Something Fishy (27 page)

‘I'll kill him myself,' muttered Red. ‘Bloody idiot.'

‘Let's wait until there aren't so many cops around.'

I looked back up the slope towards Syce's body. Two cops stood beside it. Damian Meakes in his light brown summer-weight suit, and a nuggety man with a bony forehead and close-cut iron-grey hair. A homicide cop called Kevin Hayes. One of the many jacks I'd met that morning at the Lorne cop shop.

A uniform blocked my path. I called Meakes' name. He turned and stared at me from behind the rimless ovals of his green-tinted sunglasses. After a long moment, he nodded.

The uniform stepped aside and I trudged up the incline.

The wind had dropped away and the clouds were breaking up, but the air still had a damp feel to it. I rubbed the bare skin of my arms and shivered.

I'd wanted to see Syce lying dead on the ground, no denying it. I'd lived with the want aching in the marrow of my bones for almost two years. From the instant the gutless prick did what he did to Lyndal. I'd felt it burst into a raging fury when he pointed his shotgun at my son. But now the moment had arrived, I felt only an unexpected emptiness.

The two cops moved apart, wordless. I stared down at the corpse.

He was dead, all right. No doubt about it. His shirt was unbuttoned, the bullet wounds clearly visible. Two in the side, one where his neck joined his shoulder. Very little blood, a quick death. Flies were already buzzing at the dark-rimmed punctures. My gaze moved up to his face. There were flies there, too. They crawled across the rough remnants of his beard and swarmed at his lips. His skin was the colour of putty, the lividity already draining away.

For the first time I looked at the man properly. Close up. Broad daylight. When my gaze reached his lifeless green eyes, a shudder started deep in my body. My stomach clenched and my mouth filled with a bitter taste.

The fruit of knowledge.

I stared until the silence grew unbearable, then turned to Meakes. His face, too, was motionless. He looked back at me, hands clasped in the small of his back, eyes invisible behind the lenses of his sunglasses. He was waiting for me to speak. But speech, at that moment, was not within my power.

It was Hayes who broke the silence, his tone conversational. ‘Your second message didn't get through until events were already in progress, Mr Whelan. Your presence here came as something of a surprise to the officers on the ground.'

‘It's been a big day for surprises,' I said stiffly, looking at Meakes. ‘Sorry for the inconvenience.'

I turned and walked back down the incline. Gutted. Meakes fell into step beside me.

I'd been overly harsh on DS Meakes. Maybe it was the fashion-plate suits. Or the Heinrich Himmler eyewear, or the cold-fish personality. But that was all water under the pier now. When it came to the crunch, the detective sergeant acquitted himself well. Did his legwork. Came out of his box like a greyhound. Crack of dawn, New Year's Day. I couldn't fault that.

Meakes waited until we reached the creek before speaking.

‘I'm heading back to Melbourne,' he said. ‘Homicide will be handling things here from now on.'

‘Better luck next time, eh?'

I extended my hand. Meakes accepted it. We shook, a moment of silent communion.

‘We'll get him,' he said. ‘No matter how long it takes.'

‘I know,' I nodded sombrely. ‘I know.'

The action sequence was over. The wash-up was beginning. Uniformed cops were running crime-scene tape around the area, tying yellow ribbons round the old gum trees. Jake Martyn's bulk was being manoeuvred onto a stretcher. Intermittent squeaks and gasps indicated that his condition was painful but not critical.

Kevin Hayes took charge of me. He said the parents of the
other teenagers had been informed that their children were safe. Everything else would be sorted out back in town.

A police four-wheel-drive ferried us along the creek bed to
a dirt track and a row of cars. The kids were subdued but physically none the worse. If there was other damage, it was not yet evident.

Red and I had the back seat of a prowl car to ourselves for the trip down to Lorne. His tee-shirt was streaked with sweat and dirt.

He looked so young and vulnerable and brave that it almost broke my heart.

