Aftershock

by Peter Corris

  ‘You were lucky some developer didn’t buy them up and level them.’

  She nodded. ‘Lucky by six months. A bit earlier when the developers were flush, that’s exactly what would’ve happened. As it was, the houses went to people who wanted to live in them. Sit down. Let’s talk. What’ve you got?’

  I sat and couldn’t help laughing. ‘You call that talking?’

  She picked up the half-full wineglass that had been standing on the table and took a sip. ‘I suppose not. We have to trade, do we?’

  That had been my thought but now, looking at her, it didn’t seem to make a lot of sense. The little bit of the house I’d seen spoke volumes—she lived alone, independently, made her own choices. Sleek brown hair and blue eyes, slim, shapely body below the slightly padded black silk shoulders. I was dry-mouthed and needed the wine. ‘Glenys doesn’t suit you,’ I said.

  ‘I’m called Glen, mostly.’

  We stood simultaneously and I reached for her. Her body was strong and soft at the same time and she was taller than I’d thought. We came together at the thighs and I felt her arms go around my waist. I put my hand behind her head and searched for her mouth. We kissed like thirsty travellers finding a well in the desert. Her mouth was soft and it opened and we probed each other, taking something and seeking something more. When the kiss ended we were standing clamped together; I could feel her breasts against my chest and I put my hand up to touch them. She undid a button and put my hand inside. She was naked under the blouse; my fingers closed over the soft, cool flesh and I felt her nipple rising.

  Then her hand was over mine, holding it still, preventing further exploration. ‘Are you married or living with someone?’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  Her bedroom was large and at the front of the house. I’d been right about the water view. From the window I got an impression of moonlight and stars, tree tops and clouds. I lay back with my head propped up on two or three pillows and didn’t bother to try to make the images any clearer. Her head was on my chest and her hands were patting her groin. She was making little moaning noises.

  ‘Good,’ she said, ‘that was so good.’

  She was right. It had been good, tentative to begin with as we discovered what worked, what was exciting and unusual. We used our hands and mouths and I only entered her at the very end, almost as a courtesy that neither of us cared too much about. That, of course, made it all the more exciting and we finished by bucking and thrusting each other into sweaty exhaustion.

  ‘It’s only about eight o’clock,’ she said. ‘And we haven’t eaten.’

  ‘Hmm. I wouldn’t say that.’

  She laughed. ‘D’you want to go out to eat, or something, Cliff?’

  I kissed the top of her head. ‘No. I’ll eat anything you’ve got in the kitchen that isn’t actually moving. I’ve had a very hard day—interviews, research, surfing, sleeping on the beach …’

  ‘What beach?’

  ‘Redhead. Why?’

  ‘Nothing. I thought you might’ve gone to see Mr Jacobs with your information.’

  ‘I can’t do that until I talk to you.’

  I felt her body stiffen slightly as some of the sexual languor departed. Well, it had to happen. I felt lazy and relaxed physically, but as I lay there and looked out at the night sky I was aware that this was only part of the story. I hadn’t only come there to fuck. We seemed to reach similar states of mind simultaneously; she rolled away and reached for her shirt which was on the floor by the bed and I swung my legs clear and felt for my pants. We were holding up the garments, arranging them for putting on, when we both burst into laughter. We rolled on the bed, hugging and kissing and I felt the soft swell of her belly and the warmth between her legs.

  ‘I’m too old,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be silly. Do the best you can. I don’t mind.’

  It was another half hour before we dressed and went back to the kitchen-dining room, both now seriously hungry and thirsty. Glen wasn’t much into house-keeping. She had bread and cheese and eggs and a lettuce and tomatoes and onions and that was about all, apart from breakfast cereal and milk and some grapes. We boiled the eggs and laid the rest of it out, minus the cereal, on the table and ate it with a few glasses of the white wine to wash it down. I took the Bach file from the floor where it had fallen and showed it to her. It wasn’t a time for negotiation—we were into the realm of trust or the past two hours had meant nothing at all.

  She read through the papers as she ate and drank, diluting her wine with mineral water so that after the first two glasses it was scarcely alcoholic at all. I followed suit, heavier on the wine.

