The Tower (38 page)

His phone rang. It was Randall, who said, ‘Mate, what's going on?'

‘That number you gave me the other night, I did use it.'

Randall whistled. ‘Nice one. Have a good time?'

‘Who told you to give it to me?'

‘No one. What are you talking about?'

‘Something's come up about that. I need to meet you now.'

‘Can't do that. I'm out of Sydney.'

‘When are you back?'

‘Not until Monday. What's happened?'

Troy said nothing.

‘I'm sorry, I had to get away, needed a break.'

‘You could be hearing from some of my colleagues.'

There was a tiny pause. ‘Mate, tell me what this is about.'

‘This is the last chance to sort this out now. I know someone told you to give me the number. I want to know who that person was.'

‘I got it over a year ago, from an architect I met in Shanghai. I've used it myself heaps of times. It's perfectly legit. Has something happened?'

‘You'll be hearing from someone on Monday,' Troy said. ‘It'll be out of my hands by then. You need to understand that, what it means.'

‘Mate—'

Troy hung up. He didn't have a clue what he was going to do next. But he knew one thing: Randall had never called him
mate
before.

As he shaved in the bathroom at the station, Troy thought about Randall's involvement. He wondered if this could be about more than money, if someone wanted to influence his work, but that didn't make any kind of sense. He was only second in command of Tailwind, and had no knowledge that would help anyone. In any case, the investigation had been going only a few days, and he didn't see how anyone could have set up something like this so quickly. He thought about other investigations he'd worked on, court matters he had coming up. It didn't seem to fit; it wasn't as though he dealt with crimes involving career criminals or large sums of money. Most murders were committed by people with no criminal background. He couldn't see anyone he'd caught recently organising something like this.

Troy dried his face and picked up the disposable razor. He was looking around for the bin when the door opened and Ron Siegert came in. Troy hadn't spoken to him since the early days of the investigation.

Siegert nodded and started to wash his hands. He looked at Troy in the mirror. ‘How's Tailwind?'

‘I've never been in anything like it,' Troy said.

Siegert turned off the tap. ‘It's good you're back on it.' He seemed less aggressive than before. ‘Your father was a good cop too. Do you know why he left the job?'

He was looking at his hands now, not at Troy.

‘No. Do you?'

‘It surprised me. He was a friendly bloke but suddenly he was gone. I never saw him again.'

‘He went out bush a lot with his new job.'

Siegert looked as if he had something to say about that, but finally just nodded and banged on the hand-dryer. Over its roar he said, ‘He was a fine detective. Good instincts.'

Thirty-one

W
hen Troy got home it was one o'clock and Anna had already left. There was a note on the kitchen table with the Matarazzos' phone number and address. His wife, like himself, was well organised. She was constantly arranging their family and social life, cooking and cleaning up. Already she'd planned the next five years, was reading for the law course she planned to do. This suited him just fine. At a distance he could enjoy chaos—it was one reason he liked McIver—but home was different. Home, at least for him, was for security, not challenges. He wondered if that was where he and Anna had gone wrong, if they were just too similar.

Did he really know how she would react to the video footage? Maybe he was wrong to think she'd leave him. She might have depths of understanding and forgiveness. Maybe she'd already received the video by email, or photos in the mail yesterday, and had decided to say nothing. It might even be her way of compensating for the state of their relationship.

Ha ha.

He was hit by a need to know if she'd been sent the file yet. He didn't have the password to her part of their computer system, but knew she kept it written in a small blue notebook somewhere. He looked around but couldn't see it. He went into their bedroom and opened her side of the wardrobe and began to go through the drawers, ashamed of what he was doing but determined. There was a need to act.

He didn't find the notebook, but at the back of the bottom drawer there was a paper bag. It contained a repeat prescription written by a Dr Istvan Malecki for a course of Prozac. There was a bottle of the tablets in the bag too. He took it out slowly and looked at it. The bottle was almost empty.

