The Tower (31 page)

‘They're very fast,' Randall said, impressed by the scale of the thing and the energy being expended. At this time of night, too.

Wu nodded. ‘Less than twenty-four hours' turnaround these days. The wealth of the east, coming to this barbarian land.'

Randall knew Henry was quite serious: he had a big streak of sentimentality inside. Maybe that was why they got on so well.

‘What sort of stuff?' he said.

‘Everything,' Henry murmured. ‘Thousands of containers come into this country every week. Customs checks less than one per cent.'

Oh shit, Randall thought.

‘I love this country.'

He looked at Henry and nodded. I don't want to know about this, he thought. But if I do, it's cool. He needs to know that.

The other man smiled and said, ‘Time you were in bed.'

‘Simple pleasures,' Randall said. ‘You know me.'

Henry liked that. But as he said something to the driver, he kept his eye on Randall. The car moved off and Henry patted his knee and started to talk about their future business partnership in Houston. It was what he did when he wanted to be pleasant, but he was serious about it too, he'd obviously given it a lot of thought.

Randall hoped that counted for something.

Twenty-five

O
utside the restaurant, after Randall had said goodnight, Troy turned and began to walk back in the general direction of the police station. He moved slowly, not wanting to go home, reminding himself there was nothing there for him now. Actually, that was not true. There were reasons to go. But the reasons not to go had stacked up until there were just as many of them, so the two piles of reasons were in serious competition for the first time. The awkward conversation he'd just had with Randall made this clear. The meal he'd just finished, this moment, seemed real, the rest of his life like an old dream. In the real moment he felt liberated, as though his emotions had been anaesthetised for a long time, and now he was waking up. The shooting had disrupted his life, but it was a disruption he needed. An opportunity to move forward.

He walked through an arcade beneath a big building and stopped before a newsagency. In its large window were posters showing the covers of twelve women's magazines. Each of them was dominated by the picture of a model, a singer or an actress. On ten of them the woman was showing a great deal of cleavage. Troy studied them closely, wondering why the women who bought these magazines were so attracted to the sight of other women's breasts. Presumably this must be the case, or else there'd be different pictures on the covers. He thought about which of the women on the posters he'd be with tonight, if he could choose.

In one of his conversations with Luke, the priest had said of him, quoting the Bible, that he was not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous. I have been patient, Troy thought. Maybe for too long.

He reached into his pocket for a piece of chewing gum, wanting to get the after-taste of the meal out of his mouth. But there was no gum there.
My gum days are over
, he said to himself, and this seemed to be significant, although in his present state he couldn't see how and had no desire to think it through. His fingers closed on the scrap of paper Randall had given him. He walked another few blocks and stopped. If he did not call the number, the thought of it would nag at him for days, sapping his energy, putting him back under. He had no desire to go there again, to go back into the hole where he now saw he'd been living. For better or worse, he'd been shown the way out. By Sean Randall, a man who seemed to know a bit about this sort of thing.

The woman on the phone was friendly, had a nice voice, quoting him prices that seemed high but he had nothing to compare them with. Randall was an expert, he could trust the man's judgement. He told her what he wanted and she said she'd call him back. Troy went to an ATM and took out some money. He walked slowly along the footpath, away from the station now. Looking up at the narrow band of stars above, waiting for something to happen. The woman rang back in five minutes, and gave him a name, Tanya, and the address of an apartment in Sussex Street.

It was an anonymous block of apartments; there were hundreds like it around the city and its suburbs. Troy had climbed their stairs and taken their lifts many times. On level four he walked down the empty corridor, realising the anonymity helped. You'd think something like this ought to be personal, and that paying for it would take away all the meaning and all the pleasure. But of course that was rubbish, this was simply about a physical desire shared by millions. As he pressed the buzzer next to the door whose number he'd been given, he told himself he was just doing something thousands of men did every day.

