Garry Disher - Cross Kill

Rossiter said, ‘Look, the boy’s a bit hot-headed but he’d never hurt no one. Give him a go. I’ll have a word with the bloke next door, buy him a beer, patch things up. Niall will apologise, won’t you, son?’

No one listened. Napper moved behind Niall’s chair. He put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. ‘Niall Rossiter, I am arresting you on charges of threatening behaviour and possession of an offensive weapon. You will be taken to the local station, formally charged, and placed before a magistrate.’

He went on to read Niall his rights. Then a constable placed cuffs on him and led him outside. Eileen felt a heaviness settle in her heart. She knew it could be a day or two before she saw her son again. Napper would see to it that her boy would be denied bail, be remanded in custody. It would end up destroying him. Niall didn’t have the hard edge of men like her husband, men like Wyatt. Niall had come out of his six months in Pentridge last year sly and vicious, but it was an act. There was a permanent flinch about his head, eyes and shoulders that she hadn’t seen in him before, and it had broken her heart. She hated to see it, hated to think what another sentence would do to him.

It all took time but later that day Napper, smooth and practised, was arguing that Niall Rossiter was an unacceptable risk. The magistrate bought it, as Napper knew he would. Remand. It gave Napper a good feeling.

On the way home he stopped off at Tina’s flat. There was no answer so he used his key and showed both constables through to her kitchen. There was beer in the fridge. They stayed long enough to drain a stubbie each then went back out to the car. It made an impression parked there in the narrow street among the dinky Hondas and Corollas. Cold, white, the snarling black number on the roof, the malevolent red and blue lights. It really gave the locals the shits-teachers, legal-aid lawyers, students, vegetarians. Napper eased his bulk into the driver’s seat and they squealed out of there.

His desk at the station sat in the centre of a cluttered room. There were several other desks, all like his. The men he shared with were laughing in the far corner, by the frosted windows. A CIB sergeant called, ‘Hey, Nap, check this.’

Napper crossed the room. A set of 8 x 10 glossies had been laid out on a bench top. They showed a young male, white, naked, slumped low in an armchair, one hand apparently in the act of pumping his penis, the other curled near a skin magazine. The man’s face was distorted, bulging above the nylon rope that bound his neck and went on up to a hook in the wall. There was a Turkish rug on the floor, rucked by the man’s heels as he spasmed in death. Napper examined the photographs, then looked up. The others were waiting, grinning. Napper wouldn’t let them down. ‘Did he come?’

The CIB man slapped his back. ‘Strangled before he could shoot his load.’

They snickered and looked at the pictures again. ‘Poor bastard’s parents found him,’ the CIB man said. ‘Want us to find the murderer.’

Napper’s head shake said you wouldn’t credit the ignorance of parents and he went back to his desk. He opened a file and the telephone rang. It was his solicitor, with news that threatened to ruin Napper’s day. ‘What do you mean, they’ve got the right?’

‘Just what I said,’ the solicitor replied. ‘Under law they’ve got the right to divert tax refunds to meet back payments owed by the husband.’

Napper directed a hot and bitter look along the line. ‘How? Tell me that.’

‘The Child Support Agency has revenue-collecting powers through the Taxation Office.’

‘Bastards,’ Napper said.

He stared moodily at a picture of the Queen. She was fly-spotted. Things were falling apart there, too, except your royals weren’t strapped for cash like he was. ‘I love my kid,’ he said into the receiver. ‘I’d never let her go without. I was late, that’s all.’

‘Nap,’ the solicitor said, ‘I warned you what could happen. Next time they’ll be much tougher. There’ve been cases of the Agency obtaining court orders for the sale of assets to meet back payments. They could make you sell your house, your car…’

‘Bastards,’ Napper said again. His voice grew harsh. ‘Look, I paid her five hundred bucks the other day.’

‘But you owe her nine thousand. They’re not going to wear that.’

‘I haven’t got it. I can’t earn it. I drive a fifteen-year-old Holden ute, for Christ’s sake. Have another go. Show them some figures.’

The solicitor was doubtful. ‘I’ll do what I can, but there comes a point when you can’t massage the figures any further. Like I said, they’ve taken greater powers on board. Next thing you know they’ll have the power to freeze bank accounts. Last month they subpoenaed some bloke’s Visa card statements. Turns out while he was crying poor to the Child Support Agency, he was dipping his wick in some brothel twice a week.’

Napper wasn’t interested in the sordid lives of other non-custodial fathers. ‘Do what you can,’ he said, and hung up.

For a while, ten minutes, he stared at his files. At 3.30 he went to the locker room, changed into stretch, stonewashed jeans and flanelette shirt, and signed off duty. He had to get a couple of the boys to help him push-start the ute. By 3.45 he was in a Fitzroy side street, field-glasses clamped to his eyes.

There she was, his little darling, at the edge of the pool, eight years old and slipping in and out of the water like a frog in her red Speedos. She was doing backflips and bellyflops with a couple of other little frogs, happy and tireless, in and out, in and out. It brought a lump to his throat.

Napper lowered the field-glasses and Roxanne became just a tiny red flash in the general scenery-a small park, a cyclone fence, sunbathers on the lawn, the kiddies wading pool, the main pool beyond it. His ex-wife brought Roxanne here every afternoon after school. It hadn’t taken Napper long to establish that. Anyway, you can’t stop a bloke from looking at his own flesh and blood. He raised the glasses again and felt his heart clench. Roxie had hurt herself. She was standing, head bent, and her little mates were crouched around, and the world and Napper were focused on her right knee. But then she grinned and everything was all right again. Aqua Profonda, said the sign at the end of the pool.

Napper sat back and drained a can of Fosters. The ute cabin was a hot place-the sun on the glass, the exhaust pipe showing through the rust holes in the floor. Out on Alexander Parade the traffic was building up, pouring toward the freeway. Only four o’clock, but already bastards were going home. Not for the first time did Napper tell himself the country was getting slack.

And there had to be something wrong with a system that allowed a woman to bleed her ex-husband dry and still not let him see the kid he’d fathered. Napper closed his eyes, blocking out the poisonous shit they’d heaped on him in the Family Court. For two bucks he’d jack it all in and bum around overseas for the rest of his life. He thought about it: golden beaches, a glassy sea, topless birds speaking French and Italian, long cold drinks under a Cinzano umbrella. Except that wasn’t exactly bumming around. It would require cash and he didn’t have it. He didn’t even have enough to keep his kid in Weeboks, the style his ex-wife had accustomed her to.

Napper raised the glasses for a last look at his daughter. Her shoulder-blades, her funny little poddy stomach, her long legs: God, he could practically feel her squirming and rubbery in his arms.

4.15. The kids disappeared into the changing room. Napper was leaning forward, turning the ignition key, listening for life in the battery, when women surrounded his ute, snapping wet towels at the sorry, sun-blasted blue duco. Napper couldn’t believe it. He edged his stomach under the steering wheel and got out. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’