Authors: Peter Temple
Down there on the left bank of the river Brunswick, Carmel spoke freely about her life and aspirations. Then her companion arrived to fetch her, a severely edited person, nothing more could be subtracted from her dress or manner or speech without her being rendered partially unclothed or immobile or incomprehensible.
‘Good tie that,’ said Carmel now.
I said thank you.
‘My first only ever used his ties to tie me up,’ said Carmel. ‘Mind you, they were school ties, greasy, ballpoint marks and bits of food on them. He went to Wesley.’
‘That’s really the only use for old Wesley ties,’ I said. ‘Melbourne Grammar boys sometimes tie theirs around their waists when they’re naked or use them to commit suicide.’
Carmel nodded. ‘Or for scarfing,’ she said. ‘Like that singer. What can I get you?’
‘Just toast and tea,’ I said. ‘Italian breakfast tea.’
‘One latte,’ she said.
Afterwards, I caught a tram into the city, stood all the way to Collins Street with the barely awake and the glowing pre-dawn joggers, the perfectly made up and the bloodily shaven, the hanging out and the merely hungry.
Offloaded, I took myself up the stairs of the stone building to face Mrs Davenport. I found the bureau chief to Cyril Wootton, CEO of Belvedere Investments, in her usual rigid position behind a desk in the firm’s panelled reception room.
‘Corporal Wootton fronted yet?’ I asked. I’d known the man when he was a redistributor of military stores, an illegal wholesaler of Vegemite and Tim Tams and Tooheys beer, a saboteur of the war effort in Vietnam.
The silver-haired exemplar drew breath and it pinched her nostrils. Nothing else ever moved. There was no knowing her age; she had mummified her face through discipline. ‘I’m afraid Mr Wootton’s engaged,’ she said. ‘Would you like to wait indefinitely or make an appointment?’
Mrs Davenport knew precisely how dubious Wootton was, how thin and swaying was the rope he walked, and yet she had no difficulty in presenting herself as if she were Moralist-in-Residence at the Centre for Applied Ethics.
‘The former,’ I said, ‘I’ll just sit down and look at you and puzzle over how a person so coldly beautiful can also be so warm and caring.’
She left the room, came back inside ten seconds and said, ‘Mr Wootton will see you.’
Wootton was behind his big oak desk, palms on the top, every centimetre the bank manager of the 1950s, essence of jovial probity, careful with the bank’s money but decent and understanding, a man who never failed to count that air shot on the golf course that no-one saw. He pointed to the client’s chair.
‘Early for you. Reforming your habits?’
I didn’t sit down. I went close to the desk, loomed over him.
‘Cynthia.’
He frowned. ‘Yes?’
‘Cam thinks you might be the one.’
Wootton’s hand went to his collar, fingers inserted above the tie knot, four fingers, not much room there.
‘Fuck, Jack,’ he said, ‘are you…?’
I didn’t say anything, just kept looking into the brown eyes of Corporal Wootton, a corporal of stores. There wasn’t much to see.
‘Jesus,’ he said, emotion in his voice, ‘he can’t be bloody serious. Jesus, Jack, he’s not serious? Don’t tell me Harry…’
‘Cyril,’ I said, ‘if you are the one, say so now. I’ll give you two hours to arrange to give the money back, plus a hundred and fifty grand for Cynthia’s pain and suffering. And that’s letting you off lightly. You then disappear. Forever. I’ll try to keep Cam from coming after you. Try, that’s all I can do.’
He looked at me in despair, mouth opening and closing. ‘No, Jack,’ he said, ‘no, no, no. You can kill me but no, never, I don’t know anything about it, she’s a friend of mine. I would never… Cam’s mad, I’d never ever do anything…’
He tailed off, closed his eyes, squeezed them tight, shook his head like a dog with a grass seed in an ear.
‘Say so now, Cyril. You don’t want to wait for other circumstances. Hanged through the Achilles tendon from a meat hook, those circumstances.’
‘I swear. I swear. No. Jesus, no.’
I sat down. ‘I’ll take your word on that,’ I said. ‘I hope that’s not a foolish thing to do.’
Cyril opened his eyes, blinked rapidly, straightened his pinstriped shoulders, regained some composure. ‘Don’t take my word,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you to take my word. Tell Cam to check me out, every last thing.’
‘I’ll tell him I believe you when you say you had nothing to do with it.’
Cyril looked away, stroked his tie, a regimental tie, though certainly not the tie of his regiment. ‘Do you?’ he said.
