‘Who tells you?’
He had another big drink. His eyes never left me. There was an appealing sadness about them. ‘Let me tell you a story,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got a lot of time. I don’t want to dance around with you. When I got this job, I appointed a new Commissioner and a new deputy. The first thing I said to them, I said: “The fucking joke’s over.”’
He leaned forward. ‘I was a cop for nearly twenty years, Jack. I know the system, I know what goes on. Everything. These new blokes knew that I knew what I was talking about. Cops’ve been bullshitting politicians for years. They can’t do that to me. I’m not going to sit in a high chair and be fed shit with a spoon. That’s why the Premier wanted me in this job.’
He drew on his cigarette and studied me. The silence and the open gaze were disconcerting. He hadn’t been a cop for twenty years for nothing.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘the point is, when this Danny McKillop got knocked behind the Trafalgar, I called in the file. I’ve had it with all this Dirty Harry shit. They see it on television. Twenty years, I fired three shots, all in response to cunts firing at me.’
He sat back, stubbed out his cigarette, put his hands in his pockets. ‘I read the wife’s statement, reckoned there were some questions about what made McKillop so scared. Told the Commissioner that. He came back with all the background, the Jeppeson trial stuff, and the missing person’s report on this Bishop.’
Bruce got up, took out another cigarette, flamed it with the lighter, went to the windows. ‘Can’t sit for long,’ he said. ‘Back’s buggered. Anyway, Jack, what the Commissioner tells me is that the blokes he’s had going over this business find your tracks all over the place. You’re giving Vin McKillop money, you’re in Perth, you’re everywhere.’
He turned his head towards me. ‘What’s really worrying, Jack,’ he said quietly, ‘is that you were out there in the bush at Daylesford and it looks liked you wiped clean a whole lot of places. Places that could have had the prints of whoever topped Bishop and the druggie quack.’
He looked out into the night again. ‘Now that is very, very serious,’ he said. ‘You know how serious, Jack.’
I had seen this coming but I still didn’t know how to handle it. Bruce turned. There was a sheen on his face and on his scalp showing through the short, thinning hair.
‘I never found the doctor’s place,’ I said. ‘Got lost.’
He gave me a slow cop smile. ‘That’s a porky, Jack. If you were going to tell porkies, you should’ve changed the tyres on that motor Col Boon loaned you. Your tracks are all over the place.’
He came back to his chair and sat down carefully. ‘That was a really stupid thing to do. The Commissioner wants to charge you. But he came to me first. That’s why you’re sitting here, not in metropolitan remand.’
We sat in silence for a while. The little carriage clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half hour, a silver splinter of sound.
Bruce picked up his glass, looked at it, rolled it like a thimble between his big, hairy hands. ‘I knew that prick killed your wife,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘Wayne Milovich. Knew him for years. He was always a dangerous animal. Only had to look at his eyes.’
I didn’t know what to say. There was silence again. Bruce rolled his glass.
‘Crim tried to shoot my daughter,’ he said. ‘She was in the kitchen, looking in the fridge. Went through her hair, through the cupboard, through the wall. Couldn’t pin it on him. Bloke called Freely. We knew it was him. His whole fucking family, about fifty of them, said he was watching TV at the time. Couldn’t shake them. And by Jesus we shook some of them.’
‘I never heard about that,’ I said.
‘No. We kept it quiet. You don’t want to give the other animals ideas.’
He got up, collected my glass and made the drinks. While his back was turned, he said, voice just a little rough, ‘She was sixteen, lovely girl. Not the same again. Ever. Lost to me. To all of us. In and out of the funny farms. Cut her wrists, swallowed anything she could find. They found her on the beach just before Christmas. Her birthday was Boxing Day. Twenty-first that year. My fault, I suppose. My wife thought so, anyway. Never forgave me.’
I looked at the big back, the way he was holding himself. ‘You can’t take the blame for what mad people do,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t know.’ My voice seemed too loud.
‘You could say I did know,’ Bruce said flatly. ‘He told me he was going to do it. Outside court. He said, “Watch your family, Bruce, something could happen to them.” I told him, “You wouldn’t have the guts, you chickenshit little bastard.” I laughed at him. He was a runt, five foot fuckall. You’d never credit that he would do it.’
He brought my drink over. I got up to take it. We stood together awkwardly, not knowing where to look, some kind of bond of loss between us. I knew now why I wasn’t in metropolitan remand.
‘Cheers,’ Bruce said.
‘Cheers.’
We drank.
‘Never said anything to you? Milovich.’
‘Just the normal abuse. I wouldn’t have paid any attention if he had. I wouldn’t have done anything.’
‘Would you have told your wife?’
I shook my head.
Bruce nodded. He drank again, wiped his mouth and said, ‘You see Danny McKillop after he got out?’
‘No.’
‘So what, you heard about the shooting, started poking around?’
‘No. I was away for a couple of days. When I came back there were messages on my answering machine from him. I didn’t even remember who he was. He was waiting for me at the Trafalgar that night. Only I didn’t play the tape till the next day.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Said he was in trouble. He was scared.’
‘You talk to the wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘She tell you about the phone call, about Danny getting the idea he didn’t kill the Jeppeson woman?’
I nodded.
‘You reckoned there might be something in it, did you?’
I nodded again.
Bruce shook his head. ‘And Vin McKillop? He help you along with the theory?’
I shrugged.
Bruce gave me the look. ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘don’t come the lawyer with me. If I don’t help you, you’re going to have to practise in Somalia, somewhere like that.’
I didn’t ponder the matter. ‘Vin says someone saw Danny miles away from his car and dead drunk about twenty minutes before Anne Jeppeson was killed. And there was a cop with Danny earlier. Someone called Scullin. Vin says Danny was Scullin’s dog.’
Bruce sighed and shook his head. He went over to his briefcase and took out a manila folder. He waved it at me. ‘I can’t show you this,’ he said, ‘but I’ll tell you what it says. Sit down.’
I sat down.
‘Danny wasn’t a dog. Vin was a dog. Vin was Scullin’s dog in those parts. And Vin thought that being an informer gave him some kind of immunity. The next thing Scullin hears is Vin is dealing speed on a fair scale and he’s claiming he’s got police protection. Scullin didn’t like that. He put him away. Four years. Vin’s been trying to get even ever since. He’s obsessed with Scullin.’
I said, ‘So?’
Bruce tapped the folder. ‘It’s Vin fed Danny all that stuff about being innocent, about Scullin being around that night. It’s all bullshit. There’s no question that Danny was the driver. Vin’s idea was that Danny might go nuts and nail Scullin for him.’
I thought about this for a while. Bruce sat down again, gingerly, and lit a cigarette.