On Cringila Hill (10 page)

‘You've discussed this with Peter Grace.'

‘I have. And, of course, I've given the matter my separate thought since he left. Interesting, really. Disturbing.'

‘And what is there to add?'

‘Probably not very much. Firstly, as we know, the killer almost certainly is not from Cringila.'

‘Everyone says that. How can we
know
?'

‘Oh, well … Abdul knew everyone on the Hill, most of the long-standing residents from round about and clearly he didn't know his killer.'

‘Since we don't know who the killer
was
, how is
that
knowable?'

‘Where are the bodies of the victims of the most successful murders?'

Gordon shakes his head, confused.

‘I don't know.'

‘Nor does anyone else. Most successful murders are listed as missing persons. They've been lured away from their haunts and killed and their bodies never found. The killing of Abdul seems to me to have been done with a degree of skill, and those responsible would have preferred that there be no body. But, rather prominently, there was one, so this says to me that Abdul did not know his killer, or else he may have been talked into getting into the vehicle, been driven off and never seen again. We'd have thought, “He's skipped his bail.” We'd have thought, “Family has got him out of the country.” Not a bad way to proceed, actually, if they'd been able to do it. They didn't because they couldn't. They used someone whom Abdul didn't know.'

‘How do we know that there was a vehicle?'

‘He was on the footpath and shot from the road. I doubt his assailant jogged up. So all of that's Point One. And Two, Peter Grace tells me that at least three bullets were fired into poor old Abdul but that they were so close together that fact had to be established at autopsy. Initially, people thought that there was only one wound, of very high calibre. This says to me that our person knew very well what he was doing. It seems to me, most likely, that this was a professional assassin. There
are
no professional assassins on Cringila Hill. No one on Cringila Hill
knows
a professional assassin. This was done at the behest of someone heavily connected in organised crime, which
also
is not to be found on Cringila Hill. Fist fights, an episode of drunken driving, the sort of trivial break-in that can beset any of us, but nothing of a kind that
this
speaks of.'

‘What, you think the killer came down from Sydney?'

‘Possible, but unlikely. Despite what folk like to believe, professional assassins are not thick on the ground in any of the cities of Australia, and when rationally motivated killings take place there's an abduction, bad things with a chainsaw, a public confrontation with bullets sprayed around willy-nilly. Not like this. Not in my experience. A body on a footpath, three carefully placed shots, no witnesses, no one who's heard a gunshot. Never.
I've
never heard of anything like it. Have you?'

‘No. Peter Grace was saying exactly the same thing. So, what do you think happened?'

Michael rubs the knuckle of his right thumb across his chin.

‘I've thought a lot about this,' he says, ‘since Peter left. I've time to think, up here, which is a blessing and a curse. After Peter left I found that the matter of Abdul had entered my imagination. I can only tell you what I'd have done if it was me. I think that the organiser is someone heavily connected, someone who had something very significant to lose at Abdul's hands. I think he was connected to the people who were with Abdul on the night, so I imagine that, originally, he was Lebanese.'

‘His brother thinks that the kids who were with him that night probably feared exposure.'

‘This has been far too well done to be organised by a couple of kids. And I know what it's like to shoot someone. Truly, it's not something that's going to be accomplished to this standard of excellence by an untrained amateur. I imagine that someone close to the three – it was
three
others with Abdul, I'm sure of that … that someone connected with the three was concerned what they might know, what might be revealed about other things if they were named and came under pressure. So
this
was done. And think of the
hold
this would give over these young men, “Abdul threatened you and see what happened to him! Upset me and think what might happen to you.”'

‘You believe that Abdul was connected with nasty company?'

‘I've always believed this. The whole episode involving dear Luz, it was never the sort of thing that happens on Cringila Hill. Two kids in a car, things go too far, the families sort it out. That's more their style. This had
cruelty
in it, and nothing I heard about Abdul said to me that, naturally, he was a cruel person. Weak and lost, certainly, but not cruel, particularly. And when there's a murder on Cringila Hill,
this
is not what it's about,
this
is not how it's done.'

And, in that moment, Gordon knows at some level that he's just heard a very significant statement, but at this time can't understand what the significance is. ‘So … not Cringila,' he says. ‘Not Sydney … where did our killer come from?'

