Iraqi Icicle

by Bernie Dowling

  You have to admit the invite sounded compelling.

  The next track playing on the sixth Go-Bees album was The Streets of Your Town. They had released the single twice –once the previous year when the album came out, and more successfully in June of that year of 1989.

  The band, which had started in Brisbane in the late seventies, was signed to the major U.S. label Capitol, and fans were saying that the guitar-based pop rockers were going to grab the world recognition they deserved. Clouds inevitably darkened any rock band’s horizon and now, by December, rumours had erupted that the Go-Betweens had broken up. If the rumour of a bust-up was true, it was an inopportune time, when even a deeply unhip copper like Mooney could recognise the chorus of the band’s disturbing but radio-friendly single.

  Round and round, up and down

  Through the streets of your town.

  Every day I make my way

  Through the streets of your town.

  ‘That’s that slag’s song,’ Mooney screamed at the record player, his fleshy lips quivering. ‘That drummer, what’s her name, Morrison. Fucking bitch stole my watch.’ Mooney’s great sausagey fist feigned to slam down onto my record player, then recoiled. ‘I’m not listening to that crap any more. When you’re done, Schmidt, I’ll see you in the car.’ He stormed out the cracked door.

  Schmidt looked all around the room, like a Teutonic landlord determined to retain a rental bond, before he approached the record player. ‘Congratulations, Hill. You play the only song not recorded by Dean Martin or Kenny Rogers that Mooney knows. And now I have to hear about her stealing his watch for the rest of the day.’

  ‘What’s that about? If Mooney’s been to a Go-Betweens concert, I’ll have to throw out my entire record collection.’

  Schmidt moved away from the stereo and began to rummage through kitchen cupboards and drawers.

  ‘It was way back in 1978, before Lindy Morrison was even in the band, as far as I know. You remember, the Premier at the time, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, banned street marches as a form of civil protest.’

  ‘Vaguely, I was only thirteen or fourteen at the time. The nuns in the orphanage weren’t big on breakfast-table discussions of the political news of the day.’

  ‘I wasn’t much older myself and cannot remember taking much interest, but the old coppers tell me the uni students and their crackpot mates would call a demonstration at the drop of a hat. After a scuffle at one demo, Mooney charged Morrison with stealing his watch.’

  ‘And did she?’

  ‘From what I gather, his watch came off in a melee and Morrison held the watch in the air as if to say, “Who owns this?” And Mooney pinched her. Anyway, she got off at the pre-trial committal stage. But Mooney swears black and blue she got away with trying to nick his watch. If you ask me, he probably only charged her because he did not want to be grateful to a twenty-something girl for returning it.’

  I nodded. After a few more minutes of watching the unenthusiastic searching, I asked Schmidt, ‘Are you awlright; need any help?’

  ‘I’m supposed to give you an early Christmas present,’ Schmidt said.

  A ‘present’ meant planting something like dope or a firearm. Schmidt threw me a plastic bag, which I instinctively caught. It contained about thirty grams of marijuana.

  ‘I can’t be bothered. You will be in jail soon enough. By the way, I would plan not to be here around dawn on the 19th, when some unwelcome visitors from the Drug Squad are likely to arrive.’

  I smoked all the dope that night. It was crappy stuff, full of leaf dust and twigs which I discarded. I guess I wasn’t worth much of a present.

  The next day was Thursday, and it was back-to-school day for Steele Hill. Kelvin Grove campus of the Brisbane College of Advanced Education is in the inner-city suburb known as; yes you’ve guessed it, Kelvin Grove. It was summer holidays so the place was pretty desolate and I was one of its few students.

  My own educational background is nothing flash. The nuns at the orphanage were happy to show me the front gate after I had sort of done grade ten. A few female penguins, marginally better at teaching than the other nuns, were my barely adequate mentors. Since that time, I picked up a little learning on the streets, in nightclubs and coffee shops, so I was not daunted by all the numbered building blocks of higher education. I tracked down some lecturers in the drama department and gave them a good grilling.

  I found the bookshop and bought two copies of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. The chatty shop assistant told me there had been a rush on the play since that terrible tragedy where the girl died. I replied there was nothing like death to add a little spice to life. She smiled and said I had made a witty paradox. Was I a writer?

