by Peter Temple
I rang it. The brisk and pleasant reception person wanted my name and my company and the nature of my business. ‘Tell Dr Ayliss my business is Robbie,’ I said. ‘I’ll spell that for you. R-O-B-B-I-E.’
I was early and had no trouble finding parking near the Albert Park Yachting & Angling Club. A cold day, the palms shaking in the wind.
She was early too. A new VW Passat, a trim and potent-looking machine in a Wehrmacht shade of grey, nosed into a space. A woman got out, dark glasses, headscarf. I watched her walk towards the pier, hands in the high pockets of her trench coat.
I sat for a while. Two hardy skateboarders came by, followed by a group of four fit-looking runners, women. I got out and went for a short walk along the esplanade, came back and went out on the pier.
She was looking my way, kept her eyes on me as I approached.
‘Mr Irish?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you want?’ she asked.
‘I’d like to ask you about Robbie.’
She made an impatient head movement, the kind of dismissive oh-fuck-off-you-idiot gesture that features in Learn Body Language For Success videos.
‘Spit it out,’ she said. ‘It’s cold here.’
‘Your choice of venue.’
‘I say again, Mr Irish, what do you want?’
‘You knew Robbie Colburne?’
‘What do you want?’
‘You know he’s dead?’
‘What do you want?’
‘You picked him up in your car one evening.’
An exasperated expulsion of air. ‘What is this? Can I ask again, for the last time, what do you want?’
‘Nothing. Robbie stole something from someone. The owner’s disappointed, saddened.’
She fiddled with the scarf, some loss of composure evident.
‘What makes you think I picked him up?’
Spots of rain on the pier, felt on my face.
‘Someone saw you. That’s not important.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m a lawyer acting for the victim.’
She sighed. ‘I feel like an absolute prick,’ she said. ‘No, let me rephrase that before the actress and the bishop are invoked.’
‘I could say that never occurred to me.’
She smiled and looked around, took off the dark glasses and the scarf. Her eyes were grey. Susan Ayliss, once the thinking person’s academic pin-up, now wore her hair short at the sides and longer on top and she had lines around her mouth and eyes but she could have stepped straight back into that role.
‘Christ, I hate scarves,’ she said. ‘I was once taken at gunpoint to a polo match, and there were all these ghastly nasal women wearing headscarves, like some cult.’
‘I blame the Queen,’ I said.
‘Damn right,’ said Susan Ayliss. ‘Well, what do you want to know?’
I couldn’t read anything in her eyes. She was here because I’d said Robbie’s name. Dead Robbie who was Marco, who was not an easy person to understand.
‘I hoped you could tell me something about Robbie.’
She turned, put her hands on the railing, no rings, clasped them. ‘I know almost nothing about him.’
I leaned on the railing, looked at the view: dishwater sea, seething. In the distance, specks of gulls floated around the Tasmania ferry at Station Pier. ‘Robbie Colburne isn’t his real name. You know that, of course.’
‘No.’ Quick.
I kept my eyes away, looked at the ribbed beach.
Two people had appeared on it, a short and a tall, walking close together, heads down like beachcombers. Not quite Gauguin country, Kerferd Road, unless you treasured used Chinese condoms and spent syringes.
‘There’s only one Robert Colburne on record, but it isn’t the dead man.’
‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘The person in question lifted the identity of Robert Colburne.’
I looked at her. She had a wary expression, as if I had more surprises in store. ‘So, who is the person?’
‘Marco Lucia is his name.’
Silence, our eyes locked. She looked away. I kept looking.
‘Ms Ayliss,’ I said, ‘Robbie was a blackmailer or he worked for blackmailers. Did you know that?’
Horn player’s lines around her mouth, an intake of air. ‘Yes.’
‘You’re right, it is cold out here. My car or yours?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m happier here.’
‘Will you tell me how you know he’s a blackmailer?’
‘I had an affair with him,’ she said. ‘No, that’s nonsense. I had sex with him. On several occasions.’
