I turned. “If the case against Ana had got into a court, it would have turned into a horrible mess. For the police.” 

“Yeah. So?”

“I did you a favour. Because of, you know, the cooperative relationship between the police and probation services.” Maynard rolled his eyes. “But I arranged for Jane to send you that email. Which saved you from a very nasty mess. I stopped it. Lance Holder.” 

“Jesus. The flasher?” 

“My client. He drops his pants but he’s not a violent offender. He only thumped that farm worker in self-defence.”

Maynard took a deep breath. “You get him to keep his dick out of sight, and we’ll drop the assault charge. I guess we could switch it to indecent exposure. Ah, all right. Not worth the time and the hell with it. Tell him to keep his pants on, except in his own home, and we’ll drop all charges.” 

“I’m sure he’ll be very happy. In the privacy of his own home. Thank you.” 

“So we don’t owe you anything. See you tomorrow.”

“I’m not withholding anything.”

“Except a couple of your sources. We can talk about that later. But all right. That’s enough jerking round. Let’s make a deal.”

So that was that. The deal we reached was that Maynard would suspend Curnow and the other two officers, with pay, once we’d left. Tomorrow morning, I’d take Maynard and Jock to meet Ana, at the Community Law Centre. Jane Siebel would be there. 

Ana would be watching Curnow’s future career with interest.

If Maynard decided Ana was a credible witness, and she was prepared to give evidence against Curnow, also Trebizon and Chang, then he’d move Curnow to suspension without pay, and start the process of firing him.

He thought Trebizon and Chang would probably be dropped back to the starting pay grade and required to re-train. They’d been assholes – Maynard said – but he thought they could possibly learn from it.

I’d thought they should probably be fired. Rape threats aren’t a “learning experience”. But I took a nudge from Jock on that point, and let the deal go down. 

Maynard would also review the charges that Ana had incurred through Curnow following her round: most of her obscene language and resisting arrest convictions. The police might apply to have those removed from her record. Maybe. 

Dwane James was still going back to jail. We’d run over time, so Jock got up to leave once we’d agreed that the police didn’t have any quarrel with any advice I’d given James. 

Maynard didn’t get up. When we were at the door, Jock putting his coat on, he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow. With this Ana. And Jane Siebel. I can’t wait.”

“Well, I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just telling you what I know. Okay? Now, no-one’s seen Happy Steve in the last six months. From what I’ve heard it sounds like he’s got sick, and he’s expecting to die. It sounds like it might be liver failure, maybe kidneys. He’s probably back in the village where he grew up. In Samoa. I’m guessing that bit. I don’t know where he is. But he’s gone. The point is that Curnow thinks Steve ran out on him, owing him money. About twenty, maybe thirty, thousand bucks.”

“So he puts pressure on the bastard’s daughter, hoping that’ll bring him back. Or get him to send some money so Curnow gets off her case. Yeah, that makes sense. It’s a story, anyway. So your client, Ana, what does she say about this?”

“Nothing. Not a thing. She’s not involved, I’m sure of that. She wouldn’t be scraping chicken fryers for a living if she had any money. I’m told that Steve never involved any of his children in his business. That was probably wise in Ana’s case; she’d be a lousy crim. She isn’t what you’d call discrete.”

“Huh.”

“She knows her dad’s a criminal, but she doesn’t know any details.”

“And you know that …?”

“I know it because she’s been my client for most of a year, so I know. I’ve tried to get her to talk about why Curnow”s been gunning for her, but she wants to be loyal to her family. So she’ll always make herself look suspicious by refusing to talk. But she actually doesn’t know anything anyway.” 

“So you say. And let’s say you’re right. But if we’re looking at Curnow, we’ll be looking at her too. She’d better come out clean.”

“Fair enough.” 

“So. You got any more surprises?”

Maynard reached for his desk phone. “Yeah. Excuse me.” He gave his instructions as though bored, tapping his fingers and staring at the ceiling. When he’d finished cancelling the warrant he said he wanted to see Curnow, Trabizon and Chang in an hour’s time.

It was the first time I heard the names of the two cops who’d been with Curnow. Trabizon and Chang. They must have been new. They’d fallen into bad company. Maynard looked at me when he’d hung up. “You happy now, what’s your name, Mortimer?”

“I’m sorry this has happened. But they threatened my client.”

“Yeah, I bet I bet you’re sorry.”

