Torn Apart

27

Cummings's head was bowed and he was crying quietly.

'I told Paddy about the Travellers, him being a Malloy and all, when we… when I thought we were comrades,' he said through his tears. 'He didn't know much about it and he was interested. It was like a double betrayal, d'you see?'

Sheila shuffled her chair along and put her hand on Cummings's shoulder. 'Why didn't you leave the country after you'd killed Paddy? It was so risky to stay.'

Cummings sniffed and blinked away the tears. 'Nothing's risky for a man in my condition, darlin'. I had some old friends to see and I really wanted to go to this gathering. Just to be there, to see the faces and hear the music.'

'Touching,' Milton-Smith said, 'but the fact remains that you murdered an Australian intelligence agent.'

'So arrest me,' Cummings said. 'The fuck do I care? I'm a dead man walking.' He smiled and lifted his tear-stained face to look at Sheila. 'Sitting, that is.'

Milton-Smith stood and poured himself a small measure of scotch. 'True, it was all a good time back, but we can't have it getting out that an Australian intelligence agency conspired to have some of our citizens… eliminated. However delinquent they may have been. There were a couple of Australians in that merry band, recruited by the Cummings brothers. The good professor didn't pick them up in his research.'

I was getting tired of Milton-Smith and I was angry with Casey, whose carelessness had let the spooks into the picture. 'I hope you're getting all this down on your cleverly concealed tape recorder, Jack,' I said.

Casey stirred for the first time since our arrival. Fumbling, he relit his cigar that had gone out and puffed smoke at Milton-Smith. 'I'm sorry, Cliff. I've screwed everything up badly. This bastard has me by the balls.'

'In a manner of speaking,' Milton-Smith said. 'Professor Casey has been indiscreet, we find, with one or two of his students. His career is in my hands, rather than his balls.'

I'd been in a similar situation once before, when the spooks had stepped into an investigation and tied it all up in a way that suited them and left me, and others, no room for manoeuvre.

'So tell us about the cover-up,' I said, 'and why we all have to go along with it.'

'I wouldn't put it quite that way,' Milton-Smith said.

'I'd rather say that, in the interest of national security and the reputation of some of our valued institutions, certain arrangements have to be made.'

Sheila laughed. 'Meaning you're going to cover up a murder.'

'They've already started to do that,' I said. 'They closed down the police investigation. Isn't that right, Martin?'

Milton-Smith took a sip of his scotch, enjoying himself. 'An example of what I said, arrangements being made.'

Sheila said, 'I can see why Jack's going to keep quiet about it, but…'

Milton-Smith began to tick points off-right index finger against left thumb. 'Let me make it clear, then. One, I doubt that Mr Cummings wants to spend his few remaining weeks in a prison hospital. In fact I happen to know he has excellent palliative care all lined up. Very sensible. Two, the film you're hoping to work on, Ms Fitzsimmons, dealing as it does with actual events and characters, doesn't quite have all its financing in place. Close, but not quite. It can also be subject to legal injunctions that would delay or frustrate it altogether. Do you follow?'

'You bastard,' Sheila said. 'What about Cliff? He's got media contacts. He could blow the story wide open.'

'Ah, yes, Mr Hardy, defrocked private enquiry agent who's already served time in prison for serious offences and who allegedly imported dangerous substances into this country. If convicted, he'd be looking at ten years' imprisonment.'

'The case was dropped,' I said.

'We had a hand in that as I expect you realise by now. It could easily be picked up again if we had a change of heart. Our influence with the Customs people is considerable.' He turned back to Sheila. 'Add to that, his motivation. He now knows who killed his cousin and why and that the killer is dying. Case closed, as he might say.'

'Talk anymore about me in the third person,' I said, 'and I'll break your jaw, you smug prick.'

'Talk, talk, talk,' Cummings said. He yawned, stretched his thin arms out, reached under the table, and produced a cut-down automatic shotgun. The strips of duct tape hanging from it made it seem all the more lethal.

Sheila pulled away. 'Seamus, no!'

'It's all right, darlin'. Don't be frightened. I won't hurt anyone if I don't have to. I'll just leave quietly.'

He pointed the gun at Milton-Smith who backed away, his composure disturbed for the first time.

'I'd love to kill you,' Cummings said. 'But what would be the good? There's a million just like you, fuckin' lackeys, manipulators, corrupters. Can't kill 'em all. Don't move, Hardy!'

I'd stood and made a tentative move closer but was still too far from the gun. Casey grabbed at Cummings, but he was drunk and slow and Cummings clubbed him down with the butt of the gun and had it back level all in one smooth movement. Weak as he was, the old skills were still there.

'We'll help you any way we can, Seamus,' Sheila said. 'Won't we, Cliff?'

Cummings laughed, sucked in more breath and said, 'It's all right. I'm thinking I can get to Singapore and contact the News of the World.'

'You fool,' Milton-Smith said. 'Put the gun down. We can work something out.'

Cummings slid smoothly towards the door.

'Don't, Seamus,' Sheila said. 'He's got people out there.'

'Bluffing,' Cummings said. 'It was a bonus seeing you again, Sheila.' He opened the door and stepped out.

The single shot had a clean and final sound to it. Cummings was thrown back; he collapsed in the doorway and lay still. A little blood pumped from a wound in his forehead and then stopped.

Sheila burst into tears.

I'd seen the expression of joy on Cummings's face as he'd moved to the door.

'It's all right, love,' I said. 'He knew what he was doing. Don't you see? He set all this up.'

28

The spooks cleaned the decks of course, the way they do. In a very polite operation, the three of us and our cars were removed to what they called their command centre-a house on the outskirts of the Kangaroo Valley township. We waited in a chintzy living room and were served coffee and biscuits.

When he reappeared, Milton-Smith was entirely happy with the outcome and he scarcely bothered to repeat the threats he'd made to Casey, Sheila and me. In a classic piece of spookspeak he thanked Casey and me for leading them to Cummings.

'Cummings was a longstanding piece of unfinished business,' he said. 'Over the years we'd made several attempts to track him down to discover exactly what he knew about our people inside a particular mercenary group.'

'I'm surprised you didn't set Patrick up as a target to flush him out,' I said.

'Not a bad idea, but Malloy was always an unreliable asset.'

'Always?' Sheila said. 'You mean…?'

'Oh yes, he was still on the books and was useful from time to time, so we took his assassination quite seriously.'

'I don't buy it,' I said. 'There's been three changes of government in the last twenty years. No one cares now about what dirty tricks you lot got up to back then.'

'I assure you that some very highly placed individuals care very deeply.'

Sheila snorted her disgust. 'What if I say bugger the film and tell the story to the media?'

'You won't.'

'Why not?'

Milton-Smith finished his coffee and put the mug down on a crocheted doily. 'In my office I have a marriage certificate which indicates that Patrick Michael Malloy married one Elizabeth May Jenkins three years before his bigamous union with you. Therefore you are not entitled to inherit his assets.'

'It's probably a forgery,' I said.

'But does Ms Fitzsimmons, no longer in line for a lucrative film role, have the capacity to contest the matter in court?'

Sheila said, 'After talking to you I feel I need a shower.'