Authors: Peter Temple
He eyed me. ‘Good practice, anyhow,’ he said. ‘Always takes a while to sort out a new lot, find out who to pay, who to play.’
‘Jack, darling, you haven’t met Ros Cundall.’ Mrs Purbrick was holding the arm of a tall, dark-haired woman, once beautiful, now merely good-looking.
We shook hands.
‘I’m very taken with this room,’ said Ros Cundall. ‘I’ve always wanted a library. Do you think your Mr Taub would build one for me?’
‘At least you can be sure it’ll hold its value,’ said Mike Cundall. ‘Unlike that cocaine palace.’
Ros Cundall didn’t look at her husband, made a wry face. ‘Mike built a Las Vegas wing onto our house,’ she said. ‘All it lacks is the bedrooms for the harlots.’
‘I thought you could go on using the house for that,’ said Mike Cundall.
Mrs Purbrick laughed, an unconvincing trill. ‘Oh, you two,’ she said, ‘so wicked.’ She was watching David talking to one of the waiters.
Our whiskies arrived. We made small talk. Then, all at once, everyone was leaving, much brushing of lips on cheeks. Ros Cundall asked me for a card. So did two other people. Charlie might be building libraries full-time in future.
Near the front door, Xavier Doyle came up behind me.
‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Mind I see you down the pub now.’
‘Count on it.’
‘That Robbie, you find out anythin more about the lad?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘He’s a mystery.’
Sandra Tollman had become Sandra Edmonds but was now Sandra Tollman again. She looked up from a tray of seedlings as I came down the greenhouse aisle. I’d found her easily, through her father, who still worked for the forestry department in New South Wales.
‘Sandra?’
‘Yes.’ She was tall, with dark, curly hair cut short, wearing green work clothes.
‘I’m Jack Irish.’
She took off a rubber glove and we shook hands. A long, slim hand, strong. I’d spoken to her on the phone at home the night before. She lived outside Colac and worked for a commercial tree nursery.
‘I’ll take my break,’ she said. ‘We can talk in the kitchen. The bosses are in town.’
I followed her out of the greenhouse and down a gravel path to a weatherboard building. We went in the back door, into a kitchen with a wooden table.
‘Sit down. Tea or coffee?’
‘Tea, please.’ I sat where I could look out of the window, at a green hill with mist hanging on it.
She switched on the kettle, put teabags in mugs, got a carton of milk out of the fridge, stood waiting for the kettle to boil.
‘Nice place to work,’ I said.
‘It is. I’m lucky. Nice bosses too, easygoing, no problems about starting times, that sort of thing. My little girl spends the afternoons here with me.’
‘Rare thing, a nice boss.’
She nodded. ‘I’ve had a few shits.’
The kettle boiled. She poured water into the mugs and sat at the end of the table.
‘Robbie hasn’t crossed my mind for years,’ she said. ‘What’s this about?’
I hadn’t told her on the phone. ‘I’m afraid he’s dead,’ I said. ‘Died of a drug overdose.’
She put a hand to her mouth, eyes wide. ‘Jesus.’
‘I’m trying to piece together his history,’ I said. ‘No-one seems to know much about him.’
‘Well.’ She scratched her head, bemused look. ‘Well, I haven’t seen him since, it must have been 1994. I had a terrific crush on him at school, I thought he was just the most divine thing, it ruined my school work…anyway, yes, 1994.’
‘Where was that?’
Two birds were on the windowsill, looking around calmly, lorikeets, their colours startling in the grey day.
‘In Sydney, in Paddington, bumped into him. He was with a woman at least ten years older, more maybe, you can’t tell with some women.’
‘A friend?’
She had dark eyes, clean whites, no guile in her eyes. ‘I was walking behind them and the woman put her hand in the back pocket of Robbie’s jeans.’
‘Not looking for something, you’d say?’
‘No.’
‘And then you talked?’
‘Just for a minute. In the street. The woman walked away, looked in windows.’
‘What did Robbie say?’
‘Small talk. Said he’d dropped out of uni. But I knew that, someone else told me, a girl in our class.’
I put a teaspoonful of sugar in my tea, stirred. ‘Janice Eller.’
Surprise. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Terry Baine told me about her.’
‘Terry Baine. The fat shit.’
‘Sim’s still carrying a torch for you,’ I said.
She smiled, dropped her head, covered her eyes with a hand. ‘God, you know everything,’ she said. ‘I cringe at the memory. Me walking around behind Robbie like a puppy, Sim sending his mates to give me messages. Really dumb messages.’