  ‘How did you get on to this?’ she said.

  I told her about the interview with Mark Roper and the opening of Oscar Bach’s box.

  She examined the map with the crosses and pulled a face. ‘You’re hoping it’s negative on these four places for rapes and abductions?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Don’t know yet. The computer records aren’t that good. I’d have to say it’s maybe for Wentworth Falls at least.’

  ‘What’s the case?’

  ‘Sixteen-year-old. Not the type to go missing, but vanished without a trace. Pretty blonde girl. Isn’t it amazing? We fucked while we were holding on to this sort of information.’

  I shrugged. ‘They screwed in Belsen. Did you find out anything else about Schmidt?’

  She tapped the photostats into a neat pile and slipped them back inside the manilla folder. ‘Sort of. If anyone had bothered to look he would’ve shown up as very odd. His commercial references don’t check out. He didn’t register his business, didn’t have any insurance. The name is a deed poll job, pretty recent. The driver’s licence is an outright fake. He must have known somebody in that racket.’

  ‘That figures,’ I said. ‘The question is, did he assault, rape or kill anyone in any of those four locations? If he did, you have to act on this, Glen.’

  ‘I know. Get in touch with the detectives who worked on the cases, if there are any, contact the parents … shit! Well, that’s my problem, but I can see yours—Mr Jacobs.’

  ‘Right. He’ll probably fire me. He won’t want to hear any of this. Now that’ll be okay by his son, Ralph …

  ‘Who probably put the frighteners on you the other night.’

  I looked at her, possibly with my mouth hanging open.

  She reached over and touched the healed cuts on my face. ‘We know about Ralph. He’s a Sydney smoothie now, dead respectable, but not so long ago he was a real head-kicker. It wasn’t too hard to figure out that he’d try to discourage you. Didn’t work, did it?’

  ‘No. I’d rather like to meet him again.’

  ‘Again? So he warned you off?’

  ‘The motto on my tombstone should read “he only had himself to blame”.’

  She digested that as we cleaned up the kitchen. She smoked a cigarette while she made coffee. She’d put on her silk shirt and her knickers but her legs were bare and I admired her slightly chunky calves as she moved. She caught me looking. ‘Perv,’ she said.

  ‘You’re safe for tonight.’

  ‘You underestimate yourself, or me. Are you staying?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’ll come to your motel if you like. How’s the bed?’

  ‘I think it’s got automatic massage.’

  ‘Unnecessary. What’s wrong?’

  I would have been hard put to say. I liked her more than any woman I’d been with in years. The sex had been good and we were communicating well and building something, maybe. But I didn’t know whether that was what I wanted. I could hear Helen Broadway’s voice and the worst thing was, as I drank some wine and smelled Glen Withers on my fingers, the smell reminded me of Helen. There was no way to tell her this. I grinned and put the sheets back inside the manilla folder. My brain raced to find something to say to her that would explain my movements. ‘Glen,’ I said. ‘All that
checking and talking to detectives is going to take time. After tomorrow I probably won’t have an employer but there’s something I’d still want to do. You’ll think it’s crazy.’

  She came across and gave me a kiss that tasted of salad and cigarette. ‘No I won’t. You want to go down to Heathcote and talk to Rory Coleman. I’d want to do the same. Just so long as you come back.’

  14

  I stayed the night. We made love again and slept and in the morning we walked down the gravel road to the beach which was clean and bright apart from a few things left on the sand by the tide. Glen walked along collecting plastic bottles and other rubbish and deposited it in the one bin on the beach. The bin was rusted and holey and the smaller bits of debris fell straight through onto the sand. I scraped them up and wrapped them in a plastic bag that had been half buried in the sand.

  Glen shook her head. ‘Animals. I saw a kid get off his board with a broken ankle strap. Would have been the easiest thing in the world to bring it up here, but he just tossed it on the sand. We don’t deserve these beaches.’

  ‘Looks like you do what you can,’ I said.

  ‘I have to go to work,’ she said. ‘You could get to Horrie Jacobs’ place by foot from here if you wanted to. Just go to the end of the beach and you’ll find a track. It’ll bring you out down below his place. The walk’ll do you good.’

