A Dark Place to Die (28 page)

'Sorry, Chris,' says Koop. 'I'm not at my best. Yeah, we love it out there.'

Reader smiles. 'I don't blame you for leaving this country, Koop. The place is going to the dogs faster than you'd believe possible. There'll be more Poles and Latvians than English before too long the way things are going. But I don't know how you could live with all that heat. It'd do my head in. And I'd miss it all. The footy. Pubs. The beer. Fish and chips. England.
Home.'

They're passing the blue-and-yellow rain-streaked rectangular block of IKEA. A lengthy queue of cars has already formed at the entrance and Koop glimpses people hurrying loaded trolleys stacked with flat-packed bric-abrac through the rain towards their Fords and Mazdas and Volvos. Few of them wear suitable clothing, most clad only in thin t-shirts and tracksuits, as if they entered IKEA in Spain on a sunny July day and exited to find themselves in a rainy Warrington in October. Koop remembers his first – and only – visit to the store with Zoe when they were kitting out a spare room. Its relentless corporate zeal and zombie-like customers put him in mind of the seventh ring of hell and he'd sworn never to set foot inside the place – or anything resembling it – ever again. He was mildly depressed to discover an IKEA on the Gold Coast although there, at least, the chubby customers seemed dressed for the weather.

In the Northern Rivers, the summer is just beginning. Koop pictures the late-evening sun slanting through the leaves of his lime and mandarin trees at the back of the house, where the land slopes down towards the western ranges. He thinks about early morning nude swims with Zoe on deserted white-sand beaches, within metres of dolphins surfing in perfect unison through the glassy curl of green-blue waves. He thinks about eagles taking bream from the shallows while he was drinking coffee and
shooting the shit with Marius at the café, of hiking the trails around Minyon Falls, of making love with Zoe and Mel in their big bed in the shade of the fig tree as the sun was coming up.

'I know what you mean,' he says, turning away from the window and back to Reader. 'But you can get used to anything.'

'It'd be all the creepy-crawlies I couldn't stand.' This from Ian Moresby, a man who Koop had seen take a loaded shotgun from a drugged-up psychopath in the manner of a man removing a melting ice-cream from the hand of a toddler, and with no more fuss. Moresby shivers theatrically in his seat. 'No, never could stand all those spiders.'

'And sharks!' Reader chimes in. 'You couldn't go in the water now, could you?'

'I saw a program once where they said that almost everything in Australia can kill you,' says the uniform, surprising them all. 'Even the jellyfish. They've got these ones that are only the size of your thumb, but can kill a fully grown horse.'

Reader smiles at Koop and waggles his thumb at the driver. 'It talks. Like a grown-up and everything. Just concentrate on the road, David Attenborough. And when have you ever heard of a jellyfish killing a fucking horse? What's the fucking horse doing in the fucking water in the first place, you knob?'

'Irukandji,' says Koop.

'Iruki-fucking-what?'

'The name of the jellyfish. Irukandji.'

Koop appreciates what they're doing. Safe ground. Avoiding talking about anything related to the case until they're inside an interview room with the tapes rolling.

He spends the rest of the trip indulging in a favourite Australian sport: Pom-scaring. Huntsman spiders feature prominently. As do brown snakes, stingers, crocodiles, white pointers, cockroaches the size of Volkswagens, and stick insects that could be mistaken for logs. The cops in the Range Rover lap it up.

At Stanley Road, the atmosphere shifts as soon as they pull into the car park. Moresby slips the cuffs back onto Koop's wrists.

'Wouldn't look right if there's any brass hanging around,' he says to Koop. The car arrives at the back entrance and Reader steps out almost before the wheels have stopped turning. Moresby helps Koop out and the three of them splash through the puddles and go inside. Koop sits on a bench while Reader does the paperwork with the booking officer. Despite the friendliness of the policeman at the desk, Koop feels a chill. For the first time since finding Kite's body he feels truly vulnerable. Sitting here, he's as far from home as it's possible to be. In so many ways.

There's a flurry of movement from outside and the doors to the booking room open. DCI Perch comes in like a politician visiting a far-flung colony, Keane and Harris behind him. Neither looks particularly happy with the way things are panning out. Perch regards Koop with disdain but says nothing. He nods to Reader and Moresby who reply in kind.