‘I’m sure it was an extremely serious matter at the time,’ I said. ‘No other contact with Robbie?’
‘No.’
I took out the still photograph I’d had printed from the video, the best shot of Robbie Colburne, almost full face, held it between thumb and forefinger. ‘This is the person we’re talking about?’
Sandra Tollman looked at the picture, looked at me, shocked.
I’d known. In the unfathomable way of knowing, I’d known since I watched the video clips, since D.J. Olivier told me that there was no record of Robbie returning to Australia.
‘No,’ she said. ‘This is Marco.’
‘Marco?’
‘Robbie’s friend.’
‘Marco who?’
‘Marco Lucia. Does this mean Robbie isn’t dead?’
‘You’re sure this is Marco?’
She took the photograph. ‘It’s Marco. He doesn’t even look much older. When was this taken?’
‘Recently.’
‘Why did you think it was Robbie?’
‘He was calling himself Robert Colburne. He had a driver’s licence in the name.’
‘So Marco’s dead and Robbie’s not?’
‘Marco’s dead. I don’t know about Robbie. Possibly alive.’ I didn’t think that. ‘Tell me about Marco.’
‘I loved the name. Marco Lucia. He came up from Sydney in the holidays after year eleven to stay with Robbie, second most divine boy I’d ever met. Everyone in Walkley was just so Anglo-Irish. Blaines and Smailes and O’Reillys and McGregors. Marco could’ve been Robbie’s brother, both pale, this black, black hair. Janice thought it was the second coming.’
We looked at each other for a while. She was back there, in Walkley, age seventeen.
‘And after the holidays, did you see Marco again?’
‘No. It was just those weeks, two weeks, I was in love, teenage love. Janice and I were the class smarties, readers, suddenly Robbie arrives, then his friend, this half-Italian boy, so exotic, they were both so clever and you could talk to them about books and poetry. Very un-Aussie, two boys who weren’t petrolheads.’
‘Half-Italian?’
‘He said his mother wasn’t Italian.’ She looked out of the window. ‘I think his mother left his father, went off to be a hippy, in Nimbin, somewhere like that. His father brought him up. That’s all I know about him.’
‘Did you know where he came from in Sydney?’
‘No. Janice would have known. You know about Janice?’
‘Yes. You heard nothing more about Marco?’
‘No. I ended up at ag college in Orange. Pressure from my father. Not much talk about books and poetry there, I can tell you.’
‘Robbie went overseas in 1996. Did you know that?’
She shook her head. ‘That day in the street, that was it.’
I finished my tea. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You’ve been a great help, saved me from wasting more time.’
She walked to the Studebaker with me. ‘This is weird, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Was Marco an addict?’ she asked.
‘The dead man had needle marks.’
‘I’d like to know how it turns out,’ she said.
‘Me too. I’ll let you know.’
‘This come out of the blue,’ said Harry Strang. ‘People I done some transactin with, ’87, ’88, thereabouts. She’s got the full licence, smart lady. He’s a bit of a dill. Often that way, mind. Anyway, we had a bit of luck. Here’s the turn now, memory serves.’
We were in open country, sere, rocky outcrops, going down a deeply rutted track.
Cam was driving the big BMW. ‘Nice around here,’ he said. ‘No sheep.’
He’d rung me on the mobile on my way back from Colac. I found the pair waiting for me outside the boot factory. I hadn’t asked any questions, just fallen asleep before we reached the tollway.
‘When did this happen?’ I said.
‘Awake are you, Jack?’ said Harry. ‘Admire a man can kip anywhere. Sign of a clear conscience.’
‘Sign of someone who wants to escape life,’ I said. ‘When?’
‘After the night racin at the Valley last week,’ said Harry. ‘Jean’s very upset. Said we’d come out and have a word.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘Got through to me, possibly not a personal problem we’re havin. Get my meanin?’
‘This it?’ said Cam.
A sign on the fence said: Kingara. David & Jean Hale. We crossed a cattle grid and drove down a lane of young poplars. There were horses in the paddocks on either side. Straight ahead was a bluestone-faced house, long and low with a slate-tiled roof, behind a struggling privet hedge. We parked next to a Holden ute with a history.
‘Stretch the legs,’ said Harry. ‘Meet the lady. Can’t hurt you blokes to meet normal people.’
‘I dunno,’ Cam said. ‘Might find you like normal, ruin your whole life.’
