The Big Ask (17 page)

Darren's funeral was held that afternoon at St John's in Toorak. Bob's elevated status ensured a big turnout. Several former federal Cabinet ministers attended and many a crocodile tear was shed in the memory of a promising young man so untimely squished. Among the shedders, caught briefly in the sweep of the television cameras as the casket was borne down the front steps, was the entire state executive committee of the United Haulage Workers. Watching it that night at home, I glimpsed Frank Farrell's face in the congregation.

Unlike that of his older brother, though, Darren's fate had no appreciable impact on Stuhl Holdings' share price.

Monday saw me back at the office. In my absence, Angelo had signed the contract. It was waiting in my in-tray along with a preselection nomination form and a copy of the party membership rolls for Melbourne Upper. The message was clear. The skulduggery was to commence.

I phoned a real estate agent and made arrangements to rent a one-bedroom flat in Preston. This would allow me to claim to be a resident of Melbourne Upper, always a useful sop to local sensibilities. I spent the rest of the morning poring over the membership list, mapping known factional allegiances, ethnic affiliations and personal networks. When I returned from lunch, I found a telephone message slip on my desk. It stated that Senior Sergeant Webb had called requesting that I ring him regarding an appointment.

As a general operational principle, I avoid lawyers. They leave bits of paper everywhere and cost a poultice. But since push was coming to shove, it seemed advisable to share my burden with somebody more acquainted with police procedures. I rang a man named Pat O'Shannessy, known to me only by reputation.

Commonly called One-Stop, O'Shannessy was a criminal lawyer who plied his trade in places where more fastidious eagles feared to fly. He listened to the bare bones of my situation, took Spider's direct line and rang me back fifteen minutes later.

‘Citywest police station, three this afternoon. See you at my chambers at two.'

One-Stop's chambers were smack in the middle of the legal precinct, in a Queen Street high-rise commonly known as the Golan Heights. The reason for this was apparent when I read the directory in the lobby. Unless I was mistaken, few of O'Shannessy's fellow tenants had been educated by the Jesuits.

One-Stop was a man of Falstaffian proportions, proprietor of the largest collection of chins I'd ever seen. So many that I thought for a moment he was wearing a neck brace. He gazed at me through half-moon glasses from behind his redoubt of a desk, the hem of a red linen napkin wedged into his barely visible collar.

‘Lunch on the run,' he explained, waving me into a chair with a baseball mitt that might have been a hand. ‘Care to join me?'

Declining his roast beef sandwiches, I went straight into my spiel. Told him pretty well everything. Apart from Heather going the lunge, of course. And the bit about seeing Darren threaten Donny with a gun. ‘I don't believe that Donny Maitland killed Darren Stuhl,' I concluded. ‘Apart from anything else, why would he implicate himself by shoving the body under his own truck? It doesn't make sense. And I'm not going to let the cops railroad me into implicating him.'

Except for the steady motion of his jaws and the occasional smacking of his lips, One-Stop heard me out in silence. When I finished, he licked his enormous fingers and wiped them delicately on the napery. ‘It is the task of the police to separate the circumstantial sheep from the evidentiary goats,' he pronounced. ‘The extent to which you are prepared to assist them in that process is up to you. My advice is this. If you cannot be entirely candid, at least be consistent. If you cannot be consistent, say nothing.'

‘I've done nothing wrong,' I said. ‘Nothing unlawful, at least.'

‘Glad to hear it.' O'Shannessy ripped the napkin from his neck, stood abruptly and brushed the crumbs from his lapels. ‘Onward, then,' he declared, ‘into the valley of death.'

It was amazing how fast the man could move. He barrelled down the footpath like a galleon under full sail, alarmed pedestrians leaping aside at his approach, while I bobbed in his wake like a dinghy. By the time we'd covered the four blocks to the Citywest cop shop, I fully expected him to barge straight through the front doors without waiting for them to open. One-Stop's legal skills were still an unknown quantity but there was no doubt about his capacities as a morale booster.

‘If I think you're getting into hot water,' he said, ‘I'll pull the plug.'

