Saving Billie

With the two women squabbling and Tommy sweating as the day promised to be a scorcher, I was happy to leave Lilyfield. After sleeping in my underwear and sporting a three-day-old shirt, I wasn't feeling fresh. For my own sake, I wanted something to happen, almost anything.

Before leaving the house I wiped Jonas Clement's gun clean of my prints and put it in a green bag. It was a Beretta nine millimetre with the latest word in silencers attached. Highly illegal, but a nice gun if you like guns.

Thomas's pistol was a Glock. There was blood on it- Thomas's or Clement's, I couldn't be sure which. But I'd only handled it by the muzzle so that Thomas's prints were still on the butt. I wiped the muzzle carefully and put it in with the other one. I wrapped a plastic bag around the handles of the green bag. When I took it off there'd be no prints of mine.

Hank Bachelor hadn't been available so I called Steve Kooti. I had the feeling that Kooti, despite his sincerity in turning over a new leaf, still hankered deep down for something more exciting.

'I just want you there as a presence,' I said. 'You don't have to say or do anything.'

'What if I want to say or do something?'

'I'll trust your judgement.'

'And this gets the mess cleared? Tommy can get on with his job and that?'

'I hope so.'

'You don't fill me with confidence, Hardy.'

'Mate, I play it by ear. Are you in?'

(T) 5

'I'm in.'

I found a parking place near the old Fairfax building in Jones Street and walked the rest of the way. The promised thirty-eight degrees were rapidly approaching and I was sweating by the time I got to the QVB. As arranged, I met Kooti on the escalator and we went up to the top level. Then he hung back and I went along to where a row of tables sits beside the gallery. It was eleven fifty exactly and Clement was there. He looked a very different man from the one I'd seen at his party not long back. His face was pale and drawn; his tie knot was slipped down and his shirt was crumpled. He fiddled nervously with the sugar sachets on the table.

I circled stealthily and came up behind him. 'Don't turn round,' I said. 'I'm Hardy and this is your boy's gun.'

I dropped the green bag at his feet.

'Rhys Thomas was quicker on the draw. His gun's in here, too, with his prints on it.'

He half turned, then stopped the movement. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Thomas standing almost hidden by a pillar twenty metres away.

'What the hell do you mean?'

'I don't know what he told you, but Thomas shot your son. I was there. I saw it. He's working for Barclay Greaves. Speak of the devil, here he is.'

Greaves came striding towards us; he was early and agitated. Clement gave a roar of anger. He sprang from his seat and rushed at Greaves, who saw me, stopped and looked confused. Clement swung a wild punch that caught Greaves on the side of the head. He threw up his hands, lost his balance and hit the rail. His arms flailed and it seemed he might right himself, but he was clawing at thin air and he went over. His head cracked on the rail a level below. He let out a strangled cry and fell the rest of the way to the ground. Had to be thirty metres.

They say people sometimes witness violent scenes in the streets, think it's a movie shoot, and move on. Not this time. Women screamed, men yelled, children rushed to the rail and were hauled back. Clement stood still, rooted to the spot by shock. I spoke quickly into his ear. 'Tell the police where Scriven is and they'll go easy on you.'

I drifted away, signalling for Kooti to do the same as the crowd hemmed Clement in. I heard someone say his name and then mobile phones were out and the circus was in town.

As I moved away I noticed Thomas disappear down the stairs. If Greaves had had a minder I didn't see him. Kooti and I took the escalator down. The police and ambulance sirens were sounding before we reached the bottom. The area was empty, everyone either clearing out or gravitating to where Greaves had fallen.

Like all bouncers and enforcers, Steve Kooti had seen some rough things in his time-eyes gouged out and ears bitten off-so he wasn't too fazed, but he shook his head several times and didn't speak until we were out in the street. 'You set that up.'

'I swear I didn't. I thought they'd talk money.'

'What was that you gave him?'

'His son's pistol, complete with silencer.'

'So he's standing there with a hundred witnesses. He's bloody killed someone, and he's holding an illegal weapon. The man's in deep trouble.'

'Save your sympathy, Steve. Have you ever heard him on the radio? Heard his views on minorities, welfare, single mothers?'

'Yeah, he's no loss. And the other one's dead. I'll pray for them. You've made a clean sweep, Hardy.'

'I'm not patting myself on the back. If the cops get on to the security camera tapes I'm in for a rough trot.'

'Okay, that's your problem. But does this clear the decks? I mean

…'

'Tommy'll be on his own in Lilyfield in an hour and none of this'll touch him.'

We reached Goulburn Street; he hesitated and then put out his hand, swallowing mine in his big, hard grip. We shook and he walked away, head and shoulders taller than the mostly Asian people around us.

I stopped at a pub in George Street, bought a double scotch, and took it to a stool where I could sit and look out through a tinted window at Sydney on the move. Tinted windows soften the reality and I needed some softening just then. I'd been so focused on setting up the meeting, hoping for some sort of outcome, that Greaves's fall hadn't touched me emotionally. It did now. Like a lot of people, I've had falling nightmares. That terrifying feeling of being launched into space with no prospect of rescue and enough time to anticipate the contact resulting in oblivion or, worse, paralysis. Greaves had taken the fall for real, in real time, and the nightmare for him was a reality.

I sipped the drink and told myself he'd probably caused the death of Lou Kramer and would most likely have disposed of Billie Marchant once she'd told him what he wanted to know. McGuinness, his undercover man, was a sleaze and Greaves's plan to blackmail Peter Scriven was in no way in the public interest. No loss.

After the first drink and those thoughts, I felt a little better and bought another because something else was still niggling. I worked at it but couldn't tease it out. Needing food for fuel or comfort, I invested in a steak sandwich, with fries. When had they stopped being chips? I was a bit drunk as I ate the food without tasting it. The security camera was a worry, but would they have them focused on the coffee area and the ABC shop rather than the jewellery shops on all levels? Maybe not.

I tramped back through the steamy heat to the car. It had picked up a ticket. Poetic justice. I sat in it for a while with the window down, hoping for a breeze. In Jones Street, in Ultimo? No chance. I decided I was sober enough to drive and started the motor. As always, the case was still buzzing in my head and, not unusually, there were unresolved questions. Principally, what did Billie know and would I ever find out?

I steered overcautiously through the back streets until I realised that I was heading towards Glebe and home, instead of Lilyfield. Not as sober as I thought. I stopped, took a series of deep breaths, and then the disturbing subliminal thought came through to me: I remembered thinking, when I was in the QVB, wandering around after buying the talking books for Megan, how low the railing seemed and what a long drop it was to the bottom.

23

There was an air of gloom at Lilyfield. Tommy was chopping away but without his usual enthusiasm. Sharon was sitting on the back steps with a sketch pad and a pencil but looking as if her heart wasn't in it. I'd been hoping to tell the tale, reassure everyone that the troubles were over. No way.