‘Oh, don’t mind Shaun,’ she said, snuggling even closer to him. ‘We have no secrets—do we, darling? And he is the very soul of secrecy, if that’s what you’re worried about. Wouldn’t know who was up who on the social scene anyhow.’
‘No, no, it’s just that this is personal—and highly confidential—business.’
‘But I thought this was a social call, Oliver.’
‘It is, of course . . . partly.’
‘Come on, Oliver. Loosen up. You look as if you’ve just been told you’ve got the clap.’
Shaun burst into laughter, and even Oliver managed an uncomfortable smile.
‘Well, if you’re sure,’ he said dubiously.
‘Trust me,’ she said.‘Go. No, wait—top-up first. Sounds as if we’ll need it.’ She grabbed the bottle and swigged some more into their tumblers.
When he was more composed, Oliver said, ‘I’m actually representing Raydon.’
‘I would never have guessed,’ Jo said.‘Sorry. Continue.’ She sipped.
‘Well, in part I’m relaying a message from him to say how he regrets what has happened, that you saw fit to leave. He certainly wishes to be reconciled, let me stress that.’ He seemed to expect a positive response, but there was none, so he went on: ‘And to take whatever steps are necessary to put things right again.’
‘But things were never right, Oliver. Things have been screwed up for a long time.’
‘Nineteen years of marriage,’ Oliver said,‘must amount to something.’
‘Nineteen years of marriage amounts to a lot of wasted fucking years,’ she said.
Oliver opened his mouth, but she cut him short: ‘I must say the mantle of go-between does not sit easily on your shoulders, Oliver. And please, don’t raise the issue of the children, if that was the next string to your bow.’
‘I wasn’t intending to,’ Oliver said. Every few seconds he threw a glance at Shaun, as if hoping he would take the hint and leave. But Shaun wasn’t budging. He now had Jo’s arm draped around his shoulder. ‘It’s somewhat awkward,’ he said. ‘A confidential legal matter.’
‘Having said that,’ Jo said, ‘you have no choice but to soldier on.’
‘Very well.’ Oliver braced himself. Shaun watched his array of postures and pouts. It was difficult to tell when he was being sincere, if at all. Which was the real Oliver? There was little doubt he was a barrister, anyway—he was full of courtroom theatrics.‘There is an unpleasant aftermath to the Sydney affair—I mean, the Sydney matter. One of the women in question has found out Raydon’s identity and occupation and is currently engaged in an effort to extort money from him. Unless he cooperates there will be police charges and a tawdry, drawn-out court case in which no reputations will be spared the blowtorch.’And he gave Shaun a good, hard look.
‘What’s that got to do with me?’ Jo said.‘If Raydon’s being extorted, that’s his problem. Pay up, is my advice. Who cares?’ She downed more Scotch and added: ‘And by the way, what police charges? I mean, great as he is, Raydon is not in Jeffery Archer’s class. Last I heard he wasn’t running for parliament, or Lord Mayor.’
‘She is under the legal age,’ Oliver said.‘It’s a statutory rape charge. And . . . there are accusations relating to illegal drug use.’
‘Are you saying my husband hired the services of a child prostitute, plied her with drugs and had sex with her?’
‘Not exactly . . .’
‘In Rumney’s cesspit, presumably.’
‘It was at Rumney’s place, yes. But the issues are a matter of contention. Raydon emphatically denies—’
‘Oh,spare me!“Your honour, my client strenuously contests the charges.” Is that seriously the line you are pushing, Oliver?’
‘He didn’t know she was underage, Jo. That’s his main claim, and I believe him.’
‘You mean, he couldn’t see that her too, too tender flesh was jailbait? Was he that ripped?’ She separated from Shaun and moved towards Oliver.‘Exactly how old is this slut, if I may inquire?’
‘She is . . . fourteen, I understand.’
