Crucifixion Creek (26 page)

As the meeting breaks up, Deb says to Harry, ‘Okay, let's go and have a talk with
Pool.'

Harry checks his watch. He badly needs to talk to Tony Gemmell, and says, ‘Let's
leave it till tomorrow, Deb. I'm buggered.'

‘A chat to your girlfriend'll perk you up. Come on.'

She gets the number of the
Times
offices and asks for Kelly Pool. When she's told
Kelly's not available she asks to speak to the editor. She's put through to Catherine
Meiklejohn.

‘Can I ask what it's in connection with?'

‘We urgently need to speak to Ms Pool concerning the recent deaths in the Gipps Tower,
Ms Meiklejohn. We believe she can assist us with our enquiries.'

‘I see. Well, I'm afraid I can't help you. She was due here for an
editorial meeting
two hours ago and she hasn't shown up, and can't be contacted on her home or mobile
phones. We don't know what's happened to her.'

‘Can you give me her contact details please?'

‘I'm not sure that I can.'

It takes some persistence on Deb's part, but eventually Meiklejohn relents. Deb
tries the numbers herself. No result. Kelly's mobile is switched off and her landline
rings out.

‘Do you think she's done a runner?'

‘Why would she? She's probably hot on some story and'll come bouncing back tomorrow.'

Reluctantly Deb decides to let it go for now. They drive back to headquarters and
Harry checks out. As soon as he is clear of the building he calls Tony Gemmell.

‘Harry. I've been waiting to hear from you. The papers are full of it.'

‘So you know Bebchuk and Haddad are dead, Capp due to follow.'

‘They had it coming, mate. You comfortable with that?'

‘Yes, but we stirred up a hornet's nest. This is cop priority number one. Today they've
been rounding up all the bikies who were there and trying to reconstruct what happened.
They don't seem to have anything on your car though. How did you get home?'

‘All the bikes screamed straight off down the main road to Penrith and the motorway,
so I took the back streets around the town and headed back through St Marys and Mount
Druitt and Blacktown, nice and slow. How about you? Last I saw you were after Bebchuk
on some poor bastard's Harley.'

Harry tells him, then says, ‘They've got identikits of us, Tony, and yours isn't
too bad. One of their scenarios is that former Crows might've had a grudge against
those three, so they'll probably want to talk to you sooner or later.'

‘Okay. Any suggestions?'

‘Trim your hair and beard—nothing so drastic your friends will remember. And get
yourself an alibi for last night. Again, nothing exotic, just something you'd usually
do.'

‘Sure.'

‘And they'll possibly tap your phone.'

‘I've had practice, mate.'

‘I know.'

‘Mate, Rowdy's up there, raising a beer to us. I can see him now.'

Harry rings off and tries Kelly on his unmarked phone. No response.

34

When Deb and Harry spotted Kelly in Mortimer Street, she was staring at the upper
windows of the houses. It has taken her a while to get here, with everything that
happened last night, but the whole time she was trying to piece together the facts
and rumours around the bikie deaths, one part of her brain has been worrying away
at the children question. They flit in and out of her mind like little ghosts, just
like Phoebe's description. The reason she didn't dismiss it as senile rambling was
because of something she'd hardly registered until Phoebe raised the topic. That
first time the police were in Mortimer Street, when they raided the Crow clubhouse,
Kelly remembers seeing children's play equipment in the Crow courtyard, beyond the
flattened gates. It seemed incongruous, comical almost, and she'd thought no more
about it until Phoebe. And then, the paedophile allegation against Potgeiter.

Three disconnected references. A very flimsy foundation for any answer to the big
question—what the hell has been going on at Crucifixion Creek? But still, the children
keep coming back to trouble her, and so Kelly is here now, outside number eleven.
Not
staring down at the exotic cactus garden but up at the bedroom windows, which
are screened by internal grey blinds. And as she looks closer, she sees that the
upper windows of the adjoining houses, all along the street, are screened in exactly
the same way. Identical grey blinds. A job lot? A group discount buy? The effect
is uncanny, like a group of people standing together in the street, all with their
eyes closed.

