White Dog (Jack Irish Thriller 4)

by Peter Temple

  Mickey Franklin.

  Yes?

  I’ll give you a name.

  A name?

  Janene Ballich.

  How do you spell that?

  B-A-L-L-I-C-H.

  Names are useful. Come in and see my collected phone books.

  Jack, this is serious shit, mate. Goodnight.

  Serious, indeed. Janene and Wayne. Dead Wayne, entrepreneur of the senses, one-stop Wayne. I put bread in the toaster, old but good bread in an old toaster with sides that opened, sat at the kitchen table in the sunlight, and remembered Popeye Costello’s words.

  Girls, boys, micks, dicks, cock-frocks, fladgers, bondies, whatever. Customer-driven, that’s the ticket.

  And Janene? On the menu?

  I suppose.

  Tea. I emptied the kettle, refilled, put a teabag into the teapot, empty and clean. When did I do that? Thinking about Wayne Dilthey, cocky Wayne standing between Janene and Katelyn in the photograph. That would have been close to the highwater mark, lovely young spunks on either side, his bottom touching the Porsche.

  Wayne Dilthey. Like a sex-and-drugs supermarket that did home deliveries. Was that how it worked? Where was Wayne going when fate caught up with him in Kaniva? Mileages to buggery in South Australia written on his road map, said Barry Tregear.

  The toast was smouldering. I turned it over. At the time, you often failed to understand the significance of what people were telling you. Your mind was usually ahead, thinking of the next question. What set great cross-examiners apart was that they listened to witnesses’ answers, never got ahead of themselves, stayed with a topic until it was flat as a bunny ironed by several roadtrains. That was the way you nudged the witness beyond the rehearsed answers, edged them into the ad-lib zone, Drew’s term.

  Wayne was on the run, clearly. Something happened and he ran. Did something happen to Wayne and Janene and Katelyn at the same time? A merchant and his stock. Merchants didn’t get attached to their stock, they didn’t collect it, they dealt in it, that was what trade was about.

  Smoke of toast. Caught just in time, a little scraping would remove the toxic black bits. I put on the second round, spread butter and the mysterious black substance, Australia’s soy sauce. Since when were malt and yeast vegetables? Why wasn’t it called Maltemite? Yeastamite?

  Kettle boiling. I poured water into the teapot and grated parmesan onto the Vegemite. Very good with parmesan was the mite. Bugger cheese and onion, they should make parmesan and Vegemite potato chips, now that would be fusion cuisine: Parmemite.

  Detective Sergeant Reece Stedman, disgraced cop, worked for Redmile in 1994. The man in the Redmile car to whom the woman watching Sarah reported was the man who attacked me. Was that Reece Stedman sitting in the car with Donna Filipovic?

  Why should it be?

  Toast-turning time. Perhaps marmalade with this round? There was also a good French blueberry jam. The marmalade came from somewhere rural, bought by Linda. Tooling around the countryside in her Alfa, stopping to buy produce from desperate roadside rustics.

  Tooling alone? I had done no rural tooling with her. City tooling, yes.

  How could these things come into my mind? In the midst of very serious shit, body hurting, face battered, I felt a flicker, no, a flame, of sexual suspicion and resentment involving someone who was probably gone for good.

  Going to South Australia. Wayne.

  He had no reason to go. He could have been going further, to Western Australia, you had to get over South Australia to get there. It stood in the way, a hot and waterless piece of ground in the main, an obstacle.

  Why would Wayne be going to WA? Because it was a long, long way from Melbourne?

  He wouldn’t have known the way. You’d pull up at some place on the highway that offered food, go inside, you’d be eating a fat-saturated piece of fried something and looking at the map. Christ, it’s a long way, you’d say to yourself, and the stomach acid would burn in the oesophagus even before you’d finished eating.

  Take out a pen, write down the distances in the map’s margin, add them up, estimate how far you could get that day. Write down the mileages from where you were to buggery in South Australia.

  It wasn’t that your destination was buggery in South Australia, it was because that was the end of a stage. Because the map stopped there.

  I left the table and went to the sitting room and rang Bendsten Associates, gave my name to the brisk person, Simone came on.

