wrapped in oilcloth in a cool storage place. I’d tested it a few times and found it was in perfect working order. It had been some years since meeting policemen in the open had been a dangerous thing to do in Sydney, but who could forget Roger Rogerson and Warren Lanfranchi?
I drove across the Bridge and down to Milsons Point. I found a parking spot behind the railway station and walked towards the water past the coffee places, lawyers’ offices and the Random House building. The day was cloudy and there was a stiff, cold breeze. I was wearing a flannel shirt, sweater and leather jacket and needed every layer. The park was a pocket handkerchief affair with a couple of covered sitting areas. Pretty nice in good weather, bleak today.
The harbour was grey under the cloud, but rain was unlikely at least for a while. There was no one else in the park, so it was far from being a good meeting point if you were worried about being seen.
I sat on a hard seat and began to wonder if I was being set up. The place had some high-rise buildings around it— possible sniper points. I had the .45 in a deep pocket in the jacket. I fingered it and told myself not to be ridiculous. The time for our meeting came and went. I decided to give Williams another ten minutes before phoning. I waited, phoned and got no response—no answer, no message.
I tried to gather my thoughts and impressions about Williams. He’d seemed competent and under control in our first meeting. Maybe a bit pressured and rattled by my phone call, but still coping. Puzzling. I waited a little longer, phoned again and got the same result. I left the park and decided to walk around the area a bit in case he was lurking, keeping an eye on me, wondering what I’d do if he didn’t show. The neighbourhood wasn’t as parked up as it would have been in better weather. I doubt there were many swimmers, even in the heated pool. A block away, in a cul-de-sac, I saw a red Camry that fitted my memory of Williams’s car. There aren’t too many of them about in that colour. The street was quiet. I crossed it and approached the vehicle.
DS Colin Williams sat behind the steering wheel, held there by his seatbelt. His head sagged down towards his chest, but he wasn’t sleeping. The driver’s window glass was starred out around a neat puncture and there was a dark hole in Williams’s head—millimetre perfect at his temple.
Williams was a good deal younger than me, had reached a respectable rank in a difficult profession and was, as far as I knew, an honest policeman. Maybe a husband, maybe a father. After Lily’s death, I didn’t have a lot of space for more sorrow, but there was something about that slumped figure that touched me. A shame, a waste, and someone to blame, possibly the same person who killed Lily. That personalised it and I gave the detective a silent farewell.
Deciding what to do next wasn’t easy. I could have just walked away, but there were various means for the police to find out that I’d had an appointment with Williams. An entry in his notebook seemed unlikely, but I’d rung his mobile three times. I decided to play it straight and report it, but there was a problem—my illegal gun. Williams’s wound was from a small calibre weapon and there was no chance I could be accused of killing him. But with my record the police were bound to hold and search me and carrying an unlicensed pistol is a serious offence.
I couldn’t hide it anywhere near the car because they’d set up a pretty wide perimeter and search it carefully. I moved away from the Camry in case me hanging around there looked suspicious to anyone who happened to be watching. I walked back to the park and deposited the .45 in a rubbish bin after wrapping it in discarded newspaper and folding it into an empty pizza box. I hoped I could get back to it before the bin was emptied. No guarantee.
I went to the covered seat where I’d waited and phoned the police, giving my name, my location