by Peter Temple
Today, we were in a non-threatening vehicle, a new Subaru Forester, dark-green, parked outside the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology on Swanston Street, just up from the ugliest new facade in the city. The architects had played an end-of-century joke on the university. Needless to say, the university hadn’t caught it yet. Universities never do catch the joke until it’s too late. Many a French fraud had died laughing while earnest Australian academics were still doing PhDs on his theoretical jokes.
‘She finishes at twelve today,’ said Cam, eyes on the passers-by. ‘Fashion, that’s what she does. Whatever that is.’
He was talking about Marie, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Cynthia the commission agent.
I watched the throng of students, many of them the sons and daughters of the old colonial world, the Asian part. We’d closed our factories so that we could exploit the cheap labour their parents provided. Then we had a second cunning and rapacious thought: we could convince them that our universities were intellectual powerhouses and charge huge fees for admitting their children.
It worked.
‘What’d Cynthia say?’ I said.
‘The boy told her Marie’s got a habit. Coupla days ago. She says she went wild, grabbed Marie when she came in the house. Marie says it’s over, she’s clean, clean since Cyn got bashed.’
‘That’s all?’
He nodded.
‘This Cynthia’s idea?’
‘No. She doesn’t make any connection. I never said anythin. There she goes. You start.’
Cam was out of the car, walking round the front, long strides in his moleskins. He caught up with a slim young woman in black jeans and a purple top, said something. She turned her head, smiled, stopped, obviously knew him. He gestured at the car. She nodded, came back with him.
Cam opened the back door for her.
‘Hi,’ she said.
I turned and said hello. Her spiky hair was the same colour as her top, her lipstick was green, and she had ear and nose rings. The overall effect was innocent, something a five-year-old let loose on her mother’s things might achieve.
Cam got in. ‘Marie, Jack Irish. Your mum knows him. He’s a lawyer.’
‘Hi,’ she said again. ‘I’ve only got a minute. What’s it about?’ Her speech was rushed, nervous.
Cam took out his Gitanes, offered her one. She took it, leaned across for a light, had a coughing fit.
‘Jeez,’ she said, ‘what is it?’
‘There’s somethin milder here somewhere,’ said Cam.
‘No, it’s cool.’ She coughed again. ‘Just a shock.’
Not turning, I said, ‘Marie, we’re trying to find out who bashed your mother.’
I could hear her exhale smoke. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Yeah, that’s good. It’s like a nightmare. Weird.’
I waited a few seconds. ‘How long have you had a habit?’
Silence. ‘Christ, what’s this shit? I’m out of…’
Cam leaned over the seat, draped his arm. ‘Marie, listen, it’s not about you and drugs, right? It’s about who nearly killed your mum. You love your mum, don’t you?’
More quiet. Marie began to cry, a sniffle, throat noises.
‘Don’t you? Love your mum?’
Then she was making crying noises, not loud, and saying, ‘Oh, Jesus, oh Jesus…’
We waited.
After a while, I said, ‘Tell us about it, Marie.’
She did a lot more sniffing, then she said, ‘Mum sent you?’
‘No,’ said Cam. ‘Your mum told me you’d had a problem, but that now you’re clean. She’s proud of you, your mum.’
The sniffing resumed. Then she said, courage plucked, ‘There’s nothing to tell, like. What’s this—’
I said, ‘Last chance, Marie. You could go to jail for this. Conspiracy.’
This time it was a cry from deep down, a wail, then more sobbing. I looked at Cam. He was looking at Marie, flicked his chestnut-brown eyes at me. I thought I detected a hint of compassion. Probably just the light.
We waited.
‘I just told this bloke my mum did big-money bets,’ she said, sad voice. ‘Don’t even know how it works—’
‘Which bloke?’
A long silence.
‘Can’t go back now, Marie,’ said Cam, gently. ‘Which bloke?’
‘Around the bike shop. He deals, everyone knows him, it’s safe.’
‘Why’d you tell him?’ Cam said.
