Tony Pascoe followed Frank Swann’s Lincoln-green HK Brougham, past the Karrakatta Cemetery and army barracks, turning west at the showgrounds toward the coast. Pascoe followed at a discreet distance, aware that Swann was giving him the opportunity to disappear into the suburbs.
Pascoe thought hard about that.
Gooch was dead. Pascoe hadn’t meant to kill the copper, but Gooch had wrenched sideways at a crucial moment, pushing off the desk, exposing his windpipe to the taut sinews inside Pascoe’s elbow, crushing it and effectively taking himself out.
Gooch was the first man that Pascoe had killed outside of the war. It didn’t feel good, even though Gooch was a bent copper who lived by the sword.
Pascoe told himself this as he watched Swann’s Brougham turn left down Salvado Street, past the SAS Barracks toward the Fremantle port. He told himself that he’d intervened to save Swann because after the detective shot him he was going to shoot Pascoe, although this wasn’t true. As a detective, Gooch would certainly want the credit for bringing Pascoe back to serve his term.
Pascoe had intervened purely out of instinct. What happened had happened, and now he was free again, albeit his wings had been clipped. Swann had smiled grimly when Pascoe asked for the Browning pistol, shaking his head in response. Outside, Swann had searched Pascoe’s van, discovering the adapted flare gun under the driver’s seat. He confiscated that, too, saying that despite his bad feelings toward Jared Page, a man who he’d crossed swords with over the years, he didn’t want another murder on his conscience.
Now Pascoe was unarmed. Swann could have taken the bag of gold ingots for himself too, but he didn’t. Pascoe put the Gladstone bag on the passenger floorpan, covered it with old newspaper.
They were on the coast road, sandy beaches to their right and train tracks to the left, hard sun reflecting off the wide blue ocean that was still as a pond. Ahead was the port, a tanker breaching the twin moles and moving out toward Gage Roads, big as an island beside the tugboats, tinnies and cruisers that skimmed across the water. Behind the gantry cranes was the raised bridge of the Yank vessel, satellite dish turning and catching the light. Behind that was the port city where Pascoe had grown up; his earliest memories of watching his father head off to work with his stevedore-hook hanging off his belt; his mother returning home from the Mills & Wares factory smelling of hot biscuits.
Swann’s Brougham indicated to turn right beyond the prison walls, toward the hospital. He raised a hand to signal his goodbye. Pascoe did the same, kept driving.