‘Not you, someone else.’
‘Right.’ He seemed transfixed by the resemblance between us. He stared at me. If I’d had a watch on a chain I could’ve mesmerised him. ‘He’s gone to pass on the news about the videos.’
‘You were listening?’
‘Yeah, Jesus, this is uncanny.’ He had a thick New Zealand accent which muffled the vowels.
‘What’s your name?’ I had a mad desire to know the name of the man who was going to kill me.
‘Doesn’t matter, mate. You’re dead.’ The words seemed to release him from the trance. He tensed again.
‘Who do you work for?’
‘Forget it, Hardy. Time to go. You want to turn around?’
Time to move, I thought. Move! Go! I hurled myself sideways and heard a shattering sound of metal on glass. I was on the floor. My eye felt as if it had been torn out of the socket. I heard the sound again, louder. The silenced gun popped twice and the TV set exploded above me as I rolled for non-existent cover. I had the. 38 in my hand and I fired wildly, missing the gunman by ten feet. The window was broken and a big metal garbage tin was rolling on the floor.
My lookalike stepped clear of the bin and skidded on broken glass as he tried to draw a bead on me.
‘Look out!’ I screamed at nothing and nobody. The shot I’d fired had hurt my eye; it sounds crazy but that’s how it felt. The sound had hurt. I was ready to hurt it again, but I wasn’t going to get the chance. He’d steadied like a professional and had the gun level and just slightly tracking me as I rolled. I bumped into the wall and things went loose inside my head. Then his gun jammed. He scrabbled at it, tore at the silencer. I fired at him and missed. I fired again and the bullet hit somewhere and staggered him. He spun around and ran for the door.
It seemed to take me an age to get to my feet. De Vries’ blood had soaked and spread through the seagrass matting and I slipped on a patch of it on the way to the door. I had to grab the door to steady myself before I could attempt the steps. I could hear panting and scuffling below me and the sound of feet slapping on the wooden steps.
‘Cliff… you all right?’ It was Galvani, yelling from below but also doing something else.
‘Yes.’ I started down the steps, hugging the wall.
‘He’s getting away,’ Galvani yelled. ‘Hurry.’
I hurried as much as my bad vision and thundering head would let me. At the bottom of the steps Galvani had a man pinned to the ground, his face slammed into a pile of garbage that had been emptied out of a tin.
‘He went that way!’ Galvani pointed towards the waterfront units at the end of the street. ‘Fuck you!’ Galvani hammered the squirming man’s head down into the garbage.
‘Can you hold him?’ I said. I was panting for breath, squinting and trying to get clearer vision.
‘I can dislocate his arms.’
‘No!’ The man screamed. ‘Kelly, help me, you bastard.’
‘Hold him,’ I said. ‘I’ll get the other one.’
I ran towards the street with pain splitting my head apart. Lights were coming on in the houses and people were shouting out of their windows. I saw Kelly ahead, running in a staggering, weaving motion towards the units. I lumbered after him with the gun in my hand and no chance at all of hitting anything smaller than a semi- trailer.
Kelly looked back, stopped and made another attempt to free the mechanism of his gun. He failed and threw the thing away. I gained on him although it was painful, uphill work. By the time he reached the low brick fence surrounding the units, my good eye had cleared and I thought I might get a shot at him against the backdrop of the white painted apartment block. I stopped and raised the gun.
‘Stop!’ I shouted.
He lunged forward and vaulted the fence. I sighted, expecting to see his dark shape, but there was nothing but a short, piercing scream, a thud like a collision on a football field and a loud splash. I stood in the middle of the steep, narrow road and lowered my gun. I became aware of the sounds around me: voices, dogs howling, doors slamming and, far off but getting closer, the wail of a police siren.
The uniformed men happily responded when I told them to call Mercer or Drew. They didn’t want any part of it and contented themselves with calming the residents and putting calls through to the meat wagon and the forensic people. They put Scott Galvani’s prisoner, a plump man with a brave moustache and frightened eyes, in their car, and stood around sceptically waiting for the detectives.
I had time for a few words with Scott Galvani before they came.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’d be dead if you hadn’t chucked that tin in. What happened?’
Galvani had a cigarette going and his hands were shaking. We were standing at the point where Kelly had vaulted over the fence. Below, a long way down, he was wedged into the narrow, rocky cleft of the drainage ditch that ran down towards the water. From the position of the body it looked as if he’d gone in head first and it was too long a fall to survive. If he’d made his jump six feet to the left he’d have landed on the grassy bank in front of the units. Galvani drew deeply on the cigarette. ‘It was so confusing. I can hardly remember. I did a bit of a prowl around the place. I didn’t see them arrive. Must’ve been around the back then. Anyway, this guy.’ He indicated the man in the police car, ‘he goes to the phone just around the corner. I saw the other one, he’d been listening up there, outside the door, he pulls out a gun and goes in. I went and threw the garbage bin. Thought that might give you a chance with your gun.’
‘It did. Sort of.’
‘The other one came back and I clobbered him. After that, you know, you saw it all.’
‘Yeah. You say he made a phone call?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Bugger it. There goes the evidence.’ I walked over to the car and looked at the bulky man. I made window-winding gestures and he put the window down.
‘Who d’you work for, son?’
He clenched his soft jaw and thought about it. When he’d worked it out he said, ‘I work for Kev.. Kev Kelly.’
‘You’re unemployed. Who’d you ring?’
The jaw clenched again and this time he didn’t speak. ‘Give him a cigarette, Scott. You don’t object, officer?’
The cop shook his head. ‘Where’s that fuckin’ Mercer?’
‘He’ll be along.’
The man took the cigarette and jutted his head out the window for Galvani to light it. He puffed and still didn’t say anything.
‘It could be your ace in the hole,’ I said. ‘Or it could be your death warrant. You know Kelly killed two people? One tonight and a girl a couple of weeks ago?’
‘I wasn’t there for that.’
‘No? Well, it’ll be interesting to see how you go. Good luck.’ The cop wound the window up and the man’s face looked even rounder and more pale through the glass.
A car pulled up and Drew got out. He slouched across towards me with his hands in his pockets.
‘Well?’
I pointed to the wall. ‘Over there you’ve got the man who killed Carmel Wise.’
He walked to the wall and looked down. ‘Who says so?’
‘I do.’
‘Witnesses?’
‘Sort of.’ I was thinking of Judy Syme and Michael Press. They could testify to Kelly’s earlier visit to the Randwick flat. Maybe Ellen Barton from the flats near the Greenwich Apartments could identify him. Maybe. It was thin.
An ambulance and another car arrived. The uniformed men spoke briefly to Drew and began to direct some of the troops towards the house, and others to the drainage ditch.
‘Who’ve we got inside?’ Drew said. We walked along the street which was ablaze with light. Windows and doors were open; radios were playing. ‘And who’s this?’ Drew jerked his thumb at Galvani.
