The Bat

  ‘Yeah. I didn’t sleep much last night. Wife had to give me one of her s-sleeping pills. You shouldn’t have to experience that sort of thing. S’pose you’re used to it, though.’

  ‘Well, that was slightly stronger fare than usual.’

  ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go into that r-room again.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll get over it.’

  ‘No, listen to me, I can’t even bloody call it the p-props room, I say that room.’ The caretaker shook his head in desperation.

  ‘Time heals,’ Harry said. ‘Trust me, I know a bit about that.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, Officer.’

  ‘Call me Harry.’

  ‘Coffee, Harry?’

  Harry said please and laid the bunch of keys on the table between them.

  ‘Ah, there they are,’ the caretaker said. ‘The bunch of keys Rechtnagel borrowed. I was f-frightened they wouldn’t turn up and we would have to change all the locks. Where did you find them?’

  ‘At Otto’s place.’

  ‘What? But he used the keys last night, didn’t he? His dressing-room door . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I wonder if there was anyone else apart from the performers behind the stage yesterday.’

  ‘Oh yes. Let’s see now. The l-lighting engineer, two stagehands and the sound manager were there, of course. No costume or make-up people, this isn’t a b-big production. Well, that’s about it. During the show there were only the stagehands and the other performers. And me.’

  ‘And you didn’t see anyone there?’

  ‘Not a soul,’ the caretaker answered without any hesitation.

  ‘Could anyone have got in another way apart from the back door or the stage door?’

  ‘Well, there’s a corridor at the side of the gallery. Now the g-gallery was closed yesterday, but the door was open because the lighting engineer was sitting up there. Have a word with him.’

  The lighting engineer’s prominent eyes bulged like those of a deep-sea fish that had just been brought to the surface.

  ‘Yes, hang on. There was a bloke sitting there before the interval. If we can see in advance that there’s not going to be a full house we sell only stall tickets, but there was nothing odd about him sitting there. The gallery isn’t locked even if the tickets are actually for the stalls. He was on his own, in the back row. I remember I was surprised he would want to sit there, so far from the stage. Mm, there wasn’t a lot of light, but, yes, I did see him. When I returned after the break, he was gone, as I said.’

  ‘Could he have got behind the stage through the same door as you?’

  ‘Well.’ The lighting engineer scratched his head. ‘I assume so. If he went into the props room he could have avoided being seen by anyone. Thinking about it now, I would say the man didn’t actually look very well. Yeah. I knew there was something at the back of my mind, nagging at me, something that didn’t quite fit—’

  ‘Listen,’ Harry said, ‘I’m going to show you a photo—’

  ‘By the way, there was something else about the man—’

  ‘This is all great,’ Harry interrupted him, ‘I’d like you to imagine the man you saw yesterday, and when you see the photo you mustn’t think, just say the first thing that occurs to you. Afterwards, you’ll have more time and maybe change your mind, but for now I want your instinctive reaction. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ said the lighting engineer and closed his protuberant eyes, making him look like a frog. ‘I’m ready.’

  Harry showed him the photograph.

  ‘That’s him!’ he said, quick as a flash.

  ‘Take a bit more time and tell me what you think.’

  ‘There’s no doubt. That’s what I was trying to tell you, Officer, the man was black . . . an Aboriginal. That’s your man!’

  Harry was worn out. It had already been a long day, and he was trying not to think about the rest. When he was ushered into the autopsy room by an assistant, Dr Engelsohn’s small, plump figure was bent over a large, fat woman’s body on a kind of operating table illuminated by huge overhead lamps. Harry didn’t think he could face any more fat women today.

  Grumpy Engelsohn looked like a mad professor. The little hair he had stuck out in all directions and blond bristles were scattered randomly across his face.

  ‘Yes?’

  Harry realised the man had forgotten the phone conversation of some two hours before.

  ‘My name’s Harry Holy. I rang you about the initial results of the autopsy on Andrew Kensington.’

  Even though the room was full of strange smells and solutions Harry could still detect the unmistakable odour of gin on his breath.

