The Tower (49 page)

At the marina he felt his mood improving from the smell of the sea and the warmth of the sunshine on his back. Life was good. Beneath the morning-after effects of the coke and the vodka, the fundamentals were sound. As he passed the sailing boats he remembered an offer to crew a boat in the next Sydney to Hobart, something he would surely do. Icing on the cake, really, just the thing before The Tower opened and he returned to Houston.

Henry was in the main cabin as usual, peering at the day's papers. The cops had caught the shooter, the second fellow involved in Teresi's murder. Sensational stuff. The man was dead, although they weren't saying how. Nothing there about him, Randall knew: he'd checked the online editions earlier. Wu smiled as he came on board, nodded to the two guys, who turned around and walked back towards the car park. Everything was sweet.

‘You could have just called,' Randall said.

‘I did.'

‘Little problem at a party yesterday,' he said. Might as well come clean, Henry had his police contact after all. ‘I was charged by the cops with possession of a very small amount, less than one gram, personal use only.'

‘That's not going to do your future in security much good,' Wu said, fiddling with coffee cups. He didn't seem too fussed.

‘No one will know,' Randall said. ‘And after this job's finished, I don't plan to work in security again. I'm a builder.'

‘Coffee?'

‘Thanks.'

Wu handed over the cup and looked at the photos on the front page of both newspapers. Even the national daily, the
Australian
, had a picture of Troy and his sergeant, fighting their way through a crowd outside some awful big block of flats.

‘A stupid man,' Wu said, stabbing Troy's face with a finger. ‘Not emotionally intelligent. I don't see how he can be a policeman.' Reaching beneath the paper he pulled out a DVD case. The cover showed the city skyline and the words
Tower of Babel
. It must be an advance copy of the documentary on The Tower. Wu looked at it in disgust and threw it to the floor. The case cracked and the disc rolled away into a corner. He said, ‘Your own problem is insignificant right now, wouldn't you say?'

Randall nodded, dumb with relief.

The intercom buzzed and Wu picked up the handset, listened intently for a moment. ‘An unexpected guest,' he said. ‘Could I ask you?' He pointed through the open door that led to the rest of the boat. ‘Please take your coffee.'

‘Sure.'

The fellow hadn't asked about the other DVD, the one of him and the woman, that was the main thing. Mustn't even know Randall had it. Nothing else really mattered. Randall saw a box sitting in opened wrapping paper on a side bench. ‘Someone sent you a present?'

‘A strange gift.' Wu smiled. ‘Came by courier. It's a bomb.'

Randall laughed and ducked down the stairs into the main cabin. Not sure he'd heard correctly.

Wu closed the door behind him, and Randall looked around. He sat down in a leather armchair, the sun coming through one of the windows that ran along the side of the room. He found a copy of the
Spectator
and flicked through it, feeling the slight give of the boat as someone came aboard, the distant murmur of voices.

He must have fallen asleep, because suddenly he was awake and the engines were thrumming softly. The boat was moving. Randall got up and went to open the door, but it was locked.

‘Henry?' he called. ‘What's going on?'

Forty-four

T
roy got to the office at 8.45 am. Gradually, other detectives arrived, some nursing heads from the night before. There was talk of a new strike force to handle the investigation into the shooter's death, and McIver was off arguing with Vella that it should stay part of Tailwind. A decision was due later in the day, maybe when they met Kelly.

By mid-morning, Troy estimated that Wu must have the parcel. You had to wonder how he'd respond. Everything depended on it, but of course they had no idea. Really they had little sense of the man at all, apart from what Randall had told McIver yesterday: a vicious psychotic gambler. Not quite the picture of Wu he'd painted for Troy.

Feeling jumpy, he checked his email every ten minutes, but there was nothing of interest. No more video footage of him being pleasured by a young Malaysian woman. At eleven he called Anna, who sounded like she was enjoying herself at playgroup. He wanted to dash home and check her email too, but he needed to be here all morning to establish an alibi of sorts. And anyway, he still didn't know her password. He should have kept looking when he'd found the Prozac that day, but he hadn't. The discovery of the drug had completely thrown him.

