Crucifixion Creek (22 page)

‘Yes.'

‘And what about the business of the south-west underground rail route?'

‘No, he—they—didn't give me that. That was my own interpretation of events.'

‘It's been getting a bit of a knocking the last few days. Are you still confident
about it?'

‘To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure. But I am convinced that the three kings were
involved in a criminal conspiracy of some kind, along with other people. Kelpie believes
this too.'

‘Hm.' Catherine looks, not disbelieving exactly, but needing to be convinced. ‘Has
he given you anything else?'

Kelly takes a large print of Harry's latest photograph from her folder and gives
it to her. ‘Kelpie gave me this. It was taken in the bar of the Le Meridien hotel
in Jakarta last April. That's Kristich, Mansur and Oldfield, and the fourth man is
called Potgeiter, a local councillor whose ward includes Crucifixion Creek. Oldfield
declared his trip to the parliamentary record as being for liaison with Indonesian
police officials, while Kristich paid for Potgeiter's airfare and hotel accommodation.
Potgeiter told his council that he was taking a holiday in Tasmania.'

‘What were they up to?'

‘I don't know. That's one of the things I'd like to find out.'

‘You want to go to Jakarta?'

‘Um…' She hasn't thought this through.

‘Alternatively, we have resources on the ground there. Maybe you could talk to them
and see what they can find out.'

‘Yes, great.'

‘What about this Potgeiter? Isn't he a bit out of his league?'

‘That's what makes me think it must be something local to the Creek. I've heard rumours
in the past that he uses influence with council inspectors and other staff to go
easy with his friends when they sail a bit close to the wind.'

‘But surely this is something bigger?'

‘Yes. I'd like to find out more of his background. He emigrated from South Africa
about ten years ago.'

‘Okay.' Catherine examines the photograph again. ‘I think we should hold this back
until we know more about the context. On its own it means nothing.'

Kelly is disappointed. She hoped that the momentum would increase with the
Times
behind her, not slow down.

‘You disagree? Your first photo, the three kings, set the hares running. They all
went into a panic, but it won't happen again. They're prepared now. We need the story
behind the photograph to get the impact.'

She's right, Kelly concedes, as she makes her way back to her desk. She was lucky
before; now she has to do the solid groundwork. She feels like an amateur coming
into this great machine, having to prove herself all over again. She thanks God she's
got Harry.

28

It is a chilly winter morning and the pool looks almost as dark and forbidding as
the sky. There is only one swimmer, ploughing his solitary watery furrow up and back,
up and back. Harry, pulling his coat around him against the wind, watches him from
the stand. After almost an hour the swimmer hauls himself out and wraps himself in
his towel. He pads off to the changing room without a glance at the lone watcher
in the stand.

Harry is waiting for him as he emerges from the entrance, a stocky man with powerful
shoulders and a battered face. He has a noticeable limp. When Harry steps into his
path, Tony Gemmell glances at him without surprise and says, ‘You look like a cop.'

‘The name's Harry.'

‘Not interested.'

Gemmell goes to push past and Harry says, ‘I was in the army with Rowdy O'Brian.'

‘So?'

‘It was my doorstep they dumped his body on.'

Gemmell peers at him more closely. ‘And why was that?'

‘We'd met a couple of days before. Somebody saw us together.'

‘So it's your fault he died.'

‘Maybe, or maybe someone just wanted rid of him. He told me about you and how things
had changed for the worse since you left the Crows. He had a great respect for you,
Tony.'

‘What do you want?'

‘I want to nail whoever did it.'

‘Don't ask me.' He keeps walking and Harry lets him pass.

‘They broke all his fingers and toes, then they used an oxy-acetylene torch on him.
Burned the club tatts off his arm and carved D-O-G on his back.'

Gemmell stops and slowly turns back. ‘What are the cops doing about it?'

‘Not making much headway so far. Prime suspects were Bebchuk and his mob, but they
have alibis, so now they're thinking it might be another gang.'

‘Bullshit. What was their alibi?'

‘They all rode out to a hotel in Bathurst for the weekend.'

