The Big Ask (16 page)

‘You don't have to tell me that, Murray,' he said. ‘But you might have a bit of trouble convincing the cops. Like I said, Webb was very interested. Knew about your punch-up with Darren.'

‘I told him that part myself,' I said.

‘So how come the cops knew you were at the market?'

‘I assume Frank Farrell told them. Apart from you and Heather, Farrell was the only other person there who knew my name. And he'd have no reason not to tell the cops. In a situation like that, a man dead, even a deadshit like Darren Stuhl, I wouldn't expect anyone to withhold information.'

Donny plonked a steaming mug in front of me. Garfield the Cat. ‘There's withholding,' he said. ‘And there's volunteering. And a man like Farrell doesn't talk to the cops out of a sense of civic duty. He's making mischief, Murray.'

‘I've got nothing to hide, so he's not going to get very far.' ‘That's not going to stop him trying. Situation like this, a man would be well advised to keep his wits about him.'

Through the window I saw a recent model Magna pull into the driveway behind Donny's Commodore.

‘Here's trouble,' said Donny. ‘It's Heather. She's been to the bank, telling them we'll have a bit of a cash-flow problem while the truck's impounded. She still doesn't know about the gun, by the way.'

Heather stomped through the back door in her bossy boots and shoulder pads, groomed to within an inch of her life. ‘Oh,' she said. ‘It's you.' Her tone was frosty, preoccupied.

‘What did they say?' said Donny.

‘What do you think they said?' She didn't bother to conceal her exasperation, both with Donny and the bank. She pulled a printout from her handbag and slapped it flat on the table. ‘You've been dipping into the truck expenses account to pay for your stupid bloody campaign handbills, haven't you?'

Donny made a dismissive gesture. ‘Relax. I'll pay it back.'

‘With what? Jacinta's wages?'

Donny flushed. ‘What Jacinta chooses to do with her money is her business.'

‘Professional psychiatric help,' snorted Heather. ‘That's what you need.'

I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. Total invisibility would've been good. Then Heather turned in disgust from Donny and directed her lasers at me. ‘If you were as much Donny's friend as you pretend, you wouldn't be encouraging this nonsense.'

‘Fair go, Heather,' said Donny. ‘This isn't Murray's fault.'

She folded her arms and glowered down at us, a woman at the end of her tether. Always a dangerous place for a woman to be.

‘Cup of tea?' I said inanely. She tightened her lips and gave a hard little shake of her earrings. I took the cheque from my pocket and placed it on top of the bank statement. ‘How about ten thousand dollars then?' I said. ‘Would that make you feel better?'

Donny snatched up the cheque. ‘Jesus, you move fast.'

Heather thought I was making some kind of joke. ‘What's that for?'

‘To secure the services of Maitland Transport to undertake an ongoing, open-ended, industry-based research project on behalf of the policy development section of the Ministry of Transport.'

‘What research project? We don't do research.'

‘We do now,' beamed Donny.

I gave him his riding orders. ‘Clear any debts you've already incurred,' I said. ‘Then use the balance to pay yourself a salary equal to your income from driving the truck. Enlist support from sympathetic unions. Recruit enough candidates to field a ticket. Beef up your publicity. Start getting up Howard Sharpe's nose.'

Heather twigged. ‘Is this legal?' she said, taking the cheque from Donny and examining it carefully.

‘It's from the government,' I said. ‘How could it be otherwise?'

Her mood began improving. The cheque disappeared into her handbag and she decided that a cup of tea would be nice, after all.

‘Agnelli is to be quarantined from any responsibility for this exercise,' I told Donny.

‘My lips are sealed.'

‘You know I don't agree with Donny about this union election thing,' said Heather. ‘But I'm grateful for the help.' She put a warm hand over mine and squeezed. ‘Very grateful.'

‘Goodness,' I said. ‘Is that the time? I really must be off. Got to pick my boy up from school.'

‘Here we go again,' she said. ‘The Incredible Vanishing Man.'

Heather was not the only person whose attentions I was keen to avoid.