Sigh. ‘I dunno, I just told him one day.’ Sigh. ‘Like I thought it was smart, like my mum didn’t do ordinary kind of… Just stupid. Mum always said… Oh, shit.’
‘You told him that and then what happened?’ I asked.
She became matter-of-fact. ‘He said, give us the word when you’ve got a horse. I didn’t know anything about that, Mum never said a word, all I knew is some days she’s got something on at the races, she’s phoning people, you can’t understand what she’s saying to them.’
‘You told him you never heard the names of horses?’ I said.
‘Yeah. Then one day he says, tell me when your mum’s going to the races and I’ll give you a hit.’
Silence, waiting, Cam leaning over the seat, looking at Marie, tendons like cable in his neck.
‘And?’
‘That day, I was hanging out, didn’t have a cent…’
‘You told him,’ said Cam.
‘Yes.’ Tiny voice. ‘I’d’ve cut my wrists before I told him if I knew what…’
‘Where’s the bike shop?’
‘Elizabeth Street.’
Cam started the vehicle and waited to pull out.
‘My mum,’ said Marie, ‘you’re going to tell Mum?’
‘No,’ said Cam, getting into the traffic, ‘you’ve got your punishment. This bloke always there?’
Marie sniffed. ‘Most of the time. He sees you’re chasin and he meets you at the Vic Market. Keeps the stash there.’
‘We’ll drive by. See if you can point him out.’
We went around the corner into LaTrobe Street, turned right into Elizabeth Street.
Marie saw him almost immediately.
‘Next to that white car, the bloke on the bike.’
‘Sit low,’ said Cam.
He was across the street from the motorcycle dealers, sitting on a black BMW, helmet on his lap, talking to someone in the passenger seat of a car. We got a good look at him – tall, curly red-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, short beard around his mouth.
We took Marie back to Swanston Street. As she was getting out, she said, ‘Cam, I’m so scared my mum’ll find—’
‘Not from us,’ said Cam. ‘Stay clean or you’ll break her heart.’
‘I’m staying clean. That’s over, over.’
We watched her go, long-legged walk, bag swinging.
‘Get that number run?’ said Cam.
‘Five minutes. Find a public phone.’
Cam took out a mobile. ‘Safe phone,’ he said.
I didn’t ask what that meant. I took it and dialled Eric the Geek.
There was a fax from Jean Hale waiting at the office. Two names on the Lucan’s Thunder betting team were circled. One was someone called Tim Broeksma. In the margin, Jean had written: He’s new. Sandy doesn’t know much about him. A plumber.
The other name was Lizard Ellyard. There were quotation marks around Lizard.
He’s got a firewood business. Bit of a sad case, was in a bad accident, I think. Anyway, he didn’t show up on the day so he really shouldn’t be on the list.
I drowsed in the captain’s chair, mind picking daisies. Cam and I had lunched well at a pub in Abbotsford. It was a place frozen in time like the Prince, except that this pub had been deliberately frozen, used as a television series location for years, and it was in excellent shape. Halfway through the sausages and mash, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
‘Straying out of your territory, Mr Irish.’
Boz, in jeans and a jerkin. I introduced he
r to Cam. She sat down for a few minutes and I told her about Mrs Purbrick’s party.
‘You’ll end up choosing her books, Jack,’ said Boz. ‘I saw the signs.’
She was getting up to rejoin a table of people, all talking, telling stories, film people if I read the signs, when Cam said, ‘I do a fair bit of movin. Got a card?’
Boz shook her head. ‘Got a pen?’ She wrote her name and phone number on a drink coaster. He put it in an inside pocket.
I saw the signs.
Now, half-asleep in my office, I was thinking again about who had given me the Marco video. The people who’d taken it? I’d assumed it was a cop video – federal, local. That might still be true. But I had to assume that the cops hadn’t given it to me.
Who then? And why me? Why would someone other than the cops give me a surveillance video? What could they want from me?
