‘Can’t you let your mother and sister go at least?’ I had to admire Morton; his voice was steady and he was trying to win a few points.
Ronny’s voice went into a near shriek. ‘Fuck you. What sister? Send Roper. That’s all, cunt.’
Morton spoke quickly. ‘There’s a priest coming. He wants…’
‘Fuck what he wants. You’ll need him afterwards. That’s it!’
The line went dead. Morton shook his head. ‘Mad as a cut snake.’
He went over to the marksman who listened, nodded and fell into a relaxed posture. Then Morton went back to where the tall, thin, dark young policeman was standing. He had his hands in the deep side pockets of the overall and I could see the bulge of his pistol in his right hand. Morton spoke to him, patted him on the shoulder. The young cop grinned and pushed back his hair which was long for a cop but not nearly as long as Roper’s. I wanted to tell him to let it fall forward, but I didn’t have the right to tell him anything. He conferred with the marksman and then began to walk towards a point where he would leave the shelter of the trees. The sharpshooter tucked the rifle butt into his shoulder. The breeze that had been stirring the leaves dropped. I stared at the top floor window; then I glanced around. I was holding my breath and everybody else was doing the same.
Before the man in the overall could break cover another figure appeared to his left, moving unsteadily but quickly forward. He stepped out of the shade into the sunlight. He was wearing a shirt and trousers. His right arm was strapped to his body and he held a pistol in his left hand.
‘Ted.’ Morton’s voice was a harsh whisper. ‘It’s Ted Withers.’
The two shots came within a split second of each other. Withers’ left arm went up and the gun flew from his hand as he staggered backwards and fell.
The marksman said, ‘Got him!’ A long, drawn-out scream came from the house.
The paramedic rushed forward and bent over Withers. The face he turned towards us as we approached was ashen. ‘I was looking at the house,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
Morton said, ‘Is he dead?’
The medic nodded. ‘Through the heart.’
Morton started barking instructions and suddenly the space in front of the house which had been still and empty was full of people and equipment. Two uniformed cops got to the front door first, closely followed by a pair of ambulance men with a stretcher. I stayed close to Morton. We went into the cool interior, a tiled hallway, and up the wide, curving staircase. We met the stretcher bearers coming down. Glen Withers’ eyes were fluttering. She managed a weak grin as she recognised me.
‘I’m okay’ she murmured. ‘She told him- Mario.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’
I glanced at one of the stretcher men who nodded.
‘Leg,’ he said. ‘She’s okay, but please…’
I touched Glen’s shoulder as they whisked her past. From below I could hear women sobbing and soothing voices. Morton and I went up the stairs and along a carpeted corridor to a big front room. A constable standing guard stepped aside. Renato Costi, dressed in motor cycle boots, black jeans and navy singlet, lay on his back a few metres away from the shattered window. Blood and brain tissue had sprayed over the floor and walls. A rifle with a telescopic sight lay below the window and there must have been more than twenty cigarette butts ground out in the deep, pale pink carpet.
Morton crouched beside the body. ‘An inch above the eye,’ he said. ‘That boy can really shoot.’
‘So could Ronny,’ I grunted.
‘Ted was a sitting duck.’
Something about the way he said it, biting down on the words as if to cut them off, and the glance he shot at the constable, told me more than the statement itself. Had Ted Withers charged the house to rescue his daughter, provide the diversion for the sharpshooter to take advantage of, or to push Renato into taking care of Sergei Costi? Or to do the job himself? There was no doubt about the way it would appear in the record.
‘He was a hero,’ I said.
‘Yup. Medals all round. Well, there’s a lot of tidying up to do around here.’ He straightened and walked to the door. ‘Come on, Hardy. You shouldn’t even be here. Constable, no-one except the technical people and the pathologist in this room, got it?’
‘Yes, sir. The mother and father?’
‘You heard me, son.’
Despite what he’d just said, Morton let me accompany him while he checked on the situation in the house. We learned that Renato had locked his father and mother in the wine cellar in the basement of the house. He had tied his sister to a chair in the room where Glen Withers had been shot. The girl had been in a faint or hysterical for most of the time. But she had heard the final shots and it was her scream that had signalled the end of the business. She was now in the hands of a policewoman and the ambulance men. Morton conducted a brief interview with Sergei Costi from which I was excluded. Mrs Costi was in a state of collapse.
Bruno Costi, a stressed, balding man in his thirties, and a plump, avuncular priest arrived and were ushered inside the house to offer what comfort they could. A few other people turned up-all Italians, all distressed. A constable who spoke the language talked to them and allowed some in and turned others away. Two camera crews did some filming and reporters talked to a couple of cops. But Morton didn’t come out and the reporter who tried to talk to me went away very unhappy.
When Barrett Breen arrived I angered the other newshounds by beckoning him over and going into a huddle with him. I gave him a scaled-down version of what I knew. Good stuff, but not the whole story. I needed to be on side with the police as much as I needed friends in the media. But Breen was satisfied; he scribbled notes, checked on name spellings and thanked me for honouring our agreement. The people with the microphones and cameras clustered around him after he left me but I didn’t bother to watch. What he did with the information I’d given him was his business.
The police eventually shooed them back to the road. I sat on a piece of sandstone which was part of the artful, restrained landscaping of the front garden, and waited for Morton. There was a lot of coming and going, a lot of sweating and swearing as the afternoon grew warmer. A cop carried away Renato’s rifle enclosed in a plastic bag, and Glen Withers’ pistol, similarly wrapped. Then came Renato himself, all zipped up in a black vinyl body bag. Good stuff for the cameramen. There was still no sign of Morton so I wandered around the front of the house and looked at the two cars parked carelessly on the gravel together with Ronny’s bike-a black and silver Kawasaki 1500 with raked handlebars, stripped to the chromium-plated bone. A death machine.
Morton emerged from the house wiping his face with a soggy handkerchief. He’d worn his jacket and tightly knotted tie throughout the whole business, but now he looked ready to strip down to his singlet and jockey shorts. He waved me over and I went, carrying my jacket slung over my shoulder. This allowed me to show off my gun in its holster which was the only thing that had stopped some of the cops telling me to piss off.
‘Now I’ve got to talk to the press,’ Morton said.
‘It’s tough at the top.’
‘Fuck you. What did you do that counted?’
‘I gave Ted Withers another hour or so of life. And if it hadn’t been for him you’d still be sitting there with your finger up your arse.’
‘I can see why not everyone in Sydney likes you.’
I sighed and suddenly felt old and empty. I wanted something to eat and drink and someone to be nice to me, and someone to be nice to. ‘I’ve got a knack for getting into situations that bring out the worst in people, including me. What’s next, Commissioner?’
‘I hear you didn’t want to get your face on television?’
‘Right. They never get me on my best side.’
‘Keep it that way. How do you stand with your clients?’
‘Lousy,’ I said.
Morton sucked in air and put the braided cap he’d been carrying back on his head. ‘I’m going to talk bullshit for a few minutes, you go back to your motel and wait. We’ll have a de-briefing at the hospital when Sergeant Withers is up to it.’
