Man in the Shadows (8 page)

18

I
couldn't see Krey now, he was too close to the house, but I saw his visitor—he wasn't wearing his uniform whites anymore but, even in the badly lit street, I couldn't mistake him—Pope, the rabbit killer. He seemed not to notice the car horn; he stood behind the Volvo, lifted his arm and levelled a pistol at Krey's back.

I whipped up the blind and smashed the window. I yelled something and brought my gun out. Pope swore and fired. The bullet whanged into the door. I stuck my head out trying to get a better look and saw Krey crouched behind a bush near the front door. Pope's attention was divided between his target and me.

‘Pope!' I pointed the 38 at him. ‘Drop the gun.'

Pope hesitated. There were two sharp reports; the windscreen of the Volvo shattered and Pope screamed and reeled back. His gun flew in the air and he collapsed in a heap. Krey remained in a crouch; he held Greenway's short-barrelled Nomad, still pointing it at the car.

‘Dr Krey, put the gun down.' It's hard to achieve much authority speaking through a broken window and Krey ignored me. I moved across the room, through the passage and opened the front door. He was crouched four or five metres away now; he'd jumped like a rabbit towards the corner of the garage. His eyes were wide and staring; he saw me step from the house and he raised the gun.

‘Don't shoot,' I said. ‘No more shooting.'

Greenway appeared beside the car. ‘He's got my gun.' He looked down. ‘This man's dead, I think.'

Krey moaned and moved the gun.

‘Doctor, stay calm. I'm a witness. Self defence.'

Krey raised the gun and rested it with the muzzle on his right temple.

‘No, Krey. Don't!'

He stood stiffly and moved into the shadows, just inside the garage. The shots had brought people to their doors and gates. Noise was building in the street. Someone ran across the road and bent over Pope.

‘Greenway,' I said. ‘Try to keep those people back. Tell someone to call the police.' I tried to keep my voice low and unalarming but I could hear Krey moving, shuffling back further into the darkness. ‘I'm going to try to talk to him.'

‘Don't come in!' The voice was sharp and clear.

‘I won't, doctor, don't worry. There'll be some people to help here soon.'

‘I'm beyond help, Hardy.'

‘That's not true. Tell me about it. You hired Greenway, did you?'

He laughed softly. ‘You've got a pretty good therapist's voice, Hardy, but it won't do any good. Yes, I hired him. I knew something rotten was going on at Southwood.'

‘Operating on drug abuse patients?'

‘Yes. Smith—trying to make a name for himself, going after American research grants. Barbaric!'

‘Easy. Why didn't you make a report, go through the proper channels?'

He didn't reply and I edged forward to the corner of the garage. ‘I can hear you,' he snapped. ‘Stay there! No one would believe me. I've got a record of . . . instability.'

‘What about Greenway?'

‘It wasn't a very clever thing to do. I hired him to cause trouble. I thought Smith might make some sort of mistake.'

‘You were acting when you and Smith interviewed me? After Pope had knocked me out.'

‘Acting? Yes, yes.'

He sounded edgy as hell; I had to keep pushing him but it was hard to know how hard to push. ‘Annie Parker,' I said softly. ‘You helped her get out of Southwood.'

‘I'm sorry about the girl. I lost track of her after she left the hospital. Then I followed you home and she turned up. I didn't mean to hurt her. The morphine was too pure or . . . I don't know. Something went wrong.'

‘What did she tell you?'

‘The patients are dead.'

‘Did she tell you that?'

‘She brought me to see it!' His voice rose and shook. ‘They were guinea pigs! That thug Pope picked them up and brought them in like Jews to Belsen. They're dead. I know it.'

‘Perhaps you're right.' I heard cars in the street but thankfully no sirens. People were moving around and some of the voices carried to me. I hoped they didn't reach Krey. I could feel waves of fear and despair coming from him through the darkness. ‘So you got the photographs back from Greenway and resigned your post. Look, it's not so bad. You can get clear of this. The girl thought well of you; I've got her diary . . . '

‘Don't tell me that. I killed her.'

‘Come out. Let's talk properly.'

‘You still don't see it, do you?'

‘See what?'

‘They'll blame me. It'll come out and they'll blame me.'

‘How can they? You had nothing to do with it.'

‘They've got lawyers. They can do anything. That's why I was going to kill him.' The voice was soft, barely audible.

‘Kill who?'

‘Smith. I took a taxi. I went . . . to the hospital. No, I stopped the taxi and came back. I'm confused.'

‘Yes, you are, Dr Krey. Please put the gun down and come out. It'll be all right.'

‘No. Stay back. That was Pope, wasn't it? I see it now. Smith sent him to kill me.'

‘Perhaps he did. That's in your favour.' There was movement behind me; I looked and saw two uniformed policemen approaching with their weapons drawn. I waved them back. ‘There'll be an enquiry. Smith is in trouble.'

‘Enquiry, Oh God, no. No, not another enquiry. I couldn't stand that.'

‘Doctor . . .!'

The shot from the Browning was loud and sharp like ten stockwhips cracking at once. I bent low and moved into the garage. The torch beam swept across the oil-stained concrete slab and stopped on Krey's face. He was on his back, eyes open; his head had fallen to the right a little so no wound was visible but the eyes were still and sightless.

 

19

T
HE cops rushed in and were reluctant to listen to my explanations. They had wanted to alert the Tactical Response Force and were angry that it wasn't necessary. One of them escorted me from the garage back to the street where Greenway was backed up against the Volvo. A big cop was practically standing on his feet he was sticking so close to him. Greenway was in shock or very nearly; he was pale and he seemed to have aged ten years. They took my gun away.