Carefully he replaced the bag and closed the drawer, and went over to the computer in a daze. He'd had no idea Anna had sought treatment. A Google search revealed that Malecki was a psychiatrist.

‘I know you think I'm weak,' Anna had said to him in one of their tear-filled discussions some months ago. ‘I try hard, though. I really do.'

Cradling her when she cried. She had let him hold her, but it wasn't as though he was really there. Why hadn't she told him about the psychiatrist, when she knew it was what he wanted?

‘My wife, my mystery,' he said to the magnolia tree.

And my marriage. In your twenties you think life will just keep getting better. You're full of the optimism of ignorance. And then something like this comes along.

It was not as though the Prozac had done much good. He thought back to her locking her door the other night, the story this morning about him standing in her room after midnight. It was foolish to hope; if anything, she was getting worse. He realised that if this was the state she was still in, despite the psychiatrist and the medication, finding out about him and the prostitute might be the end. She must never see those pictures.

He spent the rest of the afternoon working in the garden. The lawn in the front and back had to be mowed, and a load of mulch had been delivered out front during the week, which he moved by barrow into the backyard. Anna was responsible for the flowers and went for what he called the Bollywood effect, large splashes of colour; clumps of blue hydrangeas, blazes of azaleas. He spread some of the rich mixture around the plants. It was satisfying work, hot and sweaty, and for a while he stopped thinking about things.

Anna and Matt got home at six, with Matt asleep in his seat in the back of her car. Troy lifted him out, breathing in a strong aroma of stale milk and vomit, and the unmistakable whiff of a nappy that needed attention. He took the boy inside, laid him gently on the change table and went to work. When he got the nappy off, Matt woke up suddenly and let out a yell, then saw his father and went straight back to sleep. For a moment Troy was awash with emotion.

‘He's exhausted,' Anna said, coming in from where she'd been filling the baby bath next door. ‘He had so much fun playing with their puppy. Maybe we should get a dog.'

‘He's filthy,' Troy said, looking at the dirt in the creases behind the baby's knees and the stains on the outside of the disposable nappy he'd just wrapped up.

‘He's a lovely little man,' she murmured, tickling the boy beneath his chubby chin.

Matt woke up, looking startled for a moment, and then began to gurgle with pleasure. Troy always enjoyed seeing the way she did that.

She removed Matt's top so he was naked, and lifted him and took him into the bathroom. She did it effortlessly. Matt was not heavy, and Anna was strong. She took him on long walks in his stroller each day, up and down the big hills of the district, often with friends. She'd done this from soon after he was born, and by the time he turned one her figure had returned pretty much to the way it had been before she became pregnant. Troy knew some mothers became depressed because they'd lost their shape, but Anna didn't have that problem. It was one reason her depression had surprised him, because she'd always seemed like a person who got on top of things.

He picked up the used nappy and took it out to the kitchen.

‘Are you hungry?' she called from the bathroom. ‘Let's get some takeaway.'

After washing his hands he changed his jeans, and put his keys and wallet in his pockets. He found Anna in Matt's room, bending over him as she prepared him for bed. She was wearing the same clothes she'd come home in: a bright pink T-shirt over a blue skirt that went almost to her knees. From behind he could see the two silver earrings in her right ear. She'd once told him Indians had invented body piercing.

‘What do you feel like?' he said.

She stood up and turned around, keeping a hand on Matt's leg as he lay there yelling gibberish and shaking a toy lamb.

‘I'll have some of whatever you get. Aleisha has agreed to babysit on Monday.'

‘Monday?'

‘So we can go out.'

He wondered what was happening. Hoped it wasn't another ChristLife event. ‘That'll be good.'

She smiled almost shyly. ‘Our anniversary.'

I've completely forgotten, he thought. But then that's normal, and maybe normal is good right now. He hadn't bought a present for her yet, of course. What a present it would be on Monday, if she saw the video footage then. It came back to him now, the horror of his situation. He was overreacting, of course. No he wasn't. He didn't know what was happening to him.

He said, ‘I'll get a pizza.'

