‘You hushed all this up at the trial? About the drugs? He could’ve got off on diminished responsibility, or at least a lighter sentence.’
‘Yeah, and that would’ve been the end of the money, wouldn’t it? Johnnie was prepared to do the time. He’d been inside before. He could hack it.’
‘And your brothers were willing to wait?’
‘They had no choice. But Johnnie let them know they were out of the picture and they’re not prepared to accept it. That’s why they put the pressure on you to deliver a message to Johnnie he might believe. But you haven’t done it yet, have you?’
‘No. I’m seeing him again tomorrow.’
‘Will you deliver the message?’
~ * ~
10
Call me self-interested, but my first thought was that this gave me something to work with against the Tanner brothers. The mention of Megan and the sly placement of the coke had pissed me off and countering the threat had become my first priority. But I was still working for a client and I next had to consider how this affected Wakefield’s approach to Twizell. I played for time.
I said, ‘I thought cavers always worked in pairs.’
‘They do. That’s another bit of the ... hassle. Johnnie said he went down with a young Pommy backpacker he ran into at a pub. The Pom said he’d done a lot of caving at home and was keen to have a go here. Johnnie said this bloke helped him move the money but apparently he was caught when the cave roof fell in. He’s still in there, buried. That’s another reason they needed Hec and Joseph—to deal with the body.’
‘Are they good at that, too?’
Since she’d described the matter of disposing of a body as nothing more than a hassle, I wasn’t surprised at her reply. ‘I think they’ve had some experience.’
‘It’s all very interesting,’ I said. ‘Not sure I believe it, but you seem to. All I can tell you is that it’s the first I’ve heard of hidden money. My business with Twizell relates to something else entirely.’
‘Which you won’t tell me about.’
I shrugged. ‘No, and no need. Nothing remotely to do with what you’ve told me, but I’m left with a question.’
She was playing with her empty glass, moving it from hand to hand. ‘What question?’
‘Suppose I was concerned about hidden money, what was the point of you coming to me?’
‘You’re supposed to tell Johnnie bygones are bygones and that they’ll help him in return for a share of the money.’
‘They didn’t spell it out quite that clearly, but I suppose that’s what they had in mind, once I’d convinced Twizell they were dinkum.’
‘I want to ask you to tell him the opposite—that they’d rip him right off.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want them to have the money.’
I was getting tired of the question/answer format. ‘Because you want it—you and Rog, say?’
‘Forget it.’ She grabbed her coat and took two steps towards the door before I grabbed her.
‘Better let me go,’ she said. ‘Roger’s just outside.’
‘Let’s have him in.’ I grabbed the .38 and threw the door open. He stood there, big and dark, tense, but not alarmed by the gun. ‘Come in, Rog. We’ve got things to talk about.’
He ignored that. ‘You all right, Kris?’
She retreated back into the room. ‘Yeah, he’s an arsehole but he didn’t hurt me.’
He nodded and came in, shutting the door behind him. His composure threw me a little. I let the hand holding the gun drop to my side but brought it up as he opened his leather jacket.
‘Easy,’ he said. ‘I’m not armed. Rod Templeton, Central Coast Serious Crimes, undercover.’
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘It’s true,’ Kristine Tanner said.
‘He’s convinced you. Let’s see him convince me.’
‘I can give you some names and numbers.’
‘Okay.’
He rattled off three names. One I knew, Ted Power; he’d worked with Frank Parker, my friend who’d retired as a deputy commissioner of police a few years ago. I knew Power had worked undercover in his time and was very likely to be in a supervisory role in that shadowy world now.
I put the .38 on top of the TV. ‘I’ll check with Ted later. Might as well hear your story now, for what it’s worth.’
‘You won’t believe him,’ Kristine Tanner said.