‘For the moment.’
His head turned. ‘I should bloody well hope so,’ he said in a cub-lion growling tone, recovering rapidly. ‘This your idea of fun?’
‘Of kindness, more,’ I said. ‘It was me or Cam. Or worse. Both. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy your snivelling.’
‘Christ,’ he said, sniffed, ‘threatening me, you’re supposed to be a lawyer.’
‘Things not always incompatible. I’m going to tell Cam I don’t think you need shaking. That’s an act of faith. If I’m wrong, Cyril, I’ll be there to see you dropped into that compactor in Hopper’s Crossing. They say it makes a noise like a dog chewing chicken bones.’
‘Jack.’ He cocked his head in pain.
‘Moving on then. I can’t look for this Colburne prick on what you’ve given me. What’s the story?’
Cyril composed himself in an instant. ‘In that matter, your services are no longer required.’
I shook my head. ‘What’s this, revenge? Don’t be petulant, Cyril.’
He pointed to a copy of the
Herald Sun
on his desk. ‘Page five,’ he said, an expression of distaste on his face.
I opened the paper at the page. The first item in a single-column collection of briefs had the headline:
Body in garage
.
The story said:
A man was yesterday found dead in a car in a garage in Rintail Street, Abbotsford. Police identified him as Robert Gregory Colburne, 26, a casual barman
.
The story went on to say that police were treating the death as accidental but were keen to talk to anyone who had seen Colburne recently.
‘There endeth the lesson,’ said Wootton, cold as the widow’s lips. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have matters to attend to. People depend upon my understanding the concept of urgency.’
I saw no reason to prolong this encounter or to say goodbye. Time would heal. Or not. At the door, turning the big fluted brass knob, I heard Wootton clear his throat.
‘In his own vehicle,’ he said, ‘in his own garage.’
I continued on my way. As I passed Mrs Davenport in the anteroom, her nostrils contracted fractionally. ‘This has been prepared for you, Mr Irish,’ she said.
I stopped. She held out a hand, pearl-coloured nails, perfect ovals, and young hands, hands far too young. What secrets had this woman learned during her long stint in the pay of a specialist in sexually transmitted diseases? I shuddered inwardly, took the envelope she was offering and left the premises.
On the tram, enjoying the presence of a few teenage drug dealers heading for Fitzroy, I opened Mrs Davenport’s envelope: a cheque for three days’ work at the usual rate.
Out loud, I said, ‘Cyril, oh Cyril.’
One of the adolescent drugporteurs not on his mobile heard my utterance, misunderstood completely, turned, made the selling signal.
I gave him the look and the continental flicking fuck-off sign. Although he was probably untravelled, he got the message.
As I had received Cyril Wootton’s message. That he behaved honourably even when I did not.
Detective Sergeant Warren Bowman had the good-humoured manner of a man in sales, not any old sales, specialised sales, motor spares or plumbing supplies or bearings, some secure line of work where the pros know stock numbers off by heart and the customers expect them to say things like ‘Almost got me there, mate’ and ‘We have the technology’.
‘They’re sayin it’s an ordinary OD,’ he said.
We were sitting in the Studebaker Lark just off St Kilda Road, the day turned irritable, periods of sunshine, sudden snarls of rain. Detective Sergeant Bowman was speaking to me courtesy of another policeman, Senior Sergeant Barry Tregear, someone I’d known since I was a boy sent to fight abroad for my country. At the request of some other country, the way it had always been for Australia.
‘Family doesn’t want to know that,’ I said, lying.
Warren turned his long head and appraised me. He had bushy black eyebrows that he brought together and parted: quick, slow, slow, quick, an eyebrow Morse code.
‘Yeah, well, not always your best judge,’ he said, dot, dot, dash. ‘The family.’
‘No. Funny place to OD.’
Dot, dash. ‘Well, they don’t set out to OD.’
‘Shooting up in his garage? Be more comfortable in his unit.’
Dash, dot. ‘No knowin. It’s like suicide. Go a long way, some of em. Mountains, some, they like to go to high places. But there’s others want to creep away. Toppin’s a bit like hide and seek, know what I mean? Some kids always go for the wardrobe.’
Expertise in dark matters. Warren knew these stock numbers.
A couple walked by, young, handsome in black clothing, arguing, heads flicking, spurts of words. He stopped, she stopped, he raised a hand, inquiring. She knocked it away in contempt, walked. The man waited for a few seconds, turned and came back towards us, jaw moving, small chewing movements.