‘My guess? Pure speculation, though I've thought about this. I'm of the view that, probably, money was transferred in Australia, a middle-man was used overseas, someplace where there's been a lot of strife, a lot of guns, where someone really knows how to handle himself, been through a lot and came through – Lebanon, let's say. I can imagine someone, for very good money, travelling through, say, Greece on a forged passport, flying into, for example, Adelaide, being collected in a good car by a person who had no idea who he was, given a gun, driven here …' He smiles and nods towards the Pass. ‘Perhaps down this very road, within metres of my sleeping form, given an address, given a description, placed in a vehicle of some kind. Afterwards, I can imagine him giving up the car, whatever he was driving, to be taken up perhaps to the Bangalow forest to be burned out, passing on a gun for someone to dump at sea, being driven to Melbourne, catching a flight to Athens, going home to Beirut to wait and see when the transfer agreed will come into his account, never knowing who he'd killed, why, or who'd paid him.'

‘God.'

‘Well, it's what
I'd
do, if I saw myself as needing a killing and had the appropriate connections of family and so on, plenty of money.'

‘You think like a criminal.'

‘I think like a successful criminal. Most very good detectives do.'

‘So how do we catch the killer?'

‘If you mean the man who pulled the trigger, I don't think you ever will. I doubt that there's anyone in Australia who knows who he is and where he lives. The person overseas who knows something about him, if I'm right, knows that he's been overseas on a job but won't know who was killed, or, possibly, even in which country. Perhaps I'm mistaken. But to achieve the outcome we have you'd need someone trained. Who? A rogue policeman or former policeman? If there was one someone would know, or at least suspect. We have no such intelligence. Someone from the armed services? Same response, though I can tell you this, they have their own issues and secrets, the forces.

‘This is what I think. This was done in the way cocaine is brought in, heroin. Someone thought, “We can import hard drugs, why not a killing?” Has it been done before? Not to my knowledge. But it's here now, and success is always emulated. As to an outcome, the actual shooter, I don't think so, unless he comes back and makes a mess of things another time. The ones behind it? That's a possibility. Do you see, Gordon – well, you yourself know this well enough – someone always
knows
something. The thing they know might mean nothing to them, but the ability to maintain absolute secrecy is always far more difficult than people imagine. Those three other kids – that's your way ahead.
Oh! Look!
'

Out of the nearby forest strolls a rusty-coloured bird, a body much like that of a skinny hen, a delicate head, a wide-fanned lace-feathered tail. ‘A lyre bird. Oh, you've been very fortunate.'

Sergeant lifts his head, regards the intruder, gives a sniff of disinterest and lowers his snout again to the dewy grass.

‘You love your birds, Michael. Do you feed them?'

‘Oh, no. You can't do that. That would be to intervene. And I've learned not to intervene. I just love them, and observe them.' Michael smiles, crosses his knees, looks to where May comes standing at the lounge room window, watching the two men.

Again Gordon watches Michael thoughtfully, believing that he's just heard something of great significance. ‘Anything more?' he says.

‘Truly, I don't think so. I'll ring you if anything comes to mind. But this – if you want to understand Cringila there's only one person … one person to speak with. There's a man called Lupce Valeski.'

‘I've heard of him.'

‘Old Lupce knows where the body's buried.'

A change comes into Michael's expression. Gordon says ‘What?'

‘What do you mean, “What?”?'

‘You just thought of something, after you said that. Something changed in you, how you looked.'

‘No, nothing. Don't be fanciful. And now, we've left that wonderful lady, your wife, long enough. And let me tell you this, and you be good and sure that you take me seriously – you take far greater risks in your relationship with her than I would, if she were mine.'

‘Do you think so?'

Back in his house Michael replaces the Vivaldi with some Bizet, puts out fine china cups, saucers and small plates, serves Russian Caravan tea in a pot. They enjoy together the frosted cakes he's brought down from Bowral, chatter again about the days that, for them, truly were the Good Old Days. At last May brings things to a close. ‘Michael, I hate to say this. Truly, I hate to say it, but I've still got work that must be finished for tomorrow.'

‘You do far too much. You must know that.'

‘You know that there are certain responsibilities that need to be met, whether or not we'd have chosen to have them.'

‘Send him up to me,' Michael says. ‘I'll nurse him here. I'll return him to you when he's on the mend.'

‘Michael, that is truly a very attractive offer.'

As they walk again through the lounge room they pause a moment to look at the space on the wall where the religious illustrations once hung.

