Set Up

  Set Up

  Peter Corris

  Copyright © 1992, Peter Corris

  Peter Corris was born in the Wimmera in 1942, educated in Melbourne and Canberra, and worked his way slowly north to New South Wales where he has lived since 1976. In Sydney he has been on the dole, worked as a sports journalist, and was literary editor of the National Times.

  He has been a full-time professional writer since 1982 and, by the end of 1992, he will have published 32 books of fiction. He is married to the writer Jean Bedford and they have three daughters. He divides his time between Marrickville and Coledale on the Illawarra coast. His recreations are reading, writing, movies and sport, including learning to play golf.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Jean Bedford, Tom Kelly, Helen Toner, Ray Mooney and the Information Office of the New South Wales Department of Corrective Services.

  For information on witness protection and police procedure I am indebted to Tom Noble's Walsh Street (John Kerr, 1991).

  This is fiction — all characters and events are imaginary.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  1

  'There's a job going at the new private prison.'

  'Bugger that,' Frank Carter said. 'Not the sort of screwing I'm interested in.'

  'That's what got you into trouble in the first place. You could have gone a long way in the force.'

  Carter sipped his mineral water and looked across the table at Detective Inspector Colin Brown. I joined three years after you, he thought, and followed you up the ladder. Now you're still moving and I'm out. 'I was set up, Col.'

  Brown nodded. 'I know you were, but you stuck your neck out, not to mention other parts. You should have been more careful.'

  An inquiry board had found Detective Senior Sergeant Frank Carter guilty of corruption—accepting payments from brothel and massage parlour operators. At first, Carter had taken the money and spread it around in the customary way. After his marriage broke up he began cavalierly to channel most of it back to the women, sometimes for favours rendered, more often out of a wish to clean his hands. He'd paid for doctors and medicine, detox clinics and abortions. The operators didn't like it; the drug pushers didn't like it; the genuinely corrupt cops hated it and Carter was targeted. But he'd played the game to the end and hadn't taken anyone down with him.

  'The thing that gets me,' he said, 'is that none of the gills spoke up for me. Not one.'

  'No percentage,' Brown said. 'Makes my point.' He glanced around the bar of the Brighton Hotel, a favourite police watering hole in Darlinghurst. Although he'd known Carter for twenty years he felt uncomfortable now being seen with him. The police culture had its rules—in was in and out was out. 'You've still got mates, Frank, and there is something you could have a shot at.'

  'Come on, Col. I'm too old to be having shots at things.'

  'I think you'll be interested. They're interested in you.'

  'Mm. They. Another beer, Col?'

  'No, thanks. I've got to get going.'

  Carter grinned and went to the bar. He knew Brown was edgy and had no compunction about keeping him so. Fuck him. He wasn't there when he was needed. Like the girls. Carter was solidly-built and hard again, having lost the flesh that had accumulated during his last soft few years in the force. He'd been suspended without pay while the hearing was pending and his bank balance had dropped. He'd sold his car to pay for a lawyer who'd been useless. He'd given up drinking to save money. Now he was fit and tanned, trim and broke. The barmaid gave him an admiring look as he bought another round of beer and mineral water.

  'Yes, Col. What is it? Not a bank. I couldn't stand wandering around in a bank all dressed up in a suit hoping someone was going to make a move.'

  'No banks, no suits, just crims.'

  'I told you I wasn't interested in prison work.'

  'This is different. Witness protection, change of identity, relocation. That stuff.'

  Carter shook his head. 'I don't know.'

  Brown hastily swallowed some beer, almost choking. He took a card from his pocket and passed it to Carter as he stood up. 'It's all I've got, mate. There's a recession on, but this is a growth area.'

  Carter took the card. 'Thanks, Col.'

  Brown winked and walked away. Carter stared at the almost full middy. He could imagine the sting of the cold beer in his throat and the feeling of optimism and wellbeing that followed. 'Bullshit,' he said. He drank some mineral water and chewed on the slice of lemon. There was a name on the card and a telephone number.