  She gave me a quick kiss and moved away. I knew what she was doing—drawing some kind of a line under last night, avoiding goodbyes. I wasn’t going away, just walking on the beach. She’d showed me where the key to her house was. I had her phone number. We were still cooperating as investigators. Anything else would develop, or not, according to whatever laws govern these things. As I walked towards the far end of the beach I felt something like the kids at Redhead—seizing the time. It was a good feeling.

  There was less wind than yesterday and the promise of a warmer day, building on what had been left behind. The beach was wide and the grass and shrubs on the low dunes seemed to have a good purchase. There were shallow pools on the rock ledges and the couple of streams that ran down from the heights cut only shallow channels. Suede shoes and drill trousers weren’t quite the right gear for beach walking and I was hot, with my shirt sticking to my back, by the time I found the path leading up through the timber. When it rained the track would be a watercourse but now it was just a rocky path, easy to negotiate, nicely shaded in spots, but steep. My breath was short when I made it to the top. I imagined little Horrie Jacobs bounding up it in his shorts and sneakers, and Oscar Bach …

  I walked through the stretch of reserve to the bottom of Bombala Street and up the hill to the Jacobs’ house. There was no one in the shaded front yard, so I went up the steps onto the deck and around to the back of the house where the sun would reach. I found Horrie Jacobs sitting in a bright patch of sunlight at a wooden table with the newspaper and the remains of his breakfast in front of him.

  ‘Cliff. Where the hell did you spring from?’

  I told him I’d been talking to a police officer in Whitebridge, without giving him any of the intimate details. He poured me some coffee, then shook his head. ‘It’s cold. I’ll make some more.’

  ‘Don’t bother. This’ll be fine. I haven’t got any good news for you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You believe Oscar was killed though. I can see it in your face. And you’ve got a policeman on side, haven’t you?’

  He was seeing something, but not what he thought. I nodded.

  ‘But you don’t know who did it?’

  ‘There’s a few candidates.’

  He bristled. ‘What does that mean?’

  I told him, keeping it simple, not coming on too strong. I told him about Mark Roper and Gina Costi and about Greta Coleman and the prison term and the name change. I didn’t tell him about the knife and the map. Something about the way he took the news, the way he drew himself up and sat rigidly, alerted May, who had been sitting inside the house with a view of the deck. She came out quietly and sat down next to Horrie. She heard some of it. Enough.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said.

  ‘The evidence is all in my car. I can have it here inside an hour. Senior Sergeant Withers can verify it all. I’m sorry.’

  ‘He was my friend,’ Horrie muttered. ‘My only friend.’

  May reached out and took his hand. He didn’t resist, didn’t seem to notice. The healthy colour had drained from his face and he looked old and frail. The woman looked at me and shook her head. I mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry’ again and she nodded and gave a slight shrug. A cloud moved across the sun and the deck was all at once in shade and cool. I shivered in my still damp shirt.

  ‘You’d better go, Mr Hardy,’ May said. ‘I always knew that nothing good would come of this.’

  I left them sitting there, close together, the man encased in misery and disbelief and the woman trying to communicate silently with him. She lifted her hand in what I thought was a small wave but she stroked his head. I dropped my own hand and felt like a doctor giving a patient the worst news possible. I slouched around the deck with my own distress building, wondering whether to get back to Whitebridge via the beach or the road. I stood in the carefully tended front garden, undecided, indifferent. I’d decided on the beach when I heard movement behind me. May Jacobs came down the steps from the deck and advanced towards me. She was wearing white track pants and a blue T-shirt and she looked capable of jogging down to the beach and back up again.

  ‘Cliff,’ she said. ‘That’s a very unhappy man you’ve made. Don’t say you’re sorry again. That’s no good.’

  ‘What would do any good, May? Just tell me.’

  ‘Now you’re planning to do what?’

  ‘I didn’t tell Horrie, but Bach might have attacked some other women. I’m working with the police on that. Horrie was right, you know. I think someone killed him and I want to know who.’

  ‘Why?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just to complete things, I guess. A matter of professional pride. I ask a lot of questions and I like to get answers.’

