Truth (2 page)

‘Or don’t.’ Villani pointed down.

‘Under us, the business floors, retail, and hospitality, ground floor plaza. Five basement levels for parking and utilities.’

In Villani’s line of sight, the door opened. A man came in, a woman followed, even height, suits, white shirts.

‘Crashing in,’ said the man, loud. ‘Introductions, please, Alex.’

Manton stood. ‘Inspector Villani, this is Guy Ulyatt of Marscay Corporation.’

Ulyatt was fat and pink, cornsilk hair, tuber nose. ‘Pleasure, inspector,’ he said. He didn’t offer a hand, sat down. The woman sat beside him.

Villani said to Manton, ‘This person’s got something to tell us?’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Ulyatt. ‘I’m head of corporate affairs for Marscay.’

‘You have something to tell us?’ said Villani.

‘Making sure you’re getting maximum co-operation. No reflection on Alex, of course.’

‘Mr Manton is helping us,’ said Villani. ‘If you don’t have a contribution, thank you and goodbye.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Ulyatt. ‘I represent the building’s owners.’

Silence in the big room. Villani looked at Dove. He wanted him to learn something from this. Dove held his eyes but there was no telling what he was learning.

‘We Own The Building,’ said Ulyatt, four distinct words.

‘What’s that got to do with me?’ said Villani.

‘We’d like to work with you. Minimise the impact on Prosilio and its people.’

‘Homicide, Mr Elliot,’ said Villani. ‘We’re from Homicide.’

‘It’s Ulyatt.’ He spelled it.

‘Yes,’ said Villani. ‘You might try talking to some other branch of the force. Impact minimisation division. I’m sure there’s one, I’d be the last to know.’

Ulyatt smiled, a genial fish, a grouper. ‘Why don’t we settle down and sort this out? Julie?’

The woman smiled. She had shoe-black hair, she’d been under the knife, knew the needle, the dermabrasion, detailed down to her tyres like a saleyard Mercedes.

‘Julie Sorenson, our key media person,’ said Ulyatt.

‘Hi,’ she said, vanilla teeth, eyes like a dead deer, ‘It’s Stephen, isn’t it?’

‘Hi and goodbye,’ said Villani. ‘Same to you, Mr Elliot. Lovely to meet you but we’re pushed here. A deceased person.’

Ulyatt lost the fish look. ‘It’s Ulyatt. I’m trying to be helpful, inspector, and I’m being met by hostility. Why is that?’

‘This is what we need, Mr Manton,’ said Villani. ‘Ready?’

‘Sylvia?’ said Manton.

She had her pen ready.

‘All CCTV tapes from 3pm yesterday, all lifts, parking,’ said Villani. ‘Also duty rosters, plus every single recorded coming and going, cars, people, deliveries, tradies, whatever.’

Ulyatt whistled. ‘Tall order,’ he said. ‘We’ll need a lot more time.’

‘Got that down?’ said Villani to Sylvia Allegro.

‘Yes.’

‘Also the CVs and rosters of all staff with access to the thirty-sixth floor or who could allow anyone access. And the owners of apartments on the floor and other floors with access to the floor. Plus the guest list for the casino function.’

‘We don’t have that,’ said Ulyatt. ‘That’s Orion’s business.’

‘The casino function was in your building,’ said Villani. ‘I suggest you ask them. If they won’t co-operate, let Detective Dove here know.’

Ulyatt was shaking his head.

‘We’ll show the victim on television tonight, ask for information,’ said Villani.

‘I can’t see the necessity at this stage,’ said Ulyatt.

Villani delayed looking at him, met the eyes of Dove, Weber, Manton, Allegro, not Condy, he was looking away. Then he fixed Ulyatt. ‘All these rich people paying for full-on security, the panic buttons, the cameras,’ he said. ‘A woman murdered in your building, that’s a negative?’

‘It’s a woman found dead,’ said Ulyatt. ‘It’s not clear to me that she was murdered. And I can’t see why you would go on television until you’ve examined the information you want. Which we will provide as speedily as we can, I can assure you.’

‘I don’t need to be told how to conduct an investigation,’ said Villani. ‘And I don’t want to be told.’

‘I’m trying to help. I can go further up the food chain,’ said Ulyatt.

‘What?’

‘Talk to people in government.’

Awake at 4.30am, Villani was feeling the length of the day now, his best behind him. ‘You’ll talk to people in government,’ he said.

Ulyatt’s lips drew back. ‘As a last resort, of course.’

‘So resort to it, mate,’ said Villani, pilot flame of resentment igniting the burner. ‘You’re dealing with the bottom feeders, there’s nowhere to go but up.’

