‘Fuck you. I supported them. I propped up that stupid business of Angela’s for years while her drongo of a husband went around conning people.’
He took a solid slug of his whisky and when he spoke next his voice was slurred. Like a lot of heavy drinkers, the dividing line between sober and drunk was a matter of millilitres.
‘I’ll tell you something off the fucking record. Some of the money I scammed went straight to Angela and her bloody kids.’
‘That’s enough, Dad.’
Damien had come in quietly. No way to tell how much he’d heard. He moved quickly and took the glass from his father’s hand. Ireland sank back in his chair and stared into the fire as if he was seeing his past and future playing out in the flames.
Sometimes you have to kick a man when he’s down. ‘So you killed her,’ I said.
Ireland nodded.
‘No he didn’t,’ Damien said.
Ireland looked up, his blotchy face a mask of fear and confusion. ‘Shut up, son.’
Damien was suddenly masterful and in control. He reached around to his back and produced a pistol. He held it in a rock-steady hand pointed directly at Tania’s glossy head.
‘No, Dad. You’ve made a big mistake. This bitch and her minder aren’t here to do a deal. They’re here to bleed you dry.’
‘No!’ Tania’s normally modulated tone disintegrated.
I sat still. Damien had done exactly the right thing- focused the threat on the most vulnerable person. For all her raunchy facade, Tania had never faced a loaded firearm and it terrified her into an almost hypnotic state. Damien Ireland would be able to get her to do anything he wanted.
‘Tania,’ Damien said quietly, ‘I want you to get up very slowly and put your sexy leather bag in my father’s lap. Gently. I see it as two very slow movements.’
Tania did as she was told and almost collapsed back into her chair, still staring at the unwavering pistol.
‘Reach in, Dad,’ Damien said. ‘London to a brick you’ll find a tape-recorder running.’
Similarly mesmerised, Wayne Ireland did as his son instructed and produced the miniature tape-recorder. He held it to his ear and must have heard the faint tape hiss.
‘You bitch,’ he said. ‘You were always going to fuck me over.’
‘Chuck it in the fire, Dad.’
Ireland did. The recorder landed in the middle of the burning logs and erupted in a display of blue and yellow flames as the plastic caught and flared. Tania hid her face in her hands.
‘I killed Angela Pettigrew,’ Damien said.
‘Jesus, son, no,’ Ireland Senior said. ‘It’s just a manslaughter charge. The lawyers’ll get me off. It’s all circumstantial. Worst comes to worst I’ll get a short sentence served somewhere soft.’
‘I know that, Dad. We’ll stick to the plan, but with your health the way it is that won’t be a cakewalk and we can’t trust this pair.’
Damien’s control was frightening. Big and boofy as he was, and apparently under his father’s thumb, I had underestimated him. Now I needed to unsettle him somehow. I took a sip of my drink.
‘But you wouldn’t get off it easily, Damien, would you? You’d go for murder, no worries. How and why did you do it?’
‘She was blackmailing Dad and threatening to expose him as an adulterer and-’
‘A corrupt thief,’ I said.
‘Shut your face. I followed him to the house and I finished her off after he left.’
‘I see. Then you told him and persuaded him to take the rap.’
‘No. He volunteered. That’s the sort of father he is. He’s giving up everything to protect me.’
Tania’s terror had given way to wide-eyed fascination. Ireland Senior was shaking his head, muttering, pleading for his son to stop talking.
‘That’s bullshit,’ I said. ‘You’re a mug if you believe that. This government’s been on the skids since Nifty resigned. The two blokes after him have been hopeless. They’re on the nose. You know as well as I do that Rex Jackson-the minister for prisons, for Christ’s sake-is on the way to jail. Wayne here could easily be next. It’s a corruption charge he’s worried about. A conviction for that and they go after the assets. He’s giving up less than he’s protecting.’
‘That’s not true. Anyway, you’re not going to be around to see how it plays out.’
Ireland shook his head. ‘You can’t kill them, son. There’ll be people who know where they were going.’
‘They never made it, Dad. They had an accident at Skinner’s Leap. I’ve got a few mates coming up to help me with that.’
‘No!’ Wayne Ireland half rose from his chair and then sank back, gasping for breath and clutching his chest. He slid down and sideways and hit the floor, grunting and shaking.
‘Dad!’ Damien yelped. I was up and on him in three strides and laid the best tackle since my school days. He was so big he stayed on his feet but stumbled and I drove him back with my bare feet slipping on a rug but still getting traction. His back slammed into the bar hard and the gun fell from his hand. I scooped it up.
‘Go and help him,’ I said. I pulled out my gun in case his was a replica or unloaded-a bluff.
Damien lurched over to where Tania was trying to administer mouth to mouth resuscitation. Damien pushed her aside and took over. He was vigorous and seemed to know what he was doing. He was close to the fire and sweat poured off him as he pumped. He kept it up longer than I would have and was exhausted when he finally sat up.
‘He’s gone,’ he moaned. ‘Oh, God.’
He got to his feet, looked around wildly and began to cry. Tania tried to comfort him but he shoved her away and shambled out of the room.
Tania had had a couple of shocks too close together. Her face was white and she just managed to get back to her chair.
‘Heart attack?’ she said.
I nodded. ‘He was holding a full hand for it.’
‘You’re a cold-blooded bastard, aren’t you? Where’s Damien?’
The roar of a motor answered the question. I went to the deck and saw the Land Rover ploughing through the mud, slewing and skidding as Damien gunned it harder than he should. I put my socks and boots back on and went inside. Tania had a cigarette going and she’d been to the bar for a stiffener. I poured myself some scotch and looked around the room. I straightened the rug that I’d budded up. The tape-recorder had become a mass of molten plastic well on the way to being charred out of recognition. Ireland’s cigar had landed on the brick hearth and was still burning. The only thing to suggest that Wayne Ireland hadn’t simply suffered a heart attack when being interviewed was Damien’s Beretta in my hand. It was loaded.
I went back to the deck and threw it as far into the bush as I could. I’d had a fair arm as a schoolboy cricketer and it disappeared deep into the misty greyness.
Tania joined me on the deck. ‘What now?’
‘We call an ambulance. This can’t cause us any trouble. No suspicious circumstances.’
She was recovering fast but still wasn’t quite there. ‘What about Damien?’
‘Nothing we can do there.’
It took an hour for the ambulance to arrive and the paramedics read it the only way they could. As they were placing Ireland on the stretcher one said, ‘We were held up. A car went over the cliff at Skinner’s Leap. Came from this direction.’
‘Oh my God,’ Tania said. ‘Damien.’
The paramedic looked at her.
‘Mr Ireland’s son,’ I said. ‘He was very upset at the delay. He went for help, not that there was anything to do except just what you’ve done.’
‘You’d better check in with the police at Katoomba about that, and we’ll need your names and contact numbers and some ID.’
We showed them our drivers’ licences, gave them the numbers and said we’d stop at the police station. They carried the heavy body from the house and loaded it into the ambulance. Dense rain was falling and the mist seemed to be rising up from the valley. We stood on the deck and watched the ambulance leave, the driver taking much more care than Damien had.
‘Are there other houses further up the track?’ I asked.
‘Maybe one or two but they’re weekenders. Wayne and Damien had their privacy. That had to be Damien who went over the edge. He was revving like crazy as he went. What are we going to do, Cliff?’