Peter Temple - Black Tide

The phone rang. Looking at me, Tony said Yes three times, put it down. ‘They pick up Koch, he makes a call, half an hour later, he’s got guns from Apsley Kerr Woodward and a hotshot barrister from Sydney called Mitcham representing him.’

‘Who owns Airbound Services?’

Tony smiled. ‘Airbound is owned by another airline called Fincham Air.’

I said, ‘Which is partly owned by CrossTrice Holdings. Which owns twenty-five per cent of TransQuik.’

He nodded. ‘You’ve been doing your homework. Well, the cops managed to avoid this pair of lovelies getting bail and a cop called Jarman, Detective Shane Jarman, he’s the one first talked to Bryce, he’s now obsessed with Bryce and Koch. When it came to me in the DPP’s office, I encouraged him, said to him, let’s go for it, doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger, these two conspired to kill Novikov. Novikov, he’s a mystery. Looks like an ordinary travel agent. Could be mistaken identity. This prick Bryce could shoot but it didn’t follow that he could read a Melbourne street directory.’

‘Travel agent? For a travel agency?’

The phone rang again. Tony picked it up and said, ‘On my way.’ He closed his briefcase and went to the cupboard for a small black leather suitcase. ‘Novikov, yes. Travel agency, yes. Called Jason’s Travel. Walk down with me.’

The worried Louise saw us to the head of the stairs, giving Tony instructions all the way. I took his briefcase and we began the descent.

‘Lifts are no more for me,’ said Tony. ‘Lifts are for wimps. Anyway, I’m pushing Shane Jarman to follow the trail, see where it goes. Everything says Bryce is telling the truth, that he was hired by Koch. The big question is obviously who hired Koch. Bryce is from Sydney, got early minor form, then he’s clean. In fact, his putative source of income is as a cleaner. Almost certainly a hitman. Koch, he’s American, ex-army, migrated in the eighties, first job with TransQuik in security, now he’s some kind of Mr Fixit for Airbound and Fincham and others. He’s even got international clients.’

Tony paused on a landing, looking at me. I waited.

‘One’s Klostermann Gardier.’

‘Jesus.’

He nodded. ‘Next development is Koch asks to see Shane Jarman. He wants to deal. He says he can make this Novikov business look like shoplifting ballpoint pens. Wants to go on witness protection straight away, out of the slammer, reckons he’s in danger. Shane rings me, I tell the DPP. It’s exciting stuff, Shane can smell something, I can smell something. We start the process. Make the calls. Do the paperwork. It’s in train.’

Footsteps behind us. We both looked over our shoulders. A young woman in black, files clutched to her chest. We parted to allow her through.

‘Two days later, the DPP calls me in,’ said Tony. ‘He says we won’t be prosecuting anyone for Novikov, they’ve redone the ballistics and the two bullets didn’t come from Bryce’s gun.’

‘How’d that happen?’ I said.

Tony shrugged. ‘Guess. I felt like I’d been shot between the eyes. I asked: who ordered the ballistics redone? The DPP doesn’t look me in the eye, this is the man I regarded as a close friend, right? He fucking headhunted me from the Bar. No, the director looks out of the window and he says, “Don’t be tiresome, Tony. Matter’s closed. That’ll be all.’’ I thought about it, thought about going public, asked some quiet questions around the place, quit the next day. Same day, they find the murder weapon in Sydney. Tip-off.’

We crossed the lobby, reached the street. A red Alfa Romeo was double-parked opposite the front door. The driver was shifting into the passenger seat.

I said, ‘I’m slow without lunch. Slow generally. You’re saying this goes back to Levesque?’

Tony took his briefcase from me. ‘Bryce and Koch are both dead. Bryce had an accident. Koch shot himself. Jarman’s running a one-cop station in the Mallee. Day I got back to the Bar, Apsley Kerr Woodward offered me a brief worth maybe a hundred grand a year. What do you think I’m saying?’

‘I wish I could be sure. And this Wardle, the journalist, that was the only contact you had?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Thanks. Buy you a drink some time. Not mineral water.’

He nodded. ‘Pleasure. Got your number.’ I watched him go to the car, open a back door, put his bags on the seat. He looked back at me, said, ‘Jack, I’m not getting it over to you. There’s stuff I can’t talk about. Klostermann Gardier don’t give up. If your bloke’s mixed up with them, walk away. That’s the only reason I told you all this.’

I nodded. ‘I tend towards the obtuse. Sounds like good advice.’

At the driver’s door, he said, ‘It was for me and it is for you. These people can Mortein anything. You might buzz around for a while but eventually you’ll be dead. I’ll call you. Get together with Greer. Have a meal. Nights are long these days.’

They were indeed.

I went to the office and found Simone Bendsten’s card. The address was about six blocks away. I knew the place. It had been a tea-packing plant, red-brick building empty for years. Then part of it burnt down in the seventies, and it served as dero accommodation until two speculators bought the roofless shell in the early eighties. They turned it into four barnlike apartments with a shared courtyard in the middle. Probably the first lofts in Fitzroy, possibly even Melbourne. The building was a tombstone for a working-class suburb.

Entry was through the courtyard door, admission by buzzer. I stood in the damp and buzzed.

‘Bendsten Research,’ Simone said.

‘Jack Irish. Simone, I’ve got a few jobs.’

She unlocked the door from on high. The courtyard had a glass roof and was full of greenery in huge pots. Her apartment was up iron stairs to the right. She was waiting in the doorway.

‘Come in.’

She was in jeans and a big cotton shirt, socks, no shoes. Today, her dark hair was loose.

‘Not dressed for business today,’ she said.

Down a short passage into a room the size of two double garages, kitchen bench against the righthand wall, the rest of the space furnished for eating, lounging, working. In the middle, a fire burned low in an elegant black enamel woodheater. Simone’s work table held a formidable battery of electronic equipment. Two monitors glowed blue in the low light.

We sat in Morris chairs with leather cushions. I told her about looking for Gary. ‘I’m getting the feeling I should be careful on the phone. I’ve got some more names. People this time. One is Carlos Siebold. He’s a Paraguayan lawyer based in Hamburg who acts for Klostermann Gardier. You looked them up.’

I spelled Siebold. ‘Two others. Major-General Gordon Ibell. And Charles deFoster Winter.’

Simone said, ‘I’ll have to try a lot of databases, European, American. It’ll cost a bit.’

‘Stop when you get to three hundred bucks,’ I said.

‘Nothing like that. I’ll call you tomorrow. At home?’

‘Keep it cryptic. I’ll come around.’ I gave her the number.

I put in a few hours at Taub’s, building the framework for the first of six mahogany mantelpieces Charlie was making to go into a mansion at Mount Macedon being rebuilt after a fire. Then I went home for a shower and a change of clothes and caught a tram into the city.

Only one Pom was on the cutting floor of UpperCut, a tall, elegant man with thick grey hair running back from his brow in waves. He was all in black.

‘Chrissy, Chrissy Donato,’ the man said. ‘That’s an awfully long time ago. I was just a boy then. She married the scrumptious Gary and went off to live happily ever after. Which in this case was about two years, I think. She popped in every now and again. Not for years now, though. What’s she done?’