by Peter Corris
Her voice was steady. “What are you doing?’
‘I’m drinking whisky.’
‘Give me some.’
I took a hammer from the tool chest. Rudi looked at me as I advanced with a hammer in one hand and a bottle in the other. I wouldn’t have felt safe with an Uzi. He let me pass the bottle through the gate.
‘Tell him everything’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m going to smash the lock.’
‘Rudi, stay!’
Rudi stayed. I broke the lock and Paula came out. We stood together on the bloody bricks and we both had a drink. Neither of us looked at Crosbie. The sweater, oilskin and whisky had warmed me. I was bleeding in about five different places and fleas from Rudi’s blanket had bitten me in five hundred, but I was beginning to think I’d survive.
‘What now?’ Paula said.
‘I’m going to have to call the police. Is there somewhere we can wait?’
‘There’s a flat behind the kennels. No phone though.’
I went to the Land Cruiser, slipped the mobile phone from its cradle and showed it to her. ‘The complete modern detective,’ I said.
21
It was a long, cold night and the whisky was a distant memory by the time we were finished. Police arrived from several different places and did a variety of things, including talking to Paula and me for hours. I tried to be patient. I didn’t always succeed. Paula appeared indifferent, remote. She came to life only once, when someone suggested that Rudi be put down as dangerous. She spoke only three words to him and the guy abandoned the idea.
Some of this took place at Fitzroy House, some in the Mittagong Police Station. There were telephone calls to and from Sydney. In general, the cops weren’t too unhappy with me. Two mysterious deaths had been explained and they now had someone to charge over the shooting of Sir Phillip Wilberforce. They had a weapon, mine, to pop into a plastic bag and run tests on. This was once they’d prised it out of Robert Crosbie’s dead hand. Not one of them suggested that anyone else had fired the last shot, although a pale-faced, long-nosed detective sergeant studied the hand long and hard and looked as if he’d like to make something of it.
Even dog lovers would have to be happy. They had one bad dog, dead, and one good dog alive and a hero. Rudi ate a large tin of Pal out on the back step of the police station and looked around for more. Up close he wasn’t that big but he didn’t need to be. He was all bone, muscle and teeth. He commanded a good deal of respect, Rudi.
A woman who’d been a friend of the Wilberforces when Fitzroy House had been their holiday home was located and she took Paula and Rudi in for what remained of the night. Paula would be taken to Sydney and charged but there was no doubt that she’d be released on her own recognisances. Before she left she turned to me and held out her hand. We shook formally.
‘How is he?’ she said.
I’d phoned Mrs Darcy with the news. She’d reported that it had acted like a tonic on Phil. ‘Improving,’ I said.
‘Good.’
That was about as much concern for other people as I’d seen her express. Perhaps it was a good sign. Rudi padded away after her and I was left with a couple of yawning cops, one of whom asked me if I’d like to sleep in a cell.
‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ve tried that. The sheets are usually too rough.’
‘What sheets?’ the wag said.
It was almost dawn by the time I got back on the road. I shivered until the heater took effect, then I sweated. I wasn’t well. As I drove, I went through the whole thing in my mind again. It all fitted. Robert had recognised the background to Paula’s photograph as Fitzroy House and made the connection. He’d got out here as quickly as he could to eliminate the other step-sister who he saw as a threat to him. All the questions were answered except the ones I’d started with: who sent the box of bullets to Patrick Lamberte and why? I didn’t know and I decided I didn’t care.
I turned off at Wombeyan Road and drove to Fitzroy House. All the coming and going had broken branches on the bushes growing beside the track and had flattened the grass growing up the centre of it. A fine, bright day broke as I pulled up near the house. In the light it looked old and decrepit, but I could imagine Paula fixing it up and living there with a couple of dozen Rudis. I found my parka and the illegal gun in the wet grass. I was glad that I hadn’t had to use the gun. Who was I kidding? I’d never had a chance of using it. I didn’t visit the kennels. I had the feeling that I’d run my luck out there. If I went back, I was likely to slip on the bricks and break my leg.
I’d phoned Glen during the night and she was up and waiting for me when I got to Petersham. She came out and met me on the bridgeway. She was freshly showered and wearing a black satin dressing gown. She looked like Ingrid Bergman in Paris in Casablanca. I felt like Bogie after he’d pulled the African Queen through the swamp. She kissed me anyway, risking blood, mud, whisky breath and stubble like a wire brush.
I put my arms around her, feeling her warmth, softness and strength. ‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered into her hair. ‘I won’t do it again.’
‘Yes, you will,’ she said, but she smiled.