‘And?’
She moved her mouth, another sigh, deeper. ‘There was a video.’
It was getting colder, the sky changing colour like a quick-developing bruise.
‘Made with your consent?’
‘Consent? Well, I didn’t object. Not strenuously anyway. Coming after some bottles of Dom.’ Pause. ‘Are you shocked?’
I looked at her. The wind and the cold had tightened her skin, put colour in her cheeks. She looked a good ten years younger.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Shock went by some time ago. Passed in the night. So you made a video.’
She didn’t answer quickly. ‘It seemed like harmless fun at the time. Do you know that I was on the Cannon Ridge tender panel?’
‘Yes. How did you meet Robbie?’
She raised her hands, long fingers, I hadn’t noticed. ‘Don’t laugh. At the supermarket. I go to the same one almost every night. I’m always late at the office, never anything in the fridge at home. He bumped into me one night. Then I saw him again a day or two later and we said hello and he said something funny. I saw him again another night, we had a few words and he invited me for a drink.’
‘It didn’t strike you as more than coincidence?’
‘No. You go to the same place, you see the same people. And Robbie’s got…Robbie had a casual way. Quick and funny, nothing threatening about him. He was also very good looking and he didn’t seem to be aware of it.’ She looked at me, looked away. ‘And I was lonely, Mr Irish. I work all day and then I go home to nothing.’
It hadn’t occurred to me that people like Susan Ayliss also knew about loneliness.
‘Did he tell you he worked part-time at The Green Hill?’
‘Yes. He said he was trying to write a novel, took any job going.’
Silence. I watched the pair inspecting the beach. From time to time, the smaller one would stoop to look at something. Look but not touch. Sensible.
Susan Ayliss put her hands to her ears, rubbed them gently. Her nose wasn’t quite as pointy as I remembered. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘we ended up at my place and had sex. I hadn’t actually had sex like that before. The men of my acquaintance had not prepared me for the experience.’
My thoughts went to Milan Filipovic. I’d asked him what kind of work Marco did.
Marco’s all cock. Work it out.
‘How was the video made?’
She looked at me, startled. ‘By Robbie. Christ, it wasn’t a film set.’
‘On the first night?’
‘Certainly not. I was sober. The third time. He had a tiny camera, a digital thing, you could watch it on a monitor. That’s about all there was in this huge apartment. That and the bed.’
In some circumstances, people tell you more than they need to.
‘You watched it on a monitor?’
‘Yes. Are you enjoying this?’
‘And this was where?’
‘At a friend’s place.’
‘Your friend’s apartment?’
‘No, a friend of his.’
I thought about the surveillance video, the shot of Robbie going into a building.
‘Cathexis,’ I said.
She was looking away and she jerked her head at me. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention at that stage.’
‘Who’s the friend?’
‘No ide
a.’
‘And the blackmail came when?’
Susan tilted her head, smiled a smile with no life in it. ‘A man came to my office. He said he had a business proposition. I knew what was coming and I told him to get out. He said wait and he dialled a number on his mobile, said someone wanted to talk to me. It was Robbie. He said he was watching the video.’ She was looking down at the rail, shaking her head. ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Talking about it makes me feel sick.’
‘I can understand that. What else did Robbie say?’
‘Nothing. I didn’t give him a chance. I gave the man the phone back and I said they could give the film to every television station and newspaper in the country, I did not give a damn.’
‘That was brave.’
‘Brave?’
‘You were taking a big risk.’
She shrugged. ‘They just picked the wrong person. A film of Susan Ayliss having sex? I don’t have family to worry about. All I’ve got is my professional reputation. Show it. It might improve my social life.’
She was a brave person.
‘When the man talked about a business proposition,’ I said, ‘what did you assume?’
‘The Cannon Ridge tender. I wasn’t doing anything else worth blackmailing me for.’
‘Did the man say which side sent him?’
‘No.’
‘What did you think?’
‘WRG.’
