They nodded. She waved the taxi away.
‘Brought your half-brother,’ she said.
Luke came out from behind her, a fat little shit, long hair. For the first three days, he whined, she smacked him, he howled, she kissed and hugged him, he started whining again.
Bob Villani came back on Friday night just before nine. Mark and Ellen and Luke were watching the snowy television. Villani was making a model plane on the kitchen table. He caught the sound of the rig five kilometres away, the downshifts climbing Camel Hill, the chatter of the jake brake as it slowed on the steep slope before the turn-off from the main road. And then the airhorn, long and lonely, hanging in the aching-cold black.
He went to open the gate, waited in the dark, shivering, the mover came around the bend like a building. It slowed, inched through the gate, towered above him, he closed the gate, walked down the drive.
Bob was out of the truck, stretching.
‘Where’s Mark?’ he said.
‘There’s a woman here,’ said Villani. ‘Ellen. With a kid.’
Silence. Bob put a hand through his hair.
Deep in the night, the sounds from his father’s room woke him. He thought his father was killing Ellen. It was the first time he ever heard fucking.
Mark woke. ‘What’s that?’ he said. ‘Stevie, what’s that?’ He was a boy who frightened easily.
‘Nothing,’ said Villani. ‘She’s having a bad dream. Put your head under the pillow.’
On Monday morning, Bob Villani took Villani and Mark to school in the truck, they rode like gods, they looked down on tiny cars, utes.
‘They staying, Dad?’ said Mark.
‘We’ll see,’ said Bob. ‘Keep an eye on Tomboy, Steve. Off his feed.’
When they got out, Bob gave Villani the thumbs up, said what he always said: ‘Carry on, sergeant-major.’
On the Friday, when Luke was asleep, Ellen walked to the farm gate, a tradie gave her a lift to Paxton. She was never heard of again, not by the boys-not a letter, not a postcard. Villani and Mark came home from school, found the boy snailed on his bed, keening, snotted cheeks.
Looking at Luke, weeks after his mother had shot through, Bob Villani said, ‘And the bloody taxi driver reckons I owe him sixty bucks for taking her to Stanny.’
It came to Villani that, in never giving a thought to being a father, he was just being his father’s son. All of Bob was in him: the big hands, the hair, the delegation of responsibility, the eyes that saw everything through crosshairs. Everything except the courage. He didn’t have that. He had learned to behave as if he had it because Bob Villani expected it of him, took it for granted. He had joined the cops because he didn’t have courage, started boxing because he didn’t have courage.
Never take a backward step, son. Bad for the soul.
Bob Villani’s terrible injunction had been at his throat all his life.
Villani raised his head. Winter, standing in front of his car, head forward, peering.
He got out.
‘Worried me there, boss,’ said Winter, a reed-thin man with a moustache grown to hide an unpredictable upper-lip twitch, some nerve short-circuit, two threads coming close, arcing.
‘Meditating,’ said Villani. ‘Going inward. You should try it.’
In the lift, he said, ‘Getting home before they’re asleep?’
‘Trying, boss, yeah.’
‘Well, bear in mind the clients are the dead,’ said Villani. ‘We are the living. Although it may not always feel that way.’
‘Staying level’s my aim, boss.’ Winter’s gaze was down.
‘And that’s a receding target around here,’ said Villani.
They arrived, Winter stood back. He was Singo’s last recruit, a CIB junior. Singo had broken the rule that Homicide only took senior detectives. Senior detectives brought with them attitude. Singo wanted people in whom he could instil attitude. His.
At his desk, the trilling, the incoming paper. Soon, two calls on hold, two people outside. The morning went, he ate a salad roll at 11.30, standing at the window, phoning Laurie. Wherever she was, Darwin, Cairns, Port Douglas, she didn’t answer her mobile. He sent an SMS: Call me.
What was Birkerts doing on Oakleigh? Why hadn’t Dove reported?
Phone. Tomasic.
‘Thought I should let you know, boss,’ he said. ‘Oakleigh, there’s an electronics outfit around the corner. They just got back from a trade show thing, looked at their security set-up.’
‘Yes?’
‘Got a camera, triggered by sensors. Covers 90 degrees. They’ve got vision of the street. Vision Sunday night, early Monday morning.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s 2.23am, a vehicle. Then opposite direction, vehicle, 2.51am.’
‘Get it in here,’ said Villani. ‘Maximum speed.’
THE VEHICLE in the frozen frame was a blur, red-tinged. In the top right-hand corner of the picture, a display said: 2.23.07.
‘A Prado, I’d say,’ said Tomasic. ‘They all look a bit the same.’
2.51.17: vehicle, opposite direction.
‘Prado again.’ said Tomasic.
‘Petrolhead?’ said Birkerts.
‘Just an interest, boss.’
‘Let’s see it coming and going,’ said Villani.
They watched at different speeds.
‘What’s that in the background?’ said Villani.
‘Can’t say, boss.’
‘Street vision, please, Trace.’
On the big monitor, the overhead view of Oakleigh moved from the house across the tin roofs to the corner, changed to an eye-level view.
‘Left,’ said Villani. ‘Stop.’
It was a long low building with showroom-sized windows.
‘Run the tape,’ he said.
The Prado, turning left…
‘Stop,’ said Villani. ‘Back slowly…stop.’
Silence in the room.
‘In the window,’ said Villani. ‘Numberplate light reflected.’
‘Missed that,’ said Birkerts. ‘Fuck.’
‘See what the techs can do,’ said Villani. He looked at Birkerts appraisingly.
‘Tommo, tell Fin we want all light-coloured Prados on the tollway from, oh, 2am to 3am, both directions,’ said Birkerts.
‘Yes, boss.’
‘And the prints in the place,’ said Villani. ‘What the fuck’s going on there?’
Birkerts put his head down. ‘I’ll check. Boss.’
Villani got back to the work. Life went on. Life and death.
Colby’s words:
…stuff like this, the media blowies on you, bloody pollies pestering, the ordinary work goes to hell. And then you don’t get a result quickly and you’re a turd.
The post-mortem on the naked woman in her pool in Keilor said fluid in lungs greatly in excess of what drowning required. What did that mean?
A level-six resident of the Kensington Housing Commission flats found on the concrete five metres from the base of the building. Dead of injuries consistent with a fall from that height. Wearing panties, a bra and a plastic Pope John Paul mask. Male.
In Frankston, in a house, a girl, unidentified, around fifteen, strangled. Two unidentified males said to live there missing.
Somali youth stabbed in Reservoir. In the back with a screwdriver, into the heart. Phillips head. Dead on arrival. Sixty-odd people at a social gathering.
The radio:
…hoping for a wind shift as firefighters battle to keep the blaze from breaking containment lines above the towns of Morpeth and Paxton…
He found his mobile, went to the window, saw the liquid city, the uncertain horizon. It took three tries.
‘It’s me.’
‘What?’
‘You going now?’ He knew the answer.
Throat clearing. ‘Nah. Took the horses over to old Gill. Put them in with his. He’s got a set-up sprays the stable. All day you have to.’
‘You better get in there with them. You and Gordie.’
Bob’s hard laugh. ‘No, mate, no. Gordie’s got an old firetruck. Full. Be our own CFA.’
‘That’s going to save my trees?’