He didn’t know where they’d found this guy, but things were certainly going to change around here.
* * *
In a city like this, where everything was so new, even the past, any little thing could cheer you up. Police headquarters was a modern building with a view of Freemans Bay, the marina where every yacht apparently dreamed of mooring one day. Glass and new materials competed for the most innovative and expensive effect. Wide plate-glass windows reflected the changing moods of a sky that was too old to recognize itself in them.
“So, what do you think?”
From the sidewalk, Osborne snorted. “It looks like a bank.” He looked up at that architectural hotchpotch, his head in the clouds. He wasn’t sure what to think of it. “Where are you from, Culhane?”
The sergeant frowned. How did Osborne know he wasn’t local? Instantly, the old complex of the country bumpkin arriving in the big city came back to the surface. “South Island,” he replied. “I’ve just been transferred from Christchurch. It’s a lot quieter down there.”
The understatement of the year.
In spite of his mechanical smile and impeccable English, Culhane felt increasingly ill at ease. He glanced at his watch. “Captain Timu is waiting for you.”
Two Maoris were polishing the big marbled lobby of the headquarters building. In accordance with the wraparound architectural style, the interior of the building was neutral, standardized, capable of being immediately reconfigured. Upstairs, uniformed officers ambled along the corridors. The fleeting but converging looks of the female recruits told Culhane he wasn’t the one being stared at. Since Osborne’s arrival, he himself might as well have been transparent.
“Here we are,” he said, pointing to a polished wooden door.
Osborne took off his dark glasses. The impression Culhane received was a mixed one. He’d never seen eyes like that before.
“I’ll wait for you on the second floor. By the coffee machine at the end of the corridor.”
Yellow eyes, damn it.
Jon Timu was the new head of the Auckland police department. He had close-cropped hair and a dented forehead that made him look like an exhausted warrior. Although he must have weighed more than two hundred pounds, his gestures were almost graceful. He motioned Osborne to sit down.
The two men knew each other by reputation. According to the file put together by Gallagher, Paul Osborne’s reputation could have been better, but Timu preferred his men a bit rough-hewn. Not only had Osborne joined Fitzgerald’s team while still quite young, Fitzgerald had made him his right-hand man, which was quite an achievement. Under his auspices, Osborne had become a kind of specialist in Maori affairs. He spoke the language and his influence with the community was quite good. Among other things, he had defused a potential riot in the city’s deprived neighborhoods after a young Maori had been shot dead by a police officer. Nobody knew who was behind his sudden fall from grace, but Osborne had been suspected of settling personal scores with some members of the city’s criminal fraternity. By chance or coincidence, the same kind of rumors circulated about Fitzgerald.
Timu lit a cigarillo. He was about fifty, a widower, the rings under his eyes pointing to all the sleepless nights he’d had.
“Glad to have you back,” he said. “As you’ve agreed to rejoin us, I’m going to be straight with you, Osborne. The Kirk case was nothing short of a disaster for the police, and your old boss’s team was wiped out while trying to arrest the killer. Your brother was one of the victims, wasn’t he?”
“My half brother,” Osborne corrected him. “We hardly knew each other.”
Timu’s eyes narrowed. “Didn’t he contact you during the investigation?”
“Gallagher already asked me that.”
“It’s just that we don’t have a great deal of information.”
“I haven’t been in touch with the department for a long time. You ought to know that.”
Timu gave a kind of grunt: Osborne had barely said a word so far, and his tortured eyes were completely inscrutable. “What were you doing in Sydney?”
“Nothing much.”
“Was it Fitzgerald who put you out of the picture?”
“You could say that.”
“Why?”
“Personal reasons.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning personal.”
“Really?” Timu looked for a sign of weakness in those eyes, found nothing but emptiness. He sighed. “Look, you worked alongside Fitzgerald for six years. You know the way he worked, you know how rough-and-ready his methods could be, and how paranoid. The Kirk case was very badly handled. Fitzgerald knew that, he knew he was responsible. Six officers died because of him, not to mention the killer’s victims, and one of his likely accomplices, Zinzan Bee, has vanished into thin air. The press came down on the department like a ton of bricks. I’m not going to allow anyone to sabotage things like that again.”
“Sabotage?”
“Fitzgerald worked in a small team, and kept things very close to his chest, especially about the Kirk case. When he and his closest colleagues died, we were left with a whole lot of unanswered questions, which only goes to show the limitations of that kind of method.” He looked straight at Osborne. “I want transparency, and I want any information gathered to be shared. I won’t stand for solo investigations or cowboy tactics. Is that understood?”
“Is that all you brought me back to say?” Osborne retorted.
Timu puffed at his cigarillo, his little eyes flashing. “Fitzgerald killed himself without handing in a report,” he said. “Obviously, we investigated, but we didn’t find much. Whatever secrets Kirk had disappeared with him.”
“Like Zinzan Bee, you mean?”
“Maybe. There again, we don’t have much to go on. Bee’s known to us as a former Maori activist, but he hasn’t been heard from in years. I don’t know how Fitzgerald got hold of him, whether or not he was Kirk’s accomplice, or even if Fitzgerald killed him, as he claimed the last time we had radio contact with him. A mass grave was found in Waikoukou Valley, filled with Kirk’s victims, but there was no trace of Zinzan Bee. I want you to find him.”