‘Why?’
‘He asked me if I’d had an offer from Anaxan.’
‘Did you tell the panel?’
‘No. I’m only stupid once. I hadn’t been blackmailed, Cannon Ridge hadn’t actually been mentioned.’
‘Splitting hairs though.’
Susan Ayliss gave me a look that said something I didn’t quite understand. ‘Mr Irish, in my life, I’ve worked very hard for everything. I grew up in foster homes. Fought off men since I was ten, put myself through university cleaning toilets. I can’t be blackmailed. But I wasn’t going to cut my own throat.’
I found my picture of Alan Bergh. ‘Is this the man?’
No hesitation. ‘Yes. Who is he?’
‘Alan Bergh. The late.’
She sighed and looked away.
‘Robbie had a relationship with a man,’ I said. ‘Does that surprise you?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘he said he took any work that was going.’
‘There’s an album of photographs missing.’
‘I think we’re talking about sex again, not a relationship.’
‘Yes. We think the album was passed on to someone. Any idea who that might be?’
A shake of her head. ‘No, no idea, not the vaguest.’
‘Robbie didn’t mention anyone.’
‘No. He didn’t talk about himself. One of the things I found attractive.’
Rain again, big spots freckling the pier, cold on the face.
‘Thanks for talking to me,’ I said. ‘Did his death surprise you?’
She looked away, at the sea. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It made me sad. I was hoping I’d have the chance to kill him myself for making me feel so defiled and so worthless.’
I watched her go, the wind pulling at her trench coat, lifting the shoulder flaps found so useful on the Somme those many years ago, now threatening to levitate Susan Ayliss. She turned her head and looked back, came back.
‘I’ve told you everything I can, Jack,’ she said. ‘Will you promise me it’ll remain confidential?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Susan.’
I liked her even more than I had when she’d been a media star.
I brooded, driving automatically, registering nothing, a danger on the roads. There was nowhere else to go in the matter of Marco/Robbie. I couldn’t help the judge. It had all been for nothing, traipsing around the country, the city.
Marco was a blackmailer’s bait, bait for all sexual persuasions. The blackmailer could be Alan Bergh, representing other interests. Why else had he been filmed? In any event, both men were dead. The attempt on brave Susan Ayliss had failed, the one on principled Colin Loder would too. Cannon Ridge was a decided matter, another judge would make the finding Colin Loder could not.
This matter was almost at an end.
And yet and yet. Marco was murdered, Alan Bergh was murdered.
I pulled up at lights.
Susan Ayliss had no doubt that the Cannon Ridge tender was the reason for the plot against her. Which side? Anaxan or WRG? The latter would have been eager to add some weight to their side of the seesaw, the other side having a Cundall, son of a man who could walk into the Premier’s office and berate him. But they didn’t get the weight, their tender failed. That could have left Bergh and Robbie as untidy bits, much too knowing.
Cathexis.
I had been looking at the building, looking at it across the intersection without seeing it. It was austere, all its materials visible, concrete and marble, bronze and glass, steel and copper – rough, smooth, shiny, dull, hard, soft materials. I could see the incised name that Marco was photographed passing.
Cathexis.
The lights changed. I went around the block, found an unlawful park, walked back to the building. A smoked-glass sliding door admitted me to an extravagant, hard-surfaced lobby, a hall that hummed the word Money. Directly ahead were two lift doors, pale timber. Nothing so crass and indiscreet as a list of tenants was in sight. I was glad I was wearing a decent suit. A recent suit, anyway.
A hotel-sized reception counter was at the right, two young women in black on duty behind it. Beyond that was a door marked Security. I couldn’t see cameras but they would be on me and the entrance.
‘How may I help? She was English, willowy, blonde, nectarine skin.
‘Gone blank. I can’t remember the agents for the building.’
‘Barwick & Murphy,’ she said, smiling. ‘Is it something I can help you with?’
‘Well, you might.’ I took out my notebook, thumbed. ‘Here it is. The Doyle apartment. For sale.’
