THE DEVIL IN THE RED DIRT: DIVIDED IN LIFE. UNIFIED IN MURDER Read online

  What he did find was a note, a handwritten note.

  “DEAREST MOUSES

  YOU TOOK WHAT WAS MINE. I HAD TO HAVE IT BACK.

  SO HERE I GIVES YOU ANOTHER FROM MY COLLECTION.

  CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.”

  Lescott had suspected that if it were to happen once, it would happen again. What he didn’t expect was something quite so deliberate, quite so soon. “Has anyone else seen this note?” he asked the officer who’d made the discovery.

  “No, sir.”

  “If you want to get out of that uniform sometime soon, then you didn’t see it either.” Lescott looked the lad up and down. He seemed as trustworthy as any policeman could be at the time.

  “Understood, sir.” The constable nodded compliantly.

  Lescott walked back over to the body and took a look around. He couldn’t see anyone in the vicinity. He reached to take the Bible from the man’s hands, but it was stuck fast. It appeared to have been stuck to them with some kind of adhesive. Instead he ripped out the pages it was opened at.

  Back at his desk, Lescott went into his drawers and pulled out his medicines: a bottle of whisky, a tumbler and several bottles of pills. Painkillers, Valium, antidepressants, the lot. You didn’t need a medical degree to see that, in the months that had passed, his dependence on substances had only grown. As before, he was riding both sides of that dreaded see-saw.

  While he waited for the pills to take effect, he sat and peeled apart the film of his instant photographs. Lescott was beginning to think that the likelihood of finding this man was non-existent. He could have been anywhere at any time. “The Locomotion” by Little Eva crackled out over the transistor radio upon his desk. Ordinarily it would have brought a smile to Lescott’s face. He loved music; it was one of the only innocent pleasures left in his life.

  The phone interrupted the sound of the music. The ringing was shrill. “Missing Persons?”

  “There’s a call for a Detective Constable Harris…” Came the sound of a man at the other end of the phone. Lescott hadn’t heard that name in weeks, months even. “They said it’s about the Death Car.”

  Lescott’s eyes widened when he heard the words. “Put them through, Detective….” The man didn’t answer, Lescott heard the clicking sound of the call being put forward. It was followed by the sound of heavy breathing. “Detective Sergeant Lescott speaking…”

  “Harris.” The voice was laboured. It didn’t sound right.

  “James Harris no longer works with the New South Wales Police.”

  “The article…” the man rasped. Lescott was in no doubt what the man was talking about. An article had been published a few days earlier. A reporter for The Bulletin, Tommy Clarke, had written that Harris had been grossly incompetent and a beacon of corruption amongst the police. It was a vicious personal attack which suggested the Englishman might have bungled the case just to defy his manager. It was only due to the fantastic work done by the Murder Squad and Major Crimes under DCI Alan Livingstone’s supervision that the man had been caught. Lescott knew it to be untrue, but it was sticky news. “I’ll only talk to Harris.”

  “Why Harris?” Lescott didn’t know who he was talking to, so he felt it better to keep his opinions to himself.

  “They took my girl,” the man rasped. “Get me Harris.”

  Once he’d scribbled down an address, he put the phone down and left the office in a hurry. There had been several dead ends in the past few months, notably the tailor’s label in the deceased boy’s suit; their phone number was disconnected and they had not answered letters Lescott had addressed as urgent. Yet the prospect of information still pumped Lescott full of adrenaline, and a feeling that could have been mistaken for something like hope. Two separate incidents had occurred, and no clues had presented themselves. Perhaps a third incident would present a strand that ran through the three. Lescott decided to take the information to Major Crimes. Whether he was already half-cut, the pills he had taken were stupid pills, or he was just plain naive, I’m unsure.

  Outside Major Crimes, Lescott looked through the glass panel in the door and realised he hadn’t set foot in a working police department in over a year. The detectives were sitting idly at their desks, smoking, drinking and playing dominoes. It was a social club, not a police station.

