‘Oh, it’s back to work for me.’ She gulped the remainder of her cappuccino.
As she stood, he caught her freckled hand, and she gave him a smile of cautious curiosity.
‘What did you tell him about Mina?’ he asked.
Her gaze turned speculative, then she glanced at the work crowd, which was nearly upon her, and the young couple who stood waiting in the doorway of her shop.
‘I would have clammed up right off,’ she told him, ‘but like I said, my guard was down. He’s smart that one. Had me talking about Mina’s dad before I realised he didn’t know what half the town’s been whispering about for months.’
‘Which is?’
‘Her dad’s back in town.’
‘Why does that matter?’
Her small eyes went wide with astonishment at his apparent ignorance. ‘He’s a criminal, her dad. About a dozen years ago, he pissed off with most of the funds set aside for the docklands re-development. Word is he’s behind these break-ins.’
Chapter 11
ANNOYED BY THE PHONE buzzing in her shoulder bag, Mina switched it off and surveyed the house where Arnie Schmidt had died. A chill quivered across her skin. In all the Crime Stoppers reports she’d seen over the last few weeks, she had somehow missed that the Schmidt murder had happened less than one block from her home.
The best days of the weatherboard cottage were long gone. Subsidence had left the house with a definite southward lean, as though it would flatten beneath one good northerly. A ratty couch had been so long on the narrow veranda that it had faded to the colour of dust, and the tattered and lumpy seat cushions bore the imprint of regular use. A chipped mug rested on the weathered boards, half-filled with grey scum blooming with bacteria.
‘You people are vultures. Piss off!’
Behind the rickety screen door stood a pink-skinned woman with a straggly bob almost the same shade as her lavender sweatshirt.
‘I’m a neighbour.’ Mina pointed to the block behind the cottage. ‘I live a few houses back.’
‘So? What do you want?’
Now that she was here, she wasn’t so sure. She’d had some idea that if she could tie the medals to the thefts, it might help her find a link between the robberies and her father’s watch. It had made sense when she left Gibson’s.
The harried woman stared at her, her mouth slightly open. She was the right age for a daughter or niece, and in the hallway behind her were moving boxes and the disarray of packing. She should apologise for invading her grief, but she’d learned long ago that this town viewed ‘sorry’ as weakness. So she went on the attack.
‘Who are you? I’ve lived here my entire life and I’ve never seen you here before.’
‘I’ve more right to be here than any of that lot.’ The woman nodded at the trio standing across the road. ‘I’ve already had to chase out a couple of nosey parkers.’
‘As long as they are standing there, you’re safe.’ Mina didn’t need to look to know that Caro Davison was among them. She’d already seen her ultra-blonde wouldn’t-move-in-a-hurricane hairdo gleaming in the sun. ‘They’re like snakes. It’s a lot safer when you know where they are.’
The woman pulled back her head as if Mina had hissed at her. Then she grinned. ‘They tried to tell me Uncle Arnie had promised them some of his stuff, but the Arnie I knew wouldn’t give that lot the time of day if he was wearing a watch and had two to spare.’
Speaking of watches … ‘I’m hoping you can help me.’
Suspicion sharpened the woman’s gaze. Mina could have offered one of her newly pressed business cards and let her think it was professional, but it didn’t feel right, as if it would taint her business before it really got started.
‘I was after a bit more information on the stolen medals.’
‘There’s no reward. The paper might have claimed they’re worth something, but they’re not.’
‘It’s just that I might have seen one of them. You wouldn’t have any photos, would you?’
‘Hundreds. Arnie was a bit of a snapper in his day.’ The niece assessed her with a crooked smile. ‘You look like you could use a cuppa. If you want, you can look through the photos while I keep packing.’
Mina hesitated. It was what she wanted, but the woman’s flip from rude to friendly seemed too abrupt.
‘No need to worry. The place has been cleaned, if that’s what’s bothering you.’
She hadn’t thought of that.
‘Besides, that lot of biddies will have an eagle on us, even if it’s to make sure you don’t walk out with something they want.’
The woman flattened herself against the door and held the flyscreen open with a solid arm, introducing herself as Joyce when Mina slipped past.
Inside was dark and stuffy. It smelled like old linen stuffed too long at the back of a cupboard. There was no sign of the violence that had taken place here, but she caught a whiff of antiseptic and shuddered.
Joyce made them a fresh cuppa then talked Mina through the stack of photograph albums as she wrapped and packed the detritus of her uncle’s home. Arnie Schmidt’s life seemed tinged with grey: the silvered timber; the wallpaper faded to a patternless, rose-tinted platinum; the frayed carpet as dingy as the ash in the grate of his fireplace.
‘Quite the agitator he was in his day.’ Joyce slurped some tea then went back to wrapping a set of shot glasses decorated with race horses. ‘Was always protesting something. Do you remember the wharfie strikes in the seventies? No, of course you don’t. Too young. Well, Arnie was in the thick of that. I remember Aunt Millie being furious with him for not bringing in any money. She was doing double shift in the laundry. Red raw, her hands were. But old Arnie, he said God didn’t put him on this earth to be a scab and no woman was going to tell him different.’
