They walked across the black smoking paddocks, down to the bottom gate, posts still burning, walked across the road that went nowhere, walked over the rise.
The forest stood there.
Scorched, the outer trees singed. They would lose some. But everywhere, in their circles and clumps and paths, the oaks were in full glorious summer green leaf.
Bob Villani put his right arm around his son’s shoulders, pulled him to him, awkward, kissed Villani’s temple, his ashy hair.
‘Didn’t do a bad job with the boys either,’ he said. ‘Seeing to them. I should’ve said that before.’
THE LINO peeled back easily. He pushed the table knife into the gap and worked the trapdoor up, got fingers under it, lifted it.
It was a small toolbox such as an electrician might carry, the top held by a hinged clasp.
Villani put it on the table, opened it.
Five or six wads of notes held with rubber bands. Hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens, fives. Perhaps twenty thousand dollars.
Beneath them was a piece of cardboard, cut to fit from a shirt box.
He lifted it with the table knife.
A wire of the old-fashioned kind. A tiny tape-recorder and a button transmitter.
Villani put the money into the toolbox, left the house, put the box in the boot, got into the car. He sat looking at the recorder. It had no speaker. It had to be plugged into one.
Greg Quirk wearing a wire? Whose wire?
He drove to St Kilda Road, took the lift to the techs. The little one who developed games in his spare time took the device. They went to a bench. He gave Villani earphones, pressed buttons.
Mate, I’m not happy. Not happy at all.
Couldn’t know they’d pissed it against the wall. How could I know that? It’s your fucking job to know, Greg. Not doing this shit for pocket money, sonny. Risk involved sticking up these dumb pricks, it’s got to be worth it.
Yeah, well, fucken risks for me too. Not the only one takin fucken risks.
I need thirty grand quick smart. Help a mate.
Fuck, you’re squeezin me now, that’s not the fucken way to deal with me, Dancer, that’s not the…
Villani took off the headphones. He took the recorder. He walked across the buzzing chamber to his office, went to the window and looked at the city.
ON THE day in late autumn, they did the performance for the television cameras, the three of them in uniform, wearing their new insignia of rank.
Premier Karen Mellish made a short speech. She said it gave her great pleasure to announce the new chief commissioner, the new assistant chief commissioner and the new crime commissioner. The force now entered an era of reform, an era of revitalisation, an era that would see the public places of the great city reclaimed for its citizens.
By the time Villani had changed and met Cashin, the cold day was drawing to its end. They walked into the wind, the leaves flowing at them like broken water, yellow and brown and blood, parting at their ankles.
‘Saw you on television,’ Cashin said. ‘Never thought I’d know a crime commissioner.’
‘You can live a good life without knowing one,’ said Villani. ‘A satisfactory life. What’s on your mind?’
‘You getting back with Laurie?’
‘No,’ said Villani. ‘We screwed that up. I screwed it up. Can’t make it good. Can’t make anything good.’
‘Keep still,’ said Cashin. ‘The boat will steady itself.’
‘Joe, no more Singo. Not ever.’
‘It just comes out,’ said Cashin. ‘I was a sponge.’
‘I’m now sponge-like,’ said Villani. ‘Just water and holes.’
Three runners appeared, two solid men and a lean woman. The men moved right, the woman ran straight at them, swerving at the last second.
‘Cheeky,’ said Villani.
Cashin stopped, he was looking up. ‘Possum’s dead,’ he said.
‘What?’
Cashin pointed into a tree. Villani saw nothing, then a blob in a fork. ‘How do you know?’
‘Tail,’ said Cashin. ‘That’s a dead tail.’
‘How do you know a tail’s dead?’ said Villani. ‘Could be a sleeping tail.’
‘No,’ said Cashin. ‘Dead.’ He walked on, big paces.
Villani caught up. ‘Joe,’ he said, ‘come back to civilisation or join fucking Parks and Wildlife. Take schoolkids on the nature walk.’
‘What’s it going to be like?’ said Cashin. ‘Dance as your boss?’
‘Nothing Dance can do will surprise me,’ said Villani. ‘Nothing at all.’
They came to the avenue. Villani looked at the towers, they stood in the sky and the sky was in their glass cheeks. He had walked beneath them, at their hard, dirty feet, a farm boy come to the city.
Peter Temple
Peter Temple’s bestselling novels are published in more than twenty countries. He has won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction five times. Truth is the sequel to The Broken Shore, winner of the world’s most prestigious prize for crime writing, the Duncan Lawrie Dagger. Peter Temple lives in Victoria.
