‘Giss,’ she said. ‘Giss.’
‘I’m so dumb,’ said Villani, ‘I should join the police. Treasure chest, bullshit. You want your fags, don’t you? Forget it, ma.’
Her eyes closed in slow motion. ‘Take the keys, Stevie,’ she said, faint. ‘Go around and get me chest.’
Villani found the keys, put the bag back in the cupboard.
‘Do that, then,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, Rosie. I’ll be back.’
He stood. Her eyes remained closed.
‘Giss a kiss, Stevie,’ she said. ‘Giss a cuddle. Me only good boy. Come too late.’
Villani felt tears coming, he leaned over and took her shoulders in soft hands, pressed his face to her, kissed her riven cheek beneath the bandage and in himself there was a great resentment and a great feeling of the unfairness in his life.
On a winter day, in the big break, backs against the demountable, shelter from the ice wind, clever little monkeyface Kel Bryson said:
They ever find your mum?
In the car, his mobile rang.
Colby.
COLBY LOOKED as if he’d come off the golf course. ‘Searle says it’s pulled, does he?’ he said.
‘For tomorrow,’ said Villani. ‘The question is, did Ruskin get it from welfare or Sex Crimes? Or both?’
Colby opened a file on the desk, flicked to a page, put on thin rimless glasses. ‘I can tell you there’s no Sexual Crimes statement,’ he said. ‘Tell me what abused means.’
‘Made her suck me off.’
Colby showed nothing. ‘You do that?’
Villani stared at him for a while. ‘What do you think?’
‘Don’t know what to think.’
Villani rose, walked down the long room, prints on the walls, he registered every step, chewing the bile in his mouth.
Colby’s voice, raised but calm. ‘Hey, come back, sunshine.’
Villani turned, hand on the door handle.
Colby beckoned, four fingers tight as a bird wing. ‘C’mere, son.’
Villani hesitated. He went back, he could do no other. They sat, chins down, eyes locked, their history hummed. ‘Christ, this is hard shit,’ said Colby.
‘I’ll quit,’ said Villani. ‘Just got some things to finish.’
‘How long’s she been on the streets?’
‘About a week. But she was hanging out with the scum before. Wagging.’
‘Drugs?’
‘What else?’
‘How old?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘Just a baby, really.’
For weeks and weeks, the baby Lizzie had colic, whatever colic was, her night cries entering his dreams, strange stories developing around the insistent sound. They took turns walking her in the dark, the passage, the kitchen, the sitting room, it was many times in a night, you walked her, she stopped crying, you put her down like landing a soap bubble, went back to bed, she made a sound, it became a cry, a skewer in your head, you got up again.
Sometimes Lizzie slept between feeds. Sometimes he cheated when the cries woke him, nudged Laurie, lied that he’d just had his turn, she rose, no idea of how long she’d been asleep. He said to himself that she’d probably done the same to him, they were both trying to survive. But he knew she wouldn’t, she didn’t know how to lie.
The difference was that if the phone rang, Laurie didn’t have to go to an in-progress. Could be doped drunk fuckwits had a gun and a brilliant 2am idea, could be hardcore, two, three jobs in a night, take a couple of months off, go north, fishing, whoring. Both lots could kill you.
Once it rang as he was changing Lizzie’s nappy, gagging on the smell of the yellow puree, first dirty light in the eastern window, everything about him numb, brain, feet, hands, only the nose functioning. Twenty minutes later he had his back against a wall in a lane off Sydney Road, listening to two braindeads come out of the roof, they had lifted a sheet of corrugated iron. Next to him, Xavier Benedict Dance was smiling his dog smile.
‘They stop being baby girls earlier now,’ Villani said. ‘They can go from baby girls to fuckpigs in a very short time.’
‘Hasn’t escaped me,’ said Colby. ‘But incest, that’s not a barbiestopper, that’s the barbie blows up, kills seven. We have to look at the big picture here…’
A silence. Colby’s phone rang, a few words, grunts, eyes on the ceiling, goodbye, he stared at Villani.
‘So where’s she now?’
‘No idea.’
‘Tell me again it’s bullshit.’
‘Don’t believe me?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Definite negative. I can probably arrange to squeeze the welfare attack-bitch kennel but we need Ruskin permanently squirrelled. Reckon your missus can talk sense into the girl?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Okay, we’ll find her. Stay nice with Searle. I don’t know why he’s doing this.’
Villani nodded. If only he could put his head back against the chair and go to sleep, someone else in charge, feel the way he felt when the Kenworth came through the gate on a Friday night, he saw Bob’s sharp face, the downturned smile, the raised thumb. It was as if angels had lifted a bag of lead sinkers from his shoulders.
‘There’s something else,’ said Colby. ‘Mr Barry tells me the popular belief is that you talked about Stuart Koenig to Ms Anna Markham while fucking her. Do that?’
‘I did not.’
‘That’s the talking, not the fucking?’
‘Who’s surveilling her building? Or her?’
‘How would I know? Who would tell me? Ask your mate Dance.’
‘Crucible?’
‘I have no fucking idea. What I have an idea about is Greg Quirk. Payback time, son. These babies get back in, new inquest. DiPalma wants to screw you till your earwax melts and you go to jail for twenty years and then the real fun begins. I, of course, remain confident that you and Dancer and fucking Vickery weren’t making stuff up the first time around.’
Villani stared at Colby. He seemed less lined around the eyes, forehead smoother. Surely not?
‘This Prosilio hooker,’ Colby said. ‘I understood that was in the vault.’
‘It’s open, in progress.’
‘Yeah. But in the vault.’
‘Forgotten about the vault, boss.’
‘Stephen, only a brain-dead cunt forgets about the vault. With me?’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘And you should now personally beseech the blessed virgin several hours nightly for the voters to shaft these arses. And in the day you keep your hands out of your pockets and do nothing to offend the squatters.’
Koenig was there when the girl was killed. Villani knew it in his bone marrow. Never mind him being at home in Portsea. He wasn’t there. He was in Kew. How often had Koenig’s wife lied for him? Bricknell rang him and he went to Prosilio, parked underground. One girl each.
HE TOOK the fire stairs, millions of them, doors to push, he paced himself and as he went he thought about what the job had meant to him and remembered the moment when he sat back in Singo’s chair and thought: Stephen Villani, head of Homicide and he deserves to be.
Bob had no pride in him being boss of Homicide. Cop job, that’s all it was. Far beneath foreman, shift boss, night supervisor of anything. But the best his second-best son could do. Second-best until Luke arrived, then third-best. Just a useful body, a cook, guard dog, washer and ironer of clothes, homework checker, reading and spelling tutor, feeder of dogs and horses, mucker-out in chief, track rider, tree planter and waterer.
You’re not the doctor, boy, you’re the fucking copper.
Mark.
Mark was Bob’s achievement in life, the proof that his sperm carried cleverness. He saw no wrong in Mark, he would hear no evil about Mark, he exempted Mark from anything Mark didn’t want to do.
He did crossword puzzles with Mark.
Bob never once asked Villani a crossword question. Never.
And then Luke, the bastard by the Darwin whore. The cheeky one, the one who had no fear of his father, demanded affection from him like a puppy, hung onto him, crawled up his legs into his lap, ate off his plate, found sweets in his pockets, fell asleep on him in an instant, safe, safe and home at last. Bob carried him to his bed like some precious newborn, tucked him in, Villani saw that from the door, the tucks, the kiss.