‘All irrelevant to the outcome. Which wouldn’t have been the outcome if my advice hadn’t been sneered at. That’s on record, my word.’
‘What record?’
‘Memos to command.’
‘Ah, the Kiwi way,’ said Villani. ‘Here, that’s called being a dog.’
Kiely tried the Singo look. Villani said, ‘Staring at me?’
‘Moving on, it’s also my opinion that Weber should take over the Prosilio matter.’
‘What’s wrong with Dove?’
‘Not ready for responsibility. Shown that, hasn’t he?’
‘Told him that?’
‘Not yet.’
Villani looked, saw Dove waiting, bony figure sitting on a desk edge, shoulders slack, head down, light reflected on his scalp.
‘Jesus, mate,’ he said. ‘He took a bullet. These days they take a love-tap, they go on sick leave, stress leave, next it’s full disability for life. But this bloke actually comes out of hospital, he reports for duty. Give him a fucking break, will you?’
Kiely shrugged, blinked. ‘Well, made myself plain. That’s my responsibility.’
‘Metallic. Tell the ballistics pricks we want a yes or no on the Ford guns and Oakleigh in hours.’ Impassive, Kiely left.
Villani found Dove’s gaze, nodded. Dove crossed the room, file in hands, stood.
‘Nobody told me this bloke Kidd’s name,’ he said. ‘Am I on some blacklist?’
‘Remarkably bad time to fuck with me, son,’ Villani said, he held his iron face.
‘Sorry, boss,’ said Dove. ‘Alibani? Prosilio…’
‘I remember,’ said Villani. ‘I’m paid to remember.’
‘Right. Well, in looking over the family unto the thirteenth cousins, I find that he owns a house in Melbourne. Preston.’
‘It’s him?’
‘Well, the address for rates is an accountant in Sydney. He says Alibani has been gone for years, hasn’t heard from him, but he left money to pay the rates on three properties. Rates and other bills, they come to the bean counter.’
Villani thought about his pledge to stop interfering, stop taking charge. ‘Get a car,’ he said.
THE SKY was old bottle glass, smoke in the air. Villani slumped in the passenger seat, another air-conditioner that didn’t work, the car smelled of cigarette smoke and chemical aftershaves, deodorants.
They drove up the spine of the clogged city, Dove cautious, bullied by reckless Asian taxi-drivers, black BMWs, Audis, drivers quick to hoot, force an entry.
When he looked up, they were in Russell Street.
That long-ago day, he came out of the old stone magistrates’ court, he was there to give evidence, it wasn’t going to happen until after lunch, half a day wasted, the woman was genetically programmed to steal stuff, you might as well imprison dolphins for leaping out of the sea. The next day was Good Friday, he was off, thinking about going surfing, hungry, he was waiting to cross to the Russell Street station, standing on the La Trobe corner. You could get a decent ham and cheese sandwich from the canteen, there was a woman cop crossing the road.
The world went orange, a massive impact knocked him over, his head hit the tarmac, something landed on his chest, he grasped it in both hands, mind blank, registered more explosions, people screaming. He got up, vision blurred, no idea of what had happened, his nasal passages were full of burnt rubber and hot dust. He focused on what he was holding. A hubcap, folded, like a pastie.
He sat down, feet in the gutter, head on his knees, feeling tired, unsure of mind, have a little rest. Then the thought rose in him:
You’re a policeman. Get up. Do something.
He got up, not at all steady, he brushed himself, there were dark marks on his shirt, he nodded at them and stepped into the street.
The policewoman he saw crossing the road died of burns. She was about his age, he knew her by sight. Much later, he worked with cops who knew the men sentenced to life for killing her, for injuring all the others, they were armed robbers, they hated cops, turning a lifted Holden into a gelignite bomb was a very funny thing to do, an outlaw thing.
Livin on the wild side, mate, stick it up their fucken arses, park it outside the fucken front door, how’s that? Cop fucken HQ. Middle of the fucken day, all those fat cunts in there talking on the radio to other cop cunts, Read you, car fucken fifty-one, over and out, then it’s fucken KABANG!!!
They could have murdered any number of people, just luck a group of cops wasn’t passing, the SOGs from around the corner, cops coming out of the station. Him. That day he grew up, he realised just what it meant to put on the uniform.
Lizzie.
A teenage druggy who didn’t give a shit about her family.
Laurie’s family were nothing to write home about. Her old man, Graham, big-nosed Graham, he worked for Telecom all his life, not so much a job as an explanation for being away from home in daylight. Her mother was pretty, a self-taught bookkeeper for a Fitzroy leathergoods factory that went under in the nineties. She did a lot of overtime, Graham often said that, fake smile. Villani took it to mean she’d been fucking the boss.
Whose fault was Lizzie?
After Rachel Bourke, Tony’s friend’s mother, things went badly sour. He met her when he went to watch Tony play hockey, she was a mistake but she’d stalked him, he hadn’t looked for it, didn’t cross the street for it. Anyway, it was weeks, six tops, four or five fucks, that was it. Laurie knew, she had no evidence but she knew, women knew, she read it in his body, his voice.
‘Not exactly sure where we are, boss,’ said Dove. ‘The GPS isn’t working.’
Villani looked around. They were in Plenty Road. ‘Jesus, how’d you get here?’
‘A bit new to me, this part.’
‘Cops don’t get lost,’ said Villani. ‘They study Melways at night, they study it before they get in the car. Don’t need a degree to learn the Melways. No wonder the feds use a GPS to find their dicks.’
He gave directions. In time, they crossed the railway line, found the street, the number, parked opposite. The house was behind a two-metre-high corrugated-iron fence, just its tiled roof visible. They walked over. A padlock and chain on the double driveway gates. Villani looked through a gap. He could see little.
They shouted, banged on the gate.
‘We need a warrant here,’ said Villani. ‘Going by the book.’
‘What book is that?’ said Dove.
Villani made the call. They sat in the car. He offered Dove a cigarette. A time passed, his view was north-east, the sky was dull yellow-brown, a huge diatomic bloom caused by dust and smoke. From the hills, the city would be wobbling in its own heat.
He rang Bob. It rang out. Again.
‘Villani,’ said Bob.
‘Me. What’s happening?’
‘Nothing. Come up to Flannery’s last night before the wind shifted. Still in the north-west. We should be all right.’
‘And Flannery?’
‘Some burnt mutton. Now shot and that’s fucking expensive. He had the CFA on him to move them yesterday, won’t listen. Man’s gaga.’
‘What do they say about you?’
‘Mate, the dickheads know me. Keep their mouths shut.’
Coughing, throat clearing. ‘Listen, the doctor’s wife rang. Last night.’
Karin. Mark’s wife number two. Number one was Janice, a nurse from Cobram, pregnant when they married just after he started specialising, she lost the child early. They broke up inside a year.
Mark went up the medical scale, Karin, a researcher, something to do with blood, her father also knew blood, he was one of Mark’s teachers, Mr David Delisle, all-purpose surgeon, cut anything needed the scalpel. Villani met him at the civil ceremony in Kew, a brick mansion, wrought-iron gates. Mrs Delisle gave him the eye, handsome in a Botoxed stringy gymrat way. The knife man was poreless, silky hair, like a greyhound somehow but without the nerviness.