Shore Leave Page 15

  The office was a one-room affair with a window onto a brick-paved courtyard full of dead pot plants and cigarette butts. The furniture was cheap and mismatched. Tremain didn’t offer him a chair and so Pascoe continued his act, taking one for himself and carefully crossing his feet at the ankles, shooting his cuffs.

  ‘I’m glad that you could see me. I’m here to help.’

  Tremain ran a hand across his scalp. ‘Did Frank Swann send you?’

  The name was a jolt, knocked Pascoe off balance, but he showed nothing, instead gave Tremain the prison stare. ‘Yes. Is that a problem?’

  Tremain gulped, fluttered his hands. ‘No, not at all. Of course not. I asked him to help, as you know. Are you an ex-copper?’

  Pascoe smiled, kept the stare. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you know about Gooch. I’m assuming that –’

  ‘I know what Gooch is. That’s why I’m here. To brass tacks, then.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Of course.’

  Pascoe leaned forward, lowered his voice. ‘I know all about your problem. I observed you at Page’s restaurant, the other night. Laying the groundwork, if you like. I have another client who’s being strongarmed by Page. So I’m going to make you an offer. An offer that works for you, me, and my other client. I’ll take care of Page, permanently, if you pay my client’s debt. It’s a significant debt, so I don’t expect an answer right away. Although, as you’ll appreciate …’

  Pascoe leaned back in his chair, put up his hands.

  Tremain looked stricken. ‘Permanently? What do you –’

  Pascoe shook his head, eyes hard. ‘It’s a yes or no offer.’

  ‘How much is the debt?’

  ‘Near to two hundred K.’

  Tremain put his head in his hands, thought better of it, reached into his pockets for his cigarettes.

  ‘Please don’t smoke.’

  Pascoe’s voice belying the politeness of his words. Tremain pocketed the smokes, kept one in his fingers, unlit.

  ‘What about Gooch?’

  ‘Leave Gooch to me.’

  Tremain’s eyes started watering, but it wasn’t tears. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. He blinked rapidly, put his face on his sleeve, a moment of respite from the bright day. ‘I expect you want cash.’

  ‘Yes. When the job is done.’

  ‘Do I give it to you, or Swann?’

  ‘Keep Swann out of this. Arms-length, you understand.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’

  Tremain’s voice was very quiet. ‘Can I give it to you, in gold?’

  Pascoe didn’t see that coming, had no ready answer. Gold was no good to him, or Mark Hurley, but he mightn’t have a choice. ‘If you can convince the man you’ll be paying, then I don’t care how you pay him.’

  ‘I’m not paying you?’

  ‘Arms-length.’

  Tremain was in the bag, and both of them knew it. ‘You take half the money, or its substitute to the equal value, to Gus Riley, president of The Nongs Motorcycle Club. Clubhouse is in Bayswater. Say it’s a down payment on what Mark Hurley owes. You do that, I get to work.’

  Tremain put the cigarette in his mouth, wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist. ‘How do I get in contact with you?’

  ‘You don’t. Do you have a better number?’

  Tremain laughed, but it was bitter, pointed to the cupboard. ‘My bed’s in there, rolled up. This is my best number.’

  Pascoe felt a flush of nausea in his belly, the first stirring of his lungs. He stood, put out his hand. His peripheral vision began to blur as the oxygen leached from his blood, making his feet unsteady. If it happened now, it was all for nothing.

  ‘I’ll call you. Be ready. See myself out.’

  Pascoe turned to the door, heard the hiss of a lighter. He reached the front garden when the convulsion hit, doubling him over. His lungs wrung themselves out, squeezing his heart. He coughed and spat and struggled to breathe, staggering to the van and the waiting bottle.

  41.

  Swann called Cassidy’s pager from a public phone outside a Northbridge deli, got a call straight back. It was a five-minute walk over the train tracks to Forrest Place, where Cassidy and his men were staking out the GPO. The overhead sun reflected heat off the paving and concrete walls. City workers buzzed about on their lunchbreak, hitting the sandwich stands, cafes and pie shops. Seagulls and ravens perched on the wall beside Cassidy’s position near an escalator and lift. He was speaking into his walkie-talkie, making verbal circuits of the plainclothes and undercover detectives he’d placed around the square. The GPO staff had been briefed and there was a female plainclothes behind the counter, pretending to sort mail into the postboxes to the side of the counters.