Jo didn’t say anything for a long, long time. She just stared at Oliver, whose boyish face was showing the strain of an unenviable assignment. Finally she broke the silence by saying, ‘I don’t blame you, Oliver. You are a loyal, steadfast friend, even though such sterling, old school virtues are thoroughly undeserved in this instance. You’ve been sent on a hopeless mission. I now detest Raydon. He is despicable. He is a shit. I detest myself for not having left him sooner. He deserves everything coming his way. I will not front the media during his day in court, posing as the loving, faithful wife when all I wish is to see him burn. Go back and tell him that, Oliver— that I wish to see him barbecued on a spit, and slowly.’
She sipped, then added: ‘Oh—and that I will settle for fifty percent of the family fortune, either the easy or the hard way. Up to him.’ A parting shot occurred to her, brightening her face.‘One more thing before you leave—tell him I’m doing very nicely, thank you.’ She returned to Shaun, put her arms around him and planted a firm and meaningful kiss on his lips. Then she delicately cradled his face in both hands, as if it were a precious and fragile art object. Gazing at him, she added:‘Tell my ex-husband I’ve found what I’ve been missing all these years.’
That night Jo’s lovemaking was particularly fierce, as if she had a point to prove for Raydon’s benefit. Perhaps intoxicated by the Scotch as well as the scene with Oliver, she seemed half-crazed as she twisted and flung herself all over the sheets, squealing and hitting him and at one point tumbling onto the floor and slightly injuring her arm. In the lamplight there was a vibrant sheen of perspiration mixed with cold-pressed olive oil all over her body. Wherever he held her she slipped and slithered from his grasp, but remained pinned to the floor as he sought to manipulate the levels of her pleasure with a mix of slow, circular movements and a sudden riff of vigorous thrusts that made her breasts slap around like soft hands clapping. Her euphoric sighs gave him such a buzz that now and then he withdrew so he could slip in once more, inch by inch. Slowly. How her thighs trembled when he did that. He felt as if he could go on and on through the night in this way without having to ejaculate. In the heat he accidentally tipped in too much of the green oil, turning it into a slip-sliding affair in which it was impossible to maintain a proper purchase in or on any part of her body.
By morning the linen was splotched with heavy stains, both animal and vegetable. A session in the jacuzzi was required to wash the oil slicks from their bodies. Facing each other across the piles of frothy soap they relived the evening in steamy, contented silence. When they had stirred in the pre-dawn the horny scent of her marinated flesh and the way she squirmed and squelched underneath him made him come off straightaway, whoosh, even before she’d had a chance to warm up.
‘So Oliver’s a lawyer too,’ he said, stretching out and raising his face to the high ceiling.
‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ she said rather dreamily. ‘Oliver and Raydon go way back, long before my time. They were boarders at school together—Grammar, needless to say. And in case you didn’t know, there’s only one Grammar, old sport.’
‘Uh-huh. And you?’
‘School?’
‘Yeah.’
She told him—it was a major Catholic school for girls in the blue-ribbon belt.
‘What about you?’
‘Can’t match that, I’m afraid.’ He named a red-brick school in the western suburbs, run by the Marist Brothers. ‘Or as we called them, the Marx Brothers. Not that there was anything funny about the whole experience.’
Jo found the idea amusing, however.
‘So what do rich lawyers’ wives do with their time, apart from picking up strange men in remote towns?’
‘In my experience, they spend their days shopping, getting their hair done, shopping, playing bridge, shopping . . . But as it happens, I have a real job. I teach Italian at Melbourne Uni.’
For some reason this d
id not surprise him. ‘Why aren’t you there now?’
‘It’s semester break. Anyhow I only work part-time—three days a week.’
‘Italian,’ he said after a moment.
‘Oddly enough, although I speak it like a native, I’ve never been there. Our overseas trips have been restricted to the Home Country, and the US of A. Raydon prefers to do his skiing at Aspen. But I do have some Italian blood.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Grandparents on my mother’s side come from a village in Lombardy, in the northeast. Near the Austrian border.’
‘That’s interesting,’ he said.‘My paternal grandparents come from a town near Turin—in the north. What about your father’s side of the family?’
‘They’re from County Wicklow, Ireland. So I was always doomed to be a Catholic one way or another. Where do your mother’s people come from?’
‘Tiny village in County Cork.’
‘Wicklow is near Cork, right?’ she said.
