Sucked In

by Shane Maloney

Margot reached into her handbag, its strap slung over the back of her seat, and fished out a pack of cigarettes. ‘Open the window, will you, Murray?’ she said. ‘Can’t smoke in here. Hell to pay.’

  I slid open the glass. A concrete windowbox was built into the ledge. Red geraniums. Margot held a cigarette to bloodless lips. I found my lighter and summoned up a flame. Margot inhaled sharply, her hand trembling.

  ‘The police think Charlie shot Merv Cutlett?’

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Far as I know, they still haven’t got a positive ID on the remains. They’re waving around photos of a wristwatch found at the recovery scene, trying to establish if it belonged to Merv. I’m pretty sure it didn’t. But even without a confirmed identification, it seems a fair bet they’re proceeding on the assumption it’s him. The hole in the skull can’t be ignored and there’s some inconsistencies in Charlie and Barry Quinlan’s original testimony. Exact location of the accident and so forth. So they’ve got a potential victim and possible perpetrators. Right now, I imagine they’re casting about for a possible motive.’

  ‘And you think these bankbooks might give them one?’

  ‘Gilpin certainly does,’ I said. ‘He’s threatening to send them to the cops anonymously. Set the cat among the pigeons. He’s prepared to back off, he says, but it’ll cost.’

  She drew back hard and exhaled. ‘The little shit.’

  I went into the kitchenette, found a saucer and put it on the table between us. Margot tapped her gasper hard against the rim. It didn’t need ashing.

  ‘How much does he want?’

  ‘Money won’t fix it,’ I said. ‘Sid’s off with the goblins.’

  She tapped a couple more times, her thoughts turned inward. ‘What about Barry Quinlan? Have you talked to him?’

  ‘I came straight to you,’ I said.

  A draft came through the window, ruffling the pages of Margot’s notepad. She used the saucer as a paperweight and stood, staring out over the windowbox, one hand on her throat. She suddenly looked about a million years old.

  ‘“Don’t worry”,’ she said. ‘That’s what Charlie told me. “It’s over and done with”. And I believed him because that’s what I wanted to believe. But of course it’s not over, is it?’

  She left her cigarette burning in the saucer, sending up a thin curl of smoke. I picked it up and took a drag. It tasted of nothing. ‘I’ll do whatever I can to help,’ I said. ‘These bankbooks…’

  ‘I don’t know anything about them.’ Her tone was sharp. She turned her back and stared out into the park. ‘But I do know that Charlie didn’t kill Merv Cutlett. And neither did Barry Quinlan.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I started. ‘I’m not…’

  ‘It was me,’ she said. ‘I’m the one who put a bullet in his brain.’

  A woman, late twenties, with funky specs and a hedgehog haircut bounded out of the work area, a coffee mug in each hand.

  ‘Oops,’ she blurted. ‘Didn’t realise we had a visitor.’

  I hastily grubbed the cigarette out in the saucer. Margot didn’t miss a beat.

  ‘Jodie, this is Murray,’ she said. ‘A friend.’

  Jodie had registered the tension in the air. She gave me a cagey nod. Friend or not, I was obviously the bearer of bad news. A smoker in other people’s workplace, come to heap even more sorry business on her boss’s shoulders.

  She clanked her mugs down on the metal sink top and began to run a stream of water into an electric jug. ‘Can I get you a cup of something?’

  Margot slid the window shut. ‘That new lunch place next door,’ she said. ‘Today might be a good time for you and Michele to give it a try.’

  Jodie took the hint. Shooting daggers at me through her Jenny Kee eyewear, she collected her workmate Michele and the two of them scuttled through the pregnant silence and disappeared out the front door.

  ‘I want a full report,’ Margot called after them, reassuringly.

  Then she turned and stared through the window, her elbow cupped in one hand. An elegantly turned-out businesswoman in her fifties, shoulders square, her hair just a shade lighter than the overcast sky. Down in the park, the spindly fingers of the treetops clawed uselessly at the air.

  The silence stretched out, taut as a piano string. The bell had been rung. There was no unringing it. I extended a fresh cigarette. She smiled bleakly and let me light it for her, steady now. When she sat down, I reached across the table and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. It was ice.

  She took a deep breath and began to talk.