She rings the front doorbell.

Nothing happens for a while, and then she notices a movement out of the corner of
her eye. The curtain of the little bay window over to the right of the door. Without
turning her head, Kelly slides her eyes to the right and catches a glimpse of a forearm
raised as if holding a phone to an ear. Then the curtain closes again.

She waits, and eventually the door opens and Donna Fenning smiles at her, feigning
surprise. ‘Oh, hello, um, sorry, I've forgotten your name…'

‘Kelly, Kelly Pool. Sorry to bother you again, Donna. Is this a bad time?'

‘Um, no, I suppose not. What is it?'

‘May I come in for a moment?'

‘All right.'

Donna has changed since the last time. She was enthusiastic about Kelly's articles,
was open and welcoming. Now she's like a different person.

They go into the front room again. Donna seems to rouse herself, and says, ‘I don't
know anything about what's been happening down the street. I didn't see anything
last night.'

‘Okay. But it wasn't about that. I just wanted to ask you more about the children.'

‘Children? There are no children here.'

‘Here?'

‘In the street.'

‘But last time you said there were bikie families here with kids.'

‘No, you must have misunderstood me. Years ago I suppose there were.'

‘But…in the bikies' compound I've seen children's play equipment, quite new-looking,
and a sandpit that had obviously been used recently—there was a bucket and spade
in the sand.'

‘I wouldn't know anything about that.' Donna is looking at her with a fixed stare,
and it seems quite apparent to Kelly that she's lying. Then Donna blinks a couple
of times and looks away. It is a moment Kelly recognises, the moment when the interviewee
realises they've been caught out. It is often followed by an admission.

Donna gets abruptly to her feet. ‘I'll tell you what. I baked a cake. I'd like some
coffee and cake, how about you?'

‘Mm, I'd love that.' This is encouraging, it means that Kelly is being invited to
stay. A hospitable interviewee usually turns out to be a truthful one.

‘Good. You just stay there and I'll fix it up in the kitchen.'

As soon as she's out of the room Kelly gets up. From the sounds, the kitchen is at
the back of the house, while the foot of the stairs is directly across the narrow
hallway from the living room door. Kelly steps quickly across and hurries up the
stairs. On the upstairs landing she tries the doors in turn—a bathroom, a master
bedroom with Donna's cosmetics on a dressing table, two smaller bedrooms. These other
bedrooms are very spartan, in each of them a couple of bare mattresses on folding
bed frames and a clothes rack with wire coat hangers. In one room there is a cheap
print of a desert island taped to the wall, and in the other a childish stick-figure
has been scrawled with a crayon on the wallpaper, low down near the skirting board.

Kelly returns to the stairs, and as she's halfway down Donna appears below her, carrying
a tray. She looks up and Kelly says, ‘Sorry, I was looking for the bathroom, do you
mind?'

‘Straight ahead of you at the top of the stairs.'

‘Thanks.' She turns back upstairs.

When she returns to the living room, Donna is pouring from a coffee pot into mugs.

‘Black or white?'

‘Black, one sugar please.'

‘It's quite strong. I hope that's all right for you.'

‘Perfect. I need it.'

‘Your job must run you off your feet. I feel stressed just thinking about it.'

Kelly goes along with the small talk, waiting for the moment of confession. The cake
is a well-made sponge, the coffee strong and sweet. She yawns, covering her mouth.
‘Sorry. Late nights.'

‘My husband has that, shiftwork at the hospital. Takes him time to adjust.'

Kelly wonders whether she should ask about what he does there, but frankly she's
not that interested. In fact she's not that interested in Donna. She asks herself
how a reporter could think that. Everyone has their stories to tell, and it's time
Donna told hers, like about that thing upstairs…what was it? She's so tired she's
finding it hard to think straight. The child's drawing on the wallpaper, that was
it. She yawns again and raises her hand, forgetting that she's holding the coffee
mug now.