‘Got to be—it’s not that big a country.’
There was a long pause while they stared at each other across the steam.
‘You know, one way or another, we could be distant cousins,’ he said.
A big smile filled her face. ‘Wouldn’t that be something?’
She’d used a similar expression before, at Buzzards Hut, and he liked the way she said it.
Late morning, a little before eleven, he went out for a newspaper and some pastries from the corner shop. Along the street he again had that unnerving feeling of being watched. A lone man was sitting in a car diagonally across from the house, which didn’t necessarily mean jack. People sat in their cars for legitimate reasons all the time. But it concerned him anyway.
When he bought the paper he sat on the sunny terrace outside the shop and read for a while. The only mention of Bernie Walsh was a brief item saying that police had scaled down the search, believing now there was no hope of Mr Walsh surviving for this long in the harsh conditions. Then he looked at the back page, and got a shock. There, in the gossip column by noted muckraker Corin Makepeace—if that was his real name—was a paragraph devoted to the ‘recently released inmate and former member of Victoria’s finest, Shaun McCreadie, snapped by our ever-vigilant snoops going into plush East Melbourne digs owned by a certain high-flying eagle around town. What’s the connection, we wonder?’ And there was an unmistakable shot of Shaun leaving the Powlett Street premises. Fortunately Jo was not in it.
‘Well, Christ on a bike,’ he said aloud. It was safe to say his cover was blown—the house was easily identifiable for anyone interested owing to its bright red front door and the climbing yellow roses over the porch, not to mention a profuse camellia bush next to the gate.
When he reached Powlett Street he noticed the man was still in the car opposite, looking vaguely towards Shaun. He was about to ignore him and go inside to give Jo the bad news when he suddenly decided not to. Damn it—this tingling sensation at the back of his neck would not be denied. He turned and looked at the man, who now had his head in a paper, as if he did not wish to be noticed. Shaun continued along the footpath and crossed the road, out of the man’s line of sight, then approached the car from behind on the driver’s side. Giving the impression of appearing from nowhere he rapped on the window, and the man jumped right out of his skin.‘Jesus Christ!’he said. Shaun rapped on it again and the man wound down his window. It stopped halfway and he forced it the rest of the way down with his hand.
‘Scared the living tripes out of me,’ he said.
‘Sorry,’ Shaun said. ‘Can I help you?’
The man looked up at him for a few seconds, becoming more relaxed when he saw Shaun was only carrying a shopping bag and a newspaper.
‘Matter of fact I thought we could probably do a favour for each other,’ Wes Ford told him with a wide, friendly smile.
The previous evening, Oliver had wasted little time reporting back to Raydon. Having recovered sufficiently to start his car and arrange his thoughts he speed-dialled on his hands-free car phone as he entered Victoria Street on his way to turning south into the eternal traffic snarl of Hoddle Street. Raydon answered on the first ring. So he was sweating on him.
‘Steer. It is I.’
‘I know that, man. What?’
‘You’re not going to like any of this, old cock. Brace yourself.’
‘For God’s sake, McEncroe, do you have to take such obvious delight in my predicament? Can’t you at least adopt a slightly sympathetic tone instead of sounding so damned exultant?’
‘Afraid not, Steer. I haven’t begun to enjoy myself yet.You are so far down the gurgler they’re going to need one of those giant cranes to haul you out.’
‘Very amusing.’
‘The fact is, your wife hates you, Steer. That’s what she said. “Tell him I detest him. Tell him I want to see him barbecued on a spit”.’ Like a pig.
‘Bullshit. I don’t believe you.’
‘It’s true. I’m afraid your past misdeeds have caught up with you. This last one has simply tipped her over. I was shocked. She is not the Jo of old, I assure you.’
Raydon digested this.‘You explained everything properly?’
‘I tried to give it the right spin. She wasn’t having it, Steer. Seriously.’
‘Fuck.’
‘She wants a divorce, and half the estate.’
‘Fuck.’
‘She wants your blood on the floor. She is hard-hearted to the point of cruelty and utterly unforgiving. She will definitely not do the sham marriage thing for your day in court. I fear she will do the Afghan thing and piss into the former tent instead.’