‘I certainly will be putting our view,’ said Ulyatt, a long sour
look, he rose, the woman rose too. He turned on his black shoes, the woman turned, they both wore thin black shoes, they both had slack arses, one fat, one thin, the surgery hadn’t extended to lifting her arse. They left, Ulyatt taking out his mobile.

‘No garbage to leave the premises, Mr Manton,’ said Villani. ‘I’ve always wanted to give someone that instruction.’

‘It’s gone,’ said Manton. ‘It goes before 7am, every day except Sunday.’

‘Right. So. How do you get up there?’

‘Private lifts,’ said Manton. ‘From the basements and the ground floor. Card-activated, access only to your floor.’

‘And who’s got cards?’

Manton turned to Condy. ‘David?’

‘I’d have to check,’ said Condy.

Villani said, ‘You don’t know?’

‘There’s a procedure for issuing cards. I’ll check.’

Villani moved his shoulders. ‘Getting into the apartment?’ he said. ‘How’s that work?’

‘Same card, plus a PIN and optional fingerprint and iris scanning,’ said Condy. ‘The print and iris are in temporary abeyance.’

‘Temporary what?’

‘Ah, being finetuned.’

‘Not working?’

‘For the moment, no.’

‘So it’s just the card?’

‘Yes.’

‘Same card you don’t know how many people have.’

Villani turned to Dove.

‘I’m off,’ he said. ‘If we don’t get the fullest co-operation here, I’ll be on television saying that this building is a management disaster and a dangerous place to live and residents should be alarmed.’

‘Inspector, we’re trying to be…’

‘Just do it, please,’ said Villani, rising.

In the ground-floor foyer, he said to Dove and Weber, ‘One, get Tracy onto the company that owns the apartment. Two, ID’s the priority here. Run her prints. See what vision they’ve got, get someone to take down every rego in the parking garage. And get that casino guest list.’

Dove nodded.

Weber said, scratching his scalp, ‘Fancy set-up, this. Like a palace.’

‘So what?’ said Villani.

Weber shrugged, awkward.

‘Just another dead person,’ said Villani. ‘Flat in a Housing Commission, this palace, all the same. Just procedure. Bomb it to Snake.’

‘Excuse, boss?’

‘Know the term, Mr Dove? Honours degree of any use here?’

‘I’d say it’s a technical Homicide term,’ said Dove. He was cleaning his rimless glasses, brown face vulnerable.

Villani looked at him for a while. ‘Follow the drill. The procedure. Do what you’ve been taught. Tick stuff off. That way you don’t have to ask for help.’

‘I didn’t ask for help,’ said Dove. ‘I asked Inspector Kiely a few questions.’

‘Not the way he saw it,’ said Villani. His phone tapped his chest.

‘Please hold for Mr Colby,’ said Angela Lowell, the secretary.

The assistant commissioner said, ‘Steve, this Prosilio woman, I’ve had Mr Barry on the line. Broken neck, right?’

‘They say that.’

‘So he understands it could be an accident. A fall.’

‘Bullshit, boss,’ said Villani.

‘Yeah, well, he wants nothing said about murder.’

‘What’s this?’

‘Mr Barry’s request to you. I’m the fucking conduit. With me, inspector?’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘Talk later, okay?’

‘Yes, boss.’

Ulyatt hadn’t been bluffing. He’d gone close to the top of the food chain. Perhaps he’d gone to the top, to Chief Commissioner Gillam, perhaps he could go to the premier.

Dove and Weber were looking at him.

‘Media out there?’ said Villani.

‘No,’ said Dove.

‘No? What happened to media leaks? Anyway, if they show up, say a woman found dead, cause not established, can’t rule out anything. Don’t say murder, don’t say suspicious, don’t say anything about where in the building. Just a dead woman and we are waiting for forensic.’

Dove blinked, made tiny head movements, Villani saw his anxiety. His impulse was to make him suffer but judgment overrode it.

‘On second thoughts, you do it, Web,’ he said. ‘See how you go in the big smoke.’

Wide eyes, Weber said, ‘Sure, boss, sure. Done a bit of media.’

Villani passed through the sliding doors, the hot late afternoon seized his breath, his passage was brief, no media, down the stairs, across the forecourt, a cool car waiting.

On the radio, Alan Machin, 3AR’s drive man, said:

…35-plus tomorrow, two more days and we break the record. Why did I say that? People talk as if we want to break records like this. Lowest rainfall for a century. Hottest day. Can we stop talking about records? Gerry from Greenvale’s on the line, what’s on your mind, Gerry?

