BRUNO REELS, HEART RACING in the car.
A web of leads forming. Amy Owens, as the source, giving him:
The man at the O’Grady house.
The man with the rifle in the closet.
The familiar sound of his voice.
Bill Webber.
‘It’s not your case anymore.’
He’s a policeman. A rogue cop running his own show, camped out in the crime scene.
Bruno parks on the street, hits the front desk of the Surfers Paradise station house. ‘Is Webber on duty?’
The uniformed kid at the desk scans his book and says, ‘Nah. He’s off sick.’
Bruno takes the stairs two at a time up to CIB, along the corridor of interview rooms, checking the windows. Right down the end, there’s a man inside. He’s alone.
Blond hair.
Blue eyes.
Looks halfway between a car salesman and a rugby forward.
A National Party stooge, all the way.
Bruno knocks on the glass and the man startles.
Looks pretty alive to me.
Bruno rolls into the Robbery Squad section. It’s a non-starter. His old partner Lana Cohen is alone, holding the fort, seated not five feet from Bill Webber’s empty desk.
‘You looking for work?’ Lana says, swivelling in her chair.
‘No, thanks. I was chasing Bill, actually.’
‘Does he still work here?’
It’s a joke, but there’s an edge to it.
‘Any news?’ asks Bruno.
‘Not really. Your mate Seth Blackwell may have been a knucklehead, but the crew he was running with is a tight ship. Everyone on my team is out interviewing anyone who has ever met the bloke, and we’re still getting nowhere. How about you? I saw the transcript of your chat with the missus.’
‘The gay stuff?’
‘Yeah, what do you reckon happened with the O’Grady kid?’
‘I don’t know. The O’Gradys have money. Blackwell’s a crook. I can’t see them turning up alive.’
‘Two plus two generally equals four,’ says Lana.
‘Okay, I’m gonna push on.’
Bruno scans the bullpen. The office secretary, Anne-Marie, is at her station—and she’d have access to Bill Webber’s personnel file—but there’s no way she’s handing it over. No chance.
Bruno visits the records archive himself. He asks after missing files and knows it’s grasping.
The clerk on duty laughs. ‘Mate, who fucking knows? None of you dickheads ever sign anything out.’
Back down the corridor and down the stairs, Bruno spots a familiar figure through the stairwell window: Pete Reynolds smoking a durrie, arse planted on the back of his car in the station carpark. Two minutes later, Bruno joins him, the two of them shielding their eyes to see one another in the glare. Bruno has every intention of tearing strips off the man, but Pete looks like death warmed up. Bruno suddenly feels his own misplaced culpability. He got himself caught, got himself photographed, just like Pete before him. While Pete may have put him forward for the O’Grady thing, Bruno feels the same pinch now.
‘How’s the head?’
‘Not great,’ Pete says.
‘A friend of yours visited me this morning. Amy Owens.’
Pete goes still.
‘It’s okay,’ says Bruno. ‘You and I have more in common than I thought.’
Pete looks at his shoes, grinds one of them into the bitumen. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I thought you said you were careful.’
‘I was. Can I talk to you about something and not have it reach Colleen?’
He nods.
‘Something’s going on. I need the file on one of your guys,’ says Bruno.
‘Which one?’
‘Bill.’
‘Bill Webber?’
‘I’m pretty sure he’s the guy who pulled the gun on me at the O’Grady house a couple of nights back.’
‘Can’t be. What would he be doing there?’
‘Not sure yet. Has he ever stepped out of line?’
‘Never. Bill’s as straight as they come. He’s been off sick a bit lately, but even then, he’s been coming in where he can. He was at the scene the other day. What are you looking for in his file?’
‘Home address. Whatever else I can get.’
‘He didn’t top the O’Gradys. There’s just no way.’
‘Whatever he did, he’s out of line and we need to take a look at him.’
‘Okay.’ Reynolds starts off across the lot. At the door to the station house he turns and says, ‘Wait here.’