The Bat Read online

  Yong cleared his throat. ‘I haven’t mentioned this before, Harry, but I was surprised when Andrew came up with this witness who had seen Evans White in Nimbin on the same day Holter was murdered. Now, in retrospect, it’s struck me that Andrew might have had another motive for removing the focus from Evans White: the guy had a hold on him. Evans White knew Andrew was on heroin and could have had him kicked out of the force and put in prison. I don’t like the idea, but have you considered the possibility that Andrew and White may have struck a little deal? That Andrew would make sure we gave White a wide berth?’

  ‘This is beginning to get complicated, Yong, but – well, yes, I have considered that possibility. And rejected it. Don’t forget it was Andrew who enabled us to identify and find Evans White from the photo.’

  ‘Hm.’ Yong scratched the back of his head with a pencil. ‘We would have managed that without him, but it would have taken longer. Do you know the chances of a murder victim’s partner being the culprit in any given case? Fifty-eight per cent. Andrew knew we would invest substantial resources into finding Inger Holter’s secret lover after you’d translated that letter. So if he really wanted to protect White and keep him hidden at the same time he might just as well have helped. For appearances’ sake. You found it remarkable, for example, that he could immediately recognise a few walls in a place he had been just the once, drugged up and a hundred years ago, didn’t you.’

  ‘You might be right, Yong, I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t think there’s much point sowing too many seeds of doubt now that the guys know what to do. When it comes to the crunch, perhaps Evans White is our man after all. But if I really believed that, I would never have asked Birgitta to take part in this.’

  ‘So who do you think is our man?’

  ‘Who do I think it is this time, you mean?’

  Yong smiled. ‘Something like that.’

  Harry rubbed his chin. ‘I’ve already rung the alarm bells twice, Yong. Wasn’t it the third time the boy cried “Wolf” that they stopped reacting? That’s why I have to be a hundred per cent sure this time.’

  ‘Why have you come to me with this, Harry? Why not one of the bosses?’

  ‘Because you can do a couple of things for me, make discreet enquiries and find some data I need, without anyone else in the building getting wind of it.’

  ‘No one else should know?’

  ‘I know it sounds dodgy. And I know you have more to lose than most, but you’re the only person who can help me, Yong. What do you say?’

  Yong sent Harry a long stare.

  ‘Will it help to find the murderer, Harry?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  48

  The Plan

  ‘BRAVO, COME IN.’

  The radio crackled.

  ‘Radio works as it should,’ Lebie said. ‘How’s it going in there?’

  ‘Fine,’ Harry answered.

  He was sitting on the made bed studying a photograph of Birgitta on the bedside table. It was a confirmation photo. She looked young, serious and strange, with curls in her hair and no freckles because the picture was overexposed. She didn’t look good. Birgitta had said she kept the photo there for encouragement on bad days, as proof that she had progressed despite everything.

  ‘What’s the timetable?’ Lebie called.

  ‘She finishes work in fifteen minutes. They’re at the Albury attaching the mike and transmitter now.’

  ‘Are they driving her to Darlinghurst Road?’

  ‘Nope. We don’t know where White is in the area. He might see her alighting from a car and get suspicious. She’s going to walk from the Albury.’

  Watkins came in from the corridor.

  ‘Seems great. I can stand round the corner behind the gateway without them seeing me and follow them. We’ll have visual contact with her the whole way, Holy. Where are you, Holy?’

  ‘In here, sir. I heard you. Good to hear that, sir.’

  ‘Radio, Lebie?’

  ‘I’ve got contact, sir. Everyone’s in position. Just waiting.’

  Harry had gone through it over and over again. From all sides. Argued with himself, tried every angle and in the end decided he didn’t care whether she might interpret it as an awful cliché, a childish form of expression or an easy way out. He unpacked the wild rose he had bought and put it in the glass of water beside the photo on the bedside table.

  He hesitated. Perhaps it would distract her? Perhaps Evans White would start asking questions if he saw a rose beside her bed? He ran a forefinger over one of the thorns. No. Birgitta would appreciate the encouragement; the sight of the rose would make her feel stronger.

