Shooting Star by Peter Temple Read Free Book Online Page B

window. ‘Maybe they’re standard in bags like this,’ he said. ‘Sewn in by hand in Paris by an ancient Frog craftsman. Some cunt lifts your bag at the Hilton gym, you track him down, send your personal trainer over to kick the shit out of his personal trainer.’
    All the way back to the Carson compound, cocooned in German steel and leather, wipers treating the drizzle with quiet contempt, I thought about Pat’s study the day before, the grim faces, Pat’s words:
    This time, we’re just payin. What they ask, we’re payin. It’s only bloody money, it’s nothin. The child safe. That’s what we want. That’s all.
    A bug in the money bag. Someone hadn’t embraced the philosophy of This time, we’re just payin. Someone wanted to know where the money went. Someone wanted to do police work.
    Noyce was on the terrace. As I opened the car door, he said, ‘They rang a few minutes ago. It’s a bit frightening.’

THIS EVENING, the Carson boys had been joined in the elegant library by a woman. She was thin, in a loose sweater and jeans, blonde hair on her shoulders, sitting upright in an armchair, arms folded, whisky glass on a drum table. At first glance, she looked like a teenager, but then you saw the lines bracketing her mouth, the little frown pinched between her eyes. She was probably in her early thirties.
    ‘Stephanie, this is Frank Calder,’ said Noyce. He frowned as Orlovsky appeared in the doorway. Mick was neatly dressed and clean-shaven but he always managed to give the impression that he’d escaped from somewhere.
    ‘And this is his associate, Michael Orlovsky. Mrs Chadwick is Tom’s daughter, Anne’s aunt.’
    Stephanie Chadwick stood up and shook hands. She was tall, Orlovsky’s height, only a head below me. When you knew the relationship, you could see her father in her, in the eyes and the jaw and in a certain arrogance of carriage.
    Tom Carson was standing behind his daughter, smoking a panatella, in a dark suit now, his face clean and dry from the second shave of the day, drinking something colourless, rattling the ice in the glass.
    Barry was seated at the table, no drink, also in a suit. He nodded at us. He had the look of a man who had undergone an ordeal, didn’t trust himself to speak.
    ‘Play it, Graham,’ said Tom, no bark in his voice this time.
    Noyce played it.
    Tom Carson.
    Pause.
    So you think Carson money can buy anything, don’t you? Just money, that’s what you thought, isn’t it?
    Pause.
    Tom: We’ve followed your instructions.
    Becoming less stupid. Learning to do what you’re told and… Tom: We’ve done that. Now… Shut up. Don’t say NOW to me. I don’t take your orders. I don’t need your money.
    Tom: All we want…
    Shut up, I’m talking to you. You’re not talking to your tame cops now. You don’t have the money to buy your way out of this. You’re talking to someone quite different now. Do you hear me? Hear me, cunt?
    Tom: We’ll do whatever you want…
    I WANT YOU TO SUFFER AS YOU HAVE MADE OTHERS SUFFER. I WANT YOU TO FEEL PAIN AS YOU HAVE MADE OTHERS FEEL PAIN. I WANT YOU TO BLEED TO DEATH.
    Click.
    No one said anything for a while, the harsh electronic voice reverberating in the room. Then Stephanie took a big drink of whisky. I looked at my watch. It was just on 6 p.m. ‘Can we watch the news on Seven somewhere?’ I said.
    Noyce found a remote control. A section of panelling on the righthand wall parted, revealing a large television monitor. He clicked twice more. We watched commercials and previews before a woman newsreader with a starched and ironed face appeared. She did the There were amazing scenes today preamble. Then we saw a man wearing dark glasses and a Collingwood beanie pulled down to his eyebrows on the top level of the Great Southern Stand. He stood at the parapet, reached into a bag, threw handfuls of paper into the air. Some of the bits of paper blew backwards into the stand behind him, some fluttered down and were sucked into