by Zane Lovitt
‘Just home. Do you have to rush back?’
‘No. I’m on break.’
This is Marnie in work attire: black pants and a black blouse and her hair pinned back with a black band. She edges out the door and closes it over in a politely futile attempt at privacy. The teenager must have found somewhere else to smoke.
‘I wanted to say sorry for the other night. Rushing out on you. I don’t suppose you finish up soon?’
She squashes her lips into a ball, pushes them to one side of her mouth. ‘I’m here until ten.’
‘You look great.’ This is me building on my apology.
‘You’re sweet,’ she says, hugging herself. Actually she looks kind of uncomfortable in that outfit, like it doesn’t fit right. Like it’s just a costume for a performance she’s about to give.
‘So why did you run off so quickly?’
I crush my shoulders into my ears.
‘Just work. You know…The client is always right and everything.’
‘You seemed scared.’
‘Scared?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Of what?’
Her eyes widen, pupils shift to the far far left. ‘I don’t know. You said something about the police.’
‘That was nothing. I was just flustered. I felt bad walking out on you.’
‘Good.’
‘Listen, there’s something I need to ask.’
Marnie comes down off the doorstep, rests her back against the brick exterior. A wet steel chain hangs miserably skinny beside her. She keeps her arms crossed, withstanding the cold.
‘Go on,’ she says. Her face is flushed red with the heat of the kitchen or maybe something else and it throws me.
‘It’s just…I’m not quite sure how to ask it.’
‘Just ask it.’
She jams her hands behind her backside, a schoolgirl waiting to be asked to the formal.
‘Your father is Stanislaw Smurtch, right? He was in the council in Kerang?’
This is not what she expected. Marnie hardens, crosses her arms again.
‘Yeah…’
‘A couple of years ago he was charged with fraud. Like, stealing from the treasury or something? Is that right?’
‘Why…why do you ask?’
‘It got reported about. The Kerang Messenger.’
‘But…why—’
‘He owned a development business that didn’t develop anything, I think. Or something like that. He got found out by a commission. Lost his job…’
Now it’s Marnie who’s thrown. She can’t seem to believe I’ve brought this up.
‘Why are you asking?’
‘You wrote a bunch of Facebook posts about how they were out to get him and that he was the real victim. Both your parents…You swore up and down they’d done nothing wrong.’
She blanches now. Her eyes skip past me to the mouth of the laneway.
‘I didn’t…I didn’t say that.’
‘You did. There were dozens of posts—’
‘I deleted them.’
‘I know. That’s what I’m saying. One day, you deleted all the posts about your father and the whole mess, and the very next day you got on a bus and moved here.’
‘How do you know?’
My answer is a titter, like it should be obvious.
‘I mean, you deleted the posts, but nothing’s ever truly deleted, right? Anyone can look them up. All you have to do—’
‘Wait…You, like, searched me?’
‘Yeah. Two years ago.’ I raise my hands in surrender. ‘I’d just met you—’
‘That’s fucking creepy, dude…’
‘Oh, what, like you never googled me?’
‘What you do isn’t googling.’
‘Really, mostly, it is. Except, now don’t be angry…’ I hadn’t foreseen this brutal scowl, the hurt in her eyes. ‘I looked up your Telstra account.’
Her mouth hangs open. She rears back, whirls around to the kitchen door, terrified that someone might have heard. Her voice is a hiss.
‘What?’
I lower my voice too.
‘There’s a Kerang number that calls you and you don’t answer. Never answer. That’s your mum and dad, right?’
Marnie isn’t listening. ‘You looked up my phone records?’
‘You figured out your dad had lied. That he’d taken the money, maybe your mum helped. That was after years of not believing it and defending them, like, relentlessly. So I’m asking, what changed?’
‘Oh my God.’ She covers her face with her hands. ‘You’re a stalker. You’re fucking stalking me.’