  I told her I was a gambler by profession and the only reason I looked broken down and miserable like a writer was I had not had a good win on the ponies for a while.

  She smiled again, and said I was funny. I had to be a writer. I gave up trying to convince the woman that my interest in Beckett and Suzanne Lu was strictly personal – staying out of jail – and not professional.

  It took me about half an hour to decipher the microfilm index system in the college library. After that, I was able to use a microfilm reader to look up the author section – B for Beckett. I looked up the subject section too – P for poison.

  As long as you look remotely literate, and you do not want to take books home, you pretty much have a free run of the Kelvin Grove campus library. I studied for five hours, quite a feat when you consider that, some Fridays, I do not spend that long on the racing guide. An article in a Brisbane cultural mag made me laugh. Robert Forster was in a band called the Godots before he formed the Go-Betweens with Grant McLennan. By five o’clock that afternoon, I was ready to consult the biggest brain I know, Con ‘Gooroo’ Vitalis.

  The Gooroo could handicap any event in the universe, and had contacts from Mars to Melbourne. I gave him the moniker Gooroo, after the local Aboriginal word Gooroolbah, meaning deep place, or something like that.

  Local for the Gooroo is the Gold Coast and northern New South Wales. He is something of a distant father figure for me, keeping me calm when I need it. He’s a great man for perspective on things. For thirty-five years, he has been plying his more or less honourable, though more than less illegal, profession of SP bookmaking. SP stands for Starting Price, which is the final price a horse finishes at before the gallopers leap from the barriers. Illegal bookies gave you SP when you were lucky enough to back a winner.

  Only licensed bookmakers on racetracks were allowed to take bets. SP bookmakers resented this restraint of trade and from at least the early 1900s, set themselves up in pubs and shops and other places where the punting public gathered. Alexander Bell’s invention of the telephone was a boon for the illegal industry, just as the mobile blower was for drug traders in the 1980s.

  I wanted to see the Gooroo in person, but I had to make do with an expensive long-distance phone call. I had an idea that the Gooroo might be in a little trouble himself, so I sussed that out before he explored my woes.

  ‘You and Cheerful aren’t going to be had up before that Fitzgerald Inquiry are you?’

  A newspaper reporter named Phil Dickie and a television bloke called Chris Masters had been nuzzling their news’ noses into tales of police corruption for a couple of years, and it had ended up costing Queensland’s longest-serving premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, his job. The premier’s replacement in the conservative National Party bore the great moniker of Bill Gunn, and he had reluctantly set up an inquiry fronted by lawyer Tony Fitzgerald.

  I always wondered whether Gunn had given himself his name, like I had. He headed a rural-based party, and guns are icons in the Aussie bush.

  Anyway, one illegality the inquiry was looking into was payoffs to the coppers from illegal gambling. The Gooroo was always reluctant to talk about unwritten contractual arrangements he and his boss Cheerful Charlie Evatt had with the police. He was pretty dismissive this time, too.

&nbs
p; ‘We have the word we’re right,’ he said. ‘I mean, how far can they seriously pursue victimless crimes?’

  ‘I’m not sure about that victimless stuff, Gooroo. We both know blokes who, after a disastrous run of outs on the punt, have taken long walks off short piers.’

  ‘You’re playing Devil’s advocate, Steele. You’ve been down to the bones of your bare arse plenty of times. The last time I looked you hadn’t topped yourself. One thing I know, people have an illegal bet or take drugs because it’s fun. How it gets out of control and turns out to be no fun anymore is too complicated for me to sort out. And I doubt if Mr Fitzgerald will have much luck working that one out either. Just serve up a few sacrificial lambs, the designated villains of the piece, and all will be well. Thankfully Cheerful and I don’t look like being cast in the villains’ roles.’

  This was my cue to tell the Gooroo that Mooney was trying to stitch me up for Suzanne Lu’s death. Vitalis immediately handicapped the event. He had had his own run-ins with that big Irish bastard. ‘Mooney would not know his arse from Aratula,’ the Gooroo declared. ‘I could sell him a racing saddle personally autographed by Bernborough.’