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course. Kensington. Sad case. I spoke with him several times. When he was alive, mind you. Now he’s as silent as a clam in that drawer.’

  Engelsohn motioned behind him with his thumb.

  ‘Listen, Mr . . . what was it again? . . . Holy, yes! We’ve got a queue of bodies here all hassling me to be first. Well, not the bodies, no, the detectives. But all of them will have to sit tight and wait their turn. Those are the rules here, no queue-jumping, understand? So when Big Chief McCormack himself rings this morning and says we have to prioritise a suicide, then I start wondering. I didn’t manage to ask McCormack, but perhaps you, Mr Horgan, can tell me what on earth makes this Kensington so special?’

  He shook his head in a toss of contempt and breathed more gin over Harry.

  ‘Well, we’re hoping that’s what you can tell us, Doctor. Is he special?’

  ‘Special? What do you mean by special? That he’s got three legs, four lungs or nipples on his back, or what?’

  Harry was exhausted. What he needed least of all now was a drunken pathologist trying to be awkward because he felt someone had stepped on his toes. And university-qualified people had a tendency to have more sensitive toes than others.

  ‘Was there anything . . . unusual?’ Harry ventured, trying another formulation.

  Engelsohn regarded him with misty eyes. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There was nothing unusual. Nothing unusual at all.’

  The doctor continued to look at him with his head rocking from side to side, and Harry knew there was more to come. He had just inserted a dramatic pause which, to his alcohol-soaked brain, probably did not seem as long as it did to Harry.

  ‘For us it’s not unusual,’ the doctor continued at length, ‘for a body to be full to the brim with dope. Or, as in this case, with heroin. What is unusual is that he’s a policeman, but as we get so few of your colleagues on our tables I couldn’t say how unusual that is.’

  ‘Cause of death?’

  ‘Didn’t you say you were the one to find him? What do you think you die of if you’re hanging from the ceiling with a cable round your neck? Whooping cough?’

  Inside Harry, the fuse was beginning to burn, but for the time being he held the mask.

  ‘So he died of suffocation, not an overdose?’

  ‘Bingo, Horgan.’

  ‘OK. Next question is time of death.’

  ‘Let’s say somewhere between midnight and two in the morning.’

  ‘You can’t be more precise?’

  ‘Would you be happier if I said five minutes past one?’ The doctor’s already ruddy cheeks were even redder now. ‘OK, let’s say five minutes past one.’

  Harry breathed in deep a couple of times. ‘I apologise if I’m expressing myself . . . if I seem rude, Doctor. My English is not always—’

  ‘—as it should be,’ Engelsohn completed.

  ‘Exactly. You are undoubtedly a busy man, Doctor, so I won’t delay you any further. I hope, however, you can confirm that you have taken on board what McCormack said about the autopsy report not going through the usual official channels but directly to him.’

  ‘That’s not possible. My instructions are clear, Horgan. You can pass on my regards to McCormack and tell him that from me.’

  The mad little professor faced Harry with his legs akimbo and arms cr
ossed, sure of his ground. There was a glint of battle in his eyes.

  ‘Instructions? I don’t know what status instructions have in the Sydney Police Force but where I come from instructions are there to tell people what to do,’ Harry said.

  ‘Forget it, Horgan. Professional ethics is obviously not a subject you’re familiar with in your dealings, so I doubt we’ll be able to have a fruitful discussion about that. What do you think? Shall we draw a line under this now and say goodbye, Mr Horgan?’

  Harry didn’t move. He was looking at a man who believed he had nothing to lose. An alcoholic, middle-aged and middle-range pathologist who no longer had any prospects of promotion or getting to the top and who therefore had no fear of anyone or anything. Because what could they actually do to him? For Harry this had been one of the longest and the worst days of his life. And now he’d had enough. He grabbed the lapels of the white coat and lifted him up.

  The seams nearly burst.

