‘Seeing you on television, that was awful,’ she said. ‘I wanted to ring but I couldn’t bring myself to. Have they found…’
‘No, not yet.’
‘The job, it seemed to have gone beyond mediation.’
‘Well beyond, into the wild blue yonder, in fact. I don’t want any more jobs like that. I’m better at dealing with hundred-kilogram men trying to strangle me. That’s straightforward, not a lot of ambiguity.’
‘You have a turn of phrase for a man of action,’ Corin said.
‘I read a lot, books on propagation, soil structure, that sort of thing. Tell me why you’re in a position to take your students away for the weekend.’
‘Why?’
‘Why you aren’t married to some restaurant designer.’
She laughed. ‘Married to the job, that’s why. The moving of the earth, the transforming of nature.’
I waited.
‘I had a long relationship, I hate that bloody word, I had an affair with a married man that went on for seven years. Hard to believe anyone can be that stupid.’ She got up and lifted the lid on the pot, stirred the contents. ‘He was always on the verge of leaving his wife and kids. It was just months away, just some final thing that had to be done. In the school holidays, his wife and kids would go to the house on the Peninsula and I’d see him every day except weekends. I think it was those times that kept me in a state of stupidity. It was like being married to him.’
She sat down again, drank wine, met my eyes. ‘You don’t want to hear this kind of stuff,’ she said. ‘Let’s talk football.’
‘What happened?’
‘I’ll give you the closing scene,’ she said. ‘We sometimes went out to dinner with another couple, she was a friend of Don’s, that was his name, Don. I think he’d slept with her in the distant past. The guy was also a married man, also an architect. One night, we ate in a hotel in Collins Street, it was always hotel restaurants for some reason, less likely to bump into people you knew, I suppose. The other couple had had a fight before they got there, the air was crackling. The guy got smashed in about half an hour, Don was keeping pace with him. Then the woman just got up and left.’
Corin paused for breath. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this,’ she said. ‘It must be the mediator in you.’
‘Go on. The woman left.’
‘Yes. More drink, they were both pissed. And then, and this is it, the bloke took out his wallet and showed Don a picture of his kids. He was misty with pride and love. And Don, he got misty too and he took out his wallet and found a picture of his kids. They sat there looking at the pictures of each other’s families. Two proud family men. I had an overdue moment of blinding clarity, got up and left and I never, never saw him again. Put the phone down on him twenty times, wouldn’t open the door to him. That was that.’
‘Then you married the job?’
She smiled. ‘I had a few toyboys first, dabbled in boytoys, but they’re ultimately unsatisfying. Now I’m happy just rearranging things. The surface of the earth. Your turn. What happened to you?’
I thought about it, tried to sum it up. ‘I had an army marriage first. It lasted fifteen months, of which I was home for about fifteen minutes, not all that time at once. Then when I was a cop, I married an accountant, I met her when she did my tax return. I was home a bit more for that marriage but not much and I wasn’t wonderful fun when I was.’
It was her turn to wait. ‘So?’ she said.
‘She met someone she liked, a bloke with a normal job, likes to go to the movies, listen to music, read. He runs a paint shop in Doncaster, sells paint. Divorced. His wife went off with a house painter. Also a tax client of hers.’
‘And you hate the bastard.’
‘No. Well, I did for about five minutes after she told me. Four minutes. Three. Then the beeper went and I had to say, sorry, I’ve got to go to Werribee to talk some whacko out of murdering his whole family. That took most of the night and then we all had a few drinks, had a beer breakfast, and she’d gone when I got home.’
‘To the paint man?’
‘Yes. I see her sometimes. I’ve been to their house. They invited me before Christmas. To a barbecue, mostly accountants and house painters. She’s happy. He’s got time for her, talks to her like a friend, asks her what she thinks. You can see how they are together. No jagged edges.’
I finished the wine, got up and poured more into the glasses. ‘Walking away from me, I can’t fault that decision,’ I said. ‘The me I was then, anyway. I’m a different me now, a mellow and relaxed person in a stress-free occupation.’