'We ready?' Reader gestures towards a door leading to the interview room. Koop gets slowly to his feet and follows the OCS officer, Moresby bringing up the rear.

At the door to the corridor Koop stops and looks at Keane.

'You know this is bullshit, right, Frank?'

Keane holds out his arms in a gesture of impotence. 'It doesn't look great, Koop. You have to see that.'

'That's enough,' snaps Perch. 'This is your fuck-up, DI Keane. Don't make it worse.'

Em Harris sees the colour rise in Keane's neck but he remains silent. As does she.

Keane moves towards the corridor, in the direction Koop has been taken.

'Where are you going, DI Keane?' Perch's voice is ice. He turns to Harris. 'You sit in with the OCS interview, DI Harris. It's their case now, I know, but there's overlap and I want you there as the MIT rep. Keane, you're out. Your relationship with Koopman prejudices you. Not to mention the sloppy work concerning Koopman's brother.'

Harris hesitates and Keane catches her eye. Perch's crack about Carl Koopman slipping through MIT's checklist has hit home. The fact that it was Harris's responsibility as much as Keane's was neither here nor there, and both of them know it. Keane isn't going to bleat about the mistake: he's ready to accept the blame. The question now is which way Emily Harris will jump. Technically, as one of Perch's junior officers, she should do exactly what he wants. The question is: will Harris make any sign of her loyalty to Keane? No matter how small, an indication that she's on Keane's side is there to be made.

'You coming?' says Moresby. He's holding the door to the corridor, feeling uncomfortable. This is typical Perch; making public something that should have been said in private. Moresby looks at Emily Harris and raises his eyebrows. She brushes past Frank Keane without a word, her eyes fixed ahead.

Keane nods to himself as though something has been confirmed. At the corridor Moresby purses his lips,
studiously avoiding Keane, and closes the door behind them.

Keane looks at Perch.

'Will you be needing me here today?' he says, the words thick in his mouth. 'Sir?' If Perch so much as smiles I'm going to clock the bastard, he thinks.

The Fish shakes his head, his eyes never looking in Keane's direction.

'You can get on with something else. I'll wait for Harris to update me on Koopman. Both of them.' Perch pushes through into the main office leaving Keane in the foyer. The booking officer raises an eyebrow and Keane kicks a wastebasket into the opposite wall. He holds out a finger to the booking officer.

'Not. A. Fucking. Word.' He takes out his car keys and slams through the street doors back into the city.

49

The boy is back at school. Jimmy Gelagotis knows his name by now – Mitch Barnes – but prefers to still think of him as simply 'the boy'. It will make it easier when the time comes. Jimmy has always had that facility to put his feelings in a neat box and move it to a compartment of his mind to be dealt with later, if at all. His own son is around Mitch Barnes's age and the thought of anyone harming Chris makes Jimmy feel sick to his stomach. But, in business, as in war, sometimes difficult decisions have to be made. And since the business Jimmy Gelagotis is in combines both, he doesn't have a choice.

The boy has to go.

Once it's decided, it's as good as done. Back when Jimmy was in tenth grade and already too familiar with the workings of the justice system, a court-appointed psychiatrist described him as a 'classic sociopath'. Jimmy found out what the phrase meant and wanted to kill the psychiatrist. He tried to, in a sort of ham-fisted adolescent way, by attempting to follow the man home from his clinic. He lost the man soon after and later was glad about the way it turned out. As time passed, Jimmy grew less concerned
about killing for perceived slights. It was a much more effective use of his skills to use violence when it proved useful. Besides, the shrink was right on the money, Jimmy decided. He
was
a motherfucking sociopath. So what? Wasn't every successful businessman?

It's nearing seven in the evening by the time Jimmy Gelagotis turns into the road where Mitch Barnes lives. He drives slowly past the house whose number Todd has given him. He doesn't stop, driving instead to the T-junction and making a left. A second left brings him along a road which borders a rising patch of undeveloped scrub. Jimmy pulls the car off the road under a thick tangle of tree branches. The shadow renders Jimmy and the car invisible. He takes out his iPhone and clicks the GPS map application, taps in the boy's address and sets the view to satellite. A clear image of the road comes onscreen and Jimmy zooms out to gain an understanding of the terrain. The scrub to his left rises up to a small ridge before rolling down towards the back of a retail park. On the GPS Jimmy can see the rectangles of trucks nuzzling up against the rear of the shops like suckling pups. A vast car park runs around three sides of the retail complex. That will be useful.