‘I'll tell you about those pictures, May,' Michael says. ‘I put them up out of habit, as I said, and I scattered little Julie's ashes, when I was ready to do that, and then I sat here in this room and played my music and looked out at my garden and at the forest and beautiful birds, and from time to time I looked at the pictures, and I thought and I thought. And one day I stood up, not knowing that I was going to, and I took them down and I carried them out to my car, and drove down to the Kiama rubbish tip, and I left them there.'

‘Ah. I see.'

He walks them to their car, shakes Gordon's hand and Sergeant watches while he and May share a hug in the manner of people who have known terrible grief together, eyes closed, hands clutching at each other's shoulders, May with her face pressed into his chest.

‘Goodbye,' Michael says to her. ‘Be careful to take care of yourself. Don't forget to have compassion for
yourself
.'

She stands on tiptoe to kiss his cheek while she squeezes his hand.

When he's closed the gate, watched the departure of the Corolla, he looks down at the dog, which has squatted by his calves.

‘There you are,' he says to the dog. ‘Did you see what I did? I just sent a very competent detective to talk to a Mr Lupce Valeski. And Mr Valeski and I share something of a secret, one we've shared for a great many years. What do you think? Will Mr Winter learn of its existence? Do I
want
him to? Do I need my secret be out? Oh, dear, old habits die hard.'

Chapter Twelve

Lupce Valeski's house has four rooms for living. As well, there's a short hallway, a bathroom and, outside at the rear of the house, a verandah and small laundry. The house is made from fibro so in winter time, just before dawn, the air inside gets very cold.

Lupce Valeski does not sleep very well these nights. He'll stir, wake at the sound of small noises, wake when there's heaviness in his bladder so that he must rise and go into the bathroom. More and more often, he wakes, too, at fierce bursts of coughing that cause him to sit upright, grope for one of the handkerchiefs that he leaves on a table beside his bed, spit into it the foul-tasting fluid that forces up into his mouth from his lungs.

Sometimes he vomits in the night. When nausea grips him he has to struggle out of bed, make it to the bathroom, vomit the contents of his belly down into the bowl of his lavatory. He'd stand there then, gasping for breath, his eyes streaming from the effort of throwing up. These nights he leaves beside his bed a plastic bucket with a little disinfectant and some water. He keeps a spare set of bedclothes on a chair near the bedroom window in case the vomiting starts before he wakes.

This dark morning he lies in a thin sleep. His face is cold in the chilly bedroom air, and he dreams that he's exposed on Lake Ohrid with wind blowing across the lake coming off snow on tall mountains to the north-west. He feels the wind tightening the skin over his cheekbones, flatten his lashes into his eyes. So vivid is the dream that he can feel under his fingers and palms the flaky paint on the old wooden railing of a boat. He leans forward, in his dream, and looks down through the clear, pure lake water at a trout that lies at the lake bottom, its fins and tail waving slowly to hold its position, and he thinks how good it would be to catch that fish and take it back home for his wife to enjoy its delicious flesh.

At once he's hard awake. He blinks open his eyes, listens. He turns his head then lies awhile, looking at what patterns and shapes he can find in the darkness. He thinks that he can discern some, but, a realist, knows that everything in the little room is familiar. He is in the habit of keeping water by his bed, so he reaches for the glass and he drinks some, smacks his tongue over his damp lips. He's certain there'll be no more sleeping, so he rises, stretches out his arms, shakes them. He keeps a dressing gown across the foot of his bed and he puts this on. He's a tall man, and the thin, old gown doesn't reach to his knees, so it's little protection against the cold, but he wears it because you should not, given a choice, get around in just your pyjamas even if you live alone. As to the temperature, he's known it far colder.

He's lived for decades in this small house so that he can wander through it without light to see by. He blinks at the harsh illumination that floods the kitchen at the snapping of a switch. He fills a jug with water. He knows that, while he's in the bathroom, it will switch itself off at the boil. He remembers his wife boiling water in a can hanging above a twig fire – now water boils at the turning of a switch, the jug will turn itself off. The world, he knows, is an amazing place.

In his bathroom he must stoop to see his mirrored reflection. He examines his face in the mirror. It is a long face and its skin is taut and brown, from sun and wind when he was a shepherd, from the weather and salt air when he fished on the sea. He sees, also, that the face is thinner – he's lost more weight. This morning he washes quickly, cleans his teeth, shaves with meticulous care, draws a brush through his iron-grey, stiff-cropped hair.

