue lolling in his mouth.
He fell over forward, rifle barrel digging into the ground, chest resting on the butt, slowly toppling sideways.
Someone came out of the shadows, wet to the waist, arms at his sides, big automatic pistol pointing at the ground.
‘Fuck,’ Berglin said. His long foot moved El Greco’s rifle away from the body. ‘Flare grenades, night sight. Think bloody technology’s the answer to everything.’
I tried to get up, got to one knee. Pain. Whole left thigh on fire. ‘Why’d you do that?’ I said. ‘Just going to leap at him, knock the rifle away, strangle him.’
‘Got bored waiting,’ Berglin said. ‘Who’s he?’
‘Algie. El G. El Greco.’
He reached down, turned the body over, licked fingertips, held them to El Greco’s nostrils. ‘Won’t be standing trial,’ he said, straightening up. ‘Just as well. Guilty fuckers get off half the time.’
I was in the smithy getting ready to temper a knife blade when Detective Michael Shea drove up, again without Cotter. He came in and sat on the bench.
I had a thick iron plate on the fire, just about ready, almost red.
‘Can’t talk,’ I said. ‘Got to get this right.’
It was red enough. I took tongs and moved it to the cooler side of the fire, picked up the knife blade and put it on the plate. The important thing now was to quench the blade when it showed the right colour.
Shea came over to watch. The blade absorbed heat from the plate, turned strawy yellow, went through orange into brown, began to turn a redder brown.
I picked it up with heated tongs and put it in the quenching bath of water under a layer of clean olive oil, moved it about.
‘What’s that do?’ Shea said.
‘Hard steel’s too brittle, snaps. Get rid of some brittleness this way,’ I said. ‘First you have to harden it, then you temper it like this. What’s happening?’
‘Big morning. They found more bones. Marcia’s rolled, Veene’s decided to give us Crewe.’
‘That’s big.’
‘Crewe got pulled this morning. Steps of Parliament. Do it that way down there. Tip off Channel Nine, get your face on camera. Excellent for the career. They ran Marcia through the Canadian databases. No Marcia Carrier. But a Marcia Lyons did time for assaulting girls at a girls’ home in Montreal. Turns out it’s her. That’s her married name, Lyons. She says Crewe found out before she got the job, didn’t say a word, made sure she got it. Then he had her.’
‘Took part?’
‘Admits. Very distressed. Blames her old man. Says he used to beat her and her sister. Says she didn’t know the girls were killed after she left. Guilty only of assault.’
Gaby Makin had said something. She was talking about Melanie Pavitt, how strong she was for a small person. What was it?
Barbie liked the little ones.
She hadn’t been talking about Ian Barbie, she’d been talking about Marcia. Marcia was Barbie to Barbie’s Ken.
‘What’s Rick say?’ I said.
‘Gone to water. Says he had sex with the girls at the farm, left them with Andrew and Tony. Only found out later that Andrew killed them. On video. We got the videos. In the basement at Andrew’s mansion. Safe buried in the floor. Found it with a metal detector. Make you puke, tell you.’
‘Crewe’s in the picture?’
‘Not. But there’s enough. Got dates, times from Barbie’s last letter. Crewe was up here for all of them. They picked girls being discharged, nowhere to go, no family. So they just vanished, no-one looked for them.’
He came around and looked at the cool blade, picked it up. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘You do good work. There’s something else. Ned. Been waiting for people to get back to me. Cop in Brisbane, he’s been trying to nail a bloke called Martin Gilbert for years, reckons he’s Mr Rent-a-Rope, priors for assault, attempted murder. Smart guy. Joe Cool. Three hangins up there, all got the smell, plus one in Sydney, one in Melbourne. One Brisbane one, car belongs to mate of Gilbert’s, bloke’s interstate at the time, car’s a block from the scene at the right time.’
‘That take us where?’
‘Got a picture of Gilbert,’ Shea said. ‘Nice colour picture. Had the troops takin it around the motels. Slow business.’
He had something to tell me.
‘Motel up the top of Royal Parade had two blokes come in on the night, just before midnight. One’s Gilbert, bloke’s a hundred percent on it. The two got pissed in the room, made a lot of noise, manager had to get up, copped a lot of abuse from Gilbert. I’m goin down tomorrow, show him the pictures come today. Some of Gilbert’s mates.’
I’d got this large, pale, sad-looking man very wrong. ‘You do good work too,’ I said.
Shea said, ‘There’s more. We done the car rentals for the day, ran the IDs, got a rental, cash, false ID. Brisbane troops seen it before, think it’s used by Gilbert.’
I started to say something.
Shea held up his hand. ‘Small rental place this,’ he said, ‘not too many paying cash these days. They remember this roll of plastic tape, black plastic tape, found in the boot of the rental when they cleaned it. Still got it too, lyin there in the office. Thought it’d come in useful, says the bloke.’
Shea shifted his buttocks, couldn’t get comfortable, got up and went over to stand in the doorway. ‘Forensic’s had another look at Ned’s pyjamas, Brissie cops told ’em what to look for. Now they reckon there was tape on the pyjama sleeves, on the pants.’
‘You do more than good work,’ I said. ‘You do excellent work.’
He looked away. ‘Forensic think they might have missed some acetone stuff, like nail varnish remover, used to clean Ned’s face, round the mouth. Same on two hangins up in Brissie. Reckon this Gilbert knows his stuff.’
‘The plastic tape,’ I said. ‘Match it with the glue?’
‘Tomorrow, we’ll hear tomorrow, next day. Soon.’
‘Be enough?’
He shrugged. ‘Get a positive ID from the motel on Gilbert’s mate, he might shake loose.’
He looked out of the door. It had started to rain. ‘Got to go,’ he said. ‘Be in touch.’
I went out with him, put out my hand, ‘Glad we drew you on the night.’
He shook my hand. ‘Gettin there. Any luck, we get the bastards. Then they get a smart lawyer and they walk.’
I was finishing up for the day when the phone rang in the office.
‘Gather your local Member’s the first item on the news tonight.’ Berglin. No greeting.
‘So I hear. What’s with our friend in the Vatican?’
‘That’s why I’m calling. Scully resigned this morning.’
‘They going to prosecute?’
‘No.’
‘No? The bastards. He’s a murderer, how many times over.’
‘Can’t prosecute.’
‘Can’t? Can’t? What kind of…’
‘Can’t prosecute the dead. He shot himself. In his garage at home.’
I sat in silence for a while, telephone forgotten, looking out of the window at the tattered clouds blowing south, at the willows down at the winter creek sending out the first pale green signal of spring.
Berglin cleared his throat. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there endeth the lesson.’
I said, ‘Amen.’
We limped off after the third quarter, six goals down, our supporters-now grown by about ten thousand percent- giving us a sad little cheer. Kingstead got a roar, hooting, small boys jumping and punching one another.
Mick tried his best in the break. ‘Six goals is nuthin, fellas. Knock ’em off in the first ten minutes, cruise away to a magnificent victory. Make it all the sweeter, that’s all…’