Not lost, exactly. It was in a mate’s lock-up garage, where it would never be found by the finance company.
He took his bowl of lasagne to a corner table and picked at it. Someone cast a shadow over the table. ‘Hello, Tank.’
Pam Murphy sat, beaming at him across the greasy Formica. ‘I’m back,’ she said.
He noted sourly that she wasn’t in uniform. That made him feel worse. ‘Detective duties,’ he said flatly.
‘That’s right.’
‘What’s the Iron Lady got in store for you?’
That’s what he called Sergeant Destry, who’d always made him feel small, and more than once bawled him out over trifling incidents.
‘Cut it out, Tank,’ Pam said, in a tone that said ‘grow up’.
She looked good: leaner, more assured, and ready for business. Somehow he knew she’d blossom in CIU and he hated her for it. He also wanted her more. He couldn’t fight his body language: his eyes flicked over her with pathetic desire and longing, as of a lover left far behind, and she registered it, too, the bitch, unconsciously turning her trunk away from him, crossing her legs and shielding her breasts. One body reacting to another. He wished he wasn’t so overweight.
He changed the subject. ‘Shitty thing, what happened to Van.’
He saw her eyes fill with tears. ‘Yes.’
‘You going to the funeral tomorrow?’
‘Of course. Aren’t you?’
He shifted in his seat, then said, his voice imploring: ‘Have you, like, heard any whispers?’
‘What about?’
‘You know, that he was, you know…’
He saw a flicker in her eyes. She had heard things, or had suspicions. ‘I don’t fucking believe it, myself,’ he snarled.
She struggled to give him a bright, releasing smile. ‘Same here. Good to see you again, Tank. Must go.’
Tank watched her leave the canteen, watched Senior Sergeant Kellock hold the door for her, big grin and a welcome back. Then Kellock was crossing the room toward him like a purposeful bear. ‘Constable Tankard.’
Tank stood awkwardly. ‘Sir.’
‘Sit down, son, sit down.’
Tank complied, Kellock sitting where Murphy had sat. He wondered what Kellock wanted, and felt his legs turn to jelly. They know I’ve been selling information to the media, he thought. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times gaspingly.
‘John,’ said Kellock in a kind uncle voice, ‘you did the right thing last week, telling me that Sergeant van Alphen had found a witness.’
‘Sir, it just slipped out. I assumed you knew, actually. I would never have-’
‘Of course I knew, son. Don’t fret it.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘It’s important at the senior level to keep abreast. That’s an important part of my job, John, making sure I keep in the loop.’
‘Sir.’
‘So if you ever hear anything you think I should know about-like Sergeant van Alphen’s secret witness-even though I already knew- then you must tell me. Because sometimes the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.’
‘Sir.’
‘You did the right thing. It’s not your fault he was shot, remember that. The fucking Jarretts shot him.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ said Tank. ‘Sir.’
There was a pause. Kellock said, ‘Another thing, John-I’ve been looking through Sergeant van Alphen’s paperwork.’
At once Tank knew what this was about, but he said innocently, ‘Sir?’
‘Trouble over a certain car?’
Tank blurted it out, the car, the finance company coming after him for the money and wanting to repossess.
‘I mean, my car’s on a black list, sir. It can’t be registered anywhere in Australia, so what good is it to the finance company? I don’t know why they want to repossess.’
‘But you are refusing to give it to them? They do have a legal right to it.’
Tank swallowed, barely concealing the shiftiness and desperation he was feeling. ‘Actually, sir,’ he said, his voice not quite making the grade, ‘some bastard stole it.’
Kellock put his huge head on one side. ‘Incredible.’
Tank said nothing.
‘How did Sergeant van Alphen get involved?’
‘Sir, he went with me to the finance company. You should have seen him, sir. He told them they had no legal standing, they loaned me money on an illegal car. Failed to do due diligence. Left themselves open to investigation for their part in a car re-birthing racket. It was bloody magnificent, sir. He told them if they wanted their money to go after the caryard proprietor. Unreal.’
Kellock was spoiling his grim exterior with a small smile. ‘We lost a good man.’
‘We did, sir,’ said Tank, welling up, his throat thick with sudden grief.
‘But that’s where it ends, as far as the police are concerned, understood?’
‘Sir.’ Tank also took that as an obscure warning not to contact ‘Evening Update’ ever again. ‘Cross my heart, sir.’
‘You have dragged us into what is essentially a personal matter. Use a lawyer next time.’
‘Understood, sir.’
‘Back to work, John. Bike patrol, okay?’
‘Aww, sir,’ Tank protested.
‘John.’
‘Sir.’
Tank went back to work. Bike patrol. Another of Kellock’s bullshit innovations, like that road safety campaign a few months back, when he and Pam Murphy had driven around in a little sports car, rewarding courteous drivers. Bike patrol entailed zipping around Waterloo on a bicycle, an exercise aimed at keeping down bag snatching, car theft and theft from parked cars-crimes that had escalated in recent years, what with Waterloo’s paradoxical growth in social distress and commercial activity. People were getting poorer but Waterloo also had a new K-Mart now, plus a Coles, a Ritchies and a Safeway, all with vast, choked car parks, a boon to thieving kids from the Seaview estate.
He’d barely completed a circuit of the foreshore reserve parking area when his mobile phone jangled. He dismounted, answered the call. ‘The well drying up?’ growled the producer of ‘Evening Update’.
Tank said, the words simply popping into his head and feeling right, ‘I can’t do this any more.’
‘Oh, I see. A crisis of conscience.’
Tank hated the guy’s tone and fluency. ‘It’s…I…just…’
But the line had gone dead. Feeling good, and bad, Tank pedalled across town to the Safeway supermarket, and five minutes later he nicked fifteen-year-old Luke Jarrett. Luke’s car of choice was a 2004 Hyundai Accent, which was parked in a shadowy region between the side doors of the supermarket and a couple of huge metal dump bins.
‘Is this your car?’
‘Ow! You’re hurting me. Pig.’
Luke Jarrett was dark, lithe, darting. A kid who’d seen everything in his short life. Tank didn’t waste any time. He took the kid deeper into the shadows, to where the garbage stank, fluids stained the ground and papers blew about. He began systematically to punch the boy: testicles, stomach and face. He knew how not to leave bruises.
‘You want to wake up to yourself, mate. Had enough?’
The kid didn’t answer but was crying softly, snot and saliva smearing his face.
‘Where were you intending to take the car?’
No reply. Tank beat him again. Eventually the boy said, ‘Korean Salvage.’
Tank was astonished. The guy who ran Korean Salvage was the father of one of Waterloo’s ace under-18 footballers. ‘Get your sorry arse off home, Luke,’ he said. ‘Keep your trap shut and I won’t arrest you. That means you do not warn Korean Salvage.’
He watched the kid run, doubled over, in the general direction of High Street, then snapped on his bicycle clips again and pedalled around to the industrial estate. He found Korean Salvage, and there he talked long and hard to the proprietor, pointing out various pros and cons, eventually coming to a mutually beneficial arrangement with the guy. In return for rebirthing Tank’s hitherto doomed Mazda, the proprietor of Korean Salvage would not be reported to CIU for car theft and related offences.