Crucifixion Creek (9 page)

She climbs the stairs, up past the bedroom floor to the attic room under the roof.
Up here where a small window looks out through the branches of the plane tree, it
feels like a children's tree house. This was Harry's father's sanctuary, his study,
and there is still a faint lingering smell of the small cigars that he liked to smoke
when he had to do some serious thinking. It comforts her to come up here. She misses
them both, Mary earthy and indomitable, and Danny with that impish sense of humour
that used to delight Greg and Nicole's little girls, filling their house with shrieks
and giggles. And Jenny listening to them with an ache in her belly, wanting so much
to have children of her own to join in.

The walls are lined with shelving carrying hundreds of books,
box files, diaries
and law magazines. Somewhere among them may be the answer to why he and Mary died,
if Harry is right in his belief that their deaths were deliberate. In the hours he's
spent searching the documents he's come up with a long list of possible lethal motives.
Danny Belltree was involved in a lot of cases during his long legal career.

Jenny sits in his old office chair and runs her fingers over his smooth cedar table
top. By the time she was released from hospital after the crash, Harry had moved
back into his parents' house. He brought her here, and they have been here ever since.
It's a much nicer home than the ugly little flat in Bondi, but still, she doesn't
know if it was a good idea. Surely the constant presence of his parents in every
room fuels his obsession to explain their deaths—when in truth, as the coroner decided,
there may not be an explanation to find.

When she returned from the hospital and first began to learn how to live a blind
life, she started with this house. She learned from painful experience its traps
and dangers for the unsighted. And she trained her memory and inner eye to reconstruct
its geometry, its details. She felt the dimensions and texture of each piece of furniture,
each picture on the walls, and built their images in her mind. Over there, for example,
in the angle beneath the sloping surface of the roof, is a 1965 photograph of the
young Danny and Mary on the Freedom Ride in Moree, protesting for the civil rights
of Indigenous Australians. She looks impassioned, pretty and pale. He stands at her
side, awkward. Proud. It was through them, doing research work in Danny's chambers,
that Jenny first met Harry. She sometimes wonders if they chose her for him.

12

It is now one-forty, the same time that Greg died, which seems auspicious somehow.
He finds a parking space in The Rocks and walks back up into the business district
with the bag slung on his back. As he approaches the glass cylinder of the Gipps
Tower he makes a brief call to Jenny, ‘Ready to go.' He pulls on latex gloves and
walks down the ramp of the tower's basement to a pedestrian door at the foot, where
he taps in the entry code on the keypad. Half expecting nothing to happen, he tries
the handle. The door opens silently and he steps inside. Halfway down a bare corridor
there's a door into one of the fire escape stairwells that rise through the building
and he begins his climb.

When he emerges into the lobby of the twenty-third floor there is only low-level
emergency lighting. No lights show through the glass doors of the tenants' offices
that he passes to get to Bluereef Financial Services—also in darkness. Again the
entry code works. He holds his breath as he opens the door, bracing for an alarm
that may be independent of the main tower systems, but there is no sound. He is in
a small reception area—a computer on a desk and
filing cabinets behind. He opens
a door opposite. This looks like the principal's office—Kristich's—with a large desk
and computer on one side of the room and a conference table and chairs over against
the external wall—full-height glass that looks out to the shimmering lights of the
CBD. There are no pictures on the wall and the furnishings look generic, as if rented
and ready to be abandoned.

There is another room beyond this one, and the glow of a light through the half-open
door. Harry pads silently across the carpet to see. The light comes from a lamp on
a low table beside a sofa facing a TV. A private sitting room? There are some men's
magazines and a couple of used glasses. A champagne bottle, Krug. One of the glasses
has traces of lipstick.

He returns to the office and searches the desk drawers, finding nothing of interest.
Then out to the reception area, to the filing cabinets, which are locked. It takes
him a few minutes to find the keys in the receptionist's desk, and he begins a search
through the files. The first drawer is full of blank forms and letterheads, the second
booklets and forms relating to tax and property, the third staff files. The client
files start in the fourth drawer. Each file is identified by a number rather than
a name, and they are in numerical order, so that he has to open each one in order
to identify the client. It takes him some time to discover one for Waterford, and
then another for March. He pulls them out, and is about to relock the cabinets when,
out of curiosity, he flicks through a few more files and comes upon one with the
name ‘Belltree' scrawled on the front. He freezes, then slowly draws it out, turns
the locks and replaces the keys.

