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After the questions from Queensland police and giving them my statement, I checked into a roadside motel called the Lazy Lizard Motor Inn and had a hot shower. I patched up the wounds in my shoulder and hip, and inspected my swollen face in the mirror. After downing two painkillers, I called Ivers.
‘Poulson’s in custody and Cairns police are interviewing him as I speak,’ I said.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘He partnered up with a guy called Malone to split the money. Poulson stabbed Malone to death, and I went after Poulson.’
‘Where’s Poulson now?’
‘Laid up in Cairns Hospital, probably with extensive spinal fractures.’
‘What the hell did you do to him?’
‘He tried to stick me with the same knife he used to kill Renee Prestwidge and Pavali Singh, so I threw him backwards into a culvert.’
‘Jesus, Matt.’
‘It was either that or cop a knife between the ribs.’ I found a kettle in a small cupboard and filled it up in the bathroom sink.
‘What about this Malone character?’ said Ivers. ‘Any first name?’
‘No. Queensland homicide recovered the body over an hour ago.’
‘Why didn’t you call me as soon as you stepped foot in Queensland? I could have coordinated a small task force to undertake surveillance, and had police officers bring the both of them in to formally lay charges. This isn’t about ultimatums or playing Dirty Harry.’
The kettle filled, and I limped out into the bedroom in search for a power point. ‘I had to act, Mike. Poulson learned of Tamsin’s location and had half a day on me. Due process is protracted and over complicated, you know that. I was against the clock. Poulson would have gotten to Tamsin by the time you coordinated your men.’
‘You’ve potentially compromised this case in ways you couldn’t understand. Your licence doesn’t grant you the privilege to vigilantism. You don’t leave me any option but to report this to the commissioner as a potential breach of the CAPI legislation. You’ve just put your livelihood at risk, you idiot.’
I eased myself onto the soft bed and rested the kettle on a pine bedside table. My lower back ached. ‘Maybe I deserve that, and if you want to be the one to do it, I can respect that. Couldn’t have come from a better officer, in my opinion.’
‘Stop with the false platitudes. You can’t carry them. Where was your high opinion of me when you decided to take Poulson on alone?’
‘If it’s worth anything, you’re my second port of call.’
‘It’s not worth jot.’
‘I’ll look into Malone’s connection with Poulson.’
‘No. Leave it. I’ll liaise with the Commissioner of the Queensland Police and investigate any lines of inquiry relating to Malone. As far as you’re concerned, you’d do best to stay the hell out of the way.’
The line went silent for a while, until Ivers said, ‘What about Tamsin? Did you find her?’
‘Yeah, she’s alive and well. She’s working as a personal trainer at a local gym. Everything looks rosy in her camp.’
‘Did you talk to her?’
‘No. I don’t think it’s my place to tell her about any of this.’
Ivers grunted.
I said, ‘What’s going to happen to Poulson?’
‘If he doesn’t get charged here, he might be extradited. I’ll check with relevant agencies in the UK to see if he has any links to other crimes in London. That’s the worst-case scenario.’
‘What’s best case?’
‘He’s charged here and arraigned to face court on double murder charges. I’ll do my best to see that happens. I don’t want the bastard to get off on a minimum term conviction in England because he’s a UK citizen.’
The conversation died, and Ivers hung up flustered.
I drank a weak coffee, had a twenty-minute kip, and boarded a twilight flight back to Sydney.
***
Brenda Cash fed her husband homemade chicken noodle soup from a container. When she saw me, she smiled and nodded. ‘Mathew, hello. Would you like something to eat? I made nopales.’
An open container with what looked like chopped up cactus sat on the eating tray.
I smiled and shook my head.
Reggie blinked at me slowly. ‘Matty.’ He sounded flat.
‘Reggie, what’s going on?’
‘Matty....’ He clawed the sheets. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Reggie, it’s good.’
‘They threatened Brenda. They wanted to know where Tamsin was, or they’d kill Brenda. Two guys came in, a tall, rough-lookin’ guy in leathers, and a little bald limey bastard. He’s the fucking prick who pulled my fingers apart. The other one kept watch outside the office.’
The fact Reggie had endured as much as he did earned him a lot of points, in my view.
‘They were probably casing the place,’ he said, ‘making sure I was alone.’
Brenda’s eyes glassed up, and she caressed his neck with the back of her hand. ‘O meu amor.’
‘The Limey cold-cocked me,’ Reggie continued. ‘Fucker broke my jaw, ripped my fingers out of their sockets. If he’d hurt her, Matty, I don’t know what I would’ve done.’
He looked at her in such a way, I felt like an intruder.
I told him about Poulson killing Malone, and how Poulson wouldn’t be able to hurt Brenda if he tried.
