Peter Corris: The Dying Trade

“If it does your ego any good Hardy, you’re pretty right in what you’ve said. Australian capital is screwing New Caledonia and those bitches you’re protecting are up to their twats in it.” She let the grin down into the glass for a second and when she looked up her face was a mask, vaguely triumphant and hard as flint. “Australia doesn’t care about the nuclear tests as long as the shit comes down on our dirty black hides and not yours.”

“Spare us the rave. You’re a killer, you can’t criticise anyone.”

It was a pathetic response, she knew it and I knew it.

“But you’ll let me go Hardy,” she said softly. “You’re a liberal, soft as butter, you haven’t got the guts to do anything else. You probably half agree with me.”

“You might be right,” I said wearily. “Anyway you’re not important. It suits me to have you on a plane to New Caledonia tomorrow and that suits you too. You’re on your way.”

“Jesus, Hardy!” Tickener was up out of his chair spilling his drink down his shirt. “You can’t just turn her loose. She killed a man tonight. I don’t have a bloody clue what’s going on. Look at her, I’m not sure she should be allowed out on her own, she looks like she’d cut off your feet and eat them.”

I laughed. “She’ll go like a lamb Harry.” I picked the bottle up and poured him another drink. “You’ve got all you need, you can break the Brave story once and for all, final chapter, in about two hours. I’ll phone the cops and your story only needs a few touches to it.”

“Yeah, like who killed Brave?”

“That’s easy, we don’t know. I’ll phone in that he’s dead, I won’t identify myself, the cops will think it’s a spin-off from the Costello thing. That’s easily fixed. You get an anonymous tip. It’s simple.”

Tickener scratched his chin. “That puts you and me in very deep. Three people know what really happened. You’re clean, why not let it all come out the way it really was?”

“I’m protecting my client.” I said. “This way no one gets hurt, no injustice is perpetrated. Do you really think most situations like this get properly aired and resolved down to the last detail? Come on, Harry.”

“I guess not. OK, have it your way. What about them?” He pointed to Haines and the girl.

“She’s leaving the country tomorrow.”

All eyes swung to Haines. He was finishing his drink, his face was white and his big body looked light and fragile. I was reminded of Cavendish’s description of him as passive, given to violent outbursts. There didn’t seem to be an outburst left in him.

“What about him?” said Tickener.

I looked at Haines again and something clicked in my mind and I felt sorrier for him than I’ve ever felt for anyone in my life, except myself.

“No worries there,” I said softly, “I’ve just worked the last little piece into place. He’ll do whatever I say because I can tell him what he’s needed to know all his life.”

Haines looked up at me with complete understanding. He’d lived for twenty-odd years for just the moment that was coming and nothing was ever going to be the same for him after it had passed. It was going to be a kind of death.

I washed up the glasses and put the liquor away, then I went around retrieving things like used tissues and cigarette ends. I got Haines to drive the VW around the track a few times and had Tickener bring up my car, his, and the hire car Brave had arrived in. We drove them round and by the time we’d finished the track was criss-crossed with tyre marks and skids that no one could make any sense of. I wiped the hire car, a Valiant, clean and left it parked half-way up the track from the road. Pali and Haines did most of the watching, Tickener and I did most of the work. When we’d finished we all congregated, by chance, around the body of Dr Ian Brave. He lay on his back, fully stretched out, with broken bamboo stems jutting up all around him and pushing through his clothes. He was inelegant and lumpy in death, he looked like an old, collapsed scarecrow. One eye looked sightlessly up to the clouds, the other was a dark horror; one half of his face was a smooth, chalky white, the other was crumpled and stained dark — it was a map of heaven and hell. Pali looked down at him and I thought I saw a nerve jump in her ebony mask.

“How did you fall in with him?” I asked gently. She responded to the tone of the question by making a keening movement of her head. She ran her right palm down the inside of her left forearm.

“Drugs,” she said.

I nodded and turned away. I didn’t touch Brave and cautioned the others to keep well clear. I left the gun where it was. A few footprints wouldn’t matter. The cops would figure it the easiest way for them, but there was no point in leaving clues about which might set them doubting. Haines was off in some private world of his own. He sat on the edge of the deck picking at his fingers and only came to life when Tickener suggested firing the shack.

“Why would you want to do that?” he asked nervously.

“To confuse things, cover the tracks a bit more,” Tickener said.

“You’re ruthless,” Haines said shaking his head, “ruthless.”

I laughed. “Don’t listen to him, Ross,” I said, “he’d just like to have a fire to spice up his story a bit.”

Tickener grinned and lit a cigarette. “It’s not a bad idea,” he said. “And speaking of stories, how do I write it just from an anonymous tip-off? Where’s the journalistic thoroughness of investigation, not to mention integrity?”

“Where it usually is,” I said. “Listen Harry, you’re learning fast but you’ve got a long way to go. You listen to the police radio, they’ll send a car, the car will call for an ambulance, you’ll get some details that way, not many. Your story is that this confirmed the tip-off, you took the plunge — journalistic flair and derring-do.”

“It sounds shaky,” he said doubtfully.

“It’ll do,” I said, “happens all the time. By the way, how’s Joe Barrett these days?”

“Not so good,” he said happily.

I went back into the shack for a last look around. I collected the guns and took a minute to examine Haines little. 32.

“Have you got a licence for this?” I asked him.

“Yes.”

“How come?”

“Company executives who sometimes carry large sums of money can get pistol licenses.”

I tossed it to him and he caught it. “You shouldn’t have it up here though,” I said, “better shift it. It might get some cop’s mind working, miracles do happen.”

He put the gun in the pocket of his windcheater, he was as docile as an old, pampered dog.

“OK Ross,” I said, “you’ve been a good boy so far, let’s see if you can keep it up. Where are the files?”

He hesitated for just a second, he looked at Tickener who had on his bloodhound face and Pali who was immobile, uninterested. He raised his eyes to mine and if I looked as old and empty and comfortless as I felt it must have been like the last gaze into the mirror before you cut your throat.

“I’ll show you.” His voice was a hoarse, thin whisper. He went across to the food storing and cooking end of the room and knelt down. He peeled up the sea-grass and prised up three lengths of floorboard with his fingernails. It was a hiding place that an experienced man would have located within five minutes, but Ross was one of life’s amateurs and nothing I’d seen of him so far suggested that he’d ever become a pro. He reached into the gap and pulled out a medium sized executive brief case. It was black with lots of shiny metal trim.

“Let’s have it,” I said. “And put the boards and mat back.”

I snapped open the lid, it wasn’t even locked, and took a quick look at the contents. The case was full of letters, bank statements and sheets of paper with what looked like bank note serial numbers written on them. Some of the material was in original, some in photostat. There were half a dozen cassette tapes and an envelope full of photographs. I rifled through the stuff. It was a complete blackmailer’s kit with applications for development permits neatly stapled to notes about sums of money and times and places of delivery. There were different versions of subdivision plans with names of surveyors and others entered on the back along with information about money paid. There were several newspaper extracts from court proceedings with the names of police witnesses underlined and code numbers entered in the margins; typed lists of the names of municipal councillors had similar entries alongside as many names as not. The numbers bore some relation to digits written on the faces of the cassettes. Handled right it was a meal ticket for life and the only thing that surprised me was the relatively small bulk of it. Mark Gutteridge had been in business a long time and if this was his game he should have collected more dope than was here.