Truth (24 page)

Koenig said, ‘I had a number, I forget where I got it.’

‘We’ll have to ask you for that,’ said Villani. ‘You’re not curious about who’s dead?’

‘Well, I’m assuming it’s her. What else could you assume? Am I wrong?’

‘Where were you last Thursday night, Mr Koenig?’

‘What is this shit? I was at the beach house in Portsea.’

Silence, the muted sounds of people passing in the corridor.

‘Are we done?’ said Koenig. ‘I’m a busy man.’

‘Not done, no, not at all,’ said Villani. ‘But we can conduct this interview in other circumstances.’

‘Is that, we can do this here or we can do it at the station? Jesus, what a cliché.’

‘That’s what we deal in,’ said Villani.

‘I’m a minister of the crown, you grasped that, detective?’

‘I’m an inspector. From Homicide. Didn’t I say that?’

Koenig looked at the ceiling. ‘What?’

‘Did you see the news last Saturday night?’

‘No. I had meetings in Canberra. Went up on Saturday morning. Want to check that?’

Villani thought that it would be a pleasure to arrest Koenig, tip off the media, have them waiting. ‘Let’s start with how you arranged for the woman,’ he said. ‘Who you had dealings with.’

‘I think I need my lawyer,’ said Koenig.

‘Of course,’ said Villani. ‘We’ll interview you in the presence of your lawyer. Would you like to give me a time today? St Kilda Road headquarters. Give your name at the desk, someone will come down.’

‘I rang a number someone gave me. I said I wanted a certain kind of woman. The person told me the price, cash, in advance. I said okay, gave the address. She arrived. I paid her, she went out to a car, she came back. Later she left.’

‘You had the cash?’

‘Well, I didn’t pop out to a cash machine, I can tell you.’

‘A certain kind of woman. What kind?’

‘None of your business.’

Villani looked at Dove, blinked at him,
Take him on.
‘Tell us about her, minister,’ said Dove.

Koenig’s mobile rang, sharp buzzes. He listened, said Yes a few times, then No twice. ‘Tell him I’ll get back to him ASAP.’

He ended the exchange. ‘I don’t have all day,’ Koenig said to Villani. ‘Can we get this over with?’

‘The woman.’

‘Young, long hair, ten words of English. Very pale. White.’ ‘Caucasian pale?’ said Villani.

‘Oh yes.’

Dove said, ‘So you specified a non-Asian?’

Koenig stared at him. ‘Not in a fucking SBS crime show, sonny. You could quite soon find yourself liaising with your drunken brothers in Fitzroy. Sharing a cask.’

Villani looked around the room, nothing to look at. ‘I take that to be a racially offensive remark, Mr Koenig,’ he said.

‘Really? My, my, how could you conclude that?’

‘The number you rang,’ said Villani. ‘That would save us some time.’

‘Meaning?’

‘You can give it to us, Mr Koenig, or we can seek to get it by using the powers given to us under…’

Koenig raised his right hand, rose and went to the window, put his bum on the sill, hands in his pockets. His belly rode over his belt. In a smart bar in Prahran, he had once pushed and shoved and grabbed by the ears a much younger man who gave him cheek. The next day there had been a stiff-jawed public apology.

‘Let me get this clear,’ he said. ‘I can’t be a suspect in a murder investigation. I can account for all my time. That’s an alibi in the correct sense of the word, which you probably don’t know.’

Dove put up his right hand. ‘Sir, sir, I know, sir!’

Koenig didn’t take his eyes off Villani. ‘Shut up, sunshine,’ he said. ‘You’re dead in the water. So, although I have no involvement in anything, Homicide is threatening me with a warrant to look at my telephone records. Is that right?’

Villani thought about how sensible it would be to say that Homicide had not intended to give any such impression, Sorry, Mr Koenig.

‘Not right,’ he said. ‘We make no threats. You may wish to take advice about the rights and obligations of someone who possesses or is reasonably believed to possess information material to an investigation.’

‘I don’t have the number anymore. I threw away the card.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Possibly to avoid temptation.’

‘The person you spoke to last time…’

‘A woman.’

‘Accent?’

‘Australian.’

‘Who gave you the number?’

‘I forget. I said that. I’ve said that.’

‘How many times have you called it?’ said Dove.

‘You can call me Mr Koenig. Show some respect.’

‘How many times, Mr Koenig?’

‘None of your fucking business.’