  ‘Don’t tell me this is the damn-soon call?’ she said.

  ‘Not just yet.’

  I gave the name Dilthey in Brisbane. It took very little time.

  ‘Just the one,’ she said. ‘K. J. Dilthey. You do know that you can find out this kind of information yourself by asking directory inquiries? I have to charge you.’

  ‘I prefer your voice recognition software,’ I said. ‘Number?’

  I rang it. A woman answered. I asked for Mr Dilthey.

  ‘He’s not really up to it,’ she said. ‘I’m the day nurse.’

  ‘I’m ringing from the probate office of the Supreme Court in Melbourne,’ I said, lying without effort. ‘It’s about his son’s estate. Our understanding is that Mr Dilthey is Wayne’s sole heir but we’ve had an inquiry from someone else. You don’t happen to know whether there are other relatives, do you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘but hang on, I’ll ask the lady next door, she knows everything, been there for yonks.’

  ‘I’ll hold,’ I said.

  I drank the last of the tea. There was a sparrow on the windowsill, pecking hopefully. I should put out crumbs. Isabel always emptied the breadboard tray onto the windowsill. Surely this bird could not remember that?

  ‘You there?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘She says there’s a daughter. Teresa. She’s Wayne’s twin. She got pregnant and had a big fight with her dad and she left. She says she thinks she married him, he was a local bloke, a brickie. They left Brissie.’

  ‘Did she say his name?’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll ask.’

  The sky was clouding over, platoons of puffs moving north.

  ‘There?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘His name’s Paul Milder,’ the nurse said.

  I went back to Bendsten Research. ‘Paul and Teresa Milder in South Australia and WA,’ I said.

  ‘Hold on.’

  It took Simone about two minutes. ‘There’s a P. and T. Milder in Dunsborough, Western Australia,’ she said. ‘Nothing in SA.’

  I wrote down the number and the address, said thank you again. The sunlight was gone, the puff-clouds banked up, the room darker. My feeling of recovery was waning.

  You don’t need to know, Barry Tregear had said. Never mind fucken certain, you don’t need to know anything.

  He was right. Of course, he was right. The man slapped me at will, then he pissed on me. His piss ran through my hair, down my cheeks. I tasted it.

  I couldn’t live with that. That couldn’t be the end of something.

  Flying over land, the Bight behind us, dark blue and sullen from our great height, whitecaps like tiny teeth, I hired a car.

  The doll-lipped, petulant cabin steward left off his hissing conversation with his colleague to become attentive and obliging, succeeded in cranking me up a vehicle notch, some kickback involved no doubt. I didn’t care, the whole venture was brainless enough already. What did fifty dollars matter?

  The feeling of doing something stupid became stronger as I lost my way soon after leaving the Perth airport, got off the freeway and drove through endless suburbs, rows of termite-proof brick houses built on sand, all with their straggly, sagging trees, solar panels, stained concrete driveways, basketball hoops. I cursed not bringing sunglasses. The light was too bright for winter, it wasn’t really winter here, they had nothing that resembled winter, no dormant season, no time when moss grew, no dark decaying worm season when humans could stay indoors, sit before dying fires feeling cheated by fate, ba
d luck, bad character, bad blood, my grandfather had no doubt about the influence of bad blood. How could anyone in this climate gain a proper understanding of melancholy?

  On the other hand, the locals probably didn’t miss melancholy much, enjoyed themselves outdoors all year round, wore short pants, towelling hats, sported in the warm pale-blue waters, ignored the threat of stinging creatures, shark nibbles. A lifetime of surfing was less dangerous than a single 3 am walk down King Street, Melbourne.

  Eventually, and by accident, I found myself on the highway going south-west. The road was dominated by four-wheel-drives, mostly driven by impatient, angry-looking freckled men. It was a boring journey, flat landscape, sparse vegetation, turnoffs to Coolup, Wagerup, Cookernup, Wokalup, Burekup, Dardanup, Boyanup. Up, Up and Away.