He is in mild shock, his heart thumping. Now the computer. Which one should he take?
He decides the one in Kristich's office is more likely to contain sensitive material,
and heads back there. As he steps towards the desk he feels a tightening in his scalp.
There's something—a smell…And as he turns, a voice from behind him.

‘Who the fuck are you?'

The man is a black silhouette against the electric panorama
beyond the window. Harry
lays the files on the desk at his side as the figure moves to the wall and flips
the lights. A short man going fleshy, pale hair thinning. Probably no more than forty,
wearing a silk dressing gown. Harry recognises him as Alexander Kristich, and the
pistol in his hand as a US Army Ruger 1911. Kristich is staring in fascination at
the latex gloves on Harry's hands. His voice sounds a little slurred as he advances
on Harry. ‘Hands up. Turn around.' He waves the heavy pistol at Harry, who wonders
if he knows how to use it, if it's loaded or cocked. He turns and lets Kristich
feel his pockets and pat his chest.

Kristich backs off. ‘Well?' he demands. ‘Who are you?'

‘I'm a student, Mr Kristich.' Harry slowly turns to face him, lowering his arms.

‘A what?'

‘A student of your methods. I want to learn from you.'

Kristich splutters. ‘You're joking.'

‘I think you're an expert at what you do.'

‘Oh yeah?' Kristich waves him away from the desk, and cautiously flips over the covers
of the files. ‘Waterford…March. Why these two?'

‘Because they ended up dead. I want to find out how you did that.'

‘You're a cop.' But he sounds uncertain. ‘Or what? You after a little something for
yourself?'

Harry says nothing, then Kristich's face clears and he laughs, as if he's suddenly
decided that this is a hilarious situation. ‘You want to learn from me, do you? You
want to know what my secret is? Well, I'll tell you. I'm a student too. I study human
weakness, and then I facilitate it. Take those people…' he waves towards the files,
‘…the Waterfords. Great ambitions, yeah? They want to leave a memorial, a new exhibition
room in the State Gallery named after them. Trouble is, it's going to cost twenty
mill, and they only got about ten.' He shrugs, falsely modest. ‘I told them I could
increase
their wealth by ten per cent a month. They weren't sure at first, but I
persuaded them to give me a try. The first month they give me half a mill, and after
thirty days I give them back five-fifty thou. The second month they give me a mill,
and I give 'em one point one. Third month, two mill, and I give them two point two.
And the fourth month they give me everything and I take it all. See?'

Harry sees. It's a classic con. ‘But how did you get onto them in the first place?
How do you do your research?'

‘Investment conference. Always good for networking one way or another, meet their
son Justin in the bar. Wow, he is a gloomy guy. His folks have got it into their
heads to give all his inheritance away. What can he do? So I tell him to get them
to come talk to me.'

‘So you sorted it out, what, for a fee?'

‘Ten per cent, but what Justin doesn't know is that I'll actually take fifty. He'll
accept it. He's got no choice. I could take more, but who knows, he may have friends
who need my services. Half is better than zilch after all.'

‘And the other case, March? You're taking half?'

‘Oh no, I get the lot on that one. That loser should never have been in business.
He was on his last legs.'

‘But won't you lose your investment?'

Kristich smirks and places a finger beside his nose. Then he looks suddenly bored
and shuffles the files apart to reveal the third one, Belltree. ‘What's this?' and
his flaccid features abruptly stiffen. He turns to stare at Harry. ‘Why this one?'

Harry's mind goes blank. He can't think of a word to say, but then it seems he doesn't
have to, because Kristich's face breaks into a broad smile as he looks over Harry's
shoulder. ‘About bloody time, Benji.'