Newspaper crackled as Joyce took up another page and screwed it around a champagne flute.
‘Did you ever see his medals?’ Mina asked. ‘I can’t seem to find any pictures.’
‘Had pride of place in that old camphorwood box over there.’ Joyce pointed to a roll-top writing desk stuffed with papers. There was no sign of such a box. ‘Oh, seems I’ve already packed it up. Well, he had them out every Anzac Day. Must be some photos of him in his suit and medals.’
Joyce snapped up a photo album Mina hadn’t yet checked, flicked through the pages then cast it aside. She got through three before she found something.
‘Here we are. Look.’
The photo showed a thin man with a steady gaze and broad cheekbones beneath his wrinkles. His jacket hung loosely and his trousers crumpled over his shoes. That gaze of his was weirdly familiar, but she was certain she’d never met anyone called Arnie Schmidt.
The collection of medals pinned to his chest was too grainy to be sure. She flicked through a few more pages, but there seemed no logic to the arrangement. In some, Arnie was a blurry young man in black and white, in another he was plump and middle-aged holding a child swaddled in pink.
‘That’s me. Hard to believe I was ever that little.’ Joyce went back to her packing. ‘We lived here for a while, you know. Me and Mum and Dad all crowded in that tiny little room off the back, and Millie and Arnie in theirs. Of course, he could have let me have that box room of his, but he wouldn’t give up his darkroom, no matter that most years he couldn’t afford the chemicals.’
Joyce launched into memories of her uncle while Mina murmured responses and flipped through the albums.
Five medals had been stolen from this house. The description in the news reports she’d accessed at Gibson’s gave her enough to be sure that one of them fit what she’d seen beneath that tea towel, but she wanted to be certain.
‘Did many people know about Arnie’s medals?’ she asked.
‘Family did. He didn’t have too many friends.’
‘Was anything else taken?’
‘Some kind of mantel clock, I think. I could see the void in the dust, otherwise I wouldn’t have remembered it. Fancy, it was. W
hite. Gold edging. Millie was always keen on that old stuff.’
‘What about an old fob watch? Did he have one of them?’
‘Not that I can think of, dear. Why do you ask?’
Mina shrugged and turned the pages of the leather-bound album as Joyce told her about life with Arnie. She’d almost reached the back of the album when a handful of loose photographs slid onto her lap. It was some kind of party, the typical backyard ‘b.y.o grog’ party. There were faces that she recognised from the days when her family had thrown their own get-togethers, the days when her biggest worry was being caught kissing Pete Davison.
‘Of course, Arnie wasn’t too old to shake a few trees.’ Joyce slurped her tea.
Mina brushed her hair from her face as she looked up. ‘Pardon?’
‘Tearing down the Old Mill. Arnie was dead against the Port Dock development. Kicked up quite a fuss, according to that up-herself blonde outside.’
‘I haven’t heard any protest about the Old Mill.’
‘It’s been in The Messenger.’
The Messenger was a free community paper, filled with council talk and community concerns and lots of trade and personal ads. Mina had got into the habit of putting it in the recycle bin almost as soon as it got tossed over her fence. She got all the council news from Forbes and she’d had her fill of the local community.
It was strange that Forbes hadn’t mentioned Arnie in connection with the development. Energising Failie’s historical docklands was a big part of his campaign, and why he needed to keep the residents and traders on his side. Still, it wasn’t like Forbes was going to be happy about the old man’s murder.
‘Some developer was round here for a while,’ Joyce said. ‘Arnie wouldn’t take the bait though he needed money, sure enough. They tried to convince me to put him in a home.’
‘They’ve been hounding me too. They want to buy up several blocks and knock down the lot.’
‘No sense of history, Arnie used to say. No sense at all, if you ask me. Definitely no heart.’ Joyce gave a tremulous laugh. ‘Mind of his own, that one.’
The poor woman had made her tea and kept up a companionable chatter and all Mina had done was sit there staring at photographs. There were a dozen boxes taped and marked and the room still looked full.
‘Probably should have started on this lot a long time ago,’ Joyce said. ‘Maybe then they wouldn’t have been at me to put the old boy in a home. Danger to himself, they said.’
Joyce wiped at a tear with trembling fingers.
Mina put the album on the cluttered table. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’
‘No, sweetheart. I’m just glad of the company. You keep looking. If it helps to get his medals back or catch the bastards who did it, that’s help enough.’
Mina still had the loose photographs in her hand. There were empty leaves in the back of the book; the least she could do was put them in the album. She fanned them out.
‘Oh my God.’
‘What is it? You’ve gone pale as a Pom.’ Joyce hovered nearby, concern marring her pink forehead. ‘Have a sip of tea.’
Mina picked up the photograph. The flash had given them red-eye, but she’d know Gazza and Stubbsie anywhere. When her dad was around, they’d hung out at the Everton place more than their own homes. Sitting between them, smiling, beer bottle raised in salute, was the old man she’d known as Smithy.
‘Is this Arnie?’ Mina pointed to Smithy.
