A Dark Place to Die Page 21

  In a bland interview room at Stanley Road which doubles as an ad hoc meeting room, Keane sits around the table with Harris and DC Wills. Scott Corner, slow to finish the phone conversation he was involved in when the meeting was called, is last to arrive and an impatient Keane stifles the reflex to give him the sole of his shoe. The air is already thick with a sour feeling of failure which Keane is anxious to dissipate, and ripping Corner a new one will do nothing for the team, no matter how much Keane is tempted.

  'We've been concentrating on the crime,' he says as Corner slips into a chair. He looks flushed and, to Keane's eyes, not half as sorry as he should be for holding things up. He ignores Corner and continues. 'And Koop arriving hasn't helped that. Now all The Fish wants to do is to nail Koopman for Kite. It's perfect; Perch gets to look aggressive, and one of the city's biggest criminals is off the scene for good.'

  'It works for me,' says Harris. Nothing Keane's been saying or doing has stopped her worrying about MIT going out on a limb. The trick, she feels now, is to not be on the tree when – and she thinks it will be when, not if – the bough breaks.

  It's a thin line between loyalty and stupidity and one that for Em Harris is becoming thinner with every passing minute. 'You said yourself that Koopman never let details get in the way of a collar.'

  'A collar is one thing, Em. Doing that, even to someone like Kite, is way beyond Menno Koopman.'

  Harris purses her lips although she knows Keane is probably right. 'Probably' isn't good enough, though; experience has taught her that what often looks to be the case turns out to be the case.

  'We can't let Koopman go.'

  'No,' says Keane. 'Of course not. Perch has already been on to Australia and they're handling things if and when he pops up. Not that he will. OCS are at Manchester now. We can't worry too much about Koopman until he's brought in.'

  'So what do we worry about, boss?' says Wills. 'We have to worry about something.'

  'The money. We worry about the money.'

  'What money?' says Harris. She's chewing the end of her pencil.

  'There's always money,' says Keane. 'Look, Stevie White came out here for a reason, correct?'

  There are nods around the table.

  'Which tells us . . .?'

  'There's an Australian connection.' Harris sounds a little irritated. 'We know this, Frank.'

  'But we haven't looked at it closely enough. Not yet.'

  'What do you want us to do, sir?' says Rose. Harris looks at her sourly. She's losing her equal billing with Frank. Both DCs are giving their attention to Keane, the alpha male. It will have to stop.

  'I think what DI Keane is trying to say is that we should look more closely at the possible reasons why Steven White came to be here. We need to talk to anyone from Kite's crew –'

  'Won't that upset OCS?' says Caddick.

  'Fuck OCS,' says Keane. He's talking quickly. Wired. 'We talk to anyone we know with a sniff. We talk to Bourke again. Things are different with Kite off the scene. He's not going to give us much, but without the threat of Kite maybe Sean will spill a little more, who knows?'

  'And DCI Perch?' Wills raises his eyebrows.

  'We keep DCI Perch fully informed at all times of any information we think may be relevant to the investigation,' says Em Harris crisply. She looks at Keane. 'At all times.'

  Keane holds his hands up. 'I wouldn't have it any other way. Now, if there's no more business, I suggest we pull our fucking fingers out and get some traction on this again.'

  As everyone shuffles papers and pushes chairs back with a series of rubbery squeaks, Keane notices that Corner hasn't moved.

  'Scott?' says Keane.

  Scott Corner licks his lips. 'Well . . .' he starts slowly. 'You're not going to like it. I didn't want to say owt in front of the rest of 'em.'

  'For fuck's sake, spit it out, man,' Keane snaps. Morale is one thing but Corner's hesitancy is beginning to bug him.

  'The phone call I was on before the meeting?' says Corner. 'It was Bowden.'

  Keane raises an eyebrow. What the fuck is Bowden?

  'The hospital,' says Em Harris. 'The one Koopman's brother is at.'

  'That's just the thing,' says Corner, speaking rapidly now. 'I was just tidying up some loose ends in our paperwork and it turns out there's a problem.'

  'What sort of problem?' says Keane, a thin finger of apprehension tickling the back of his neck.

  'Carl Koopman is the problem, boss,' says Scott Corner. 'Bowden Hospital say he isn't there. He's been out on something called Controlled Supervision since August. We fucked up.'

