by Peter Temple
‘Not any more?’
‘No. I think the painting’s gone. Makes me feel sad sometimes.’ She looked at me. ‘But not for the past twenty-four hours, my learned friend. I’ve been feeling pretty chipper. Post-orgasmically chipper.’
I finished my scrambled egg. ‘What happened to post- orgasmic tristesse?’
‘Only the French,’ she said. ‘The French can’t enjoy anything without it making them sad. They cry over food.’
‘On the subject of crying, married ever?’
Lyall sat back, put her feet in my lap. ‘Very definitely. For five years. To a photographer, a French photographer. That’s how I know about the crying. He’s dead. Shot in the back in Bosnia three years ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I took her hand.
She nodded. ‘We’d been divorced a long time. I hadn’t thought about him in years, to tell the truth. We broke up in a very loud and messy way. Then I find out I’m still down as his next-of-kin and he’s left everything to me. In a will he made after the break-up.’ She turned her head away. ‘Only a Frenchman would do that.’
A moment of silence. Then Lyall said, ‘And that is more than enough of me. Tell me about the Irish women.’
I released her hand. ‘My first wife left me for a man who performed minor surgery on her. Irresistibly attracted to the scalpel. Took our daughter with her. We’d only been married about eighteen months. I got over that. A former client of mine murdered my second wife. In a carpark.’
‘Oh,’ she said and bit her lower lip. ‘My turn for sorry.’
More silence. We sat for a moment, not looking at each other. The survivors. We who are left behind. Then I picked up her hand and kissed her long fingers. ‘That’s enough sorries. I need to ask you some more things about Stuart.’
‘Shit,’ Lyall said. ‘I meant to tell you last night. Before the passion swept me away. I found the phone logbook we recorded messages in. I haven’t needed it since Bradley left. I’d forgotten but I went away first, East Timor for the London Sunday Times colour supp. Bradley and Stuart both took messages for me and each other from the thirtieth of June. Then Bradley must have left because Stuart took messages for both of us from the fourth of July. Here’s the last one he put in the book.’
She handed it to me. ‘Seventh of July,’ she said.
A neat hand had written the date and the message: Brad: Ring James Margo (Margaux?). You know number.
‘He flew to Sydney on the morning of the tenth?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
I looked at the entries before the seventh. The house had a busy phone. On the sixth of July, Stuart had made six entries: four calls for Bradley, two for Lyall. On the fifth, he’d recorded seven; on the fourth, five calls for Lyall and four for Bradley.
I went further back. I couldn’t see a day when fewer than five messages were noted.
‘Part-time job just taking messages,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘That’s nothing. Blissfully quiet time. Bradley could get twenty calls a day. Easily. Drive you mad if he wasn’t here. Making movies. What a business. Please give Brad an urgent message, please get him to ring back. Five or six projects on the go, dozens of people involved, all on the phone, everything’s urgent.’
Lyall finished her glass. ‘Of course, it’s only urgent today, tomorrow there’s a new dream. Hardly anything ever gets made but they don’t give up hope. Nothing is ever dead.’
‘The two days,’ I said, ‘eight and nine July. No calls recorded. Why would that be?’
Lyall shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’
‘So when you came back, you found calls dating back to when?’
‘Tenth of July.’
‘Date’s certain?’
‘The answering machine puts a day and a time on messages. When I got back, its awful voice said Thursday for the first message. Thursday was the tenth.’
‘So Stuart must have wiped Tuesday and Wednesday without recording the calls.’
‘Be a first for Stuart. Punctilious recorder of calls. Listen, I just thought of something else. It all seems so long ago, it went right out of my mind. Stuart’s new video camera was also gone. Tripod’s here.’
‘What did he use it for?’
‘Interviewing someone. He bought it before I went to East Timor, at least a week before. I think. He had me sit in a chair in the sitting room, camera on the tripod. Wanted to make sure he had the focus right, the sound level, that sort of thing.’
‘Interviewing who? Do you know?’
‘No. Stuart wouldn’t tell you that. But he was pleased with himself. I remember he went away for a couple of days, took the camera. Came back and he was behind the computer for days, headphones on.’