SUNDAY

Thirty-two

R
andall woke up slowly, staring at a wall that he gradually realised was unfamiliar. After a bit he turned onto his back and contemplated the ceiling, working out where he was. A resort near Pokolbin, expensive, nice restaurant and sauna. He turned his head and saw Kristin wasn't there; she must have gone to the bathroom. Checking his watch— just after midnight—he realised he'd been asleep for less than an hour. He turned back to the wall, willing himself to sleep again.

They'd hit the wineries in the afternoon, done some serious research. She'd got right into it, recovered from her grumpiness of the morning. But when they got to bed, he'd had problems again, had almost got there, tried to make it up to her in other ways. It hadn't helped that she'd forgotten to bring any coke with her; that had been the arrangement so he hadn't bothered bringing any himself, and they were dry. They'd argued about this, she'd told him coke was part of his problem, she'd done him a favour by forgetting it. She had no idea what his problems were.

Truth told, he'd got angry with her, started to swear, pushed her at one point. If efficiency was her thing, what she was proud of, if she wanted to be on a par with men in that area, she had to take the rough with the smooth. She shouldn't have forgotten to bring the coke: actions have consequences.

He'd promised himself not to bring his mobile away with him, but of course he had. If the blow was going to fall, you had to meet it. Couldn't spend the whole weekend wondering. As his ma liked to say, a coward dies a thousand deaths. He'd thought he'd be scared of Troy, but it hadn't turned out that way at all when he'd called the day before. The fellow was cracking up, you could hear it in every word he spoke, behind all the tough-guy threats. It was a sad business, really. Randall thought he'd handled the call all right. Pretended complete ignorance. The stuff about cops paying him a visit on Monday had been scary, but Troy was bluffing. Almost certainly. Still, Randall had made the most of the tastings afterwards, drinking to carry himself off to a more pleasant place. No risk involved, they'd been using a resort limo to ferry them around. Beautiful semillons, enough age on them, some superb plonk. He'd spent over a thousand dollars, even bought a case for Kristin too. Made her happy.

So where was she? Getting out of bed, he padded over to the bathroom and opened the door. Empty. Opening his bag, he looked for the headache tablets, saw a DVD in its case. It had
Iceland
written on the cover, it was Kristin and him. Henry had returned it a few days ago, said it was one of his best efforts. Randall had brought it along, thinking he might play it if necessary last night, get them going. But he'd forgotten all about it.

He straightened up and waited for his head to stop hurting. Surveying the bedroom, he realised all her things were gone. Opening the front door, he stared into the cold night at where her car had been. Jesus.

How was he going to get back home? Should never have let her drive. He'd arranged to pick her up from work but she'd called him Friday, said she was out at Villawood, some crisis, the Thai girl she was so excited about had disappeared. She would come straight into the city and collect him, they could go in her car. Randall didn't like women driving him, but it was not something to raise with Kristin. They'd spent hours in her Prius, crawling up the freeway in the heaviest traffic.

There was a note on hotel paper, telling him it was over, she was being transferred away from Sydney soon anyway and it was best to end their relationship now. What relationship? he thought. Earlier that night, when he couldn't do it, she'd been angry. Worse than the night before. How dare she! He couldn't remember what had been said, but he'd been furious. He could remember the fury. It was all her fault—if the stupid bitch had brought the coke like she'd said she would, everything would have been fine. He just needed to relax. She'd spoiled the whole weekend and been too proud to admit it.

What a stupid note, he thought, crumpling it and throwing it through the open door into the bathroom. Later he'd wipe his arse with it, tell her what he'd done on Monday. He got up and went over to the bar fridge, poured himself some juice. Took it back to bed.

He thought about the DVDs he provided for Henry, how he had watched Randall having sex with at least half a dozen women by now, and shivered. The man was one sick fuck. But still, it gave him a hold over Henry, the fact that he knew about his little peccadillo. You had to wonder what Henry wanted from Troy. Maybe if he knew he could work out another way, make them both happy and get the cop off the hook. But he didn't.