‘McEncroe, I am not going to court. Not for this Mascall bitch, nor for a divorce. You’re seeing to that, remember? I am paying you for that.’
‘First I heard about the divorce part. There’s one more thing, Steer. I’ve saved the worst till last.’
Raydon sighed heavily. What could be worse than what he’d heard already?
‘There was a man—a boyfriend—present.’
‘You’re lying through your teeth.’
‘Not just a boyfriend: a live-in boyfriend. Let himself into the house with his own key shortly after I arrived.’
‘Don’t be stupid, man. She’s only been gone a week. How could she have done such a thing so quickly?’
‘Maybe she had him beforehand. Maybe your Sydney fling was just the excuse she was looking for.’
‘I don’t believe it. She’s never had an affair in her life.’
‘Well, she’s having one now, Steer. Believe it.’
‘Who is this bastard, anyway? I’ll have him thrown out and arrested for trespassing. I don’t suppose she introduced him.’
‘Certainly did. With undisguised pleasure and satisfaction. And she threw herself all over him, rather shamelessly, I must say. Behaved like a lovestruck teenager.’
‘Who is he? I’ll sue him.’
‘For what? Wife stealing? I’m afraid that went out with witch burning, Steer. And for your information the man’s name is Shaun McCreadie.’
Oliver waited. He could sense Raydon’s brain searching for the name’s significance.
‘Shaun McCreadie . . . now where . . .’
‘I’ll tell you where, Steer. The robbery and double-murder at the Petrakos place eleven years ago. He was one of the perpetrators. Now he’s had the verdict and sentence overturned on appeal. He was released about a week ago.’
‘Christ,’ Raydon said. Then came nothing for a long while.
‘Still there, Steer?’
More silence. Oliver was starting to think he had passed out.
‘Come on, Steer. If you can’t speak, tap on the handset twice, like they taught you in the cadets.’
‘Shaun McCreadie. He was a cop, a detective in the armed robbery squad. There were three of them. Bad apples.’
‘Mitchell Alvarez,Andrew Corcoran—and your wife’s new playmate, Shaun McCreadie. Alvarez and Corcoran drop
ped off the tree early on.’
‘That’s right. Shit—shit.’
‘He was cool. Didn’t say much. But I thought there was something feral and a bit scary about the fellow. He had the stamp about him. Gave off a bit of a chill.’
‘It makes no sense,’ Raydon said.
‘I agree.’
‘How—where—did she meet such a person? Jo doesn’t mix with criminals. Killers.’
Well, she does now. ‘Take it from me, Steer. She is in this man’s thrall.’
‘Ludicrous. I won’t accept it.’
‘There’s something else, you know—odd. When they were next to each other there was an uncanny resemblance between them. One would have sworn they were siblings.’
It was too much for Raydon. ‘Just what are you on, McEncroe? Buddha sticks? Angel dust? Magic fucking mushrooms? Jo doesn’t have any siblings, as you may recall.’
‘I know that, Steer. Anyhow . . . moving apace, I’ll be off to Sydney tomorrow on your behalf. You’ll be flying me business class and putting me up at the Ritz-Carlton in Double Bay.’
‘That’s very decent of me. I certainly hope you produce some better results up there, between your canapés and Dom Perignon.’ And he disconnected without saying goodbye.
14
It was 2 am and Trader Joe’s was jumping. Stan ‘The Man’ Petrakos was standing at the bar tossing down shooters, end on end. He was firing on all sixteen cylinders. Iridescent mauve-and-purple strobe lights flashed incessantly across the room, highlighting faces for a brief moment and giving them a lurid glow, as if they all wore Halloween masks. Stan’s eyes wandered over the crowd, scanning the faces. He liked the way the lights did that, transforming the whole scene into a sort of devil’s carnival where no one was real. Across the room he could see Suzen flinging herself around with a bunch of women—heads goosenecking back and forth, shoulders swivelling, flattened hands slicing air as if they were mechanised toys. Tonight it was an eighties theme, and they were doing ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’. Suzen was off her face as usual—she was one spaced Egyptian.
Blindside Page 17