‘Have you got a tape-recorder on you?’
‘No, this is between you and me and five hundred bucks.’
‘Ronny told the kid’s sister Ireland was fucking the mother.’
‘I knew that.’
‘The kid phoned Ireland and threatened to give the story to the media unless Ireland helped him.’
‘How d’you know that?’
‘Ireland got pissed and told me.’
‘All right, I believe you so far. What did Justin want?’
‘He wanted Wayne to arrange a false passport for him.’
‘Wayne, eh? You were mates then?’
‘We were, sort of, when it suited him. Not now.’
‘How could Ireland do that? He’s just a state government guy.’
‘Fuck, you obviously don’t know how it works. Those pricks’ve all got something on each other. Ireland could pull some Canberra strings when he had to. He’s fuckin’ pulling strings now, you’ll see.’
‘And?’
‘He’ll get seven years for manslaughter and serve five at the most. He’s salted a fair bit away over and above his super, and they’ll do a deal on that. He’ll be okay.’
‘Where does that leave you, Mike?’
‘Fucked. They’ll drop the perjury charge, I reckon, but I’ll be out of a job and out of this billet. I’ve got diabetes and hepatitis, plus a gambling addiction. If you give me the five hundred I’ll take it to Randwick and try to turn it into real money to get the fuck out of here. If I don’t, I’m no worse off.’
It was a desperate scenario and he knew it. I had some sympathy for him, but not much. Not enough to let up.
‘Did Ireland do what Justin wanted him to do?’
‘I dunno. A lot of shit was hitting the fan in the political game just then and it never came up again when we were en the piss.’
‘Why d’you think Ireland killed Angela Pettigrew?’
He shrugged. ‘He’s got an evil temper, especially when he’s pissed. She was always threatening to expose him. She must’ve pushed a bit too hard.’
I thought about it, still holding the money. If Ireland killed Angela because she threatened to expose him as an adulterer, what might he do to Justin, who had the same information and had tried to involve him in the sort of corruption that brought many a politician down?
I dropped the notes on the blankets one by one. O’Connor’s eyes followed their fall. My hand hovered over them.
‘Ireland’s probably gone to ground somewhere. D’you know where?’
‘No.’
‘He might have killed Justin Hampshire, too. What d’you reckon?’
O’Connor grabbed the notes with nicotine-stained fingers. ‘I fuckin’ hope so,’ he said, ‘and I hope you find out, you cunt.’
20
I was happy to get out of there and the information was certainly worth the five hundred. No sign of Ronny in the street. O’Connor would have to do without his cigarettes. These relationships I was running into-fathers and sons, mothers and daughters-made me glad I was childless. I stopped for a beer in a pub that was trying to look like a colonial inn and was doing a reasonable job of it. The beer was probably better, certainly colder.
I drove home with things on my mind, particularly the question of how to get to Wayne Ireland, so I was preoccupied when I pulled up outside my house, switched off the engine and took out the key. I only snapped out of it when I realised that a man was standing by my window with a gun in his hand. He made a winding motion and I lowered the window.
‘Hands on the wheel, Hardy, and get out slowly. Were going on a little trip.’
The street was empty. Everybody was home and minding their own business. My neighbour on one side was away and the house on the other side was unoccupied, awaiting renovation. High hedges opposite.
I put my hands on the wheel but shook my head. ‘I’m not in the mood.’
He leaned heavily on the wound-down window and pointed the pistol at my right knee. ‘Sharkey wants to see you,’ he said, ‘and if your knee was buggered he wouldn’t mind one little bit.’
What he didn’t know was that the driver’s side door on the Falcon didn’t lock properly. I gripped the wheel and threw my weight against the door. It flew open and knocked him off-balance. I jumped out and chopped down hard on the arm carrying the pistol. It hurt me but it hurt him more. He dropped the pistol and I scooped it up as he came at me with a lowered head and fists flailing. I stepped aside, clipped him on the ear with the gun and let him cannon into the doorpost on the car. He went down and blood sprayed over the car, the road, his clothes and mine.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ I said.
He was groaning and grabbing at his ear with one hand and his forehead with the other. The skin had split from the impact with the car, which added to the blood flow. Still holding the pistol, I kicked the door shut and he yelped as it closed a few inches from his head. He was game; he tried to get up but a fairly gentle push put him back down.
‘You weren’t quite up to it,’ I said. ‘Did Sharkey tell you it’d be easy?’
‘Fuck you.’
A car that must have been parked further down the street with the engine running came slowly towards us. I let the driver see the gun.
‘This’ll be your mate,’ I said. ‘Not much use, was he?’
The car drew abreast of us and I gestured for the driver to get out and help his fallen comrade. He did it with very bad grace, getting blood on his trousers, swearing, fumbling. The injured guy abused him. I gave each of them a searching look while I held the gun in position. Standard hard types-bitter eyes and mouths, emotionally undernourished, mixtures of fear and hate.
‘I’ll know you both,’ I said, ‘don’t come back.’
The car roared away with a squeal of tyres and whiff of burning rubber. I didn’t know how long I’d been holding my breath, but I let it out now, slow and easy. I knew I’d been lucky, and luck was something you just couldn’t rely on. I went to the end of the street, walked the block to the water and threw the pistol in. The last thing I needed was to have in my possession a gun that could’ve been used in shootings. I also didn’t need the enmity of a heavy character like Sharkey Finn, but there was nothing I could do about that.
I went inside, filled a bucket with water and splashed it over the car to clean off the blood. I poured a solid scotch and sipped at it as I changed my pants and put the bloodied ones in the wash. I kicked off my shoes, which would need cleaning as well, and sat down with a second drink to think things over.
You didn’t front up to a government minister, even one suspended and on bail, the way you did to his chauffeur. I didn’t have any useful contacts in the political machine and Ireland was probably licking his wounds and conferring with his lawyers somewhere away from his usual haunts. O’Connor had said he didn’t know where that might be. He’d wanted the money too much to risk a lie that I might trap him in. Ireland had a lot of problems and the only card I had to play was the information that he’d been involved in corruption by helping to provide a false passport-if he had. It wasn't an ace and I couldn't think of a way to play it. Hated to admit it, but I needed help. I rang Tania.
'Cliff, darling. I hope you've been busy.'
'I have. How's Sarah?'
'She's fine. Some news, I hope?'
There was no help for it, I had to tell her about Justin having seen Ireland and my need to talk to Ireland about it. It was risky-with Tania you never knew what use she might make of information. But this time she had her eye firmly on the game.
'That's good,' she said. 'Might give us a strong lead to Justin's whereabouts even after all this time.'
'Yes.'
I could almost see her chewing it over and, as I'd have predicted, she came up with the kind of strategy that was so dear to her heart: 'You could threaten to expose him as corrupt. He has to talk to you.'
‘To use your expression, that’s where you come in. You say you got to talk to him in the past even though it didn’t go too well. I never heard that he was keen on the media. How did you manage it?’
You could always appeal to Tania’s vanity. She allowed a dramatic pause before she spoke. ‘I met Damien, his son, at a party and we had an affair. He’s some kind of apparatchik in his father’s office-sucking on the government tit. Damien set it up for me to get an interview with his father and that’s why Wayne thought he could make me a father and son double. They’d done it before. Didn’t quite get there, as I told you. They’ve got a weird relationship in that family. Damien idolises his dad and his mother. Is that a complex? Is there a name for it?’