In case Angelo's mental compass suddenly swung about on the backstab pay-out offer, I thought it wise to keep out of the way until his signature was firmly appended to the contract. As soon as I got home, I rang Trish to report that I'd come down with a dose of the Texas flu and wouldn't be fit for the office for the rest of the week.

When Red arrived home from school, I had him call his mother to discuss which of his possessions she should ship south. Then we went into the city and spread some plastic around the retail end of the teenage apparel industry. Despite the intermittent nature of our contact over the previous five years, the old father–son adhesive had stood the test of time. In little more than thirty-six hours, we'd segued into an easy domesticity.

‘So when do I meet these girlfriends?' asked Red as he set out on Wednesday morning for the second day of his thirdrate education. ‘This harem of yours.'

‘Never,' I said. ‘In honour of your arrival, I've taken a vow of celibacy.'

‘It's not natural, Dad,' he advised. ‘A grown man has certain needs.'

‘Right now my greatest need is for you to pick your clothes off the bathroom floor,' I said. ‘And for Christsake, turn off the fucking television before you leave the house.'

The tonnage levy issue finally bit the dust on Thursday. An item appeared in the
Sun
reporting that the transport minister had issued a firm denial of any intention to implement the tax. This was described as ‘an embarrassing backflip'. I was glad I wasn't at the office.

But that didn't mean I couldn't be found. Just before six, I went to the corner store for a loaf of multigrain and a litre of low-fat. Spider Webb cruised past in a shiny maroon Falcon as I was returning. When I reached the house, he was waiting on the doorstep, legs apart, hands on hips, his centre of gravity somewhere around the keyhole. I resisted the temptation to stick my key into it. ‘You don't look very sick to me,' he leered. ‘Your office said you were bedridden.'

‘So you dropped around to offer your best wishes for my speedy recovery, did you?'

‘You know your problem, Whelan?' he said, like he was the world's leading expert on the subject. ‘You don't know your own best interests. Let's go inside and talk about it.' His tone suggested I didn't have any choice.

‘The house is already full of germs,' I said. ‘And you've had nothing from me so far but my full co-operation. So let's talk here, shall we? What do you want this time, Spider?'

His scalp bristles bristled. ‘To give you a bit of friendly advice, that's what. We've got more officers working on this case than you've had hot dinners, smartarse. Nothing is escaping our attention. And if you think your fancy political contacts can protect you, you're a bigger fool than you look. And that'd take some doing.'

‘Thanks for the tip,' I said. ‘But I've got no idea what you're talking about.'

‘Yeah?' he sneered. ‘Well you might be interested to know that we've now got Darren Stuhl's post-mortem results.' He delivered this information like a man playing an ace.

‘And what do they say?'

‘They say you should take this opportunity to come clean, save yourself a lot of trouble.'

If there was any logic here, it defeated me. ‘You'll have to give me a hint,' I said. ‘I don't speak Neanderthal.'

Webb rocked back and forth on his heels, giving me the slow burn. ‘You remember a bloke called Brian Sutch?' he said.

‘Vaguely.' Sutch was a notorious standover man. He'd given us a few headaches back when I was at the Municipal Employees Union, extorting money from our members.

‘Heard what happened to him?'

‘Shot, wasn't he?' This was a good fifteen years back. The closest I'd come to the incident was reading about it in the papers.

‘That's right,' said Webb. ‘Three rounds to the head in the public bar of the Brickworks Hotel. Twenty-five eyewitnesses. All swore blind they were in the gents at the time. Ever been to the Brickworks? The bog's even smaller than that rathole office of yours.'

‘And?'

‘We knew who did it, but couldn't make the case without a witness. Fortunately, there was quite a bit of old evidence lying around the squad room. Turned out that some of it could be made to fit one of the witnesses. Amazing how fast his memory improved when that fact was pointed out to him.'

I reached around Webb and slid my key into the lock. ‘If you have any other queries, Sergeant Webb,' I said, brushing past him. ‘Don't hesitate to give me a call. I'll be more than happy to consult my schedule. And my lawyer.'