Villani said, ‘I’ll repeat myself. Reasonably believed to possess…’

‘Twice,’ said Koenig. ‘The first time they didn’t have anyone available.’

‘Talk to the same woman?’ said Dove. ‘Mr Koenig.’

‘I really don’t know.’

‘Tell us about marks on the woman’s body, Mr Koenig,’ said Dove.

In that instant, Villani knew that Dove was not a mistake. He was a smart aleck but he was not a mistake.

‘Marks?’ said Koenig.

‘Marks.’

‘An appendix scar, that’s all I saw.’ ‘Sure about that?’

‘I know an appendix scar when I see one. I’ve got an appendix scar.’

Oh, Jesus.

Villani stared at Koenig for a while. ‘Sure we’re talking about the same woman here, minister? Not some other visitor to your house?’

‘Fuck you. I couldn’t be more sure.’

Phipps had made a mistake. This was a major error. He didn’t look at Dove—they couldn’t back off.

‘We need to know who gave you the number,’ he said.

‘A bloke at a party gave me the number, wrote it on a card.’

‘His card?’ said Dove.

A hesitation. ‘No, mine,’ said Koenig. ‘I gave him my card. He wrote it on the back.’

‘A bloke you know?’

‘No. Big party, we’d all had a few.’

‘Whose party was it?’ said Dove. ‘We can go down that route.’

Koenig licked his lower lip, an unhealthy tongue, spotted. ‘Now that I think about it,’ he said, ‘It was at Orion. Or Persius, maybe Persius. Could have been the snow, though. Yes, might have been at the snow last winter.’

Dove said, ‘I suggest you know who gave you the phone number, minister.’

‘Really?’ Koenig said. ‘I suggest you pull your fucking head in, sunshine. And you, Villani, you’ve made a very bad career move today, you and this clown of yours.’

Villani said to Dove, ‘Record that at this point Mr Koenig made what appeared to be a threat to Inspector Villani, with the words, quote, You’ve made a very bad career move today, you and this clown of yours. Unquote.’

Dove wrote, slowly. Villani watched him. He didn’t look at Koenig until Dove was finished. Then he said, ‘Mr Koenig, we’ll probably want to take a formal statement from you. You might want to bring your lawyer with you. In the meantime, we’d be grateful for the security system vision.’

‘I’ve wiped the tapes. I wipe them once a week. That’s part of my Sunday-night routine.’

Villani rose, Dove followed.

‘Thank you for your time, Mr Koenig,’ said Villani. ‘We’ll be in touch about the statement.’

‘You think this up on your own?’ said Koenig.

‘No idea what you mean, minister,’ said Villani. ‘Good day.’

Outside, going down the steps, Dove said, ‘I think there’s been a mistake. Putting it delicately.’

Villani was putting on his sunglasses. ‘You’re the designated
thinker here,’ he said. ‘I take it then you and Weber didn’t just forget to mention the appendix scar I didn’t notice on the Prosilio girl?’

‘No, sir. There’s no scar.’

‘Well, then the way I’d put it, delicately, is our careers are fucked. For the moment.’

‘So what now, boss?’

‘Every call the prick’s made in the last two months. But that’s only me.’

‘Can I ask why?’

The question hung, they came to the vehicle, Dove was driving. In the traffic, Villani said, ‘You’ll never hear me use the term fishing trip. We do things by the book.’

‘I respect the book,’ said Dove. ‘The book is the way and the life.’

‘Pity Weber’s married,’ said Villani. ‘You have much in common.’

‘What grounds do I offer?’

The radio:

…day of total fire ban for the state, another scorcher and no sign of a change. Firefighters are pinning their hopes on a wind shift in the early afternoon. Householders in the fire path have been advised to leave but some…

There was no doubt about the identity of one person in the
some
category. No, two. Gordie would drive straight into the fire with a waterpistol and wearing only a flameproof jockstrap if Bob thought it was a tactic with potential.

At the Swanston Street intersection, a wasted kid, chewed-string hair, weaved between the vehicles, tripped over the kerb, fell forward and lay still. His shirt was pulled up and his birdlike ribcage showed beneath his milky skin. People walked around him, a man kicked him by accident, jumped sideways.

The boy moved his head, got to his knees, levered on stick arms, looked around, big eyes. He stood, unsteady, took three paces to the wall, put his back against it, slid down, legs giving way.

On the station steps and on the pavement, other kids stood, sat, restless, hanging, some out of it. Two young cops were talking to
three males. One was talking back, animated, changing feet, pulling at his singlet, tossing his head, sniffing. The one next to him ran fingers through his long hair, ran them over and over again.