‘Headphones?’
‘He had a dictaphone, tape recorder thing. It’s up there. No tape in it.’
She got up and came around the table, stood behind me, leaned over me. I felt her breasts against my head. ‘I’m feeling wonderfully tired,’ she said. ‘Must be the squash. Might have a little lie down. Interested?’
‘Only if you promise to keep your hands off me.’
Lyall laughed. ‘Riding no-hands? I can do that. Come.’
37
We sat in Harry’s wood-panelled projection room, in the armchair seats.
‘Show Jack the stuff, Cam,’ said Harry. He was in a dark suit, face glowing from the second shave of the day. He looked at his watch. ‘Need to get a move on, goin out to dinner.’
Cam had his laptop open, plugged into the big monitor. ‘Had so much data, couldn’t run the program this bloke wrote for me on this thing,’ he said. ‘We went to this place in town and ran it on a brute computer, tower like a fridge. Didn’t work too good, he rewrote the program on the spot. Twice.’
He hit some keys. The names of fifteen horses appeared on the big screen, all linked by arrows to names.
‘Had no luck till we concentrated on owners of winning horses. This lot are all owned by syndicates. We did their histories, they’re all top bloodlines, bought at auctions by the names you see there. These people are not known to anyone in the business. Just people who kept stickin their hands up, signed cheques.’
He tapped keys. The horses now had syndicates of owners.
‘The syndicates have owned other horses. But we stuck with the fifteen recent winners they own. Ran the syndicate names through every database you can buy or steal.’
In each syndicate, one name went bold.
‘These people. They’ve got something in common. All listed as bad credit risks and all been involved in some kind of litigation with a finance company called Capitelli. Big biscuits involved. All lost.’
Cam tapped a key. The other people in the syndicates were highlighted.
‘The rest,’ he said, ‘they’re all connected to the Capitelli losers. Family, mostly. But mostly people with different names.’
He tapped again. A diagram appeared. Horses, syndicates, the bold person in each now linked with Capitelli.
Another keystroke.
Capitelli linked with two names: G. L. Giffard, H. A. Giffard.
Cam said, ‘Directors of Capitelli. G. L.’s in his sixties. Lives in a unit in Bondi. H. A., that’s his sister. She’s in an old-age in Queensland.’
I’d put in a long day at Taub’s, catching up on the Purbrick library. Bits of my body, lower back, base of neck, harboured dull pains. ‘This is a bit late in the day for me,’ I said. ‘You’ve got fifteen winning horses in the bush owned by syndicates of people who are all connected to one member. That would be the norm. That’s how syndicates get formed. The difference you say is that all the key members once owed money to a finance company called Capitelli. Am I seeing this clearly? Or at all?’
Harry said, ‘Cotton on quick, Jack. That’s why you’re my lawyer.’
Cam shook a Gitane from the packet, lodged it in the corner of his mouth. ‘Sounds simple,’ he said. ‘Just pulverise and sieve a mountain of rock.’
‘The effort’s cle
ar,’ I said. ‘What’s it mean?’
‘Capitelli owns the horses,’ said Harry.
‘Giffards.’
‘No.’
Tap. Capitelli joined to another name: Kirsch Realty.
‘That’s who really owns Capitelli,’ Cam said. ‘Queensland company. Giffard fronts Capitelli. Went through four steps to find that out. And we’re still guessin then.’
‘I like this presentation but I’m getting lost,’ I said.
‘Ronnie Kirsch,’ said Cam. ‘Owns the horses.’
‘Somebody’s got to own them. They win by themselves. More or less.’
Harry laughed, his hoarse big-man’s laugh, carefully tapped a centimetre of Havana cigar ash into the ashtray set into the arm of his chair.
‘These fifteen winners we concentrated on,’ Cam said, ‘the Kirsch horses, they’re with these trainers, bush trainers.’
Six names.
‘Now there’s a funny thing about this lot. All these trainers have been in financial shit.’
‘Funny? I thought training was financial shit.’
‘Financial shit involving loans from one company.’
‘Capitelli?’
