Appeal Denied: A Cliff Hardy Novel (13 page)

Townsend rang in the morning to ask about my progress. I claimed to be making some without giving details. I said that the name Gary Perkins, mentioned by Jane Farrow, had come up and I was looking into him.

Townsend didn’t sound very impressed and I suspected he knew I wasn’t telling it all. Perhaps I should have added a few notes of frustration. I tried to cover up by asking him about his progress, but he saw through that.

‘You’re hedging, Cliff. I thought we were in this together.’

I had to come clean, not only to stay onside with him, but to test his commitment to the investigation, given his relationship with Farrow. ‘I’m hearing things about Jane,’ I said.

‘So?’

‘You’ve had time to think about it. What’s your take on this plan of hers?’

‘I don’t like it, but she’s got us over a barrel. Unless we come up with something better she’ll go ahead anyway. There are other journalists, other private eyes for that matter. And you aren’t even one of them, strictly speaking. So, have you come up with anything better?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I’ve got a call waiting. Get back to me when you decide what the fuck you want to do.’

He hung up and I couldn’t blame him. He could tell I felt myself to be on shifting ground and that doesn’t inspire confidence. I moped around the house for a while and then the phone rang.

‘Hardy.’

‘Mr Hardy, this is Pam Williams. I’m calling from Mascot. Lucy and my sister and I are on our way to the sunshine state.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Hannah Morello is gung-ho to talk to you. Here’s her phone number and address.’

She rattled them off, with the airport lounge noise in the background. I scribbled them down and thanked her.

‘Maybe you can come back when all this is over,’ I said.

‘I don’t think so. Know what? Sydney’s overpriced and overrated. Bye.’

Good exit line. I rang Townsend and told him I had an informant ready to talk about police corruption in the Northern Crimes Unit—possibly in possession of hard evidence.

‘You were going to keep this from me?’

‘I just got confirmation. I’m inviting you to sit in on the meeting, on one condition.’

‘Which is?’

‘That you don’t tell Jane anything about it until we follow it up, check it out, see what we can make of it.’

A hesitation, then he said, ‘Agreed.’

‘How will I be sure? We’re talking several deaths here.’

‘You have my word.’

I’d rather have had his mobile phone and every other means of communication he possessed under my control, but there was no way. Still, I played it cautiously. I said I’d call him back with a meeting place and time.

I rang Hannah Morello and told her who I was.

‘I’ve been waiting for your call,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘I’ve got your address. When?’

‘Just as soon as you can get here.’

Promising. She lived in Drummoyne. I said one hour. I rang Townsend and arranged to meet him at a point some distance from the Morello address in forty minutes. I drove to Drummoyne, scoped out the Morello house, and took up a spot where I could see Townsend arriving. I’d made sure I wasn’t followed; I wanted to be sure he wasn’t. Dead on time, he arrived in a sporty yellow Mazda. The place I’d chosen had a view of the water at Iron Cove if you walked fifty metres. Townsend sat in his car for a few minutes, got out and went to where he could see the view. Who wouldn’t? The day was clear and the water was blue and Sydney’s waterways have an attraction all their own, no matter what Pam Williams thought.

A few cars passed, none slowed or circled. Looked to be all clear. I drove along and pulled up beside Townsend. I got out. He turned, saw me, turned back.

‘Great view,’ I said. ‘Used to be more interesting when there were working docks and shipyards. That’s what I think. What d’you think?’

He didn’t take the bait. ‘Trusting, aren’t you?’

‘No. One of the reasons I’m still alive.’

‘What was the point?’

‘To make sure you weren’t followed.’

‘That is, I didn’t tell Jane.’

‘Among other possibilities.’

‘You’re a bastard, Hardy.’

‘Wish I had a dollar … Let’s go and talk to a woman who might be able to help us a lot.’

Hannah Morello lived in a terrace house in a street a block or two back from the river. Maybe a glimpse of the water from the top storey. Not many cars parked in the street at that time of day. We opened the gate and in two strides—two and a half for Townsend—were at the front door. I knocked and the door was opened almost immediately. Hannah Morello was lean and dark with a beaky nose and a strong chin. She wore jeans and a sweater, sneakers.

‘Mrs Morello, I’m Cliff Hardy. This is Lee Townsend.

