‘I don’t need to be told how to conduct an investigation,’ said Villani. ‘And I don’t want to be told.’
‘I’m trying to help. I can go further up the food chain,’ said Ulyatt.
‘What?’
‘Talk to people in government.’
Awake at 4.30am, Villani was feeling the length of the day now, his best behind him. ‘You’ll talk to people in government,’ he said.
Ulyatt’s lips drew back. ‘As a last resort, of course.’
‘So resort to it, mate,’ said Villani, pilot flame of resentment igniting the burner. ‘You’re dealing with the bottom feeders, there’s nowhere to go but up.’
‘I certainly will be putting our view,’ said Ulyatt, a long sour look, he rose, the woman rose too. He turned on his black shoes, the woman turned, they both wore thin black shoes, they both had slack arses, one fat, one thin, the surgery hadn’t extended to lifting her arse. They left, Ulyatt taking out his mobile.
‘No garbage to leave the premises, Mr Manton,’ said Villani. ‘I’ve always wanted to give someone that instruction.’
‘It’s gone,’ said Manton. ‘It goes before 7am, every day except Sunday.’
‘Right. So. How do you get up there?’
‘Private lifts,’ said Manton. ‘From the basements and the ground floor. Card-activated, access only to your floor.’
‘And who’s got cards?’
Manton turned to Condy. ‘David?’
‘I’d have to check,’ said Condy.
Villani said, ‘You don’t know?’
‘There’s a procedure for issuing cards. I’ll check.’
Villani moved his shoulders. ‘Getting into the apartment?’ he said. ‘How’s that work?’
‘Same card, plus a PIN and optional fingerprint and iris scanning,’ said Condy. ‘The print and iris are in temporary abeyance.’
‘Temporary what?’
‘Ah, being finetuned.’
‘Not working?’
‘For the moment, no.’
‘So it’s just the card?’
‘Yes.’
‘Same card you don’t know how many people have.’
Villani turned to Dove.
‘I’m off,’ he said. ‘If we don’t get the fullest co-operation here, I’ll be on television saying that this building is a management disaster and a dangerous place to live and residents should be alarmed.’
‘Inspector, we’re trying to be…’
‘Just do it, please,’ said Villani, rising.
In the ground-floor foyer, he said to Dove and Weber, ‘One, get Tracy onto the company that owns the apartment. Two, ID’s the priority here. Run her prints. See what vision they’ve got, get someone to take down every rego in the parking garage. And get that casino guest list.’
Dove nodded.
Weber said, scratching his scalp, ‘Fancy set-up, this. Like a palace.’
‘So what?’ said Villani.
Weber shrugged, awkward.
‘Just another dead person,’ said Villani. ‘Flat in a Housing Commission, this palace, all the same. Just procedure. Bomb it to Snake.’
‘Excuse, boss?’
‘Know the term, Mr Dove? Honours degree of any use here?’
‘I’d say it’s a technical Homicide term,’ said Dove. He was cleaning his rimless glasses, brown face vulnerable.
Villani looked at him for a while. ‘Follow the drill. The procedure. Do what you’ve been taught. Tick stuff off. That way you don’t have to ask for help.’
‘I didn’t ask for help,’ said Dove. ‘I asked Inspector Kiely a few questions.’
‘Not the way he saw it,’ said Villani. His phone tapped his chest.
‘Please hold for Mr Colby,’ said Angela Lowell, the secretary.
The assistant commissioner said, ‘Steve, this Prosilio woman, I’ve had Mr Barry on the line. Broken neck, right?’
‘They say that.’
‘So he understands it could be an accident. A fall.’
‘Bullshit, boss,’ said Villani.
‘Yeah, well, he wants nothing said about murder.’
‘What’s this?’
‘Mr Barry’s request to you. I’m the fucking conduit. With me, inspector?’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘Talk later, okay?’
‘Yes, boss.’
Ulyatt hadn’t been bluffing. He’d gone close to the top of the food chain. Perhaps he’d gone to the top, to Chief Commissioner Gillam, perhaps he could go to the premier.
Dove and Weber were looking at him.
‘Media out there?’ said Villani.
‘No,’ said Dove.
‘No? What happened to media leaks? Anyway, if they show up, say a woman found dead, cause not established, can’t rule out anything. Don’t say murder, don’t say suspicious, don’t say anything about where in the building. Just a dead woman and we are waiting for forensic.’
Dove blinked, made tiny head movements, Villani saw his anxiety. His impulse was to make him suffer but judgment overrode it.
‘On second thoughts, you do it, Web,’ he said. ‘See how you go in the big smoke.’
Wide eyes, Weber said, ‘Sure, boss, sure. Done a bit of media.’
Villani passed through the sliding doors, the hot late afternoon seized his breath, his passage was brief, no media, down the stairs, across the forecourt, a cool car waiting.
On the radio, Alan Machin, 3AR’s drive man, said:
…35-plus tomorrow, two more days and we break the record. Why did I say that? People talk as if we want to break records like this. Lowest rainfall for a century. Hottest day. Can we stop talking about records? Gerry from Greenvale’s on the line, what’s on your mind, Gerry?
‘Radio okay, boss?’
‘Fine.’
…years ago, you ring the cops, the ambos, they come. Five minutes. Saturday there’s shit across the road here, I ring the cops, twenty minutes, I ring again, it’s a bloody riot out there, mate, girls screamin, animals trashin cars, they throw a letterbox through my front window, there’s more arrivin all the time, no cops. I ring again, then there’s two kids stabbed, another one’s head’s smashed in, somebody calls the medics.
So how far’s the nearest police station, Gerry?
Craigieburn Road, isn’t it? Too far’s all I can say. Twenty-five minutes for the ambos to get here, they say the one kid’s dead already. And the ambos load them up and they’re gone before the bloody cops get here.
So it’s what, more than an hour all-up before the police respond, is that…
Definitely. You notice they find hundreds when some dork gets lost bloody bushwalkin? That sorta thing?
Thanks for that, Gerry. Alice’s been waiting, go ahead, Alice.
It’s Alysha, actually, with a y. I wanted to talk about the trains but your caller’s bloody spot on. We get riots around here, I’m not joking, riot’s the only…
Where’s that, Alisha, where’s around…
Braybrook. Yeah. Police don’t give a stuff, let them kill each other, gangs, it’s like you don’t see an Aussie face, all foreigners, blacks, Asians. Yeah…
‘They don’t like cops much, do they, boss?’ said the driver.
‘They can’t like cops,’ said Villani. ‘Cops are their better side.’
IN HIS office, Gavan Kiely gone to Auckland, Villani switched on the big monitor, muted, waited for the 6.30pm news, unmuted.
A burning world-scarlet hills, grey-white funeral plumes, trees exploding, blackened vehicle carapaces, paddocks of charcoal, flames sluicing down a gentle slope of brown grass, the helicopters’ water trunks hanging in the air.
…weary firefighters are bracing themselves for a last-ditch stand against a racing fire front that threatens the high country village of Morpeth, where most residents have chosen to stay and defend their homes despite warnings to heed the terrible lessons of 2009…
When it was full dark, his father and Gordie would see the ochre glow in the sky, Morpeth was thirty kilometres by road from Selborne but only four valleys away.