‘Oops.' Donna takes the mug gently from her. ‘Thanks,' she mumbles. How did she get
to be so tired? Her eyes are blurry, and she tries to focus them on Donna, but it's
too difficult. She closes them, just like the blinds in the upstairs windows.

35

The next day, a Sunday, is Harry's rostered day off. He feels suspended once again,
waiting for events to unfold elsewhere, for the knock on the door, for Deb's husband
and his ninja mates to come storming in for him. He's grateful for Jenny and the
steady, determined way she goes about the daily chores, making the bed together,
preparing breakfast, writing out a shopping list. She hands it to him and it's not
bad.
Cauliflower
goes off the end of the page and
no-fat Greek yoghurt
runs downhill
across
my muesli
, but otherwise pretty impressive.

‘Fine,' he says. ‘I'll get onto it. You'll ring me if anyone calls on the landline?
And don't answer the door.'

‘Stop worrying,' she says, laying a soothing hand on his arm. ‘If this is our last
day of freedom, let's enjoy it.' She's teasing him. But is that how she's secretly
thinking, that their world may collapse at any moment?

As soon as he's in the car he rings Kelly again. Nothing. What the hell is she doing?

Frustrated, he calls the accountant, Sam Peck. ‘Sam, hi,
Harry. Listen, I need to
talk to you about one or two things, Greg's accounts.'

‘Jeez, Harry, it's Sunday.'

‘Yeah, well I've been busy. Homicide never sleeps.'

‘Lindy's got people coming over for lunch; she's going nuts. Actually, yeah, maybe
I can spare an hour. At the office?'

‘If that's where the records are, yes.'

He is opening up the office when Harry gets there. ‘Lindy blew her top when I said
I had to go out. I hope this is worth it.'

‘So do I. I want to look at Greg's records for three years ago, June 2010.'

‘Three years ago? Come on, Harry, that's ancient history!'

‘What if it was the ATO springing a desk audit on you? Come on, last month of the
financial year. You should know all about it.'

‘Mind telling me why? What are you looking for?'

‘Humour me.'

So Sam, grumbling, pulls files from his cabinet and sits down at his desk, switching
on the computer. ‘Let's see, let's see…' He begins flicking through Greg's bulging
client file with notes of meetings. ‘Oh god, yeah,' he groans. ‘He was having one
of his crises…Then at the last minute a cheque came in, a big one, right at the end
of June.'

‘Who was it from?'

‘The council. Greg was doing a lot of maintenance and small works for them. Yeah,
I remember now. They'd approached him a couple of months before to do a heap of small
jobs. They were in a rush to get them done before their grant ran out at the end
of the tax year. It was a godsend for Greg. He put his other work on hold and took
on extra people. Course there were big outlays, materials, wages, but the council
blokes assured him he'd be paid in regular instalments. Only that didn't happen.'

Sam flicks through the pages of the file, notes of telephone calls, meetings. ‘Yeah,
after the second month the bank started getting shirty about his overdraft and he
got back to the council. More
promises. There was some problem with the finance department's
computer or something. Not to worry. But he
was
worried, Greg, because the council
needed to make the payment before the end of June, before their grant money expired,
or he might have to wait months before they found the cash to see him right.'

‘But they did pay?'

‘Yeah, on the thirtieth of June, right at the death knock. But only after Greg had
gone to see one of the councillors, who eventually sorted it out.'

‘Do you know his name?'

‘No, no idea. Someone he met at Rotary or Lions or somewhere.'

‘Did Greg go on doing work for the council?'

‘Yes. He called it bread and butter work, not the sort of difficult jobs he liked
to get his teeth into, but it was good for the bank balance.'

‘And were they responsible for his latest crisis?'

Sam frowns. ‘Not that I know of, but I can't really be sure. Greg tended not to confide
in me until things really went pear-shaped, and this last time was all about the
Bluereef loan. And like I said, he didn't consult me on that one until it was too
late.'

‘Okay, thanks.'

‘Should I be looking into the council contracts?'

‘No, don't worry. I might have a word with Peter Rizzo.'

‘You'll probably find him at the new depot. He told me he's flat out.'