Who else knew that I was interested in Robbie/ Marco? My anonymous caller knew. But there was no way to find out who she was. Had the judge told someone? Not likely. The people at The Green Hill knew. But why would they be interested in helping me find out more about a dead man they had employed under another name? And where would they get the video?
This line of thought wasn’t going to produce anything. If I knew more about Robbie/Marco, the questions would probably answer themselves.
I got out the enhanced pictures and looked at them again. Trying to identify the woman in the car belonging to Jamie Toxteth and his partner hadn’t met with any success. That left the fleshy man at the sidewalk table.
How to begin?
I was looking out of the window. I could see Kelvin McCoy’s front door. A young woman came into view, dressed in what from this distance appeared to be a garment fashioned from colourful rags, offcuts from a tie factory perhaps, and carrying a big flat folio bag. At McCoy’s portal, she paused, uncertain for a moment. Oh God, she had been invited to show the unwashed charlatan her drawings. I felt I should open my door and shout a warning. Too late, she knocked. A brief wait, the door opened, I glimpsed the brutal shaven head, she was drawn in. The beast would see a lot more than her drawings before the day was out.
Ah well. Life went on.
The fleshy man. In the glass behind him, the cafe window, a reflection of writing on an uneven surface, the word asset.
Written on what outside a cafe? What was uneven?
An apron, it was on an apron, a long black apron of the kind favoured by Melbourne cafes. A reflection of a name on a waiter’s apron.
Asset?
My stupidity dawned on me.
I walked up to Brunswick Street and weaved and jinked my way along a pavement crowded with young artists, fashion students, actors, directors, script-writers, drug dealers, filmmakers, fashionistas, off-duty baristas, models, writers of forgotten grunge novels published by Penguin, Age lifestyle journalists, internet entrepreneurs, meme-carriers of every description. Many of them were on the phone to like-minded people. Why did people have so much more to communicate these days?
At my destination, a good bookshop next door to what had been a good gun shop with a bad clientele when I came to Fitzroy, I bought a copy of a guide to cheap Melbourne eating places. Cheaper.
Near the office, I heard the phone ringing, ran, wrestled with the lock, got in, panting.
‘Jack,’ said Wootton, ‘the client wants to meet very, very urgently.’
I took the book with me. You never know how long you’ll be kept waiting.
The door was huge and studded and the steps before it had hollows worn in them big enough for birds to bathe in. I pressed the button and waited no more than a minute or two.
A tall, thin man in a dark suit opened the door. ‘Mr Irish?’
‘Yes.’
‘Please follow me.’
We went up a curving staircase to a lobby, then down a grand corridor, stopping at a door near the end. The man opened it with a key and ushered me into a panelled reception room with desks and computers, no-one at work. He knocked at a door to the left, listened, opened it, and said, ‘Mr Irish, Your Honour.’
He stood back for me to enter and closed the door behind me. I stood in an impressive room: high ceiling, dark panelling, cedar bookcases tight with bound volumes, small oil paintings in gilt frames lit from above. It was exactly the chamber I’d expected a judge to inhabit. Only the computer station was out of place.
Mr Justice Colin Loder, no jacket, was coming around his leather-topped desk. ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘thanks for coming.’
‘Your Honour.’ We shook hands.
‘Colin. I should’ve said that before. You know too much for formality.’
‘Something’s happened.’
‘Sit down.’
I sat on a chair with buttoned green leather upholstery.
The judge went back to his seat, sat upright, forearms on the desk. A long yellow envelope lay in front of him. He touched each of his cufflinks, modest silver ovals, checked them, pointed at the envelope with his eyes. ‘The worst,’ he said. ‘Worse than I expected. Left downstairs an hour ago.’
I waited. He pushed the envelope over.
‘Read it, please.’
