Dirty Weekend

by Gabrielle Lord

  Just as I was glancing at my watch, Brian hung up. ‘Thank God, Deb’ll be here in sec with pizza. Want some?’ he asked.

  ‘I keep thinking of that damned skirt,’ I said. ‘It reminds me of her bedroom.’

  ‘How’s that?’ asked Brian, following me back for a last look at Tianna Richardson’s bedroom. I focues on the decor, ignoring the distraction of the boxes and shopping bags spread around.

  ‘Everything matches in here, except that dark brown bedspread,’ I said.

  A few moments later, we were done. I walked out with Brian and waited as he locked the door.

  He was on his way down the steps when he turned. ‘Do people still have cocktails?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d be the last person to ask about that,’ I said as we parted.

  Nine

  I was still thinking about Tianna when I walked into the bar of the Cat and Castle and looked for a quiet corner where I could wait for Kevin Waites to arrive.

  The smell of beer, disinfectant, stale cigarettes and humanity made me think of Starro, my informant of many years, now a guest of Her Majesty at the Long Bay Hilton. All thoughts of Starro stopped when I noticed the fake Jacobean carving on the first banquette along the wall and recognised it as the background to one of the photographs of Tianna and the unknown man. I got a buzz of adrenaline as a piece of information, no matter how inconsequential, fell into place.

  I ordered a lemon, lime and bitters from the barman and, as he returned with my chaste drink, flashed my ID at him, making sure I did it too fast for him to notice that I wasn’t a police officer any more.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, as he put my drink in front of me, ‘know of a woman called Tianna Richardson? She used to drink here.’

  He frowned.

  ‘The woman whose body was found outside the Blackspot Nightclub,’ I prompted. ‘Maybe you haven’t heard? I’m involved with that investigation.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. That one. She was often in here. Different guy every time,’ he said, his face taking on a sour, disapproving expression.

  Tianna Richardson, I thought, I wish you’d stayed home. You’re making life more difficult for me.

  ‘The people from the Ag Station also drink here, I believe,’ I continued.

  The barman’s sour expression worsened. Had I come across the only Calvinist working in a pub?

  ‘That lot,’ he muttered. ‘They’re dickheads.’

  ‘Dickheads?’

  ‘I could tell you a thing or two.’

  ‘I’m sure you could,’ I said.

  ‘Those people from the Ag Station, they’re worse than Tianna Richardson ever was.’

  ‘Tell me more,’ I said, interested.

  ‘I hear things from over here,’ he said. ‘I see things going on.’

  ‘Like what?’ This vagueness wasn’t promising; maybe he was just being self-important. I looked around, keeping an eye out for Kevin Waites.

  The barman leaned closer, conspiratorial. ‘You’ve heard of swinging?’ he asked.

  The old-fashioned term took me by surprise. ‘Swinging’ belonged back with Formica table tops, red ceramic bulls and the famous print of the green-faced Chinese beauty. It hailed from days when people spoke of flower power and free love. These days, people just had sex.

  ‘People from the Ag Station swing?’ I asked, affecting astonishment.

  ‘You bet,’ he sniffed. ‘I didn’t know scientists behaved like that! They come in here for drinks and then they play up.’

  In a flash, the murders of Tianna Richardson and Claire Dimitriou fused together, heightening my adrenaline buzz. This hotel was common ground for both women. It could be a coincidence or it could be very important. In any case, I knew from long experience to always take note of connections. Claire Dimitriou could have been involved in a swinging group.

  ‘They think they’re being real discreet but I know what’s going on,’ the barman was grizzling. ‘Different partner every week.’

  ‘Tell me more about that,’ I said, looking stern and disapproving.

  I waited while he served a local lout who’d clearly had more than his share and was staring, bleary-eyed and belligerent, at his reflection in the mirror behind the rows of bottles of spirits.

  ‘They played this game,’ said the barman, returning. ‘Like a lucky dip.’ He leered. ‘Lucky dip all right.’