Later, he went out to walk around the block and buy a cup of coffee. As he came back, he saw Susan Conti and David Johnson, the big detective. They were standing in a doorway, kissing. He paused and then kept walking, and they disengaged and went towards the station, Conti saying something to Johnson and letting him go on ahead, slowing down to wait for Troy.

‘I'm leaving tomorrow,' she said.

‘You're a good detective.'

‘I'd like to work in Homicide one day. If anything comes up.'

‘I thought you weren't impressed with us.'

‘That was before McIver came along. You've changed, too.'

He was being played, but it was pleasant. Conti was going places, you could tell. He wondered how Kelly and McIver felt about her father, if his reputation would hold her back.

‘Call me if I can help,' he said.

‘Thanks.'

Her eyes held his, disengaged with a smile, then she turned and went into the station.

After a moment he followed. Wu must have received the parcel by now.

Forty-five

T
he big boat was moving slowly, much more slowly than Randall's imagination, which was feverish, racing despite the fog from the alcohol. He wondered where Henry was taking him. Maybe it was out to sea, maybe he knew Randall had the DVD and had to be disposed of.

He wanted to let Henry know he had nothing to fear and got up and banged on the door, calling out to him, asking him to come and talk.

‘Sean?'

It was Wu's voice, suddenly, on the other side of the door.

‘Open up please,' he cried. ‘Henry?'

‘We're just going to the other side. I'm sorry to inconvenience you but there's someone you don't need to see. I'll unlock the door when he's off the boat. It's good to keep things separate that aren't meant to be together. You do understand that, Sean?'

Randall was damp with relief. ‘I'll do anything,' he said, ‘anything you want.'

‘I do apologise, Sean. It's a busy day. Just relax.'

Randall walked back to the chair, the perspiration continuing in his armpits and on his brow because he knew from the man's voice something wasn't quite right. He pulled out his mobile and looked at it, and told himself he must be in no danger, because otherwise Henry would have taken it from him. Maybe there was nothing to fear.

No longer able to resist the tension of not knowing, he wrenched the DVD case from his backpack and slipped the disc into the player next to the big screen. CNN had been on all the time he'd been in the room, with the sound turned off. He found the remote and got the DVD on the screen, pushed fast-forward. He hoped it might not be as he remembered, but it was worse, you could see the Chinese woman on the bed was scared for her life, flinched back in horror, briefly her eyes met his, and then the hands with the wire went to her throat and Randall was stabbing at the remote with his thumb as though the button was some bug he had to kill. But the film didn't stop until he'd seen what happened to the woman's eyes, until she'd stopped writhing and had gone still.

He heard a noise and jumped around, but there was no one there. It would almost have been better if there had been, if someone had come through the door. Anyone. He desperately needed the company of another human being, the sound of a living voice. With fumbling fingers he extracted the DVD and dropped it down behind the bench running along one side of the room. Henry need never know he'd seen it. He turned the screen back on to CNN and sat down again, waiting for the shaking to stop, telling himself he'd never seen the DVD at all.

Looking out the window he saw the Harbour Bridge, and this gave him a boost of confidence. They weren't taking him out through the Heads at all. The shock was starting to fade now. Henry did not know he had the DVD, and here he was safe in the middle of the harbour, surrounded by the city. He could see several groups of people in grey overalls, climbing the big bridge's arch, and if he could see them, they could see him. Everything was sweet. But still, he needed the sound of a voice. He pulled out his phone and dialled Kristin, not knowing what he'd say when she answered.

Forty-six

T
he morning dragged on. Troy checked his email for something from the feds, read some more witness statements, trying to concentrate. People kept calling to talk about the stories in the media. Every fifteen minutes he used the internet to check his private email account. There was nothing there, nothing anywhere. He thought about Wu a lot. The faces of Anna and Matt kept coming into his mind, reminding him of why he was doing this. You have to keep your nerve, he told himself every few minutes. You have to stay strong. Finally, at midday, McIver came out of his office, jingling his keys in his left hand and looking cheerful.

