Vandenbruk returns with a drive, and Montifore starts the copy.
‘You know about the suppression order?’ offers Vandenbruk.
‘I do,’ says Montifore. ‘You think it’s connected?’
Vandenbruk shrugs. ‘Could be.’
The copy finishes. Vandenbruk takes the drive and leaves again.
‘There’s more,’ says Mandy. ‘More video.’
‘Tell me,’ says Montifore.
So Mandy tells him of Henry Livingstone entering the house, finding the judge dead, taking something from the safe.
‘You’re sure it was him? Livingstone?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Why didn’t you bring it with you?’
‘Yev is still downloading it.’ She explains how the vision on the website is low-res, but once it’s downloaded, it’s crystal clear.
‘So this video here. Is this the highest resolution?’
‘I guess. It looked clearer at Yev’s, but his monitors are better.’
‘He might have squashed it down to fit on that drive,’ suggests Lucic.
Montifore turns to his subordinate. ‘Ivan, I want you to go with Mandalay straight away. I want all the video he’s got, all the camera angles. Everything. I want the address of the website, I want the login and the passwords. But most of all, I want the highest possible quality video of when the killer is in the bedroom—not just the execution, but the whole thing, when the killer is talking to the judge. Both angles.’
‘Lip readers,’ whispers Mandy.
Montifore turns to her, a flash of anger quickly suppressed. ‘Do not tell anyone. No one. You got that?’
‘Of course not, Inspector,’ says Winifred calmly.
‘I mean it,’ says Montifore.
‘Mandalay has just handed you your killer on a platter,’ says Winifred, her voice measured. ‘What’s more, I will not be advising Yevgeny to insist on a warrant.’
Montifore takes a deep breath. ‘Okay. I’m grateful. We’re grateful. But tell Martin Scarsden, if he ever puts in an appearance, that he publishes none of this until I give him the go-ahead.’ He turns to Lucic again. ‘Get going, Ivan. And send someone in here. We need to identify those glasses frames.’
chapter forty-three
Martin is sitting outside as the first police arrive, the old judge having momentarily regained enough of his faculties to cut him free before sinking once again into shock, grief and misery, unwilling or unable to move from the room. So now Martin sits, propped on a large rock next to a birdbath, blood-spattered and wide-eyed, his body intermittently electrified by involuntary tremors. He’s in a bad place, he knows it, in a very bad place. And he must look it. He’s dimly aware of the two uniformed officers moving cautiously through the pedestrian gate, spread apart, wearing flak jackets, with their guns trained upon him. Martin lifts his hands above his head, demonstrating his lack of weapons.
‘Inside?’ asks one of the officers, fear obvious on his young face.
Martin nods, feeling the difficulty of speech. ‘Gunfight,’ is all he can manage.
‘They’re armed?’
‘They’re dead,’ he says.
‘How many?’ asks the other officer.
Martin holds up three fingers, then forces himself to speak. ‘There’s one old man. Still alive. Unarmed. Harmless. Cut up and bleeding. Needs an ambulance.’
‘Fuck. Are you all right?’ asks the first officer, gun still trained on Martin as if his appearance is in itself threatening.
‘No. I’m not.’
‘Are you wounded? Injured?’
Martin blinks, looks down at himself, somehow bewildered by the question. ‘No. I don’t think so. Maybe not.’
More emergency vehicles are arriving; the air is filled with sirens. A police sergeant, also wearing body armour, jogs up.
The young police officer takes the initiative, speaking without prompting. ‘He’s unarmed, not injured. Says there are three dead inside. A gunfight. One old man, a survivor, needs medical care.’
The sergeant addresses Martin. ‘Is it safe to enter?’
‘Yes,’ says Martin, but even as he’s saying it, he’s stopped by the sharp retort of a gun: Sweetwater’s, a single, sharp retort.
‘Jesus,’ barks the senior man. ‘Get him out of here. Set up a perimeter. No one is going in there before the tactical response boys get here.’
Martin tries to explain, but they’re no longer listening, bustling him away, off outside the gate, back into the streets of Sydney where madness has not yet claimed sovereignty.
Later, how much later he can’t say, he’s still on the kerbside, an ambulance officer in latex gloves and a mask wiping his hands and face clean, when Morris Montifore and Claus Vandenbruk approach. All around, more and more vehicles are arriving: negotiators, forensic science trucks, the dog squad; police dressed in everything from jeans to body armour. Mounted police from Moore Park. Mounted police? Why mounted police?
‘Are you all right?’ asks Montifore, voice unsure.
Martin stares up at him, eyes hollow, before remembering to answer. ‘No.’
‘Shock,’ says the ambulance officer.
‘No shit,’ says Vandenbruk. ‘What the fuck happened?’
Another tremor rocks Martin’s body, incited by the mere suggestion of recalling the mayhem. Montifore and Vandenbruk exchange a glance.
‘Can we take him away from here?’ Montifore asks the ambulance man.
‘Sooner the better. But he needs a doctor. Care.’
‘We’ll make sure he gets the best,’ says Montifore before addressing Martin. ‘C’mon, mate, let’s get you somewhere safe. Get you cleaned up.’
Martin smiles. He can feel himself smiling, nodding. He thinks he may cry.
Montifore crouches down, modulating his voice, making it as soothing as possible. ‘Before we leave, can you tell me who’s in there?’
And surprising himself, he can. ‘Henry Livingstone shot Harry Sweetwater. Sweetwater shot Titus Torbett. Livingstone killed himself. I think the judge just did the same.’
‘Fuck me,’ whispers Montifore, horror written on his face, struggling to comprehend. ‘You poor bastard.’
Claus Vandenbruk says nothing for a moment, his eyes wide. ‘Wait here. Don’t go yet.’ He strides away.
Montifore sits down on the kerb next to Martin, places an arm around him in a gesture of reassurance and support, careless of his own clothing. He speaks to the ambulance officer. ‘Any chance of getting him something to drink? Tea?’
‘Hot chocolate?’ suggests the ambo.
‘Martin?’
But Martin is staring off into the sky. The smoke seems
