The Tower (39 page)

After Troy had called yesterday morning, he'd gone outside, had a smoke, rung Henry. Asked him what was going on.

‘That's not an appropriate question,' Wu said.

‘It's the mystery man, isn't it?' Randall said.

He had no idea where the thought came from, but it had been on the money, he could tell from the tone of Henry's denial. Something about the interest he'd shown when Randall had told him about the fellow the cops were calling Mr A.

Jesus, Randall had thought, dropping his butt on the gravel and stamping on it. Henry's right into the whole Teresi business. At some level.

‘Troy's a decent fellow,' he said. ‘If you let me know what this is all about, I can help you get what you want.'

He felt guilty. Scared. Excited.

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' said Wu. ‘And now I must go.'

‘Don't—' Randall said, but it was too late.

He stared at the walls and drank the juice. Did the time calculation and reached for the phone on the table by the bed, dialled his mum. She was always delighted to hear from him; since his dad had moved out she had a lot of spare time. The old man's problems had filled her life for so long there was now a great emptiness. He knew from past experience that after ten minutes she'd start to talk about Mary Walsh, the daughter of one of her old friends. Randall had gone to school with her, and she'd been exactly what you'd expect of a girl named Mary. His mum would say how he should have married her, how she was still unwed, something big these days in the Cork Tourist Bureau. She'd always wanted him to stay in Ireland, marry someone local. Poor Ma, retreating into her own past, before the mess she'd made of her life when she'd briefly ventured from Ireland's shores all those years before.

And now it's my turn, Randall thought. To make a mess of things. Maybe it was time to go back. But let's not think of that yet. There was a click at the other end of the line and as she answered he realised he was crying.

‘Ma?' he said.

Thirty-three

A
nna took Matt to a service at ChristLife in Botany while Troy walked to Holy Family on Maroubra Road. At first he didn't pay much attention as the mass progressed, just thinking about his situation. When the sermon began, he tried to focus on what the priest was saying, in the faint hope it might contain some sort of message for him. But it didn't seem to; the priest was talking about evil but not with conviction, not as though he comprehended behaviour of the sort Troy was up against. Luke was different. When he spoke of evil you got the sense he knew its shape and feel. This was one of the reasons Troy had been drawn to him years ago.

Earlier that morning he'd checked his email, and there'd been nothing related to the other night. Anna hadn't looked at hers today, there was no reason to. Troy wondered when the next blow would fall, when he would be asked for money. He should inform his superiors of his situation now, but told himself it could wait until a demand was made. Telling what he'd done would be like giving a bit of himself away forever. He wondered how they'd react. Maybe he should talk to McIver first.

After mass he stood outside the church for a while, chatting to acquaintances about football, gardening, the weather. Nippers was due to start soon, and several parents wanted to check on the times. The ordinariness of the talk seeped into him, healthy as the warmth of the sun, and he was reluctant to leave, but he and Anna were expecting guests, so he made his way home.

While he walked he checked his phone and saw there was a message to call McIver. The sergeant had a string of queries about last week's work, and as Troy answered them he realised his memory was strangely fragmented. The pieces were there, but not always in the right place.

‘We've found out something weird,' McIver said. ‘The lab reckons Damon Blake's DNA doesn't match the skin we found under Margot's fingernails.'

Troy stopped walking. ‘But he said she scratched him. I saw the marks.'

They'd examined Blake's back during the interview. The singer had said some of the marks were from his current girlfriend, but a few were from Margot. He looked at Conti while he said this, and Troy recalled her blushing.

‘Something else, Conti's found out how the shooter got the key. One of the council admin workers sold it to someone who sounds like Bazzi, for a thousand dollars.'

‘You've had a good weekend.'

‘Conti's on the ball.'

Troy said, ‘I'm coming in.'

‘No you're not. If you do, I'll send you home. Siegert tells me you came in yesterday. What was that all about?'

‘I had to pick up something.'

‘He said you were shaving.'

