He went out, walked along the beachfront, got wet. On the main strip, he found a gambling barn-half-pissed young men in board shorts and T-shirts, bead necklaces and gold chains, budgie-eyed old men, brown-bread ruined skin, caps and long socks, they all sat in the flickering air-conditioned gloom reading the screens: Murray Bridge, Kembla Grange, Darwin, Alice Springs, Bunbury, New Zealand. He boxed favourites with no-hopers, the longer the better, threw money away. A young man with long tipped hair tried to strike up a conversation. Villani didn’t give him any help. He persisted. Villani gave him the long fuck-off look, the man went away.
At the unit, towards evening, bored, twitchy, on his fourth beer, he switched on his phone, looked in cupboards.
‘Scrabble,’ he said. ‘Want to play?’
Laurie was lying on the couch, flipping a magazine. ‘Not really,’ she said.
‘Come on. I’m stir crazy.’
His father taught him to play. For Bob, it was a game of speed, you put down the first word that came to mind, there was no rubbish about trying for maximum possible scores.
That hot dripping late afternoon, in the box in the sky, he lost patience after fifteen or twenty minutes. He began to nag Laurie. ‘Let’s get a move on here, can we, haven’t got all day.’
She said nothing, concentrated on her letters, earned big scores.
He kept at it. ‘Come on, come on, get on with it, will you?’
Without warning, she rose, tipping the board on him, letters fell on him, went everywhere, she said, quietly, in control, ‘You stupid bully, it’s just a game. Ever asked yourself why Tony wouldn’t play anything with you?’
Villani put the board back on the table, squared it. He looked down, saw the letters on the carpet, the perfectly smooth pale wooden squares on the green nylon. He pushed back his chair, went down on his hands and knees.
His mobile rang. He answered without getting up, kneeling on the floor.
‘Villani.’
‘Steve.’ Singo, soft voice. ‘Bit of shit here.’
‘What?’
‘Cashin and Diab. Bloke rammed them. Diab’s dead, Joe’s touch and go. Life support.’
‘Jesus, no.’
Laurie said, ‘What, Steve? What is it?’
To Singo, Villani said, ‘I’ll get the first plane, boss.’
‘Ring with the number,’ said Singo. ‘Somebody’ll meet you.’
Villani closed the phone, put it in his shirt pocket.
‘What?’ said Laurie. ‘What?’
‘Joe,’ said Villani. ‘On life support.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘My God, no.’
They flew home together on the last direct flight and they spoke no more than a few dozen words then and on any given day thereafter.
…intelligent leaders and enough troops, Bruce. Together they move mountains. And intelligent leaders come first. Can I say here, can I commend the Homicide Squad over their work on the Oakleigh killings? Not every day does a senior officer, he could be sitting behind a desk, he goes out and puts his life on the line. We salute him.
Sorry, not up with this, that’s a bit of a personal Oops, who are you…
Inspector Stephen Villani of Homicide. I’ll say no more.
Yes, well, on another tack, Max Hendry’s AirLine project, where do you…
I love Max. Only Max could try to get away with something like this, with not putting any figures on the table. His major problem in getting AirLine to fly is Stuart Koenig, the infrastructure minister. Koenig’s told the Labor caucus the sky will be dark with pigs before Max Hendry gets government support…
On the snow that cold, misted evening, they watched the men slide a stretcher under the sleeping girl, two men carried her to the vehicle without the slightest strain, she could have been a dog, a greyhound.
Curled up. She was curled up.
VILLANI TOOK a used Age from the basket, sat at the corner table. The waiter was with him in seconds. She was Corin’s age, student labour.
‘Two sourdough toasts,’ he said. ‘Still got the little Italian sausages? With fennel?’
‘Certainly do.’
‘Two. And a grilled tomato. Long black, double shot. That’s after.’
‘You know your own mind,’ she said.
‘Together a long time,’ Villani said. ‘My mind and I.’
‘That’s like a lyric.’ She sang, softly: My mind and I, it’s been a long, long time.
She was older than Corin. Mature student. Post-graduate student.
‘How do you know I’m a talent scout?’ he said.
‘Your hands,’ she said. ‘Strong but sensitive talent-scout hands.’
‘I don’t have a card on me.’
‘I’ll give you mine.’
He had finished, plate taken, sniffing the coffee when Dove came in carrying a briefcase, on time to the minute. The waiter followed him to the table.
‘Breakfast?’ she said.
‘No, thanks. Long black, please.’
When she’d gone, Villani said, ‘Be clear, stuff like this, it’s not on the phone, not in the office.’
‘Sorry, boss. Had a go at some phone data last night. It’s six months of calls, it’s a mountain.’
‘You didn’t put it in the system, did you?
‘No, no, I did it at home.’
‘You’ve got the program at home?’
‘Well, not the big one, no. But enough. I did this in the last job. All the time.’
Dove didn’t want to say the word feds.
‘And?’
‘I had it look for clusters. It’s called unsupervised learning.’
‘I know that,’ said Villani.
‘Sorry. Boss. Turns up many clusters, big and small. Three around Mark Simons. Of Simons & Galliano, the bankruptcy kings. And they twin with calls to a Ryan Cordell. He’s some kind of accountant, financial advisor. When it starts, it’s like a feeding frenzy. He calls Curlew, Curlew calls Hendry, Bricknell, they call others, some then call Cordell, it’s back and forth.’
Dove’s coffee came. She pointed at Villani’s glass. He made the short sign.
‘This is helpful?’ said Villani.
Dove reached down to his briefcase, put a folder on the table, opened it.
‘Not that, no,’ he said. ‘On the night, the Prosilio night, Bricknell, Curlew, Simons, Jourdan, Hendry and Brody all made and received calls from the casino LA. At 11.23, Bricknell calls Koenig. At home in Portsea. That home. Then, 11.29, Bricknell calls a mobile, pre-paid, so that’s probably a dead end.’
Villani could see where it was going.
‘At 12.07,’ said Dove, ‘Bricknell calls the number again. At 12.31, the number calls him. At 1.56, he calls the number again. At 2.04, it calls him.’
‘Pause here,’ said Villani. ‘This is a very small cluster. Cluster of two.’
‘Yes.’
‘So what then?’
‘I’m still looking at that.’
‘Well, Bricknell calls Koenig. They’re friends. Later he repeatedly calls someone who’s on a pre-paid in the name of a cat. The person calls him back.’
‘That’s right.’
‘So fucking what?’
Dove kept his eyes on his notes. He drank half his coffee.
‘Got a theory?’ said Villani. ‘Want to tell me your theory? Koenig and the St Thomas boys? What?’
‘They go to the gym together,’ said Dove. ‘To Rogan’s in Prahran. Same workout group. Bricknell, Simons, Brody, Curlew, Hendry. And Jourdan.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Sniffed around.’
‘You’re suggesting that although we latched on to Koenig by mistake…’
‘I’ve been thinking. Maybe it wasn’t a mistake. Maybe we were being pointed at Koenig.’
Villani ate, considered. ‘Phipps?’ he said.
‘Not answering the phone. Not at home. Neighbour says she hasn’t seen him for a while. But that’s not unusual, she says.’
Dove put his hand in his jacket, took out his phone, slid it, talked, yes, no, yes, okay. He put the phone away.