Citywest was a low-slung, box-like building across the road from the Flagstaff Gardens. It might have passed for the regional headquarters of a computer software company if not for the pervasive smell of truncheon leather and the Uphold the Right motto above the bulletproof reception desk. Noel Webb appeared promptly, beady-eyed and hot to trot. ‘One-Stop?' he sneered into my ear as he fed us into the elevator. ‘You must be desperate.'

He took us to an interview room, a windowless cube with washable vinyl walls, and we were joined by a horse-faced man in his mid-fifties with tired, watery eyes and a bad case of the sniffles. His breath smelled of throat lozenges and he carried himself with the resigned air of one kept from his sickbed by the unremitting demands of a thankless job. He introduced himself to me as Chief Inspector Voigt and croaked that he appreciated my co-operation. This pleasantry fooled nobody.

‘Consider yourself honoured,' said One-Stop, ‘Reg here is
le grand fromage
himself. Head of homicide.' He and O'Shannessy were clearly old sparring partners.

We all sat down and One-Stop opened the batting. ‘I am instructed that my client has already answered a number of your questions. He advises me that he is happy to assist in any way he can. But stick to the straight and narrow, please gents.'

Voigt fixed me in his rheumy gaze. ‘Mr Whelan,' he sniffed. ‘Can you tell us why you were at the Melbourne Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Market on the morning of Monday 12 August?'

I explained about Red going missing, that I was unable to sleep and walking the streets in search of distraction.

‘But why the market?'

‘Impulse,' I shrugged. Professional discretion constrained me from disclosing my other reason. It was, after all, irrelevant to the matter at hand. ‘I was quite upset about my son. And, like I said, I was looking for distraction.'

Voigt's inner bullfrog made a sceptical sound. ‘You didn't go there with the intention of seeing anybody?'

‘Darren Stuhl, you mean? Not only didn't I go there to see him, I was unaware of both his identity and the fact that he'd be there.'

‘But you did know him.'

‘We'd met,' I said. ‘But I didn't know who he was.'

For what felt like the hundredth time, I described our encounter at the Metro. As he listened, Voigt nodded and dabbed his nose with a crumpled tissue. ‘You were assaulted, yet you made no official complaint at the time.'

‘I complained to the nightclub bouncers,' I said. ‘There seemed little point in raising it with the police as there were no witnesses and I didn't know my assailant's identity. I only discovered that when I spotted him at the market. A man called Frank Farrell identified him for me.'

‘And how do you know this Farrell?' said Voigt.

‘Professionally,' I said. ‘He works for the United Haulage Workers. I've had contact with him in my capacity as an adviser to the Minister for Transport.'

Noel Webb, who was doodling idly on a writing pad, smirked at this, as though I'd exposed myself as a fatuous big-noter.

‘So you approached Stuhl,' continued Voigt. ‘What happened then?'

‘I suggested he apologise and pay my dentist bill.'

‘What was his reaction?'

‘He was dismissive.'

‘But you persisted.'

One-Stop cleared his throat. Not, I assumed, because he'd caught Inspector Voigt's influenza.

‘He pushed me away. I pushed back. There was a minor scuffle. It was all over in a few seconds.'

‘But you did threaten him.'

‘I warned him that I'd take legal action if he came near me again,' I said firmly.

One-Stop, observing this over the top of his half-moon glasses, gave me an encouraging nod. So far, so good.

‘Then what?' said Voigt.

‘I walked away. I wandered around the market, took in the sights, had a cup of coffee in the cafe. Donny Maitland turned up, offered me a lift home, so I went and waited in his truck with his sister-in-law Heather. I've told all this to Sergeant Webb.'

Webb continued to toy with his pen, as if waiting for the pussy-footing to finish.

‘This is in the parking area, right?' said Voigt.

‘Yes.'

‘At approximately 5.15 a.m.?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you didn't see Darren Stuhl there?'

‘Like I said, I was sitting in a truck with Heather Maitland. We were engrossed in conversation. The windows were misted up.'

‘Were you aware that Maitland was conducting a union election rally in the vicinity at the time?'

‘I could hear him making a speech,' I said. ‘But I wasn't really paying attention.'

‘And you remained in the truck until Maitland returned?' said Voigt.

This was where the ice started to get thin. ‘No, I stepped out briefly. I was booked on a flight to Sydney to look for my son. I was beginning to get anxious that I'd miss it if we didn't leave soon, so I went looking for Donny.'

