The Dunbar Case(31)

As I drove I used the hands-free phone system Hank had installed to call Rod Templeton.



‘This is Hardy. Can you talk?’



‘Briefly. What?’



‘Jobe’s been shot. Maybe by Joseph. Any ideas on that?’



‘Fuck. It’s possible. There’s been a falling out between Hec and Joseph. It’s to do with your mate McKnight. Joseph found out about... I have to go.’



I was on the freeway driving fast. I’m too old for this, I thought. Then I remembered how Marisha had looked when she’d wrapped her legs around me and, in a quick mental segue, how bored I’d been in my enforced retirement. I kept the pressure on the accelerator.



~ * ~



The reception area of the hospital was a madhouse. Television and print journalists jostled with police trying to get information from the medicos. I didn’t see Joseph but I did see DI Kerry Watson. He approached me with a look that fell short of friendly.



‘What the hell are you doing here?’



‘Marisha Henderson’s a friend of mine.’



‘That’d be right. At the moment she’s obstructing police.’



‘She’s probably in shock.’



‘Not too shocked to bring you running. She’s not taking calls, even from her colleagues.’ He pointed to the milling reporters. ‘You must be special. What’s she told you about Tanner being shot?’



‘Just that he was. She also says she can’t trust the police.’



He shook his head. He looked more tired than he had before and much less assertive. ‘I can’t tell you how sick I am of shonky journalists, and lawyers and chancers like McKnight and busybodies like you getting in the way of me doing my fucking job.’



It was the kind of complaint I’d heard before and always from honest police. Watson looked too worn down to be on the take.



‘Does Marisha know you?’



‘She does.’ He held up his phone. ‘But she doesn’t...’



‘She’ll talk to me. Can you organise for us to get away from here to somewhere safe and with no ... prejudice?’



‘Meaning?’



‘No arrest. No taking her in to help with enquiries. None of that.’



‘You’re not asking much.’



‘She’s a strong character. She’ll stall; she’ll bring in her editor and her doctor.’



‘Okay, okay, but I get to hear what she has to say.’



‘I hope so.’



‘Jesus, Hardy, you’re an operator.’



~ * ~



Marisha responded to my call and Watson and I went through to where she was being treated in a casualty ward. We negotiated with a doctor and nurses and were shown through a series of passages to a back door. We used my car to get to Watson’s flat in Hamilton, not far from where Pete McKnight had had his office.



Watson lived alone in a nondescript building. The flat was untidy in a comfortable way that had a calming effect on Marisha.



Every time I’d seen her, apart from when she was drunk at Lily’s wake, Marisha had been in complete control, formidably so, which probably helped to account for her still being single. She’d been a reporter for close on thirty years and had seen some rough things but now she was shaken. Watson, who’d barely spoken other than to guide me to the address and escort us to the fiat, produced a bottle of Johnnie Walker. Marisha’s hand shook as she drank. Neither Watson nor I needed to ask what the brown marks on her cream linen jacket and blue skirt were.



‘He was sitting right across from me,’ she said, more to herself than to us.



Watson spoke gently. ‘This is where? We’ll have to ...’



Marisha shook her head. ‘I can’t tell you.’



‘Ms Henderson, I—’



‘Easy,’ I said. ‘Let her tell us what she can.’



‘I wasn’t meaning to say anything.’



‘Look, Marisha, your life’s in danger. You and I both know why.’



‘I don’t,’ Watson said.



It took time and Marisha was very economical with information. She’d been with Tanner in what she called a safe house. She said she’d been blindfolded by Tanner when he took her there so it wasn’t that she wouldn’t reveal the address, she couldn’t.



Watson’s patience was eroding. ‘You must have seen where it was when you left.’



‘I was in a panic. I just didn’t notice.’



Watson wasn’t convinced and neither was I, but he would know a journalist would be selective with the truth. He nodded for her to go on.



‘He wouldn’t let me call an ambulance. I suppose he had a tame doctor to go to. He didn’t say. He drove away with blood everywhere until he almost passed out. I just managed to ease him onto the passenger side and I drove to the hospital.’