The Dying Trade (16 page)

“Why not?”

“I'm already retained on the job.”

“By Ailsa?”

“That's right.”

“And just how do you feel about her?”

“You just reached the end of your questions, my turn.”

She rummaged about in the glove box among the odds and ends and spent Drum packets and slammed it all back in frustration.

“Haven't you got anything to smoke except this vile tobacco?”

“No. Do you know anything about the files?”

“Not a thing, I wish I did.”

I let that pass to avoid side-tracking her. “What did Bryn mean when he said you would once have done anything for him? You reacted very strongly.” She jerked up in her seat. “Nothing, nothing at all,” she said quickly, “we were once very close that's all.”

“I see. This may or may not be related. What did your father have on you and Bryn that kept you in line?”

“Who told you that he had something?”

“Never mind, what was it?”

“No.” She slumped down and ran her fingers through her hair, lifting and dropping the wings, her voice was old and thin as it had been back in the clinic. “No more questions.”

“One more, do you remember exactly who was around the night your father died?”

“I could, I have an excellent memory when conditions are right. I'd have to sit down and think about it.”

That brought it back to me, the reason I'd had a flash about bringing Ailsa and Susan together. The key to all this was somewhere back four years ago when Mark Gutteridge had killed himself. I needed to know all I could about that night. It didn't seem like the right time to put this to Susan, so I let her answer stand and we drove on together in silence towards the smoggy lights of Sydney.

Susan gave me the address of a friend she could stay with for the night and I took her there. I stopped the car outside the place, a tizzed-up terrace in Paddington, got out and went around the car to open her door. She stepped out and put her hand on my arm.

“Thank you, I'm going to see Dr Pincus tomorrow,” she said.

“I know,” I said. Then an idea hit me. “Try for St Bede's.”

“What?” She looked at me, puzzled and deeply tired.

“If he wants to put you in hospital, ask to go to St Bede's.”

“Why?”

“I hear it's the best anyway, so you'll probably go there as a matter of course. But as well as that it might help me if you're there.”

She was too tired to pursue it, she shrugged her shoulders, pushed open the stained wood and iron gate, and climbed the steps to the house. I saw light flood out from the open door and heard a woman's voice say Susan's name in startled but welcoming tones. The light went out.

CHAPTER 19

It was after midnight and I was low on everything—energy, alertness, courage, the lot. I drove mechanically away from Paddington towards Glebe. The car felt as tired as me, unresponsive to the pedals, resistant to the wheel, dull as lead. I needed rest very badly and I couldn't think of anywhere to get it except at home. I vaguely considered crashing at Evans' house but rejected the idea. Motels were out for psychological reasons—I'd lie awake all night thinking of death.

I turned into my street and killed the engine and lights outside my house. I was fumbling about with the key in the front door lock when a beam of light hit me in the eyes and a hundredweight of hand fell on my shoulder. Another hand reached out, took the keys and dropped them into my jacket pocket. I tried to shield my eyes from the light to get a look at them but they weren't co-operative. One twisted my arm up behind my back just short of breaking point and the other jammed his torch into the end of my nose. The torch-carrier's voice was like rocks rumbling about in an empty oil drum.

“We hear you're tough Hardy, care to prove it?”

“Not just now,” I said, “I'm short on sleep. I'll be tough again tomorrow.”

The other one laughed. “You won't be tough tomorrow mate,” he said. “You'll be soft, soft as jelly.” He emphasised the prediction by putting another fraction of an inch strain on my arm.

“Whatever you say. How about easing down on the lighting and the strong arm stuff and telling me what this's all about?”

I was getting used to the light and was able to make out the general shape and size of them. Even under these imperfect conditions they were obviously cops, the kind that start off as slim, eager youths on traffic duty and end up as big, beery corrupt bastards shoving the citizenry around for kicks. The bulk of one of them looked vaguely familiar, the one with the torch.

“Is it yourself, O'Brien?” I said, all mock bog and peat.

“Don't be a smart arse, Hardy, just come along quietly and you won't get hurt unnecessarily.”

“I haven't said I wouldn't. Who's the half-nelson expert?”

“The name's Collins, Hardy,” he said, “and I'd really like to break your arm, know that?”

“I can sense that you love your work, yes.”

O'Brien switched off the torch and turned me around by the shoulder. Collins wasn't quite ready for it and it turned me partly out of his grip, I stumbled and my clumsy foot came up sharply into his shin.

“Oh, sorry Collins,” I said. He swore and reached for me like a bear in a bad mood. O'Brien pushed him back.

“Leave it, Colly,” he said, “this guy's a fancy prick and he'll have us doing something we'll regret later if he gets to us.”