  ‘You make it sound like Trivial Pursuit.’

  It was the first light note that had been struck since I arrived and it was welcome. I smiled. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I love that man, Cliff. I can’t stand to see him unhappy. There is something you can do. Find out all you can about who killed that man. Everything. Horrie Jacobs can face the facts. He spent his whole life doing it and he hasn’t changed just because of the money.’

  I nodded.

  ‘He’s worried that the money has changed him. It hasn’t. I know. But he worries. Now this. It’s better that he knows everything. Now it’s me that’s hiring you. You understand? I’ll send you a cheque.’

  I started to protest but she cut me off with an angry gesture. ‘Find out! And tell us.’

  She turned and marched away. I changed my mind and decided to go the road route. The sun came out from behind the cloud and I felt quite a lot better.

  The walk to Whitebridge took about half an hour. Near the football ground, flanked by the two pubs, I saw a sign which warned of ‘burning chitter’. I’d seen similar signs on the south coast and it indicated that the oval had once been the pit head. There was probably a shaft under it heading straight out to sea or back under Ocean Street, or both. That also explained the two pubs—an early and a late opener to cater for the mine shifts. I bought a paper in Dudley and glanced through it as I passed the school and the Post Office. Ailing economy, political manoeuvring at home trouble abroad—nothing new.

  Glen had taken Oscar Bach’s box and the evidence it contained as I’d said she could. I was left with my file and photocopies of some of the notes she’d made on her own Bach researches. I had a shower, drank a can of beer from her fridge and left her a note that said a whole lot or nothing, depending on how you looked at it. Being a snoop, I wandered through the house, snooping. It was a very plain place, solid, with what the agents would call ‘tons
of potential’. The trouble is, you need money to realise the potential and Glen didn’t seem to have it. The renovations—a larger deck, bigger windows—had been done on the cheap and the lino tile laying and most of the painting had been done by an amateur. She had a few nice pictures on the walls and a family photograph on top of a bookshelf stuffed full of paperbacks, including Lonesome Dove. The picture showed a good-looking woman and the not-so-good-looking Edward Withers with a boy and a girl who could only have been Glen and her brother. Wholesome stuff.

  I put the key where it went and drove back to my motel to shave, pack and check out. The cleaner wouldn’t have much of a job to do there. The sun was high and bright and I was sorry to be leaving Newcastle. I tried to enjoy the views as much as was consistent with careful driving. Along the road there were several blocks of land for sale. Two carried Mario Costi Real Estate signs, but they also had fresher signs from other agents. I wondered who was running Mario’s business now. Maybe Bruno. Certainly not Ronny.

  I was almost to Belmont before I noticed the dark grey Toyota. It stayed well behind in the thin traffic and I couldn’t get a look at the driver. I considered trying some tactic to intercept it but nothing suggested itself. If I stopped it could pass and pick me up somewhere else. Presumably the driver knew the road patterns. I shrugged and let the car follow me all the way to the Swansea Bridge. It peeled off once we’d crossed the water and I felt like an outlaw being escorted across the county line. I made a mental note to ask May to call Ralphie off.

  15

  I made Glebe in under two hours which was good going for a couple of well-worn vehicles like the Falcon and me. The cat is well-worn too, and he can survive my absence for anything up to a week. The first couple of days he doesn’t even notice and he was casual about the food and milk I put down for him.

  ‘Screw you,’ I said and he yawned, lapped up some milk and went off to lie in the sun on the bricks that Hilde had laid, beside the rubber tree Helen had installed. Dangerous memories, Cliff, I thought. You’re about as much use to a woman as a crack in a glass eye. I used the beeper to get the messages on the office answering machine and learned nothing worth knowing. Then to the detective’s secret weapon—the telephone directory. Rory Coleman still operated in the southern suburbs. He had a home address in Engadine and his showroom—there seemed to be only one now, but big—was on the Princes Highway at Heathcote. It was early afternoon on a bright, sunny Friday. Where would an aggressive marketeer like Rory be? In a meeting? On the golf course? In the showroom? My information was sixteen years out of date but I bet on the showroom.