  ‘Any hits on the reward money?’ Swann asked Cassidy.

  ‘Nothing credible. The usual. Three claims of alien abduction. Charles Bernier is a black prince in the Order of the Golden Dawn. Charles Bernier is a CIA operative released under deep cover to murder women and foster terror prior to a US invasion. Or my favourite: Charles Bernier has never been seen in the same room as Tiny Pinder, did we ever wonder why? That kind of thing.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Yeah. And so you know, I also put a man on Webb, at least when he’s on dry land. Webb and his men are apparently still observing the Fremantle streets near the Vinson, going to every dosshouse and bar. Tells me that the appearance of the Datsun made an impression, whether he wanted to admit it or not.’

  A burst of static. A female voice, tough voice. ‘Three black sailors. Two in uniform, one in civvies. No facial scars. Headed down Murray Street toward your position, over.’

  Cassidy pursed his lips, showed some teeth. ‘Follow at a discreet distance, over.’

  The transmitter went silent.

  ‘Have you considered,’ Swann said, ‘that Bernier has a second girlfriend, that he’s holed up with her somewhere?’

  ‘Lives under a rock, does she, this mystery woman? Or doesn’t care that Bernier’s a two-time strangler?’

  ‘Or doesn’t believe the stories. Or she’s a captive.’

  ‘We’ve been covering that. Asking every barman and barmaid from here to Northam which of their regulars have been seen with sailors, now and in the past.’

  ‘You getting many names?’

  Cassidy smiled. ‘No, not many. Fair point.’

  ‘I can get someone on that. Given time.’

  ‘Do it, long as the Yanks are paying.’

  Another burst of static. ‘The three sailors have gone up to the mall, via the arcade.’

  ‘Roger that. Fall back.’

  Swann thought about returning to Fremantle, where Webb needed his knowledge of the port streets, but he sensed that Cassidy was holding back on something. Swann looked over the square, where white and black street kids lounged about on the old benches, chased one another through the swirling workers and cadged cigarettes off anyone who looked likely. Two mothers with prams and toddlers stood in the shade of the old GPO, chatting while people-watching, both of them noticing Swann and Cassidy at the same time, the only still points in the chaos of the lunchtime rush. The taller of the mothers, hard-faced and thin, gave them a speculative look before reaching for the arm of a boy who was battering his sister with a Tonka truck. The boy quietened under her grip, began to whimper, used gravity to get away from her by flopping like a doll. She tired of his weight and let him go.

  ‘You ready to share the crime scene and autopsy reports on Jodie Brayshaw?’ Swann asked.

  Cassidy grunted. ‘If you think it’ll help. There’s no doubt about Bernier’s role. The neckerchief found on Brayshaw’s body had Midshipman Charles Bernier’s name sewn into it, which tells us something about his attitude toward concealment. Francine McGregor was strangled with the same neckerchief. Same dimensions to the ligature marks, same bruising from the knot tied at the back of the neck. Both sexually assaulted, possibly during strangulation, when unconscious but not dead. Type A-minus secretor
semen found in both women. Brayshaw had a belly full of Sambuca and chicken parma, also presence of amphetamines in her blood. Had a heroin habit, recently dropped. Tracks in discreet places. Constipated. But nothing in her blood.’

  ‘How recent?’

  ‘Coroner reckons the tracks are a few days old.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Cassidy shook his head, looked out over the quietening square, more seagulls now than people.

  The radio crackled, two speakers distorting each other.

  ‘One at a time,’ Cassidy barked, turning away from the escalator, where a descending group of teenagers were chattering and laughing. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s Rogers. Thirty APM men just got into the station, off the Bassendean train. Banners and a PA system.’

  ‘McKee, what you got?’ Cassidy asked.

  ‘Another group of forty or so just passing over the train tracks, coming from Northbridge. Same thing: banners, placards. Harassing people. Little melee started with some Aboriginal youth. They’ll be at the square shortly.’