  Busselton was reached across what pretended to be a river, dammed near its mouth, stagnant, a suspicious green. I drove around. There was little to the town, all of it seemingly built since the 1970s: a few business streets of surf shops, two newsagents, hotels, hardware places, chemists. The seafront was largely given over to parking, tennis courts, an amusement park, a big grassed area where a man was training an alsatian to sit and stay. In the seafront cafe, I ordered a long black from a young woman with tanned pimples, streaked hair.

  What to do? Knock on Teresa Dilthey Milder’s door? Ask her if she knew what had happened to Janene Ballich and Katelyn Feehan, her brother’s hookers? Why should she know?

  Twins were closer than other siblings.

  Stuck on her, I reckon, the cuntstruck look, pardon me.

  Janene’s mother, Mary Ballich, the freezing Gippsland day, the leaky weatherboard house that was a machine for consuming fuels. The sentence that came back to me, wrapping paper floating in the wind. It had no importance, not then, not now.

  ‘Can I get you something else?’ The waiter.

  ‘Where would you stay if you were a tourist?’ I said.

  ‘Not worryin about money, y’mean?’

  I found the recommended hostelry a few kilometres out of town, although it was impossible to know where the town ended. It was mock-Polynesian, thatched with nylon fibre, built on the narrow strip of sand between the road and the sea.

  I took my leave, went down the herringbone brick path to my tropical room. I poured half a tooth glass of Glenmorangie from Cam’s silver flask and went to bed. After I put out the light, I lay on my back and listened to the sluicing of the sea. Perhaps it was the book, perhaps it was just my cast of mind, but it was a dolorous sound, small comings and goings. I drifted away sad and uneasy.

  Early in the morning, showered, I walked on the empty strip of beach left by the high tide. The day was grey, sea and sky joined seamlessly at the horizon. Away to the right, I could see the dark line of the pier. To the left, a long way away, a low blue cape came out from the land. I went that way, as far as the mouth of a narrow creek, possibly tidal, possibly some kind of drain. A man wearing a baseball cap was fishing in the creek, casting a spinner, a gleam of silver in the yellow water. He looked at me. I said good morning. He grunted.

  I went back to the hotel and had breakfast in the restaurant, a meal that would not linger in my mind.

  Dunsborough wasn’t far away, the road straight and flat, scrub vegetation on either side, Christian fundamentalist holiday camps, extravagant houses inside walled compounds. One monstrosity was called The Shack.

  The town was brand new, built on sand, the houses on tiny plots shouting speculation. Paul Milder had presumably done well here. I found the tourist information centre and a map, found Blue Cape Crescent, six houses around a loop of tarmac a block from the sea. The houses were all built of unrendered brick and timber, angular, sharp roof lines, gardens of drab native plants and listless trees.

  Number 14 had a green Forester in the driveway. The path from the street curved around a pond, nothing in it, a shallow concrete cone, and led to a big front door of jarrah, old timber, resawn, marked with bolt or spike holes. There was a bell, a small brass ship’s bell. I tolled it and didn’t have to wait long before the door opened, opened fully, the people who lived in this place were not suspicious or fearful.

  ‘Yes?’

  Teresa Dilthey Milder was a big woman, handsome, long black hair pulled back loosely, she could be a native of a Mediterranean country. She looked like her co-tenant of the womb. I had his photograph in my jacket pocket, standing between Janene Ballich and Katelyn Feehan.

  ‘Mrs Milder?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Her T-shirt said CAPE ESCAPE, the letters undulating on the hills of her breasts.

  ‘My name’s Jack Irish. I’m a lawyer from Melbourne.’ I gave her my Law Institute card.

  ‘Yes?’ She gave back the card.

  ‘It’s about Wayne’s death.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It appears to be connected to another murder. Can we talk for a minute?’

  She led the way into a big living room-kitchen with a glass wall. In summer, it would be shaded by a creeper-covered pergola, now bare.

  ‘I’ve just made tea,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cup?’

  ‘Please.’

  She crossed the room to the kitchen. In the garden, I could see a sandpit and a swing. On the counter that divided the room were crayons and paintbrushes in a pot.

  ‘Milk, sugar?’

  ‘No milk, one spoon, please,’ I said.