Jimmy slides the car from the shadows back onto the road and turns the corner. With the shops closed for the night, the complex and its car park are empty. Jimmy drives to the furthest point from the main road and stops the car in the shadows of some trees backing onto the scrub. He unclips his seatbelt and reaches inside his jacket for his phone which he places face down on the dash in front of him. From a glass vial in the glovebox Jimmy shakes out a small mound of white powder onto the back of the iPhone. Using the side of a credit card, he smoothly chops the coke into two neat deliberate lines. With a rolled
five-dollar note he bends over the powder and snorts the lines one after the other. He throws his head back and sniffs wetly. As the effect kicks in, Jimmy coughs before licking a finger and wiping the remaining coke from the phone. He runs a finger around his gums before replacing the phone in his jacket pocket.

Let's get this fucking party started.

Jimmy Gelagotis checks the area but it's deserted. He steps from the car and closes the door quietly behind him. It's a blustery evening and Jimmy walks a few paces along the nature strip at the edge of the car park before spotting a small gap in the waving brush. He pushes through and stands in almost complete darkness. Jimmy waits for fully five minutes as his eyes adjust, the trees roaring above his head. Eventually he finds he can see well enough to navigate his way towards the top of the small rise. At first his progress is slow as he trips over stray branches or stumbles on loose gravel. Once or twice he jerks as spider webs are blown against his face and Jimmy furiously thrashes his head, images of spiders landing in his hair. Gradually, though, as his vision improves, he grows more confident and within ten minutes of leaving the car finds himself looking at the back of Mitch Barnes's house. A security light comes on and off again at intervals, triggered by the movement of branches in the wind. A bonus; no-one will respond to the security light coming on if it's been doing the same all night.

Jimmy settles back against the base of a tree to wait. Most people in his line of business, he'd observed, tended to rush straight into things and the temptation to do what he's come here to do and leave, quickly, is almost overpowering. But he stays, checking his watch at ever-increasing intervals. The wind picks up in intensity making
his task much easier. No-one will be out on the hillside on a night like this and the wind renders any sound he might make inaudible.

After almost an hour, Jimmy hits the jackpot. A light comes on in a downstairs room only partly concealed by badly drawn blinds, and a boy walks in, illuminated as clearly as if onstage. He wears a pair of shorts and a baggy t-shirt. He gets into bed and lies down, a surf magazine in his hand.

Jimmy straightens. It looks very like the boy on the soccer field but he isn't completely sure. Jimmy moves closer to the edge of the back fence and, careful to leave his face in shadow, examines the boy more closely. He tries to recall the night of the shooting and there it is in front of him. The blood spraying up and out of Kolomiets as the bullets hit, the drops spattering the face of a white-skinned, dark-haired boy with wide eyes.

It's him.

A middle-aged woman, clearly the boy's mother, comes into the room and perches awkwardly on the edge of the bed. She ruffles his hair, and sits with him for a short time until, after a few words, she leaves. The boy flicks the magazine half-heartedly before turning off the bedside lamp, the room still illuminated by a bar of light coming in through the partially open bedroom door.

Fifteen minutes later Jimmy checks his gun and climbs the fence in one easy movement. The yard is in darkness but, as he comes within range, the security lamps flood him in harsh white light. As he expects, no-one in the house notices. They might investigate if the light stays on for a long time but Jimmy won't be here long. What he's here for will only take a few seconds.

Jimmy comes to within four paces of the sleeping boy
and levels the barrel of the Sig Sauer at his head. At that precise moment, Mitch Barnes opens his eyes and looks directly at Jimmy Gelagotis standing in much the same pose as the last time he saw him.

Jimmy's finger, tight against the trigger, freezes momentarily. He stares at Mitch Barnes who seems unable or unwilling to move. Jimmy steels himself and takes careful aim.

A sharp crack cuts through the thrashing of the wind. The front of Jimmy Gelagotis's head disappears and a crimson arc splashes against the bedroom window. Through the glass Mitch Barnes looks at Gelagotis lying in the garden, a low decorative wall keeping his body cantilevered awkwardly. His left leg jerks spastically and then Gelagotis remains completely still, his blood beginning to run in lines down the glass.