'He's the community liaison officer in the area,' he said. 'First contact for the Vietnamese community. Some of them trust him. Most of them don't. Culturally, it's taboo to speak outside the family about problems. He's seen as a traitor by many of his people because he's operating outside of their rules of silence.'
'Wow. That would be hard.'
'Yep, but it's a double dilemma for David, because he's never been fully accepted by some of the cops either. What did I hear Reid say the other day?' Gabriel took a sip of his drink while he thought. 'Oh yeah, that's it – Tran was called to the desk to speak to someone about some information that could've helped with the case. Reid went with him, so I took a walk over there too. David spoke Vietnamese to this bloke. Reid was like – You wouldn't think we were in Australia, would you mate? – some shit like that. Then he had a laugh with the girl behind the desk, um, what was it – Why don't they save their bloody Chinese for China or wherever they're from?'
'MENSA candidate, Reid. He's wasted in the cops,' said Jill. 'So what happened to David's leg?'
'Oh yeah, that. Heroin dealers from Cabra. Smashed his thighbone with a hammer.'
'Oh my God!' Jill raised a hand to her mouth.
'Yep. He was off duty. They got him in the toilets in Westfield. He'd sent up a few of their best re- sellers.'
'Wow. But David said he was off work HOD.'
'Yeah, Last made sure it was written up as Hurt on Duty. And Last got the fuckers too. Tran I.D.'d the cousin of one of the perps he locked up. So, now they want to kill him.'
'Shit.'
'Yup. For real. That's another reason Last wanted me over here. The organised gang shit is his next big target, once they get on top of the home invasions.'
'So what about you then, Gabe? Are there any deep dark secrets I should know?' Where the hell did that come from? Jill felt her cheeks grow hot. She never asked questions like that.
Gabriel sat there, head on an angle, watching her from under the brim of his cap.
'Sorry,' she said. 'I was just stuffing around. You don't have to answer that.'
'No, it's okay,' he said. 'It's just that I'm not usually great at speaking about my past. Specially at this time of year.'
'This is a rough time?'
Gabriel looked at her again, closed his eyes briefly. Finally, he sighed and pushed his food away.
'I joined the Feds with my wife,' he said.
Jill hoped the shock didn't show on her face.
'We met in a psych lecture at uni. We got married and joined the AFP together four years later. Started work on the Monday after the wedding, actually.' He smiled. 'I started the job in organised crime and Abi was assigned to major fraud. Between jobs, we worked our way together through the MOSC program.'
Phew. Jill had heard of the Management of Serious Crime program: it was the most intense major-crime training program in Australian law enforcement.
'Then after September 11, we both got routed to counterterrorism,' Gabriel continued. 'Three-quarters of us did, to tell you the truth.'
Jill listened. He'd cleared up some of the questions she'd had about him. But where was Gabriel's wife? He seemed to have read her mind as he continued.
'Abi and I were together for ten years. She was my world.' A small smile did not reach his eyes; they watched a scene from another time. 'We were still based in Canberra, running surveillance. Just a routine tip-off – a member of the public worried about their neighbour's allegiances. The target was a mufti from Queanbeyan; he'd just visited the subject of another intelligence report. Abi was the eye, following him a few cars back. I was with the rest of the team shadowing her.'
'The eye?' said Jill, and then regretted her utterance. She didn't want Gabriel to stop speaking, and she was afraid of breaking his train of thought.
'Yeah. The eye follows the rabbit – the target. The rest of the team follows the eye and ignores the rabbit. You don't want a fleet of cars trailing some poor prick. We just tail the one vehicle – the eye – and the eye can be rotated; that way we can maintain contact and chop and change positions when we need to.' He paused.
'Go on, Gabe. Sorry I interrupted.' She held her breath.
'Nothing great left to tell you, Jill. Some drunk motherfucker ran a light and killed my wife. Head on. He made it out alive. Serial offender. Lived to drink and drive another day, I'm afraid.' He reached unconsciously for his napkin and began to shred it, working around the edges in an organised pattern. 'I was first on the scene, thank God.'
Jill leaned forward, as Gabriel's voice had dropped with his eyes to the table.
'We had a few moments,' he said. 'We had a bit of time… And then the ambos got there.' He cleared his throat. 'Nothing they could do, though. I'd already tried. Abi and I, we tried, but, the injuries…' He looked up. Tears stood in his eyes, and he smiled sadly. 'Five years ago,' he said, 'last Saturday.'
Jill reached a hand towards his, but stopped just before their fingers touched. She could feel the warmth of his skin.
'Saturday,' she said. They'd eaten pasta in his unit. She'd fallen asleep with his cat.
'Yep. First anniversary I didn't spend alone. Thanks.'
Jill knew all about anniversaries. She swallowed at the lump in her throat. They were silent a moment, each thinking about that time of the year when the ghosts crowded closer, clamouring for more attention. This time she let her fingers find his. She covered his hand with her own. What would it feel like, she thought, to find and then lose your soul mate – to feel her dying, leaving you, wanting desperately to stay, but knowing there was nothing you could do? The helplessness, the loss of control; is love worth risking such desolation?
Gabriel gazed at the table. Jill stared at a wet smear on the soft skin next to his eye. She longed to wipe it away. She had her finger poised, ready, but left her hand where it was.
'I bet she was amazing.' Jill wasn't sure whether she spoke aloud. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. 'Hey,' she said. 'Your cat. You named her 'Ten'.'
He looked up and smiled. 'Best years of my life.'
An itchy impatience prevented Jill enjoying twilight on her balcony. She sat rocking on a chair, bare feet up on the small table.
It was just over a week since she'd become involved in the case. They'd come a long way – identified the main offender – but he was still out there, and they couldn't go in hard until they sighted him. Interviewing his friends and associates would drive him to ground.
But this guy was unhinged. He could attack again at any time, with or without his crew. She felt guilty being home so early, but there'd been nothing immediate for the taskforce to do, and Last had sent them home. She'd considered driving around trying to locate him herself, but they had crews from Penrith to Redfern out looking; there was nothing she could do tonight.
The sound of gulls calling blew back on the salty seaweed breeze; the sound left her feeling inexplicably sad. She pictured them, endlessly wheeling over the ocean, crying. She'd never understood people's aversion to seagulls. Beady-eyed greedy devils, scavengers, some called them, pelting them with rocks, tossing cigarette butts at them, pretending to offer chips or bread. Jill could feed them by the hour, ignoring the baleful stares of others who didn't want to share the beach with the birds. She'd grown skilled at aiming the bread so that the crippled gulls got there first – those hopping on one leg, the fishing line that had strangled their other limb still trailing; those with one eye, or a hook gleaming through their cheek or their beak. The fatter birds stared at her, indignant: these rejects were the walking dead. Feeding them is pointless; life is for living. But she saw gratitude in the shiny black eyes of the wounded birds, or she imagined she did.
She scratched compulsively at her ankles with her toes, then stood, walked back into her apartment. Her thoughts turned to the story Gabriel had told her at lunchtime, but she deflected them. They'd spent every day together for the past week. She could spend a night without thinking about him. As usually happened when she thought about Gabriel, Scotty popped into her mind; she imagined him now, laughing eyes smiling down at her. She picked up the phone.
Maybe he feels like a run or something, she thought, dialling.
Idiot. Idiot. The word was now a mantra. Jill mentally repeated it over and over as she smiled self-
