The Easy Sin (15 page)

The Magee case, in terms of the murder in it, was not a major one. He had experienced much worse and much more dangerous. A strike force was to be set up to handle the Magee kidnapping; Homicide would be a player in it because of the Marcos murder. Yet suddenly he felt weary of it all. Of twenty-five years of other people's crimes, of hatred and cruelty and prejudice and, yes, greed, for power
and
money. All at once he thought not just of promotion but even of retirement.

Then Claire, on her way to a bedroom to check that Cornelius Junior was still asleep, paused beside him. “You okay, Dad?”

“Does the, y'know, human condition ever get you down?”

She took her time, reading him well. “Sometimes, yes. Jay's mother is coming out of jail in six months, maybe a bit more. She'll want to come and see the baby, her grandson. I'll look at her and remember what she did to Jay's father . . . And yet—” She paused, then went on, “I have to give her another chance. For Jay's sake and maybe young Con's.”

He looked at her with love. She and Maureen and Tom, even Lisa, had not been in the toy globe; the landscape therein had been unpeopled. Shadows would come and go in the future, just as they had in the globe he had held in his hand all those years ago. “Take care of young Con.”

She looked at him, understanding. “I'll do that. You take care, too.”

II

Darlene Briskin had been waiting outside the hospital when her mother arrived. “God, I was afraid I'd miss you! There are cops inside—” She nodded at the police car and the paddy-wagon parked in the nearby ambulance area. “God, Mum, what else can go wrong? It's been a bloody disaster from the start—”

“How's Pheeny?”

“He's still unconscious, but he'll live, they say. There are six kids in there—”

“Relax, everything's gunna be all right.” Generals need a certain heartlessness; Shirlee had to put a bit of spine into the backs of her troops. “We'll just go in there and talk to the police as if nothing's happened—”

“For Crissake, Mum, everything's happened!”

But Shirlee was already on her way into the hospital. Darlene shrugged, then followed her.

Phoenix was still in intensive care, tubes coming out of him like tentacles feeding on him. His
face
had not been injured and Darlene, looking at him, thought he looked more innocent and, yes, intelligent than the brother who had irritated her all her life. If only he would stay like that . . . Then the big-shouldered, blunt-faced sergeant approached them. Shirlee was ready for him.

“I understand he was hit while on a pedestrian crossing. Are you charging the driver?”

The sergeant was patient. He had spent thirty-five years dealing with voters who never looked at anything from the other side. “The driver of the vehicle will be charged with having children in the vehicle without seat-belts. But the accident was not her fault. Your son—” He looked at his notebook, blinked as if there was an entry there in Sanskrit—“Phoenix? That his name?”

“Yes. Phoenix Glen Campbell Briskin.”

His face was a mixture of unspoken comment; but he said, “We have witnesses who say the accident was his fault. He stepped off right in front of the Range Rover—”

“He was on a pedestrian crossing.”

“Mum,” said Darlene, “let it lay. Till later—”

“I believe in the law being the law.”

Darlene felt a faint swooning fit and the unconscious Phoenix seemed to wobble his tubes. The sergeant said, “We'll discuss it in a day or two, Mrs. Briskin. In the meantime—”

“In the meantime?” said Darlene, getting in ahead of her mother.

“The parents of the children may sue. The driver of the vehicle and your brother. Everybody's for litigation these days. Don't quote me.” He folded his notebook, put it away. “We'll be in touch. At your residential address or your place down the South Coast? Where?”

“At home,” said Darlene, silently telling her mother to keep her mouth shut. “Hurstville. You've got the address?”

“Oh yes,” said the sergeant. “We're organized.”

When they were alone beside the silent Phoenix, Shirlee said, “You didn't have to take over like that. I'm not a heart-broken mother.”

Darlene tried for the image in her mind, but gave up. “Mum, you were rubbing that sergeant
with
sandpaper. He was doing his best to be sympathetic—”

“Sympathetic?” Shirlee grunted in disgust. “He was blaming Pheeny for what happened—”

“Mum—” Darlene wanted to belt her mother. “Maybe Pheeny
was
to blame—”

Shirlee wasn't paying attention. She was going through the plastic bag containing Phoenix's belongings. “What's this? From Centrelink—lavatory attendant? They were sending him to clean out toilets?”