‘Who says so?'

‘The hotel staff. Local cops saw their bikes outside all weekend, and their phone
data places them there.'

‘Nah, it's a set-up. Cameras?'

‘The hotel doesn't have any. So they say.'

Gemmell shakes his head. ‘There's no way they would have gone on a ride last weekend
except to set up an alibi.'

‘How can you be sure?'

‘Because this weekend is the Presidents' Ride, and they wouldn't have gone out two
weekends running.'

‘What's the Presidents' Ride?'

‘Each year three of the west Sydney outlaw motorcycle clubs have a meet at the Swagman
Hotel in Penrith. It's a longstanding tradition, and anyone who breaks it would be
in big trouble.'

‘I see.'

‘Bebchuk did Rowdy all right. It's as clear as day. Bebchuk, Capp and Haddad, those
three.'

They stand in silence for a moment, then Gemmell says, ‘What did you expect from
me?'

‘I wondered if you might be able to tell me how I could get Bebchuk on his own, outside
of the compound.'

Gemmell shakes his head. ‘No chance. Bebchuk's made plenty of enemies. They don't
go out much, and always in strength.'

‘Ah.'

‘You are a cop, right?'

Harry nods. ‘But not on this case. This is strictly personal.'

Another pause, the two men sizing each other up as the wind whips a spattering of
rain around them. Then Gemmell says, ‘So let me tell you about the Presidents' Ride.'

29

Around lunchtime, Nicole calls in unexpectedly on Jenny. Their mother has taken the
girls to the movies and Nicole, in town for some shopping, thought she'd drop in
to see her sister. As she comes in Jenny smells her perfume and imagines her make-up,
something Nicole was always good at. For Jenny, make-up is another one of those awkward
problems now. Mostly she has to rely on Harry to tell her whether she's done a decent
job.

‘Isn't Harry here?' Nicole asks. ‘I thought you said it was his day off today.'

‘He had to go out. I'm not sure when he'll be back.'

‘Oh.' Nicole sounds disappointed.

They go into the kitchen where Jenny's got out the bread and cheese she was going
to have for lunch. ‘There's plenty for both of us.'

Actually, Nicole is more interested in wine, and helps herself from a bottle in the
fridge. ‘The truth is, Mum's driving me crazy,' she says. ‘She's turning the place
upside down and I can't find anything. She just takes over. Well, you know what she's
like.'

From their mother she goes on to all the other problems she's having. ‘God, Jen,
I just didn't realise when Greg was alive how much I depended on him. The money of
course, he did everything. Paid the bills, balanced the books. I'm hopeless, he never
told me how it all worked. And then things keep going wrong. Have you ever tried
changing a globe in one of those recessed ceiling lights? It's impossible. Mum says
call an electrician, but we can't afford to do that every time a globe goes. And
then one of the hinges in the cupboard doors has come off, and I can't get the lawnmower
to start. I'm just useless, that's how I feel.'

Jenny tries to comfort her. ‘Of course Harry will help with that sort of thing.'
She knows this side of her younger sister, how it will blow over. She hears the clink
of the bottle and the glug of Nicole refilling her glass. ‘Better watch if you're
driving,' she says.

‘Oh, I got a bus into town and a cab out here. I was rather hoping Harry might give
me a lift home. Honestly, you don't know how lucky you are having a good man like
that.'

There is a wistful tone in Nicole's voice that sets off an alarm in Jenny's mind.
There was a pattern—well, it happened twice, before they were both married—where
Nicole would take a sudden fancy to her sister's latest boyfriend. Nicole was the
pretty, vivacious one, Jenny more serious and cautious, and these two boys found
Nicole's flirtatiousness irresistible. It just happened, Nicole would say, as if
she'd had nothing at all to do with it. She had sexy eyes, one of them later told
Jenny, who knew what he meant. She had watched the way her sister used her eyes,
her wide-eyed gaze. It worries her that she can no longer see the way Nicole looks
at Harry.

