39
‘Hear me, Jack?’
We’d been driving for a long time, irregular stops, starts, slowdowns, then acceleration, a feeling of cruising at speed, we had to be on a freeway.
‘Yes,’ I said, eyes closed, thinking about my breathing, about keeping it regular and deep, moving the diaphragm, trying to flex my muscles to fight off cramp in my arms and legs.
‘You’re a stupid cunt, Jack. I don’t understand that, it makes no fucking sense to me.’
Even through the blanket over me, I thought I knew the voice.
‘Get him up, let him sit.’
The foot came off me, the blanket was pulled back. I tried to raise my upper body, couldn’t, you needed hands. I got a hand, it gripped my shirt collar, pulled me up, choking me. I squirmed, got to my knees, got a foot to work, to push, managed to twist and get onto the seat. The pain in my legs as I half straightened them made me close my eyes.
We were on a highway, four of us, men, in a big station-wagon, my arms aching from being behind my back. Something wrong with my eyes, I blinked a few times. Dark tinted windows. You had to get used to them. I looked at the man beside me, he wasn’t looking at me, a big, fat man, no hair. I couldn’t see the people in front because of the headrests, then the driver looked back at me — potato nose, glasses, big lower lip.
I knew him well and the fear I felt dried my mouth and my eye sockets.
You are likely to remember someone who held you by the hair like a trophy, slapped your cheeks repeatedly, jerking your head back and forth. You will certainly remember the intense, stinging pain, the taste of your tears as they ran down into your open mouth. And if the person then ground your head into the floor and pissed on you, full recall is guaranteed.
‘Call me Reece,’ he said. ‘Should make you call me fucking Mister.’
Reece Stedman, formerly of the Victoria Police.
We drove in silence down the Western Highway, the new outer-urban awfulness to the right, we passed Melton, went into the valley of Bacchus Marsh. On the slope going out, the driver spoke.
‘Fucking bang takes out a whole fucking building,’ he said, flat, nasal voice. ‘Got to be the luckiest cunt on earth to come out of that. Like a second fucking life. You’d go and comb fucking beaches, wouldn’t you?’
I felt something close to relief. They didn’t plan to kill me. They could have killed me where I stood on the pavement in Carlton. This was going to be another punishment. I could survive this.
‘But fucking no,’ he said. ‘So I take the fucking trouble. I drive through the fucking traffic to your fucking shithole to give you a personal message. I tell you very nicely to fucking cease and desist in your fucking annoying behaviour.’
Stedman wound down his window, sent his cigarette butt out, raised the glass. He held up his left hand and I saw the rings.
‘Why, Jack?’ he said. ‘The woman’s dead, you don’t owe anybody a shit, you’ve got the money, we gave you a nice present, what the fuck can you hope to achieve by going on with this?’
‘Just curious,’ I said. ‘I wanted to know what happened to the women. And Wayne.’
He looked back at me. ‘That is so fucking smart, I can’t fucking believe it. Listen, I’ll tell you what happened. Then you promise me, you’ll fucking forget everything, never speak of it again, enjoy the money? How’s that?’
‘I accept,’ I said.
He hacked to clear his throat. ‘You’ll let this business go? Forever and a fucking day?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s over. Forever.’
‘What kind of records you kept?’
‘Just some stuff in a file. Not much.’
‘Notes, that kind of thing?’
‘No, I don’t keep many notes.’
‘Where’s the file?’
‘Where I was staying.’ I said Linda’s address. ‘The key’s in my pocket. You can go back and get it.’
‘And this tape?’
‘It’s from Mickey’s lock-up.’
‘Huh?’
‘Mickey’s lock-up. Near the airport.’
‘How’d you know about that?’
‘Found out today. It was in Sophie Longmore’s name.’
A whistle. ‘Well, fuck. How’d we miss that? You’re a clever boy, Jack. Watched this tape?’
‘No, haven’t had a chance.’
‘That’s good, that’s good. What else you find?’
‘Nothing. There’s a Maserati, some paintings, few pieces of furniture.’
‘Right. So you’ll draw a line under this now?’
‘Yes. I will.’
‘You see, Jack,’ he said, ‘that’s how easy it could have been.’
‘It would be nice to have the handcuffs off.’
‘Jeez, sorry, forgot. Happy, get the cuffs off Jack.’
The fat man beside me pushed me forward, stuck a hand in, cursed, pulled at my right arm. My right hand came free, I brought my arms around my body, blissful relief.
‘What happened to Katelyn Feehan?’ I said, straightening my arms, elbows cracking, the cuffs dangling from my left hand.
‘An accident,’ Stedman said. ‘Bloke got carried away, hurt her. Tiny little whore, too small to be a whore, could pass for thirteen.’
‘The body was never found.’
‘Funny that,’ he said.
‘And Wayne?’
‘Gimme a smoke,’ Stedman said to the man beside him. A hand offered a cigarette, lit it with a lighter.
‘The fucking Dilthey,’ he said around the cigarette, oozing smoke. ‘Unreliable prick. Can’t have a cunt like that knowing anything you want quiet. Just outlived his usefulness.’
‘And he killed Janene?’
‘Put her in a hole, the dumb fuck said. Some fucking dog will go in and find her one day. Should’ve taken care of it myself but, busy night, can’t do everything.’
He didn’t know about Janene. She was safe.
‘I don’t understand about Mickey,’ I said.
‘Out of hand. Blow for breakfast, lunch and dinner but he wants in, he wants to play with the big boys. Then he threatens he’s got the goods. Exit visa that second. Date stamped. But not a bad bloke, Mickey, good head on him when he was straight, talk sense into arseholes. As at the fucking River Plaza that night. One minute the pricks are knocking back the Dom and sniffing the happy snow, then they’ve got a fucked-up whore problem, freeze like bunnies in the light.’
I had a clear picture of the whore, Katelyn Feehan, in the photograph Janene’s mother gave me, taken on the day of the excursion to Gippsland. I saw Wayne and Janene and Katelyn, the three of them, going down the highway in the Porsche. It must have been a good outing, an agent and his models, all doing nicely.
‘Why not just knock him?’ I said. ‘Why set Sarah Longmore up for it?’
‘Can’t just knock the cunt. Too many fucking questions, you just knock him.’
‘But Sarah’s trial was going to raise a lot of questions.’
Stedman glanced back at me. Even in the dim light I could see the contempt. ‘Mate, mate,’ he said, ‘you know fuck-all, don’t you? The bitch wasn’t ever going to trial.’
How stupid I’d been. Sarah was always doomed, we could never have saved her. The point of the whole business was to provide an explanation for Mickey’s death that could never be disproved.