‘He’s bin screwin around,’ said Warren. ‘Some blokes got no idea when they’re lucky.’ There was a stain of resentment on his tone.
‘So Robbie went into his garage, locked the door, got into his car, shot up, that’s it?’
He nodded.
‘The fit’s there?’
A nod.
‘Tracks?’
‘Yeah. User.’
‘User ODs alone in his Porsche parked in his garage. That would be unusual, wouldn’t it?’
Warren shifted in his seat, looked at me, dash, dot, dash, took his lower lip between thumb and forefinger, gave it a tug. ‘I’m in the box here, am I?’
You forget that people are doing you a favour, at some risk to their careers.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Get carried away.’
He kept looking at me, a long dash.
The angry young woman in black was coming back, in a hurry, full of regret, hoping to catch the man. Her calf-length coat was unbuttoned and it flapped open at every stride, long legs flashing, pale legs.
‘Jesus, women,’ said Warren, tone pure resentment now. ‘Fucking looks, all the bastard’s got is looks.’
‘For some things,’ I said, ‘all you need is looks. The key to the garage, he have that on him?’
He said nothing.
I looked upon the empty winter street, trees penand-ink lines against the sky, first hint of closure now, the imperceptible dimming of the light that some part of the cortex recognises.
Nothing more to be gained from this encounter. I said my thanks. Warren didn’t seem eager to leave the comfort of the old, squat American V-8 beast.
I said, ‘Warren, Robbie, any form?’
He shook his head.
‘A person of interest?’
He didn’t congratulate me on my intelligence, opened his door. ‘Thought you’d never ask,’ he said. ‘As I understand it, definitely. The car that attended, they called in, next thing two drug squad heavies are there, the uniform boys are back on the road.’
I said, ‘I’m not cross-examining here but are you still saying they actually believe this bloke’s an OD?’
Warren turned to me, a shrug, his eyebrows went dot, dash, dot, dash above the friendly salesman’s eyes. ‘Believe?’ he said. ‘I dunno what they believe. Believe in a Big Mac and large fries. They
say
there’s nothin says anythin else. What they
believe
I haven’t got a clue, mate.’
‘Any chance of a snap of the bloke?’ Cyril didn’t have one.
He sighed. ‘I’ll see. Duty calls. Cheers.’
I watched him go. He crossed the street, walked down some distance, crossed back and went to his car. He didn’t drive off immediately, waited a while. A cautious man. Still, there was every reason to be cautious if the drug squad was involved in the matter of Robbie Colburne.
The Prince of Prussia was busy for a Thursday evening, any evening, at least twelve customers. To the left of the street door, a table of young people in black and shades of grey lowered the average age of the patrons by about 25 years. As I came in the person nearest to me, a cropped-haired blonde, said, ‘I mean, he’s too
exhausted
for sex and then I get up to pee, it’s like 2.30 a.m., he’s on the net perving at this bondage porn. Extreme bondage. It’s his net-pal in Canada tied up like a salami. How gross is that?’
‘Well, the net’s essentially a passive medium,’ said the woman next to her.
‘This was active,’ said the blonde. ‘He was interacting. I know interacting when I see it.’
I didn’t move, looked around the room. The Fitzroy Youth Club were in position at the far end of the bar, within easy reach of the door marked GENTS.
At the black and grey table, a shaven-headed man, scalp the colour of the underside of an old tortoise, said, ‘I can tell you guys worse.’
I couldn’t go without knowing worse, couldn’t move.
‘I had this partner,’ said the man, fat finger pushing at his round dark glasses, ‘he comes home, he’s faceless, right, he’s with this Arab taxi driver and he goes: “Meet Ahmed or whatever, he’s your co-driver for the night.”’
A thin woman with a beaky nose leaned forward, shook her head and made a contemptuous sound. ‘Worse? Jesus, grow up, I’ll give you worse.’
Conquering my desire to hear baldy’s poignant tale eclipsed by some other speakable act of sexual unmannerliness, I moved to join the three men at the end of the battered bar. They were not young, not shaven-headed, not in black or fashionable shades of grey. They were ancient and in colours from the chewing tobacco, snuff and washed-out old mauve cardigan end of the spectrum. Of depravity, they could know a great deal: more than 230 years of experience sat in this brown corner.
‘So, Jack,’ said Norm O’Neill, nodding at my reflection in the speckled mirror we faced, ‘deignin to grace us with your presence.’
I said, ‘I don’t have anywhere else to go.’