Lost - Michael Robotham [7]
“I’m not a good traveler.”
For the next ten minutes we shoot the breeze about mutual acquaintances and old times. He asks about my mother and I tell him she’s in a retirement village.
“Some of those places can be pretty expensive.”
“Yep.”
“Where you living nowadays?”
“Right here.”
The coffee arrives and Keebal keeps talking. He gives me his opinion on the proliferation of firearms, random violence and senseless crimes. The police are becoming easy targets and scapegoats all at once. I know what he’s trying to do. He wants to draw me in with a spiel about good guys having to stick together.
Keebal is one of those police officers who adopt a warrior ethic as though something separates them from normal society. They listen to politicians talk about the war on crime and the war on drugs and the war on terror and they start picturing themselves as soldiers fighting to keep the streets safe.
“How many times have you put your life on the line, Ruiz? You think any of the bastards care? The left call us pigs and the right call us Nazis. Sieg, sieg, oink! Sieg, sieg, oink!” He throws his right arm forward in a Nazi salute.
I stare at the signet ring on his pinkie and think of Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Keebal is on a roll. “We don’t live in a perfect world and we don’t have perfect police officers, eh? But what do they expect? We have no fucking resources and we’re fighting a system that lets criminals out quicker than we can catch them. And all this new-age touchy-feely waa-waa bullshit they pass off as crime prevention has done nothing for you and me. And it’s done nothing for the poor misguided kids who get caught up in crime.
“A while back I went to a conference and some lard-arse criminologist with an American accent told us that police officers had no enemies. ‘Criminals are not the enemy, crime is,’ he said. Jesus wept! Have you ever heard anything so stupid? I had to stop myself giving this guy a slap.”
Keebal leans in a little closer. I smell peanuts on his breath.
“I don’t blame coppers for being pissed off. And I can understand when they pocket a little for themselves, as long as they’re not dealing drugs or hurting children, eh?” He puts his hand on my shoulder. “I can help you. Just tell me what happened that night.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Am I correct in assuming, therefore, you cannot identify the person who shot you?”
“You would be correct in that assumption.”
My sarcasm seems to light a fire under Keebal. He knows I’m not buying his we’re-all-alone-in-the-trenches bullshit.
“Where are the diamonds?”
“What diamonds?”
He tries to change the subject.
“No. No. Stop! What diamonds?”
He shouts over me. “The decks of that boat were swimming in blood. People died but we haven’t found any bodies and nobody has been reported missing. What does that suggest to you?”
He makes me think. The victims probably had no close ties or they were engaged in something illegal. I want to go back to the diamonds, but Keebal has his own agenda.
“I read an interesting statistic the other day. Thirty-five percent of offenders found guilty of homicide claim amnesia of the event.”
More bloody statistics. “You think I’m lying.”
“I think you’re bent.”
I reach for my crutches and swing onto my feet. “Since you know all the answers, Keebal, you tell me what happened. Oh, that’s right—you weren’t there. Then again—you never are. When real coppers are out risking their lives, you’re at home tucked up in bed watching reruns of The Bill. You risk nothing and you persecute honest coppers for standards that you couldn’t piss over. Get out of here. And next time you want to talk to me you better come armed with an arrest warrant and a set of handcuffs.”
Keebal’s face turns a slapped-red color. He does lots of preening and flexing as he walks away, yelling over his shoulder. “The only person you got fooled is that neurologist. Nobody else believes you. You’re gonna wish that bullet did the job.”
I try to chase them down the corridor, hopping on one crutch, and screaming my head off. Two black orderlies hold me back, pinning my