Shooting Star

8

This evening, the Carson boys had been joined in the elegant library by a woman. She was thin, in a loose sweater and jeans, blonde hair on her shoulders, sitting upright in an armchair, arms folded, whisky glass on a drum table. At first glance, she looked like a teenager, but then you saw the lines bracketing her mouth, the little frown pinched between her eyes. She was probably in her early thirties.

‘Stephanie, this is Frank Calder,’ said Noyce. He frowned as Orlovsky appeared in the doorway. Mick was neatly dressed and clean-shaven but he always managed to give the impression that he’d escaped from somewhere.

‘And this is his associate, Michael Orlovsky. Mrs Chadwick is Tom’s daughter, Anne’s aunt.’

Stephanie Chadwick stood up and shook hands. She was tall, Orlovsky’s height, only a head below me. When you knew the relationship, you could see her father in her, in the eyes and the jaw and in a certain arrogance of carriage.

Tom Carson was standing behind his daughter, smoking a panatella, in a dark suit now, his face clean and dry from the second shave of the day, drinking something colourless, rattling the ice in the glass.

Barry was seated at the table, no drink, also in a suit. He nodded at us. He had the look of a man who had undergone an ordeal, didn’t trust himself to speak.

‘Play it, Graham,’ said Tom, no bark in his voice this time.

Noyce played it.

Tom Carson.

Pause.

So you think Carson money can buy anything, don’t you? Just money, that’s what you thought, isn’t it?

Pause.

Tom: We’ve followed your instructions.

Becoming less stupid. Learning to do what you’re told and… Tom: We’ve done that. Now… Shut up. Don’t say NOW to me. I don’t take your orders. I don’t need your money.

Tom: All we want…

Shut up, I’m talking to you. You’re not talking to your tame cops now. You don’t have the money to buy your way out of this. You’re talking to someone quite different now. Do you hear me? Hear me, cunt?

Tom: We’ll do whatever you want…

I WANT YOU TO SUFFER AS YOU HAVE MADE OTHERS SUFFER. I WANT YOU TO FEEL PAIN AS YOU HAVE MADE OTHERS FEEL PAIN. I WANT YOU TO BLEED TO DEATH.

Click.

No one said anything for a while, the harsh electronic voice reverberating in the room. Then Stephanie took a big drink of whisky. I looked at my watch. It was just on 6 p.m. ‘Can we watch the news on Seven somewhere?’ I said.

Noyce found a remote control. A section of panelling on the righthand wall parted, revealing a large television monitor. He clicked twice more. We watched commercials and previews before a woman newsreader with a starched and ironed face appeared. She did the There were amazing scenes today preamble. Then we saw a man wearing dark glasses and a Collingwood beanie pulled down to his eyebrows on the top level of the Great Southern Stand. He stood at the parapet, reached into a bag, threw handfuls of paper into the air. Some of the bits of paper blew backwards into the stand behind him, some fluttered down and were sucked into the packed tiers below, others drifted down onto the field, where people jumped the fence and a feeding frenzy developed. After half-a-dozen handfuls, the thrower got bored, tipped the bag over the edge, shook it. Large wads of paper fell out. The camera zoomed in on the paper-thrower but my collar was up and I kept my chin down. Then I turned and walked up the ramp.

The voice-over said:

A police spokesman said it was a miracle that no one was seriously injured in the near-riots that developed as football fans fought over the new fifty-dollar notes. No exact figure is available on the sum of money thrown from the Great Southern Stand by the unknown man, but police put the amount at more than a hundred thousand dollars.

We cut to a Collingwood supporter, a woman wearing a black and white sweater and scarf and holding a fifty-dollar note in each hand for the camera. ‘One bloke caught seven fifties, stuck together,’ she said. ‘They was fallin like rain.’ She had a tooth missing next to her left canine, itself a yellow, endangered outcrop.

Noyce switched off the set, and the panels reunited at the behest of the remote.

‘Well,’ said Tom, looking at me. ‘A fucking novel way to redistribute wealth. What point are we at now?’

‘At the point where we phone the cops,’ I said. ‘You’re not dealing with the greedy. The unhinged, that’s what you’ve got here. And this is personal.’

‘No,’ said Tom. ‘The old man says no. I agree.’

‘He’s heard this person?’

Tom nodded. ‘We’ve shown we’re willing to pay, not to bring in the police, we should take the next step.’

‘I’m not getting this over to you,’ I said. ‘Next step? Who says there’s a next step? If I understand the message, and it’s not in fucking code-excuse me, Ms Chadwick-this isn’t about money. It’s about causing you pain. You personally possibly, maybe the whole family. Pain. Lots of pain. It’s not a commercial transaction.

Not buyers and sellers. They want to hurt you and the ultimate hurt is killing the girl.’

I paused. ‘Don’t you think you should let the girl’s parents decide whether to call in the cops?’

Silence.

The Carsons didn’t want to look at each other, didn’t want to look at me. Finally, Barry said, ‘We’re having trouble getting hold of Mark. It may be a while before we can reach him.’

I pushed on. ‘Her mother, then.’

Tom wasn’t going to be pushed. He drew on the panatella, exhaled in a resigned way, said in a level tone, not unpleasant, ‘Frank, we’re not paying you for that kind of advice. We don’t need that kind of advice.’

Tightness in my face, around the eyes, the mouth. I paid attention to the feeling. When you know that the rational part of your brain is no longer in full control, you can do something about that. Or not.

I looked at the carpet, at nothing, took my time, looked up, at Tom, he didn’t blink, a hard buyer in a buyer’s market, at Barry, who met my gaze, flicked his eyes downwards, away, and at Stephanie, whose expression carried a hint of apology for her father.

‘Okay,’ I said, steady now. ‘It’s not clear to me what you’re paying me for. But, since you are paying, let me say that we may be in for a long wait. And sooner or later, you will call in the police. If they release Anne, if they don’t, at some point you have to call the cops. So, things we can do now will save hours, days maybe, when that happens.’

‘Such as?’

‘Ask the basic questions. Try to get some feeling for who these people might be. I don’t think we risk spooking them. Fifty cops around the record store, yes. Two blokes looking around, no. And get Jahn, Cullinan to draw up a list of ex-employees who might have a grudge. Going back five years. That’ll save lots of time when the crunch comes.’

There was a moment when Tom was poised to say no. I could see it in his eyes, in the way he moved his head.

Stephanie had an unlit cigarette in her mouth, tilted her head back to look up at her father. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I agree with Frank. We can’t just sit here hoping it’ll turn out well if we throw bags of money at them. And that voice, my God, that’s not someone you can buy off. That’s someone…I don’t know. Hates.’

Tom looked down at her.

‘Frank’s right, Dad,’ she said.

He sighed, put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I’ll talk to the old man.’

‘One more thing,’ I said. ‘If anyone has even the vaguest suspicion about who these people might be, some personal grudge perhaps, this is the time to tell me.’

Silence. Tom shrugged. Barry shrugged. Stephanie and Noyce shook their heads.

‘What about Mark?’

‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Mark’s been a fool in business but he doesn’t have enemies like that.’