Truth (15 page)

‘Trouble you for an address?’ said Villani.

‘Hang on.’

He hung, closed his eyes, moved his head.

‘You there?’ said Loneregan.

‘Here,’ said Villani.

‘It’s a unit, 21, Montville, 212 Roma Street, South Melbourne.’

Villani tapped it in, the image of the area appeared, 212 arrowed. ‘Much obliged.’

‘Bob Villani. Relation?’

‘My dad.’

‘Vietnam?’

‘Yeah, he was, yeah.’

‘Still ticking?’ said Loneregan.

‘Last time I looked.’

‘Mate, ask him about a Danny Loneregan. Daniel. My old man. Just got this one photo, it’s three blokes, one’s a Bob Villani.’

Another member of The Team. First in, last out. Ten years, four months, sixteen days, the longest serving unit in any war, just a thousand men in all and four Victoria Crosses, a hundred and ten other decorations.

My dad says your dad’s got war medals.

That was how Villani found out about Bob’s war. He would never have learned anything about Vietnam from Bob.

‘Yes, certainly do that,’ said Villani. ‘Thanks for your help.’

‘Given under duress. We’ll be loaded with this cunt. Not the force, no. It only accepted him. It’ll be member of elite Special Operations Group gone bad, all that shit.’

‘Well, price you pay for fame.’ Villani was looking at the close-up. There was a house over the wall from the parking area, a long narrow swimming pool. ‘Kidd didn’t leave any mates with you did he?’

‘I can say not a single fucking soul.’

‘Buy you a coldie, then.’

‘Got my number,’ said Loneregan. ‘Listen, my old man. Ask, will you? When you see your dad. He might have a picture, y’know…’

In the kickarse voice Villani heard the boy who never had a father, only a photograph, a face, he would look for himself in that face.

‘Didn’t come back?’ said Villani.

‘No,’ said Loneregan.

‘Well. Honoured dead.’

‘Shot outside a bar. Bar, whorehouse.’

‘I’ll ask Bob,’ said Villani. ‘Get back to you.’

He rang Colby.

‘This is as of when?’ said Colby.

‘Just on the radar. We hope to need a Section 27. Mr Kiely will be on to you.’

‘I’ll pass the word. Run anything major by me. Think Cromarty, son. Think never again.’

Would they ever let him forget Cromarty? His crime was to trust senior officers to behave like trained policemen.

‘Yes, boss,’ Villani said.

‘A fucking arrest, that’s the ticket. Show we’re getting somewhere. With me?’

‘Boss.’

Villani looked at the tendon standing proud of his forearm. He relaxed his grip on the handset. Birkerts outside. Villani waved.

‘The Salvos have been there,’ he said. ‘Essendon is Kidd’s aunt’s house. Her name’s Hocking. She says he stayed there long ago, still gets mail, still drops by. Gave her an early Christmas present this year—thousand bucks, cash. Wouldn’t let her open the envelope while he was there.’

‘You could love such a boy,’ said Villani.

Kiely in the door.

‘The chopper says no vehicle visible at Cloke Street. We’ve got a J. H. Kidd off the tenants’ database. Roma Street, South Melbourne.’

‘That’s him,’ said Villani.

‘It’s a block of flats, third-floor flat. The chopper’s looking now.’

Villani waved, they left. He sat, hands in his lap, palms up, the scar ran from little finger to the right thumb pad, his first year in the job, sliced by a cook, the cut went to the bones.

Rose Quirk’s garden.

Jesus. He hadn’t been there since Cup Day, the day he put in the tomatoes.

He dialled. It rang, rang, he knew it was going to ring out, she answered.

‘Ma, Stephen.’

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Busy. Yeah. Really busy, tied up. You okay?’

‘I’m fine. Just a bit weak.’

‘Taking the tablets?’

She did a bit of her coughing, he knew her coughing, it was a tactical move. ‘Make me feel sick,’ she said.

‘For God’s sake, Ma, take them.’

‘Weeds takin over here.’

‘I’ll fix the weeds. Take the tablets. Tomatoes coming on?’

‘They like the hot. I give them a little drip every night.’

‘Good. I’ll be around soon as I can.’

‘Screen door’s buggered. Something wrong with the pump thing.’

‘I can get someone to fix it.’

‘Don’t want a stranger here.’

‘Okay, I’ll do it. Listen, got to go. Be around soon.’

‘PRADO’S AT Roma Street,’ said Birkerts. ‘At the back.’

‘Nice work,’ said Villani.

‘There’s a chance of vision from across the road. Building going up. Rear access.’