‘How many people have you got in there today?'

‘I'm terminating this conversation,' McIver said. ‘Try to relax, for Christ's sake.'

He hung up.

Ralph Dutton arrived at eleven o'clock with his wife Wendy and their two small boys. Troy had become friends with Dutton years ago, when they were both starting out as constables in Sutherland. Later they'd worked together for a while as detectives. Each had been best man at the other's wedding. They still kept in touch, even after Dutton left the force. Ralph was a big, naturally pale man, who wore a baseball cap whenever he was outdoors to protect his skull from the sun. He was wearing it today, the same faded Sea Eagles cap Troy recalled from years ago. Dutton used to wear it even with a suit, to the intense annoyance of an inspector they'd had at Chatswood.

The two families had arranged to do the long walk along the cliffs and beaches from Maroubra to Bondi. When they left the house, Troy noticed a Subaru Liberty standing outside, behind his own station wagon. Compared with the Camry, it was big and solid. Dutton saw him eyeing the vehicle and beamed.

‘Had it for three months,' he said. ‘We're very happy with it.'

‘Four-wheel drive,' Troy said politely.

‘The handling. You should take it for a run afterwards. Wendy feels a lot better driving it, the way the traffic is these days.'

Wendy said, ‘We'd never go back to a Commodore.'

Troy nodded, thinking about what McIver and the others would be doing at The Tower. After a bit, he realised he was still nodding and forced himself to stop.

Once they got going, the wives moved ahead with their strollers and the men followed behind, Dutton carrying his elder boy on his broad shoulders.

‘I see you've been in the papers again,' he said. ‘Not like you.'

‘I couldn't help it,' Troy said. ‘Politics.'

‘You don't want to get a reputation for that sort of thing. People start to notice you for the wrong reason.' Ever since they'd made Ralph a manager, it had become important to him to demonstrate his knowledge of how the world operated. He said, ‘Don't worry, it'll pass.'

‘It will indeed.'

One way or another.

Dutton told him about a family holiday they were taking next month to California.

‘Bank balance healthy, then?' Troy said.

It was a subject Ralph liked to talk about. ‘Over a hundred and fifty a year now. Not bad for a working-class boy.'

Troy grunted. A Homicide inspector might earn a hundred if he was lucky. And there weren't many inspectors.

As they walked along the edge of the dog park at the end of Coogee Beach, Dutton talked about the trip, how they were going to hire a car and drive to all the places he'd seen on television. Starting at Los Angeles and Disneyland, they'd go up the coast to Big Sur and San Francisco, then keep heading north to Seattle and the Boeing factory.

Dutton worked at the airport, and had gradually been acquiring an interest in aircraft. It was something Troy had noticed before. Intelligent men in boring jobs often took up hobbies, did courses or became wine bores.

‘Airport okay?' he said.

It was what his conversations with Dutton consisted of these days, he realised—him providing openings so his friend could boast. There was little reciprocation. Dutton seemed to have almost no interest in police work anymore, except where it touched on his own professional concerns.

‘Great,' Dutton said. ‘There's a lot of technology involved, and liaison with government agencies. I tell you, Nick, with the scope of the terrorism threat, the private sector's become much more important in the wider security picture.'

‘Is that so?'

‘And we've got the budget to face the challenges.'

Unlike the police, Troy thought. Anything related to riots or terrorism had been well funded these past years, but often the money seemed to have been pulled from other areas of police work.

Dutton said, ‘You still got the old Glocks?'

Troy smiled. ‘This is where you're going to offer me a job, aren't you?'

Several times in the past year he'd received a call from a friend or acquaintance who'd moved out. Once he'd even been taken for a pleasant meal. But he'd never been tempted.

‘No,' Dutton said. ‘We're just about to expand and we've got some jobs going, good jobs. But I wouldn't offer one to you.'

Ridiculously, Troy felt almost offended, and asked Dutton why not.

