Cassidy by Morris West

Author:Morris West [Brandom, Robert B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781760638283
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2017-07-31T04:00:00+00:00

13

‘He’s a military man,’ said Arthur Rebus, ‘which doesn’t endear him to the ordinary race of coppers or politicians. He’s got a ramrod for a backbone and you can use his shoes for a mirror and he addresses his staff, men and women, as if they were all, and always, on ceremonial parade. He hates slackers and despises fools and a bent copper goes straight to the guillotine. But he’s bright, make no mistake. He got his intelligence training in London and the US and did his fieldwork in Vietnam and Laos… If he trusts you, he’ll go through fire, water and the rages of God to protect you… If you let him down he’ll hound you to extinction…’

We were bucketing through a summer storm on the forty-minute milk run from Sydney to Canberra, which is the Federal Capital of Australia. Rebus seemed concerned about possible friction between the Commissioner and myself. I couldn’t see why he was making such a mouthful of it.

‘I’ll tell you why,’ said Rebus. ‘This Commissioner has been pressing for legislation enabling the State to distrain all proceeds of criminal activities, especially those arising out of the drug traffic. He’s been dealing with Mafia “families” up and down Australia. He’ll have his own dossier as thick as your arm on Cassidy and his associates in New South Wales. So he’s not going to take you at face value. Even if he did, your face value isn’t so great.’

‘Why not, for Christ’s sake?’

‘First, you’re the executor of a very suspect estate. Your wife and family are big beneficiaries. You yourself are the legal possessor of documents on which there’s a standing offer of five million – and you’ve already discovered they may be the key to half a billion… So, first up, the Commissioner’s going to treat you with very healthy suspicion. You could be rich enough to buy and sell a small empire. You might even be bidding for him.’

‘My God, you’ve got a dirty mind, Mr. Rebus!’

‘It gets dirtier, Mr. Gregory. Your wife and family are lodged with one Marius Melville. You’re supposed to be paymaster to one Erhardt Möller. You’re certainly holding heroin, diamonds and money. You’ve got a yen for Melville’s daughter and a link with Cassidy’s Thai mistress… The Commissioner’s not your run-of-the-mill copper. He’s an intelligence man. He’s trained to think of connections and consequences beyond his own bailiwick. He’s going to take you apart and put you together again like a watchmaker before he’s prepared to trust you. So listen up like a good fellow… We’ve got to cope with a natural antagonism between the species. We’re lawyers. The Commissioner is a policeman. He’s plagued to death by people like us. He’s the custodian of the law. We make our money by exploiting its defects. He makes a watertight case, we punch a hole in it. He arrests the criminal, we spring him. So let’s have a little loving kindness! Put a bridle on that tongue of yours and think before you speak.

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