Good Murder (26 page)

‘I could open you up like that pig,’ he said, ‘and your guts would fall into your lap and you wouldn’t be dead. You’d see your own intestines. Would you like that?’

Arthur’s voice was caressing. Flint shook his head, his lips quivering and tears, and snot running down his face.

‘I’ll start here,’ Arthur said and dug the point of the knife into Flint’s skin just below the navel. Flint began yowling in a way that was both pathetic and terrifying.

‘What? What? What?’ he said. ‘What do you want?’

Arthur withdrew the knife and straightened up.

‘Who paid you to kill Polly Drummond and her mother?’

It took a moment for the question to sink in. Flint was still shaking and blubbering, but I saw the bewilderment in his eyes when he finally understood Arthur’s words. It was a reaction impossible to fake. Arthur saw it, too. His features sagged for the briefest of moments with the appalled realisation that he had wounded and humiliated an innocent man. Whatever unpleasant things Flint had done in his miserable life, killing Polly and her mother were not among them.

‘I didn’t kill anybody. I swear I didn’t.’

Flint had not detected any change in Arthur’s face and still believed that he was only a few seconds away from being disembowelled.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please. I didn’t kill anybody.’

‘Where’s Joe Drummond,’ Arthur snapped.

‘Joe?’ he sniffled. He was thrown by the question. ‘Joe left Maryborough years ago. I don’t know where he went. Honest.’

The way he said ‘honest’ was almost heartbreaking in its transparent attempt to indicate that, although he did not grasp any of what was happening to him, he was prepared to answer any question, even if it made no sense to him, and he was prepared to answer it truthfully, because a truthful answer to an absurd question was all he had left. Arthur knew, and I knew, that he not seen Joe, let alone disposed of him. As I took in the scene before me, its ghastliness made my knees tremble. We had entered a world that was almost apocalyptic in its awfulness: the flies buzzed with renewed frenzy over the malodorous gralloch of the pig; Flint sat, bleeding and broken, and beginning to be plagued by flies as well; and Arthur stood, knife in hand, agog, I thought, at what he had wrought, and wondering what to do next.

‘Suppose I believe you,’ he said. ‘Suppose I let you go. What’s in it for me?’

I could see where Arthur was heading. Flint was too dazed and too naturally stupid to comprehend the fact that a deal was being offered, but it was a deal designed to protect us from him, not him from us. It was critical that Flint thought the latter. Arthur went on.

‘Let’s get one thing straight. We didn’t kill your dogs. They were already dead when we got here.’

Flint looked blank. His terror was receding, and he was beginning to experience the mortifying awareness of the extent of his abasement.

‘Do you understand that? We did not kill your dogs.’

Flint nodded.

‘All right. Now, maybe you can help us. Do you want to help us?’

Flint nodded again.

‘Because if you’re not willing to help us, you’re no use to us. And if you’re no use to us, you’re no use to anybody. And if you’re no use to anybody, you might as well be dead.’

Flint flinched.

‘I’ll help,’ he croaked. ‘How? What do you want me to do?’

‘We want you to help us find the lunatic who killed Polly and her mother, and now Joe.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ he said, his voice tremulous.

‘We want you to help us when we need it, that’s all. You do a couple of small things for us, you get to keep your guts on the inside. Fair enough? And what happened here goes no further. The fact that Mal Flint pissed his pants can be our little secret.’

My knees were still trembling, and I did not trust myself to speak. My voice would reveal that Flint had nothing to fear from me. It was apparent, though, in the relaxation of his body, that he had accepted Arthur as a kind of pack leader. I didn’t think that he would attempt to exact revenge when he was untied. He was in no physical condition to do so anyway. Arthur cut through Flint’s restraints with the bloodied knife, threw it into a corner, and offered him a hand up. Flint barely moved, then slowly drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around his legs. It was a curious thing to do. I suspected that he didn’t want to stand up and expose the shame of his micturition.

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked, and looked first at Arthur and then at me. There was no defiance in his eyes; all that they revealed was total submission. Incredible as it seemed, Mal Flint had become our creature.

‘Nothing for the moment. Absolutely nothing. We’ll contact you when we need something done. In the meantime, just do whatever it is you normally do.’

He indicated the pig with his thumb.

‘Enjoy your pork.’

I thought he was going to give Flint one final kick, but he turned and walked down the corridor and out of the house. I was left for a moment with Flint. When he looked at me this time, I thought that unless I moved quickly he would leap at me and wring my neck.

Once outside, I hurried to catch up with Arthur, who was already at Walkers Point Road.

‘Jesus Christ!’ I said. ‘What happened in there? What got into you? You scared the shit out of me.’

‘The idea was to scare the shit out of Flint.’

‘Yeah, well, mission accomplished, I’d say. I’ve never seen you like that. What would you have done if Flint hadn’t broken?’

‘He’s a bully, and bullies always break. But if he hadn’t broken, I would have killed him.’

We were now in Odessa Street, heading back towards the Granville Bridge. I let Arthur’s words sink in.

‘Could you really do that? Could you kill someone?’

Arthur stopped and placed his hand on my chest.

‘Could I kill someone? Yes, yes. I could do that. I wasn’t acting in there, Will. You should know I’m not that good an actor.’

He gave my chest the slightest of shoves as he removed his hand. It was a small, telling gesture.

‘Did you enjoy doing that to Flint?’ I asked quietly.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I enjoyed it very much.’