“Come on, Greg. We can stop fencing now. For fuck’s sake. Jaime, how about you stop with the games too, yeah? Just tell us what you know about this.” 

“Okay. I can’t prove most of what I’m about to say. But I know that my sources aren’t lying. I’m confident it’s basically true, but I’ve got no evidence.”

Jock snorted. “Get on with it.”

“So, the reason Curnow is after Ana, one way and another, is that Ana’s father is a drug importer. His name’s Apirana Sitiveni Matutumua. Though he’s got lots of names. People in LA mostly know him as Happy Steve. He was born in Samoa but he was living here. He’s got dual US-Samoan citizenship.”

“We’ve heard of Happy Steve.” 

“He mostly ships coke, opiates and synthetics through Tonga. Because corruption. There’s all sorts of stuff going past Tongan Customs officials and on to California, while they take the money and look the other way.”

“‘Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by,'” said Maynard, unexpectedly. “I know about Tonga. Go on.”

“Okay. Ana’s dad was paying money and supplying dope to various cops. Curnow was one of them. I don’t know whether he was dealing or using himself. But he was on the take.” 

“And you can’t prove that.” 

“No. I’ve been told it by people in the Samoan community. Whose names I can’t give you. But you could prove it, if you put the resources in.” 

“Not your business, Jackass.”

“Earlier this morning. Curnow and two others. At her workplace, towards the end of her shift. They said they were all going to quote fuck her unquote.” 

Maynard pulled a disgusted face. “Hell. Were there any witnesses?”

Maynard’s disgust had little to do with sympathy for Ana. It was mostly at the stupidity of his officers. I felt a surge of rage, high in my chest. But anger is cheap, an emotion people wallow in to convince themselves of their own virtue. I fought it down. “Ms Matatuma would be extremely impressive in a courtroom. Of course, there’d be a media storm. She’d be effective there too.”

Jock said, “Really you need to fix this quickly. So that it’s a story about the city finding and fixing a problem, not the city trying to stonewall.”

“Jock, don’t try to teach me media skills. Jackass, you dodged my question about witnesses. For that rape allegation. So you’ve got none, have you?”

“Ana’s the witness. Three cops will deny it, but they’re demonstrably guilty of fraud. So Ana’s got very strong credibility and they got none. I believe her. A jury will too, if it comes to that. So would the Times.” I meant the LA Times.

“Huh.” Maynard leaned forward and tapped the desk in front of him with his forefinger.

So did Jock. “Your officers must have gone to Ana’s place in the early afternoon, after they’d collected the baggie they brought to her place. What time did they come back to the precinct?”

“Yeah, I heard the question when your boy asked it. Curnow led the search, and he did have two other officers with him. Damn fools.” Maynard closed his eyes. “And they came back with the baggie at two-thirty.”

I nodded but said nothing.

The timing eliminated any possibility that the bag had been in the room at any time when Ana was there. It removed any ambiguity over whether she’d ever touched the dope or known it was there. It also meant that Curnow had acted faster than I’d expected. We’d been ahead of him, but we’d cut it fine. 

Jock made a volcanic rumbling in his throat. “Greg, I’ve got some staff issues.” His look at me wasn’t friendly. “But it seems you’ve got worse ones. In the meantime, though, it seems as though you might rescind that arrest warrant for our client.”

The expression is “white knight”. But Maynard could imagine a colleague reporting it as a racist expression (which it is), and he was too mindful of his career to allow that.

Maynard sighed. “Hell, Jock. I’ve got a problem with my officers. I’m probably going to have to fire at least one bright boy. But this is exactly what I was talking about. Your boy here seems to think he’s a defence lawyer, not a probation officer. He’s free-lancing. He’s got no business doing all this knight in shining armour crap. You teach him his job and what its limits are, or fire him.”   

I said, “I’m prepared to defend my actions in private, in front of any inquiry, or publicly.” I had to clear my throat before I could say that, and I still sounded prissy.

“Yeah, you think you can make yourself look good in the media, if we let you.”

“I never mentioned media.”

“You’d be yapping about a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.”

“Well…”

“Actually, you might not go over as well as you think. I’d be careful about going that route.”

“The media might not like me. But I know what they definitely won’t like. There’s been an attempt to frame one of my clients. By officers who had previously threatened to rape that client.”

“My officers what? What the hell?”