Twisted Trees: Bromo Perkins crime fiction, #4

By Tony Berry

The fourth book in the ongoing Bromo Perkins crime series, Twisted Trees sees disgraced British secret service agent Bromo Perkins again being stirred from his exile as a "sleeper" in Australia. This time it is to delve into the brutal stabbing of the twenty-something son of Dave McCoy, a "person of interest" to Bromo's bosses back in London.

Within days of his son's death,  McCoy's only daughter has been assaulted in her own home and pictures of her stripped, shaved and tied up sent to her father. Second son Brendan narrowly escapes an arsonist's attack on his bush block home and his sibling, Trevor, is upturned from his kayak and left to drown in the Yarra River.

Each attack is accompanied by a cryptic warning about family trees and a threat that worse will follow. Bromo calls upon the genealogy experience of occasional associate and hoped-for lover Liz Shapcott who promises to research the McCoy family tree.

The pair are soon drawn into a murderous web of duplicity and murder that leads back to London in the Blitz.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highshore
• Release date: Nov 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9798201853143

Tony Berry

Tony Berry is a lifelong career journalist who has worked on national magazines and daily newspapers in his native Britain and in Australia, where he has made his home for several decades. He has written four previous crime fiction books featuring disgraced secret service agent Bromo Perkins, and a family history based on numerous research trips exploring the places where his ancestors once lived. His first novel, Done Deal, was short-listed for the New South Wales Genre Fiction Award. So, too, was the sequel Washed Up, which also secured him a mentorship with the Australian Society of Authors. Since then he has written three more tales of Bromo Perkins’ adventures. In 2017 he was one of eight writers chosen worldwide for the inaugural crime fiction residency at the Banff Centre for Excellence in Canada. As an accredited professional editor in Australia and the UK Tony also edits fiction and non-fiction in a wide range of genres. He is completing his second memoir, Celtic Skeletons. For recreation he battles the curse of ageing as he tries to maintain his status as an elite masters’ athlete at national and international level over distances from 3000 metres to the marathon.

Book preview

Tony Berry is a lifelong career journalist who has worked on national magazines and daily newspapers in his native Britain and in Australia, where he has made his home for several decades. He has written four previous crime fiction books featuring disgraced secret service agent Bromo Perkins, and a family history based on numerous research trips exploring the places where his ancestors once lived. His first two novels, Done Deal and Washed Up, were short-listed for the New South Wales Genre Fiction Award and Washed Up also secured him a mentorship with the Australian Society of Authors. In 2017 he was one of eight writers chosen worldwide for the inaugural crime fiction residency at the Banff Centre for Excellence in Canada.

As an accredited professional editor in Australia and the UK he also edits fiction and non-fiction in a wide range of genres. For recreation he tries to maintain his status as an elite masters’ athlete at national and international level over distances from 3000 metres to the marathon.

Also by Tony Berry

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The Bromo Perkins Crime Series:

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Done Deal

Washed Up

Death by Diamonds

Death Comes by Drone

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Memoir:

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From Paupers to iPads

A BROMO PERKINS INVESTIGATION

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TWISTED TREES

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TONY BERRY

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HIGHSHORE PUBLICATIONS

First published 2017

This revised edition ©Tony Berry 2018

Tony Berry has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents act, 1988, to be recognised as the author of this work.

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This book is a work of fiction. Although the locations exist, names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author and publisher.

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Yarraboy Editorial Services Richmond, Victoria, Australia 3121 and

13 Highshore House, New Bridge Street, Truro, Cornwall, UK, TR12FE

www.yarraboy.com

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Richmond, once known as Struggletown, is a real place. It is a cosmopolitan inner suburb of Melbourne, which is regularly nominated in international surveys as the world’s most liveable city, although its less privileged inhabitants hold a vehemently different view. Richmond’s town hall also exists as do many of the other places mentioned including the streets travelled by our heroes and villains. All else, apart from some historical background, is fiction and bears no resemblance to any known person living or dead.

ONE

LONDON 1943

IT sounded like a good idea at the time. But don’t they all? Especially if you’ve sunk a skin-full of the lukewarm barley water that passes for beer in this shithole of a country. Which is what had happened yet again tonight. Several pints in and Dave Bruiser McCoy was once more rabbiting on about how they could make a run for it. Nothing easier, he reckoned. People were being killed, running away, disappearing, losing home and family, vanishing into the chaos that surrounded them.

What difference would two more missing squaddies make? They were already in civvies, dressed for a twenty-four hour leave pass and with their uniforms back at camp, so there was a rat’s arse chance of being picked up by the military police. Their sodden, insanitary, draughty billet was already at least an hour of hazardous travel away on the other side of London. The odds were all in their favour.