‘Section 27 from Colby,’ said Villani. ‘A 26 and a 27, cover all bases. He’s expecting you.’

‘My view,’ said Kiely, ‘my view is if he’s there we should take him out.’

‘Talk to the dogs, Birk,’ said Villani. ‘Impress upon them the need to get the stuff in now, immediately, sooner, they have no higher priority. Or they will answer to the minister. Or God.’

‘Sir.’

Birkerts left. Villani looked at Kiely. ‘Arrest him, you think?’

‘That’s prudent, yes. I think so.’

‘And then we’ve got him and he dobs the other pricks? Wow.’

‘Wow?’ said Kiely.

‘Yes, wow. Wow, wow. He still gets twenty years, twenty-three hours a day looking at walls, your fellow crims wait, they want to kill you, fuck you, they do so love a doggy.’

Kiely scratched his collarbone. ‘Well, not to move, I would say that should be cleared. Approved.’

‘The New Zealand way,’ said Villani. ‘Interesting. Now here on
the mainland we’re different. What we don’t do here is seek approval for what we do not want to do. And moving on, let me say that if we lose Kidd, even if the cunt takes off in a balloon, I will be holding…’

Kiely raised a hand. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Made yourself perfectly clear.’

He left. Villani’s mobile rang.

‘What’s going on?’ Laurie said.

‘Corin tell you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that’s what’s going on.’

‘Can’t you find her?’

‘Doing my best. People are looking for her.’ ‘People? What about you?’

‘The whole fucking force is looking for her. Is that good enough? Is that doing enough?’

A sigh.

‘I’ll be there around midnight,’ she said. ‘Ring me if you find her.’

‘I’ll certainly do that. Keep trying her mobile.’

‘I don’t need to be told that, thank you.’

Line dead.

Villani tried Lizzie’s number again. Off.

THE TARRED top of a building, a lift housing. The camera moved down, glass distortion, a room, a big television, squat furniture, coffee table holding bottles, cans, cups, junkfood containers.

Jerry the tech in headphones, fiddling, tapping, talking to his throat mike. ‘Yeah, piss-poor, yeah, okay, here we go. On air, mate.’

Birkerts at the scene, scratchy, said, ‘Across the road on the sixth floor, very trying conditions here, wet concrete, no windows, just holes.’

‘Picture’s very poor,’ said Kiely, fiddling with his earpiece.

‘Spot that?’ said Villani.

Birkerts said, ‘Prado’s at the back, two ways in. Here we go, you can see a kitchen. So to speak.’

Slow zoom in to a littered countertop—boxes, bottles, a shiny object.

‘Boy’s got an industrial coffee machine,’ said Birkerts. ‘The red, that’s from the back window, sunset in the west.’

‘My, the west,’ said Villani. ‘Know your compass.’

‘Pulling back, that’s a door at left.’

A dark shape.

‘Passage probably runs front door to balcony. The kitchen and lounge to left. Right, it’s bathroom and bedroom.’

Villani said, ‘We can get in the back?’

‘Fire escape and there’s a door to the lobby from the parking area.’

The camera roved left to a blank window, right to another, down to the floors below, to the forecourt, the street, parked cars, two men with briefcases, a car, another, a delivery van, a strung-out scuffle of teenagers, four, nothing.

They watched for a while. The camera went back to Kidd’s windows, lingered, dropped. The street seemed to have darkened. Streetlights came on, small white flares.

Back. Kidd’s windows dark now, the sun gone from the back of the building, fallen.

‘Nice little street,’ said Villani. ‘You comfy there? Got the toothbrush?’

Angela motioned from the door. He went out.

‘Mr Colby, boss.’

Villani took the call at his desk.

‘Got him?’ said Colby.

‘Got his unit. Vehicle’s out the back.’

‘And the plan is?’

‘A good look.’

‘Steve, if the prick’s there, take him. Get the SOGs.’

‘And give away upstream?’

‘Not listening, son. Still not fucking listening.’

‘Can you say again, boss?’

He heard finger taps.

‘The head of Homicide,’ said Colby. ‘You’re in the tower, it’s your call. We rely on your judgment.’

Villani went back to the operations room, put on the headset, looked at the dark building. The camera pulled back. Lights on in the units on both sides of Kidd’s and the one below.

‘Dunny,’ said the tech. ‘Someone’s there.’

‘How’d you hear?’

‘The hard line. Phone must be close. Bedroom or the passage.’

Kiely coughed. ‘Tell Mr Colby?’

‘Nothing to tell,’ said Villani. ‘Could be anyone. Girlfriend.
Flatmate. House-trained dog.’