  ‘What I think? I think we should give you a blood test and then talk about professional ethics, Dr Engelsohn. I think we should talk about how many people can testify that you were rat-arsed when you carried out the autopsy on Inger Holter. Then I think we should talk about someone who can give you the boot, not just from this job but any job that requires medical qualifications. What do you think, Dr Engelsohn? What do you think about my English now?’

  Dr Engelsohn thought Harry’s English was just perfect, and upon mature reflection took the view that just this once the report could perhaps go through non-official channels.

  34

  Frogner Lido’s Top Board

  McCORMACK WAS SITTING with his back to Harry again and looking out of the window. The sun was going down, but still you could catch a glimpse of the temptingly blue sea between the skyscrapers and the dark green Royal Botanic Gardens. Harry’s mouth was dry and he had a headache coming on. He had delivered a reasoned and almost unbroken monologue for over three-quarters of an hour. About Otto Rechtnagel, Andrew Kensington, heroin, the Cricket, the lighting engineer, Engelsohn; in brief, everything that had happened.

  McCormack sat with his fingertips pressed together. He hadn’t said anything for a long while.

  ‘Did you know that way out there, in New Zealand, live the most stupid people in the world? They live alone on an island, with no neighbours to bother them, just a load of water. Yet that nation has participated in just about all the major wars there have been in the twentieth century. No other country, not even Russia during the Second World War, has lost so many young men proportionate to the population. The surplus of women is legendary. And why all this fighting? To help. To stand up for others. These simpletons didn’t even fight on their own battlefields, no sir, they boarded boats and planes to travel as far as possible to die. They helped the Allies against the Germans and the Italians, the South Koreans against the North Koreans and the Americans against the Japanese and the North Vietnamese. My father was one of those simpletons.’

  He turned from the window and faced Harry.

  ‘My father told me a story about an artillery gunner on his boat during the Battle of Okinawa against the Japanese in 1945. The Japanese had mobilised kamikaze pilots, and they attacked in formation using tactics they called “falling like walnut-tree leaves over water”. And that was exactly what they did. First came one plane, and if it was shot down, two others appeared behind it, then four and so on in an apparently endless pyramid of diving planes. Everyone on board my father’s boat was scared out of their wits. It was total insanity, pilots willing to die to make sure their bombs landed where they were intended. The only way they could be stopped was by mounting the densest possible flak, a wall of anti-aircraft missiles. A tiny hole in the wall and the Japanese were on top of them. It was calculated that if a plane wasn’t shot down within twenty seconds after it had appeared within shooting range it was too late. In all probability it would succeed in crashing into the ship. The gunners knew they had to hit every time, and sometimes the aerial assaults could last all day. My father described the regular pom-pom-pom of the cannons and the increasingly high-pitched wails of the planes as they dived. He said he’d heard them every night since.

  ‘The last day of the battle he was standing on the bridge when they saw a plane emerging from the barrage and heading straight for their ship. The artillery hammered away as the plane closed in, looming larger from second to second. At the end they could clearly see the cockpit and the outline of the pilot inside. The shells from the plane began to strafe the deck. Then the anti-aircraft shells hit home and the guns raked the wings and fuselage. The tail broke off, and gradually, in slow motion, the plane disintegrated into its basic parts and in the end all that was left was a small chunk attached to the propeller, which struck the deck with a trail of fire and black smoke. The other gunners were already swinging into action against new targets when a bloke in the turret directly below the bridge, a young corporal my father knew because they both came from Wellington, clambered out, waved to Dad with a smile and said: “It’s hot today.” Then he jumped overboard and was gone.’

  Perhaps it was the light, but Harry suddenly had the impression McCormack looked old.

  ‘It’s hot today,’ McCormack repeated.

  ‘Human nature is a vast, dark forest, sir.’

  McCormack nodded. ‘So I’ve heard, Holy, and it may be true. I saw you had time to get to know each other, you and Kensington. I’ve also heard that Andrew Kensington’s doings on this case ought to be investigated. What’s your opinion, Holy?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir.’

