Garry Disher - Port Vila Blues

Niekirk replaced the handset. ‘You’re our green-light cop.’

The austere face kept smiling. ‘I suppose I must be.’

‘Got a name?’

The smile faded a little, deciding. ‘Springett.’

‘You’d have rank,’ Niekirk observed.

The smile came back. ‘Inspector.’

‘Who’s the cowboy on the door?’

‘Lillecrapp.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘It is a mouthful. Sit down. The bed.’

Niekirk complied. Springett remained standing, every hair in place, a neat, perfect knot in the bright, chaotically patterned tie at his throat. The suit itself was sombre, the shirt crisply white.

Niekirk said, ‘What missing items?’

‘Cast your mind back to your first hit, that bank job in February.’

‘What about it?’

‘You’ll recall there was a small gold butterfly encrusted with diamonds?’

‘Think I’m a philistine? I know what it was, a Tiffany.’

‘A Tiffany, exactly. Well, it’s turned up again.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I got word yesterday afternoon that a small-time character here in Melbourne is trying to fence it.’

Niekirk raced through the possibilities. He knew that Riggs and Mansell hadn’t pocketed anything from the safety-deposit boxes, for he’d packed everything himself. They couldn’t have dropped it in the alley behind the building. There couldn’t have been two Tiffanies. De Lisle wasn’t stupid enough to offload it to a small-time fence. ‘The courier,’ he said.

‘Now I wonder how come I knew you were going to say that?’ Springett said.

‘I handled the transfer. My men didn’t take the Tiffany. I didn’t take the Tiffany.’

Springett was watching him. Behind the smile he was guarded, sceptical. ‘You sound very sure of yourself.’

‘Fuck I’m sure. I’d check out the courier.’

Springett said nothing for a while, as if weighing up possibilities. ‘I take it that you know a man called De Lisle?’

Niekirk grinned. ‘Now we come down to the nitty-gritty. Yes, I know him.’

‘I thought so. De Lisle’s setup works in theory, separating your side of things from mine, separating the courier from both of us, like a circuit-breaker arrangement in case one of us takes a fall. But what happens when one of us starts acting solo, know what I mean?’

Niekirk watched him carefully. ‘You don’t like it that the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing. Nor do I. I especially don’t like it that you knew my name but I didn’t know yours. Did De Lisle give it to you?’

‘I insisted on knowing. I had to be ready to cover up if anything happened, like your name appearing on an arrest report.’

‘Fucking lovely. An imbalance of power between us right from me start. So, if I pull the jobs for him, what do you do?’

Reluctantly, Springett said: ‘I put the jobs together- identify the target, supply photos, floor plans, maps of the alarm system.’

Niekirk looked at him cannily. ‘For a fee?’

‘Now that’s the nitty-gritty,’ Springett said. ‘I get a cut of the action. Exactly a third.’

‘Same here. It’s my blokes who get a set fee.’

‘But have you been paid your third yet?’

‘A retainer.’

Springett nodded. ‘Sounds familiar.’

“The rest when the heat’s off and De Lisle’s moved the stuff.’

‘Trusting pair, aren’t we? A retainer to keep us sweet. Not many men would put up with that.’

‘Fucking spit it out, Springett. He’s got you over a barrel, same as he’s got me. If we don’t play ball he puts us away. If we do his dirty work, we stay out of jail and pocket a few hundred thou. Am I right or am I right?’

Both men relaxed, feeling a common ground between them. Lillecrapp continued to loll against the door, bored, too absorbed in cracking his knuckles to feel envy or interest in what they were saying.

Niekirk said suddenly: ‘What’s De Lisle got on you?’

Springett’s face shut down. ‘Now you’re stepping over the line.’

‘Suit yourself.’

‘It’s no longer a factor.’

‘Sure.’

‘It’s strictly business now.’

‘Sure. So you’ve told him the Tiffany’s shown up?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Meaning no. Going to tell him?’

‘What’s your feeling?’

‘Don’t. If there’s been a fuck up, a rip off from our end of the operation, I say we deal with it ourselves. We don’t want him pissed off. Or there’s another possibility: he’s moved all the stuff and is conveniently not paying us what he owes us.’

‘Using small-time fences? Unlikely,’ Springett said. ‘Plus he said he’d wait a few months.’

‘De Lisle hasn’t said anything about the Tiffany not showing up in the original haul?’

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ Springett said. ‘He didn’t know what was going to be in those safety-deposit boxes in the first place, so why would he be worried if it didn’t show up in the stuff the courier delivered? I didn’t know about the Tiffany myself until the owner and the insurance company provided my people with photos and a description. Either it was ripped off by the courier before Di Lisle took delivery, or De Lisle’s sold it already to someone who’s trying to sell it again. I like the first scenario, myself, and I say we deal with it ourselves. I’m not ready for De Lisle to get an attack of the nerves and shut us down. I can’t afford it.’

‘The mortgage,’ Niekirk said. ‘School fees.’

‘Exactly.’ Springett rubbed his jaw. ‘So I say we lean on the courier.’

‘You’ve convinced me.’

They were silent for a moment. Springett said: ‘I watched you watching him.’

Niekirk snorted. ‘And the rest, arsehole. You knew what the job was, and when, so you watched me and my blokes pull it and then you followed me, right? So much for De Lisle’s fail-safe method.’

Springett shrugged. ‘If the stolen Tiffany hadn’t shown up I wouldn’t have had to shadow you last night. You were watching the courier, don’t forget.’

‘So we’re all suspicious of one another. So what?’

Springett stretched tiredly. ‘Keep your shirt on. I’d’ve watched him in your shoes. What did you make of him?’

‘He probably works for an airline.’

Springett began to nod his narrow, well-tended head. ‘Travel all over the country, no questions asked.’

‘There’s another job going down in a couple of weeks’ time,’ Niekirk said.

‘The Asahi Collection. What of it?’

‘We grab the courier before he delivers to De Lisle. Put the hard word on him, see what he admits to.’ Niekirk paused, looking hard at Springett. ‘How did the Tiffany turn up, anyway?’

In reply, Springett took out a photograph. ‘This is from the files. This guy and another guy we know nothing about recently had a meeting with a local fence.’

‘Frank Jardine,’ Niekirk said at once.

Springett let some surprise show through the smiles. ‘You know him?’

‘He was never active and we never had anything on him in Sydney,’ Niekirk said, ‘but the whisper was he blueprinted the odd payroll snatch or townhouse burglary.’ He looked up. ‘He’s in Melbourne now?’

‘Turned up six months ago. Not a well man, from all accounts.’

‘But still working.’

‘A few weeks ago he handled some paintings stolen from a house in Sydney. The insurance company paid to get them back.’

Niekirk snorted. ‘Always do, piss-weak cunts. If they’d let us do our job…’

‘Same thing’s likely to happen with the Tiffany.’

‘So, lean on Jardine, find out who gave him the Tiffany. Save a lot of running around.’

Springett glanced away at a point on the wall. ‘Can’t do that. The Tiffany’s only just shown up, and I’d rather sniff around than risk scaring these people off.’