  His better judgement had escaped him. Major Crimes had caused this mess in the first place. What the hell was he expecting? A pat on the back, encouraging words, and all the manpower they could muster. He made a foolish decision that day. He placed himself on Alan Livingstone’s radar. And like all those who found themselves in that web of deceit, he would come to regret it.

  Lescott straightened his tie and fixed his hair before he pushed the door open. He was a divisive figure amongst his colleagues, he knew he would not receive a friendly welcome. Half the detectives near the entrance stared at him with menace. The menace he could take. The other half simply sniggered in his direction, like he was some sort of bad joke. They saw him as pitiful. It was soul crushing for young Fred Lescott. Panic came over him and left him in need of a hasty retreat.

  In the bathroom on the ninth floor, Lescott loosened his collar, flipped his tie over his shoulder, and splashed tap water in his face. His attempts to regain composure were difficult. His heartbeat was racing. He was about to walk into a corrupt police department. With his history, that was a bad idea. A familiar pain spread from his knee, a chronic pain he had been self-medicating for two years. Though it had been removed, he could still feel the bullet rattling around behind his knee cap. He’d tried to speak to a headshrinker, but it hadn’t taken; treating it meant taking an array of pills.

  He’d try again. He was a resilient little thing above all else. If he couldn’t muster the courage to walk through the bullpen, he’d fake it. Pushing open the double doors of Major Crimes open powerfully, he took a deep, calming breath and puffed out his chest as best he could. He walked past the scornful detectives to hear, “Oi lads… How do you stop a dog drowning?”

  “Why would you want to stop a dog drowning?” came the reply.

  “You take your foot off its head.” The detectives laughed. As Lescott walked by, DC Kyle, now of Major Crime, kicked at his ankles viciously. The men found it hilarious. A burning pain spread from the ball of Lescott’s ankle and up his leg towards his wounded knee. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of showing them it hurt. Instead, he stopped in his tracks and casually turned to DC Kyle, clearly the ringleader of the group.

  “Are you going to cry, little doggy?” Kyle taunted.

  Lescott smiled and made a gun with his fingers. He slowly raised it until it was inches from Kyle’s face. When it was at eye level, Lescott blew air through his lips and raised his fake gun to mimic the recoil of a gunshot.

  Kyle’s jaw dropped. The pack of jackals behind him had transformed into corgis and he, the big bad wolf, had turned into a sad little alley cat. Lescott waited for a response. It wasn’t forthcoming. Kyle choked upon his words.

  “Spit it out you dopey cunt.” Lescott spoke plainly, before imitating Kyle’s stuttering derisively. When it became quite clear that Kyle and his attack dogs had lost the ability to say anything, Lescott decided he wasn’t sticking around. He blew a kiss towards Kyle and left with one last dash of machismo. “Bye-bye ladies.”

  Livingstone was going over paperwork at his desk when Lescott knocked on his door. “Come in. Make it quick.”

  Lescott sat down across from Livingstone and grabbed a cigarette from an ornate tray upon the antique desk. “A call just came through. Possible information regarding the Rolls Royce killer.”

  “That case is closed. The killer is due in court for sentencing. It’s a formality. Between you and me, I believe they’ll bring back the death sentence for a case like this.” Livingstone looked at Lescott with distrust in his eyes.

  “See that, that’s why I’m here. I think we need to reopen the case. They’ve found another one this morning.” Lescott’s senses were
beginning to come back to him. This was an awful idea. This was the man who had instigated the sham of an investigation in the first place. “You don’t have anything to drink, do you?”

  “No.” Drinks were for friends, not those who were threatening to undo Livingstone’s tidy work. “Another what?”

  “Another corpse. An elderly Aboriginal male this time. He’d been manipulated into a… Christian position. He was found with a Bible in his lap on a Hyde Park bench. Coincidentally, I’ve received a call about a missing person who was supposedly snatched up into a Rolls Royce. I think it needs to be reopened. Immediately. This Howard Frost, the paedophile who admitted to the crimes… The old man doesn’t match his MO at all. The kids barely did. You’ve got the wrong man.”