“Mum . . .” Darlene was holding in her temper and frustration. “Mum, we're gunna have to move that guy Magee. If the cops come down there—”

“They've already been.” Shirlee put Phoenix's belongings into a drawer of the table beside his bed. Neatly. “They come to tell us Pheeny was in hospital. We headed ‘em off down at the gate. Did you talk to Chantelle today?”

“Yeah. She said to be patient. But that was before this happened—” She gestured at her inert brother, for once keeping his mouth shut, “I think we oughta call her again, see what she advises.”

“I think she oughta come and see us. We might have to change our plans,” said Shirlee, tucking in the sheet around her son, shaking her head at how un-neat nurses were these days.

“I don't think that would be a good idea. When I talked to her this morning she said she thought everyone at I-Saw was being watched by the cops. She said she'd heard something else. That the bank—Kunishima?—they'd never pay up for Mr. Magee. They're saying he syphoned off a load of cash before the roof fell in.”

Shirlee found an unbandaged section of Phoenix that could be stroked. “Will Medicare pay for all this?”

“Mum, are you listening to me?” Darlene was going to blow her top any minute now. “I think it's close to time we unloaded Mr. Magee and put it down to experience. I don't believe in omens, but we've had so many things go wrong—
Mum
!”

Shirlee looked at her across the still form of Phoenix. “I'm listening. If Mr. Magee's the one with the money, wherever he's got it hidden away, then he's the one gunna pay for himself. We start
cutting
bits off of him, a finger or something, till he tells us where the money is. It's the only way.” She sounded now like a surgeon, one in a field casualty hospital in World War One. “He'll talk, leave it to me.”

“Mum, I'm not gunna be in anything like that—” She shuddered at the thought.

Then a nurse came in, young, pretty and brisk. “You're not expecting the worst, are you? He's going to be fine. He looks as if he was as strong as—as a horse. What did he do?”

“He was a gym instructor,” said Shirlee. “Black belt.”

Darlene waited for the impersonator on the bed, the gym instructor with the black belt (in what?), to twitch. Phoenix remained still. “When he comes out of the coma, will he know where he is? I mean, will he be incoherent or anything? You know,
babble
?”

“Possibly,” said the nurse, re-arranging Shirlee's neat bed-straightening. “He'll be disoriented. He might think he's in the gym, that he's been knocked or something.”

“Then I'd better stay here,” said Shirlee, planning once again. “Just in case—”

“Good idea, Mum,” said Darlene, trying to avoid being at any dismemberment. “I'll go back to the cottage, see that Corey is okay. My other brother,” she explained to the nurse.

“Are they close?”

Like Cain and Abel. “Bosom buddies.”

“Maybe you should tell him to come up here. It often helps, I mean if the patient is disoriented, if they have close family around when they come to.”

“I'll do that,” said Darlene.

“Take the car,” said Shirlee and passed her the keys. “I'll hold Pheeny's hand while you're gone.”

“Pheeny?” said the nurse.

“Short for Phoenix.”

“Oh yeah. That was the bird that rose from the ashes, wasn't it?”

“I dunno,” said Shirlee. “Glen Campbell never sang that verse.”

Darlene
rolled her eyes at the bird on the bed, which didn't stir, let alone rise.

The nurse left and immediately was replaced by a man in the doorway. “Relatives?”

“Yes,” said Shirlee.

“Fantastic! Mother and girlfriend?”

“No,” said Darlene. “Sister.”

“Fantastic! Close family, that's what we want. Allow me to introduce myself. George Bomaker, solicitor.”

He was short and round, and his clothes looked as if they had been pressed while on him; he had a glazed look, like toffee on an apple. He had a rapid-fire delivery, at least 165 words a minute, and apparently only one adjective,
fantastic.
He was a natural-born sports commentator, but somehow had become an ambulance chaser.