Back in his bedroom he dresses in a business shirt, a brown woollen suit, a tie, picks up a packet of cigarettes, a matchbox and ashtray from the table beside his bed. In the kitchen he pours boiled water over a teabag in a mug, then takes his morning comforts through his dark little lounge room and out onto his front verandah, leaving his front door open. There's a table beside a chair out there, so he puts the materials he's brought onto the table, lowers himself into the chair.

The air is cold and damp and hits his lungs and excites his chest into a coughing spasm. He leans forward, struggles a cotton handkerchief from a pocket in his suit trousers, hawks and spits into it, coughs and spits some more. He waits for the spasm to end. He dabs some dry corners of cotton to mop tears from his eyes. When composed, he sips some tea, carefully draws out a cigarette, goes through the ritual of lighting it and drawing smoke over the raw flesh in his throat. He's laid the handkerchief on the table he sits beside. He doesn't look into the cotton to see the product of his coughing. He knows what is there. He's lived these years with the men who've worked in the steelyard, breathed the air, smoked the cigarettes. He's seen what's happened to them. He knows what's coming.

There's a wind up and it reaches where he's sitting. He likes it, the wind and the cold. Below him, at the bottom of the hill, the steelworks are illuminated as though for a carnival. The pre-dawn is overcast and the orange glow from the works chimneys reflect off the bottom of clouds. There are few workmen about, down in the yards. He watches the ones who are there moving about. They look like toy figures, that distance away. He smokes his cigarette, drinks his tea.

Headlight beams shaft along his street. He watches the old, gold-coloured Holden Brougham draw up to the footpath beneath him. He stubs out the cigarette, rises from his chair, takes a final swallow of hot tea. He draws himself erect, standing above the street on his verandah. He takes his time to get down the front stairs.

The driver's door opens. A slender young man in jeans and a bomber jacket gets out and stands beside the car.

‘Good morning, Mr Valeski.'

Lupce crosses behind the car, opens the passenger door, gets into the front seat. The driver gets back in.

‘Jose,' Lupce says, ‘sorry it's so early.'

‘Well,
I'm
early. I'm earlier than you said. I didn't know you'd be up there, waiting on the verandah. I was going to wait down here, be ready whenever you got up.'

‘Yeah, well, that's fine, about being early. Better that than the other thing.'

Lupce can smell the young man's cologne, see the shape of his carefully barbered hair against the glow from the street lighting.

‘Down there near the docks?' Jose asks him.

‘Yeah. Gotta meet two men. Got business.'

‘Not gonna lock your front door?'

Lupce chuckles, sincerely amused.

‘Nah,' he says.

The car makes a three-point turn in the narrow street, heads back up around the corner and up the Hill, makes it to Cowper Street.

‘How's your mother?' Lupce asks.

‘Yeah, good. Happy enough. Well.'

‘Good. She's a fine woman. Your father, he was a fine man.'

‘I think so.'

‘Sorry to get you up so early.'

‘Nah, that's fine. I'm fine.'

‘How's the new job?'

‘Well, it's very good. Money every week, you know. My mother's proud. And relieved, I think. It ain't easy round here now. A job means something. Got a future. I'm very grateful. I mean, thank you. I mean, thank you so much.'

‘Don' thank me. Good kid like you, you should have a good job like that, someone from roun' here, someone from one of the good old families. And your father, you know, he was always one of the very good men. Reliable, when things weren't easy.' Lupce chuckles again. ‘He always knew how to vote.'

The headlights beam through the darkness. Lupce says, ‘Is good is workin' out.'

Lupce again is racked by coughing. He empties the foul-tasting contents of his mouth into a handkerchief, draws cotton across his lips to dry them.

‘Don't sound too good.'

‘I'm fine.'

There are already lights on in many of the houses they pass. The steelworkers' shifts will change in a little while, and there are people who must clean the schools, clean offices before other workers come. There are people who must make coffee and toast sandwiches in the kiosks and stalls.

They cross the highway at Warrawong and head on up the hill towards Port Kembla. Lupce can see that darkness has started to lift, out over the sea. He checks his watch. He says, ‘Pull over.'

‘What, here?'

‘Yeah.'

‘This is all no stopping.'

Lupce chuckles again. He likes Jose. Jose makes him laugh.

‘Some police come along this time of day,' Lupce says, ‘I'm gonna tell 'em you crazy. Get you off with a bond.'

The boy parks. Lupce looks again at his watch.