  Bernborough was a champion racehorse of the 1940s, much more admired by the 1989 gambling community than most two-legged animals walking around forty years later.

  ‘What’s the name of the play Lu literally died in?’

  When I told him, the bookie was impressed. ‘Great play.’

  ‘Is there a curse on this play, Gooroo?’ I asked. ‘You know, like in Macbeth. All that spraying salt and garlic around the stage?’

  ‘Not that I’ve heard, Steele. The only curse I know is it’s not exactly My Fair Lady. I can’t imagine theatrical punters breaking their necks to see it. What has you talking about a curse?’

  I related how Caitlin Meares went all goofy on me, and kept repeating how it could have been her instead of Suzanne Lu. I gave the Gooroo the outline of the rest of the cast in this real-life murder drama.

  ‘Ah, the theatrical goss,’ Vitalis admired, ‘the only product more durable than Shakespeare.’

  ‘These thesps like a yak,’ I agreed.

  Vitalis was most interested in the Kahns – Alison and Efram. I asked why.

  ‘Coincidences, Steele. Always look to the coincidences. An actor is murdered. The doctor on the scene is married to another actor in the play. Perfectly understandable, perhaps, but a coincidence, all the same. I’d like to know more about the husband.’

  ‘Not much info there,’ I said. ‘A med student from the University of Queensland, just one of a swag of blokes who were magnetised to Alison Stuart. Comes from a filthy rich family does our Efram, and actually financed the first production Alison Kahn starred in after she graduated.’

  I heard a biro click at the other end of the line. The Gooroo was making notes.

  ‘Doting husband,’ he spoke down the line as he wrote, ‘who quickly suggests prescription drugs or ecstasy as the cause of death. Efram Kahn’s history includes overcoming a large field of contenders for the glittering prize of a potential bride, Alison. Would hate to see his trophy humiliated by a younger actor, Suzanne Lu. Suzanne was playing Estragon, wasn’t she? Quite a plum role.’

  The Gooroo was putting together a pretty parcel of suspicion, but I was not buying it. ‘The way you tell it, Gooroo, no one’s much interested in the play.’

  ‘That’s right,’ the Gooroo agreed. ‘Your average working stiff does not want to see a play that tells them, while they were asleep, someone killed God, cut down all the trees, and took away meaningful work. That’s the last thing they need reminding of. But maybe the play’s not the thing. After all, she could have died performing Snow White.’

  ‘I wish I could picture the murder without the play muddling it up,’ I said. ‘This switching from drama to real life and back is hard to get your head around. I mean, murder is so straightforward – greed, hatred, envy, rage; they’re worth killing for. Not because you’re cast in a weird play.’

  The Gooroo summed up. ‘You would like to believe the play is not the centre of this, Steele. But we both have doubts on that score. Anyway, let’s continue the run-down on the bit players in this murder mystery. What about Natalie’s sister, Jane?’

  The Gooroo knew Natalie well from our visits to his Tweed Heads unit, but I was unsure if he had met Jane.

  ‘From what the director Sandra Blaine says, it seems Bub – that’s Jane – and Lu did not get on well. Suzanne Lu was apparently even-tempered and focused on the play. Jane is moody and wilful. She wanted to play her character Lucky right over the top. Everyone else wanted the role low-key, a quiet slave.’ I did not see this dispute as a motive for murder and I told the Gooroo as much. ‘Jane wouldn’t kill anyone in a blue over how to play a role. It’s not her style. She loves the drama of arguments, but she doesn’t take them seriously.’

  Vitalis was not convinced. ‘It’s like I always say, Steele, straights can be more bent on the inside than the Hunchback of Notre Dame. What you’ve told me has Jane in there with a chance. So, what about Meares, the one playing Vladimir? What do you know about her?’

  ‘Only what Blaine told me. Caitlin Meares is very co-operative, but she can be anxious. Her father has worked a little two-person gold mine out the back of Kilkivan for the past twenty years. Fancy that, Gooroo – mugs still fossicking in the dirt for specks of gold. The family barely scratched together a living in any of those twenty years.

  ‘When she was nine-years old, Meares decided to find gold on the stage. Hasn’t wavered from the dream since. As I said, Meares got on with everyone, even if they did not think much of her idea of cast members swapping roles every few nights.’