  47

  As is his way, Jimmy Gelagotis is worrying about details. One particular detail.

  The boy on the soccer field is a loose end.

  It was a mistake leaving him alive and Stevie's death has brought it home to Jimmy that he's not invincible. With the Poms turning out to be psychos, the last thing Jimmy needs is pressure from another angle. Which is what he's got.

  The boy was mentioned on Channel 7 news last night as Jimmy ate his pasta, the tray on his knee, the whole family there. 'A witness, they said. Helping police with their inquiries. Not good. I should have shot the little fucker.

  He picks up his mobile and scrolls to Todd Burns's number. Burns works as a desk sergeant at the Southport police station on Scarborough Street, and has access to most useful information that can be had.

  He is also into Jimmy for well over a hundred grand.

  A lithe, tan surfer ten years ago, Burns drifted into recreational drugs and gambling in a big way, at the same time as maintaining – just – his regular job on the force. Now his access to information is the only thing he has left to bargain with. If Todd Burns wasn't Jimmy Gelagotis's pet he'd have been dead years ago.

  Of course Jimmy is still careful. His inquiry to Burns is about the Kolomiets case after all. Burns knows nothing substantial about Jimmy's business but he isn't entirely stupid. Pathetic, but not stupid. Jimmy talking about the dead Ukrainian is sure to tip him that Jimmy had a hand in it. Not, reflects Jimmy, that that would mean much. Burns is fully aware he'd be dead if he ever so much as breathed Jimmy Gelagotis's name to anyone investigating the Kolomiets case.

  Jimmy decides to risk it.

  He presses the button and wakes Burns at home, sleeping before his nightshift later that day. Burns doesn't complain. He tells Jimmy what he needs to know and puts the phone down without ceremony, neither man wanting to be connected for any longer than is strictly necessary.

  Jimmy sips his coffee – long black as always. He's now in possession of two important pieces of information. The boy hasn't talked, not yet. They've been trying, Burns said, but there wasn't very much they could do with a witness that young who simply wouldn't talk. After what he's seen, persuasion and time are being used.

  'They've got a shrink coming in from Brisbane tomorrow,' Burns told him. 'He's worked with silent witnesses before. Supposed to be good.'

  The second piece of information is the boy's name. Burns bargained for that one and Jimmy almost yelled at the bent copper. Instead he forgave the hundred grand in exchange for the name. It didn't matter, not really. After this conversation, Jimmy is sure that the next time he sees Todd Burns he's going to kill him.

  After he's taken care of the boy.

  Jimmy stares into his coffee. After a minute or two he waves Chris over and tells him to go get a clean car. A throwaway, adds Jimmy. Call me when you've got it.

  Some time later, Jimmy's phone buzzes. Chris has the car and is parked three streets away. He knows better than to pull up in front of the café; a good lad. Expinos.

  Jimmy pockets his own car keys, gathers his phone and, after a word with Nils, the manager of the café, walks outside into the sun. He gets into the car and turns towards Broadbeach.

  On the pavement, Chris takes out his phone and dials a number.

  48

  Koop gets all the way to Manchester before he realises how badly he's screwed this. In the
cold flat light of a Manchester morning, running is looking like a big fat mistake; one of the worst decisions he's made. Koop rubs his head, his fingers tracing the bruising. Kite's boys must have done some fucking brain damage judging by his solution to finding the body in his room.

  What was I thinking?

  Menno Koopman knows more than anyone he's good for Kite's death – more than good, close to perfect – but, as an old pro, he also knows there are plenty of gaps in the case against him. Which is why running was such a dumb move. It won't make picking open those gaps any easier.

  There's only one thing to do.

  Koop finds a quiet seat in the Emirates lounge, takes out his phone and calls Frank. Once the connection's made Koop explains what's happened in a few short sentences.

  'You fucked me over, Koop,' says Frank. Koop can hear the stress in his voice.

  'Are you going to get into this now, Frank?'

  'Where are you?'

  'I'm in the Emirates first class departure lounge.'

  'First class?'

  'Don't ask. I'll wait for you here. Be less embarrassing than out on the concourse.'

  'It won't be me coming, Koop,' says Frank. 'OCS have got this now.'