‘Radio okay, boss?’

‘Fine.’

…years ago, you ring the cops, the ambos, they come. Five minutes. Saturday there’s shit across the road here, I ring the cops, twenty minutes, I ring again, it’s a bloody riot out there, mate, girls screamin, animals trashin cars, they throw a letterbox through my front window, there’s more arrivin all the time, no cops. I ring again, then there’s two kids stabbed, another one’s head’s smashed in, somebody calls the medics.

So how far’s the nearest police station, Gerry?

Craigieburn Road, isn’t it? Too far’s all I can say. Twenty-five minutes for the ambos to get here, they say the one kid’s dead already. And the ambos load them up and they’re gone before the bloody cops get here.

So it’s what, more than an hour all-up before the police respond, is that…

Definitely. You notice they find hundreds when some dork gets lost bloody bushwalkin? That sorta thing?

Thanks for that, Gerry. Alice’s been waiting, go ahead, Alice.

It’s Alysha, actually, with a y. I wanted to talk about the trains but your caller’s bloody spot on. We get riots around here, I’m not joking, riot’s the only…

Where’s that, Alisha, where’s around…

Braybrook. Yeah. Police don’t give a stuff, let them kill each other, gangs, it’s like you don’t see an Aussie face, all foreigners, blacks, Asians. Yeah…

‘They don’t like cops much, do they, boss?’ said the driver.

‘They can’t like cops,’ said Villani. ‘Cops are their better side.’

IN HIS office, Gavan Kiely gone to Auckland, Villani switched on the big monitor, muted, waited for the 6.30pm news, unmuted.

A burning world—scarlet hills, grey-white funeral plumes, trees exploding, blackened vehicle carapaces, paddocks of charcoal, flames sluicing down a gentle slope of brown grass, the helicopters’ water trunks hanging in the air.

…weary firefighters are bracing themselves for a last-ditch stand against a racing fire front that threatens the high country village of Morpeth, where most residents have chosen to stay and defend their homes despite warnings to heed the terrible lessons of 2009…

When it was full dark, his father and Gordie would see the ochre glow in the sky, Morpeth was thirty kilometres by road from Selborne but only four valleys away.

A plane crash in Indonesia, a factory explosion in Geelong, a six-car freeway pile-up, the shut-down of an electronics company.

The wide-eyed newsreader said:

…four hundred A-listers, many of them high-rolling gamblers from Asia, the United States and Europe, last night had a preview of the Orion, Australia’s newest casino and its most exclusive…

Men in evening dress, women in little black dresses getting out of cars, walking up a red carpet. Villani recognised a millionaire property developer, an actor whose career was dead, a famous
footballer you could rent by the hour, two cocaine-addicted television personalities, a sallow man who owned racehorses and many jockeys.

A helicopter shot of the Prosilio building, then a spiky-haired young man on the forecourt said:

The boutique gambling venue is housed in this building, the newly commissioned Prosilio Tower, one of Australia’s most expensive residential addresses. It’s a world of total luxury for the millionaire residents, who live high above the city behind layers of the most advanced electronic and other security…

His phone.

‘Pope Barry is pleased,’ said Colby.

Villani said, ‘About what?’

‘Prosilio. The girl.’

‘Nothing to do with me. The absent media, who arranged that?’

‘I’d only be guessing.’

‘Yeah, right. This Prosilio prick, Elliot, Ulyatt, his company owns the building. Came on like we’re from the council about overhanging branches.’

‘And you said?’

‘Well I said fuck off.’

‘Well I can say he went somewhere. I can say that.’

‘I don’t like this stuff, boss.’

‘They don’t want bad news.’

‘The casino?’ said Villani.

‘The casino’s not it, son,’ said Colby. ‘Up there in the air there’s like a whole suburb of unsold million-buck apartments. All spruiked to be as safe as living next door to the Benalla copshop in 1952. You make all this money and you can buy anything and then some deranged psycho shithead invades your space and kills you. Fucks you and tortures you and kills you.’

‘I see the unappealing part of that.’

‘So you’ll also try to grasp the charm of a murder in the building.’

Anna Markham on the screen, cold, pinstriped jacket. He had
looked at the dimple in her chin from close range, thought about inserting his tongue into the tiny cleft.

‘I’ll work on that, boss,’ he said.

‘Front and fucking centre. In the big game now. Not in Armed Robbery anymore. Not you, not me.’

…today’s poll shock, the threat of a nurses’ strike, the questions over the Calder Village project and next week’s demonstrations in the Goulburn Valley. With the election weeks away, Premier Yeats has a few things to be worried about…