I know I didn’t say he was coming but—’ ‘I know Mr Townsend from the television,’ she said. ‘Please come in.’

She ushered us into the front room. It was a sitting room with a TV and stereo set-up, pleasantly furnished. A wall had been knocked out to make a double space out of the two front rooms with the second one serving as a dining room. Standard terrace renovation—a big hammer, an r.s.j. and a skip, and you’re in business.

We sat on vinyl lounge chairs around a low table. She offered us coffee. We refused. She sat very straight in her chair, tense, but with a determined look, while I ran through a quick preamble on what we were doing, what we expected to do and how we hoped she could help us.

‘I can,’ she said. ‘I’ve been waiting for the chance. Didn’t know what to do, but when Pam Williams phoned me I knew my bloody chance had come.’

Townsend shot me an enquiring look. I hadn’t told him about Pam Williams, but it was the quickest of glances so as not to distract her.

‘We know that Gary Perkins and others are corrupt,’ I said. ‘We know that they’ve connived at murder, maybe committed it or had it done. But we haven’t yet got any proof.’

‘I have.’

Townsend leaned forward and his handsome face took on an expression of confidence and reassurance. This was the way he appeared on television—uncannily bigger, stronger, smarter.

‘When you say that, Mrs Morello, what do you mean?’

‘I have photographs my husband took.’

‘Photographs that incriminate Perkins?’

‘And that Greek.’

‘Kristos,’ I said. ‘What about Vince Gregory?’

She shrugged. ‘Dunno about him.’

Townsend took a device the size of a cigarette packet from his jacket pocket. ‘This is a miniature digital recorder,’ he said. ‘Would you be willing to let me record you when you put the photos on the table here and tell us briefly what they are and how you come to have them? You don’t have to act, just speak clearly.

I can keep your face out of the frame or have it pixelated if you wish.’

She didn’t even blink. ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘And bugger that. I’ll look the lens full in the face if you want.’

Townsend nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’

She left the room and I heard her mounting the stairs. Townsend smiled at me. ‘Technology, Hardy. Out of your depth, are you?’

I’d read about these gadgets, never used one, but I knew the language. ‘Hope you’ve got a big enough memory card.’

He smiled and checked the thing over. ‘I never did hear about this Pam Williams, although I can work out who she is.’

‘You’ve heard now. She put me on to Mrs Morello just before she decamped lock, stock and barrel to Queensland. It worries me the danger this woman is putting herself in.’

‘That’s why I offered to mask her identity.’

‘Big of you, but that won’t do it.’

‘Let’s see what she’s got first. Play it by ear after that. She looks pretty … capable.’

Hannah Morello came back carrying a manilla folder. She stood in the archway looking at Townsend, who lifted his camera and nodded. She walked into the room and spilled the contents of the folder onto the table. A couple of photos fell off the edge. Nice drama. Night shots. Black and white, at least a dozen of them.

Townsend filmed the action and then lifted the camera to film her as she sat down. She’d tidied her dark mane of hair and put on a little makeup. Changed her sweater for a dark silk shirt. She used her left hand to point to the photographs, her wedding ring glinting.

‘My name is Hannah Morello,’ she said. ‘I am the widow of Detective Sergeant Daniel Morello of the Northern Crimes Unit of the New South Wales Police Service. These photographs were taken by my husband. They show Detective Senior Sergeant Mikos Kristos murdering the journalist Rex Robinson. My husband died of cancer some time after he took these pictures. I found them later among his effects. I believe the stress he underwent as a result of what he discovered about his colleagues caused or accelerated his cancer. I want justice.’

17

H
annah Morello gestured for Townsend to turn the recorder off.

‘From things he said, my guess is that Danny had talked to Robinson about what was happening in the unit. Perhaps it was off the record. I’m still guessing, but I think he didn’t trust Robinson. You’d lose the ability to trust, working in that place. Somehow, he was on the scene when this happened. Maybe he was following Robinson, or even Perkins. I don’t know.’

