The Tower (42 page)

Bergman started to talk again but Troy turned his back on him and walked over to his car. He opened the door but didn't get in, waiting there until eventually he heard Bergman drive away.

When the street was quiet again, he checked his mobile for messages. Anna had called, which was unusual. He rang back, his heart pounding. She answered straight away.

‘You've had a strange call,' she said. ‘A man asked me to tell you to meet him. I told him he should call your mobile, but he said he was calling from a public phone and didn't have any more money.'

‘What was his name?'

‘He wouldn't leave a name. He said to meet him at the Mornington Apartments. He said you'd know the time.'

It was as though a small explosion had gone off somewhere. So this is it, Troy thought.

‘Thanks, honey.'

‘How did he get our number?' she said loudly. ‘He woke Matt, he was having a sleep. It took me an hour to get him off.'

She sounded almost hysterical. Troy wondered if he should have married someone with more experience of life. He'd wanted the serenity she seemed to offer, which came partly from innocence. He'd fallen deeply, hungrily, in love with it, as though it might counteract what he'd been through in his own life. But whatever peace he'd found, it had proved fragile.

‘I have no idea. Maybe someone at the squad gave it out by mistake.'

‘I have to go. Matt's crying again.'

Troy could hear that. ‘I'll tell him not to call home again.'

She was gone.

He wondered how anyone could have got his home number, which was unlisted. Despite what he'd said to Anna, no one at work would give it out. Presumably the blackmailers had ways of obtaining it, would have someone they paid at a phone company. That didn't matter. What mattered was that they were playing with his mind, preparing him for some demand to come. It was important to remain steady.

Flipping open his notebook, he found the number Dick Finch had just given him and rang it. A secretary answered and said Peter Wood was in a meeting. Troy left his name and number and asked that Wood call him back as soon as possible.

He walked across the footpath and stood staring at the bush beyond. After a while he realised his mind had closed down, and he tried to focus on what he was looking at, to think about another subject. A strip a hundred metres wide had been cleared and covered with bark mulch, with the occasional native shrub or tuft of grass. It was well maintained. According to a small sign Troy found fifty metres down the way, it was cared for by local residents. There was even a rough, meandering path through it, and Troy imagined how pleasant it would be to bring your dog down here at the end of the day, chat with neighbours in the cool of the evening. There was nothing much to burn, so it would act as a break if a fire ever came up the valley. He turned and walked back to his car, looking up at the Finchs' house. A woman's white face was in one of the windows, staring down at him. He thought it might be Maureen Finch, although with the sun bouncing off the glass he couldn't be sure.

The phone rang and when he answered it there was an unfamiliar voice, distorted by some mechanical device.

‘No need to visit the Mornington Apartments again, detective.'

Another distant explosion. In the silence that followed, Troy said nothing.

‘The man you're looking for will visit you this afternoon at City Central at three. His evidence is perfectly acceptable if you don't push it too hard. If there are any problems, I'll send pictures of you and the lovely Tanya to your wife. The same if you talk to Mr Randall about this again.'

Troy said, ‘I'm telling my wife tonight.'

‘In my experience, it doesn't matter what a wife's been told, pictures will have a substantial impact. But we'll also send it to a large number of your colleagues and the media. And the internet. It will stay on the internet forever. The decision is yours.'

The speaker hung up.

The blow had fallen, and part of Troy's world changed. It was as though its component parts were separated, thrown up in the air, and as they came down they didn't fit together anymore. He got into his hot car and saw it was after midday. He thought about everything, and nothing. In the emptiness a line from the Bible came to him: It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Not that this was God, but it felt like it.

At the office he logged on to his personal email account and there was another video clip waiting for him. Unlike the first one, this had some text:
A present for Anna?
It had been sent from an address he didn't recognise, just a string of letters and numbers that he recorded. Presumably it would be no good for a trace. Presumably the person who'd sent this knew what he was doing. He deleted the message without looking at the attachment, thinking about what the man on the phone had said, thinking about the images being on the internet. Forever. People he knew, his son when he grew older, could find them there.