That amused her. I was an admirer of her smile. And to provoke it was heaven.
We sat in silence for a while, looking at each other, smiling. Then we got on to other subjects, laughed, drank more wine, ate her delicious stew. It was after eleven when Corin said, ‘My bedtime. We who work with the earth go to bed early. And tomorrow we prune. Savagely.’
‘I’ll just sit here for a bit,’ I said. ‘I’m too mellow and relaxed to move. Is there a torch? I’ll put the generator off. I’ve done that.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’ She found a torch, put it on the table, went to the bathroom, came back face shining. ‘When you get to the top of the ladder,’ she said, ‘there’s a landing. Your room’s straight ahead. Spartan. But you’d know about spartan.’
‘I’m trying to forget about spartan,’ I said. ‘Goodnight.’
She touched my shoulder, her hand lingered for a moment, I could smell her perfume, then she left, walked up the ladder as if it were a staircase.
I drank a last glass of red wine, took the torch and went out to the generator. It shut down reluctantly, in the manner of diesel engines, thumped, thumped and gave a last few thumps, and all was still, black and still, no sound but the rushing sibilance of the creek. For a while, I stood outside the barn, in the dark, part of the quiet, listening.
Inside, the big room was warm, warmth that went up your cuffs, down your collar, the only light coming from the stove, a soft yellow light. I missed Corin, hated the idea that she’d left me, didn’t want to go to bed, poured another half-glass of wine, put a last log on, sat down by the fire, thought about how I didn’t want to go back to the city, ever.
I didn’t hear her over the crackling in the stove. She came on bare feet, down the ladder and across the space behind me, walked around in front of me, a tall woman in a white shift, pulled it over her head, warm light on her breasts, on her belly. She knelt astride me, took my head in both hands, kissed me, drew my head to her chest, buried my face in her warmth, in her skin, in the smell of her, took my hand and pressed it on her.
Later, lying in Corin’s bed, up in the old hayloft, still the lingering scent of dry hay, my head on her breasts, I said, ‘This is a bit of an adventure for me. Just being alone with an attractive woman. Well, any woman really.’
‘I feel betrayed. I was told that mediators took vows of abstinence. That’s why I felt so safe inviting you for the weekend.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Those are gladiators. It’s to save their strength for the combat.’
‘Oh shit,’ she said.
‘It’s all right. Mediators only proceed by consensus. They’re bound by the oath of consensus.’
‘That sounds like something from school history. In 1202, Magnus IV broke the Oath of Consensus and invaded Sangria.’
I kissed the soft skin under her chin. ‘Mountain stronghold of the Vodka Martini people. You’re right.’
The next day, we awoke in the same state of mind we’d gone to bed in, then we washed and ate. She taught me how to prune, and we pruned savagely. Light rain fell on us, stained our clothing. For lunch, we grilled venison sausages, dark tubes she’d brought, ate them with mustard on rolls. Back to work. I caught her eye from time to time, she looked at me, I couldn’t read her look. Could be interest, lust, regret, could be, Oh shit, what have I got myself into? Sex conquers nothing, explains nothing. She waited for me to fi
nish my row.
‘So,’ she said. ‘See you next year.’
We showered, drank and ate, made love in her bed, went downstairs and ate some more, made love in front of the Ned Kelly, went up the ladder. I kissed her and held her and slept as if cleansed of everything that stained me.
In the city, outside my apartment block, a dirty rain falling, leaning in at her window, I said, ‘So, another toyboy dabbled with. Now it’s back to changing the face of the earth.’
She put her hand under my chin, kissed me on the mouth, a kiss to remember. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘In one weekend, I’ve had the army and the police force. Know anyone who’s been in the air force and the navy?’
‘I’ll ask around,’ I said, ‘and call you.’
I watched her go, waved, felt a stabbbing sense of loss.
ORLOVSKY SAID, ‘I’ve gone back to that subscribers’ file, the one, you know?’
‘Yes.’
‘Saw you on TV about fifty times and it made me think.’
‘What?’
‘The first time, I only pulled the current list, the paid-up people.’
