by Peter Temple
I read the report again and then I set out for the city centre, walked up to Brunswick Street to catch a tram. Once tram rides from Fitzroy to the city were more or less free, it was only a few blocks, the connies knew you, looked the other way. That had come to an end too.
Drew waved at me from a table to the left of the door of a cavernous faux-Milano place on Little Collins Street where the staff fawned on regulars and made others feel like they’d gatecrashed a private function.
I went over and sat on an uncomfortable chair. ‘Not proving easy,’ I said.
‘Nothing of worth in life is easy,’ said Drew. ‘Why is that, do you think?’
‘I don’t think.’ I looked around at the lunchtimers, mostly men in dark suits, hard voices, eyes that darted. ‘I’ll give you a why. This place?’
‘Convenience. I’m making a house call nearby on a colleague who finds himself in an awkward position. Drugwise.’
‘Not the colleague seen after midnight helping the staff of McDonald’s? Using the fat straws to vacuum a tabletop?’
Drew ran a fingertip over his upper lip, appraised me. ‘Becoming more in touch with the world,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good thing.’
‘I agree. I liked the old naive me more. I plan to revert.’
‘Unfortunately,’ said Drew, ‘naivete never comes back. Like virginity and that feeling of your first tongue kiss.’
He caught a waiter’s eye before the man could look away and pointed at the menu. Insulted, the balded one slid over and took out his pad. We ordered from the fixed-price menu, two courses and a glass of wine. The man’s demeanour suggested that we were cheating, like rich tourists lining up with the homeless at a soup kitchen.
‘And the red,’ said Drew. ‘Recommend it?’
The waiter shrugged. ‘It’s red, it’s wine,’ he said. His eyes were elsewhere.
‘That good? My. Two glasses, please.’
We watched him go. He was pear-shaped, a big backside, something unobjectionable in people who hadn’t given offence but capable of arousing a violent urge.
‘Once the aim was to earn a lavish tip by grovelling,’ said Drew. ‘Now they want you to grovel. You saw her?’
‘What do the jacks say about the gun?’
‘Found in the course of a routine search of the area around Mickey’s building.’
‘Following a tip-off is what I’m told.’
Drew cocked his long head. ‘That’s good for a fit-up yarn.’
‘If admitted. Also good for a dobbed-in-by-unknown-accomplice, unfortunately.’
‘Someone betting she’s willing to go down alone? No. Accords better with weapon planted by the person who shot Mick five times through two folds of towel.’
‘Thick Egyptian cotton towel, no doubt. If there was a tip, it makes this very difficult.’
The waiter arrived, clicked down two glasses of red wine. He was leaving when Drew said, crisply, ‘Waiter.’
Pearbum stopped, turned like someone with a bad back.
‘I haven’t accepted this wine,’ said Drew.
Pearbum took in air, you could see the inflation of the midsection.
Drew sniffed his glass, one deep sniff, and put it down. ‘Oxidised,’ he said, his eyes on Pearbum. ‘Wine from a new bottle, please.’
Pearbum’s chin and eyebrows went up. Drew gave him the stare, the unblinking, sceptical look used for cross-examining hard-arsed police witnesses.
Pearbum looked back, but he was basically soft-arsed and looking into Drew’s eyes reminded him of this. He lowered chin and eyebrows. ‘Certainly, sir,’ he said. He gathered the glasses.
‘Masterly,’ I said. ‘Now we get the eyedrops in the food.’
‘If they dare,’ said Drew. ‘They dare only against the weak. What else?’
‘Not much. It seems the feds were asked but they were busy.’
‘Asked what?’
I shrugged. ‘Sarah thinks she was being watched.’
‘I’m not surprised. I’d watch her. What’s thinks mean?’
‘She kept seeing the same woman in the street.’
Drew shook his head. ‘Anyone to back that up?’
‘Only her sister and the deceased. Then there’s the actual property invasion and the suspected one.’
‘I know about them,’ said Drew. ‘Unreported is the problem.’
‘What about Rick the driver?’
‘I was going to ask about Rick.’
Pearbum’s replacement arrived, a slim youth carrying a bottle and new glasses. He uncorked the bottle and poured a splash for Drew, who gave it a cursory sniff and nodded.
