Port Vila Blues

Twenty-seven

After leaving Nettie Jardine, Liz drove back to her flat in Parkville. 3LO had the Emerald shooting on their four o’clock update. She locked the car and took the Elizabeth Street tram to headquarters, staring out at Daimaru on one side, then the Vic Market on the other. It came down to one thing: who knew she was meeting Wyatt? Pardoe at the insurance company, but he didn’t know where or when-unless he’d had a tail on her for the past few days. And why do that if it meant he’d risk losing the Tiffany?

Wyatt and Jardine, but it was clear that they’d had nothing to do with the shooter.

Her skin began to creep. That left someone she worked with in the Armed Robbers. They were often asked to advise on security in banks and building societies.

Superintendent Montgomery? Somehow she couldn’t see it. He’d moved to Burglary from Traffic and was dotty about his grandkids. It was with a great deal of reluctance that he sanctioned undercover work, its grey areas, the necessarily blind-eye approach. He would have been entirely happy for his officers to pull in a series of small fish, not hang out for the big ones.

Her creeping flesh would not let her alone. How could she go to Montgomery with her suspicions? She’d shot a man dead and left the scene without reporting it or declaring who she was. Even soft Grandpa Montgomery wouldn’t save her from the toecutters once he knew that. She’d be stripped of all rank, suspended, maybe face charges. It wouldn’t help that the man she’d shot was probably a hired gun, a potential cop killer. She’d killed him and fled the scene, and that just wasn’t on.

She mused about the risks involved in this job. There was always plenty to bring you down when you worked deep cover, submerged in a role for weeks at a time. Liz had known young male cops to confuse their roles, get hooked and start sleeping with the women who were always on the fringe of the drug scene, even fall in love with them.

Alcohol. It always flowed freely when crims were putting a deal together.

Money. Pocket a bit on the sly? Tell the Department’s paper pushers that your buy money got lost between the crime scene and the evidence safe, blew away in the wind, got unaccountably soaked in blood?

And the danger itself, getting your kicks out of walking a knife edge day after day after night.

And there were plenty of other risks beyond your control: cover blown by a corrupt colleague, cover blown by an incompetent colleague, cover blown by little old ladies who, recognising you, inquired after your mother and asked why you weren’t in uniform today.

Liz stepped down from the tram and dodged blatting horns to cross the lanes of traffic and enter the police complex at the top end of the city. She made her way to Homicide, waited for Ellie Shaw to catch her eye, then mouthed: ‘Coffee?’

Ellie was looking harassed. She glanced worriedly at her watch, the clock on the wall. The detectives around her were doing a lot of murmuring into telephones. They looked harassed, too.

‘It will have to be quick,’ Ellie said, joining her in the corridor. ‘We’ve got a real flap on this afternoon.’

They took the elevator to the cafeteria. Liz paid for coffees and danish and for a vivid moment pictured Wyatt, his hawkish face and his dismay when his tooth fell out.

‘You do look a bit tense. What kind of flap?’

Ellie leaned forward. ‘That shooting in the hills.’

Well, this was falling into her lap. Liz said casually, ‘What about it?’

Ellie leaned forward. ‘It was a cop.’

Liz froze, believing her friend was saying that a cop had done the shooting. Her voice caught: ‘How do you know?’

‘We ran the guy’s prints. Lo and behold, he’s known to the police, only not as a crim, as a cop. Can you believe it?’

It wasn’t difficult for Liz to say wow and widen her eyes. ‘What was he doing there?’

Ellie shrugged. ‘You tell me. I assumed he was working Burglary because your boss came in to our department to ask about him.’

‘Montgomery?’

Ellie shook her head. ‘DI Springett. You’re on his team, aren’t you?’

‘Huh,’ Liz said.

She hadn’t wanted his name to crawl into her mind. He was too close. Springett, a man she didn’t like but admired all the same, cold as a fish, utterly detached, a man who asked questions for a living and expected nothing back but lies and evasions. He hadn’t seemed to hold her youth, her sex or her education against her. Rather, he’d promoted her, put her in charge of the challenging cases.

Like the magnetic drill gang, guiding and encouraging her every step of the way.

Guiding, that was the key word. Guiding her so that she’d never find them, and if she did get too close he was in a position to head her off or give warning.

Ten minutes later, Liz was watching Montgomery reddening behind his desk. ‘You’re kidding me.’

‘No, sir, I checked. Lillecrapp used to work with Springett on the Vice Squad and-’

‘You actually shot him dead and left the scene without reporting it?’

‘Boss, listen, there’s only one way Lillecrapp could have known about the meeting, and that’s if Springett told him and he tailed me.’

But Montgomery was still overcome, holding his plump cheeks between plump, desk-work hands. ‘Christ Almighty. How the fuck do I explain this?’

Liz paused, a little puzzled. ‘Explain it as it is, sir. A senior officer’s been feeding information to crims, sending a killer after a fellow officer.’

Montgomery snarled, looking ugly now, no longer kindly: ‘Fuck that. I’m talking about the shooting. The press are going to have a field day when they hear how it happened. You say this Lillecrapp character was about to shoot you? I suppose we can say it looked as if he’d gone off the rails.’

Liz leaned over until she was centimetres from his face. ‘And fuck you, sir.’ She saw Montgomery blink, make a wide O of dismay with his mouth, and she went on before he could reclaim the advantage. ‘A policeman in plain clothes tried to kill me. I’m not making it up. This man can be connected to Springett. This afternoon Springett’s been asking questions about the shooting. How did he know so soon?’ She stood back again. ‘Springett gives security advice to business firms, right? Visits their premises, all that kind of thing?’

Montgomery still looked ugly, his face flushed and sour, but he was listening. ‘This had better be good.’

Liz mapped it out for him, how Springett came by his inside information and passed it on. ‘He’s still in the building,’ she concluded.

A weary kind of resolve powered Montgomery out of his swivel chair. ‘At least he should be allowed to have his say. Come with me.’

She backed away. ‘Why? Where?’

‘We’re going to see what his reaction is. Every man has the right to face his accusers.’

‘Sure. I accuse, he denies, leaving us deadlocked. I say we tread carefully. I mean, he ordered me killed, boss.’

‘That’s your version. Isn’t there another reading? For all I know, you’re behind it. Maybe Springett and Lillecrapp were getting close to you and that’s why you shot Lillecrapp. See what I mean? Come along.’

Liz stared at him bitterly. There was nothing grand-fatherly about Montgomery now. ‘Thanks a lot. Stick up for your own, right? Stick up for a senior officer. Stick up for the boys.’

But she went out with him, conscious that she was sounding like a child. On their way to Springett’s office she told herself that she needed facts and figures to throw in their faces, not supposition. Who did she know in Records who owed her a favour?

Another thing she told herself: maybe Montgomery’s involved.