The Broken Shore (18 page)

The house roof was in sight when his mobile rang, a feeble sound in the soughing wind. He stopped, put down the spade, found the phone. Rebb kept going.

‘Cashin.’

Static. No reply. He killed it.

Cashin followed Rebb up the slope, every step an effort. On the flat, the phone rang again.

‘Cashin.’

‘Joe?’ His mother.

‘Yes, Syb.’

‘You’re faint, can you hear me?’

‘I can hear you.’

‘Joe, Michael tried to commit suicide, they don’t know…’

‘Where?’ A feeling of cold, of nausea.

‘In Melbourne, in his unit, someone rang him and they realised there…’

‘What hospital?’

‘The Alfred.’

‘I’ll go now. Want to come?’

‘I’m scared, Joe. Did you ring him? I asked you to ring him.’

‘Syb, I’m leaving now. Want to come?’

‘I’m too scared, Joe. I can’t face…’

‘That’s fine. I’ll call you when I’ve seen him.’

‘Joe.’

‘Yes.’

‘You should have spoken to him. I told you, I asked you twice, Joe. Twice.’

Cashin was looking at Rebb and the dogs. They were almost at the house, dogs criss-crossing in front, noses down. They had the air of point men, at the sharp end of a dangerous mission. At the gate, they would look back, each raise a paw, give those watching the all-clear.

‘I’ll ring, Syb,’ he said. ‘Call me if you hear anything.’

It was full dark when he came to the Branxholme junction and turned for the highway and the city. The headlights swept across a peeling house, a car on its axles, lit up devil-green dog eyes beside a bleeding rainwater tank.

CASHIN FELT A near-panic as the doctor led him down the long room, between the curtained cubicles. He knew the smell, of disinfectant and scented cleaning fluids, the computer-pale colour of everything and the humming, the incessant electronic humming. It came to him that a nuclear submarine would be like this, lying in a freezing ocean trench, hushed, run by electronics.

As they passed the stalls, Cashin saw bodies attached to tubes, wires. Tiny lights glowed, some pulsed.

‘Here,’ said the doctor.

Michael’s eyes were closed. His face, what showed of it around the oxygen mask, was white. Strands of hair, black as liquorice, were drawn on the pillow. Cashin remembered his hair as short, neat— salesman’s hair.

‘He’ll be okay,’ said the doctor. ‘The guy who rang him called emergency. Lucky. Also, the paras weren’t far away, coming from a false alarm. So we had a small window of time.’

He was young, Asian, skin of a baby, a private-school voice.

‘Took what?’ said Cashin. He wanted to be gone, into the open, breathe cleansing traffic fumes.

‘Sleeping pills. Benzodiazepine. Alcohol. Lots of both, a lethal amount.’

The doctor felt his jaw with a small hand. He was very tired. ‘He’s just come off the dialysis. Feel like hell when he wakes up.’

‘When will that be?’

‘Tomorrow.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s arrived already. Come around noon, he should be talking then.’

Cashin left the building and rang his mother, kept it short. Then he drove to Villani’s house in Brunswick, parked in the street and walked down the driveway. He’d rung on the way. ‘Tony’s room’s open, next to the garage,’ Villani had said. ‘I think it’s been disinfected recently.’

The room was papered with posters of football players, kick-boxers, muscle cars, a music stand stood in a corner, sheet music on it. A cello case leant against the wall. Cashin looked at the photographs pinned to the corkboard above the desk. He saw his own face in one, long before Rai Sarris, a younger Cashin, looking at the camera, in the pool at someone’s house, holding up a small Tony Villani. The boy was the adult Villani shrunken, retouched to take away the frown lines, to restore some hair at the temples.

That’s how old my boy is now, Cashin thought, and sadness rose in him, to his throat. He sat on the bed, took off his shoes and socks, slumped, elbows on knees, head in hands, tired and hurting. After a while, he looked at his watch: 2.25 am.

A car in the driveway. A few minutes later, a tap on the door.

‘Come in,’ Cashin said.

Villani, in a suit, tie loosened, bottle in one hand, wine glasses in the other. ‘The news?’

‘He’s going to be okay. They got him in time.’

‘That’s worth a drink.’

‘Just the one bottle?’

‘You’re supposed to be fucking frail. Although, personally, I think it’s all been wanking.’

Villani sat in his son’s desk chair, gave Cashin a glass, poured red wine. ‘Serious attempt?’ he said.

‘The doctor says so.’

‘That’s a worry. Know the why?’