  Livingstone’s face was a picture of offence, he should have been on the stage. “An old man passed away while reading the Bible. It’s not exactly cause to open the case, is it? Perhaps you think I ought to reopen it with the inconspicuous passing of each and every Aboriginal in Sydney? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “The Bible was held in his hands by twine. He’d been posed. Like the children.”

  “That wasn’t in the report I read,” Of course it wasn’t.

  “You can’t be serious?” Lescott had to stop himself from speaking, the direction he was headed in led to an outright accusation of corruption. That wouldn’t do him any good.

  “Oh, but I am.” Livingstone measured up the man across from him. “By the way, who are you? Why are you in my office?”

  Lescott considered giving a false identity, but felt it would have been fruitless, Livingstone had eyes and ears all over the place “DS Lescott, I head Missing Persons.”

  Livingstone’s eyes lit up, clearly Lescott’s reputation had preceded him.

  “Good for you,” Livingstone patronised Lescott, clearly, he couldn’t have been less impressed. “Well I’m Detective Chief Inspector Livingstone, I head Major Crimes. As your ranking officer and head of an actual, working department, I’m telling you this case is shut. Howard Frost will hang.”

  “Right.” From this conversation, Lescott had learnt everything that he needed to know about Livingstone. It was confirmed: the man across from him was a crook, an inhuman type of creature who’d prefer no work to working towards something worthwhile.

  Lescott knew that if he wanted to look into the case, he’d be getting no help from inside the force. But he also knew he couldn’t do it himself. He needed help to keep himself on an even keel, and to keep himself functioning.

  This begged the question, who could help him?

  Fitzpatrick’s Lodge, on the face of it, was a local boxing gym. It doubled as a hub of illegal activity. Faces of the criminal underworld would congregate there nursing hangovers and comedowns during the daylight hours while they waited for the Cross’ nightlife to kick off, and with it their illicit trades. Much like any boxing gym, it was full of hard bastards vying for the reputation as the hardest bastard in place. Unlike other boxing gyms, the place was full of booze, arms, drugs, gambling, and stolen goods ranging from jewellery to fancy, stinking French cheese from a pretentious fromagerie in the city. Occasionally whores were brought in to serve the needs of the many, but generally it was a female-free space.

  It was as though the owner of Fitzpatrick Lodge had set out to create a space where the Black Market ceased to be an abstract concept and became an actual address. If it was bad for mankind, and you wanted to buy it, you’d go to Fitzpatrick’s. Guns, knives, swords, axes, knuckle-dusters, coke, smack, pills, poisons, moonshine, fake goods, stolen goods, goods that had fallen off the back of the van or flown out of the window of a warehouse. All courtesy of the proprietor, who took a modest commission on all transactions. Needless to say, it was a very profitable business for Mr Ronnie Prince.

  Since leaving the force, Harris had renewed his love for boxing. Excuse me. That’s a ridiculous overstatement. He’d renewed his love for throwing his heavy fists around. Taking pictures of adulterous spouses didn’t take up that much time, not that the timesheets he gave his clients would have said that. It didn’t hurt that, every so often, a small-time sycophantic criminal would hand him an envelope. They’d ask him to put in a kind word for them with Mr Prince. He’d forget he ever met them the moment they walked off.

  On the day in question, Harris was tenderising a heavy bag. For a man of his size, he was surprisingly light on his feet. Others would plant their feet, wind their clenched fist back and fling it forwards with all their might. Perhaps they were hoping their almighty punch would knock the bag off its bracket and impress everyone. It wouldn’t. They’d then wonder why their wrist felt like it had just fractured. Often, it had. Harris was nimble as he moved around the bag, landing heavy, but sharp, blows to the leather. There were bigger men in the gym, but none who hit half as hard or nearly as fast as James Harris.

  The gym was busy; it stank of cigar smoke, stale beer and nasty cologne. It was a spit and sawdust, no-thrills type of place. People were training throughout. They battered punch bags, skipped ropes, rattled speed bags, and clubbed each other bloody in the ring. The majority of the people in the room were clearly not there to box. A large number of men, including George Watson, had gathered around large cafeteria-style tables to drink, smoke and gamble their cash away. Others were scattered around the room, either discussing plans for criminal enterprise or reminiscing about jobs gone by.