  He checked his watch. It was eight o’clock.

  ‘Hey, let’s get this over with!’ he shouted to the sitting room.

  49

  A Walk in the Park

  SOMETHING WAS WRONG. Harry couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could hear the crackle of the radio from the sitting room. And there was too much of it. Everyone knew exactly what they had to do in advance, so if it was all going to plan it shouldn’t be necessary to talk so much on the radio.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Watkins said. Lebie removed the headphones and turned to Harry.

  ‘She didn’t show up,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She left the Albury at exactly quarter past eight. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to walk from there to King’s Cross. That was twenty-five minutes ago.’

  ‘I thought you said she would be under surveillance the whole time!’

  ‘From the meeting place, yes. Why would anyone—?’

  ‘What about the mike? She was wired up when she left, wasn’t she?’

  ‘They lost contact. They had it and then there was nothing. Not a peep.’

  ‘Have we got a map? Which route did she take?’ He spoke softly and quickly. Lebie took the street atlas from his bag and gave it to Harry, who found the page showing Paddington and King’s Cross.

  ‘Which way would she have gone?’ Lebie asked on the radio.

  ‘The simplest. Down Victoria Street.’

  ‘Here it is,’ Harry said. ‘Round the corner of Oxford Street and down Victoria Street, past St Vincent’s Hospital, across Green Park on the left, to the crossroads, up to where Darlinghurst Road starts and two hundred metres along to where Hungry Jack’s is. Couldn’t be any bloody simpler!’

  Watkins took the radio mike. ‘Smith, send two cars up Victoria Street to find the girl. Tell the people at the Albury to lend a hand. One car stays outside Hungry Jack’s in case she appears. Be quick and don’t make any fuss. Report back as soon as you know anything.’ He threw the mike down. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck! What the hell is going on? Has she been run over? Robbed? Raped? Shit, shit, shit!’

  Lebie and Harry exchanged glances.

  ‘Could White possibly have driven up Victoria Street, spotted her and picked her up there?’ Lebie suggested. ‘He has seen her before after all, at the Albury, and may have recognised her.’

  ‘The radio transmitter,’ Harry said. ‘It must still be working!’

  ‘Bravo, bravo! Watkins here. Are you getting any signals from her transmitter? . . . Yes? . . . Direction of the Albury? Then she isn’t far away. Quick, quick, quick! Great! Out!’

  The three men sat in silence. Lebie shot Harry a glance.

  ‘Ask if they’ve seen White’s car,’ Harry said.

  ‘Bravo, come in. Lebie here. What about the black Holden? Has anyone seen it yet?’

  ‘Negative.’

  Watkins jumped up and began to pace the floor while swearing under his breath. Harry had been crouched down ever since he came into the sitting room and only noticed now that his thigh muscles were quivering.

  The radio crackled.

  ‘Charlie, this is Bravo. Come in.’

  Lebie pressed the loudspeaker button. ‘Charlie here, Bravo. Speak.’

  ‘Stolz here. We’ve found the bag with the transmitter and microphone in Green Park. The g
irl’s vanished into thin air.’

  ‘In the bag?’ Harry said. ‘Wasn’t it supposed to have been taped to her body?’

  Watkins squirmed. ‘Probably I forgot to say, but we discussed what would happen if he got into a clinch with her . . . er, held her and, well, you know. Made a move. Miss Enquist agreed it would be safer to keep the equipment in the bag.’

  Harry already had his jacket on.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Lebie asked.

  ‘He was waiting for her,’ Harry said. ‘Maybe he followed her from the Albury. She didn’t even have a chance to scream. My guess is he used a cloth with diethyl ether. Same as Otto Rechtnagel got.’

  ‘In the street?’ Lebie said with a sceptical tone.

  ‘Nope. In the park. I’m on my way now. Somebody I know there.’

  Joseph kept blinking. He was incredibly drunk.

  ‘I think they stood there smooching, Harry.’

  ‘You’ve said that four times now, Joseph. What did he look like? Where were they going? Did he have a car?’

