Only the Dead by Ben Sanders Page B

spoke. Duvall read it as a ‘no’. Briar and McCarthy settled into an easy stare. He figured if they weren’t going to give him access, they’d either brought him in for a scaring, or to gauge how much he knew.
    Duvall took a breath and theorised, off the cuff. He said, ‘October eight was an inside job.’
    McCarthy clicked out of his flat gaze. ‘Why?’
    ‘It was neat, in and out, which means they knew what they were doing, but for some reason they didn’t do a prior stakeout.’
    ‘What makes you think that?’
    ‘The area around the bank is commercial, it’s under camera surveillance. If you’d found anything, you would have made an arrest. But we’re four months down the track and there’s been nothing. So there was no visible preparation on their part.’
    McCarthy said, ‘Maybe they did slick recon.’
    ‘Nobody’s that good.’
    ‘A bank’s a bank; you know what you’re getting in to. You don’t need that much preparation.’
    ‘They hit at a time when it was quiet and the safe was loaded.’
    ‘You can make an educated guess about when it’s quiet. And the safe could have just been luck.’
    Duvall said, ‘They used different getaway cars each time; the bank and the armoured van jobs were three minutes, maximum.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘So they’re smart, they’ve worked with each other before; there’s some sort of strong past association, they’re comfortable with using force.’
    ‘But they burned the cars. That strike you as a smart move?’
    ‘Depends.’
    ‘On what?’
    ‘Maybe there was no way of making certain they could eradicate forensic evidence. Which suggests they’d had the vehicles a while, or used them a number of times, something like that.’
    ‘So then, who are we looking for?’
    ‘Three, moderately clued-up guys between the ages of twenty-five and forty, either with prison, military or police backgrounds.’
    ‘Prison, military or police. That’s quite a moral swing.’
    ‘Maybe. They knew what they were doing.’
    ‘Albeit only moderately clued-up.’
    ‘At least two of them. The driver isn’t necessarily a bright spark.’
    ‘Maybe they rotate roles; three jobs, they all get a turn driving.’
    ‘I doubt it. Well-oiled machine; they go with a proven system.’
    Nobody replied. Briar finished his coffee, set it down and adjusted the edge flush with the side of the table.
    Duvall said, ‘At least one of them has ties with the Otara community. The fight club thing in January was publicised word of mouth, so that was the only way they could have known about it.’
    Nobody replied. The Don had some coffee and let the pause drag on. At length he said, ‘Coming back to your original question, no, we’re not actually prepared to grant you access to police information.’
    ‘Right. So this was a waste of time.’
    The Don laughed. Mercury fillings nesting way back. ‘It’s not a waste of time,’ he said. ‘By no means a waste of time.’
    He leaned in over the table again. The hunch hiked his shoulders to ear level. ‘Here’s the official line,’ he said. ‘Nobody’s letting you anywhere near this thing. Nobody’s answering questions; nobody’s granting you file access. Nobody gives a shit about what you’ve dreamed up from reading the Herald online.’
    Duvall didn’t answer. The Don spread his hands on the table. ‘There’s a point,’ he said, ‘when offers for help sort of drift into time-wasting. I’m sorry to say we are well past that point. We passed it a while back. Think of this morning as a sort of ‘eye for an eye’ type thing: you wasted my time, I just wasted yours.’ He saw a reply coming and raised a finger to cut it off. ‘I’ve got filing cabinets’ worth of opened, unsolvedserious crime,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to stop me from taking your assault case from back whenever it was and paying it some real close attention. You know? I don’t give a shit what sort of arrangement you came to that let you resign with a