‘So?’
‘I went back, found all the subscribers they’ve ever had. I’ve got other names now, subscribers who dropped off. There’s a definite civilian here, no public service, academic connection I can find.’
‘In Melbourne?’
‘Eltham, yeah.’
‘You at home?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘There’s something else. I’m coming over.’
Orlovsky lived in Elwood, in half of a house on a respectable middle-class street. Amid the Volvos, his vehicle stood out like a garbage scow in a pleasure-boat marina. As I walked up the path to the porch, he opened the front door. We went down the passage into a big north-facing room furnished with a trestle table holding an array of computing equipment, a desk chair, an old armchair covered with a sheet and a television set on a coffee table against the wall. Like the rest of the house, the room had an air of monastic tidiness.
‘This gets more professional-looking every time I come here,’ I said.
‘Strictly a recreational user.’ Orlovsky walked over to the table and pointed at a monitor. ‘This’s the baby,’ he said.
A name and address were highlighted on the screen:
Keith Guinane
7 Scobie’s Lane
ELTHAM 3095
VICTORIA
AUSTRALIA.
There was also an Internet address and what was probably a subscriber code number.
‘Subscriber in ’97, ’98,’ Orlovsky said. ‘No one’s heard of him.
I rang around.’
I sat down in the armchair. ‘This is going to be tricky,’ I said. ‘But first, we’ve got SeineNet sitting in a Carson computer. The bloke who gave it to me’s very nervous. Can you get rid of it without going back there?’
Orlovsky nodded, sat down at the keyboard and went to work. I went into the kitchen and tapped some water from the earthenware filter barrel, had a sip. It tasted worse than water from the tap.
‘Ready to destroy here,’ Orlovsky shouted from the back room. ‘No last requests? Never have the grunt to run this thing again.’
Glass at my lips. Keith Guinane of Eltham.
‘Try the name,’ I shouted back. ‘Try the subscriber’s name.’
I was in the computer room doorway, when Orlovsky said, ‘Jesus Christ, come here.’
On the screen was the heading GUINANE, CASSANDRA (CASSIE) and the date 12 May 1986. Under it were menu boxes, dozens of them.
‘Who’s Cassie Guinane?’
Orlovsky clicked on a box. A colour photograph of a young woman appeared, dark shoulder-length hair, a strong face, good looking. She was sitting at a table, wearing a low-cut dress showing a deep cleavage. A dinner party, a celebration of some kind, perhaps a wedding reception or a twenty-first birthday. The people on either side of her had been cropped out but you could see a man’s shoulder and a bare arm.
The text beside the picture said:
Cassandra (Cassie) Natalie Guinane, born 17 October 1962, Eltham, Melbourne
Occupation: Postgraduate student
Last seen: Swanston Street, outside Newman College, University of Melbourne, apparently waiting
Time: 7.20 p.m.
Date: 12 May 1986
Dress: Long dark coat over jeans and polo-neck sweater
‘Any Keith Guinane?’
Orlovsky went back to the menu, clicked Family under Interviews.
Three names came up:
Guinane, Keith Allan, brother
Guinane, Lennox Pearse, father
Guinane, Victor Martin, brother
‘Is this stretching coincidence or what?’ said Orlovsky.
‘Bring it up.’
It took almost three-quarters of an hour to skim the Guinane material in SeineNet, me sitting on a kitchen chair next to Orlovsky. When we’d finished, he made espresso coffee and we sat outside the kitchen door in the late morning sun.
‘Buggered if I can see how this can tie in with the Carsons,’ said Orlovsky.
‘Not exactly your innocent, Cassie,’ I said.
Orlovsky sniffed his coffee. ‘Costa Rican blend. Produced by slave labour, no doubt. She was twenty-four. They found four blokes she’d possibly screwed. That’s not setting any records. For a male, they’d probably have turned up six times that many.’
‘And that would be for an underachieving wimp like you. It’s not the number. Only one of them was under thirty-five. And that was when she was twenty and he was thirty-four. The lecturer was twice her age.’