“He's fuckin' got to me already,” Collins ground out, “why's he got to arrive spick and span?”

“If you can't figure it out for yourself there's no point in telling you,” O'Brien said with an air of tolerance for weaker intellects. “Let's just take him in as we found him, he doesn't look in such good shape anyway.”

He was right, I wasn't. A little adrenalin had flowed over the past few minutes, but all the guns and king hits and karate kicks of the past twelve hours had worn me down and left me in good condition to be leaned on. I still felt cheeky though.

“Do as he says sport,” I said. “Grant Evans will explain it all to you just before they cut you down to Constable Colly.”

O'Brien gave out with his basso laugh again and Collins chuckled along in chorus.

“That's where you're wrong, Hardy,” O'Brien said, “Evans is on leave, sort of a reward for his good work handed down from above. Someone up there isn't too happy so there's a bit of shit coming down all round. Inspector Mills is copping it and he wants to unload some on you. Let's go down town and talk about it.”

They eased me down the path and into the car. It's a pity Soames wasn't watching, it would have made his day. I slumped down in the car and tried to think but nothing came. I was in a very bad spot without Evans to protect me even if they hadn't placed me at all the scenes I'd visited that day. If they had, and they didn't want explanations, it was going to be some time before Hardy walked proud and free again.

Collins got behind the wheel and O'Brien sat in the back with me. I'd left my .38 and the albino's Colt in my car which was lucky, but I didn't like the air of confidence hanging around the two of them.

I tried pumping O'Brien for some information so I'd know what to expect at Headquarters but he just told me to shut up and sweat it out. I did. Collins drove like a maniac, jumping lights and bullying everyone on the road. O'Brien shook his head at a couple of the more flagrant breaches of road decency but in general he seemed to regard his partner as beyond redemption. I was almost glad when we arrived at the Police Building. Collins slammed the tyres into the kerb and cut the ignition just as he gave the motor a last, lead-footed rev. The engine shuddered protestingly into silence. Collins yanked open his door as if he meant to take it with him and, after O'Brien had sat still long enough for him to get the idea, he pulled open the back door in the same style. It might have been a subtle intimidation ploy but somehow I thought it was just that Collins didn't know any other way to behave.

We went up the steps and into the building. There was a different sergeant on the desk but he looked just as pissed-off with the job as his predecessor. I suppose the old lift was still running but I didn't get a chance to find out. We went down a set of steps following a sign which said Interrogation Rooms 1 to 6. Room 1 was long and narrow, painted cream and the only furniture was a table and two straight-backed chairs. There was a small shade over the light but not enough to make it comfortable and there was something very disconcerting about the washstand and towel in the far corner. It made the room feel like a fourth-rate hotel hole-up which you take when you're running low on money and aren't expecting any glamorous company. I sat down in one of the chairs and began feeling in my pockets for tobacco. O'Brien took the chair opposite, put a cigarette in his mouth, lit it and blew the smoke into my face.

“No smoking,” he said.

I forced a laugh. “You aren't really going to pull all this interrogation stuff are you? Doing it in relays with your handsome mate, no smoking, no sleep?”

“Depends on you, Hardy, makes no difference to me. I can go out for a drink or a nap any time. You're on the spot.”

“Well, that's a start. What have you got on me?”

O'Brien took a small notebook out and flipped over some pages.

“A whole stack of things, big or small according to how you want to play it. Failures to report felonies and such.”

I leaned back and smiled. “Littering, loitering.”

O'Brien still looked confident. He grinned and scratched his ear.

“Very droll,” he said. “How about murder?”

“I haven't murdered anyone lately that I can recall.”

“That so? Try Terrence Cattermole.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He heard of you, he said you killed him.”

“Now how could that be?”

“I'm giving you a chance to do yourself a bit of good. Judges and juries go for voluntary admissions, they go easy on people.”

“Judges and juries can laugh cases out of court too. I'd like to help you, O'Brien, but you've got me shot to bits. I don't even understand how a murdered man can name his murderer.”

“Have it your way. It seems a Land Rover went over a cliff up the coast a bit. Seems there were two guys in it when it went over. One of them was tied up with wire. You tied him up, Cattermole his name was. He got thrown clear, see? Just before he died he told us about it. He said that he and the other guy had roughed up a woman you're interested in, you followed them, jumped them, knocked the other guy out and put the wire around Cattermole. You put the Land Rover over the cliff. All this happened about five hours ago, that means you've got an accomplice who did some of the driving. Like to tell us who it is?”

“Shit, have you got it screwed up!”

“Well, that's the way Inspector Mills put it to me and my guess is that's the way someone put it to him. Now that's the way we can leave it unless you have something to say.”

“What about?”

“I hear the name Gutteridge is involved.”

