The Soft Touch

by Tony Cavanaugh

Genres: General Fiction; Short Stories; Mystery; Hard-Boiled; International Crime & Mystery; Private Investigators; Traditional Mysteries; Noir; Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

A gripping short crime story featuring Darian Richards by Australia's bestselling debut crime writer Tony Cavanaugh. Includes previews of his first two full-length novels. [Cavanaugh's debut is] 'as good as Harlan Coben' - Weekend Australian. Darian Richards is a retired homicide investigator. He was one of the best. But chasing monsters eventually took its toll and he quit the force to sit on a jetty on the Noosa River. Or so he planned. After years of service, witnessing the best and the worst of policing, Darian has made up his own mind about justice. Whenever a horrific crime is committed debate rages about the nature of punishment. As far as the law is concerned justice doesn't condone revenge, but tell that to the family of a murder victim or to the woman you can't protect. Darian Richards knows that in the real world, when your hands are tied, sometimes revenge is the only justice. The Soft Touch takes you deep into Darian's past, to the life lessons that made him who he is. He is a man you want looking out for you not looking for you. The Darian Richards Series Promise Dead Girl Sing The Soft Touch (Short Story) The Train Rider Kingdom of the Strong

Release date: January 29, 2013

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Print pages: 48

Sample

‘HE’S GOING TO KILL ME,’ SHE SAID.

I believed her.

I was a desk sergeant at the Prahran station, in uniform, doing time between the ranks of sergeant and detective.

‘Please, you have to believe me.’

‘There’s nothing we can do, ma’am,’ I replied.

‘But —’ She stared at me with round, empty eyes. But there must be something, is what she was thinking.

Her name was Sharon. She was twenty-eight and had seen a hard life, the last couple of years living on and off with a low-life scum named Max. Skinny, with hair that’d once been blonde, Sharon could have been a model; she had that Kate Moss look. But life had been a whirlwind of unkindness, and it showed. She was wearing tight jeans and a Courtney Love singlet. She’d been a junkie and a hooker but was now on the straight, working around the corner at the local BP service station, doing night shifts.

I knew Max. We all knew about Max. He was violent. He kicked dogs and struck women.

Sharon had the remnants of a black eye.

‘Ma’am, you have to understand that the police can’t respond unless a crime has actually been committed.’

She’d come in for help, to find solace in the fact that the cops would protect her. Max had been drinking too much of late. Max had been losing too much on the racetrack. Max had been threatening her. Max was a time bomb and she was the trigger. It was only a matter of days, she’d told me.

I believed her.

Can you imagine the agony of having to tell this woman that you – indeed the entire police force – were powerless?

I gave her the only advice I could: leave the apartment, find a new home, take out a domestic violence order whereby he’d be forbidden to be within a certain distance of her.

All bullshit. Guys like Max didn’t give a shit about court orders and Sharon sure as hell didn’t have the wherewithal, or the money, to find another place to go.

She started to cry.

‘Please,’ she said, ‘he’s going to kill me.’

There was nothing I could do.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘get away from here.’

I was alone on the desk but I glanced around me, just to be sure, before I reached into my back pocket, took out my wallet and gave her a $100 bill.

‘Here. Take this. Catch a bus. Go to Ballarat, Geelong. Go to Sydney. Just go.’

Max was on the warpath. She needed to be on the road.

She stared at my money as if it were something from another, faraway, alien world.

‘Thanks,’ she said. And took it. ‘Do what I say,’ I said.

‘I will.’

—

TWO DAYS LATER Sharon was dead, bludgeoned with a tyre iron by a rampaging, drunken, angry Max, a futile waste of a man, an excuse for an existence. He was found weeping over her crumpled body with an empty bottle of Jack Daniels and half a packet of Kent cigarettes, unwashed, unshaven, unremorseful. He was weeping because his cat had been run over that morning. Maybe that’s what sent him into the death rage that Sharon had predicted, had begged me to do something about – as a police officer, not as a guy with a glass heart and an open wallet – that she couldn’t escape from.

It bothered me when I went home that night, after she’d come in asking for help, that we were powerless. Maybe I was naive, I told myself. How many people come in to police stations with predictions of violent crime? A lot. How many of those people get it wrong? A lot. How can a police force react to a prediction? It can’t.

But I knew.

I knew she wasn’t a hysteric. She was scared and she had a more than justifiable reason to be fearful. If she’d been wealthy, things would’ve been different. She could have hired a bodyguard. The law isn’t designed to help the poor.

It bothered me, badly, when I heard about her death. I certainly didn’t need to ask who killed her. My boss, Derek Rush, must have seen my reaction.

‘She came in, couple of days before she died, right?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘She knew, right?’. . .