‘What a maniac,' he said, stroking his jaw like a war veteran at a reunion. ‘And how about you, charging through the trees, going ballistic?'

‘I thought he was going to kill you,' I said.

While a uniformed constable steered us along dirt tracks to the asphalt hardtop, Red told me all about it.

Mongoose had sucked them in, he said. He kept leading them deeper and deeper into the bush, their destination always just a little further ahead. He told them the crop probably belonged to some hippie surfer who only visited it occasionally to water the plants. It'd just be walk in, walk back out with the smoke.

‘We wanted to turn back, Dad,' he said. ‘Me and Jodie. But Matt and the others…' he shrugged. ‘And after a while, we knew we'd get lost if we didn't stick together.'

They reached the camp about eleven. Mongoose scouted ahead and reported. The dog was out and about, the surfer asleep in a tent. Mongoose's plan was to distract the dog while the others crept into the dope patch, grabbed a couple of plants each and scattered into the bush.

It went fine until, mid-harvest, the plantation owner appeared. Not a spaced-out seaweed sucker but a bearded redneck brandishing a shotgun and screaming questions.

He calmed down when they said they were just hikers, lost in the bush. Told them he'd let them go in a while if they did what he said. Then he herded them into the shed and blindfolded them.

‘We were scared,' Red said. ‘But he didn't hurt us, so we sort of believed him.'

In the rear-view mirror, I saw the cop at the wheel of the prowl car tilt his head, the better to hear.

‘And we thought Mongoose was maybe out there somewhere, getting help or figuring out a way to spring us. That's why we didn't say anything about him first up.'

‘You did the right thing,' I reassured him. ‘Exactly the right thing.'

It was past four o'clock when we reached Deans Marsh Road and began our descent to the sea. Thirty hours since I'd risen from my bed. Red, too, looked buggered. We yawned simultaneously. When he started up the questions again, I fended him off with the minimum. There were things it was better he didn't know, too much that I didn't yet understand.

‘Tell me something,' I said. ‘When that cop booted the dog, what did he say to you?'

He grinned. ‘He said not to dob him in to the RSPCA.'

My boy, I sensed, would get though his experience intact.

A small crowd was milling on the street outside the Lorne cop shop. The other kids had arrived a few minutes ahead of us and family reunions were taking place. Barbara Prentice was huddled with Jodie and Matt, her sunglasses pushed back on her head. Her expression was a mixture of relief and admonishment, both kids talking at once. Across the street, Faye and Leo Curnow leaned against their Volvo wagon. Tarquin sat in the front passenger seat, door open, elbows on his knees, thumbs working his Gameboy. His sister Chloe combed through a
Who Weekly
. Our driver continued past and deposited us at the back door.

Proceedings inside were brisk, almost perfunctory. With my permission, Red was taken away to give a brief preliminary statement. I was parked in Sergeant Pendergast's office with a cup of tea and a Tim Tam. An officer would be with me in due course.

I sat there and counted the number of ways a man can be a fool. A slat of sunlight inched its way across the wall map. My tea went cold. And then Hayes of Homicide was dropping a wallet on the desk in front of me.

‘Yours,' he said. ‘We found it among Surovic's stuff up there at his camp.'

‘Surovic?' I said. ‘That his name?'

Hayes looked down at me, hands sunk deep in his pockets. ‘Michael Surovic,' he said. ‘According to items found at the camp.'

I thumbed through my wallet. Credit cards and whatnot were still there. The Polaroid. I took it out and looked at it.

‘For what it's worth,' Hayes said, ‘in my opinion he does look a bit like Rodney Syce.'

Perhaps that was supposed to make me feel better. I waited for the shard of ice to melt, then put the photo away.

‘And Jake Martyn?' I said. ‘Enlighten me.'

Hayes rubbed his nose thoughtfully. ‘A superficial wound, but painful. And there was an awful long wait for the ambulance.'