  ‘Charlie would never tell me what happened up there at Nillahcootie,’ she said. ‘He’d only ever say that it wasn’t my fault, none of it, Cutlett’s death included, and that nobody else knew. About me, I mean. But whatever happened at the lake, it gave Barry Quinlan some sort of a hold over him, at least for a while. If this comes out, Quinlan will blame Charlie for everything. I won’t let that happen. I’ll go to the police myself.’

  The words were gushing out, tumbling over each other, dissolving her hard-maintained self-control. A fearful and frightening look had entered her eyes. I held up the palm of my hand.

  ‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Wait.’

  I went into the kitchenette, switched on the jug and opened the top door of the refrigerator. On the shelf beside the ice-cubes was a bottle of Stolichnaya. I poured a tot, put the glass on the table in front of her, sat down and lit myself a cigarette. Margot blew her nose on a tissue, downed the vodka and shuddered.

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ I said. ‘Take your time.’

  She breathed deep, nodded and started again.

  ‘It happened the Friday night,’ she began. ‘We’d been flat out all day at the office. Prue was home sick with the Hong Kong flu, the temp was out of her depth and the photocopier was on the blink. There were the phones, the fortnightly pay figures. Organisers in and out. Heaps of typing and copying. To cap it off, Charlie landed Mavis with a last-minute job, typing up some documents for a meeting up at the Shack that weekend.’

  She scratched her ash on the rim of the saucer. ‘Remember how we all felt sorry for him, the way Merv dragged him up there whenever they had something important to settle?’

  She was circling, trying to find a way to tell it.

  ‘Anyway,’ she continued. ‘Five o’clock came and Mavis still hadn’t finished. It was her wedding anniversary, one of the big ones. Her family was throwing a turn and there was no question of her working late. Charlie was getting anxious, so I offered to stay back and finish the job. Kind of hoping, I suppose.’

  I’d been too dense to notice it at the time, but for months there’d been an unvoiced attraction between Charlie and Margot. Lingering looks and hungry glances, never acted upon. Her offer, and Charlie’s acceptance of it, must have been loaded with implicit possibilities.

  ‘Mum was minding Katie, so I rang and told her I’d be a bit late. Charlie went home to Elsternwick to have tea with Shirley and the kids. He said he’d be back at seven-thirty to pick up the papers. After that, he’d collect Merv for the drive up to the Shack.’

  Margot went back to the window and stood staring out into the park. I leaned into the fragile silence, letting her take her time.

  It was past seven when Charlie phoned to say he was running late. ‘He said he’d swing past in half an hour, to wait with the stuff at the side door of the Trades Hall, outside Cutlett’s office. I could hear his kids in the background and I knew there was no hope of anything happening between us that night.’

  Disappointed, dutiful, Margot did as she was asked. As she hurried along the footpath, Merv Cutlett and Sid Gilpin staggered out of the John Curtin.

  ‘Pissed, of course,’ she said. ‘I walked faster, tried to shake them off, but we were all going in the same direction and they started trying to crack on to me. Nothing heavy, just a bit of drunken teasing. They were in a pretty good mood, and I didn’t want to get them offside, so I slowed down and walked across the street with them.’

&nbs
p; I could picture it clearly. Margot, hugging the buff envelope of papers to herself against the evening chill. Two blokes rolling out of the pub, full of beer, full of themselves. The three of them waiting at the traffic light, the suggestive joviality, Margot’s resigned acquiescence.

  ‘I was hoping that Charlie had already arrived, that he’d be waiting when we got to Merv’s office. But he wasn’t. Merv and Gilpin were both a lot drunker than I first thought. Merv wanted to get something from his office, something he had to take up to the Shack with him. The side door was locked and he kept dropping his keys. When Gilpin tried to help him, he told him to fuck off, there were still some things he was capable of doing himself. He told him to make himself useful, go get some fish’n’chips for the drive. Gilpin was rabbiting on about whether he should get flake or couta and did Merv want a bloody potato cake, and Merv was fumbling with the door. I was just wishing that Charlie would hurry up and arrive so I could go and pick up Katie.’

  Margot absently fingered her wedding ring, a plain band with a row of small diamonds, twisting it round and round. I took the vodka glass into the kitchen and threw the switch on the electric jug.

