Peter Corris - Torn Apart

'The case was dropped,' I said.

'We had a hand in that as I expect you realise by now. It could easily be picked up again if we had a change of heart. Our influence with the Customs people is considerable.' He turned back to Sheila. 'Add to that, his motivation. He now knows who killed his cousin and why and that the killer is dying. Case closed, as he might say.'

'Talk anymore about me in the third person,' I said, 'and I'll break your jaw, you smug prick.'

'Talk, talk, talk,' Cummings said. He yawned, stretched his thin arms out, reached under the table, and produced a cut-down automatic shotgun. The strips of duct tape hanging from it made it seem all the more lethal.

Sheila pulled away. 'Seamus, no!'

'It's all right, darlin'. Don't be frightened. I won't hurt anyone if I don't have to. I'll just leave quietly.'

He pointed the gun at Milton-Smith who backed away, his composure disturbed for the first time.

'I'd love to kill you,' Cummings said. 'But what would be the good? There's a million just like you, fuckin' lackeys, manipulators, corrupters. Can't kill 'em all. Don't move, Hardy!'

I'd stood and made a tentative move closer but was still too far from the gun. Casey grabbed at Cummings, but he was drunk and slow and Cummings clubbed him down with the butt of the gun and had it back level all in one smooth movement. Weak as he was, the old skills were still there.

'We'll help you any way we can, Seamus,' Sheila said. 'Won't we, Cliff?'

Cummings laughed, sucked in more breath and said, 'It's all right. I'm thinking I can get to Singapore and contact the News of the World.'

'You fool,' Milton-Smith said. 'Put the gun down. We can work something out.'

Cummings slid smoothly towards the door.

'Don't, Seamus,' Sheila said. 'He's got people out there.'

'Bluffing,' Cummings said. 'It was a bonus seeing you again, Sheila.' He opened the door and stepped out.

The single shot had a clean and final sound to it. Cummings was thrown back; he collapsed in the doorway and lay still. A little blood pumped from a wound in his forehead and then stopped.

Sheila burst into tears.

I'd seen the expression of joy on Cummings's face as he'd moved to the door.

'It's all right, love,' I said. 'He knew what he was doing. Don't you see? He set all this up.'

The spooks cleaned the decks of course, the way they do. In a very polite operation, the three of us and our cars were removed to what they called their command centre-a house on the outskirts of the Kangaroo Valley township. We waited in a chintzy living room and were served coffee and biscuits.

When he reappeared, Milton-Smith was entirely happy with the outcome and he scarcely bothered to repeat the threats he'd made to Casey, Sheila and me. In a classic piece of spookspeak he thanked Casey and me for leading them to Cummings.

'Cummings was a longstanding piece of unfinished business,' he said. 'Over the years we'd made several attempts to track him down to discover exactly what he knew about our people inside a particular mercenary group.'

'I'm surprised you didn't set Patrick up as a target to flush him out,' I said.

'Not a bad idea, but Malloy was always an unreliable asset.'

'Always?' Sheila said. 'You mean…?'

'Oh yes, he was still on the books and was useful from time to time, so we took his assassination quite seriously.'

'I don't buy it,' I said. 'There's been three changes of government in the last twenty years. No one cares now about what dirty tricks you lot got up to back then.'

'I assure you that some very highly placed individuals care very deeply.'

Sheila snorted her disgust. 'What if I say bugger the film and tell the story to the media?'

'You won't.'

'Why not?'

Milton-Smith finished his coffee and put the mug down on a crocheted doily. 'In my office I have a marriage certificate which indicates that Patrick Michael Malloy married one Elizabeth May Jenkins three years before his bigamous union with you. Therefore you are not entitled to inherit his assets.'

'It's probably a forgery,' I said.

'But does Ms Fitzsimmons, no longer in line for a lucrative film role, have the capacity to contest the matter in court?'

Sheila said, 'After talking to you I feel I need a shower.'

On the drive back to Sydney after an edgy night in the motel, Sheila was silent, apart from a few times when she criticised my driving.

The silence and the criticism got to me and I broached what I thought was on her mind.

'You must see that Cummings knew what would happen when he stepped out into the light holding a shotgun. Who wouldn't prefer a quick exit like that to muddling through to the end? Incontinent and doped to the eyeballs with morphine? I would, so would you.'

'Fuck you. How would you know what he was thinking? You don't have a clue what I'm thinking.'

I dropped her at her place in Balmain and she went with scarcely a word. I didn't hear from her for a few days after that and then only to be told that she was going to Melbourne again. She didn't leave a contact number. I phoned and emailed Casey, to see how he was doing and to find out what had happened-what Cummings had told him about the mercenaries and the intelligence service and what Milton-Smith had said about all that and Patrick before Sheila and I arrived. I wanted the full story. I never got a reply. I guessed there wasn't going to be an update of Diggers for Hire.

I stopped mourning Patrick; I hadn't really known him.

I got on with the usual things-gym, reading, the pub, Megan and Hank and taking care of my still beating heart. Sheila sent me a text from Melbourne where the film was shooting and I went down to see her but it wasn't a success. She was totally immersed in her role and didn't have any emotion to spare. We quarrelled, and she admitted that she couldn't get the nastiness and the violence she'd been involved in with me out of her head. Couldn't look at me without thinking of Patrick and Cummings and Milton-Smith and lies and blood.

I'll have to wait for the film to come out to see whether it all helped her acting. I expect she'll be good, but, as ever, it'll all depend on the script.