‘Alone?'

‘Heather stayed in the truck while I did a quick circuit of the area,' I said, kissing my alibi goodbye. ‘Donny turned up, we pulled out, ran over something. I thought it was a bag of fruit, decided I couldn't wait around while it was sorted out. I went across to the Mobil roadhouse and called a cab. When I got home, my son was there, so I rang the airline and cancelled my booking. They've probably still got a record of it.' Even as I provided it, this corroborative suggestion seemed ludicrously irrelevant.

‘And when was the last time you saw Stuhl?'

‘I wasn't even aware that Darren Stuhl was dead until your colleague here informed me later that day.'

That was it. End of story. I turned to One-Stop and shrugged.

‘And you definitely didn't see Stuhl in the parking area?'

Voigt persisted. ‘You're sure?'

‘I've told you what happened,' I said.

‘And you have nothing to add?'

‘Like what?'

Spider Webb ended his reverie and gave an incredulous snort.

‘DSS Webb believes you haven't been entirely frank with us, Mr Whelan,' snuffled Voigt. ‘Isn't that right, sergeant?'

‘I do indeed, sir,' said Webb.

This exchange was conducted in a slightly flippant manner that was intended to convey that the tenor of the interview was about to undergo a distinct change.

‘We are now going to show you something, Mr Whelan,' said Voigt. ‘I want you to take a close look at it and tell me if you have ever seen it before.' He nodded to Webb, who laid down his pencil, got to his feet and strode from the room.

One-Stop tilted his head back, stroked his neck flaps and peered at me quizzically through his spectacles. I shrugged apprehensively, wondering what this mysterious exhibit might be. Voigt took advantage of the pause in the interrogation to draw a series of deep nasal breaths, clearing his sinuses.

Then Webb was back. He dropped something on the table in front of me. It landed with an emphatic clunk and I found myself staring down at a clear plastic bag containing a fourteen-inch, drop-forged Sidchrome shifting spanner.

Shit. How had I managed to let that slip my mind? Frank fucking Farrell, I thought. This was down to him. And it was mischief, pure and simple. Nobody else had seen me with the damned thing. Christ, I'd even forgotten about it myself. And to explain why I was carrying it, I'd need to tell them what I'd seen out the truck window. And if I did that, I'd risk dunking Donny in the doo-doo.

‘Well?' said Voigt.

‘It's a spanner,' I said.

‘I think we're agreed on that much, Mr Whelan,' said Voigt. ‘The question is, have you seen it before?'

My mind was racing, figuring the angles. Some of them were acute. Others weren't so cute. None of them were guaranteed to make me look blameless. I fell back on the truth, hoping I wasn't impaling myself. To be on the safe side, I blunted its edges a little. ‘Possibly,' I said.

‘Would you care to elaborate?' invited Voigt.

‘A spanner similar to this dropped out of the truck when I opened the door,' I said. ‘I held onto it until I got back in. If you found this under the seat of Donny Maitland's truck, then it's probably the same one. If you're implying that I hit Darren Stuhl over the head with it, I categorically deny it.'

Webb was still standing. He put his palms on the table, leaned forward and stuck his pie-crust face into mine. His aftershave smelled like formaldehyde. ‘How about we cut the crap,' he said. ‘It's as plain as day what really happened here. This arrogant, vicious, spoiled rich kid sticks your head down a toilet, humiliates you, costs you an arm and a leg in dental charges. You run into him again, take a perfectly reasonable tone, he tries for an encore. You tell him you're going to have him prosecuted, walk away. A bit later, he finds you alone. He threatens you. This time, you've got a spanner. You defend yourself. But you hit the prick a little bit too hard. You kill him. You panic, shove him under the nearest truck, try to make it look like an accident.'

He leaned back, arms wide, QED. Inspector Voigt was looking contemplative, as though this novel and unexpected interpretation of the events might warrant consideration.

‘It would've been pretty stupid of me to attack a man with a spanner, knowing he was carrying a gun,' I said.

Voigt shot Webb a sideways glance. This wasn't part of the scenario he'd been sold. ‘What do you know about the gun?' he demanded.