‘As two blokes having lunch,’ said Drew. ‘What?’
‘She probably did it,’ I said, ‘but she presents well. No visible twitches, engaging candour, scorns angry jilted lover angle, says little sister Sophie was always saying give me your toy.’
I tried the wine. Pearbum had captured its essence: wine, red. ‘Sophie’s a hope. She may be able to point the finger somewhere else, vaguely point, there’s a chance.’
‘We’ll have to talk to her,’ said Drew. ‘Our mutual friend say anything about her?’
‘No. I don’t think she’s on their team.’
‘We’ll find out in due course. The old boy says she’s staying with friends.’
‘Mickey worked for the Massianis for six years,’ I said. ‘I read they’re on this building royal commission’s playlist.’
Drew put a finger to the outer corner of an eye, took on a strange Asian-Caucasian look. ‘My instinctive reaction,’ he said, ‘is that if Mickey could’ve hurt the Massianis, he’d have long been part of the structural underpinning of a prestigious office tower.’
‘I’ll ask him about that,’ I said.
‘Do that,’ said Drew. ‘Ask him. He went to Monash, Steven Massiani, tell him you went to Melbourne. He’s probably haunted by feelings of inferiority like all Monash graduates. Law and engineering, first-class honours. For what that’s worth.’
Drew looked up at the painted ceiling, at the badly painted fat nudes and cherubs and bowls of fruit. ‘I wonder why they don’t combine law and transgender studies,’ he said. ‘What about law and hairdressing. Law and podiatry. Law and Hopi Indian ear candle therapy, law and …’
The youth arrived with our first course: slices of chicken breast stacked with things in between. Standing in a puddle of balsamic vinegar sauce.
‘They used to fan the food around the plate,’ Drew said. ‘Now they give you mounds, you have no idea what to do.’
‘Wreck it,’ I said.
We wrecked, we ate.
‘Plus,’ said Drew, ‘I’ve never seen the point of pine nuts.’
‘It’s about texture,’ I said. ‘Get you to the footy this week?’
He put his head to one side, gave me the sympathy look designed to lull prosecution witnesses. ‘Saints play Carlton,’ he said. ‘For the Saints, I have nothing but contempt. For Carlton, I reserve a special loathing.’
‘You wouldn’t care to umpire the game?’ I said.
Walking up Collins Street to a tramstop, a cab pulled in ahead of me to discharge a passenger. A business lunch, I thought. Transport to and from would be billable.
‘Smith Street, Collingwood,’ I said to the driver, whose hairs were arranged across his scalp like swimming lanes. He was writing something on a pad. ‘Know where that is?’ I said, gently.
‘Think I’m off the fuckin boat, mate?’
‘I assume nothing,’ I said.
‘Fuckin Smith Street,’ he said. ‘Talkin to an Abbotsford boy, mate. Born and bred.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘So you’ll have a rough idea.’
The driver sulked until the Spring Street lights, when he said, ‘So. What’s your team?’
‘Saints,’ I said.
‘You poor cunt,’ he said, immensely cheered. ‘Still, Carlton on Satdee, even your girls got a chance. Poofs Carlton.’
‘Carlton,’ I said.
‘Possibly.’
I passed the leaden afternoon in paperwork, attending to legal matters, writing letters of inquiry and impotent threat, itemising bills for small services performed. In the dusk, the air cold and damp, I walked to the post office, a place now without a hint of gravitas, and consigned my missives to the steel bin, no doubt the only lawyer in the country who posted his own letters.
On the way back, I passed a woman retching dryly, and, in the alley, two boys grabbing and snarling, both pale and pinched, chapped lips and flaking skin, noses leaking.
It was after eight, I was home, behind the label of the Maglieri, deep in a melancholy reverie, not listening to Abdullah Ibrahim, once Dollar Brand, when the bell rang. I went down the narrow and dangerous staircase, more perilous now, and opened the door with caution.
A big man in dirty jeans and T-shirt, no hair to speak of, a beard or a painful shave coming on.
‘G’day, mate,’ he said.
‘Len,’ I said. We shook hands. I always expected to come away with splinters in my fingers.
‘Time again,’ he said. ‘Christ knows why you buggers need fires.’