‘He rang my mum a few times, feeling down. She asked me to talk to him. I didn’t.’

‘That’s like a summary of a short story.’

‘What the fuck would you know about short stories?’

Villani looked around the room. ‘Been reading a bit. Can’t sleep.’ He ran wine around his mouth, eyes on the posters. ‘This isn’t just any grog,’ he said. ‘But wasted on some. Smoke?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘I’m giving up tomorrow. Because you’ve given up.’

The nicotine hit Cashin the way it used to after a surf—raw, eye-blinking. He drank some wine.

‘Definitely not your 2.30 am cask piss,’ he said. ‘Somehow I can tell that.’

‘Bloke gave it to me, I couldn’t say no.’

‘Work needed on that before you front up to ethical standards. Is this early rising or late to bed?’

‘Remember Vic Zable?’

‘Amnesia is not the problem.’

‘Yeah, well, Vic got it tonight, carpark at the arts centre, can you believe that? The guy doesn’t know an art from a fart. In his ribs, couldn’t get closer range unless you stick it up his arse. The shooter was sitting next to him, the silver Merc Kompressor, quadraphonic radio on, heater’s going, he gives Vic the whole magazine. One little fucker bounces around inside Vic, comes out behind his collarbone, hits the roof.’

Cashin took a sip. ‘How many left-handed friends has Vic got?’

‘You’re like a cop in a movie. Two we know so far. One’s in Sydney, the other one’s not home. I’ve just been there. There was a moment when I thought we’d get lucky.’

‘Gangland hit arrest. Cop hailed.’

‘In my dreams.’

‘How’s Laurie?’

‘Good. The same. Pissed off at me. Well, we’re mutually pissed.’

‘What’s wrong?’

Villani took a drag, his cheeks hollowed, pulsed out three, four smoke rings, perfect circles rolling in the dead air. ‘Both of us having…affairs.’

‘I thought you just looked?’

‘Yeah, well, not much joy at home, if I’m not knackered, Laurie is. She’s got all these night functions, the races, corporate catering,
sometimes we don’t see each other for days. We don’t talk anymore, haven’t talked for years. Just business, the bills, the kids. Anyway, I met this woman and the next day I actually wanted to see her again.’

‘And Laurie?’

‘I found out about her little adventure. Don’t leave your mobile account lying around.’

‘Cancel out then, don’t they? Two little adventures?’

‘It’s a question of who went first, cause and effect. I’m said to be the cause of her rooting this cameraman dickhead. She’s with him now, in Cairns, catering for some moron television shit. Probably on the beach, fucking under a tropical moon.’

‘Grown poetic,’ said Cashin. He didn’t want to hear any more, he liked Laurie, he had lusted after her. ‘Is that what being the boss does?’

Villani poured wine. ‘I just pedal. I’ve got this pommy cunt Wicken on my back, he’s cut out Bell, report directly to him. Don’t understand the politics, don’t fucking want to. I want Singo back, I was happy then.’

He sighed.

‘We were both happy then,’ said Cashin. ‘Happier. I’ll drop in on him in the morning.’

‘Shit, I’ve got to get out there, there’s never a fucking minute in the day. Well, what’s with Donny?’

‘The lawyer says there’s been harassment, cars keeping the family awake. Why didn’t you tell me about Hopgood?’

‘Thought you knew the history of bloody Cromarty. Still, Donny might turn up.’

‘Or not,’ said Cashin. ‘And we never had a fucking thing on him. Nothing.’

Villani shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, we’ll see. Forward, what do you do about your brother?’

It had been on Cashin’s mind. ‘Failed suicides. I know bugger all about it.’

‘Wayne’s alive, failed suicide. Needs to put in more effort. Bruce’s dead. Well done, Bruce. Your brother’s the family success, is he?’

‘No,’ Cashin said. ‘He’s just clever and educated. Plus the money.’

Villani filled the glasses. ‘And the happiness, in spades. Not married?’

‘No.’

‘Someone?’

‘No idea. The last time I saw him was when I was in hospital. He didn’t sit down, took a few calls. I don’t blame him, we don’t know each other. Just doing his duty.’

‘Sounds like Laurie on me and the family. If he wants a shrink, there’s this bloke Bertrand saw when he went sad after that Croat cunt stabbed him. Not a cop shrink.’

‘The Croat’s the one needed the shrink. Bertrand needed a panel-beater.’

They had shared a life, they talked, smoked, Villani went into the night and came back with another bottle, open. He poured. ‘You think about the job? A person of leisure. Time to think.’