  The man behind the desk in the office three floors above Redfern Street said, 'Talked to anyone about this, Mr Carter?'

  'I phoned and came straight here.'

  'Good. So it's you, me and Col Brown. Very tight.'

  'You know me and Col. I know Col, but I don't know you. "M.R. Peters" doesn't tell me much.'

  'I'm a sort of liaison man.'

  'Between who?'

  'The National Witness Protection Unit and the Federal Police, the State Counter Corruption Authority here, in whose premises we presently are, and other similar bodies.'

  Carter said nothing. The office was almost bare. Peters was fiftyish, tall and thin with a gaunt, pale face and neatly brushed light hair. He wore a grey suit and spoke quietly. An instantly forgettable man.

  'Do you have any idea of what's involved in creating a new identity for a person?'

  'Not really. Quite a bit, I imagine. A lot of lies.'

  Peters shook his head. 'Not lies, manufactured truths—as you'll learn when you do the course, Mr Dunlop.'

  'Dunlop? Course?'

  'You'll be given a new name, as is done in the Foreign Legion. Excellent idea. Helps you to shed old habits and acquire new talents. You'll have to be retrained, of course. Throwing your weight around in whorehouses isn't one of the relevant skills.'

  Carter rose. 'Fuck you.'

  Peters' voice was suddenly sharp and loud in the cell-like room. 'Sit down, Mr Dunlop. You'll need a somewhat longer fuse than that, but I've got a feeling you'll be good at this job. We're looking for people with flair.'

  That had happened a year ago. As Lucas Dunlop, he did the course and was paid a Commonwealth Government retraining allowance for the three months involved. He emerged as a computer expert of sorts. He knew how to access data banks through the use of secret codes, how to run credit checks, correlate telephone numbers and addresses, tap telephone and fax lines and give false information the appearance of truth. The training appealed to the cynic in 'Dunlop' and he found it stimulating after the sluggish, bureaucratic, back-scratching routines of police work. As one of the instructors had said: 'LIE stands for Lousy Intercept Effort; FACT stands for Fucking Awful Computer Trail.'

  'What about true?' Dunlop had asked cheekily.

  'Tested Right Every Way.'

  Madeline Hardy, a fellow-trainee Dunlop had his eye on, said, 'Wrong spelling.'

  The instructor flicked a paper clip at her. 'Says who?'

  Dunlop had enjoyed the training and enjoyed Madeline Hardy before she had vanished between a brief, passionate all-night session in a Randwick motel and the class the next day. Another instructor, who made no secret of his homosexuality, had enjoyed Dunlop's dis
comfiture.

  'Forget her, ace,' he said. 'You'll never see her again.'

  'Want to bet?'

  'I know. In fact, you were part of her graduation assignment, just as she's now your preliminary assessment task—find her!'

  Dunlop, sleep-starved and raw-nerved, bunched his fists. 'You'd better tell me what you mean.'

  The instructor mimed the action of tapping computer keys. His fingers sketched a screen. 'Each of you in this intake came here under a false name with a light cover. Maddy seems to think you are Frank Allan Carter, thirty-seven, New South Wales born and educated, divorced, ex-Detective Sergeant. etc., etc.'

  'Jesus,' Dunlop said. 'It's that nasty?'

  'Worse, much worse.'

  'Anthony,' Dunlop said. 'It was Anthony, not Allan. Maddy loses a few marks, eh? Anyway, her job was a hell of a lot easier than mine.'

  'I'm afraid we're not an equal opportunity employer, Lucas.'