  ‘As soon as Gilpin was gone, Merv got the door open. He went down the steps and unlocked his office. A few seconds later, he called up to me. “Hey, girlie. Come and give me a hand.”’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Like an idiot, I went down.’

  A phone started to ring in the work area. Margot ignored it, butted out her half-smoked cigarette and lit another.

  ‘He was standing behind the door. As soon as I stepped inside, he jumped me. Put his arms around me and tried to kiss me. He was always a bit of a letch, but this was the first time he’d ever got physical. I didn’t really take it seriously, just pushed him way. But he stumbled backwards and dragged me down with him. And when I tried to stand up, he shoved his knee between my legs and pinned me underneath him. He was slobbering all over my face and telling me I was beautiful.’

  She spoke in a flat, drained monotone, paying out the words one at a time. It was as if she was making an accounting to herself, as well as to me.

  ‘I told him not to be stupid, that he was hurting me, but he wouldn’t listen. He held his hand over my mouth and started tearing at my clothes. I was kicking and struggling, trying to get up, but he had my hair pinned to the carpet. That awful brown shagpile. I couldn’t breathe. He ripped my pantyhose and started to undo his pants. He was only a skinny bloke but he was strong, a lot stronger than me. I was really, really scared.’

  The jug boiled and switched itself off with a sharp click. I gingerly rinsed Jodie’s mugs and spooned coffee into a plunger, my attention wavering no more than an inch from Margot’s face.

  ‘I was struggling, trying to get out from under him. I grabbed the lead to the desk lamp and pulled it. The lamp crashed onto the floor and I grabbed it by the stem and hit him with it,’ her hand bludgeoned the air. ‘Hit him as hard as I bloody could.’ Abruptly, she stopped, her fist poised as if still closed around the stem of the lamp. ‘You ever see Merv’s desk lamp?’

  I put two mugs of coffee on the table. ‘Solid brass shell casing, right?’ I said. ‘One of Merv’s very tasteful items of militaria.’

  She nodded. ‘The base was a kind of starburst of bullets.’ She fanned out her fingers. ‘Anyway, it did the trick. Knocked him out cold. I rolled him off me and managed to find my feet. At that exact moment, Charlie came through the door.’

  I pictured what he saw. Cutlett, insensible on the floor, his pants undone. Margot, dishevelled and terror-stricken, standing over him with the lamp in her hand.

  ‘Charlie immediately took charge of the situation. He was so calm, so gentle. He took the lamp away from me, put his arms around me, just held me until I stopped trembling. Then he sat me down in a chair and examined Merv. He was still out cold. I thought I’d killed him, but Charlie said there was no blood, he was just stunned, that he’d be okay.’

  She went into the kitchenette and came back with a jar of sugar and the bottle of vodka. She poured a nip of Stoli into each of our coffees and sat back down.

  ‘He was wonderful,’ she said. ‘He wanted to know if I was hurt, did I need a doctor. He was going to call the police, but I wouldn’t let him. We all knew stories about girls who’d gone to the cops and wished they hadn’t. I wasn’t thinking straight. The main thing I was worried about was being late to pick up Katie. Charlie said he’d sort things out. He made sure I was okay, escorted me to the toilet to clean up, called a taxi and sent me home. He told me not to worry, that he’d take care of Merv.’

  She started to light another cigarette. I took it from her and slipped it back in the packet. There were five butts in the saucer and only one of them was mine.

  ‘And so he did,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’ She laughed harshly. ‘Splish, splash.’

  She took a sip of her coffee and grimaced at the taste. But at least the tension was draining from her face.

  ‘I did exactly what he said. I picked up Katie and went home. All that night and all the next day, I kept thinking he’d ring me. He didn’t. I realised why when I saw the Saturday evening news.’

  Charlie had taken care of Merv all right, successfully disposed of his body, evidently aided by Barry Quinlan. He’d taken care of Margot, too, made sure that she wasn’t called to account for Cutlett’s death, spared her the ordeal of the judicial process.

  ‘I can’t even begin to guess what he told Barry Quinlan and Col Bishop. All he’d ever tell me was that neither of them knew that I was responsible,’ she said. ‘I knew he couldn’t possibly have told Shirley. Whatever he did, he’d done for me. I didn’t need to know the details. Does that make sense?’