  The Gooroo was also surprised by the novelty of Caitlin Meares’s idea. ‘That’s a new one, the cast swapping roles. Sounds like a lot of work and more than a bit risky. But who knows what passes for avant-garde in the theatre these days? It would seem Meares had a stake in seeing the play run its season – if she wanted her changes made, I mean. If she killed Kahn, it would be a turn-up for the books.’

  I heard his pen scratching across paper, which I imagined was a page of the racing form guide Best Bets.

  ‘That’s most of the known form, Steele. Who else is in the market?’

  I did not need a market. I knew who the killer was. Knew it with absolute certainty, without a clue as to why. I was in a hurry to get off the phone to grab one of my copies of the play. ‘Gooroo, you’re a genius,’ I yelled down the line. ‘Even your subconscious is a genius. You bet the killer is a turn-up for the books. The answer’s a turnip. Tell me quickly, Gooroo: what is the significance of the carrot in the play?

  ‘The clown Vladimir gives the clown Estragon a carrot. Lots of talk about it. Went over my head, if it meant anything.’

  ‘Yair, it means something,’ the Gooroo said, with the confidence of someone who sees no difference between handicapping a play, a horse race or a game of marbles. He ran it down for me. ‘The carrot is what keeps the two clowns turning up at the same spot every day to wait for Godot. The carrot is the metaphor for what makes the stiffs catch the 8:01 to work each morning. Without the carrot, the social world would collapse.’

  I was beginning to catch on to the play, or at least the Gooroo’s angle on it. But I needed more.

  ‘But what is the carrot?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s the beauty of it, Steele.’ I sensed the Gooroo beaming at the other end of the phone. ‘The attraction of the carrot is that it’s not a turnip. No one wants turnips.’

  That Beckett bloke might think the Gooroo’s carrot and turnip analysis a load of horse manure, but the bookie warmed to his theme. ‘The carrot is not a reward. It’s the threat of something worse, that the stiffs could be landed with turnips. So they catch the 8:01, the Carrot Express, each morning.’

  I knew the Gooroo’s mind was flying fast and high, well above and ahead of the 8:01. I knew he would make the connection. ‘The carrot was poisoned, wasn’
t it Steele?’

  As chubby American comedian Oliver Hardy used to say in those grainy old black-and-white comedy movies, it most certainly was. Lu actually ate the carrot instead of pretending to. And someone who had been at rehearsals knew she would. Realism killed Suzanne Lu.

  5

  DOCTOR EFRAM KAHN PACED up and down, round and round, the foyer of La Boite theatre like a novice actor on opening night. It was 7:50 p.m. and the coppers had not showed. I could have told Kahn that Mooney and Schmidt would be having a beer somewhere, letting the suspects stew and loosen lips. I could have told him that, but it suited me to let his annoyance boil.

  Like a colleague, or a fellow Marx Brother, I paced beside Kahn to talk poisons. ‘How long would it have been between her taking the poison and her heart packing it in?’ I asked.

  ‘So you know about the cyanide. Did the police tell you?’ He answered my question with another. Annoying that, isn’t it? I nodded. He decided to grace my earlier question with an answer. ‘Well, despite the amount of cyanide in her system, she was young and healthy. I could only guess, but I would say between two and twelve minutes.’

  Kahn noted my surprise, and smirked. ‘It’s not like in the movies, you know, where they keel over instantly.’

  ‘Would the form of the cyanide affect the speed of death?’ I asked. ‘If it took twelve minutes, you’d think she would have realised she was dying. So maybe it was in a quick-acting form. What was the compound the cyanide was in, Dr Kahn? What was it the police said again?’

  Efram Kahn gave me a half-wary, half-disdainful look. ‘Only the killer knows in what form the cyanide was administered. Post-mortem tests are made for individual substances such as cyanide, not for compounds containing cyanide. I think you may be a little out of your depth, Mr Hill.’

  Maybe I was, though my study of poisons had given me much the same information as Kahn supplied. My study had told me only the killer knew what exactly he or she had given Suzanne Lu. I had been fishing, and it was a successful trip.

  ‘So, you are experienced in pathology?’ I asked Kahn, reeling him in.