  Koop signs off and slumps back in the armchair.

  It's a pity I didn't get onto the plane, he thinks. He'd like to have flown first class at least once.

  Less than three minutes after his call to Frank, two uniforms appear inside the lounge. They don't approach Koop but he knows he's the reason they're there. Friends or not, Koop's a suspect in a killing.

  Forty minutes later, Dave Reader and Ian Moresby make the pick-up at Manchester Airport personally. Koop goes back a long way with both men and there is an almost apologetic air about their manner when they walk into the lounge, a couple more uniforms behind them. When he sees them, Koop stands and walks towards the detectives and shakes their hands. As Moresby cuffs Koop, he has the good grace to look a little embarrassed.

  Which is good. That embarrassment tells Koop that Reader and Moresby know this is a little flaky. Still, flaky or not, they'll be only too happy to be associated with a high-profile case like Kite's, even if it is one of their own they're bringing in. He doesn't blame them. He'd have felt the same way if the roles had been reversed. A collar is a collar.

  After some paper-shuffling and arm-wrestling, Reader and Moresby prise Koop from the sticky fingers of the Manchester Airport Police, who've been greedily eyeing a slice of the action, and head for the car park. A uniform opens the door to the car and Moresby uncuffs Koop.

  'Don't give me the run-around, Koop,' he says. 'I won't be made a dickhead, got that?'

  'There's only one dickhead around here, Ian.' Koop shakes his head. 'And you're looking at him. There'll be no more running. I phoned you, remember?'

  'Personally I think whoever killed that gobshite should be given a reward,' says Moresby. 'There's no-one mourning that little scumbag, except a whole lot of nasty little scumbag scrotes just like himself. And I think the Halligan brothers are probably still out celebrating.' Koop doesn't bother protesting he didn't kill Kite. That will come later. Right now he's grateful for Moresby's 'whoever'.

  Koop takes his place in the back seat of the Range Rover and Moresby slides in next to him. With a nod from Reader in the front passenger seat, the uniform points the car back west towards Liverpool.

  There's silence until they reach the 62. Something Moresby said is reverberating with Koop. The mention of the Halligans, that's what it was. A fruitful line of thought begins to open up and Koop realises he's thinking like a cop again. Whether or not that's a good thing remains to be seen. He knows what Zoe would think about it.

  'You know I didn't do it.' Koop makes the statement flatly. He doesn't expect Reader or Moresby to do much in the way of responding. 'This thing won't fly, Chris.'

  Reader twists round to face Koop and as he does so his eyes catch Moresby's. Koop feels a flicker of something pass between them.

  Interesting.

  Dave Reader drapes his arm over the seat and holds his gaze on Koop. 'It's got a halfway decent set of wings right now, to be honest. You know how it is when it's an ex-cop who gets pulled in. Everyone's watching us to do one of two things: roll over and let them go, or come down hard. Prove we're not whitewashing. Right now the OCS is pressing for the second option. But we'll sort it all out back home. Maybe you're right. I hope so.'

  Koop replies with a shrug before turning to stare out of the window as the monotonous and depressingly familiar landscape flies past. Reader's mention of 'home' is clicking some cogs.

  He checks his watch. Only eleven. He'd be doing his deliveries right now. Back home. Except it isn't eleven in the morning in New South Wales, it's ten at night. Koop rubs his eyes. What a glorious, nine hundred per cent, cast-iron fuck-up he's managed to get involved with. How did he ever think coming back to the city would do anything to help Stevie? What was he, the Lone fucking Ranger?

  He rests his brow against the cold glass and listens to the hiss of the Range Rover's tyres sending an arc of dirty spray out behind them. Koop had gone a long way to escape this kind of weather, this kind of life, to free himself from ever having to come into contact with pond-life like Kite again.

  And yet here he is. Up to the elbows in shit.

  Great job, Koopman. Mission accomplished.

  'You like it out there?'

  Koop blinks. 'What? Sorry?'

  Reader shifts round in his seat again. 'Australia, Koop. You like it?'

  'Australia?' repeats Koop stupidly. 'Yeah. I do. It's good.' His voice and words sound awkward and he realises how tired he is. He hasn't slept more than half an hour in the last twenty-four and it's beginning to tell.