  I nodded. The vodka gave a bitter aftertaste to the coffee. I added sugar, but it didn’t help much.

  ‘I couldn’t bear the idea that he should have to explain himself. To me, or anyone else. The important thing was that he understood how grateful I felt. If he ever tried to raise it, I’d just put my fingers to his lips and turn away. And when he died…well there was nothing left to say.’

  Nor was there anything I could say. I reached across and gave her hand another squeeze. It wasn’t so cold anymore. That was something. Certain things were clearer now, but we were still only half-way there. We faced each other across the rims of our mugs, sipping the vile coffee. Margot waited for me to speak.

  ‘Got any biscuits?’ I said.

  She laughed, and the tension in the room slackened a little. While she searched the kitchen cupboards, I digested the implications of her confession.

  If Vic Valentine was right about the forensics, Merv’s lamp accounted for the hole in his skull. The rope had probably been used to weigh the body down. Getting him into the car wouldn’t have been a problem, not if Charlie was parked right outside the door. He was burlier than Merv and it would only have been a few seconds’ work to get him across the footpath. Anybody who happened to notice would’ve just seen a bloke helping his pissed-legless mate, not an unusual occurrence in that neighbourhood at the time. By the time Sid Gilpin arrived with the flake and chips, they’d already left.

  ‘So,’ said Margot, putting an open packet of Tim Tams on the table. ‘There you have it. I didn’t mean to kill Merv Cutlett, and I didn’t ask Charlie to do what he did. But those bankbooks haven’t got anything to do with it. And if Sid Gilpin or Barry Quinlan or anybody else tries to make out they do, that Charlie was some kind of a crook, I’ll…’ She was angry again now. ‘I’ll…’ She broke one of the biscuits in half. ‘Jesus, Murray, I don’t know what I’ll do.’

  ‘Then don’t do anything,’ I said. ‘As soon as you’re okay to drive, go home. If the police get back in touch, which I doubt, just tell them you’re not feeling well. You’ve done your fair share of confessing for the moment. Just leave things to me for a while, okay?’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m not completely sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll ring you later.’
<
br />   She looked down at the half-opened pile of condolence letters. I gathered them up, along with a Tim Tam, and got to my feet. ‘I’ll take care of these. You go home.’

  We embraced. The brittleness was still there, but there was something else as well. Something steely I hadn’t registered last time. ‘It’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘I promise.’

  I hoped to Christ I was right.

  ‘Parliament House,’ I told the cab driver.

  Whatever else I’d got myself into, I still had a living to make. In twenty minutes the Health and Social Services Policy Committee would be looking at my empty chair and making tut-tutting noises.

  ‘Permanent House?’ said the chirpy sub-continental behind the wheel. ‘Near airport.’

  ‘No such luck,’ I said. ‘Parliament House. Big joint, top end of Bourke Street. More columns than the Weekend Australian.’

  We cruised towards the CBD, stopping to have a cup of tea and a chat with every red light on the way. I pulled out my phone and called Inky.

  ‘Another record-breaking performance on Saturday,’ I said, mouth full of chocolate biscuit.

  ‘Leppitsch played well.’

  ‘If you don’t count getting reported for striking.’ As we reached the Shrine of Remembrance, it started to drizzle. ‘I’ve spoken with Barry Quinlan. I’ve also had a word with Sid Gilpin.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, Quinlan didn’t let any cats out of any bags, if that’s what you’re asking. He seems pretty relaxed. Didn’t give me any openings. Gilpin, on the other hand, is wound up tighter than a clockwork monkey. He’s talking all sorts of crazy shit. Little wonder the media’s giving him a wide berth. But it might be an idea to give Vic Valentine a buzz, see if there’s any further activity on the walloper front.’

  ‘Something in particular you’re concerned about?’

  ‘Just curious about progress on dem bones. No point in spinning our wheels if it isn’t even Cutlett.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can find out.’

  The cab driver had found the slowest tram in Melbourne to follow, peering at it through the slapping wipers as though intrigued by the sight. He bore not the slightest resemblance to the official driver ID photo on the dashboard. Perhaps it was the first tram he’d ever seen.