He sat for a while, wondering what to do. Mr A must be important. Hugely important. Nothing else came to him and he realised his energy level was down, every decision was like lifting heavy weights. His mobile rang and he answered it reluctantly.

‘Peter Wood,' the caller barked. ‘You rang me.'

For a moment his mind was blank and then it came to him: the man whose number Dick Finch had given him. The man who just possibly might know something about the fellow Margot Teresi had met at The Tower. That was a piece of knowledge Troy should not have, if he was to follow the instructions of the man who'd called earlier. This was it, he thought: decision time.

‘It's okay,' Troy said slowly. ‘I thought you might be able to help with a query. But I think I've sorted it out.'

He stopped and waited. Now it all depended on whether Wood had seen the appeal for information about Mr A and connected it to Troy's call, in which case he might say something. And if he did this, Troy would have to act. But Wood just sighed loudly and hung up.

Troy wondered what he'd just done. He'd put a foot across the line, but he hadn't crossed it. He told himself there was still time to go back. Told himself he needed some time to think.

He typed a brief account of what Dick Finch had told him, leaving out the reference to Peter Wood. As he worked, he noticed the changed dynamic in the room, the organised energy as people came and went from McIver's office. Ruth called out that the corpse found off Botany Bay had been confirmed as Andrew Asaad, lots of sea water in his lungs, the leg chewed through by a shark. The people who'd disposed of the body had been unlucky: it should have sunk to the bottom forever. It was like the Shark Arm case Dutton had told them about, Troy thought. The Sydney Send-off was fallible.

After lunch, McIver yelled out and he went into his office. It seemed even smaller than when Stone had been the occupant. McIver was not as big, but he exuded more energy.

‘You well?' he said to Troy.

‘ “Less is more.” Know what that means?'

‘Argument in favour of concrete boxes. If you make a building less attractive you can build it more cheaply. Look at this,' he said, pushing a large photograph across the desk. It showed a man's head, and looked like it had been taken on a street at night. Troy recognised the face. When he saw it he had to sit down. It was the shooter.

‘You all right?' said McIver.

Troy nodded.

‘CCTV from outside a school in Darlinghurst. Same street where the security pass was found.'

‘Sunday night?'

‘That smart Constable Conti tracked it down. She's not just a pretty face.'

Troy picked up the photograph and studied it. The quality of the picture was good. ‘We're putting it out?'

‘Immediately. What you been up to?'

After Troy had given a summary of his morning's activities, again neglecting to mention Peter Wood, McIver said, ‘On Friday I rang a mate in the FBI, asked for a confidential briefing on Tony Teresi's time in the USA. Jack called me back yesterday. Says Tony Teresi was probably as honest as you could be in the casino business.'

‘Meaning?'

‘They've cleaned it up since the good old days. Organised crime is pretty much out of it. The main law enforcement issues now are the inducements offered to high rollers, basically sex and drugs. Teresi would have been involved in that on his way up the ladder. He would have hired people to do it for him when he got to the top. But in terms of his business dealings, his known associates, Tony was okay. There are lots of more corrupt industries these days.'

‘What about Macau? Teresi had a casino there.'

‘Jack says that's the new Wild West. Tony was one of the first outsiders to break in. He must have used political contacts, which means graft. That's all he knows.'

‘You don't have a mate in Macau, I suppose?'

McIver shook his head. ‘Asia's a young man's game. Maybe you should go up there, get yourself on a conference, make a few contacts.' He looked thoughtfully at Troy. ‘But that sort of bonding involves a certain relaxation of normal standards. At least in my experience. Maybe not for the pure of heart, such as yourself.'

You'd be surprised, Troy thought.

Leaning back in his chair, McIver said, ‘That was what finished my first marriage, the San Francisco conference.'

‘Can't the pure of heart bond with each other?'

‘Over cups of tea, you mean?'

Troy was tempted to tell Mac about the blackmail. But since the anonymous phone call, he knew it might set things in motion that would destroy his marriage. He'd lose his son. There had to be some other way.

