Martin is momentarily silenced by the judge’s vehemence, then asks, ‘You’re sure? What about your reputation?’
‘That’s in your hands. My reputation. Elizabeth’s. Max Fuller’s. But don’t delay. Once you’ve published, you should be safe. Sweetwater will never sue, no matter how damning the allegations. He will do anything to avoid appearing in open court, where his past, his character and his actions would be open to interrogation.’ The judge takes another small swig from his hip flask, as if he’s rationing life itself. ‘You have a story here, Mr Scarsden, a scoop, perhaps the biggest that ever there was. It’s your opportunity to avenge the death of your friend, Max Fuller. Do with it what you will.’ The judge lets that sink in before slowly trying to stand, wincing at the effort and failing at the first attempt. He tries again, succeeds. He looks around the room as if it has become unfamiliar. ‘I must go now. Just because I’m dying, it doesn’t mean I don’t have to shit. Please don’t try to contact me unless it’s absolutely necessary.’
‘Of course.’
‘There is one more thing. A most important thing. Take this.’ The judge reaches into a pocket of his robe, withdraws a business card, hands it to Martin. ‘Keep it somewhere safe.’
‘What is it?’ Martin asks, examining the card.
‘A website, with the username and password.’
‘It’s a security company.’
‘Yes. This house is now packed full with closed-circuit television cameras.’ O’Toole cocks his head towards a corner of the room. Martin turns but sees nothing, even as the judge continues. ‘Fibre optics. They all feed into the site. You can review at least the past forty-eight hours.’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘Not now. In case something happens to me. Something untoward.’ The judge smiles. ‘The police tell me they haven’t found the keys I gave to Max Fuller.’
Martin stares at him. ‘Change the locks.’
‘Might be too late for that. Too late for a lot of things.’ O’Toole looks him in the eye, gaze unwavering. ‘I handed down my last judgement earlier today—blocking the Large Sky development.’ Another swig from his flask. ‘So there’s no longer any reason for them to keep me alive.’
chapter twenty-nine
She should be celebrating; some part of her is telling herself that. She’s alerted the police to a crucial piece of information, perhaps the decisive piece of evidence: Henry Livingstone entering the lift with Tarquin Molloy on the very day the undercover policeman was shot dead. She should be in town telling Martin the news, handing him his scoop: the police had the evidence all along, they just didn’t realise it. So why isn’t she? Instead, she’s on a train, destination unknown: a suburban train, heading west. Soon enough, somewhere in the suburbs or out at Penrith or up in the Blue Mountains, she will need to alight and get another train back into the city. But not yet; she feels too flat, too emotionally spent.
She has to tell Martin what happened with the police, knows she must. He’s a journalist; she can’t let him publish the wrong story. He can’t trumpet the video as dramatic new evidence when in reality it isn’t, when the police have had it all these years. He’s done that before—publish stories that were wrong or only half true—and paid the price for his inaccuracies. But she doesn’t want to face him, not yet, so she texts him, the easy way out: Police already had video from back then. But MM didn’t realise it was HL at the lift!! There. Duty done.
The Turtle had played her, set her up to look a fool in front of the homicide detectives, Montifore and Lucic. He must have known the police already had the video; he would have been the one who supplied it five years ago. It was pure luck he’d actually provided something useful. He’d manipulated her, like a child, and she’d fallen for it; he’d given her nothing while extracting her promise to protect him in return. And even now, his threat of exposure is real. Just thinking of it makes her feel sordid.
And so she rides the night train, the commuter rush over, the office workers already home and only the after-work drunks, the homeless and the shiftworkers remaining. Up in a corner she spies the telltale black hemisphere of a CCTV camera, like an inverted snowdome. She looks away out the window instead, holding her hands up to shield her face, to cut the glare from the carriage lights. The train rushes onwards, past the high-rises, their windows chequerboards of life; past building sites, work continuing under floodlights; past intersections arthritic with traffic. The endless sprawl, the city reaching on across its basin between the sea and the mountains, millions of lives, millions of struggles.
What had she been thinking, running off by herself like that, playing such a dangerous game? Martin’s been a journalist for twenty years, reporting from all round the world, from countless hellholes, dealing with all sorts of despots. He knows how this game works: the rules, the risks, the ethics. And yet she’d sat at the Turtle’s table, played with his pack of cards, and lost. The Turtle had got what he wanted: her guarantee of silence. This she understands: he wants to remain in the shadows, to escape police interrogation. But why give her the video in the first place, if he knew the police already had it? To demonstrate his prowess, his array of cameras? Or because he wanted her to identify Henry Livingstone to the police? Was that possible? To put the police on the right track, to divert any attention from himself and Mollisons? She racks her memory: she can’t remember either of them mentioning Livingstone by name, but
