Джеймс Паттерсон - Liar Liar

‘Whitt?’ Pops said.

‘Guess again,’ Tox said.

‘Is that you, Tox?’ Chief Morris said after a shocked pause.

‘None other.’

‘Well for fuck’s sake,’ Pops said. It sounded like he was driving. Tox could hear a blinker clicking. ‘I wish someone would tell me what is going on.’

‘I left the hospital.’

‘Yes, that’s one thing that I do know,’ Pops said. ‘You gave my guy a concussion.’

‘He was in a hospital. Good place if you’re gonna get one.’

‘What are you doing on Whitt’s phone?’

‘Nobody paid my phone bill while I was down for the count.’

‘Where’s Whitt?’

‘He’s sick.’ Tox glanced at the sleeping detective. ‘Cold. Headache. I dunno. Could be Spanish flu.’

‘It didn’t sound like a fucking cold when I spoke to him,’ Pops said.

‘Your hearing goes when you get old.’

‘Tox,’ Pops said. ‘I need you to take Whitt back to Sydney.’

‘No deal,’ Tox said. ‘Once he’s had his beauty sleep we’re getting on the road. You just gotta tell us where we’re heading. Whitt told me you might have dug up something on Banks.’

‘You’re not heading anywhere,’ Pops said. ‘Deputy Commissioner Woods has deliberately denied me access to the Banks file, and tried to convince me there wasn’t anything in it that might be a significant location to Banks. Well, that’s not true. Yes, I’ve found details about his childhood another way. And yes, I believe I know where he’s going. If Woods ever sees sense he’s probably going to set up a trap for Regan and Harry at that location.’

‘Sounds plausible.’ Tox stubbed his cigarette out on the edge of the bed and flicked the butt into the corner of the room.

‘Harry wanted to know, and I’m not telling her because Woods is convinced she’s dangerous. He’ll approve his officers for use of all necessary force. I know he will. She’ll get herself killed on this stupid revenge mission.’

‘Wouldn’t be a bad way to go,’ Tox mused. ‘You don’t want to tell her, fine. Tell us. We’ll keep your secret.’

‘Yeah, bullshit,’ Pops said. ‘Take Whitt back to Sydney right now and report to the hospital. That’s a direct order.’

‘Didn’t I hear you were suspended from this case?’ Tox said. ‘Aren’t I working for Woods now?’

‘You’re not working for anyone !’ Pops growled. ‘You’re on medical leave!’

‘I’m confused. You just gave me a direct order.’

Tox heard a harsh exhalation on the end of the line. He smiled and hung up the phone. The next number he called, he knew by heart. It was like that for many of his contacts – having a list of numbers saved in a phone seemed like asking for trouble. Al Cerullo answered with a grunt.

‘Oh great,’ the parole officer sighed when Tox greeted him. ‘What have I done now?’

‘I wonder if it’s ironic that you work in a prison and you’re the guiltiest man I know,’ Tox said. ‘I’m calling about the Reskit woman.’

Tox could hear the fat, thick-throated man shift in his worn leather desk chair, picture him in his little green box in the heart of Long Bay Correctional Complex. Last time Tox had come calling, he’d noticed that the parole officer’s workspace was just a converted old concrete cell, the small slit of a window still covered with clouded plexiglas. Depressing.

‘Every man and his dog has been calling about her,’ Al said. ‘All day the phones all over the complex have been jammed up by press from every corner of the goddamn country. I just spoke to some guy from Kimba. Where the fuck is Kimba?’

‘South Australia,’ Tox said. ‘They’ve got the Big Galah there.’

‘I could have told you this was going to happen. All shrinks are nutjobs themselves, and you put them in with the psycho killers and they get converted. I’ve also been saying for decades they shouldn’t let women work in here,’ Al said. ‘They get the crims all antsy. I remember when it was an all-male crew. Place was like a yoga camp.’

‘Sure. Except for that riot in ’81, of course,’ Tox said. ‘And the one in ’87. And the cell block fire in 1990. And –’

‘You know what I mean, arsehole.’

‘I need you to get me access to Vada Reskit’s work email.’

‘Forget it, I’ve gotta tell you what I’ve been telling people all day: No comment. We’ve all been instructed not to cooperate with anyone on Reskit. The warden’s working with the police. If people call, we’re supposed to hang up.’

‘Why didn’t you hang up on me?’ Tox asked.

‘Because … I like you?’

‘Really? Huh!’ Tox said. ‘I thought maybe it was because you’re still scared of me after I slammed your head in the door of your own Camry. You remember that? It was just after I found out you were texting nudie pictures back and forth with that seventeen-year-old.’

Al made an uncomfortable noise.

‘How is the divorce going, by the way?’

‘It’s fine,’ Al murmured.

‘You’re going to get me into that email account, aren’t you?’ Tox said.

‘Yes I am,’ Al said.

‘I thought you would.’ Tox lit another cigarette.

Chapter

83

DARKNESS DESCENDED.

I walked, my leg now worryingly numb, slowly working through the snacks Melina had put in the bag for me. Regan’s message came, and with it the place of our meeting. I still didn’t know when I would be able to find Regan there. He’d said I would realise soon enough. Was he leading me somewhere to wait hopelessly for him while he picked off more of the people I loved? When I thought about his attempt to target Whitt, my whole body burned. Edward Whittacker had given up his entire life on the other side of the country to help me try to save my brother. With Vada’s help, Regan had searched through my world to find someone who I held as evidence that I was not all bad. If someone as sweet and as wholesome as Whitt could accept me, I had hope. Regan wanted to strip away that layer of me. The rage rattled in my bones at the thought of what I had almost lost.

At the corners of my mind, Regan’s plan was creeping, a shadow falling slowly. I considered that if he’d been successful in taking Whitt from me, Regan would have snuffed out a flame I’d tried to protect. Some people liked me. But take away those few deeply flawed individuals, and what was I left with? Only badness. A selfishness, callousness, aloofness that was inherent in my character, that was undeniably bad.

Take away the few good moments from my childhood, and what was left there?

Badness.

Take away the work I did for the women who came to me in my job, battered and bruised and looking for justice, and …

No.

I wasn’t going to do this to myself. I wasn’t going to let Regan get into my head.

I crossed the empty damp plains of Nungatta, the south-wards highway a grey streak in the distance to my left. Herds of goats lifted their heads as I approached, eyes luminescent in the dark, skittering away when I came near. My sneakers became clotted with mud and grass, which I shook off as the land became drier.

I thought about Regan’s parents. The mother he had felt no love for, the ‘empty shell’ she had been to him. I’d heard a lot of terrible stories in my time in foster care, both the sudden violent incidents that saw children confiscated from their parents and the long, slow, drawn-out situations that did the same. I’d seen kids pockmarked with circular scars, spotted like leopards from parents who thought getting high and putting out their cigarette butts on their kids was a lark. I’d listened to the tales of kids left alone with an abusive grandparent, their parents returning to find their child completely changed, terrified and bruised, the grandparent denying everything.I’d known kids who’d watched one parent murder the other; had listened to their whispers from across the dorm room aisle in group homes.