Melbourne cold was a joke to Len. He was from beyond Avoca, Melbourne was like Bali to people from beyond Avoca.
The old Ford truck was backed in, wheels against the kerb, ready to unload the last two cubes of redgum, dry, split small. It came in autumn and in mid-winter, heavily discounted courtesy of a horse owner for whom Harry Strang had managed a sizeable coup.
I sat on the stairs and watched Len and his offsider, a silent ginger youth, unload and stack in the recess beneath me. We talked football. There was no point in trying to help. These were pros, you got in their way. When they were finished, Len said, ‘The boss says thirty bucks will be fine.’
Money paid, thanks said, hands shaken, I was halfway up the stairs when the phone began to ring. I made haste.
‘A shortness of breath?’ said Drew. ‘Is this a bad time? Or is awkward the word?’
‘Just getting wood,’ I said. ‘Downstairs.’
‘My instinct confirmed. I’ll be brief. The party’s father wants words, contacted me directly. From my position, that’s … what is the word?’
‘Awkward,’ I said.
‘Exactly. Ever the slotter of the black ball. I’d prefer to take instructions from the client. Perhaps my associate could call on him.’
‘In the billable universe, anything is possible,’ I said. ‘Is this part of my Cyril employment?’
‘It is. There’s no reason to speak of that to the client. Ten tomorrow at the Macedon estate?’
I thought of humming up the Calder Highway in the Alfa. Perhaps the day would be sunny. ‘Directions? Or will any forelock-tugging rustic in the vicinity be able to direct me?’
I went back to the kitchen. More wine needed. What to eat was also a question becoming urgent. Left over was a complete sausage and another biggish bit, just under half. Also a lot of mustard mash. How can you eat the same food two nights running? I tried a spoonful of the mash. How can you not?
I put the mash on to warm up, plus a bit of milk, sliced the cold sausage into thick coins and added them. Peas wouldn’t hurt. I microwaved the last of the tiny frozen peas with some butter, leant against the sink, rolling the Maglieri in the mouth. A balanced meal coming up, all major food groups represented: the dead animal group, the lumpish underground vegetable group, the things hiding in pods group, pungent seeds group, fat cows group. Preceded and accompanied by the fermented grapes group.
I ate while watching television and reading the Age. The eating was the best part. Bed and book. To hell with Istanbul and knowing too much, I attempted something else, bought on the title, Greek Kissing. It was about two English families holidaying together on the island of Leros. An Australian artist was introduced at the end of the first chapter. Soon after, I slipped back into my gloomy trance, sightless eyes on the ceiling, endless running of negative thoughts, just registering the sound of the city, a low wet thunder spiked with shriek and squeal and shot and slam.
Sir Colin Longmore came out of the rose garden, tall and gaunt, big-nosed, like General de Gaulle in stooped old age at Colombey-les-deux-Eglises. A dog, a spaniel, sagging like a sofa, followed.
‘Jack Irish,’ I said.
He walked across the terrace, pulling off a gardening glove finger by finger, and put out a hand.
‘Longmore,’ he said. ‘Good of you to come.’
‘My pleasure.’ I said. His hand felt more like that of a brickie than of the man who owned the brickworks, passed down the generations from Ronald Calway Longmore, mine-owner, grazier, land speculator, founder of Longmore Brick and Tile, whose products built a lot of nineteenth-century Melbourne.
‘Irish,’ he said. ‘Not a name you hear a lot. Had an Irish work here before the war.’
I felt a stiffening in the neck and shoulders, deliberately turned to look at the massive house with its turreted roofs, gables and battlements, mullioned windows, rusticated brickwork and stone quoins. ‘I imagine you had most of Melbourne work here at one time or another,’ I said.
He studied me, old bird eyes under sloping grey thatch, he’d taken my meaning. ‘I’ll show you,’ he said.
I followed him across the rose-brick terrace, down three steps and through an archway of entwined creepers. A gravel path at least a hundred and fifty metres long stretched out between close-planted poplars, yellow leaves hanging on. The eye went to the end, to a stone archway with two iron gates.
We walked side by side, crunching the gravel. His brogues needed polishing, they were cracked over the little toes.
‘I remember these poplars going in,’ he said. ‘We grew them in the tree nursery. We had that then. Associate. What’s that mean?’