  McCormack got up and started pacing in front of the window, a procedure Harry was now familiar with.

  ‘I’ve been a policeman all my life, Holy, but still I look at my colleagues around me and wonder what it is that makes them do it, fight other people’s wars. What drives them? Who wants to go through so much suffering for others to have what they perceive as justice? They’re the stupid ones, Holy. We are. We’re blessed with a stupidity so great that we believe we can achieve something.

  ‘We get shot to pieces, we’re obliterated and one day we jump into the sea, but in the meantime, in our endless stupidity, we believe someone needs us. And if one day you should still see through the illusion, it’s already too late because we’ve become police officers, we’re in the trenches and there’s no way back. We can just wonder what the hell happened, when it was exactly that we made the wrong decision. We’re doomed to be do-gooders for the rest of our lives and doomed to fail. But, happily, truth is a relative business. And it’s flexible. We bend and twist it until it has space in our lives. Some of it, anyway. Now and then catching a villain is enough to gain some peace of mind. But everyone knows it’s not healthy to deal with the extinction of vermin for any length of time. You get to taste your own poison.

  ‘So, what is the point, Holy? The man’s been in the flak turret all his life, and now he’s dead. What more is there to say? Truth is relative. It’s not so easy to understand what extreme stress can do to a person, for those who haven’t experienced it themselves. We have forensic psychiatrists who try to draw a line between those who are sick and those who are criminal, and they bend and twist the truth to make it fit into their world of theoretical models. We have a legal system which, at its best, we hope can remove the occasional destructive individual from the streets, and journalists who would like to be seen as idealists because they make their names by exposing others in the belief that they’re establishing some kind of justice. But the truth?

  ‘The truth is that no one lives off the truth and that’s why no one cares about the truth. The truth we make for ourselves is just the sum of what is in someone’s interest, balanced by the power they hold.’

  His eyes held Harry’s.

  ‘So who cares about the truth with regard to Andrew Kensington? Who would benefit if we sculpted an ugly, distorted truth with sharp, dangerous bits sticking out that doesn’t fit anywhere? Not the Chief of Polic
e. Not the politicians on the town council. Not those fighting for the Aboriginal cause. Not the police officers’ trade union. Not our embassies. No one. Or am I wrong?’

  Harry felt like answering that Inger Holter’s parents would, but refrained. McCormack stopped by the portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth II.

  ‘I’d be obliged if what you’ve told me remains between us two, Holy. I’m sure you appreciate that things are best left like this.’

  Harry picked a long, red hair off his trouser leg.

  ‘I’ve discussed this with the mayor,’ McCormack said. ‘So that it won’t seem conspicuous, the Inger Holter case will be prioritised for a little while longer. If we can’t dig up any more, soon enough people will be happy to live with the notion that it was the clown who killed the Norwegian girl. Who killed the clown may be more problematical, but there’s a lot to suggest a crime of passion, jealousy, maybe a rejected secret lover, who knows? In such cases people can accept that the perpetrator gets away. Nothing is ever confirmed, of course, but the circumstantial evidence is clear, and after a few years the whole matter is forgotten. A serial killer on the loose was just one theory the police were toying with at some point but later dropped.’

  Harry made to leave. McCormack coughed.

  ‘I’m writing your report, Holy. I’ll send it to your Chief of Police in Oslo after you’ve gone. You’re leaving tomorrow, aren’t you?’

  Harry gave a brief nod and was gone.

  The gentle evening breeze did not relieve his headache. And his personal gloom did not make the image any more pleasant. Harry wandered aimlessly through the streets. A small animal crossed the path through Hyde Park. At first he thought it was a large rat, but as he passed by he saw a furry little rascal peering up at him with shiny reflections from the park lamps in its eyes. Harry had never seen an animal like it, but assumed it would have to be a possum. The animal didn’t appear to be frightened of him, quite the contrary, it sniffed the air inquisitively and made some bizarre wailing sounds.

  Harry crouched down. ‘Are you wondering what you’re actually doing in this big city too?’ he said.