They waited. Five minutes, ten, it was soothing, doing nothing, watching the camera wander around, the operator bored, up, down, sideways, along the street. Villani closed his eyes.

Lizzie. In the early days, he sometimes came home to find them asleep, in the big bedroom or on Lizzie’s bed. Often they were in the armchair, mother and child as one, Laurie’s hair fallen like dark thatch over the infant’s face.

IN HIS ear, Birkerts said, ‘He’s gone back to sleep.’

Villani looked at his watch. Forty minutes since the lavatory was flushed. ‘I’m coming to join you,’ he said. ‘On-site inspection.’

‘We have nothing to hide. Please use the servants’ entrance.’

Finucane drove, Winter came. A few blocks away from the street, Villani’s phone rang.

‘Inspector, Senior Willans, St Kilda, your daughter Lizzie’s here, brought in by officers.’

‘Found where?’

‘The parade, boss. With a group.’

‘She’s okay?’

‘Um, speak freely, boss?’

‘Yes.’

‘Off her face, boss.’

Fifteen years old. The child in her arms in the armchair wandering the hard streets of St Kilda. How had Laurie allowed this to come to pass?

‘Okay. Hang on to her, be there soon as I can.’

‘Boss, she’s a handful, there’s nowhere, just the cells…’

The cells.

No liquid known, not carbolic acid, not citric acid, not all the tears of the risen Christ could cleanse the holding cells of their
perfume of sweat, blood, vomit, shit, snot, spit, semen, piss and fart and phlegm.

His daughter taken to the holding cells, on her father’s instructions. He should phone Corin, get her to fetch Lizzie. No, he couldn’t do that to Corin: call her away from dinner at Epigram with her young Trinity College smartarse and his millionaire lawyer father to fetch her freaked-out fifteen-year-old sister from the St Kilda police station.

Winter glanced at him. They were almost there. Jesus, what a time for crap like this to happen.

The cells wouldn’t hurt Lizzie. What the hell, give her a taste of what came from hanging around with shitheads, doing drugs.

‘Put her in a cell,’ Villani said. ‘Alone, mark you.’

‘Boss.’

They went in the long way. A cop in overalls waved them through a construction-site gate, they parked beside a crane. A woman from surveillance led him and Winter up rough stairs, the damp, sour, heady smell of new concrete. Outside a shadowy doorless chamber Birkerts stood. Inside, two people sat at the blocked-out window holes, one behind a camera, one with night-glasses, looking through a slit.

Kidd’s building was on a shrouded monitor. The woman gave him headphones with a throat mike. He was adjusting them when Jerry the tech, kilometres away, said, ‘Incoming. Mobile.’

In the dark room, looking at the windows on a monitor, they listened to a phone ringing. It went on, on, ten, fifteen seconds, it rang out, became a buzz. It began again, ringing…

Yeah?

Wake-up call, mate.

Fuck off.

Listen, listen, some worries. Serious.

What?

Old girl’s, call you on that in five, okay?

Yeah, okay, right.

Clicks.

‘What’s that about?’ Kiely’s voice.

‘Got the caller?’ said Villani.

‘Mobile,’ said Jerry. ‘Won’t get anywhere.’

The voice in Villani’s head.

Old girl’s, call you on that in five, okay?

Old girl? Old girl?

Kiely said, ‘Laser’ll be…’

‘Kidd’s aunt,’ said Villani. ‘Mrs Hocking. Run her for mobiles, the hotline.’

‘Right.’

They waited.

The sitting room lit up.

A big naked man in the room, scratching his scalp with both hands, then his chest, his right hand went to his groin.

Birkerts said, ‘Himself. The target.’

The man was going to the kitchen counter, they saw his bodybuilder’s wedge back, the muscular canyon of his spine, he was turning, they saw him side on.

‘My Jesus,’ said Birkerts. ‘Like a low branch. He’s dialling…do we have this?’

‘No,’ said Jerry.

Villani said, ‘The fixed line, Jerry?’

‘Too far away.’

‘I understood we’d have the laser by now,’ said Birkerts. ‘The highest tech known to man.’

‘Mr Kiely?’ said Villani.

‘Check that,’ said Kiely. ‘Want me to brief Mr Colby?’

‘Just get the fucking laser here. The Prado’s tagged?’

‘Elephant on the move,’ said Birkerts.

Kidd leaving the room.

‘Small arse,’ said Birkerts, thoughtful.

Three seconds, bedroom light, the vertical blinds opened, they saw Kidd sliding a window.

‘But a jockstrap designed for Phar Lap,’ said Birkerts.

Vision sliced by blinds, they watched the man moving around,
pulling on clothes, sitting on the bed, shoes going on.