As we sat there, a tall woman, slim, thirties, early forties, strong features, long blonde hair pulled back, ears showing, came around the corner of the hedge. She was wearing horse gear: checked shirt, Drizabone vest, jeans, gumboots. At the same moment, a wheaten labrador with the faintly puzzled but amiable look of its kind came through a hole in the hedge, tail wagging.
‘Normal,’ Cam said. ‘I suppose I could like it, somebody shows me how.’
We got out, cold after the car.
‘Come with a crowd,’ Harry said to the woman. He went over. They shook hands. She put her left hand on his shoulder, leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Thanks for comin,’ she said, voice a little blurred. ‘After ten years, you still took the trouble…’
Harry put up a hand. ‘No trouble.’
He introduced us. We shook hands and I resented the fact that her hand seemed to linger in Cam’s longer than it did in mine. She had light-blue eyes, a little puffy: she’d been crying. I’d seen my own eyes like that in many a mirror, some of them spattered with substances whose composition or origin one did not wish to guess at.
‘I’ve got scones in the oven,’ she said. ‘Haven’t made scones for yonks. You used to like scones, Harry. Still?’
Harry dry-washed his hands. ‘Still,’ he said. ‘Always. Good memory. Lead the way.’
On the verandah, Jean paused to take off her gumboots, quick, supple movements, rubber boots off, feet into worn, receptive shoes. We went through a sitting room with a stone fireplace into a big kitchen, smell of baking, cast-iron stove, sash windows in the north wall, painted cabinets and a big pine table, eight chairs. The view was of an old orchard, much older than the house, in need of heavy pruning.
‘Live in here,’ said Jean. ‘Warm. You don’t mind the kitchen?’
‘That’s where you eat scones, kitchen,’ said Harry.
The scones were steaming, pale yellow inside. Butter lay on the rough surface for a second, liquefied, sank. Quince jelly, lemon marmalade and Vegemite. I started with the Vegemite, two scones, moved on to the quince jelly, two scones, pretended I’d had enough, consented to eat one with marmalade. Two, three.
Harry and Jean talked horses. Winter sun slanted in from the north-west. We drank tea out of white mugs, tea made in a pot. ‘Sorry, no coffee,’ Jean said. ‘Can’t afford proper coffee these days, can’t drink the instant stuff.’ She looked at Harry. ‘Thought we’d be able to afford a new ute after last week, never mind coffee.’
Harry didn’t say anything, ate his sixth scone, all with quince jelly. Cam was on his fourth. Jean offered him another one.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t stop now, spoiled for life. Come out here and pitch a tent.’
‘So,’ Harry said, last morsel swallowed with tea. ‘What happened?’
She pushed hair off her forehead. Her nails were cut short. ‘We lucked onto this horse, Lucan’s Thunder. Owners wanted a new trainer. Complete amateurs, the owners. I thought, same old story, it’s always the trainer’s fault. But it was. Dave knows him a bit, says he’s an arsehole. Piss artist. Dougal Mackenzie? He’s had one or two in town?’
‘The name rings,’ said Harry.
‘Christ knows what Mackenzie’d been doing with this horse. I’d say very little and then badly. I put in a bit of time with him, got the diet right, you could see early on he was a rung up from the usual.’
‘New South form, that right?’ Harry retained form the way teachers used to remember pupils.
Jean nodded. ‘Griffith, around there. Won two from seven, picnics really, then these owners bought him and gave him to Mackenzie and he was a dud from then on. Six starts, six–zero.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, when we started gettin some really good times from him, we thought we had a chance for a bit of a collect.’
‘Owners inside?’ said Harry.
‘Yes. We said we’d talk to you, they didn’t want to know, didn’t want to share it around. Got a bit greedy, I spose.’ She looked down, put a hand to her forehead. ‘Wouldn’t have happened if we’d gone to you.’
We looked at each other. Harry nodded to Cam.
‘Doesn’t follow, that,’ said Cam. ‘We got turned over a while back.’
‘You?’ She looked at Harry.
He nodded.
‘Hurt the commissioner bad,’ said Cam. ‘How’d they do you?’
‘Dave’s mate put this bunch together. Sandy Corning, he’s a local, a really nice bloke, straight as they come. Got these blokes he knows. Did okay to start but then the owners buggered it, the mates, the aunts, nannas, the lot, all shoving money at the books. So in the end, the collect was only about sixty grand after commission.’
‘Where?’ said Harry.
Jean drank tea. ‘Near the course. The Strand, near Mount Alexander, know that part?’
We all nodded.
‘Dave didn’t want Sandy to carry the money home, they were going to meet on The Strand. Dave was there first. He talked to Sandy on the mobile, Sandy was in the carpark, collectin…’