  ‘Mikke and I, we commented, when he dragged her past, that she was even drunker than we were. I think Mikke envied her that. Hee hee. Say hello to Mikke. He’s from Finland.’

  Mikke was lying on the other bench and was well gone.

  ‘Look at me, Joseph. Look at me! I have to find her. Do you understand? The guy’s probably a murderer.’

  ‘I’m trying, Harry. I’m really trying. Shit, I wish I could help you.’

  Joseph squeezed his eyes shut and groaned as he banged his forehead with his fist.

  ‘The light’s so bloody bad in this park I didn’t see much. I think he was quite big.’

  ‘Fat? Tall? Blond? Dark? Lame? Glasses? Beard? Hat?’

  Joseph rolled his eyes in answer. ‘D’ya have a fig, mate. Makes me think better, you know.’

  But all the cigarettes in the world could not blow away the alcoholic mist wreathing Joseph’s brain. Harry gave him the rest of the packet and told him to ask Mikke what he remembered when he came round. Not that he reckoned there would be much.

  When Harry returned to Birgitta’s flat it was two in the morning. Lebie was sitting by the radio and watched Harry with sympathetic eyes.

  ‘Gave it a burl, did ya? No good, eh?’

  Burl? It was beyond Harry, but he nodded in agreement.

  ‘No good,’ he said, crashing down into a chair.

  ‘What was the mood like at the station?’ Lebie asked.

  Harry fumbled for a cigarette before realising he had given them to Joseph.

  ‘One notch from chaos. Watkins is close to going off the rails, and cars are racing round Sydney like headless chickens, with their sirens on in full-pursuit mode. The only thing they know about White is he left his flat in Nimbin early today and caught the four o’clock flight to Sydney. Since then no one’s seen him.’

  He bummed a cigarette off Lebie and they smoked in silence.

  ‘Nip home and get yourself a few hours’ sleep, Sergey. I’ll stay here tonight in case Birgitta turns up. Leave the radio on, so it can keep me posted.’

  ‘I can sleep here, Harry.’

  Harry shook his head. ‘Get yourself home. I’ll ring you if there is anything.’

  Lebie put a Sydney Bears cap on his polished skull. He loitered by the door.

  ‘We’ll find her, Harry. I can feel it in my bones. So hang in there, mate.’

  Harry looked at Lebie. It was hard to say whether Lebie believed what he said.

  As soon as he was alone he opened the window and gazed across the rooftops. It had turned cooler, but the air was still mild and mingling with the smell of town, people and food from all corners of the earth. It was one of the planet’s most beautiful summer nights in one of the planet’s most beautiful towns. He looked up at the starry sky. An infinity of small, flashing lights that seemed to pulsate with life if he watched for long enough. All this meaningless beauty.

  He tested his feelings. He couldn’t afford to give way to them. Not yet, not now. First, the good feelings. Birgitta’s face between his hands, the traces of laughter in her eyes. The bad feelings. Those were the ones he had to keep at arm’s length, but he entertained them, as if to form an impression of the power they had.

  He felt as though he were sitting in a submarine at the bottom of a very deep ocean. The sea was pressing in; around him the creaks and bangs had already started. He could only hope the hull would hold, that a lifetime’s training in self-discipline would finally reveal its worth. Harry thought of the souls that became stars when their earthly shells died. He managed to restrain himself from searching for one star in particular.

  50

  The Rooster Factor

  AFTER THE ACCIDENT Harry had repeatedly asked himself whether he would have exchanged fates if he had been able. So that he would have been the person who had bent the fence post in Sørkedalsveien, who had been given a ceremonial funeral with full police honours and grieving parents, who had a photograph in a corridor at Grønland Police Station and who in time had become a pale but dear memory to colleagues and relatives. Was it not a tempting alternative to the lie he had to live, which in many ways was even more humiliating than accepting the guilt and shame?

  But Harry knew he would not have swapped his fate. He was happy to be alive.