I shut the door in Webb's face and leaned my back against it. This is blatant intimidation, I thought. Spider acted like a big swinging dick at school and he clearly believed that membership of the police force was a licence to do likewise in adult life. His belief that I was covering for Donny Maitland was now out in the open. His threat to frame me unless I came clean, however, was a waste of breath. I had nothing to come clean about. If Spider Webb thought I'd perjure myself, he needed his head read. In Spider's case, that was a job for a phrenologist.

The sound of Webb's departing car leached through the woodwork. I took my bag of supplies down to the kitchen where Red was on the phone to his mother, adding further essential requirements to his initial list. ‘Don't worry about sending the bike,' he was saying. ‘It's too small now and, anyway, Dad's going to buy me a new one.'

In accordance with newly instituted practice, the television was running unwatched in the living room. Breaking open a meditative beer, I slumped on the couch, letting the six o'clock news bulletin wash over me. Webb's line about the post-mortem, what the hell did that mean?

A man in a police uniform with silver-studded epaulets appeared on the screen. Spider's boss, the Chief Commissioner of Police. He was fronting the microphones at a press conference, an update on the Darren Stuhl case. If Bob expected top-level service, he was certainly getting it.

According to the C.C., Darren Stuhl's autopsy indicated that the cause of death was a blow to the head with a blunt instrument, rather than traffic injuries as initially assumed. The task force undertaking the investigation was confident of an early result. Heavy rain and a high level of vehicular activity in the area at the time of the incident had, however, hampered police in their inquiries. Anyone having relevant information was urged to contact the police.

Red threw himself onto the couch beside me and heaved an exhausted sigh. ‘Mum said that Richard's upset I can't crew with him in the regatta on Saturday. As if.' He reached for the remote control. ‘Can't we watch something else? This is boring. And what's for dinner?'

‘A blow to the head,' I said absently.

‘I'd prefer a poke in the eye,' said Red. ‘Or how about some of those beef-burgers in the freezer.'

I was more concerned with what was cooking in the minds of the police. I could appreciate their difficulties. A wash-out crime scene. The market tighter than a fish's arse. Bob Stuhl breathing down their necks for a result. But the only blunt instrument I could recall at the market was the one Heather had in her hand. And nobody had beaten Darren Stuhl over the head with it. Not as far as I could remember.

‘Turn the grill on,' I told Red. Then I went into the bedroom and rang Donny Maitland, planning to do some grilling of my own. ‘See the news?' I said.

‘I'm too busy cleaning up,' he said. ‘Mr Plod's been back. Tossed the place. Did a right royal job of it, too. Joint looks like a tornado's been through it.'

‘What were they looking for?'

‘Didn't say. Whatever it was, they didn't find it. They came, they ransacked. Three hours later they left emptyhanded. Fishing expedition, that was my impression.'

‘They have a search warrant?'

‘No, I invited them in,' he said sarcastically. ‘Mistook them for interior decorators. What's this about the news?'

I told him about the chief commissioner's announcement and Spider Webb's visit.

‘Sounds to me like Webb's just shaking your tree, see if anything falls out. As for Darren getting decked, it stands to reason. If they were looking for the murder weapon here, they didn't find it. How could they? I didn't do it.'

‘I think you should get a lawyer,' I said.

Donny scoffed. ‘What good would a shyster do me? I've got better things to do with your boss's money. You want to help me, get off the line so I can finish cleaning up this mess before Jacinta gets home.'

Donny was right, I decided. The cops were beating the bushes. Webb and his task force colleagues were probably putting pressure on every potential informant in town, hoping that something useful would turn up. Well, it wasn't going to turn up from my direction. How could it? I didn't know anything.

Nor, evidently, did the press. Both of Friday's morning dailies carried stories about the Stuhl case. In the absence of hard facts, they fell back on speculation. The market-murder clippings file was dusted off and long-dead, bullet-riddled tomato vendors again got their photos in the paper, although the connection between whitebread Darren and the garlicmunching godfathers remained obscure. To compound the issue, it was reported that some kind of turf war was happening between Vietnamese newcomers and some of the longer established market interests.