  ‘It’s not making much sense to me,’ I admitted.

  ‘Listen, mate,’ he said. ‘I can’t stand around answering your bloody questions all day.’

  I put a twenty dollar note on the bar. ‘Let me buy you a drink.’

  At that point, the morose lout started a topple that would have ended up with him on the floor, but at the last moment he over-corrected and fell on the other side instead. There was a lot of scraping and sliding and swearing near my feet as he got himself upright again.

  ‘Some bastard’s got dog shit on his shoes,’ he yelled.

  I realised I’d put the wrong shoes on this morning and moved away from him.

  The bartender whipped the twenty dollars into his pocket. ‘I don’t drink while serving,’ he said.

  ‘The lucky dip? You were going to tell me more about it,’ I said.

  ‘I want a head job with no ice and sex on the beach for my friend,’ came a female voice from behind me, addressing the barman.

  I watched while he made up the two drinks, a pink foaming thing with a little umbrella and its twin in green with an olive. Yes, Brian, I thought, people do still have cocktails, although only very dedicated drinkers would be ordering such drinks at this hour of the day.

  ‘Okay,’ said the barman, leaning closer as the girl carried her drinks away. ‘This is how it goes. After everyone has a few rounds, these two envelopes come out. I couldn’t see what was in them—looked like white paper in one and coloured paper in the other. You know that coloured paper we used to cut up in school?’

  I remembered the squares of brilliantly coloured flint paper—red, crimson, orange, turquoise, blue, yellow, green, black and white—that Sister Celestine and Miss Ogilvie had handed out in kindergarten and first grade for our infant craft works. I recalled those particular colours vividly. This could be very good information—if it were true. Sometimes you got things on a plate like this, without having to lift a finger. But not often.

  ‘So how did the lucky dip work?’ I asked.

  ‘How would I know?’ said the barman. ‘I can only tell you what I saw.’

  The drunk was insisting on another beer but the barman wasn’t playing. ‘Go home, Tiger. It’s the law. I’m not permitted to serve you any more.’

  ‘So what did you see?’ I persisted.

  Ignoring some slurred invective from the lout, the barman hunched over. ‘They’d take a white card out of the first envelope and then pass it on to the next person. When that envelope had gone round the group, they’d do the same with the second envelope.’

  ‘The one with the coloured paper?’ I asked. ‘And?’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s all I can tell you. That was it. I don’t know how it worked.’

  I deeply regretted losing my twenty bucks.

  ‘That was their favourite spot,’ he said, pointing to the banquette across from the bar. ‘They always sat there. One of the women asked me one night if I wanted to join in. She’d been checking me out all night. Moll,’ he growled.

  I was intrigued by the game and wondered what the different piece of paper meant. If Tianna were a player with this group, it was possible she had met her killer as part of the lucky dip game. She may not have picked up a stranger that night at the Blackspot. She could have known him from here.

  ‘When does the group usually come in?’ I asked.

  The barman glanced at his watch. ‘Towards the end of the week.
Sometimes as early as Wednesday.’

  I wondered if they’d come in this week or would lie low? I pulled out my card and circled my mobile number. ‘If they come in, no matter what time it is, I want to know. I’ll make it worth your while,’ I added.

  I didn’t think I’d be hearing from him in the next little while. The group would surely be in shock and, conceivably, even in hiding after what had happened to one or possibly two of their number.

  I was leaving a message on Brian’s mobile, informing him that the unknown man in the photograph with Tianna Richardson drank here, when the double doors from the street flung open. I felt sure the approaching man in a tight-fitting, buttoned jacket was Kevin Waites. After years of stakeouts and clandestine meetings, I’d identified something like a current that seemed to run between the investigator and the target.

  Waites breasted the bar a little distance from me, looking around, checking out the people standing drinking and those clustered in the alcoves around the room. I wondered why he didn’t undo a few buttons on his too-tight jacket. He reminded me of Mo, from the long ago days of my childhood and black and white television and the Three Stooges.