‘Doyle?’ She looked at the other woman, also blonde but more mature oak than willow. ‘Do we have a Doyle?’
The woman was looking at a monitor, didn’t turn her head. ‘No.’
‘Sorry,’ said the first blonde. ‘It’s probably in another of their buildings. They handle dozens.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thanks anyway.’
I walked away. Another hunch that failed to deliver. Near the door, I thought, what the hell, try another one. I turned and went back, notebook open.
‘I think I had the wrong page,’ I said. ‘It’s Cundall, the Cundall apartment that’s for sale. If I’ve got the right building.’
The willowy blonde frowned, turned. ‘Jean, do we have a Cundall?’
Mature-oak blonde didn’t turn. ‘What?’
‘It’s supposed to be on the market. The gentleman’s not sure whether he’s at the right building.’
Mature blonde looked around, an annoyed face, deep lines between her eyes, spent a millisecond on me, made a judgment. ‘Who says it’s on the market?’
‘B and M told this gentleman.’
Jean sniffed. ‘They told you it was Mrs Cundall’s apartment?’
‘Yes.’
‘That is quite irregular. Twelve two is owned by Dalinsor Nominees.’
‘I don’t really care who owns it,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for an apartment.’
‘They’re supposed to inform us,’ said Jean. ‘And there are no inspections without a B and M agent.’
‘I’ll be back with one,’ I said. ‘One of their top agents. Licensed to sell.’
Walking back to the car, I felt smug for a minute. A hunch that paid off. Or had it? What had I learned by finding out that Ros Cundall owned an apartment in a building Marco had gone into? Nothing. Ros Cundall probably owned apartments in every expensive block in the city.
Marco working at The Green Hill, Marco going into Cathexis, Marco from the Umbrian idyll turning up on Colin Loder’s doorstep.
I
was beginning to like the Umbrian story less and less. Too romantic for my taste. And, in the light of what I now knew about Marco and Susan, implausible.
From the car, I rang Colin Loder’s borrowed mobile. He wouldn’t be in court, it was lunchtime.
‘Yes.’
‘Jack.’
‘Jack.’
‘Clarification. Umbria, the person arrives on the doorstep, later reappears.’
‘Yes?’
‘Bullshit, yes?
A pause, a sigh. ‘Well. Yes. A story.’
I waited.
‘I didn’t want it to sound like…well…’
‘A pick-up?’
‘Yes. Umbria was a fiction.’
‘Where then?’
He hesitated. ‘A place I’ve had a few drinks at. So as not to be completely removed from reality. As are most of my colleagues.’
‘The Green Hill?’
Pause. ‘How exactly did you work that out?’
‘Is that in the Snug?’
‘Yes. You know it?’
‘No. I know Xavier Doyle.’
‘Well, the Snug’s like a club, I suppose. You have to be with someone who’s persona grata.’
‘Who were you with?’
‘Ros Cundall, Mike Cundall’s wife. I’m on a gallery committee with her. She insisted I join her after a meeting. Introduced me to Xavier.’
‘Who introduced you to Marco?’
‘Ros. He was behind the bar. She said, meet Marco before he’s famous, he’s writing the great Australian novel. Words to that effect.’
This was a small city. But in the end all cities are small.
‘Any headway, Jack?’ Not a confident voice.
‘A little. Get back to you.’
‘Thanks.’
Little was the word. I drove back to Fitzroy thinking about the versatility of Marco, the number of lives he’d touched.
I was unlocking the office door, wind pulling at my clothes, when a respectable Subaru drew up, double-parked.
Cam.
I got in. It was warm and comfortable, things I had been missing.
‘Pretty up there in the hills,’ he said, no expression. ‘Total waste of time. The address’s at the top of a dead end, three houses on the road. Dunno how you deal drugs from a place like that, all that commutin.’
‘Anyone home?’
‘Woman hangin up washin, two kids hangin on her, cattle dog.’