For a moment, my mind went to a lecturer, a landscape design lecturer. I shook the thought away.
‘Women find maturity appealing,’ said Orlovsky. ‘Real maturity, that is. Men grown out of childish pursuits like playing with guns, playing cops-and-robbers, that sort of thing.’
‘I find that hard to understand,’ I said. ‘Anyway, she liked older men. Which may be hugely significant or mean absolutely piss-all and I’m sorry I raised it.’
‘Hitting on the name when you’re interested in voice systems, finding it in SeineNet, it’s one of those coincidences,’ said Orlovsky. ‘Weird but there’s weirder, much weirder.’
‘Don’t tell me about them. How’s your neighbour?’
I’d briefly met the woman who lived in the other half of Orlovsky’s house. He seemed to be on more than neighbourly terms with her.
‘Gone white-water rafting in New Zealand.’ A pensive note in his voice. ‘With her upper-level management colleagues. Bonding, they want them to bond. Costs the company four grand a head.’
‘Should make them all join the Army Reserve,’ I said. ‘It’s free and I gather they bond like two-pack adhesive. Can’t separate them. After dark, they become inseparable.’
He laughed but it was a duty laugh. ‘I think she may be entering a bondish phase,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘I can’t quite work out what to do. Don’t know where to go from here. If I want to go anywhere.’
This wasn’t standard Orlovsky talk. There was vulnerability in his voice, the way he moved his shoulders, his head.
‘Things can dry up in you,’ I said. ‘That’s the worst of the life. You don’t learn to live with women. You learn to shut them out. It’s not a good way to be.’
We sat in the weak sunlight, a still winter’s day, smog haze building up over the city, drinking Costa Rican coffee. Dun-coloured sparrows who would inherit the earth in partnership with the cockroaches walked right up to our feet. Orlovsky lit a cigarette, exhaled. The smoke hung in the air, didn’t want to fade away.
‘Well, you’d know,’ he said. Barrier up, the standard Mick back in action. ‘Twice married. Unsuccessfully.’
‘You can’t be married twice successfully unless they leave you for health reasons. The first one was just practice. It doesn’t count, shouldn’t be recorded as a conviction. Listen, Mark Carson. He’d be in SeineNet. The missing
woman in Altona. Last person to see her.’
We went inside. Orlovsky called up a Find box, typed in Carson, Mark and clicked. The program replied with a list of references found: one in the Alice Carson investigation under Family, and references in the Anthea Wyllie investigation under the interviews with Mark, Stephanie Carson, Jeremy Fisher and Moira Rickard and in the investigating officer’s summary.
‘Let’s see Jeremy Fisher,’ I said.
We read the transcript of the interview. Jeremy said that he’d heard Mark leaving shortly after the last client left the Altona Community Legal Centre. A matter of minutes afterwards, he thought.
Under the transcript, the interviewer noted that Jeremy had rung him two hours later to say that he’d remembered that after hearing the client leave, he’d gone to the filing room to look for something. It was after he was back in his office that he heard Mark leave. As he’d been away for at least fifteen minutes, Mark must have been in the building for about twenty minutes after his client left.
We went to the investigating officer’s summary. He concluded that Anthea had been abducted while walking from the legal centre to the hospital, a distance she could have covered in less than fifteen minutes. He noted Jeremy Fisher’s change of story but said there was no reason to doubt him. Fisher and Carson denied any discussion of their statements. Carson’s sister, Stephanie Carson, said in a statement that she rang her brother at home that night around 9.30 p.m. and spoke to him. He said he had just come in the door. The timing matched Jeremy Fisher’s revised estimate that Mark left around 9 p.m.
Two days after Anthea Wyllie disappeared, the investigating officer concluded:
Anthea was probably abducted within ten minutes of leaving the legal centre while walking to the hospital. She would not have got into a vehicle driven by anyone she did not know and trust. We have conducted fifty-eight extensive interviews and done 171 alibi cross-checks and have not produced a suspect. It is likely that she was abducted by force by a stranger/s and the investigation will have to be broadened to take in that category of known offender.
Shooting Star Page 18