  I picked up my drink and went over to him. ‘Kevin?’ I asked, putting out my hand. ‘Jack McCain.’

  We shook and I asked him what sort of drink he wanted.

  ‘I’ll have a double Scotch,’ he said.

  Interesting choice, I thought as I bought it for him, along with another fizzy drink for myself, then together we made our way to a quieter spot, sliding into the seats, resting our drinks on the oak veneer surface.

  ‘I appreciate you taking the time to meet me,’ I said and explained where I fitted in the investigation. When I mentioned a couple of other local investigations I’d been involved with, he visibly relaxed.

  ‘I’m not the police,’ I explained. ‘And you’ll need to do a statement for them.’

  He nodded, throwing back some Scotch.

  ‘Anything you can tell me about that argument you overheard on Monday afternoon?’ I asked. ‘Between Dr Dimitriou and Peter Yu.’

  ‘Dr Dimitriou was a real nice lady. I used to clean her lab most days—the areas she’d let me touch anyway. Often she’d still be there, late, and say hello. She wasn’t up herself like some of those people. She’d ask me how I was. Have a chat.’ He paused, rattling the ice in the Scotch.

  ‘Tell me everything you can recall about the last time you saw—or heard—Claire Dimitriou.’

  Kevin took a pull on his drink and looked around. ‘Have you got a cigarette on you?’

  ‘Sorry. Can’t help you. I don’t smoke these days,’ I said.

  I waited while he went back to the counter and made his purchase, then we took our drinks outside to the desolate beer garden, a narrow strip of paving between two wings of the hotel, so he could smoke. Several miserable pot plants stood around, their soil poisoned by the many cigarette stubs half buried in them.

  Kevin Waites stared at the wall as he began to speak. ‘I was outside Dr Dimitriou’s office. I was having a bit of trouble getting the dead fluoro tube out of its housing and it broke,’ he said, lighting up and inhaling deeply.

  ‘Where exactly?’ I asked.

  ‘Her office is in the administration wing of the Ag building. It runs off to the right of the main entrance some distance away from the old laboratory.’

  The direction Dallas Baxter had been hurrying from, I recalled, when he’d rushed over to meet me yesterday.

  ‘I put my stepladder against the wall and started cleaning up the mess,’ Waites continued. ‘That Asian fellow—’

  ‘Dr Peter Yu?’

  Waites nodded, sucking on the cigarette, his other hand fiddling with the cellophane on the packet. ‘He came running down the hall from the laboratory wing. Just about knocked me over—I don’t think he even saw me. He went straight into her office and they started talking. I wasn’t especially listening. No point, really. I never understand a bloody word they say. Not when they’re talking shop. And he’s got a bit of an accent.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Their voices just got louder and louder,’ he said, wiping his fingers free of the condensation from the glass, using his handkerchief. ‘See, it was the tone of their voices that made me take notice.’ He paused. ‘Distressed. Dr Dimitriou was really upset. That’s what made me sort of stop and—I didn’t mean to be deliberately listening in to a private conversation, you know. But I couldn’t help it. They were so loud.’

  He paused and I nodded encouragingly, willing him to continue. ‘I didn’t know what to do,’ he said finally. ‘Dr Dimitriou was crying. She kept saying “She saw, she saw! She saw sixteen blue!”’

  I was suddenly riveted, thinking of what the barman had told me about coloured paper. ‘You’re sure she said “sixteen blue”?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m sure, all right. There might have been another word after that, but I’m positive that’s what I heard. I keep hearing her voice. She’s dead and I still keep hearing her voice.’

  I touched him briefly on the arm. ‘Please continue.’