Two police cars roared into the street, swung on to the grass and braked centimetres from Krey's neighbour's fence. The constables got in some practice at crowd control. It was the most excitement Seventh Street had ever seen and everybody turned out. A hot dog seller could have done very well. I got cold standing around and was short-tempered when a detective arrived to take charge. He ignored everybody while he looked at bodies and guns. Then he listened to the most articulate of the uniformed men.

He nodded. ‘Bag them,' he said. ‘Get these two to town. Don't be rough.'

‘That's because he respects our civil rights,' I said to Greenway who needed cheering up.

The detective lit a cigarette. ‘I couldn't give a shit about your civil rights, Hardy,' he said. He waved the cigarette at a van pulling up across the street. ‘The TV boys've arrived. I wouldn't want them to
get the wrong impression.' He squared his shoulders, straightened his tie and took a last drag on his smoke. He'd stubbed it out when a blonde reporter with cabaret makeup, a trench coat and spike heels shoved a microphone under his nose.

‘Could you give us a statement, please.' She smiled winningly for the camera and the cop.

‘Yes. We received a report . . . '

I turned away and dived into the back of the nearest car. The last thing I need in my game is TV pictures of me being taken in for questioning. Greenway was right behind me; he seemed to have forgotten his former profession.

They took us to the new police headquarters, gave us coffee and brought in a smooth talking type to take statements and sniff the air. Greenway wanted to go back to day one but he tied himself in knots within a few sentences. I didn't say anything.

‘Mr Hardy?' Smoothie said.

‘I think we should give our accounts separately. I also think my lawyer should be here. He could represent us both.'

Greenway protested. ‘I can't afford . . . '

‘You can't afford not to,' I said. ‘Sackville—here's the number.'

Smoothie nodded. He wasn't like a cop at all. ‘Very wise,' he said.

It took a long time for them to find Cy Sackville and nothing could keep Greenway quiet. When he mentioned the hospital I glared at him.

‘Don't worry, Hardy,' Smoothie said. ‘We've got the documents from your car. We can put two and two together.'

‘I hope so,' I said. ‘There's a lot more than two and two in this.'

Sackville arrived; we made statements and were charged with trespass, illegal entry, arson and burglary.
Greenway was charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm. Sackville tried to get us out that night but it was no go. We were held in the headquarters lockup, went before the magistrate in Glebe in the morning and were given bail.

When we walked out of the court Greenway and I were unshaven and rumpled. Sackville was his usual dapper self. Frank Parker was waiting in the sunshine. We shook hands. He nodded to Greenway and Sackville.

‘I told you to be careful,' he said.

‘I was. Now tell me about Southwood Hospital.'

‘We paid a visit. Dr Smith got very confused about this bloke Pope. He made some damaging admissions.'

‘This won't come to trial,' Sackville said. ‘I'm rather sorry in a way.'

‘How's that?' I said. ‘You hate courts, hate and fear 'em.'

‘True. But I would've liked to see how the prosecution handled the matter of arson of a swimming pool.'

Like most things in life, I never came to a full understanding of it. Dr Krey wasn't the most rational of individuals and his movements and motives in regard to his hiring and watching of Greenway, his surveillance of my house and some of his other thought processes could only be guessed at. Investigations showed he had a record of intellectual brilliance and emotional instability. Some years back he'd been at the centre of an investigation into radical drug-based techniques for relieving anxiety and depression. He'd come out of the investigation with major financial and personality damage.

Legal proceedings over Smith and Southwood Hospital became very involved. Smith was charged
with conspiracy to murder Dr Krey but there was insufficient evidence to sustain the charge. Greenway and I concluded that Smith must have connected Krey with our raid on the hospital, but no one seemed very interested. The hospital's records had been confiscated but Smith had destroyed or removed some of them in the hours between our break-in and the arrival of the police.

‘That was a terrible job,' Frank told me. ‘You should've made the records secure. It's a dog's breakfast now.'

‘I had other things on my mind. That Pope was a dangerous type.'

‘Yeah. Doc Krey got off a lucky shot. Pope'd been shot before and he'd done some shooting. He was a hard case. Southwood had a few of them. And dodgy doctors. A real shithole.'

We were having this conversation in Hyde Park, eating sandwiches and trying to stay warm on a bench in a patch of sunlight on a cold May day. I flipped a crust at a seagull with pleasant markings and watched sourly while another bird got it first. ‘What about the patients who went missing?'

Parker shrugged. ‘Dead is my guess. You know how many people pop off in New South Wales every year?'

‘No idea.'

‘Over forty thousand. It's a big deck to shuffle and Smith'd be just the boy to shuffle it.'

‘Krey said he found out something about them from Annie Parker. He reckoned Smith'd do anything to get into the big research grants.'

‘Yeah, you told me. And Pope netted junkies like butterflies. That's not much use to us now, is it?' Frank crumpled his paper bag and threw it five metres into a bin. ‘That Annie was a second cousin of mine. Didn't know that, did you?'

‘No.'

‘Neither did I before this. That's modern life—we've got kin we don't know about all over the place. I've probably put a few of mine away. How about your mate, Greenway? What's he doing?'

‘Haven't seen him.'

Greenway phoned me a few days later. He told me he'd gone back to acting and had a part in a stage musical. It was in rehearsal. He'd get me tickets.

Helen likes musicals,
I thought. ‘Thanks,' I said. ‘You can sing, can you?'

‘And dance. And tell you what, I took the AIDS test. I'm clear.'

‘Great. Now you just have to find somebody the same.'

‘I've found him,' Greenway said.