He asked how the investigation was looking. In general.

‘Basically, it's rooted,' McIver said cheerfully. ‘I've got twenty people out there smelling their own farts, retracing steps, repeating interviews.'

Troy shrugged sympathetically and stood up.

McIver said, ‘Feel like a drink later?'

‘It's my wedding anniversary.'

‘Don't forget to give her flowers. I always did.'

Troy was going to ask if this was the secret of his other two divorces, but he didn't have the heart for it. And anyway, McIver was already staring at his screen again.

Thirty-seven

W
hen he got back to his desk there was a note saying a man was waiting for him in reception. He had information regarding the media appeal in relation to the unknown man who'd gone into The Tower. Picking up a pad, Troy gazed dully around the office. It was three o'clock.

‘Bergman,' he called.

The detective was sitting with two others, going through some lists. Troy explained that he needed him for an interview and a sergeant asked if it could wait fifteen minutes.

‘I want Bergman, and I want him now,' Troy said, and turned on his heel and left the room. In the corridor he said to Bergman, who came running after him, ‘Let me do the talking. Just sit there, observe, and give me your impressions afterwards.'

‘Is it true the sergeant is thinking of sending me back to my station?'

‘Just concentrate on the job at hand.'

The man out front introduced himself as Geoff Rochford. He was in his late fifties, tall and balding, and Troy thought he could certainly pass as Mr A. When they shook hands, Rochford's was warm and slightly damp. Troy asked to see some ID and Rochford handed over a driver's licence. They went into an interview room and Troy recorded the details on the licence before handing it back.

Opening a folder, he slid the still photo of Mr A across to Bergman, raising his eyebrows. Bergman scowled in concentration, looking from the photo to the man across the table and back again. Troy raised his eyebrows, and Bergman nodded vigorously.

Rochford told them he'd gone to The Tower to meet Margot Teresi on Sunday night. Troy asked why.

‘Well you see,' Rochford said, ‘I'm a grief counsellor.'

He reached into a pocket of his blue coat and handed over a business card. There was silence in the room for a while as Troy read it and recorded some more details. As he wrote, he shook his head in grudging appreciation. The person arranging all this was like someone putting on a show, and they were good at it. They'd probably done it before.

‘A grief counsellor,' he said. ‘Tough job?'

‘I try to help people.'

‘Society is grateful for the work you do.'

Rochford stared at him, said nothing.

Troy said, ‘Why was a grief counsellor trespassing on a building site on Sunday night?'

‘Margot had been seeing me for therapy for about six months,' Rochford said quickly, opening his briefcase and taking out a large diary and a receipt book. He pushed them across to Troy. ‘You can see from my appointment book, she was on the first Monday of every month.'

Certain pages in both books had been tagged with yellow stickers. Troy flicked through each of them and then passed them to Bergman.

‘Paid in cash, I suppose?'

‘As it happens, she did. The receipts are all there.'

It was an impressive set-up, and Troy wondered how it had been done. Maybe Rochford wasn't a grief counsellor at all. Or maybe he was and the books had been cooked. The essential thing was not to query him or his story. That was the point of the phone call he'd received earlier in the day. The point, maybe the only point, of the blackmail. It seemed almost trivial, but of course it wasn't. Mr A, the real one, must be incredibly important to the investigation.

‘Margot wanted closure,' Rochford said.

‘You're sweating a lot, Mr Rochford,' Bergman said. ‘Is anything wrong?'

Troy nudged Bergman with his knee. It was true Rochford was acquiring quite a shine. The last thing Troy wanted was for him to break down or walk out. ‘Tell us about that night,' he said.

Looking eager, Rochford explained that Margot had visited The Tower about once a month, with the help of some of the security guards. The visits were of enormous emotional significance to her, but they were becoming increasingly risky as the building neared completion and became more busy. The guards wanted them to stop. Margot had formed the idea that a counselling session held in The Tower itself might help her finally deal with her grief.