‘We early,' he says. ‘Can't be early. Gotta be a little bit
late
– explain to you why, sometime.'

He looks about. They are directly beneath street lighting, harshly exposed.

‘Go on up a bit,' Lupce says. ‘Up to Keira Street. Turn left, then next right. Park there.'

Jose parks, switches off the lighting, cuts the engine. They sit in the gloom, hearing wind rock over the Brougham.

‘If you come early,' Lupce says, ‘if you there waitin' for 'em at a meeting, the others, the other side, when they come, “Hmm,” they say, “Lupce's
waitin'
, Lupce's
eager
, Lupce's
worryin'
.” See? Maybe they think that if you come early. Better
they
come, you ain't there, you a bit late, they think, “Well, is Lupce
gonna
come? Maybe is
off
, maybe he's doin' business somebody else.” Come a little bit
late
.
Worry
them a little bit.'

‘Ah.'

Jose leans forward, looks past Lupce at a big shape that stands beside them, a dark building tall up under the lightening sky.

‘Mr Valeski, where are we? That big building there. What
is
that?'

Lupce looks at the thick mass.

‘That's St Kristen of Ohrid Macedonian Orthodox Church. You don' know that? You don' get up this way?'

‘No, never been here. The only time I come east of Warrawong is to go to Port Kembla beach. Not even that, these days. I go into Wollongong, into North Beach.'

‘Ah,
North
Beach. Not Port Kembla no more. North Beach! Very high class. Very high class you got to be.'

‘Well, no. Don't make me feel I'm any better. I just like it in there. What, you go to this church?'

‘Nah, not a long time. I go to them all, you know? Go to every church roun' here. Go to the weddings. Go to the christenings. Went to
your
christening, there you was, wrigglin' and bawlin'. There was your parents, all dressed up an' proud.'

‘You gave us an envelope. You gave us an envelope filled with money.'

Lupce smiles. ‘What – you remember that?'

‘Of course not. They told me, later, that's what you did.'

‘Well, you know, a little baby startin' out – a family got all new expenses – a bit of help, it don' do no harm. So, that was in your cathedral. I been to all the churches, the mosque. Go to the weddings. Go to the funerals.'

He sits, thinking.

‘Not been back here to this one, quite a while. Lotsa things happened in there an' I saw them. Lotsa things. Gave me strong feelin's, you know?'

He sits a little longer, then reaches for a handle, opens the car door. Jose says, ‘What?'

‘Yeah. Just goin' in. Just goin' in for a minute.'

‘Mr Valeski, the church will be locked.'

‘You're wrong.'

He looks up at the metal Orthodox cross on the façade, passes through the fence, walks slowly beside the tall bulk of the building. At its rear he turns a corner, comes to an old wooden door. He turns the handle slowly, swings the door open.

The windows of the church are of plain glass and he can just make out their shapes. He feels his way slowly along, holds the edge of wooden pews, sits. He leans his back against the strong support, closes his eyes, sniffs up the smell of still, dusty air, remembering the hush of earlier congregations, the joy of the weddings and baptisms, the shrieking grief of those there to bury people they'd loved.

The door behind him creaks and he blinks open his eyes. He can discern a shadowy form near the altar. There's the snap of a switch. At once there's a stab of lighting and Lupce can see a plump young man in a priest's double cassock. Lupce remains still and quiet. The young man turns, starts to realise that he's not alone.

‘Ah!' The priest grasps his hands to the front of his chest. ‘Bless me!'

‘I'm sorry, Father.'

‘What a start!'

‘Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd be coming. I'd have warned you, made a little sound when first you come in. Not nice, that, suddenly someone's there and you didn't expect it.'

The young man blinks. ‘Lupce! Lupce Valeski! Is that you?'

Lupce can see no point in acknowledging the obvious. The young man comes along the aisle, stops at the pew Lupce occupies, comes one pace along it, sits there on one buttock with an arm leant onto the back of the pew before them.

‘Good morning, Father.'

‘No! You can't call me Father! I can't allow this! I am Riste. Always I've been Riste to you!'

Lupce shrugs, and now will not address the priest by
any
title.

‘You always called me Riste. I remember the first time. I was crossing a road, many years ago, a road up on the Hill. You called out, “Good morning, Riste.” I had no idea that you knew my name. My heart filled up my chest, I was so moved!
Proud!
Mr Lupce Valeski knew my name, greeted me! Unforgettable.'