Quota by Jock Serong Read Free Book Online Page B

RECORDED CONVERSATION BETWEEN DETECTIVE SERGEANT NEIL ROBERTSON AND TOBY JAMES MURCHISON OF 22 CASPIAN STREET, DAUPHIN IN THE STATE OF VICTORIA, CONDUCTED AT ST KILDA ROAD POLICE COMPLEX ON MONDAY 24 AUGUST. ALSO PRESENT IS DETECTIVE SENIOR CONSTABLE BRYAN GOODALL.
Q52
So we’ll just do your name and address again please Toby.
A
Yes, Toby James Murchison, 22 Caspian Street Dauphin Victoria.
Q53
Before continuing, I must inform you that you are not obliged to say
or do anything, but anything you say or do may be given in evidence.
Do you understand this?
A
Yep.
Q54
I must also inform you of the following rights. You may communicate
with, or attempt to communicate with a friend or relative to inform
that person of your whereabouts. And you may communicate with,
or attempt to communicate with, a legal practitioner. Do you understand
those rights?
A
Yes I’ve done that, thanks.
Q55
Okay, now while the interview was suspended, Toby, do you agree
that we haven’t discussed this matter at all?
A
That’s right, yep.
Q56
And we put you in an office with a phone by yourself there.
A
Yes.
Q57
And you’ve spoken to your solicitor?
A
Yes I have.
Q58
All right. Now the last thing I was asking you about was the phone
records that we’ve got, and they indicated you and the deceased in
this matter, Mr Lanegan, were in contact by phone yesterday. Now
do you want to tell us anything further about that?
A
On legal advice I have no comment to make.
Q59
Were you at sea last night on your vessel, the Open Quest?
A
On legal advice I have no comment to make.
Q60
Okay, Mr Murchison, are you intending to make no comment
responses to the remainder of my questions?
A
On legal advice I have no comment to make.
Q61
Understand that Mr Murchison, but you can actually answer that
one. I just need to know for the recording here—
A
No comment.
Q62
Righto. I now propose to conclude the interview. Do you agree that
the time by my watch is 11:02pm?
A
No comment.
Q63
Interview concluded.

DAUPHIN

HE COULDN’T GET comfortable until he was well onto the Geelong road, set up in one of the left lanes so he could let the Saab find its own rhythm. He drained the last of the coffee he’d brewed at chambers before he left, and threw the cup on the passenger floor. The coffee grit sat dry on his tongue. Fantastic. Furry teeth and four hours of panic coming up.
    He fed a CD into the stereo, fiddled with the cruise control. Aircon for a few k’s, then open windows. Anna had made one of her welfare calls before he left. She’d been quite specific—don’t drive straight from work. It’ll be hell on that road, everyone headed down the beach for the long weekend, she’d said. And you’ll be driving into the evening sun. But now there was a heavy bank of cloud rising from the western horizon. The sun was beaten, reduced to a brilliant rim on the cloudbank after the sticky heat of the day. Charlie leaned forward to air the small of his back and wished he’d changed shirts.
    The old workers’ suburbs, red and orderly and flat in the tired light, gave way to the steel flanks of the factories, giant signs telling him who to fly and where to merge. I’m supposed to be in the conflict business , his head was saying. I’m not an advocate, I’m a long-haul babysitter . The factories yielded to tilt-slab housing—boxes, boxes, boxes. Neo-Georgian, faux-Victorian, pseudo-warehouse-conversion. No trees. Off the plan, on the block, financed by the collective debt of swooning young punters.
    Anna would call him a snob and ask him by what accident of history he had been set up in judgment, but there they were, hand in hand: gazing up at the anaemic eaves of their little palaces, gym-honed and pouring westwards over the paddocks of old Italian sharecroppers, with their home theatres and courtyard pavers. Plasma screens for the long evenings, jetskis for the weekends.
    Dusk fell around him and