The door opened and a young woman looked out at him. She was Malaysian, wearing a very short red dress. When she smiled she looked friendly and Troy felt something inside of him give. Until that point, he'd been prepared to walk away.

She said, ‘Won't you come inside?'

Just over an hour later, Troy caught the lift down from the woman's flat. He felt exhausted, as though he was about to fall over. The pleasure had been intense, and he wanted to cherish it, so that later, tomorrow, he would not regret what he had just done. He knew that from here on it was up to him what effect it had on his life. It had been necessary, he told himself, and it had been good. Very good. Raw, heart-thumping sex. What he needed.

When he got to the ground floor the concierge he'd talked to on the way up was standing near the glass door, looking at some sort of altercation occurring out front. He was hopping from one foot to the other. Troy reluctantly became alert as he reached the man. On the footpath outside, two youths were badgering a much older man, pushing him up against a pillar. Unlike his assailants, the old man looked Chinese, and was plainly terrified. As Troy watched, one of the youths reached behind the man, feeling for his wallet. Life goes on, Troy thought.

He pushed the button on the wall that opened the doors and went outside. ‘I'm a police officer,' he yelled, pulling out his wallet and holding out his badge. ‘Up against the wall.'

The two youths turned, there was that moment when everything stopped, and then they made him as a cop and took off down the street. Normal life resumed. Their victim was leaning against the pillar, breathing heavily and pressing a hand to his chest. Troy pulled out his phone and turned it on.

‘Are you all right, sir?' he said.

He went up to the man and put his arm around him, looking into dark and wary eyes in a lined face. The concierge joined them and began to talk to the man in Mandarin. They obviously knew each other, and Troy took his arm away. He looked at his phone, undecided, suddenly realising he'd rather not put in a call. This was in City Central's area.

‘It's all right, officer,' said the old man. ‘I'm lucky you were here. They didn't get my wallet.'

‘Did you know those men?'

‘No. I'll be fine.'

The man seemed as nervous of Troy as he'd been of his assailants.

‘Would you like me to call the police, or an ambulance?'

‘Really no.' Going through the door now, into the building. ‘Thank you again.'

‘What's your name?'

The concierge said, ‘Mr Foo. I look after him now.'

The doors closed and they were gone, shuffling towards the lifts behind the counter. He let them go. Sometimes, you just had to accept your luck.

When he got to bed that night, Troy did not dream.

THURSDAY

Twenty-six

H
e was woken at seven by Anna leaning down to put a cup of coffee on the bedside table. She straightened, folding her arms around her dressing-gown. Wrinkling her nose she said, ‘What did you get up to last night?'

She must be able to smell the alcohol on him. He could smell it himself, yet he felt surprisingly well. He began to tell her a bit about Randall, but already she was backing towards the door.

‘Matt's in his high chair.'

She had opened the curtains before waking him, and he sat up and sipped the coffee, looking at the blue sky outside. It had continued to grow warmer since the weekend. He thought back over what he'd just tried to say to Anna, wondering if it would do. The art of lying well was to keep it simple and mix it up with the truth. He knew this from observing many masters of the art, and many more who were not so masterful.

On the way home last night there'd been no sense of guilt. There was none this morning, either, even as he thought back over what happened. The woman had offered him a drink as she led the way into the lounge room, and before he'd finished saying no the dress had been off and she'd been standing close to him. She had some sort of frilly knickers on but nothing else. Her breasts were heavy but slightly flat.

It wasn't that she was beautiful or passionate, but she'd wanted to please him and this had been more than enough. Beforehand, he hadn't been sure how he'd react, the first time with another woman in years. But it had been just fine. As he took off his clothes, with help from her, he'd realised that Randall had been right. We pass this way but once. What we don't do today will remain undone forever.