Townsend and I examined the photos. They were blowups and a bit grainy but clear enough. The sequence was: a man—bulky in a heavy coat and unidentifiable with a cap pulled down low—leaning in to talk to a driver with another car behind; Kristos leaving the second car; a man, presumably Robinson, being threatened with a pistol by the one who’d been talking to him; Robinson getting out of his car; Kristos putting Robinson in a headlock; Kristos and the other arranging a limp Robinson behind the steering wheel of his car; the man leaning in across the body, presumably turning on the engine; Kristos behind the wheel of the second car with his front bumper only inches from the back bumper of Robinson’s car; a blurry image of a moving car; a shot of a broken railing from a point overlooking a steep drop to a body of water.

‘Well?’ Hannah Morello said.

Townsend carefully, almost reverently, arranged the photos into a neat pile. ‘Extraordinary,’ he said. ‘Can I record again with you saying how you came to find these and why you haven’t done anything about them until now?’

‘Why not?’

I put up a warning hand. ‘Just hold on a minute.

Do you realise the danger you’re putting yourself in, Mrs Morello? When Kristos knows about this material he’ll probably try to kill you.’

It was clear she hadn’t considered it. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘There’s the evidence against them, cut and dried.’

‘No, he’s right,’ Townsend said. ‘Photographs can be faked or doctored with modern technology. This set needs your statement to make them solidly credible. Have you got children?’

That hit home. ‘Two,’ she said, ‘Josh and Milly, six and eight years old.’

‘You’d need protection,’ I said. ‘Someone to stay here to keep watch on the children, and on you when you’re out and about.’

She lost some of the upbeat manner. ‘I hadn’t thought it through. How long would we be talking about?’

I said, ‘Difficult to know. There’d be an enquiry and a trial. You’d be in danger all that time.’

‘Are you trying to discourage me, Mr Hardy?’

‘No. I just want you to know what you’re up against.’

‘There could be another way,’ Townsend said. ‘Is this the only set of photographs?’

‘No, Danny was a keen amateur photographer. He had a darkroom and all the gear. He developed two sets. What do you mean, another way?’

My question exactly.

Townsend tapped the photographs. ‘These incriminate Kristos, but we know he’s in close association with at least a few other police in the unit, some of them with higher rank. If pressure could be brought to bear on those people, they’d give Kristos up in a flash. If his mates desert him and he’s charged, denied bail, he’s virtually impotent. You’d be that much safer.’

‘So some of the bastards would get off the hook?’

‘Not entirely—dismissal, lesser charges, that sort of thing. It’d still break up the organisation effectively.’

She gave us both a long, steady look and made her decision. ‘Would you arrange the protection you’re talking about while this dealing was going on?’

Townsend said, ‘We will. Cliff can carry some of the load and I’m sure he has contacts. What do you say, Cliff?’ Townsend was hard to read. One minute he was hot for the story and fuck-you-jack, the next he was all compassion and conciliation. I thought I knew what he was up to, but this wasn’t the time to debate it. For as long as knowledge of the photos stayed strictly with the three people in the room, Hannah Morello was safe. The second the word got out, her life’s possibilities sharply diminished.

I decided to stall. ‘Your husband never said anything about having the photos?’

She shook her head. ‘Never. He might have meant to, but his cancer was incredibly aggressive. He went from being able to talk and to see the kids to needing heavy sedation in a matter of days. After that he … he really wasn’t there.’

‘How have you managed financially?’

‘Danny was in the force for nearly twenty years. His superannuation was good. I inherited some money about twelve years ago and we bought this house when the prices were much lower. It was a bit of a wreck but Danny fixed it up. Not much mortgage and I work part-time as an architect. He was a good man, Danny. He only joined the Northern Crimes Unit because it had promotion possibilities. I wish he hadn’t.’

‘What’s your point, Cliff?’ Townsend said with just a touch of impatience in his voice.

‘I’m not sure. I think Mrs Morello should have someone to advise her.’

Townsend was good. He showed no reaction, merely looked at the woman. She reached over and picked up the photographs, flicked through them, put them down.

‘Danny wasn’t the bravest man in the world,’ she said. ‘He should have taken these straight to the Internal Affairs people or the police ombudsman, yelled blue murder and let the world know what was happening. I would have backed him because I could see what working there was doing to him. I could’ve taken the kids off somewhere. But he didn’t. I hate to think he was somehow compromised. I don’t believe that. I think he just didn’t have the nerve.’