  Dunlop's attempt to trace Madeline Hardy was unsuccessful, but he scored highly in the 'geographical' segment by finding a possible trace of her in South Australia. Some of the training involved refresher courses on police work and Dunlop found he was rusty in many aspects of his former profession. He applied himself and did well. Others dropped out, but he advanced to the intricacies of communication through insertions in newspapers, hand and eye signals and message exchanges. There were lectures on passport procurement, the contradictory tangles of State laws and regulations, the covert and overt aspects of airline passenger lists, the delicate matter of newspaper D-notices and the elaborate and unstable network of relationships among government bodies, law practitioners and commercial organisations.

  The teaching included conventional lectures, such as the one on the brief history of the Witness Protection Unit within the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. After a spate of failed prosecutions and intimidation of witnesses in several States, the Federal Government had agreed to fund witness protection in certain cases. The benefits to the States were obvious, the cost to them was the surrender of a degree of autonomy and control to the NBCI. 'Don't expect to be popular in Brisbane,' the lecturer said.

  There were written examinations, computer models, video mock-ups.

  'Remember,' an instructor said, 'real estate agency A in Shit-town, Queensland will sell his rental list, phone numbers and where the kids go to school to any pest controller or carpet cleaner who asks. It's a fucking jungle. Agency B won't. B is therefore our choice, nine times out of ten.'

  'What if A buys out B?' Dunlop asked.

  'You're learning.'

  Dunlop took pleasure in the rapid trips—to every State of Australia, to New Zealand, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Cooks, Fiji, New Caledonia and Vanuatu. He got the feel of the major towns and cities and their transport and communication systems, the location of beach houses and mountain retreats. He endured and half-enjoyed the hardships—the sudden cancelling of relied-upon credit cards, the unwelcome attentions of the police, minor car accidents. He was often sceptical and exasperated, but he stayed in for reasons he could not explain. There were opportunities for quick, uncomplicated sex and he took them.

  Much less acceptable was the directive to sell his flat in Darlinghurst and move to the suburbs.

  'No,' Dunlop said to the instructor.

  'Not no, Luke. Better to ask why.'

  Dunlop scowled.

  'We want to see if you can bring it off. Get another place under another name and obliterate the other stuff.'

  'Okay, but why the suburbs?'

  'Haven't you learned anything? In the suburbs you can live next door to someone for twenty years, never exchange ten words, and no-one gives a stuff. Is that true of your sexy inner city?'

  Dunlop shrugged. 'How far out?'

  The instructor studied a map. 'Given your reluctance, shall we say Ashfield?'

  Dunlop reached across and took the map. 'Marrickville.'

  'Why not? You can work on your Vietnamese.'

  Dunlop recalled Maddy Hardy's correct answer to the question 'What is the most common street name in Sydney?' and bought a single-fronted, two-bedroom house in Park Road, Marrickville. The house was chosen on practical grounds. It had a high front fence and a back gate and a lockup garage, all easy to wire for security. The small rear yard was simple to maintain, even for a non-gardener like Dunlop. He flattered himself that the shelf company in whose name the property was listed was well-concealed and no criticism was offered by the instructors.

  There was an oral examination:

  Q: Suppose he wants to join a gym?

  A: Well out of the city. Associate membership is best. Better still to join one that affiliates with another and go there.

  Q: Smoking?

  A: Stop, or switch—cigars, pipe, cigarettes, whatever. Switch brands.

  Q: Dental work?

  A: Consult.

  Q: Gun licence?

  A: Refer.

  Q: Drugs—soft.

  A: Supply and review.

  Q: Drugs—hard.

  A: Refer.

  Then there was a battery of psychological tests designed to assess the candidate's suitability for a life in the shadows. The message was continually rammed home: you have to think and act like a client; sometimes you will actually be a client, or a decoy, which amounts to the same thing.

  'This is bullshit,' Dunlop said to one of the psychologists. 'I was a cop in this town for nearly twenty years. I can't pretend to be someone else. Crims sent me Christmas presents.'

  'Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately, Mr Dunlop?'

  'Not specially.'