No, she stops herself. Of course Nicole would never do that to her. How could she
think it? It's just a symptom of her own insecurity that she can imagine such a
thing. All the same, she's relieved that Harry doesn't come home for lunch, and that
eventually Nicole calls a cab to take her to Central to get a train home.

When Harry
gets home that evening he finds Jenny watching television, which is to say that she
is sitting facing the set, listening to
Singin' in the Rain
and watching Gene Kelly
and Debbie Reynolds dancing in her head.

He kisses her on the cheek and tells her to go on, but it's a DVD and she says she'll
finish it later. They sit down for the meal she's prepared and she tells him about
a new player she's found, called Curly. It seems that Curly has been providing some
form of service for Kristich for several years, receiving irregular payments of a
few hundred dollars at a time, cash in hand, no GST.

‘Drugs?'

‘Maybe. Could be.'

‘Curly…' Harry tries to think of someone with distinctive hair, or else completely
bald. ‘How about Chloe Anastos, his girlfriend? She has big hair.'

‘Ah yes, I suppose it could be her.' She hesitates, then says, ‘What is it, darling?
What's wrong?'

‘What? Nothing.'

‘There is, I can hear it, feel it. You're worried about something, or bottling something
up.'

He laughs, ‘Doctor Inspector Jenny,' but it sounds off-key.

She doesn't smile, looking grave. ‘I've been thinking that you were right.'

‘About what?'

‘About us going away. I would like to go to France. We could rent a house somewhere
in the south, just us, and we can go to the market in the town square in the morning
and smell the cheeses and the fruit, and make love in the afternoon or any time we
feel like it.'

Oh, he thinks, that's it. ‘I'm sorry, Jen. I haven't been feeling—'

‘It isn't just that. Here we're trapped in the past, and it's destroying us. We can't
put it right, Harry. We can't put the bits together again. It'll burn us up, kill
us if we don't escape.'

She's right of course, and he doesn't know how to answer her. He knows he couldn't
escape so easily. In his dreams Bebchuk would always be climbing down that hill with
his baseball bat, or holding a torch to Rowdy's back. ‘Maybe…maybe in a little while.
September perhaps, or October, when the tourists have gone, we could take a trip.'
But he knows that isn't what she means.

30

It isn't long before Kelly is feeling overwhelmed by her new environment—the new
names she has to learn, the acronyms, the procedures, the equipment, the office habits,
where to get a decent cup of coffee. She is helped by Hannah, a young journalism
graduate from UTS, who has been assigned to her. Kelly hardly knows where to ask
her to begin, but they sit down together and draw up a list of possible tasks.

Following her talk with Catherine, Kelly's priority is to gather background on the
Jakarta photograph, and she asks Hannah to get details of the paper's contacts in
Indonesia. ‘And while you're at it, make that Vanuatu too,' she adds.

Meanwhile Kelly has a list of people who have been contacting her with offers of
information on Kristich, Oldfield, Potgeiter and especially Mansur. They are angry
residents, outraged ratepayers, cranks, serial letter-writers and people with too
much time on their hands, and she has to sift the gold from the dross. It seems Mansur's
company Ozdevco has been involved in a number of development projects that have
upset local residents, conservationists
and community groups. If the complainants
are to be believed, its methods in getting projects approved have ranged from the
mysterious to the brutal. Several of these projects have been within Councillor Potgeiter's
ward, and it appears that Kristich has acted as Ozdevco's agent in a number of them.
The complaints against Oldfield, on the other hand, tend to be on law and order issues.
People seem to think he was soft on criminals and resisted attempts to strengthen
anti-bikie legislation.

When Hannah comes back with the contact details she asked for, Kelly gives her the
letters and emails and asks her to make brief summaries and a priority list for further
contact. She then picks up the phone and gets straight through to Anton, their stringer
in Jakarta. She introduces herself and they discuss what she's after. While they're
talking, Kelly gets Hannah to send him the photograph in the Le Meridien bar. When
he's got it in front of him she describes the people it shows.

Anton listens carefully, then says, ‘There is one other man there I recognise, do
you see on the left? Almost out of the picture, in profile, turned towards the bar
lady.'