‘There’s no need to be upset,’ I feel an urge to touch her shoulder, choose not to. ‘It was so long ago that I’d forgotten. But now… now…’
I sigh. Don’t have time to explain that.
So I say, ‘Everyone knew he’d done it except you. You were the hold-out. You sang it from the hilltops how your parents had been demonised because, like, politics. But then something changed your mind and I need to know what that was. How do you change that kind of mind?’
Her eyes hang wide again, just like they did when I left her at Spatafina’s. She pulls her chin into her chest in a classic shock-anger combination.
‘This is offensive.’
I’ve planned this poorly. Confronting her on the most intense experience of her life shouldn’t have been crowbarred into a fifteen-minute work break.
‘I am offended,’ she declares.
‘Okay, but…’ I swallow hard. ‘This is important.’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘How long have you known?’
‘Ummm…’ I think for a moment. ‘Like, ever since you told me your name.’
One of her hands comes free, motions with its own independent and ineffable sense of outrage.
‘I can’t believe it. That’s, like…That’s a violation. You always…’
‘Come on, don’t be shocked.’
‘Don’t be shocked?’
‘I have to talk to you about this—’
‘Don’t be fucking shocked?’
‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry—’
‘Go home, Steve.’
She grips herself across her apron, turns sideways to me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again because I’m a doofus.
‘I need you to leave.’ Righteous anger, a touch of performance to it. Settling into it. I’m not going to bring her back from that tonight.
‘But I—’
‘I’m not talking to you about this.’ And she seems to realise that she can leave. With a violent push from the wall she re-enters the kitchen. ‘Just go home.’
She doesn’t slam the door closed. But she closes the door.
28
The sun rises high and unapologetic, tries to stare me down but it doesn’t have the juice. Condensation has crystallised on the other cars’ windshields while mine has fogged over in solidarity, scrimming the morning light even more. All I seem to do these days is sit outside people’s homes.
My bed was prickly last night and the weight of me crushed my shoulder against the mattress and it ached. After determined imitations of sleep, I was awake. Of course I was. There appeared so many holes in the lies I’ve told that my attempt at a consolidated list of them crashed my brain. Then there were the times I told the truth. Like with Marnie.
Tyan knows the truth, but even there I lied at the outset by calling myself a journalist. More than that, I said I’d visit him after seeing Rudy yesterday. I didn’t. I haven’t called. I decided to come here first, to this pretty little house in Kew.
I’ve been here for more than an hour, waiting for a polite time to knock on the door but really I’m just waiting for my nerve to arrive. Already I’ve seen a man leave the house, young and strikingly neat in appearance and wearing what might have been a bow tie though the windshield fuzzed my view. He pulled invisible hair from his eyes twice in the walk
to the car, reversed too quickly out the driveway and wound away along the quiet street. I count this as a point in my favour; that stooge might have turned me away and I expect I’ll have enough trouble with the second, older resident.
What else kept me awake last night, apart from listening out for Marnie to get home and doing nothing about it when she did, was a formula for stopping Rudy. For resolving the entire issue. The formula went like this:
Rudy + proof of Piers’s culpability = Tyan’s safety
It’s not what Tyan wants—Tyan wants to relive his glory days and capture Rudy and mount his head on the wall—but I’ll keep Tyan out of danger if I can prove to Rudy that his father was guilty after all. So, thinking about it last night, I got out of bed.
I get out of the car, walk through the wind with my gloves on, not hiding a fake tattoo with them this time, just cold. The scarf itches my neck as I hike the steep driveway, up two concrete steps and along the white brick veneer and curtained windows to the door. There’s a button and I press it.
What I found last night, within seconds of searching the Supreme Court website, was that Rudy’s power of attorney was filed by someone named Tristan Whaley.
This wasn’t a raid—they store these records for people to find.