  Teresa came back with two mugs. ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  We sat in leather chairs that hissed under us. ‘Nice house,’ I said. ‘Did you have it built?’

  ‘Paul built it, yes.’

  ‘So much light.’

  ‘Yes. The architect’s really good. She lives down the road.’

  ‘I see in the paper that you have to be a millionaire to live here.’

  ‘They can’t be talking about us,’ she said.

  We looked at each other. She was less tense now.

  ‘Did you know what Wayne did for a living?’ I said.

  ‘Security. Clubs, that sort of thing.’

  ‘The last time you spoke to him,’ I said. ‘Was he worried about anything?’

  Teresa hesitated. ‘No. It was about a month before his murder. We talked about the kids, my dad. Paul spoke to him for a bit, coming for a holiday, fishing, bloke stuff.’

  ‘They got on?’

  ‘Oh yes, always got on. He knew Paul and … anyway.’

  ‘Were you close, the way twins often are?’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Dunno. Not always when we were kids. A bit, I suppose.’

  ‘Twins get feelings about each other, don’t they?’

  A shrug. ‘I get feelings all the time. The kids. Usually wrong, thank Christ.’

  I drank some tea, didn’t say anything, looked at her. Teresa was uneasy, uncrossed her legs, re-crossed them, wasn’t keen to look at me, looked at the garden, a coastal garden, not much colour.

  ‘Wayne was on his way here when he was murdered,’ I said.

  Her head jerked my way. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘what the hell does it matter? What does it matter where he was going? What’s the point of this?’

  She got up. ‘I’ve actually got things to do,’ she said. ‘So if …’

  ‘He didn’t ring you before he left Melbourne?’

  ‘No. I said so.’

  ‘Has anyone been in touch with you about Wayne, anything to do with him?’

  ‘No. No one.’ She turned, taking her mug to the kitchen.

  I said, ‘Janene Ballich.’

  A movement of the shoulderblades, I thought. Teresa turned, but not quickly.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Janene Ballich.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The name doesn’t mean anything?’

  ‘No.’ Clipped.

  ‘Katelyn Feehan? Did he mention her?’

  ‘No.’ Just as quick. I couldn’t read
her black eyes.

  I got up, offered my mug. ‘Thanks for talking to me. And for the tea. If you want to find out whether I’m trustworthy, I’ll give you the name of a judge of the Victorian Supreme Court. You can ring him.’

  Mr Justice Loder wouldn’t be happy about giving me a character reference but he wouldn’t say no.

  She took the mug, held the two in front of her.

  ‘I don’t think Wayne’s murder is a simple story,’ I said. ‘But I hope the story’s over. Hope. We can only hope. Goodbye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  I was a few paces down the path when Teresa said, ‘Sorry, your number. In case. You know.’

  ‘Of course.’

  I went back and gave her my business card. ‘I should have given it to you at the beginning. You might need a lawyer one day.’

  When I looked back, she was still in the doorway, watching me go. She raised a hand. I raised a hand back.

  Home. Time to go home. Declare an end to foreign ventures. I had seen the unexciting country, tasted the food. I had wasted time and money, mine, there was no one paying for this.

  On the highway, humming with traffic both ways, new houses crammed into developments on the right. I saw a sign on a building site, Milders’ Homes. Would it be better if the apostrophe were simply abandoned? I was approaching a T-junction, some shops ahead, when the thought came to me. He knew Paul and … anyway. Teresa had been about to say something about Paul and Wayne. She hadn’t finished the sentence.

  I pulled off the road, borrowed the local phone book from the man in the office at the supermarket. There it was. I’d never looked in the directory. Simone Bendsten had used the white pages on the web.

  It took less than ten minutes to get back to Dunsborough. In the town, I stopped to look at the map, find Powlett Street. It was near Blue Cape Crescent, I’d driven down it. The green Forester was parked outside number 8, a private house, a city house, unseen behind a terracotta wall with a wooden gate and double garage doors.

  I parked and went to the gate, tried the handle. It was open, a brick path went directly to the front door, the twin of the one made by Paul Milder. There was a brass knocker in the shape of a dolphin. I raised its head and let it fall, twice.