Terms of Service

Thirty-Nine

The parking garage was roughly equidistant from the Department where I worked and NFF House. Neither Timothy nor I had suggested a café, despite there being plenty in the area. Hideout or Little Bird would have been more comfortable, but they were also smack-bang in the centre of everything. We didn’t want to be overheard by anyone who might have recognised us. We stood beneath a height clearance bar with coffees from the Barton Grocer. We were waiting for Timothy’s contact to arrive.

We’re like Woodward and Bernstein, I said.

Who?

It had been quite the twenty-four hours in Canberra. A Queensland MP had been accused of harassing constituents and of taking upskirt photos of bartenders. A Tasmanian MP had accused a Liberal Senator of victim-blaming Brittany Higgins. He had also apparently dismissed, not the validity of the accusations against the Attorney-General, but rather the legal risk they posed to him. Thou hast committed fornication: but that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead. Meanwhile, ensconced in her bully pulpit on Sky News, Peta Credlin was bravely speaking out against historical gay orgies on the Hill. The place was beginning to sound like SEXPO. What broke in people’s brains when they got up there? Or had it been broken prior to their arrival? The rent boys on semi-regular assignations were beginning to seem the only sane people in the building.

The man arrived in George’s jacket and a weathered Akubra with a kangaroo pin in it. His features were ruddy and bulbous and he wore heavily scuffed RM Williams boots. It was clear that he was a farmer of some kind. Strange place for a meeting, he said.

This meeting isn’t happening, said Timothy.

The man didn’t understand. Okay, he said.

Nice jacket, I said. It was strange to be looking at it. I had only ever seen it on George and, more recently, only on George in the photo. It didn’t quite fit the farmer properly and he moved a little uncomfortably in it.

Thanks, he said. Got it in the city.

Doesn’t seem to fit, Timothy said.

It’s all right.

It’s also stolen.

I wasn’t quite sure why we were talking to him like this. He hadn’t done anything wrong. We seemed always to be going into some other mode, adopting a range of received postures and poses, whenever we were working the case. Timothy had described the farmer as a good sort, willing to admit to problems within the sector and actively committed to bringing about change. He was helping Timothy draft up measures to combat sexual harassment against backpackers on fruit farms. We were treating him as though he had murdered McInerney himself.

No, he said. I bought it in the city. I’ve got the receipts. I can show you.

Don’t worry, I said, snapping out of it a moment. We know you didn’t steal it. It was taken from a strip club lost and found. That’s how it wound up on sale second-hand.

George still wants it back, said Timothy.

George shouldn’t have been drunk, I said. Let him buy another jacket.

That’s what this is about? asked the farmer. My jacket? I wondered why you wanted to meet me.

We normally talk over Zoom, explained Timothy.

You can keep the jacket, I said. All we want to know is whether there were any keys in the pocket.

The farmer’s air of defensive confusion immediately gave way to one of sheepishness.

I don’t have them anymore, he said.

We know you don’t, Timothy said. They wound up being used in a murder.

Unlike the attendant at the second-hand store, who hadn’t believed a word Timothy had said, the farmer was aghast. They weren’t, were they?

I’m afraid so, said Timothy.

Who kills someone with a set of keys? he asked.

I sighed. That’s not how it happened, I said. I thought about it a moment. I don’t think so, anyway.

It occurred to me I still had no idea how McInerney had been done in. I had seen photographs of his corpse at the station, but the police had not said how the murderer had killed him.

Jesus Christ, the farmer said. I think I need to sit down.

There wasn’t anywhere for him to do so. The curb was wet and there weren’t any steps. It was a long way to the garage staircase. The farmer was holding one of his arms with the hand of his other and his eyes were widening. His knees began to buckle. He collapsed.

Are you okay, John? Timothy asked. This struck me as a little redundant.

We’ve given him a heart attack, I said. This was not much better.

Timothy took off his jacket and got on the ground and started administering what I assumed was first aid. I took out my phone and called an ambulance. The woman on the line asked to speak to Timothy. I put the phone on speaker and held it to towards him.

I don’t know what I’m doing, he told her.

That’s okay, she said. We’ll talk you through it.

Stay with me, John, Timothy said. I’ve got you.

People across at the Barton Grocer were beginning to realise there was something going on. They stood there with their coffees watching us. It had not yet occurred to them to help.

We must have looked a sorry sight. Or at least Timothy and the farmer must have done. I was merely one element too many, an absurdity surplus to the requirements of the tableau. A man was slowly dying on the ground and another was trying to save his life. A third was standing there holding his phone, as though he were a telecommunications tower.

A few weeks before she started school, she had taken a day-long first aid course. She had told me there were now defibrillators on the market that could talk you through a medical emergency, telling you in an automated voice what you needed to do until an ambulance arrived. It occurred to me that I was ultimately less useful than the majority of consumer-grade electronics products. I could have put my phone on the ground at that moment and simply walked away. It would have had no effect on the outcome. How many times had she been angry me for lacking any practical skills? We had once put together a flat-pack bedside table and she had all but spat at me in my uselessness. I know you must be good at something, she said, but I have no idea what it is. I had protested that I was good at many things. Standing there above Timothy and the farmer, watching the latter turn slowly violet, I could not remember what any of them were. Detective work certainly wasn’t one of them. It wouldn’t have counted anyway.

We rode with John to Canberra Hospital. At least this time I’m in an ambulance, I thought. I messaged work to tell them there had been an emergency and Timothy called the farmer’s wife. He look exhausted and a little rattled. I suspected I looked worse. We only began to regain some colour when the doctor came out to us in the waiting room and told us John was going to be okay. He had suffered a mild coronary spasm. They were going to keep him in for observation. We went outside to smoke a cigarette. It had nothing to do with solidarity, and everything to do with anxiety, that we were willing to continue killing ourselves like this.

We nearly killed a man today, I said.

I didn’t know he had a dickey heart, he said.

That’s not the point. We nearly killed him. We went in with that good cop-bad cop bullshit and literally gave a man a heart attack.

When do you think we’ll able to see him? he asked.

I don’t know. When his wife gets here, maybe.

We still have a couple of questions to ask him.

I couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not.

What? he said. It’s true. We do.