‘What else was I good for?’ Cashin was feeling the long drive, the hospital, the drink.

‘Anything. You’ve got the brain.’

‘Don’t know about that. Anyway, I never thought, I didn’t know what to do, stuffed around, surfed, then I just joined. Lots of fuckwits but…I don’t know. It didn’t feel like a job.’ Cashin drank. ‘Getting introspective, are we?’

Villani scratched his head. ‘I never felt the worth of it till I got to homicide. The robbers, well, that was full-on excitement, us against the crooks, like a game for big kids. But homicide, that was different. Singo made me feel that. Justice for the dead. He say that to you?’

Cashin nodded.

‘Singo could pick the right people for the squad. He just knew. Birkerts was bloody hopeless at everything but Singo picked him. Bloke’s a star. Now I pick people like Dove. University degree, all chip and no shoulder. Doesn’t want to be black, doesn’t want to be white.’

‘He’ll be okay,’ Cashin said. ‘He’s smart.’

‘And now,’ said Villani, ‘I’m trying to get justice for drug scumbags got knocked before they could knock some other arseholes. Plus I get lectures on politics and fucking dress sense and applying the right spin. I now know why Singo blew a brain fuse.’

They drank most of the bottle before Villani said, ‘You’re more knackered than I am. Set the alarm if you want to. I’d have a fucking decent sleep myself.’

Before bed, Cashin slid open the window, got under the duvet on the narrow bed. The smell of cigarette smoke lingered. He thought of being seventeen, in the room he shared with Bern, lying on their backs in the dark, passing a smoke between the single beds before sleep.

When he woke, the clock said 8.17 am. He rose, dizzy for a moment. He had slept as if clubbed, felt clubbed now.

An envelope under the door.

Cashin ate breakfast at a small place on Sydney Road. It was either Turkish or Greek. The eggs were served by a wide man with eyes the colour of milk stout.

‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You come after they shoot Alex Katsourides next door. You and a small one.’

‘That’s a long time ago,’ said Cashin.

‘You never catch them.’

‘No. Maybe one day.’

A big sniff. ‘One day. You never catch them. Gangland killers. That bloke on the radio, he says police useless.’

Cashin felt the blood coming to his face, the heat in his eyes. ‘I’m eating,’ he said. ‘You want to talk to a cop, go down to the station. Where’s the pepper?’

MICHAEL WAS out of intensive care, in a single room on the floor above. He was awake, pale, darkly stubbled.

Cashin went to the bed and touched his brother’s shoulder, awkward. ‘Gave us a scare, mate,’ he said.

‘Sorry.’ Hoarse, breathless voice.

‘Feeling okay?’

Michael didn’t quite look at him. ‘Terrible,’ he said. ‘I feel like such a creep, wasting people’s time. There are sick people here.’

Cashin didn’t know where to go. ‘Serious decision you took,’ he said.

‘Not actually a decision. It just happened, sort of. I was pretty pissed.’

‘You hadn’t been thinking about it?’

‘Thinking about it, yes.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I’ve been pretty low.’

Time went by. Michael seemed to go to sleep. It allowed Cashin to study him, he had never done that. You didn’t usually look at people closely, you looked into their eyes. Animals didn’t stare at each other’s noses or chins, foreheads, hairlines. They looked at the things that gave signals—the eyes, the mouth.

He was looking when Michael said, eyes closed, ‘Sacked three weeks ago. I was running a big takeover and someone leaked information and the whole thing went pear-shaped. They blamed me.’

‘Why?’

Eyes closed. ‘Photographs of me with someone from the other side. The other firm.’

‘What kind?’

‘Nothing sordid. Just a kiss. On the steps outside my place.’

‘Yes?’

Michael opened his black eyes, blinked a few times, he had long lashes, turned his head enough to look at Cashin.

‘It was a he,’ he said.

Cashin wanted a smoke, the craving came from nowhere, full strength. It had never entered his mind that Michael was queer. Michael had been engaged to a doctor at one time. Syb had showed him a photograph taken at an engagement party, a thin blonde woman, snub nose. She was holding a champagne flute. She had short nails.

‘A kiss?’ he said.

‘We were in a meeting late, eleven, we met again in the carpark, he came back to my place for a drink.’

‘Sex?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you tell him stuff?’

‘No.’

‘Well,’ said Cashin, ‘I’ve heard of worse shit.’

His brother had closed his eyes again, there were deep furrows between his eyebrows. ‘He killed himself,’ he said. ‘The day after his wife left him, took the three kids. Her father’s a judge, he went to law school with my head of firm.’