Unfinished Business...
FOUR
Connie and I watched the
sexual congress through to its climactic conclusion, at which time the picture
went black, sparing us the discomfort that comes with watching a politician
searching for his Y-fronts. I was
pondering the proposition that here was a tape worth killing for when the video
screen flickered back to life.
Onslow was again featured, but now he
was fully dressed and there was no Jodie Aston. He had male companions this time, a swarthy,
grey-haired bloke of fifty-eight and an equally swarthy, black-haired bloke of
thirty-one.
If I were to judge a man by the
company he kept, what was I to make of Onslow?
His companions were Alfonso and Pietro Romano, father and son and
numeros uno and dos of the biggest drug-pushing organisation in the State. The biggest because it sidestepped the
forces of law and order so adroitly that many in the Force were wondering how
it was done.
Some of us had had a rough idea. Looking at the tape, we’d not been wrong.
Like the previous tape,
this one had the date and time superimposed. It told us that it was shot a day
later, and the time was a tick after
The camera was
disguised. Had to be. If Onslow had known his every action and
word were being recorded, he’d have had a coronary. His actions were the accepting of six thick
wads of fifties from Romano Junior and securing them in a briefcase. His words were to the effect that it’s
always a pleasure doing business with you and as long as I’m the Minister and
have any influence with certain police officers, we can keep it that way and
isn’t life great?
The Romanos agreed, but
their smiles began and finished with the showing of teeth. Their Mediterranean eyes remained narrow and
impassive. A fraction narrower and the
smiles would have been snarls. Nasty
pair of bastards.
Had the Romanos had
organised the videotaping? Once you’ve
suborned your victim, what better way to keep him in line than pictures of him
with his fingers in the till? But I rejected
the thought. The Romanos would
doubtlessly like a lever against Onslow, but they were too smart to manufacture
one that showed themselves sailing in the same boat.
No, this had been Jodie
Aston’s work. First putting herself
across Onslow. Then opportunistically
setting a snare to catch the really big action.
“Did you notice the dates on the tapes?”
Connie asked. “Thursday and Friday of
last week. That’s when the cabinet was
meeting in Benalla.“
“Onslow’s home town,” I
informed her. Coincidentally, the town
where Alfonso had first branched out from market gardening into a more
lucrative form of agriculture.
“The question is,” Connie
continued, “what was Aston up to? Was
she setting out to blackmail Onslow, and
the Romanos just happened to fall into it?
Or were the Romanos always her target?”
“Dunno. But picking on the Romanos – bad move.”
“You think she was doing her own
thing?”
“Would you order a subordinate
to have sex as a means of infiltration?“
Her grimace told me she wouldn’t.
“Had to be. Wouldn’t have had
the tape otherwise.”
“True. And I agree. Bad move.”
Romano the Elder had been
before the court just once, early in his career, when a competitor in the
burgeoning cannabis-growing business had turned up shotgunned to death. The police case was strong but, before it
got to trial, one witness had a nasty accident with battery acid. Within days, the Crown’s other witnesses
came down with collective amnesia. Romano
walked.
Romano Junior learnt
well. Just as cunning as his father,
Pietro never carried weapons. He didn’t
have to. With the money papa had made
from grass, Pietro had more than enough to diversify into hard drugs and to pay
for the removal of anyone foolish enough to move on to his turf. This had happened twice to the Force’s
certain knowledge, but with invisible friends in high places, Pietro had never
so much as seen the inside of a courthouse.
Yep, the Romanos and
Onslow played in the big leagues, and when you played with the big boys, you
played by the big boys’ rules, which didn’t include making tapes worth killing
for.
Jodie Aston found that out the hard way.