  'You've got rid of that ridiculous macho lip hair and you've lost ten kilos. No-one imagines it's a perfect transformation, but you're a different man inside and out from Frank Carter.'

  'I feel much the same.'

  'You've quit drinking and you're mentally sharper. The difference between your test results in these courses and your scores in the police examinations is encouraging. Let's say it's good enough for us.'

  Dunlop qualified. He became a Grade II Officer of the Witness Protection Unit of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. His entitlements and salary were somewhat more generous than those he had enjoyed in the New South Wales Police. He passed a medical with flying colours and, to his amusement, was accepted into the superannuation scheme. On his dismissal from the State force he had forfeited the accumulated benefits of his former membership. He began to gather a caseload. He baby-sat trial witnesses male and female. He relocated families and concocted identities for informers and indemnified testifiers. He contrived an apparent suicide and steered a client through the early stages of a sex reassignment.

  'What do you think?' Jack who had become Judy said when she first presented in a dress and high heels.

  'It should be obligatory,' Dunlop said. 'It makes the job a hell of a lot more interesting.'

  'Do you ever think about anything other than the job?'

  'No,' Dunlop said. It was true—the whole process of deception and concealment fascinated him, although he knew it was partly sham, that you could not cast off half a life, however much you might want to. Full assumption of the new identity assigned to trainees was optional for graduates. Some, particularly the foreign nationals whose expertise in international deception was of value to the WPU, seized it eagerly. Instant naturalisation. Dunlop did the same—the new identity had a great appeal. His former wife, Katarina, had said that he was sly and secretive. Dunlop had denied it then, now he conceded the point. Now that enjoyment of the half-charade was a plus.

  Towards the end of his second year of service he was assigned Kerry Douglas Loew.

  2

  The press called Kerry Loew a supergrass. The crims called him a dog. To Dunlop he was a client, and a challenge. They met for the first time in a room in the Supreme Court building where Loew was giving evidence in the long-running and complex third trial of Charles Henry Spencer and Lester Cameron Davies. Spencer and
Davies were officials of the Eastern States Workers Union who had allegedly conspired with others to murder Assistant Commissioner of Police Reginald Waters. Loew claimed to have information on the murder gained from two prisoners who had themselves been murdered in Long Bay Gaol. The political implications and reflections on police work and prison procedures were being tortuously teased out by the highly-paid prosecution and defence counsel.

  The first trial had been aborted after several members of the jury had received death threats. The sudden and severe illness of the judge had brought about the second cancellation. The reconvened proceedings were remarkable in that, by special dispensation, they would be permitted to run on into the Christmas holiday period if necessary. This prospect had not improved the tempers of any of the participants, and the trial had been marked by fiery exchanges among counsel, witnesses and the judge. By arrangement, Dunlop stood with his back to the door as Loew entered the room.

  'Cuffed?' Dunlop addressed the window.

  'Yes, sir,' the guard said.

  'Seated,' Loew said, 'and dying for a smoke.'

  Dunlop spun around. 'There's no smoking in this building, Kerry. Like a cigarette, do you?'

  Loew was a powerfully-constructed man, further built-up by lifting weights in prison. Dunlop's first sighting of him stamped itself on his memory—Loew was not sitting down, he was standing, insolently grinning at the guard.

  Dunlop smiled. 'Let's see the cuffs.'

  Loew raised his hands and rattled the bracelets. 'Tell the screw to fuck off.'

  'Officer,' Dunlop said, 'I'd be grateful if you'd remove the prisoner's handcuffs and then take up a position outside. Thanks.'

  The guard wasn't happy but took off the cuffs and left the room. Loew shrugged out of his jacket and stretched out on the floor. He did several leg lifts, flipped himself over and began doing push-ups. He wore slip-on leather shoes, a light grey suit and a blue business shirt without a tie. Dunlop saw the muscles bunch in Loew's shoulders and back and the distended veins in his neck.

  'Know the joke about that, do you?' he said.