  Cassidy glanced at his watch, gritted his jaw. ‘Fuck it. Stay in your positions.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nazi goon-squad rally was scheduled for one pm, here in the square. Tried to get their permission aborted, due to the fucking obvious problem of them potentially scaring off a black sailor like Bernier from the area. But got knocked back. The rally was formally organised, legal assembly, all that. Here they come.’

  Swann watched the two groups arrive in the square north down Murray street and east from the train station. He recognised the APM leader, Nigel Kinslow, a white nationalist towing service operator who’d been in the news lately, running for state parliament. He’d polled well considering that the Australian Patriotic Movement was a new party, as had his candidates in Wanneroo, Thornlie and other suburbs with a large migrant English population.

  ‘Ah fuck, worst-case scenario.’

  Swann looked to where Cassidy was staring. Behind the column of APM men, now marching in a formation three abreast and singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’, was a large contingent of uniformed police, including three mounted police. The noise of the singing men echoed off the stone walls around them, filling the square as the column arrived in front of the GPO and began to organise their PA and microphone. The APM foot soldiers wore tee-shirts with either the Eureka flag or Celtic cross above khaki dungarees and boots. Some of them were skinheads and others looked like regular workers, with goatee beards and cropped hair and moustaches, mirroring their leader, who took the mic and began a sound check. Some of the younger Nazis began looking for trouble, eyeing the wagging schoolkids. One of them was an Asian boy, who blanched and then bolted as two skinheads began to approach. The square had emptied out on their arrival, but passengers from the train station and shoppers still cut around the edges. Some paused to watch and others hurried by, heads down and not looking.

  Kinslow got right to it, harsh voice biting over the cheap PA. He introduced himself and his movement, which he claimed was growing by the day. Said that they were gathered as a show of solidarity with those calling for an end to the American presence in the city. ‘Mandingos, raping our white women. But we’ll be out in force tonight, patrolling Northbridge in squads of four, in case we’re needed. The police aren’t up for the job of protecting our white women, lured by the promise of free drinks and the taboo of miscegenation.’

  Cassidy’s radio sparked to life. ‘Boss, you need to get in here. The money order, it’s been collected. Just a couple of minutes ago. By a white male. The teller served him because her super told her she was looking for a black male. Said he had an American accent. Crew cut. Dressed in blue jeans and a white polo shirt.’

  ‘Fucking hell, she served him, gave him the money? He show ID?’

  ‘Correct. No requirement to show ID.’

  Cassidy looked like his head was ready to burst. Through gritted teeth he hissed, ‘All units. You get that description? White male, blue jeans, white polo shirt. Bring him down and wait for instructions. This man is not, I repeat, not to get away.’

  Cassidy raised his hands to Swann, clearly embarrassed, began to jog toward the GPO, pushing a skinhead out of his way, stopping only to bark orders at the uniformed police who were gathered at the edges of the crowd. Swann stayed where he was, looking for the white American sailor who’d retrieved Bernier’s money. Kinslow kept on his ranting about the safety of white women and the evils of immigration. Swann looked for Bernier’s companion where nobody else was looking, amid the seventy or eighty APM men. It was then that he saw a familiar face. Not the white sailor, but a face he struggled to put a name to until the man removed the hand above his eyes, shielding him from the sun. It was Ralph Cord, the ex–Junkyard Dogs bikie, surrounded by his new brothers. The same ratty ginger beard and deep suntan, stringy mullet hair, chanting along with the others in the crowd.

  All those years in prison: Cord sensed Swann looking at him, looked right back while he smiled and chanted.

  42.