  'Sorry, Chris,' says Koop. 'I'm not at my best. Yeah, we love it out there.'

  Reader smiles. 'I don't blame you for leaving this country, Koop. The place is going to the dogs faster than you'd believe possible. There'll be more Poles and Latvians than English before too long the way things are going. But I don't know how you could live with all that heat. It'd do my head in. And I'd miss it all. The footy. Pubs. The beer. Fish and chips. England. Home.'

  They're passing the blue-and-yellow rain-streaked rectangular block of IKEA. A lengthy queue of cars has already formed at the entrance and Koop glimpses people hurrying loaded trolleys stacked with flat-packed bric-abrac through the rain towards their Fords and Mazdas and Volvos. Few of them wear suitable clothing, most clad only in thin t-shirts and tracksuits, as if they entered IKEA in Spain on a sunny July day and exited to find themselves in a rainy Warrington in October. Koop remembers his first – and only – visit to the store with Zoe when they were kitting out a spare room. Its relentless corporate zeal and zombie-like customers put him in mind of the seventh ring of hell and he'd sworn never to set foot inside the place – or anything resembling it – ever again. He was mildly depressed to discover an IKEA on the Gold Coast although there, at least, the chubby customers seemed dressed for the weather.

  In the Northern Rivers, the summer is just beginning. Koop pictures the late-evening sun slanting through the leaves of his lime and mandarin trees at the back of the house, where the land slopes down towards the western ranges. He thinks about early morning nude swims with Zoe on deserted white-sand beaches, within metres of dolphins surfing in perfect unison through the glassy curl of green-blue waves. He thinks about eagles taking bream from the shallows while he was drinking coffee and shooting the shit with Marius at the café, of hiking the trails around Minyon Falls, of making love with Zoe and Mel in their big bed in the shade of the fig tree as the sun was coming up.

  'I know what you mean,' he says, turning away from the window and back to Reader. 'But you can get used to anything.'

  'It'd be all the creepy-crawlies I couldn't stand.' This from Ian Moresby, a man who Koop had seen take a loaded shotgun from a drugged-up psychopath in the manner of a man removing a melting ice-cream from the hand of a toddler, and with no m
ore fuss. Moresby shivers theatrically in his seat. 'No, never could stand all those spiders.'

  'And sharks!' Reader chimes in. 'You couldn't go in the water now, could you?'

  'I saw a program once where they said that almost everything in Australia can kill you,' says the uniform, surprising them all. 'Even the jellyfish. They've got these ones that are only the size of your thumb, but can kill a fully grown horse.'

  Reader smiles at Koop and waggles his thumb at the driver. 'It talks. Like a grown-up and everything. Just concentrate on the road, David Attenborough. And when have you ever heard of a jellyfish killing a fucking horse? What's the fucking horse doing in the fucking water in the first place, you knob?'

  'Irukandji,' says Koop.

  'Iruki-fucking-what?'

  'The name of the jellyfish. Irukandji.'

  Koop appreciates what they're doing. Safe ground. Avoiding talking about anything related to the case until they're inside an interview room with the tapes rolling.

  He spends the rest of the trip indulging in a favourite Australian sport: Pom-scaring. Huntsman spiders feature prominently. As do brown snakes, stingers, crocodiles, white pointers, cockroaches the size of Volkswagens, and stick insects that could be mistaken for logs. The cops in the Range Rover lap it up.

  At Stanley Road, the atmosphere shifts as soon as they pull into the car park. Moresby slips the cuffs back onto Koop's wrists.

  'Wouldn't look right if there's any brass hanging around,' he says to Koop. The car arrives at the back entrance and Reader steps out almost before the wheels have stopped turning. Moresby helps Koop out and the three of them splash through the puddles and go inside. Koop sits on a bench while Reader does the paperwork with the booking officer. Despite the friendliness of the policeman at the desk, Koop feels a chill. For the first time since finding Kite's body he feels truly vulnerable. Sitting here, he's as far from home as it's possible to be. In so many ways.

  There's a flurry of movement from outside and the doors to the booking room open. DCI Perch comes in like a politician visiting a far-flung colony, Keane and Harris behind him. Neither looks particularly happy with the way things are panning out. Perch regards Koop with disdain but says nothing. He nods to Reader and Moresby who reply in kind.