‘Not directly. Company called Krua Finance. Belongs to Ronnie Kirsch’s brother-in-law. Anyways, for this bunch of trainers, financial shit ended when the syndicates come along.’
‘The prize money,’ I said.
Cam shook his head. Tapped.
New diagram. Set of horses, with jockeys and trainers.
Tap. Another set.
It went on.
It stopped.
‘Point of the slipper, Jack,’ said Harry. ‘This lot ride in lots of combinations, many combinations, sometimes just the two. But put these buggers on the track, the Kirsch horses win. Our races, Kyneton, Ballarat, both Kirsch winners.’
‘Merit,’ I said.
‘Merit? Well, merit wins some of em.’
Harry pulled in a mouthful of Cuban smoke, savoured it, sent it drifting over to me, a cloud of Cuban fallout to die for. For and from. Many losses ached in me, but at certain times the Cuban loss was a sudden stiletto in the heart.
‘Tell me, Harry,’ I said, ‘I’ve got a few things on my mind.’
‘The fifteen,’ said Cam, ‘it’s just in the time we’ve looked at, they come over like good horses. Good but unreliable. Don’t stay with the same trainer, no loyalty. Bugger doesn’t win for a while, he’s off somewhere else. Then he gets a win. Like the footy. Sack the coach, team wins the next game. But he always goes to one of the six.’
‘Well, I see it. But how much can you make setting up something like this?’ I said.
They both looked at me. Harry drew on the cigar, looking at Cam. He took the tight brown truncheon away from his lips, oozed aromatic smoke. ‘A bit,’ he said. ‘Enough.’
‘We had the TAB figures in,’ Cam said. ‘Looked at eighty Kirsch wins. There’s money for them all over the country. Queensland stands out.’
‘It’s millions, Jack,’ said Harry.
‘The bloke runnin it here for Kirsch is called Dingell. Jeff Dingell. Moved from Queensland. He’s got a big place other-side Macedon. His own lake, tennis courts, huge heated pool, four-car garage, another house on the property. There’s three Queensland goons live there.’
‘Sure it’s the right person?’ I asked.
Cam nodded. ‘Had another talk to Johnny Chernov. Very brief talk. I parked next to him at a McDonald’s near the bridge, said to him through the window, look away, I’m going to say a name. It’s the right name, look at me. Just look.’
‘And?’
‘He looked.’
‘What now?’
‘Can’t have this kind of thing goin on, Jack,’ Harry said. ‘Offerin the hoops a quid’s one thing, usually doin your dough anyway. Bloke takes a quid from you, he’s probably takin a quid from four others in the same race. Tryin to kill em, that’s something else. Can’t blame the trainers, can’t blame the hoops. Bad for business. Bloke’s got to go back to Queensland. Got to know people want him to go home.’
I looked at Cam, who was looking at me impassively. Harry was also looking at me.
‘I don’t know why you’re looking at me.’ I sighed. ‘Why are you looking at me?’
Harry coughed politely. ‘Mentioned the matter, vaguely you understand, to Cyril Wootton,’ he said. ‘He reckons there’s a certain person, kind of person would be helpful here, this person would give you a kidney if you were short.’
I looked from one to the other. ‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘I’m going to kill Wootton.’ I thought about the message on my answering machine.
Jack. No chance to say you’re the bloke got the fucken result. Bargain result, K-Mart price for that result. Listen, I’m grateful, you understand? That’s serious, mate. Anything. Ring me, I’ll fix it. I’m solid, right? Cheers.
I sighed again, took out my notebook and wrote Brendan O’Grady’s name and number on a page. I tore it out and gave it to Cam.
‘When you talk to him,’ I said, ‘this is all you’re allowed to say about me: Jack says thanks for the message. Nothing else. Clear on that?’
‘Got it,’ said Cam.
Harry smiled at me. ‘Teamwork,’ he said. ‘That’s what wins races.’
38
To my office, full of dead air, not opened for days. The office of a barrister and solicitor said the dirty plate outside. It was badly in need of cleaning. The practice of the law. I couldn’t remember when I’d done anything that resembled the practice of the law. I could: Laurie Baranek’s outrageous lease. It resembled the practice of law. Vaguely.