  When a scary-looking fellow walked into the room, several men watched him closely. He was tall, lean and dressed all in black. His hair was long, which back then was something of a rarity, and his face was heavily scarred. His long strides swallowed the distance between the door and Harris in no time at all. It was only when he reached Harris that he took a good look around the room. “Jim”

  “Gallagher.” Harris sat at a nearby bench and lit a cigarette. He offered one to Gallagher who shook his head politely, he wouldn’t be sticking around. He looked uncomfortable in the gym, every nuance of his body language suggested he wanted to make a quick getaway. Harris spotted it straight away. “What’s on your mind? I haven’t seen you around in a bit.”

  “Been on holiday… Courtesy of Her Majesty.” Gallagher’s eyes were flitting around the room. Harris smiled. The bloke did look pale. After the summer they had just been through, that shouldn’t have been possible. “Three months in Parramatta for consorting. I guess the judge didn’t like my face.”

  “No one likes that face. It keeps kids awake at night.” Harris made a half-hearted effort at banter, but he wasn’t interested. He was too busy studying Gallagher’s nervous demeanour. Gallagher was known as a man with nerves of steel. Something had rattled him.

  “This is something of a goodbye, old mate.”

  “What are you talking about?

  “I’m getting out of town. Headed north, on my way to the station now. The wife’s old fella’s got a farm up near Townsville. I’m going to go see what the other side of the law’s like for a while.” Gallagher didn’t take his eyes off the tables at the far end of the room.

  Harris was slightly bemused. Gallagher was a trusted lieutenant to Prince. While Harris worked the rackets of Darlinghurst, Gallagher took a lucrative stretch between Bondi and Coogee. They were a highly sought-after patch. Harris couldn’t comprehend why Gallagher would give that up, and indeed a life of crime altogether, to be a fucking farmer. “Mr Prince ok with all this?” It surprised Harris to see Gallagher nod his head slowly. Prince had been making odd decisions lately. This was definitely one of the more controversial ones, in Harris’ opinion. It was beginning to feel like his heart just wasn’t in it anymore. “Make sure you send me a postcard, eh.”

  “Yeah, I will, but before I go… I heard things in Parramatta. You know what it’s like inside.”

  “I’ve never done time…” Harris corrected his friend. The concern on Gallagher’s face broke for a second as astonishment washed over him, he clearly wanted to ask how Harris had managed to stay out of
prison.

  But there was no time. “Half the villains in ‘Straya are locked up together, deciding what the half on the outside do. People aren’t happy with leadership. There’s going to be a change before too long.”

  “You don’t seem the type to run away from a fight.” Harris was surprised. Gallagher was a scary, scary man.

  “It’s not going to be a fight. It’s going to be a slaughter. Prince has given up. And I’ll be fucked if I go to work for the other guy. He isn’t getting rich from my toil. No thank you.”

  “How soon?” Harris asked.

  “Soon. They’re just waiting. As soon as there’s blood in the water, they’ll jump. That could well be you or me. I’m guessing it’s you, given they all call you his Pet Pom. But I’m not sticking around to find out.”

  “Who?” Harris looked over at the table where George Watson was playing cards; Gallagher’s eyes followed his gaze.

  “Yeah. He’s been getting awfully friendly with anything that resembles muscle. When I got out, I found out he’d taken over most of Bondi in my absence. He’s got momentum. And backing.”

  “What happens if you and I walk over to that table and throw him out the window… Four storeys, down into moving traffic.”

  “I don’t think it would do us one bit of good. If it’s not him, it’s someone else. It’s happening.”

  Long after his friend and colleague had left, Harris remained sitting, pondering the changes that were seemingly well underway.

  Deep in thought, he didn’t notice as George Watson whistled to get the attention of a man lifting weights near the tables. A big man, 6’6” and 17 or 18 stone, approached him and they shared a brief word or two. The conversation ended when Watson pointed in the direction of Harris and the brute began walking towards the Englishman.