Hearing Matt gurgling in the kitchen, he put down the empty coffee mug and went to have a shower. He knew that what we do today remains done forever too. But the guilt he'd feared he might feel wasn't there. He felt content, at peace for the first time in ages. As he towelled himself dry he thought how good it was to have met Randall. He'd been on the way to becoming seriously depressed, but he'd been shown it didn't have to be like that.

In the kitchen, Anna was encouraging Matt to use a spoon to feed himself some cereal. He was throwing it around the room. Troy pretended to duck and the boy laughed.

‘He likes seeing you,' Anna said. ‘He's always happy when you come into the room.'

Turning his back, he poured himself some more coffee.

‘I made you some fruit, it's in the fridge.'

He made a face and she slapped him playfully. He smiled, finding he could look into her eyes this morning just like any other. You spent years wondering if you could lie, and all along you were a natural.

He sat down next to Matt and began to feed him. While he wielded the spoon he told her about Sean Randall and how he was on the verge of being sacked, turning him into a good story. He rambled on, answering her questions about the investigation, leaving out the gore, realising as he went that he'd always lied to her in this way, cutting and pasting his work stories so as not to shock her. In the early days of their marriage he'd found out what she wanted to hear and what she didn't, and had adjusted his conversation ever since. He'd been lying to her for years, practising for this moment without realising it.

After they'd finished with Randall she got onto the subject of all the people who'd tried to get in touch with him. She'd even started a list: friends from the area, fellow clubbies from lifesaving, two members of his football team.

‘Let me call them back for you,' she said.

She had his phone and he took it from her, as gently as he could.

‘I'll call them today.'

‘I looked on your phone but I couldn't find any messages.'

‘I, ah, deleted them by mistake.'

‘Nick!' She was shocked. ‘Are you all right?'

Never better. ‘Tell you what. I won't go in this morning. I'll stay here and call people. I'll let Stone take the briefing.'

‘Were you supposed to?'

‘Yeah.'

Here was a chance to get his priorities right. Talk to his friends, avoid those who had it in for him. It was a beautiful idea, the sort of thing McIver might do. He'd tried to explain things to Kelly and she'd rebuffed him. So let's take things a step further, push back.

Anna said, ‘Don't get into trouble.'

‘If they don't pay me to be the boss, I'm not going to do his job,' he said, liking the way this sounded.

‘Not doing the sergeant's job is one thing,' she said, as she expertly cleaned half of Matt's face with one swipe of a damp cloth, ‘but you have to turn up to work. Don't give them reason to discipline you.'

‘If I go in, Stone will be at the building site and I'll just end up doing the briefing again.'

‘So go somewhere else. Why don't you visit Jon in hospital?'

‘I'm not supposed to see him during work hours.'

‘At least it would be work-related. Good to stay in touch with Jon, too. My father says every boy needs a teacher.'

Troy smiled. ‘I'm not a boy.'

‘He says most men grow up much later than they think.'

She undid Matt's straps and lifted him from his seat, then looked at Troy.

‘What?' he said.

‘You seem happy. You haven't been like this for a long time. I think your night out did you good.'

In the car he called Stone and got his voicemail. He left a message saying he wouldn't be in for the briefing. You had to cover yourself to some extent.

At the hospital he was surprised to see McIver sitting on the edge of his bed with his trousers on, working his way into a long-sleeved shirt. Troy put the plastic bag of grapes he'd bought on the bed.

McIver looked at it. ‘You've got to be kidding.'

‘They're symbolic.'

He tried to help the sergeant with his shirt.

McIver said, ‘You'd make a terrible girl. I thought you'd been banned from seeing me. Have you been sacked?'

‘Not yet. I'll go fetch a nurse.'

‘Don't bother,' McIver said, grimacing as he forced his arm out of its sling and into the sleeve. ‘I'm not supposed to be leaving.'

‘Then why are you?'

‘A doctor mate was in here last night, he says I'm making a good recovery. The only reason they're keeping me in is because one in a thousand people in my situation has a relapse, and they don't want me to sue them if I'm the unlucky one.'