Whaley used to be a criminal lawyer and he witnessed the power of attorney in 2005, along with the transfer of title to the house in Albert Park, but that’s the only place his name appears. It seems to be the only probate work he ever did. And, so far as I can tell, he had nothing to do with the Alameins prior to that, nothing to do with Piers’s trial for murder. But for some reason he came to Rudy’s home one day and, according to Rudy, told him his father was an innocent man.
Now he’s retired. And he lives here.
From inside comes the sound of a handle turning, but I can’t see much for the ninety per cent opacity of the screen door. I make out a pink-skinned shadow, a figure as tall as a bookcase. The tall man.
‘Mister Whaley?’
‘Yes?’ the shadow says. A calming voice like he hosts children’s television.
‘My name is Brett Sherez. I work at the Southern Community Legal Centre. I’m really sorry to bother you, but I wanted to ask you about Piers Alamein.’
Silence. I can’t see enough of that face to gauge a reaction. But then it says, ‘Who?’ So I suppose it doesn’t have a reaction.
‘Piers Alamein. You managed some matters of his estate when he was an inmate at Severington.’
More silence. Not just silence but stillness.
I jog: ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Yes, I recall. But it’s a Saturday morning.’
‘I know,’ I try to laugh it off. ‘The problem is I couldn’t find you at your office yesterday.’
‘I’m retired.’
‘Really? I’m sorry…’
‘What are you after?’
‘I have a client. Rudy Alamein. Do you remember him?’
‘Dimly.’
‘I’m gathering all the files I can on his financial matters.’
He says nothing, awaits more information.
‘Aaaaaaaaaand Mister Alamein’s record-keeping hasn’t exactly been exhaustive.’
A snorted laugh. Perhaps he remembers Rudy better than he claims.
‘I was wondering if you had any documentation relating to Mister Alamein? Or Piers Alamein.’
‘I must say, for a man my age, I really do have better things to do on a weekend.’ But as he speaks he unsnaps the lock.
‘I know. I’m sorry. I was actually headed for my sister’s place in Surrey Hills. You were on the way, so…’
The screen door swings out to reveal a handsome, kingly man in his seventies. The hair on his head is pure silver and, combined with black-rimmed glasses, gives him the weighty air of 1960s intellect. His height stoops with benevolence. Gaunt and plain vanilla caucasian.
‘Do you have an authorisation?’
From inside my jacket I produce a dull fold of paper with no more than a few typed words across it. Whaley takes it, reads it.
I’ve seen authority forms from community legal centres; some of them don’t even have letterheads, are otherwise blank sheets barely a sentence long, declaring X is endorsed to handle Y on behalf of Z. I forged a lazy signature at the bottom, replicating Rudy’s on the fake insurance contract.
‘All right,’ says Whaley, indifferent. ‘I can tell you I don’t have much, but you can come in.’
The house has a Tardis aspect, expansive on the inside because there don’t seem to be any interior walls. Here is a living area, colourful, oaky; beyond it a dining space and then a shiny kitchen. From the entrance I can see all the way through the glass rear to a courtyard. Along the wall to my right there’s a narrow wooden staircase; rather than loop back and out of sight like the untrammelled stairs at the Alamein house, it leads up directly to an ominous red door. Whaley moves up these stairs now. I follow his loping frame and our feet clip-clop on the timber like horses. Over the banister there’s a stack of blue and white boxes rising with the steps, stapled shut. They feature a baroque design on top. Bottles of wine bought in bulk.
‘Can I offer you water or tea?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Does the Southern Community Legal Centre do very much estate work?’
I don’t know the answer, and like any question I don’t know the answer to, I’m wondering if it’s a trick. Is he trying to figure me out, even as he leads me into his cave?
‘I mostly focus on immigration and family law.’
‘Do you enjoy it?’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘I had a friend who used to manage the Bayside Legal Centre. He said he spent most of his time asking adolescents to stay off people’s lawns.’
‘Well that’s the Bayside for you.’
