‘Impatient bugger, aren’t you?’ was his greeting.
‘Yup.’
‘Still working out?’
‘When I get time.’
‘Use it or lose it.’
‘Phil…’
‘Just playing you along, mate. Yeah, I’ve checked out Jane Margaret Farrow, DOB 27/1/79. Scored in the high nineties in the HSC. She graduated in Arts at the University of Western Sydney in 2001, second class honours, division one, majoring in sociology and economics. Honours thesis on the 1979 Woodward Royal Commission into drugs. Represented Australia at the 200 °Commonwealth Games in pistol shooting, finishing fourth. Close, but no cigar. Am I going too fast for you to get this down?’
One of Phil’s typical jokes. I wasn’t taking notes-he was drawing attention to his total recall of the information, one of his many talents. I didn’t bother to reply, and he went on.
‘Goulburn Police Academy 2001. Fitness level top ten percentile; rated excellent all categories; probationary constable, Mt Druitt 2001-02; posted to various Sydney stations 2002; promoted to detective 2004, appointed to Northern Crimes Unit 2005.’
‘Thanks, Phil. That it?’
‘No. There’s a gap in there I couldn’t probe. These sorts of records are date sensitive. They’re coded, but that’s not usually a problem if you-’
I held up my hand. ‘I don’t need to know.’
‘Okay, she disappears between late 2004 and early 2005. I tried to trace her in other ways-illness, overseas travel, phone, electoral roll, credit cards and what-have-you, with no result. She sort of vanishes during that period, say for six months.’
‘Jesus, are we all documented that closely?’
‘Not all, some-probably be most before too long the way things are going. Have to be protected against terrorists, ha ha. Know any, do you? I’m sure I could organise a bounty for dobbing them in.’
‘Great. Now that you’ve looked at this stuff, how would you rate her progress as a police officer?’
‘Are you kidding? Fucking rapid. Mind you, when she was in uniform she made some good arrests and had stellar showings in court that stamped her as promising. No getting away from that. Plus, the service was looking to promote women and the Northern Crimes Unit was in the rapid promotion loop it seems. Natural place for her to go.’
‘That’s right.’
‘The gap’s the thing that takes the eye. Nature hates a vacuum; me too. I’ll keep at it. Can’t bear to be snookered. There’s another possibility. I hate to admit it but there could be a pathway I haven’t cracked.’
I thanked Phil and asked him if there’d be any trace in the records of his search.
‘You’re joking,’ he said.
‘Just playing you along. I’ll spot you at the gym next time you try to lift more than you should.’
He gave me the bird and turned back to his god.
There was a scattering of phone messages and emails when I got home. Nothing important. Viv Garner wanting to know how I was doing. Tim Arthur saying he’d looked through his files and memory and couldn’t locate anything he and Lily had worked on in the past that would be likely to have brought about her death. Frank Parker checking in with nothing new to report but concerned that I might go feral-that sort of thing. Bills in the letterbox along with junk mail. Bin the one, curse the other.
I was restless and decided to go for a long walk. I needed the exercise after so much sitting. The knees felt better and I reckoned keeping the bits and pieces moving was the go, rather than letting them calcify and lock up. Medically specious probably, but it had worked for me over a long time and many injuries. The clear day had persisted although a breeze had started with a bit of snow-fields in it. Tracksuit time. I’d left the. 45, rewrapped but not hidden, in the locked cupboard under the stairs, which happened to be where I’d hung my daggy tracksuit last time I’d used it. I saw the bundle and had thoughts: Were Kristos’s break-in and headlock — if they had been his — just warnings? If so, what about now, after I’d spooked him and Gregory at the pub? Were Perkins and any others involved in the deaths of Robinson and Williams aware of me and threatened? What game was mystery woman Jane Margaret Farrow really playing?
I wasn’t going to skulk and hide, but it made sense to take precautions. I stripped down, put on the tracksuit and sneakers, and slid the. 45 into a bumbag.
I walked up Glebe Point Road to Broadway, around Victoria Park, back through the university and down John Street to the Crescent to wind up with a circuit of Jubilee Park. Five kilometres, maybe six-parks, higher learning, traditional houses, renovations, new apartment blocks, water views. The walk brought me out at the bottom of my street. It has nooks and crannies-lanes leading to adjacent streets, a couple of sets of steps and a postage stamp park. I did a few ups and downs on the steps, stretching the hammies. I looked over from the top step and stopped dead.
A light blue Falcon was parked in a lane with its nose a few metres back from the footpath. It was half hidden by plane trees and positioned to give it a perfect view of my front gate. From whichever direction I approached, I’d be in the crosshairs.
The steps I was on led to a narrow lane between two of the larger sandstone houses in the street. Million dollar jobs. Over the years, the owners had several times applied to have the pathway closed and its right-of-way status revoked. A few of us, on doubtful heritage grounds, had enjoyed ourselves resisting the applications and so far we’d been successful. I went back along the path, pushing aside the overgrown honeysuckle the two owners had planted to inhibit access.
I circled around the next street and came up the lane behind the Falcon, staying in shadow, silent in my sneakers, and with the. 45 in my hand. The person in the driver’s seat of the sky blue Falcon was solidly built, with thin, dark hair, scalp showing, besuited. Detective Inspector Vincent Gregory beyond a doubt.
I stayed a few metres back from the car, well-hidden but puzzled by his apparent inattention. He was almost slumped in his seat, but he had the window down. Did he have a sighted-in, silenced sniper rifle at the ready? No way to tell. It’d take a rifle to do the job from this distance. How long would it take him to bring it into play on me if I jumped him at the open window? Too long. But what if he had a pistol in his lap, or in his hand?
I decided that was ridiculous. I turned away to muffle the sound as I cocked the automatic.
What are you doing? I thought at that moment. Putting an unlicensed gun on a serving senior police officer? I had a moment of indecision at that point. Frank Parker’s message on the answering machine came back to me: Don’t go feral on this, Cliff. You’ll only come to grief.
I hesitated. How much more grief could I come to? Lover gone, career finished.
Gregory stayed slumped in his seat. Light a cigarette, I pleaded. Use your hands. But he didn’t.
I went forward as quickly and quietly as I could and had the muzzle of the. 45 in his right earhole before he could move a muscle. There were no weapons in view. He had one hand on the steering wheel, the other flat on the seat beside him.
‘Don’t even twitch,’ I said.
The musty stench from his body was stronger than ever. As he drew in a breath and let it out slowly, I caught a strong smell of alcohol.
‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe you’d shoot me, but I’ll still do what you say.’
‘What makes you think I won’t shoot you?’
‘Because you want to know who killed Lillian Truscott and why, and I can tell you.’
‘Why would you do that?’
He reached up and pushed the pistol away. ‘To save my skin, Hardy. To save my fucking skin.’
19