‘Terrible delays, apparently,' I said. ‘Since the privatisation.'

‘We did our best to make him comfortable. He was very grateful. Opened his heart to us. Told us about his run of bad luck at the blackjack table.'

‘High roller?' I said.

‘Deep shit,' nodded Hayes. ‘Spiralling debts and a business partner impatient to be paid out. Desperate frame of mind.'

‘And an easy mark in Tony Melina,' I said. ‘Did he really think he'd get away with it?'

Hayes shrugged, a man who'd seen it all. ‘He still might. What he told us back up there in the hills isn't admissible evidence. The actual killer is dead. And Tony Melina's body is somewhere on the bottom of Bass Strait. A lot will hang on your testimony, Mr Whelan.'

I lowered my head and groaned.

‘All in good time,' said Hayes. ‘Right now, I suggest you get some shut-eye. We'll talk again when you're rested up. Your son's waiting outside.'

So was Barbara Prentice.

As I stepped into the glare of the late afternoon, she came forward to meet me.

I must have looked like an insurance assessor's nightmare. But there was understanding in her eyes, and gratitude, and the promise of consolation. Before I knew it, her arms were reaching to enfold me.

She drew me close and held me tight, my head cradled in the hollow of her hand. The short blond hairs behind her ear gleamed in the afternoon sun.

A long time had passed since I'd felt the warmth of a woman's arms, the press of a woman's body. A small sigh escaped me. A dam burst.

I began to cry.

Not just a sob and a sniffle. Not just a quiet weep. Great shudders racked my body. Tears gushed from my eyes. I blubbered, whimpered and gasped.

Barbara rocked me, soothing me with strokes and sympathetic murmurs.

Women say they appreciate vulnerability in a man. Admire it, even. So they say. But nothing can convince me they find it sexy. Not the full waterworks. Not the pathetic bawling that dribbles gooey strings of snot onto the downy hairs at the back of their necks.

You've blown it, sport, I told myself. And I didn't mean my nose.

‘You're a good man, Murray Whelan,' said Barbara.

That sealed it. I drew a shaky breath, extricated myself and firmed my upper lip.

‘Better be going,' I snuffled.

It never would have worked anyway. A potential minefield. That son of hers, for a start. What a ratbag. And Velcro Girl, the daughter. And when it came to the clinch, as it just had, she was a bit too skinny for my taste.

‘You okay, Dad?' said Red, stepping deftly into the gap.

They say that time is a great healer.

So is pursuing your personal demon to the heart of the labyrinth. Confronting him one on one, and seeing his flyblown carcass in the dirt.

Okay, so it was Mick Surovic, not Rodney Syce. But as far as I was concerned, the rage was spent. The evil spirit was exorcised.

We went back to the holiday house and I slept like a felled tree, twelve hours straight, Red on a blow-up mattress on the floor beside me.

‘Just in case you need anything in the night,' he said. Also because he had no choice in the matter. He and Tark had ripped a hole in the tent at the Falls, so they had to find sleeping space in the house. The ban on the Docs remained.

Early next morning, I went down to the beach.

There was a secluded spot not far from where I'd staggered ashore. I walked barefoot into the lapping foam and stood for a moment, watching the fall of the waves. Then I laid the photograph of my never-born little girl on the gently ebbing tide and watched it float away.

Lyndal, I felt sure, would have approved.

A few days later, back in Melbourne for a meeting with the coppers, I tossed the Syce file into the garbage. Didn't even open it. Lyndal was beyond caring about Rodney Syce and so was I. He lived a crappy life and he'd die a crappy death. I had better things to think about than the form it might take.

That was six months ago. There's been plenty to keep me busy since then.

The federal election has come and gone, with all its attendant demands on the party faithful. We lost, of course. Routed. The Labor Party is now in the wilderness at national, state and municipal level. And you know how I feel about wilderness.