Dove coughed. ‘Koenig’s calls, boss.’

‘You want them as a matter of urgency,’ said Villani. ‘On the grounds that he is a person of interest in a murder inquiry.’

‘Try that, then,’ said Dove. ‘That porky.’

‘Only a porky if you believe every word he said. If you act in bad faith. You wouldn’t do that, would you?’

‘Not knowingly, boss.’

‘Good. You’d also want a result today.’

‘Today, certainly, boss.’

‘And then we could have a talk.’

‘Boss.’

This was terrible police work. It was work to be ashamed of.

The lights changed, they turned left, crossed the bridge and drove down the grand avenue. Dove dropped Villani in the street beside the police building. He rose alone in the lift, tried not to breathe the air of synthetic pine and lemon.

Lizzie. Where the hell was she? Not on the streets, cops were looking out for her, someone would see her, see the dreadlocked man. He should have had her taken home, rung Corin, told her to be there. Neglect. He did not see to her. It was his responsibility to see to her. Careless father. Bad husband. Short-term head of Homicide.

In the office, he went to his box, put on the radio, Paul Keogh’s station, a woman’s voice:

…Paul, talk to people in the rural areas, they’ve had enough, I can tell you. They feel betrayed, disenfranchised. This city’s now a city-state, it’s like Venice once was and, dare I say it, just as…no, I won’t say it.

Is that the c-word? Corrupt?

You said it, not me. But the betrayal’s also felt in the outer suburbs. Public transport’s a joke, two-hour wait to see a doctor who doesn’t speak English in one of these medical superpractices, one police officer for every 30,000 people, childcare’s a disgrace, it’s safer to leave your kid with the junkies in a park
.
This downturn has shown these people up for what they are—political opportunists and hacks.

Please don’t hold back, Ms Mellish. My guest is Karen Mellish, leader of the Opposition. Any other things you admire about this government?

Birkerts was in the door, sad, eyebrows in a pale chevron.

Paul, even before this government took the federal recession-panic money and blew it, they were making spectacularly bad moves. Billion-dollar pipelines that are empty, the world’s most expensive desalination plant, it’s cheaper to bring bottled water from France. They’ve handed bushfire-reconstruction projects to mates, they tolerate public-transport operators who couldn’t run a model railway, the tollways have seen five major tunnel shutdowns in ten months.

The police minister was on earlier talking up policing successes…

I heard him talking rubbish. Didn’t he read the papers this morning? Two ex-policemen involved in the Oakleigh murders. We have his seat squarely in our sights, he’s done his last tawdry little branchstack. What Mr Orong needs to explain to voters is why the so-called police taskforces against organised crime and drugs have achieved nothing, why the CBD is becoming more frightening than Johannesburg, kids everywhere wasting their lives on drugs. Remember the Saturday night shock-and-awe tactics?

The Humvees.

Indeed. And we now apparently need bombproof battle trucks. Overall, this city is now up there with the most violent in the world and it’s not the fault of ordinary stressed police officers. The force is under such duress, it’s no wonder so many are on sick leave…

Villani tapped the Off button.

‘Ordinary stressed police officers,’ said Birkerts. ‘Love that. OSPO.’

‘You’ll love serving out your years under Kiely.’

‘I can serve anyone.’

‘Service, maybe. Mr Kiely thinks your manner is highly disrespectful. I think so too but I don’t care as much.’

‘The X-ray’s at Kidd’s in an hour. Want to take another look?’

‘I thought the techies’d taken a girl look? What else can you offer?’

‘Pitstop at Vic’s. Raisin muffin.’

‘Suddenly a window in my day. Dirty little window.’

THEY SAT in the car, engine running, air-con on, looking at the sluggish sea. Two silver cats on leads drawing a woman came into view on the damp edge of the continent. She wore shorts and a muscle shirt that revealed no trace of what it was meant to display. The cats minced, offended by the moisture beneath their paws.

‘Just a massive sandbox,’ said Birkerts.

Villani finished his coffee. ‘Good, this bloke,’ he said. ‘Reliable.’

‘His ex lives in Tassie,’ said Birkerts. He was eating a banana muffin. ‘She had the kids for a holiday, won’t send them back. He says he might have to move.’

‘Ask the pointyheads to give her a fright,’ said Villani. ‘Can’t lose a decent barista. You the one filled in Tony Ruskin on Kidd and Larter? He knows more than I do.’