***
Two days went by before Evelyn’s mobile number showed up on my screen.
I said, ‘Tell Lyons I put his goon in a wheelchair.’
‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘He died this morning on the operating table.’
Exactly like he said. Maybe there is some karma in the world.
‘I can’t get his face out of my head,’ she went on. ‘He looked so scared.’
‘Like I give a shit.’
‘Stop with the gruff act, Matt. You have to understand. I never meant to hurt Tamsin.’
‘No such thing as a victimless crime, Evelyn. You sound like all the other people who get caught out.’
‘You sound different.’
‘I’ve had a very big week, Evelyn. I’m very tired.’
‘Matt, Tamsin will always be flesh and blood. I love her. I love her like a daughter.’
‘That might be true, but you also used her for your own gain.’
She sighed long and deep. ‘My sister never wanted Tamsin.’
‘I’ve heard that record already. Nothing you did resembled love, Evelyn. You made sixty grand because of some misplaced ideal, as if you were doing this from some high moral ground—a form of revenge, on behalf of Tamsin.’
‘You’ll never understand how much I care for Tamsin, how I took her in as if she was my own. Her mother stood by and let her husband violate her own daughter. Do you know how much that makes me want to spit in my sister’s face? So, don’t make me out to be the bad guy.’
‘Are you fucking kidding me right now? What about Renee Prestwidge and Pavali Singh? What about the pieces their families have to pick up? What about Warwick Fripp? That’s the cost, Evelyn—three innocent lives for the sake of one. My boss had his fingers broken, and was bashed to within an inch of his life over this. I’ve been stabbed, hit, shot at, driven out into the middle of fucking nowhere by two fucking psychopaths, and for what? Your little pension scheme to draw as much blood as you could out of Jeff? You’re just lucky Tamsin isn’t lying in a morgue right now.’
She stayed silent for a long time. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Don’t say anything. Look, I want to assume the best of people, Evelyn. My boss got the injunction lifted, and Heather’s book is going to press, so all of this was for nothing. You didn’t prove anything. You didn’t expose Jeff, and you didn’t make anything better. Jeff never officially confessed to abusing Tamsin.’
‘If it was all for nothing, then what about us?’
‘Tuesday night was nothing but you gaining intel to see how much I knew about the book.’
‘I don’t need your criticism, and I don’t appreciate your tone. I didn’t hear you complaining.’
‘You were clumsy and obvious. That doesn’t faze me. What bothers me is the clumsy, ineffective way you went about it. You didn’t consider any subtlety at all, and went straight for the jugular.’
‘I’m going to sound like a lying, manipulating bitch, but I wanted something to happen. It scared the shit out of me, that something did. I didn’t expect anything to happen. There was something about you. I was interested in you’
I scoffed. ‘‘Was.’’
‘You don’t want to see me any more than I want to see you. Let’s just call it for what it was, a release, a bit of fun. I thought you could call a spade a spade. That’s what I liked about you. No PC bullshit.’
I understood the moral arguments about who benefited and how to capitalise when it came to murder—pride, jealousy, stupidity... all of it—but I couldn’t reconcile Evelyn’s apathy towards the victims.
She laughed. ‘Jesus, I didn’t pick you to be an elitist.’
‘And I didn’t pick you to be a misguided opportunist.’
‘I wanted to get back at the man who traumatised my niece, a little girl whom my sister treated with the utmost contempt. She didn’t deserve her. Neither of them did.’
‘You took advantage of them.’
‘It was the right thing to do, given the situation.’
‘Don’t you get it? Your little scheme backfired, and it cost three people their lives, Evelyn.’
‘How dare you put that on me.’
Ey, mannaggia, the gall of the woman.
‘That’s fucking low, Matt. Jeff hired a criminal to kill his own daughter. He may as well have stabbed those girls himself.’
‘That’s a very convenient out for you. What about Malone?’
‘Malone who?’
‘You don’t have any connection to a psychopath who owns a Beretta?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Nothing. Forget it.’
‘I didn’t want anyone to die. You have to believe me.’
‘It doesn’t matter what you wanted or didn’t want, it’s all interconnected. Because of something you instigated, three people are dead. That’s what happened, as a direct consequence of your actions. And that’s something that’s going to haunt you every day.’
‘We have to live with our choices, and I’ve accepted that. Have you?’
‘This is exhausting. How do you figure?’
‘You arranged the meeting with Fripp, and now he’s dead. You signed onto the case, which caused Jeff to overreact and have Gav kill those two innocent girls. You told Jeff that Reggie knew where Tamsin was, which put her in danger. You are a catalyst for everything that happened just as much as I am, Matt. And that’s something you’ll have to live with.’
I wanted to hang up first, but she beat me to it.