  It’d been the longest day of Devon Smith’s short life. As soon as he discovered the theft of both the weapons and the money he was called inside to work the kitchen and servery. He tried to fake a headache but Wiggs wasn’t buying it, told Devon to scoff some Tylenol and get back to work. Devon, Lenny and Marcus formed a skeleton staff and Wiggs wasn’t about to have the cocktail and dinner service compromised by a slacker. Wiggs instead promoted Lenny and Marcus to the line of bain-maries, and moved Devon back into the kitchen, working the tongs, taking out the heavy trays of pork and stuffing the brioche sliders with the meat filling, supervised by the Australian chef serving tarragon chicken volau-vents, both of them working silently alongside one another. Devon stuffed five hundred pork buns that were put on oven racks to keep warm before he was allowed a cigarette break and returned to the alley. There was no sign of the van, or its owner. The alley was hot and still. Devon lit a cigarette and walked to the end of the alley, looked out over the swampy lowlands that skirted the river and a vast blacktop area where the invited guests had left their cars.

  Devon couldn’t see them, but he knew that they were there, watching. It was possible that the bikers had burned him, taking both the guns and their money, but that didn’t feel right. Someone had stolen the car and taken the lot. Possibly an opportunist, unaware of what was in the back of the van, although that too seemed unlikely – there were easier places to steal a car than a working alley where men and women came and went. The other option, the most likely, sickened him with its clear betrayal and its probable consequences.

  Devon smoked his cigarette and lit another, glanced at his watch. The smart move would be to return with Wiggs and the others to the Vinson and stay put. The bikers couldn’t do anything to him while he was on the aircraft carrier. He would be safe until he returned home. The senior Nongs biker, Barry Brown, who’d made contact with clubs back home, would get the word out. That might mean that Devon’s father would be forced to take over his debt, and there was no way that Devon’s father could afford to pay that kind of money. It was true that Devon’s father had caused the whole problem by trying to screw the bikers in the original deal, but it was also true that he would find a way to blame Devon, like he always did.

  Devon decided to call the bikers and gauge their reaction. If there was murder in the president’s voice, then Devon would get back on the bus, call his father to warn him, take his father’s ridicule on the chin, try and make amends somehow. The Vinson’s next stop was somewhere in South-East Asia. There might be drugs to be had there, that he could smuggle home.

  Devon turned at the sound to his left, behind the nearest wall, the cracking of a twig. There was nothing behind the wall but as he turned to the alley, he heard the boots. He felt the blow on his neck and then he was toppling forward, gone into the black.

  43.

  Cassidy took Ralph Cord to the East Perth lock-up rather than Central. Cord wasn’t
under arrest and wasn’t obliged to accompany them but he’d gone along willingly, a smug curiosity in his eyes.

  He sat now with a styrofoam cup of International Roast with three sugars, made for him by Cassidy, eyes glancing across the bare and scuffed walls of the holding room. Cord had passed through this room numerous times during his life. Cassidy sat across from him with Cord’s file, dabbing his finger and turning the pages.

  If Cord was reminded of the cells behind him, he showed no sign. He accepted a cigarette from Cassidy, leaned toward the flame, smiled at both of them.

  ‘I know you,’ he said to Swann, his eyes creasing with mirth. ‘Seen you around the neighbourhood, when I was livin at the Seaview.’

  Swann shrugged. He was there to observe but not speak, in case Cord tipped them to anything.

  Cassidy took a deep breath, sighed. ‘You hangin round the Nazis now, Ralph? They must love your ink.’

  Cord smirked, held out his forearm. ‘Self-tattooed mate. Work of fuckin art. I call it the low hangin fruit.’

  Cord was there under his own volition, and it made sense to go easy on him, but Swann and Cassidy knew that the old-school crim wouldn’t give them anything if they didn’t push, knock him off balance.

  ‘You join the Nazis because of the sour grape you copped last year?’ Cassidy asked. ‘Down there in Freo Prison? Those brothers who raped you must’ve loved your ink too, what I hear.’

  Cord’s face lost its colour. His back arched like a startled cat, cigarette hand beginning to tremble. ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘I heard the story from Gus Riley,’ Cassidy continued. ‘He told me that after you got excommunicated from the Junkyard Dogs, he had his blokes look at you while you were inside. Didn’t like what he saw, apparently. Left you exposed. Some of our native sons took offence to your work of art, I heard. Held you down and give it to you, and not once, either. Those new mates of yours, Kinslow and the other Nazi fuckwits, they know about you being used as a sperm bank by all the black boys who wanted a turn?’