I must have looked nonplussed. He went on. ‘Listen, Will. You think you know me because you know that I’ve only got one ball, but what else do you know about me? Nothing.’

I shrugged.

‘I respect your privacy. I’m not the kind of person to pry.’

He released a rather mean little laugh.

‘No, Will. It’s got nothing to do with respecting privacy. It’s because you’re simply not interested.’

He was becoming agitated — probably, I thought, as a consequence of the fierce encounter he had just had with Flint. I decided not to press him further. I had caught a glimpse of an Arthur Rank who was a stranger to me. A rather frightening stranger.

‘Don’t worry, Will,’ he said. ‘When we get back to the George I’ll be the damaged, compliant Arthur you think you know.’ He laughed again, and this time I could hardly fail to miss the hint of nastiness in it.

We didn’t speak after that. The bridge was down, so we were spared the awkwardness of waiting. I wanted to speak, but felt constrained by Arthur’s distance. I wanted my mind put at ease. How could we be sure that Flint wouldn’t come after us? What were we going to say about Joe? The police were bound to think that I had had something to do with his disappearance. The closer we came to the hotel, the more urgent was my need to talk. There was something closed about Arthur now, and talking was out of the question. So when we entered the George and found Topaz waiting there for us, I experienced something close to internal hysteria. I may even have done a double-take the comic equal of Oliver Hardy. It did not go unnoticed.

‘Surprise!’ he said.

‘I think we can match your surprise and raise you,’ Arthur said.

My eyes must have widened significantly, and I think I may even have uttered a little gasp of shock, reminiscent of the first contact of testicles with cold water. This also did not go unnoticed.

‘Will would rather you didn’t know what happened this morning, but we have nothing to hide.’

Topaz looked at me as if to confirm this judgement. I stared back, bewildered, struck dumb by Arthur’s impending confession.

‘Let’s go into the bar,’ Arthur said. ‘Will and I could use a drink.’

‘You could both use some iodine, too,’ Topaz said. ‘I’m beginning to think you should carry some with you at all times,’ he said to me. I couldn’t produce even the weakest of smiles. In a few minutes he was going to arrest us both for attempted murder.

There was no one in the bar, and Arthur helped himself to two whiskeys.

‘We think Joe Drummond might be dead,’ he said. ‘He’s certainly missing.’

It was hard to read Topaz’s face. This news must have struck him as singular, but he gave nothing away. He scratched at his chest behind the second-top button of his shirt.

‘Go on,’ he said, and Arthur went on and told him everything. He admitted that what he had done to Mal Flint constituted serious battery. Just in case Topaz was thinking of offering self-defence as a justification, Arthur said, ‘And there is no way my actions could be interpreted as self-defence. At least, not beyond the point where he was tied up. Unless it could be argued that I was defending myself against something he might do in the future, and I don’t think the law works like that.’

Topaz leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. The silence was like the silence before the detonation of a doodle-bug.

‘It’s amazing,’ he said. ‘The full resources of the Maryborough police couldn’t protect Joe Drummond against two interfering actors.’

‘Hey,’ I said indignantly. ‘We didn’t twist Joe’s arm. He had a personal interest, and wanted to see Flint as much as we did.’

‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have been going anywhere near Flint. That’s police business. How many more people have to die before it occurs to you that your investigating skills are not up to scratch?’

‘I could ask the same question of you.’

This elicited the slightest of smiles.

‘The most astonishing thing about you, Will, is your inability to take responsibility for anything you do.’ He leaned forward. ‘But I want you to know that if Joe is dead, I will hold you responsible. You may not have killed him, but you’re still responsible.’

My mouth dropped open in a caricature of indignation.

‘We almost got killed this morning,’ I said, ‘doing your job!’

‘No, Will,’ he said, his face flushing as his temper flared. I had never seen Topaz angry, and I was alarmed at the prospect. ‘No. The two of you almost committed murder. That’s what actually happened this morning — and, for all I know, maybe you did.’

‘Flint’s alive,’ I said dismissively.

‘I wasn’t actually talking about Flint.’

‘All right, all right,’ Arthur said. ‘Let’s all calm down. I see your point, even if Will doesn’t. We could be providing each other with an alibi to cover murdering Joe. But we’re not. Obviously, it might look like that, but I think you know that that’s not what happened.’

‘I’ve got enough to arrest the two of you on suspicion. And yes, that’s a threat. Conroy is not going to be a happy man when he hears about this, and believe me, Will, nothing would give him greater pleasure than to see you locked up. I’m beginning to come round to his point of view on that one.’

He stood up.

‘I’m going to see Flint. He’ll say nothing, probably. He doesn’t like coppers. Unfortunately for the two of you, this is the type of thing he likes to take care of himself.’

‘I think you’ll find Flint a changed man,’ I said.

‘Flint’s a mad dog. If you think you’ve nobbled him, you’re kidding yourselves. I don’t care if you’ve cut his balls off and made him eat them. He’ll come back at you and beat you to a pulp. That’s what he does. Nothing subtle, nothing planned. He’ll just turn up and smash every bone in your face. I warned you to stay away from him. Take a good look in the mirror, Will. When he’s finished with you, you’ll never look the same again.’

With those comforting words, he left.

‘Is he right, do you think?’ I asked Arthur, who had, annoyingly, listened to Topaz without rancour.

‘Yes, I think he’s right,’ he said flatly and then, to my horror, he added, ‘But he won’t come after me. He’ll come after you. You’re a softer target.’

Chapter Nine

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