  Every morning he woke in the hospital, his mind dizzy from pills and void of thoughts, it was with a sense that something had gone terribly wrong. As a rule it took a couple of drowsy seconds before his memory reacted, told him who and where he was and reconstructed the situation for him with relentless horror. His next thought was that he was alive. That he was still on course, it wasn’t over yet.

  After being discharged he was given a session with a psychiatrist.

  ‘In point of fact, you’re a bit late,’ the psychiatrist said. ‘Your subconscious has probably already chosen how it wants to work with what’s happened, so we can’t influence its first decision. It may, for example, have chosen to repress events. But if it has made such a choice we can try to make it change its mind.’

  All Harry knew was that his subconscious told him it was a good thing to be alive, and he wasn’t willing to take the risk that a psychiatrist might make him change his mind, so that was the first and last time he went to see him.

  In the days that followed he taught himself it was also a bad strategy to fight against everything he felt at once. Firstly, he wasn’t sure what he felt – at least he didn’t have the whole picture, so it was like challenging a monster he hadn’t even seen. Secondly, his chances of winning were better if he divided the war up into small skirmishes where he might gain some perspective of the enemy, find his weak points and over time break him down. It was like inserting paper into a shredder. If you inserted too much at once, the machine panicked, coughed and died with a clunk. And you had to start again.

  A friend of a colleague, whom Harry had met at a rare dinner engagement, was a local council psychologist. He had sent Harry a quizzical look when Harry elucidated on his method for combating emotions.

  ‘War?’ he’d said. ‘Shredder?’ He had appeared to be genuinely concerned.

  Harry opened his eyes. The first morning light was seeping in through the curtains. He looked at his watch. Six o’clock. The radio crackled.

  ‘This is Delta. Charlie, come in.’

  Harry jumped up from the sofa and grabbed the microphone.

  ‘Delta, this is Holy. What’s up?’

  ‘We’ve found Evans White. We got an anonymous tip-off from a woman who had seen him in King’s Cross, so we sent three patrol cars and picked him up. He’s being questioned now.’

  ‘What’s he said?’

  ‘He denied everything until we played him the tape of his conversation with Miss Enquist. He told us he’d driven by Hungry Jack’s three times after eight o’clock, in a white Honda. But he gave up when he didn’t see her and drove back to a flat he’s renting. Later he went to a nightclub, and that was where we f
ound him. By the way, the tip-off asked after you.’

  ‘I thought as much. Her name’s Sandra. Have you searched his flat?’

  ‘Yeah. Nada. Zilch. And Smith says he saw the same white Honda drive past him three times outside Hungry Jack’s.’

  ‘Why didn’t he drive the black Holden as arranged?’

  ‘White says he lied about the car to Miss Enquist in case someone was trying to set him up, so that he could do a couple of circuits and check the coast was clear.’

  ‘All right. I’m on my way now. Ring the others and wake them up, will you?’

  ‘They drove home two hours ago, Holy. They’d been up all night and Watkins told us—’

  ‘I don’t give a shit what Watkins said. Call them.’

  They had put back the old fan. It was hard to say if it had benefited from its break; at any rate it creaked in protest at being brought out of retirement.

  The meeting was over, but Harry was still sitting in the conference room. His shirt had large, wet patches under his arms, and he had placed a phone on the table in front of him. He closed his eyes and mumbled something to himself. Then he lifted the receiver and dialled the number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘This is Harry Holy.’

  ‘Harry! Pleased to hear you’re up early. A good habit. I’ve been waiting for you to ring. Are you alone?’

  ‘I’m alone.’

  There was heavy breathing at both ends of the line.

  ‘You’re on to me, aren’t you, mate?’

  ‘I’ve known for quite a while, yes.’

  ‘You’ve done a good job, Harry. And now you’re ringing because I’ve got something you want, right?’

  ‘That’s correct.’ Harry wiped away the sweat.

  ‘You understand that I had to take her, Harry?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t understand.’

  ‘Come on, Harry, you’re not stupid. When I heard someone was digging I knew of course it would be you. I hope for your sake you’ve been smart enough to keep your mouth shut about this. Have you, Harry?’