The other man laughed. ‘First, you don't need the money. You already have the home near the beach which half this city is working its butt off to achieve. So the normal incentive structure breaks down in your case. And second, you'd always regret it.'

‘Why so?'

‘Because you're a natural cop. The job matches your needs at a fundamental level.'

The insight displayed by Dutton's comment mildly surprised Troy. You should never underestimate people, he thought. Not even your friends.

He said, ‘What about you? Do you regret leaving?'

‘You think I just went for the money. It was partly that. But I hit a situation. I'm sorry I never told you. It's taken me a few years to see what happened.'

Dutton explained that he'd accepted a promotion into a section Troy regarded almost with contempt: the traffic branch. There'd been another promotion soon after, so Dutton had streaked ahead of him.

Troy assumed the private sector had been the goal all along.

‘There was a problem with the figures,' Dutton said. ‘Up there, things become more blurry.'

‘Up there in traffic?'

‘In management,' Dutton said, ‘I found I'd traded the satisfaction of operational policing for a lot of management bullshit. If that was going to be my life, why not get paid properly? So I walked.'

‘Tell me about the figures.'

Dutton considered this and said, ‘You don't want to know.'

‘I do.'

‘Believe me. One thing I've learned, ignorance really is bliss. A lot of the time.'

When they reached the Coogee shops the women stopped to let the men catch up. They were all feeling the heat. Wendy had turned a deep shade of pink and Ralph was glistening with sweat. Troy looked him up and down, realised for the first time he was wearing boating shoes. Soon the Duttons would be moving to the North Shore. Anna was looking fine, apart from the perspiration marks on her T-shirt. She always said she hated the heat, and resented any suggestion she should be used to it because she'd been born in India. But she handled it well.

He said, ‘Anyone for an ice cream?'

They crossed the road and walked beneath the awnings in front of the shops, found a gourmet place and bought expensive cones. Dutton insisted on paying. As they made their way back to the beach, he told the women the story of one of the city's classic crimes. In 1935 there'd been a saltwater pool here, and on Anzac Day a huge shark, recently caught along the coast and placed in the pool, disgorged a human arm. It belonged to Jim Smith, a police informant, and had been cut off with a knife.

‘No,' said Wendy, waving her cone at her husband. ‘No more.' She turned to Anna and said vehemently, ‘I'm so glad he left that job.'

Troy saw the women exchange glances, and then Wendy looked at him defiantly. He could tell she was thinking about whether to say more. Then it came out: ‘You ought to leave too. It saved our marriage.'

Troy smiled and shook his head. It was not the sort of thing he had any desire to even think about. He was enjoying the day, the past week on hold for the time being. The others were looking at him. When he said nothing, the moment passed. Dutton, looking a little embarrassed, bent down to say something to his son.

When they got going again, this time with the men in front and the little boy walking behind with his mother, Troy said, ‘Do you regret leaving operations?'

They'd never discussed it before. They'd never had a conversation like this one before, but maybe they'd each grown up a bit.

Dutton said, ‘At first you miss the stimulation, but then you realise that's actually a good thing, because the stimulation is unnatural, it's bad for you. You learn to live without it, and your life becomes better.'

‘So people who need the stimulation are addicts?' Troy said.

‘You realise that waking up every morning and feeling under pressure, maybe scared, isn't natural.'

Troy found this interesting: most mornings in the job, he'd never woken up feeling that way.

Fifteen minutes later, Dutton said, ‘Can I ask you a favour?'

He spoke with an elaborate casualness, as though he'd been contemplating what he was about to say for a while. In general terms, Troy knew what was coming. He'd always thought this would happen.

‘Will you mind if I say no?' he said.

‘Of course not.' Dutton sounded offended. ‘But you don't know what it is.'

‘It was a joke.' Or maybe not, the way Dutton was looking.

‘Look, I've never asked anything like this before, it's just—we go back, don't we? And this means a lot to me. I wouldn't ask, otherwise. You know that, don't you?' When Troy said nothing, he added, ‘We'd be very grateful.'