Here’s a much belated addition to that first chapter I put up here some weeks back – I’ll try to keep them coming a little more frequently.
Chapter Two
The business of giving a statement was always a lengthy one in Rag’s experience, especially when the cops had nothing to go on.
When they had you, they knew it and you knew it, and the whole statement thing was pretty much a formality. When you were clearly an innocent witness, it was usually even simpler – not to mention that the cop taking your words down would be a lot nicer to you about it. But when they didn’t know what to do next, they just tried to keep you talking, hoping you’d say something – anything – that would give them something to work with.
He’d repeated his story a number of times, despite a fair amount of hassling about his record. It was a colourful one – Rag would be the first to admit that – but he’d never even been sought in connection with a violent crime, let alone any of the work he’d done with the Irregulars. In fact, it was amusing that the cops didn’t even have Rag down as a known alias, just his actual name.
There should be nothing to tie this to the Irregulars. Sure, he, Sally and Tommy were all members, but the cops didn’t know that. Tommy hadn’t been doing anything tonight, so there shouldn’t be anything linking him either.
So sooner or later, the cops would have to let them go. Long experience had made both Sally and he deft hands at the art of giving matching statements, although it was relatively unusual for the statements to be true. The phone records bore them out too, as did the complete absence of any weapon.
In the meantime, Rag just sat in his uncomfortable chair and thought about Tommy.
Tommy…
Tommy was like a younger brother to Rag, although Sally liked to describe him as being both the child and pet they’d never had. He was just a kid, still wet behind the ears in many ways. He was a little naïve and a lot nice, and that was just fine with Rag.
But not so fine with someone else, apparently.
Jesus, who’d even want to hurt Tommy, let alone kill him?
Surely it was a case of wrong place, wrong time? Just plain old bad luck – fatally bad, but still, just luck. Surely.
Rag didn’t believe in violence. Oh, he accepted the reality of it, but it was like the Bible – sure, the thing existed, but that didn’t mean it had the answers. So when he promised himself that he’d do everything he could to catch Tommy’s killer, it wasn’t about finding the bastard and delivering a punitive beating (or worse). It meant, as strange as it sounded for a man who was one of Melbourne’s most notorious (if least dangerous) criminal masterminds, helping the police in any way he could.
* * *
“What have we got?” asked McEwen with a sigh. It had already been a long cold night, and it showed no signs of getting any shorter. Nor any warmer.
“Victim’s name is Thomas Richard Harrison, aged 22, of Northcote,” Drysdale began.
“If he lives in Northcote, what was he doing in Fitzroy at this time of morning?” McEwen objected.
“Two of the witnesses claimed he was a friend, and speculated that he might be on his way to see them.”
“Leave that for when we get to their statements.”
“Two shots fired – everyone agrees on that except for one of the witnesses who was asleep. But we’ve got emergency calls from up and down the street that all agree on that point.”
“Only two?”
“Yeah. So I’m leaning towards this being deliberate. Harrison wasn’t just unlucky, someone wanted him dead in particular.”
“Okay,” said McEwen. “Why?”
“Well,” said Drysdale, drawing out the syllable and enjoying doing so, “there was nothing remarkable in his pockets except for a Dictaphone.”
“What’s one of those?” McEwen asked.
“A kind of tape recorder,” replied his partner. “Interestingly, it was open, as if a tape had just been removed from it.”
“We would have noticed that, surely, when we patted them down for weapons?” asked McEwen. Drysdale shook his head.
“Not these tapes. Small enough to fit into an empty matchbox.”
“So you’re saying someone took it?”
“One of the witnesses – the first two, presumably.”
“Or it was just empty.”
“It was warm to the touch.”
“So it had just been used,” said McEwen, “and it’s useless without a tape”
“Exactly.”
“Then who has it?”
“I don’t know. We can ask them to submit to searches, but at this point, we can’t compel them. They’re only witnesses.”
“Alright. What else?” asked McEwen. Drysdale smiled.
“You’re gonna love this bit. Harrison’s clothes have a variety of paint stains on them, especially around the cuffs of his shirt and jacket.”
“He might be one of them.”
“Better than that. If these other two were friends of his who think it’s nothing out of the ordinary for him to visit them at first light, they might be in on it too.”
“A break.”
“Yup.”
* * *
Drysdale took a long pull from his coffee cup. It tasted like crap, but after a night on that rooftop, he was drinking it more for the heat than anything else. Even the caffeine was a secondary consideration.
“Now,” he said, “the witnesses.”
“Yeah?” prompted McEwen.
“Okay, the happy couple are Gareth Andrew Rogers and Sally Heloise McShane. Unmarried, but lived together for about five years now. We’ve seen them both before, but never been able to pin much on them. They’ve both proved themselves to be useful witnesses in the past with various stuff.”
“Such as?”
“Uh, smack dealers and thugs, generally.”
“So, reasonably solid citizens, just with a different sense of what’s legal?”
“Something like that.”
“Does this mean we have to worry about them going vigilante?” For all that they’d been partners for nearly a decade now, Drysdale still didn’t understand his partner’s obsession with vigilantes. There hadn’t been one in Melbourne since they were both constables more than two decades ago, years before they’d even met, let alone partnered. But he let it pass.
“They’re neither of them violent, as far as we can tell. Gazza here once let a man beat the crap out of him before staggering into the station and swearing out a complaint against him – I’d say they have the strength of their convictions.”
“Well, that’s something. Are they likely to muddy the waters for us any other way?”
“Regarding the Irregulars stuff? Yeah, I think they’d both lie without hesitation to protect their own interests.”
“How well?” asked McEwen. Drysdale grimaced.
“Probably well enough to get away if all we have is circumstantial evidence. We’d need something physical to tie them to.”
“We need that tape.”
“Well, it couldn’t hurt. It might turn out to be irrelevant, though.”
“What else do we have to go on?”
“The other witness, Peta Elizabeth Henderson.”
“Tell me.”
“23 years old, studying journalism at RMIT. Lives a couple of blocks away, and claims she was on her way to the convenience store on Brunswick and Johnston when she heard the shots.”
“We think she has the tape?”
“We don’t know. Her or Rogers, unless the site investigation turns it up.”
* * *
Sally wiped her eyes. Again. It was annoying how hard it was to stop crying. When they’d been down at the station, she’d held it in. But now there was nothing to fight against, no point of force to oppose. It was like being in a tug of war when the other side suddenly lets go of the rope. The tears flowed, and promised more to come in the days after.
There would time enough for tears. It was hard to stop, but she did it. Willpower. It was the thing that had attracted Rag to her in the first place, for all that it was now also his major source of stress in their relationship. She focused it now.
There was work to be done.
Tommy Harrison would not be forgotten soon or easily. Sally would see to that. Every single Brunswick Street Irregular would be out tonight, doing their own thing in memory of their fallen comrade.
Some morning very soon would see the biggest effort yet from the Irregulars. She’d make sure of it.
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