He had had enough of service life, hated the discipline, despised all foreigners and yearned for days of Aussie sunshine free of rain and cloud. He had no belief in what they were supposed to be fighting for and wondered how the hell he had ended up on the far side of the world on the verge of risking life and limb in what he saw as someone else’s war.

That was something else that had sounded like a good idea at the time. All he had to do was sign on the dotted line, swear allegiance to some faraway king, give a cough while some poncey doctor fondled his balls and they would feed him three meals a day, provide a roof over his head and put money in his pocket. Sounded good; better than anything he had at the moment – grafting, living off his wits, watching his back wherever he went, a hand to mouth existence. Thanks mate, I’ll be in that.

And so he was ... and now he wanted out. Another good idea that had come to nought.

He grasped the glass and grimaced as he gulped down another slug of his beer. He clutched at the coat sleeve of the taller rangy man alongside him, pulling him closer and dropping his voice almost to a whisper. Quickly he repeated his plan, stressing its simplicity and skimping on detail. It was low risk, high return. No worries mate. Robbery without violence and enough to keep them going for a few weeks until any search for them died down. Although who would really care that two more squaddies had gone AWOL? It was happening all the time.

The other man listened and said little. He was wearying of his companion’s endless chatter and wishful scheming. All bullshit and hot air, he had begun to realise. At first he had seemed tolerable enough; a kindred spirit who had noticed the Tigers’ emblem pinned above his bunk and was keen to swap yarns of watching the footy at the Punt Road oval. But that was about it. He had come to realise they had little in common other than their roots in Richmond, that seedy industrial suburb of tanneries and brickworks clinging to Melbourne’s inner fringe. The man was a lowlife who lived on his wits and handouts; a petty thief and a no-hoper. An enforcer and stand-over man.

He had his uses, working the system to get them extra serves of food and relief from the grubbier duties, but his grander schemes were all moonshine and make-believe. It was time to cut the shackles. Perhaps see through this latest escapade and then make off with whatever share of the proceeds came his way. If, indeed, there were any proceeds.

He felt McCoy give his arm an extra squeeze as he urged him to drink up so they could be on their way. Leave now and there would still be enough light in the fading dusk to illuminate their route through the rubble-strewn streets before they had to cope with the total darkness of the nightly blackout. Air raid wardens were already out and about, guiding people through the wreckage of another night of bombing and alert for even the tiniest chink of light shining out through papered-over windows.

They passed a man sitting slumped at the top of a short flight of stone steps, cradling his head in his hands and occasionally casting a bewildered look at the doorway behind him – gaping open and leading to a jumbled mass of masonry, timber beams, broken piping and oddments of furniture: a bomb’s direct hit that had left the houses either side still standing. Briefly McCoy and his companion paused, halted by spasms of concern that lasted merely seconds before accepting there was little they could do; and before McCoy mumbled something about pushing on or losing their way in the dark.

For once, he had spoken the truth. The warehouse was as he had said; as his contacts had told him it would be. Its two floors of neglected Victorian brickwork were more storefront and lock-up than fully fledged warehouse, tacked on to the end of a terrace of three-storey buildings bearing signs that indicated they housed a mix of mechanical and engineering businesses. Several bore the scars of air raid damage. Two had lost their roof, several had windows blown out and boarded up. One, an upholsterer’s, stood open to the street, its front ripped off and the interior showroom’s display of armchairs, settees and beds exposed to passers-by. On a board propped against the entrance someone had defiantly chalked the words Business as Usual.

Debris cluttered the road and footpath. A woman walked down the centre of the road pushing a pram piled high with bundles of clothes, pots, pans and a child’s teddy bear perched on top. A young girl, no more than nine or ten, trudged at her side. Both were bedraggled and oozed weariness. They were oblivious to the two men loitering in the gathering gloom outside the end building, where two solid wooden beams had been angled to prevent its damaged side wall from collapsing any further. The woman and child moved on round the corner.

McCoy nudged his companion and with a nod of his head indicated its Players Please sign swinging gently above them. This was the place. The other man felt edgy; this was not where he wanted to be, or what he wanted to be doing. He could not believe he had allowed the loser at his side to con him into doing this.