“That so?”

“Yeah. And I also hear that the name Gutteridge is of interest in certain quarters. Need I say more?”

“Blood oath you do. What about my phone call at this point?”

“Oh yes, well, we go by the book here. Let's see, we'll need an extension phone. Collins can get one somewhere, can't you, Colly?”

Collins was leaning against the wall near the door. He'd been listening with a slightly puzzled, but relaxed grin on his face. He was enjoying himself. For a horrible second I thought he was going to say “Sure Boss”, but he didn't.

“Must be one around somewhere,” he said through the grin.

“That's right. Then Hardy could ring Simon Sackville and he'd come running down and get him out on habeus corpus or something. Right Hardy?”

He had me cold and he knew it, or someone had told him. Sy was out of the country, consulting on a constitutional case—independence for some group of islands off to hell and gone. He was the only lawyer whose confidence I'd ever gained. That wasn't surprising as I was a slow payer and lots of trouble.

“Sy's away,” I said, more to myself than O'Brien.

“Aaw, that's too bad,” O'Brien said, “maybe you could get one of his partners and explain it all to them?”

Sy's partners were as straight as he was strange—they only tolerated him because he was brilliant and almost always successful. They disapproved of me the way a saint disapproves of sin.

“No way,” I said wearily, “and you know it.”

O'Brien grinned. “How about legal aid?”

“You're holding all the cards, O'Brien,” I said. “I wonder how that came about. You're not smart enough to figure all this out for yourself.”

Collins levered himself off the wall and moved towards my chair.

“My turn, Paddy?” he said.

“Not yet.” O'Brien waved him back and leaned forward towards me over the table.

“Look Hardy, you're a smart guy. You can add two and two. We know this Cattermole was a hood. No one's very worried about him. Maybe the whole thing was an accident. If you've got something to say about Mark Gutteridge I think we can work something out. I've got Inspector Mills' promise that he'll interview you in private himself and that you won't lose by it. He's standing by.”

The penny dropped. The Gutteridge files were being used and some top cops were hurting. As long as they thought I knew something about the Gutteridge files I was worth keeping alive. My life wouldn't be worth two bob if I told them a thing, either way.

“How about Jackson?”

“What?” O'Brien was startled and dropped his suave mask for a second.

“Senior Detective Charles Jackson, the crooked cop, bent as buggery.”

“He's on suspension,” Collins said.

“Shut up Colly!” O'Brien rapped out. “What's Jackson to you Hardy?”

“He's shit to me,” I said, “and your Inspector Mills sounds like double shit.”

O'Brien slammed his notebook down on the table and banged his fist on top of it. He drew a deep breath and seemed to be internalising some deep moral struggle. Cop training won out. He scooped up the notebook, tucked it away in his pocket and got to his feet.

“OK, Colly,” he said, “five minutes, nothing visible.” He walked across to the door and went out of the room. Collins leaned across and snibbed the lock. He walked up behind me and took hold of the lobe of my right ear. He pinched it.

“Tell me,” he said.

“Get stuffed, you don't even know what you're asking about, you dumb gorilla.”

My vision and my breath and my hearing were all cut off by the kidney punch. It knocked me off the chair and left me hunched up on the floor fighting to keep control of my stomach and my bladder. Collins reached down into the waistband of my trousers and put his hand around my balls.

“Let's hear it.”

Nothing had changed. I was dead if they found out that I knew nothing worth knowing about the files. I had to pretend that I knew and to take whatever they dished out.

“Get your hand off my balls, you faggot.”

He squeezed and I screamed and writhed away from him. He came after me and I lashed out at him with a foot. It caught him on the thigh and made him beserk, he jumped on me and started pummelling me with his fists. Through the mist of red and black I was dimly aware of a hammering on the door. Collins let go of me and I saw the door open, then slid down into an ebbing and flowing sea of pain.

I woke up in a cell and my watch told me it was three hours later in my life. They'd taken my wallet and keys but left me the tobacco and matches. I struggled up to a sitting position on the bench and looked around. I suppose it would have been luxury in Mexico— sleeping bench, large enamel bucket, fairly clean washbasin and dry concrete floor—but I wasn't taken with it. My mouth tasted like a sewer and I rinsed some water around in it and tried to smoke a cigarette. The taste sent me running to the bucket for a monumental heave and I crawled back to the bench and pulled a thin grey blanket over me. My kidney and testicles competed for the major seat of
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pain award. I curled myself up under the blanket and became aware for the first time that my trousers were wet. I sniffed at my hand and got the unmistakable smell of urine from it.

By experimenting carefully I found a position in which everything didn't hurt at once. I held it until sleep hooked me and reeled me in and away from my bed of pain.