‘Yeah, well, near the end,’ he said, ‘there’s stuff, she wants to see Father Cusack and he doesn’t come and she keeps asking the nurses and they just pat her and he doesn’t come and she doesn’t want to die without confession and then he comes and she’s happy. She says she’s at peace.’
‘That’s so nice,’ said Birkerts. ‘That’s such an uplifting story. Might go to confession myself. Confess that I let you fuck around here when you could be doing something useful.’
‘There’s more?’ said Villani.
‘The last thing she wrote, she says a Father Donald, he came,’ said Tomasic. ‘He’d kissed the Holy Father’s ring, and he asked her a lot of questions and he said she’d be at God’s right hand for telling Father Cusack about the evil. Pretty much a booked seat. Specially blessed. Yeah.’
‘What’s at the left hand?’ said Birkerts. ‘What’s the scene there?’
‘Islamites wipe their bums with the left hand,’ said Tomasic.
‘Only.’
‘It’s kissing the ring that’s the worry,’ said Villani.
He felt uneasy, not just because they were looking at the things an old woman took to the place where she expected to die, the last possessions, the only possessions of worth of all the things acquired in her life, of all the thousands of things, only these had any value, any meaning.
From his own life, not many things he would take to the last stop. There was a meaning here. There was something speaking to them and they did not know the language.
Villani thought about his trees, shimmering in the hot winds, the deciduous leaves browning at the edges, closing their pores, trying to think their way into late autumn, no water evaporating, the chain of water molecules in the limbs ceasing to draw moisture from the roots, the trees telling themselves they could live through this if they remained perfectly still and controlled their breathing.
They deserved some help, his trees.
He should go now, leave this place infused with the badness of the people who had lived here, died close by, deserved to die, leave and drive up the long roads to where he came from, they would let him through the roadblocks, he could put on his uniform, they wouldn’t fuck with an inspector, they would let him go on.
His mobile.
‘My son,’ Colby said, ‘I tell you hide under the bed, you go out and treat a minister like street scum. The reward is you are invited to tea with Miss Orong and the AG, Signor DiPalma. How’s that? A fucking quinella.’
‘Never a quinella man,’ said Villani.
‘I recall you in enough shit without the exotics,’ said Colby. ‘And now you have become the force’s shit-magnet. They want you now. They await you.’
Colby didn’t know the half of it. Or did he? That day in the car, in the carpark behind Lygon Street, Dance reached under his seat and gave him a black and white Myer shopping bag.
‘The trick when you hand it over,’ said Dance, ‘is to avoid photo opportunities.’
Villani put the bag in his boot. He counted it later, it took so long he realised why the big drug players used machines. A few hundreds, fifties, mostly twenties and tens and fives. Thirty thousand dollars in all.
‘Well, all very interesting,’ said Villani. ‘You’ve got the nose, Tommo. But we don’t need any more Ribaric history. Just be grateful they don’t have a future. Time to move on.’
AN OLIVE-SKINNED young woman, pinstriped suit, took him up in the lift, down a long corridor hung with paintings, portraits. She opened a door, waved him in.
A woman sat behind a desk, deep lines from her nose. She was a gatekeeper.
‘Inspector Villani,’ said the escort.
‘Thank you,’ said the gatekeeper.
The escort left. The gatekeeper picked up a phone and said, ‘Inspector Villani.’
A huge panelled door opened and a sandy young man holding files came out. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Come in.’
Villani went in, the door closed after him. The attorney-general, Chris DiPalma, behind a desk big enough for three, he was in shirtsleeves, a pink shirt, tie loose, glasses down his thin nose, serious expression, like a magistrate, send you to jail if you didn’t cringe.
Martin Orong, the police minister, sat in a club chair. He smiled at Villani, it resembled a smile.
‘Sit down, inspector,’ DiPalma said. ‘You know Martin, I gather.’
Villani sat.
‘Call you Steve?’
‘Yes, minister.’
‘To the point, Steve, You’ve been giving Stuart Koenig a hard time. He’s upset.’
‘Routine questioning,’ said Villani.
‘The Prosilio girl?’
‘A murder inquiry.’
‘This is between us. Colleagues, strictest confidence. With me?’
‘All police work is in strictest confidence, minister,’ Villani said.
DiPalma looked at Orong.
‘Mr Koenig says he co-operated with you, gave you a full and verifiable account of his whereabouts. Is that right?’
Villani said, ‘It’s policy not to discuss investigations, minister.’
‘And then you apply to get his phone records on the grounds of his involvement in a murder inquiry.’
‘That is correct,’ said Villani. ‘He is involved in a murder inquiry.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said DiPalma, ‘you don’t get it, do you?’
Orong touched his stiff forelock. ‘Come on, Steve, this is just a friendly chat, no rank pulled here. All we want to do is the right thing by Stuart, that’s not a big ask, is it?’
This was the moment to back off. Villani was going to and then he saw himself encouraging Dove to take Koenig on and he couldn’t.
‘We want to do the right thing by you too,’ said Orong. ‘Your career. Future.’
Villani said to DiPalma, ‘Minister, we’re pursuing a line of inquiry we believe will help us with a murder investigation. That’s all I can say.’
DiPalma had an open folder in front of him, he tapped it with his fingernails: manicured, pink. ‘I think we’re going to have to be plainer with you, Steve. Stuart Koenig’s been a naughty boy but that’s the limit of it. He’s had sex with a prostitute. That’s all. Now I want you to back off. You’ve got a big admirer in Mr Barry, the force is about to have a leadership regeneration, he’s considering you for a senior role in the new dispensation.’
DiPalma picked up a fountain pen, black and fat, wrote a sentence in the folder, looked up. ‘Is that plain enough for you, inspector? Can I be bloody plainer?’
Villani nodded.
‘And there’s another little matter you might want to consider,’ said DiPalma. ‘The renewed interest in the death of Greg Quirk. That involves you and Dance and Detective Senior Sergeant Vickery. We may let this take its course. Or we may not. Is that also bloody plain enough?’
‘It is, minister,’ said Villani.
‘Good,’ said DiPalma. ‘The election’s close, it’s not a time for ministers to be touched by murder investigations. However innocent they are. So, we’ve reached an understanding that you will delete Mr Koenig from your investigation. Nothing will be heard of your visit to him. Absolutely nothing. Fuckall. If this leaks, there will be blood. Yours.’
He stood, they all stood.
Orong coughed, a small-dog bark. ‘And this whole Prosilio shit,’ he said. ‘Let it lie for the moment. There’s no upside there for you and it’s all bad news for the building. Get on with important work. Career-enhancing stuff.’
DiPalma offered his hand, Villani shook it. Then he shook Orong’s treacherous little hand. He left the offices, walked down the cool and self-important corridor. From the walls, the dead watched him pass, they had seen many a coward come and go.
In a short time, he was on the street, orange sun behind the haze, looking for Finucane, unaccountably thinking about the first horse Bob raced, the best horse he ever had, the lovely little grey called Truth who won at her second start, won three from twelve, always game, never gave up. She sickened and died in hours, buckled and lay, her sweet eyes forgave them their stupid inability to save her.