It had been opened with a paper-knife. I removed one sheet of white paper, twice folded. A good computer printer had produced half a page of type:
Mr Justice Loder,
The accused in the so-called ‘cocaine jackets’ hearing before Your Honour are innocent victims of a Federal Police conspiracy. In its eagerness to make up for its incompetence, this agency has often resorted to illegality in the past and has done so again in this matter. As you will know only too well, an option is available to you when this matter resumes. Choosing it will be in keeping with your well-deserved reputation as a defender of the citizen against improper conduct by government agencies. Therefore I am sure Your Honour will see fit to use your discretion to exclude evidence relating to importation, from which it follows that the accused must be acquitted, since without this evidence the prosecution must fail.
In passing, may I say how sad it was to hear of Robbie’s death. The album of photographs you lent him, so touching in their intimacy, will be returned to you at the appropriate time. You will not, of course, wish to recuse yourself or to find some other reason for not hearing this matter. Such actions will have the unfortunate consequence of your reputation being damaged beyond salvation.
Naturally there was no signature. I folded the page, put it on the desk, looked into the judge’s brown eyes, eyes the colour of strong tea, the bag left too long in the mug.
‘Appropriate is a bad word,’ I said. ‘What’s the cocaine jackets?’
‘Cocaine concealed in ski jackets. Two men charged. It’s what’s called a controlled importation. The Federal Police ran the thing using an undercover agent, an informer. I don’t think it would be unjudicial of me to describe the operation as a massive cock-up.’
‘The demand. Lawyers wouldn’t be stupid enough?’
‘No. Not even lawyers are that stupid. They wouldn’t know about this. This is from people associated with the accused. Trying to make sure it goes their way.’
‘What kinds of people are the accused?’
‘They’re not Mr Bigs, these two, they’re mules, really. But they’re all the Feds could lay their hands on. Desperation stuff after spending huge amounts of money.’
‘Why wouldn’t the people higher up simply let them go down?’
He turned his mouth down, raised his hands. ‘Don’t know. They may know something. And should they get long gaol terms they might agree to co-operate with the police. Could be other reasons. Family, who knows?’
‘Distinct legal tone to the letter. Lawyer in there somewhere. The finding it suggests, could you make it?’
‘Are you familiar with Ridgeway?’
‘Familiar’s probably not the right word.’ It was the landmark High Court decision on police entrapment.
‘Well, that’s what they’ll be arguing. And yes, it’s a po
ssible finding, depends on what happens when we resume.’
‘When’s that?’
‘Next Thursday.’ He sighed, made a resigned face. ‘I suppose I should call the police in now, issue a statement to the media. This’ll kill my father.’
‘You could ignore the letter. See what happens. It may be bluff, they may just go away.’
The judge shook his head. He’d aged years in a few hours. ‘No, Jack. Any finding I reach would be tainted by this. The well’s poisoned.’
‘Give me a few days.’
His chin sank a little. ‘Any point?’
‘We have to assume that Robbie took the album with this or something like this in mind. If I can find out what happened to him, it’s possible I’ll know who the blackmailer is.’
Another sigh.
‘I won’t keep you in suspense,’ I said. ‘If I’m not getting anywhere by Tuesday, I’ll pack it in.’
Silence for a while. The sounds of the city didn’t reach the room.
‘I’ll give you a mobile number,’ he said. ‘It’s not in my name. I’ve borrowed it.’ He took out a notebook, flipped through it, wrote down a number on a desk pad, tore off the page and gave it to me. ‘I feel as if I’ve entered the underworld myself.’
I stood up. ‘Can I get a transcript of the proceedings?’
The judge stood up too, went to a wooden filing cabinet and found a yellow folder, gave it to me. He walked me to the door. We shook hands.
‘We could get lucky,’ I said. ‘Chin up.’
He smiled. ‘Thanks, mate. Thanks for everything.’
‘Don’t say thanks till you’ve seen Wootton’s bill.’
The thin man was waiting outside to escort me to the side entrance. On the way to Fitzroy, stuck in Little Lonsdale, I picked up the cheap eats guide, flicked through to the index.
There it was, on the first page I scanned.
La Contessa, assetnoC aL in reverse, was a narrow place in Bridge Road, Richmond, that looked as if it had been there longer than those on either side in what was now a smart strip.
