She did. A minute stretched to two, stretched to three.
‘Pope,’ a voice said.
‘Sir, it’s DC Irvine from Pitt Street.’
‘I know. What’s this about?’
‘We spoke earlier this week. About a murder inquiry.’
The line went quiet. Irvine heard Pope breathing but he said nothing.
‘Sir?’
‘Is this about the prozzies?’
‘That’s correct, sir.’
‘You wanted information on other girls, that kind of thing. Connected to your stiff.’
‘Yes.’
She heard the sound of papers shuffled on a desk.
‘Two names and an address,’ Pope said after a little more shuffling.
Irvine wrote down the names he gave her and the address of a flat in the east end of the city, not far from where Russell Hall’s body had been found. She wanted to ask how long Pope had been sitting on the information, bit her tongue instead and thanked him. He hung up without replying.
She thought about going over to the address on her own. Remembered the last time she had done that and put her hand against the bruised part of her face. Decided to find Armstrong and go over together.
Armstrong was still in with Moore. Warren was nowhere to be seen. She stuck her head around the door.
‘Kenny,’ she said.
He turned, slightly startled. She held up the piece of paper with the names and addresses on it.
‘I got an address for other girls that Joanna Lewski and Suzie Murray worked with.’
Armstrong frowned.
‘From the Super at Stewart Street. I called him before, remember?’
‘He called you back now?’ Armstrong asked, looking at his watch.
‘No. I called to chase him.’
Armstrong turned from her to look at Moore, who said nothing.
‘Okay,’ Armstrong said. ‘I need to be in on the call with the FBI in an hour. Then we’ll get over there.’
Irvine stared at the back of his head after he turned to Moore. She went back to her desk and looked at her computer monitor as the screensaver came on. Someone had been on to her computer and changed it to a topless shot of some Z-list female celebrity.
She found it kind of funny. Wasn’t sure why.
Strange days.
7
‘I think they let us in on the bare minimum to keep us happy,’ Logan told Cahill as they rode the elevator down from the eighteenth floor at close to midnight.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Allowing us to sit in on the preliminary stuff and then telling us to get lost when they were going to have the call with the cops back home.’
‘You’re probably right.’
Logan was surprised that Cahill was so calm.
‘That doesn’t piss you off?’
Cahill turned to him, flicked his eyes above and to his left and said ‘no’. Logan looked in the same direction quickly and saw a camera in the corner of the elevator car. He said nothing else until they were in the car and driving back to their hotel.
‘What’s going on?’ Logan asked.
‘I got everything that I needed from those guys already.’
Logan concentrated on the junction ahead, the traffic system still feeling alien to him. After safely negotiating a left turn, he glanced at Cahill.
‘Alex, this is serious stuff and we need to back off now. Leave it to the FBI.’
‘Like at Ruby Ridge? Or Waco?’
Logan had never heard of Ruby Ridge and thought that WACO was an ATF operation so far as he could remember. Not that it mattered.
‘So what? This isn’t our fight. We got to the truth about your friend. Let’s go home.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Can’t you let it go for once?’
Cahill said nothing. Didn’t look at Logan.
‘What is it with you and this thing?’ Logan asked, almost shouting now.
Cahill sighed.
‘It’s just me.’
‘What does that even mean?’ Logan said, pulling the car to a stop at the side of the road.
Cahill turned in the passenger seat to face Logan. In the harsh light from the streetlamps outside he looked older to Logan than he had before. The lines on his face more prominent. A roadmap of his life in service.
‘What I mean is, it’s who I am. I don’t back away from anything. I never will.’
Logan held his friend’s gaze.
‘A good man died. Maybe not directly at the hands of this Raines and his crew, but close enough. And not just a good man, but someone who put his life on the line for others and for his country. Who served with me. If it had come down to it, we would have died together defending what we believed in.’
‘But…’
‘And I know that Webb and Grange and Hunter and the others are the same. But that doesn’t matter to me. It’s personal for me. And that means that I can’t let it go.’
Logan twisted his hands over the steering wheel.
‘You’ve been through enough with me now to understand.’
‘I don’t think I’ll ever understand, Alex. I guess we’re just built different.’
‘If I ask you to stay in this with me, to cover my back, will you do it?’
‘You know that I will.’
Cahill put a hand on Logan’s shoulder.
‘Not so different,’ Cahill said.
When they got back to the hotel, Logan called Ellie’s mobile. He knew she would be up, getting ready for school.
‘Hey, Ellie. How’s things there?’
‘Okay. But I miss my own room. I mean, having my own stuff around.’
‘I know. Me too.’
‘When are you coming home?’
‘Soon. Probably tomorrow.’
Assuming I’m not in jail. Or dead.
‘Cool.’
Do kids still say that? he wondered.
‘We’ll do something when I get back, okay. Go out for dinner or whatever.’
‘Shopping?’
He laughed.
‘If you like.’
‘I like.’
‘Okay. Look, it’s late here so I’m going to go to bed now.’