“I'm rounding up the families of the six poor little dears who were in the accident—a class action, that's what I'm suggesting. In your case, a separate action. I've checked on the lady who drove the Range Rover—her husband's a property developer. We'll sue—”

“How much?” said Shirlee.

“Too early to tell,” said Bomaker, looking at the dead-to-the-world Phoenix. “If there's brain damage or paraplegic damage—”

Darlene felt faint, leant against the bed. She hadn't even considered those possibilities. Shirlee, a true commander, kept a stiff upper lip. “He's got a broken leg and a broken arm and smashed ribs. We dunno if he'll be worse—”

“Let's pray he won't be,” said Bomaker and looked towards the ceiling; God was on the side of litigation. “First things first. I can represent you, I and my two partners?”

“You're experienced at this?” said Shirlee. “I mean, I've read about these cases, they're all the go, aren't they?”

Bomaker tried hard to look offended. “I wouldn't put it like that, not exactly. But yes, careless people and corporations are being made to pay.”

“
And how do we pay you?” said Darlene.

Bomaker spread a generous hand. “No win, no pay.”

Then Darlene's mobile rang.

“I'll take it outside,” she said and left, wondering at the risk of leaving her mother and Mr. Bomaker together. But then, she told herself with resignation that was new to her, things couldn't get worse.

III

Errol Magee, depressed in his straps, having exhausted all other subjects to keep his mind alive, had been summarizing his sexual encounters with women. At school in the eastern suburbs the girls at Ascham and Kambala had written him off after single encounters; he had been a nerd not only in class but in bed. It was Caroline, in London, who had educated him; but she had been a clinical lover, like a therapist. On his return to Sydney there had been one or two brief flings before Daniela; she had been completely different from Caroline, basing her bed technique on World Championship Wrestling. Then there had been Louise, who was dreamily romantic in bed, but spoiled matters by murmuring
Oh Bruce
! (who the hell was Bruce?). Finally there had been Kylie, whose favourite position was
soixante-neuf
, which was okay up to a point but had its dark moments and rather muffled any love talk. He had never been completely successful in love and in the end he had put it down to the influence of his mother, that squash-playing, tennis-playing, golf-playing bungee-jumper who had wanted him to be nothing but a sporting hero.

It was then that he had let out the scream of anguish that had no meaning but the sound of the emptiness into which he had fallen.

Corey Briskin, wrench in hand, was down at the road, tightening the bolts that held the sagging gate to its upright. He was a natural handyman, something his father had never been, and he was always looking for things to be fixed. He had seen the state of the gate when he had been down here earlier and now he was doing something about it.

Then
he saw the police car coming at a steady pace up the road. He stiffened, the wrench tight on a bolt; but all his strength had drained out of him. The car drew in at the gate and Constable Haywood got out. He was a handsome young man, the sort featured on posters; but they were all bastards underneath, Corey knew for a fact. Haywood bent to reach in for his cap, then decided against it and left it on the front seat. He came round the car bare-headed, smiling warmly. This was an informal visit, police public relations, as the Commissioner kept advising.

“You come down here often? I haven't seen you before.”

“We don't use the place much.” Corey straightened up, satisfied all the bolts had been tightened; his stomach, too, was tight. He wasn't going to offer the bastard a cup of tea or a beer. “We're thinking of putting it up for sale.”

Haywood looked up towards the house. “Yeah? I might be interested. I'm renting at the moment.”

Don't ask to look over the place
. “Yeah, well, you'd have to talk to me mum about that.”

“You heard yet from her? How your brother is?”

“Not yet. She'd of only just got to the hospital, I think.”

Then there was the terrible yell, scream or whatever it was from up in the house. It seemed to Corey that everything around them had fallen silent, so that the yell was amplified. Constable Haywood's chin shot up.

“What was that? It sounded like a yell for help! Who's up there?”

Without thinking Corey hit him on the side of the head with the wrench. Constable Haywood, a tall man, went down like a falling tree, slowly at first, then crashing into the dirt. Corey looked down at him, then at the wrench as if it were something that had suddenly and uninvited appeared in his hand.