Even though they had come at the right time, on the right day and the deliveries had been made and the cash was there for the taking, there was still the risk. No way could it be as easy as McCoy had tried to convince him; a matter of grab it and run. It must be locked away, under guard, protected by an alarm or some such thing. Okay, there had been numerous reports of looters taking advantage of air raid blackouts and with few arrests being made. The police and wardens had too many life and death emergencies to cope with to bother about thieves and looters. At least McCoy’s plan didn’t involve taking some bombed-out family’s worldly possessions. However, deep down in his Catholic roots, he knew it was wrong. He had often been described as a hard nut and a bit of a chancer; but that’s how life was, how you lived if you were to survive in such harsh times and cope with the daily rough and tumble that hardened all who lived in his faraway home in Richmond’s tough streets.

The Depression had done him no favours but one day he’d get back on his feet. Nothing and no one were going to stop that – not even being given a gun and being told to go and fight in places he’d never even heard of. So far, he had always managed to keep on the right side of the law; done no one any real harm. At least, not unless they crossed him. Admittedly, slipping a tenner into the right copper’s hands every now and then smoothed out the rough patches. A bit of aggro here and there maybe, but usually he had others who took care of that. But this was somehow different; too different, and the nerves were beginning to get to him.

McCoy, one step ahead, turned and gestured, frowning at him, lips pressed tight together, palms spread upward, fingers knotted like he was playing cat’s cradle. They were crouched hard up against the wall and he wanted a bunk up on to a ledge that would give them access to an upper storey window. The bigger man took a deep breath and formed his entwined hands into a stepping stone for McCoy’s foot and bunked him over the wall. It was too late to turn back now.

*

THE big blokey raucous Australian was all she had ever dreamed of in a man. She took him to her bed without a moment’s hesitation, immersing herself totally in the unaccustomed warmth and love he brought. He fulfilled a long-felt need; the antidote to years of rejection and hurt – from her own family and from previous hasty liaisons. She gave no thought to the future, or even of something as immediate as tomorrow. If the bombs kept raining down like this, they may not even live to see the dawn. It was enough to have him wrapped around her, feeling him inside her, squeezed together in her single bed as the tiny basement flat shuddered to the endless explosions.

They remained cocooned there all weekend. They ignored the air raid sirens and shouts of wardens urging them to seek safer shelter. They played deaf to the klaxons of the emergency vehicles that told of havoc and disaster in the streets buildings above and around them. Their entire universe was here below stairs in a four-storey terrace house two minutes’ walk from the Edgware Road. Their world consisted of the bedroom, a would-be lounge/diner with a two-ring table top electric cooker, foldaway table and battered old couch, and out in the corridor a space the size of a cupboard containing a toilet and washbasin.

Their lives had collided in the confusion of the Blitz; a meeting that was unsought and unplanned. She, scared and bewildered, had scampered into the shop for something to make a meal, a tin of Spam, powdered egg, anything; she was beyond caring. He, needing to hide and, desperate for a gasper, had thrown the door against its hinges in his haste to get off the street. A bomb had exploded in front of him, he told anyone who would listen, the words rushing out. He’d got lucky and escaped unharmed. Others weren’t so lucky, he said. There was a frightened, haunted look in his eyes. As she recalled it many years later, it was one of those moments.

She knew it was too good to last. That was too much to hope for. The war had made life an even greater gamble than it already was and she knew the odds were against them. Her man – as she had come to regard him – had revealed little of himself.

‘Just call me Dave,’ he had said, and she was content to do that. At least for now. Questions occasionally troubled her about who he was and where he had come from but she remained determined not to ask. Life was far too fragile right now to spoil such fleeting pleasures without going into the whys and wherefores. There was little doubt that he was a soldier and on the run, but from what he was running and why she decided were questions not for the here and now. She had once managed to sneak a quick look at his documents and was confused by what she found. She promised herself another look later when he had gone out. But she never let on about this. She already knew better than to do that. He tensed and became snappy at even the slightest hint of probing his past. Always there was that haunted look in his eyes. Once, however, she did pluck up the nerve to query his accent.

‘You Canadian?’

He glared at her across the kitchen table, fork stopped halfway to his mouth. Gravy dribbled off the round of sausage. ‘Who wants to know?’ he snapped. She was surprised by his sharp tone. His obvious annoyance.

‘Only me,’ she simpered. ‘Just curious.’

Slowly his glare faded, he folded the paper and gave her one of those broad smiles she had come to love so much. They won her over every time.

‘Sorry, love. Just a bit edgy.’

He stood and stepped across the room – two paces were all it took – and wrapped his arms around her.

‘Nah, not Canadian. I’m one of those terrible Aussies you’ve been warned about. A dinky-di from old Melbourne town.’ He eased her from him, pushing her an arm’s length away. The stern look returned. ‘Probably best we say no more about it, though, eh?’