‘You got Ferguson's statement?'

‘Not yet.'

He'd emailed the feds who were in Chicago, received no response. McIver said they'd keep their meeting with Kelly anyway. The information was too important to withhold any longer. ‘Shall we dance?' he said.

‘You heard anything?' said Troy, thinking about Wu.

‘Not a word. Lunch is on me.'

They stopped at McDonalds on Victoria Road.

While they were eating, McIver said, ‘I didn't tell Kelly what this was about. I think she'll be pleasantly surprised, it might persuade her to let us handle the shooter's death too.'

‘Good.'

‘It is good. This whole thing is good, it'll help you. I'm told she took that business with Stone very poorly. Reckons you talked to the media, thinks you've done it before.'

McIver chewed his burger.

‘It was Randall,' Troy said.

‘We know that. Can't tell her.'

Troy guessed Kelly was used to people lying to her. She must know there were all sorts of reasons people lied. He finished his orange juice, which was very sweet. On the whole he liked McDonalds, especially since they'd introduced their more substantial burgers. But their juice was too sweet.

They reached Parramatta at one o'clock. Kelly's door was closed and her staff officer explained she was taking an urgent call and had asked them to wait. A few minutes later, the officer's phone beeped, and he told them they could go in.

Kelly was wearing a pinstripe suit over a cream top and pearls. She didn't stand up when they came in, and told Troy to shut the door.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting,' she said, not even trying to sound sincere. ‘It looks like we'll be getting four positions filled next week.' Her eyes were gleaming.

‘That's wonderful,' McIver said. ‘Despite the staff freeze!'

The superintendent touched her hair girlishly. ‘I think at the end of the day they had to concede we had some pretty good arguments.'

Taking a seat, McIver said, ‘It'll make a big difference.'

‘I hope so. Congratulations on the Teresi investigation.'

‘Ma'am.'

‘You have something else? A new witness?'

McIver ran through the state of the investigation. Kelly interrupted frequently with an unnecessary observation or question. Troy realised it was her way of asserting herself. One of his colleagues had once said Kelly would die if she had to remain silent for more than a few minutes.

‘But now, a new witness,' McIver said. ‘He doesn't identify the killer, but he's given us an amazing amount of stuff about The Tower. Turns out it's Sydney crime central.'

He looked at Troy, who began to speak. He talked for five minutes, and this time Kelly did not interrupt. She opened her mouth once but said nothing, as Troy's revelations overtook whatever it was she'd meant to say. Her reaction made him realise just how big this was. Ferguson's image came back to him: The Tower as a gigantic washing machine for dirty money. Millions of it.

When he had finished, Kelly took a deep breath, a huge gulp of air, and then grabbed her phone and talked rapidly to someone named Andrew. When she'd finished she said, ‘Superintendent Stavros will join us in a moment.' The head of the Fraud Squad, where Stone had once allegedly worked.

While Kelly rang someone else, Troy wondered what had happened to Stone. He doubted the sergeant was involved in anything to do with fraud, which was kind of funny, now it was turning out to be right through The Tower. Kelly picked up the phone again, listened while she stared at the door. Troy looked at McIver but the sergeant ignored him. He was staring at Kelly with fascination.

She put the phone down and it rang immediately, causing Kelly to start. She grabbed it and said hello, listened again for a minute, her eyes moving from the door to McIver and then to Troy. You could tell something had happened, her composure was under stress. When the call ended, she put the phone down, slowly this time.

‘There's been a development. Have you heard about the explosion on the harbour this morning?'

Troy wondered what she was talking about. The harbour was a long way from The Tower.

‘Ma'am?' said McIver.

‘That was Jim Collister, from the Wateries. Your man Henry Wu had a boat, a big boat. It blew up in the middle of the harbour a bit after nine this morning. It appears he was on it.'

For a moment no one spoke.