Benji is a large, heavily tattooed Pacific islander, the same Benjamin Lavulo that
Harry identified at the Creek. ‘Yeah, sorry, Sandy. Whatsa problem? This guy thieving?'

‘That's what we have to find out, Benji.' Since he saw the Belltree file Kristich
has become more focused. ‘Give him a good search, will you? I couldn't find anything—no
wallet, no phone.'

Benji does a thorough job, feeling under Harry's arms, his groin, his ankles. ‘No,
not a thing.'

‘A bug, a wire?'

‘No, don't reckon. Not even a watch.'

‘Do it again.'

They wait while Benji examines Harry's hair, his ears, his shoes. ‘No.'

Kristich points to an office chair and tells Harry to sit down. ‘So who are you?'

Harry stares back, says nothing.

‘Lost for words, eh? You got that knife of yours, Benji?'

‘Sure, Mr Kristich.' Benji takes a horned handle from his pocket and springs out
the long blade.

‘Okay, I'll take it and you cover him with this.'

They exchange weapons, and Benji expertly works the slide on the pistol, cocking
it.

‘Now.' They both close in on the seated Harry. Kristich waves the blade under his
nose. ‘Just so you know, I like hurting people. What's your name?'

Harry stays silent, and Kristich crouches in front of him, a greedy smile on his
lips. ‘All right.' He jabs the knife at Harry's chest. Harry feels it pierce his
skin and touch something solid, a rib. He flinches.

‘Oh!' An excited little gasp as Kristich withdraws the knife and examines the blood
on the tip. ‘You might as well give us a name to put on your grave, mate.' He draws
back his elbow for a harder stab. As his arm lunges forward Harry's right hand shoots
out and grabs it, steering the blow away from his own body and hard into Benji's
chest. With his left hand he grips Benji's hand and squeezes, pressing on the trigger
finger. There is a stunning bang and Kristich
topples backward, a large bloody hole
in his front.

A long reverberating moment. Both Kristich and Benji are on the floor. Blood pumps
from Kristich's wound for a count of four, then fades to a trickle. Benji is groaning,
blood spilling from his lips, and he coughs and tries to sit up. Harry reaches down
and punches the knife in deeper. He subsides, twitches for a moment and is still.
Harry feels for a pulse in his neck. Nothing.

He gets carefully to his feet. Checks his shoes for blood and steps away, around
the bloodstains on the carpet. This is a crime scene, he tells himself. What do you
see? Take a deep breath, take your time.

He goes over to the desk and thinks about how he will pack the computer into his
bag, along with all its bits and pieces—wires, keyboard, mouse and mat. Then he notices
a dark grey box attached to the computer. External back-up hard drive. He slips that
into his backpack along with the files, leaving the computer intact.

When he's ready he looks over at Kristich and murmurs, ‘So where did you come from?'

He goes back into the sitting room to take another look and sees that its back wall
is in fact a set of sliding doors, now half-open. Through the gap he can see the
end of a bed. Kristich lives here, he thinks. He goes to the opening and takes in
the whole little windowless bedroom, and on the bed a naked woman, eyes closed. There
is a syringe on the floor.

As he stares at her, wondering if she's alive or dead, she opens her eyes, taking
a long moment to focus. ‘Who're you?' she mumbles.

‘Sandy's friend,' he says.

She opens her eyes wider and stares at him for a moment, then sighs, ‘Oh.' She rolls
over and drifts off to sleep again.

He backs out of the room and returns to the office, takes one last look around and
leaves.

When he arrives home, Jenny is waiting. She recognises the smell of gunsmoke on his
jacket from his annual drills on the police
firing range. She doesn't panic. She
wants to know what happened. He tells her, and is surprised by how calmly she takes
it in, every detail. He gives her the hard drive, which she strokes with her fingers
while he opens the files. The Waterford file contains surveyor's plans of the properties
on Mortimer Street owned by the dead couple. Greg's file, similarly, has a plan of
his unit in the Creek, together with the loan agreement he signed with Bluereef Financial.
The Belltree file contains a single sheet of paper, a photocopy of a group photograph
of the judicial officers of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Justice Daniel
Belltree's head is circled in red ink.