She nodded.

Outwardly, he was rough and raw and there had been the occasional angry outburst. No reason given, and she knew better than to demand one. The cramped living space and the incessant noise outside didn’t help, but she took it all in her stride. The welcome tenderness of their many intimate embraces far outweighed the sudden flare-ups.

‘Grab it while you can,’ she told herself. ‘Enjoy the moment, Annie. Enjoy the moment.’

And, of course, it was only a moment. She felt no surprise when she returned home through the swirls of fog and smoke of a chilly April evening to find his brief farewell note. It was scrawled on an envelope pinned to the tartan blanket she used to cover the cracks in the old leather couch.

"I have to go, it said. I’ll love you forever. Dave."

She read it again and smiled. It was a smile both rueful and accepting. It was meant to be, she decided; that was how things were these days. There was nothing she could do about it. She fingered the banknotes inside the envelope and did a rough calculation. It was surprisingly generous, more than she would have expected not that she had ever given the matter any serious thought.

She took a long deep breath as she ran her hand slowly over her swelling abdomen and wondered if their child would ever meet his father.

TWO

MELBOURNE 2016

THIS was not how Jason McCoy had dreamed of achieving his fifteen minutes of fame.

He had it all planned out. The details may have been a bit sketchy but the basics remained the same. His handsome face – gleaming pearly whites, smooth moisturised complexion, evenly tanned - beaming out from the cover of the lads’ magazines, or even one of the fashion glossies. Unmissable. On bookstalls everywhere. Or, in wilder moments, up there on the telly. The guy every woman wanted in some dating show. Beating off all the opposition. The ultimate chick magnet.  Well, perhaps not chicks. Too young. Jail bait many of them. A real woman, legs up to wherever, blonde hair the sheen of liquid gold, toned body but not a bag of bones, a bit of flesh, boobs the size of oranges rather than the melons that got other guys excited.

Mister Hunk. Bod of the Year. The Man Every Woman Wants. That would be him. More than fifteen minutes in the limelight. Hours, days, years perhaps. Not only fame, but money, travel, adulation. He would have it all.

The dream had been with him tonight when he’d been given the usual nod from Mikhail, the Flaunt nightclub’s head doorman and bouncer. Or customer controller, as he liked to call himself, glossing over the more brutish side of his duties.

‘Evening sir. Enjoy your night.’

‘Hi, Mik. That’s what I’m here for.’

Jason squared his shoulders, stood tall, convincing himself he was broader and taller than the five-ten, eleven-stone figure that had faced him in the mirror at the gym. The pills, wheys and protein drinks were helping. There was muscle to be seen under his tight T-shirt. It was all part of the dream.

Yet tonight it wasn’t working. The girls were still looking, appraising him like they did with all the guys. But then they were moving on. Seeking talent elsewhere. That wasn’t how it was meant to be. The limelight should be his. Gradually his spirits and body slumped. He leaned on the bar, left hand clutching a bottle of Corona, looking at the mass of heaving, bouncing, jiving bodies.

‘Project yourself, Jason, project,’ he silently urged himself. ‘Put yourself out there.’

It wasn’t working. Tonight, at least, the dream was fading. He needed to up his game. And soon.

He leaned to one side to make room for the bulk of a man reaching past him to get the barman’s attention.

‘Bad night?’

The words were squeezed out, his lips barely moved. Jason ignored him, not even sure if he was being spoken to. A second man stood close by; thinner, smaller, weedy, an unshaven face that looked as if it had lost all ability to smile. One of life’s losers.

‘Birds not biting?’ said the thin man. It was more statement than question, his words almost drowned out by the thumping bass of the music. Jason found it easy to pretend not to have heard. He put his bottle to his lips and took a swig.  This was not part of the dream, tonight or any other night.

‘You looking?’ This from the big man, looking straight ahead, the words escaping from the side of his mouth.

It was the language of the streets. Jason knew it well. A fluent speaker, learnt the lingo from the pushers along Victoria Street. A staccato lingua franca among those who bought and sold. He considered his mood, looked around the room. Strobe lights illuminating the beautiful people, the celebs. Starlets and C-listers. The occasional name. All linked to someone else ... or to something.  On personal highs. Living the dream as they saw it.  But tonight his dream had vanished.

He needed to be out there, being seen, getting noticed.  Start the journey. Everyone had a journey these days. A boost to his flagging ego was all he needed. A little lift. Just once. He shouldn’t; he’d promised his father he’d stop. An upper. Thoughts of Lara flew into his head; his sister would scream her fury at him if she knew. A couple of tabs wouldn’t hurt.