Whaley pushes open the red door, enters a perfect white den. A couch, bookshelves, a wide desk with no computer, a lamp that belongs to someone wealthy, vases with fresh flowers, granite bookends, a heater raging in the corner, a charcoal rubbing framed on one wall, a small window overlooking trees on the next. Further back stands a door to what must surely be a hopelessly tasteful ensuite.
‘Have a seat.’ Whaley points to the polished leather couch, studded on its seams like a child’s pyjamas and just as comfortable. It creaks lovingly as I relax into it. We community lawyers don’t see a lot of elegant leather couches.
A beige photocopier rests upon a black filing cabinet and Whaley opens the top drawer, looks in for just a moment, closes it again.
‘No no.’ He sits now behind the hardwood desk. ‘My former associate always destroyed our files after the seven years had lapsed. She would have destroyed what I had on the Alamein matter.’
‘They must have lapsed recently. The records were dated 2005.’
‘It was earlier this year,’ Whaley says with a note of condescension. His demeanour bears the lack of haste, the general lack of interest, that I’ve known more than one elderly lawyer to lack when addressing me. So I attempt to generate some interest.
‘Rudy says you told him that Piers Alamein didn’t kill his wife.’
His head jerks back like a chicken put off by unappealing feed.
‘Lord above, that’s not quite what happened.’
‘Can I ask what did happen?’
He seems deeply put out at having to remember.
‘I informed him of the possibility that his father didn’t know what he was doing at the time of the crime. It’s possible he was mentally dissociated and, in that sense, not morally culpable. It’s a phenomenon I’ve come across more than once in my career. Under different circumstances it might have been grounds for an acquittal.’
‘So why does he think you told him his father was flat-out innocent?’
Whaley shrugs.
‘A misunderstanding, I suppose. I fail to see what relevance this has…’
‘Wait a minute…’ I drift gently sideways. ‘I work for Rudy Alam
ein. I’m trying to understand what relevance any of this had to you. You rang his doorbell more or less out of the blue, from what I understand.’
‘Yes, perhaps I did. But I had the courtesy to do it on a weekday.’
He smiles to disarm the comment.
‘What I put to Rudy was based entirely upon a visit I’d made to Piers Alamein at the Severington Correctional Facility.’
I tip forward; the leather couch moans: ‘Oooooooh?’
‘You met with Piers Alamein?’
‘Yes…’ He says it nonchalantly, looking to the ceiling. ‘Just the once. I had a client serving quite a lengthy sentence at Severington. He told me that Alamein…Obviously I recognised the name from the media attention the case had garnered. He told me that Piers Alamein had been drafting a new will, with the aid of some contemptible prison jackleg. The rumour being that Piers had a heart condition, wasn’t long for this world. He’d been abused at the hands of some of the inmates there and they had him rearranging his estate to their benefit.’
He lets that sit for a moment, then says:
‘My client found it amusing. But of course I knew the real victim would be Piers’s son, Rudyard. Disenfranchised as a result of this new document.’
‘So you visited Piers.’
‘It seemed to me the only real hope for setting aside the new will would be to prove Piers had been subject to duress at the time of execution. I didn’t expect that to be difficult, provided Piers co-operated, so I arranged to see him in an interview room at Severington.’
‘When did this happen?’
Whaley leans his right elbow on the arm of his chair and his right hand gently caresses his right ear and his head is angled to favour the hand’s access: he speaks while looking at me sideways.
‘Late oh-four, if I recall.’
‘Did you speak for long?’
‘It was a brief interview. Fifteen minutes or so.’
‘What did you learn?’
He considers this for just a moment, then says calmly:
‘I learned that Piers Alamein was utterly insane.’
29
‘He had a tattoo on the webbing of his right hand.’
Whaley points to the familiar place. A rush of fear, but then I recall I wiped away the tattoo last night. And again for good measure this morning. Also, I’m wearing gloves.