  ‘She was always kind to me. Some of the scientists don’t even see me. I’m just the cleaner, invisible. Not important like them. But Dr Dimitriou was different. She used to answer my questions, tell me about her work. And she understood that I’d sometimes get sad when one of the animals died.’ He glanced at me to take in my reaction. ‘You probably think that’s stupid—that a grown man could care when a lab sheep dies.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s stupid at all,’ I said.

  ‘I like all the animals, even the sheep. They all have little stalls with their name on and whatever disease they have. You get to like them. They don’t know it, but they’re doing something very important for their brothers and sisters, they lay down their lives for the betterment of their friends.’

  ‘I suppose they do,’ I said. ‘Somewhere there’s a monument dedicated to all the experimental animals.’

  ‘Is there?’ he said, pleased. ‘They become like friends. Especially when you’re lonely. Dr Dimitriou used to say, “Don’t worry, Kevin. None of my rabbits are going to die. My work is to stop them breeding, not breathing.”’

  I saw his expression soften further and I noted down Claire’s words thinking, yes, Dr Dimitriou did sound like a kind woman. Her research didn’t involve lethal experimentation.

  ‘Anything else you want to tell me?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s it really. That’s how it went. Him saying “We can’t! You mustn’t!” And her saying “Don’t you see now we have to!” She kept saying that over and over. “Peter, we have to!” And he kept begging her not to—“No, no, we can’t! We mustn’t!”’

  I pulled out my notebook and wrote the words down, underlining ‘sixteen blue’ and adding three dots after the last word.

  Kevin Waites jerked his cigarette at it. ‘You’re not recording what I’m saying, are you?’

  ‘It’s just for my own use,’ I explained. ‘Did you hear anything else?’

  He paused to knock off the last of his drink. ‘They might have gone on a bit longer. But it was all the same stuff. Arguing. Her crying. I’m still upset about it. Maybe if I’d done something, she’d be alive now.’

  ‘You weren’t to know,’ I reassured him and we sat in silence awhile.

  ‘I wish I hadn’t been there,’ he finally said.

  Thank God you were, I thought, because this was the only information we’d had so far about the scientist’s state of mind and that of her colleague shortly before her death.

  ‘Kevin,’ I said, ‘I’d like you to accompany me through Dr Dimitriou’s laboratory, do a walk-through with me. You’d be very familiar with that laboratory. I’ve only seen it once. You might notice something I didn’t.’

  ‘But I don’t work there an
y more,’ he said. ‘Dallas Baxter finished me up last night. Said he’d got some new contractors.’

  Interesting, I thought, then said, ‘I’ll sort something out and let you know when to meet me.’

  His face brightened. ‘I have to drop over there on Friday to pick up my severance pay.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch about when is best for both of us,’ I said.

  I went to the bar for another double scotch. ‘Was there anything else?’ I asked, sitting down with him again. ‘Anything else that might help find Dr Dimitriou’s killer?’

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I want to help. But my memory isn’t too good. Especially for scientific things.’

  I pulled out one of my business cards and passed it over. ‘If you remember anything else, I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night, you ring me. Okay?’ I said, standing up.

  ‘I will,’ he said. ‘Sure you don’t want me to buy you a proper drink?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m sure.’

  Ten

  Before heading back to Weston, I bought a newspaper and sat down in the arcade with a cappuccino. Murder City! blared the headlines followed by: Sitting Member Promises Inquiry. The press loved murder. Murder sold newspapers. And media exposure puts lots of pressure on Sitting Members and public officials generally. I wondered how long it would be before someone in turn leaned on me—on all of us at Forensic Services.

  I folded the newspaper, paid for the coffee and rang directory assistance to get the address for Galleria Rustica, curious as hell to find out more about Peter Yu.

  I walked the three blocks until I came to the gallery, tucked away in an arcade, with fierce primitive-style carvings dominating the front window. Before going inside, I rang Brian again to bring him up to date with the Kevin Waites discussion while silently debating whether or not to share my information about the partner-swapping group just now. But my call rang out and switched to divert so I left a message.