The hulk at his side repeated his question, slightly louder as if unsure he’d been heard.

‘You looking?’

Jason turned his head slightly to the right.

‘Could be,’ he said. ‘You selling?’

Slowly the man turned away from the bar, leaning back against it, looking out over the heads of the dancers. He spoke without looking at Jason.

‘Outside in five minutes,’ he said. ‘Turn left. Down on the jetty.’

He gave a slight nod in the direction of his companion. ‘Follow Gav, he’ll show you where.’

*

Mikhail the doorman, clicked their departure on his counter. Two more hopefuls from the long line snaking back along the boardwalk were ushered inside. The man called Gav forced an opening in the queue. He stood to one side and called over his shoulder to Jason.

‘This way, mate. Let’s not hang about.’

Security lights lit up those waiting in line. Jason noticed more brightness on the river’s far bank; restaurants, hotels, and terraces with glowing gas heaters. In between everything was tar-black gloom apart from the brief sparkle of a party boat cruising back to its berth, the silhouettes of frenzied shipboard dancers creating a weird shadow play on the water. Gav had taken hold of his arm, propelling him away from the nightclub. The chill night air had cleared his head. He was having second thoughts. The darkness of the bridge loomed ahead, its continual flow of traffic creating a soft deep rumble. They were at the end of the boardwalk. A path led off to the left to the car park lit by tall pylons, and the main road beyond. Gav steered him to the right.

‘Not that way. Down here.’

A footpath of packed earth and gravel. Jason stumbled. Couldn’t see where to put his feet. Gav was almost pulling him along. But his grip was twitchy, nervous. Jason detected the fear in the man, the tension, felt it ripple through his own body. This was a mistake. He’d done deals before, always shady, but never in somewhere like this.

Gav stopped. A high wire mesh fence barred their way. A gate bore a bold notice: No Entry. Boat Owners and Users Only. Gav began fiddling with the lock, hands shaking. Suddenly he sprung the lock open. Jason heard it fall to the ground, a metallic clang as it hit the fence on the way down. Gav pushed at the gate with one hand and reached for Jason with the other.

‘Think I’ll go back,’ said Jason. ‘Some other time. We shouldn’t be here.’

‘Too late for that, matey.’

He heard the voice seconds before he felt the blows. First from behind, struck by the big man; then the thrust of metal, sharp and deep, into his abdomen from weaselly Gav.

The front page headlines in that morning’s Herald Sun were not those of his dreams; but at least he had achieved his fifteen minutes of fame.

THREE

Bromo Perkins scampered through the Bridge Road traffic crawl to find shelter beneath a shop’s rusty awning as the weather gods began inflicting the city with another of its infamous four seasons in one day.

A man was already huddled there, the jacket collar pulled up around his neck providing a failing barrier against the almost horizontal rain.

‘Just in time,’ said the man as the downpour gathered intensity.

‘Hardly,’ grunted Bromo. ‘Got a shoe full of water already.’

‘I meant for our meeting,’ said the other. ‘You’re a hard man to track down.’

Bromo stopped mid-shuffle as he moved away from the pavement’s edge. The man was a stranger, the voice not one he recognised. His inner alarm clicked in. He looked quickly sideways and confirmed the man was no one he knew. He edged closer to the shop window and away from the bulky figure alongside. Although stooped forward, the guy had several centimetres over him. He looked younger, too; fitter and leaner. He could detect no physical menace in the stranger’s manner but Bromo sensed a determination in his voice. Demanding. One to be obeyed. It irritated him. All he wanted was to get into Temptation Cafe and sit there with a long black while puzzling over the daily cryptic. He was in no mood for dealing with oddball strangers. The temperamental weather was enough to cope with.

The day had kicked off with a searingly hot northerly, blowing dust and debris into the faces of the early morning commuters. Within an hour the temperature plummeted and the wind had shifted direction and gathered force as it blew in a bank of thunderously dark clouds. Moments later they had burst and sent down the torrents now rushing along gutters and overflowing from drains so choked with debris that they were unable to cope.

The man sidled closer and turned his head towards Bromo.

‘What’s it to be ... a coffee or a drink?’

Bromo flicked a glance over his shoulder, frowning and making a show of checking to see if someone else was there. No one; the man was speaking to him. He tried to curb his annoyance. It was clearly a case of mistaken identity despite the stranger’s air of quiet conviction.

‘Sorry, but I don’t ...’

‘... think we’ve met.’

The man cut in and finished his sentence.

‘Precisely,’ said Bromo.

‘But now we have,’ said the