I was becoming more and more like Barry Tregear and the men in the long-gone Consorting and Major Crimes squads. You needed a team list to tell them from the people on the other side.
A suburban solicitor without the law. Lesser breeds without the law. Who said that? Kipling? He could have been referring to dogs. Dogs know no law. Obedience, perhaps. Law, no. Many lesser breeds of dog. The smaller ones, packed with venom and cringe.
The answering machine: Mrs Davenport. Four times.
Then Linda. Breath-stopping no more. Perhaps just a small breath stopped. Linda, with drink taken.
Jack Irish. Speaking to the machine of. Linda. How often do you say your own name? Remember Linda? I have difficulty remembering Linda. Never saw myself as a Linda, anyway. I told you that. Between the sheets.
Pause.
Anyway. Hard to catch you. Well, the catch was reasonably easy. Sorry. It wasn’t a catch. It was, I suppose. I came to your place…No, that’s you catching me. Listen, you won’t care, why should you? I’m giving this job the shove. Or it me. It me is probably right. What did that journo on the Mirror say? Never pee in your own handbag. That always puzzled me. A male journo. Dead.
Pause.
Yes. Handbags. I suppose it’s a version of the doorstep. Why couldn’t I see that before? I feel like a handbag. Shove any old thing into it. Open the catch, shove it in. It’s there, it’s available. Whichever, I’m out of here. Shover, shovee, it’s shove. Just the money to be sorted out. The man wants me off the premises. He’s moved on, finds it awkward having me around.
Pause.
Sorry. I’m a bit pissed. I’ll try again.
Pause.
Or you could try. No. I’ll…Goodnight. Jack. Goodnight, Jack Irish. Goodnight.
What did I feel? Sadness, that’s all. Sadness on top of weariness. What night was that message recorded? The machine didn’t have a time stamp. I sat back in the chair, swung my legs onto the tailor’s table, stared at nothing, thought about finding the man in the water tank, Dean Canetti, father of Princess Charlotte, a man executed from above, his shattered face now dissolving. And the men in the car, the smell.
In what order had they died? Killed by one person? With help maybe, Dave said. The outside enemies of Black Tide? Did that mean Levesque?
Tired, nodding off.
Knock at the door.
I
sat up, startled. ‘Who’s there?’
‘Simone Bendsten.’
She was dressed for going out, high-collar coat, open, underneath a black velvety-looking number, low in the north, high in the south. It suggested, possibly by optical illusion, that Ms Bendsten was two-thirds leg. Was that a peculiarly Scandinavian configuration? In the genes? Only empirical research could answer that question.
‘I was going to put it under the door,’ she said, holding up a yellow A4 envelope.
Very svelte in velvet. Svelvety. I was tired.
Simone came over and put the envelope on the desk.
‘I followed up the Secure International reference in the European databases. That’s Major-General Gordon Ibell. And I found a mention in this Swedish source of a company called Eagle Exprexxo they say was involved in transporting arms to Angola. The American side in Angola. To Unita. Jonas Savimbi.’
Jonas Savimbi. Where was he now? Tired. Long days and athletic sex. A balanced life, that was what was required. Short days and unathletic sex. ‘You followed up Secure International. And you got to Eagle?’
‘Twice, actually. There’s also a mention in the International Herald Tribune about a case still before the French courts. About missiles, small missiles, I don’t quite understand missiles. They were found in a semi after a freeway accident. The semi owner says he was hired by a company called Redan. Redan says it got the job from an agency, a freight agency. The agency says it understood the hirer to be Eagle Exprexxo but has nothing on paper.’
‘That’s good work,’ I said. I hadn’t registered much.
‘More,’ she said. ‘I found a piece in an American magazine.’
‘An American magazine.’
She had a concerned look, concerned about me, not a look I wanted to encourage in women.
‘You’re tired, Jack. If this is useful, we can follow it up.’
I blinked a few times. ‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘I’ll read the report, give it some thought.’
‘A good night’s sleep,’ she said. ‘Does wonders.’
I saw her to the door. Across the street, the McCoy studio was dark but within a piano was tinkling. The hirsute charlatan was presumably doing something to music, something that did not require illumination.