It took a second to adjust. ‘I used to be Andrew Greer’s partner. Now we sometimes work together.’
Longmore didn’t respond, a raised eyebrow. I offered nothing.
‘What’s your role in this?’ he said.
‘To help prepare Sarah’s defence.’
‘Defence? Had the gun, she tells me.’
‘Gave it back, I understand.’
He sniffed. ‘Defence’ll need a QC. Team of QCs.’
‘Andrew impressed that upon her. She doesn’t want one.’
Behind us, the spaniel farted, a drawn-out emission.
‘Fire in your own time,’ said Longmore.
We walked.
‘Bad business,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
The poplars’ branches were woven. We were in a sky-roofed tunnel. Colin Longmore stopped. I stopped. He dipped into his jerkin pocket, came out with a stubby pipe, a short-stemmed piece of plumbing for burning tobacco outdoors, a decent hat brim would shelter it from the rain.
I couldn’t remember when last I’d seen anyone smoke a pipe.
Longmore found a lighter, a Dunhill, flared on the sides like a Chevrolet of the 1950s, an item from the golden age of smoking. The lighter flamed. He applied the flame to the bowl, sucking like a calf on a teat.
We walked down the crackling path. A cold day, autumn on the north slope of the hill of Macedon. The hill had early provided Melbourne’s rich with relief from the town in its septic delta, the rivers fouled with tallow and tannin and excrement, the air sallow from the smoke of mills and foundries and smelling of the steam of tanneries and tobacco factories. The Dandenongs, the other hills, the hillocks, were an alternative but the properly rich favoured Macedon. England was home and every kind of European tree their gardeners planted thrived at Macedon – oak, elm, plane, ash, chestnut, holly, medlar, quince, crab apple, linden, hornbeam, hazel, birch, beech, box – box clipped into hedges and box allowed to be trees. It was also the case that you couldn’t get trees to produce their best autumn display in the Dandenongs, the sea was too close, there was a humidity. You needed a crueller climate, one that would make the sugar in the maple and liquidambar leaves turn to fire, convert it to blood in the perfectly heart
-shaped leaves of the katsura.
‘A difficult woman, Sarah,’ said Longmore. ‘She was an impossible girl. Nothing like it in her mother. Sweetest nature, her mother.’
‘Impossible how?’ I said.
He seemed not to hear me, walked shaking his head. Then he said, ‘She’s been in trouble. I suppose she’s told you that.’
‘Not the details.’
‘Terrible temper, even when she was little, nine, ten. Then one day she had this … well, not a temper, it’s a madness, a fit. We had her seen by the psychiatrists. Professor Whatsis-name, Bently, Benleigh, something like that, at the university, supposed to be an expert – they’re all supposed to be experts, charlatans, wouldn’t have a clue. Dreams, bloody nonsense, looking for something to blame. Bred in the marrow, that’s what it is. Her mother’s brother had it too.’
The spaniel came between us, speeding, galvanised for a few dozen paces. Then it stopped and started again, plodding.
‘What happened?’ I said.
Longmore looked at me.
‘When she was in trouble.’
Silence. There was something calming about being confined by tall trees, walking down a narrow path towards a gateway that could be an exit or an entrance to some other confinement.
‘Well, they were living like pigs,’ said Longmore. ‘Take that back, I’ve got some regard for pigs. We had pigs here once, my father thought it would be nice to grow your own bacon, ham, that sort of thing. Not at all dirty, pigs. Humans make them dirty. Bugger up everything, humans, a disgrace, don’t deserve the planet.’
We were nearing the end of the allée. A building could now be seen through the wrought-iron gates, a small two-storey stone building with its steep roof sheathed in copper that was green with verdigris. It stood at the centre of a brick-paved square, perhaps an acre in area, bordered by high clipped hedges. Around it was a narrow moat, stone-edged, brimming with dark water.
‘Lovely little thing, isn’t it?’ said Longmore. ‘Come down here every day, twice in summer.’ He coughed. ‘Just as well, given the limited number of summers left.’
It was a lovely thing, not little but small, perfectly proportioned, with bluestone foundations, walls of dressed sandstone, and sills and arches of granite. It would stand unchanged and beautiful when everyone now alive was dead and forgotten.