Joyce plucked the image from her hands. ‘Why, yes it is. Imagine that. I never knew him to socialise. Wonder where this is.’ She flipped the photo as if the location or date would be written on the back.
Mina placed her hand over her throat where it felt like her heart was trying to beat its way out. It was the barbeque, the last time she’d seen her dad. At about that time her dad’s pet project had been bringing Smithy into the community. Had there been more to it? Smithy was dead, her dad’s watch had somehow ended up in the same horde as the old man’s medals, and the rumours her dad was back in town just wouldn’t go away.
She looked at Joyce. ‘Who tried to convince Arnie to sell up?’
‘One of those council-funded home support people came nosing around. Someone had said Arnie wasn’t able to look after himself, that this place had become a hazard. My money’s on that developer Ronny Clarke.’ Joyce regarded the room, which was a testament to a lifetime of hoarding. ‘Arnie was convinced they wanted to keep him quiet. He rang the council every day, by all accounts, telling them someone was trying to push the old-timers out of their shops on Commercial Road. Kept going on about some protection racket. Of course, we all knew he was just tilting at windmills.’
Arnie wasn’t the only one. She’d come here looking for an easy explanation for why her dad’s watch was in the same horde as Arnie Schmidt’s medals. She should have known better. Jacko Everton had never made anything easy. All these years she’d convinced herself he was long gone, that she could overcome his tainted legacy and everything the town threw at her. The watch had shaken her certainty; she’d stolen it without a second thought. What if they were right about her, that underneath it all she was just like Jacko Everton?
Chapter 12
‘WHAT’S THIS BLOODY GIRL up to?’ Kegs’ question spat flecks of meatball sub across his dash.
Dunny wouldn’t quit looking through those binoculars. ‘Visiting or something.’
‘Or something, is right.’
The girl had ‘visited’ across half the city, near enough. It wasn’t hard to guess what she was doing, but he didn’t want to say it out loud. And he sure didn’t want to tell the boss what he thought.
The Everton chick’s 180b was parked a little way along the narrow street, but a bit of luck had let him score a park just about opposite the house she’d entered. He’d lost count of how many places she’d ‘visited’ since she’d lobbed up to Schmidt’s door. Every step she took along those familiar driveways made his chest tight and set those bells that had tolled at his old mum’s funeral ringing in his ears.
Dunny glanced at him. ‘Jeez, mate, you got half that sandwich down your front.’
‘The way this chick drives,’ he said, mopping up the red globs of sauce with his fingers then licking them clean, ‘I’m lucky I haven’t got meatballs in my lap.’
For some reason, that cracked the kid up. Dunny had the strangest sense of humour he’d ever come across, but there was a lot peculiar about this one. In fact, he was a straight out freak. But he kind of grew on a bloke.
Dunny had only just got back with the sandwiches when the girl had come flying out of that antiques place. Kid nearly walked right into her. Lucky thing she had her eyes glued to a sheet of paper. The chick was in a hurry, too. She’d planted her foot so hard, her crappy orange Datsun squealed up a whole lot of smoke and left two skid marks on the pristine street. She’d gone straight to Schmidt’s place. That had chewed him up a bit. Since then she’d led them across half the city, stopping at particular houses, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes as much as half an hour. He couldn’t figure this bloody sheila out, but him and women had never got along. Strange, all of them. And this one was weirdest of the lot, what with her bomb of a car, her fancy antiques, and driving all over town like a maniac.
She’d been in this house a while now. The owner was an old queer, silk scarf knotted at his neck. Wore mascara too, if Dunny wasn’t making it up. Liked a chat, most likely. Probably got tea and scones laid out on the coffee table telling her about his theatre days.
Hell! The elastic on his shorts was cutting off his circulation. He could murder a beer, but the kid had finished the Esky and hadn’t even had the sense to buy them both a Coke at the Subway place. How he got himself a gig like this, he didn’t know. Never should have opened his mouth, that’s what. Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. Wasn’t that the saying? But begging wasn’t a place you wanted to get to with Slab Carlson.
He checked his watch. Just about time to call in, but h
e wanted something good to report. Mr Carlson wasn’t one for bad news. And so far, that was all he had.
Bugger it. He’d finish his lunch first.
‘Here we go.’ Dunny adjusted the binoculars. ‘She’s on the move again.’
The Everton chick waved to the old queer and hurried to her car. He shoved in one last mouthful; the filling was cold, the bread tough as old boots, but he was starving. As she had at every other stop the girl marked off something on a sheet of paper, tossed it on the seat beside her and took off with the sputtering growl of a rusted-out muffler.
With a sigh, Kegs chucked the remains of his sub out the window and followed.
As they drove through the busy traffic, he tried to loosen his shorts and unstick his shirt from the seat. There just wasn’t enough room. The fan was on high but just blew hot air, and in this weather he worried the engine might overheat. At least his car wasn’t a rust-bucket like hers.
They followed her into a leafy street lined with purple-flowering trees; the kind that dropped leaves to the pavement and made it slippery so a bloke had to walk slow in case his knee gave out. She parked at the curb. He pulled in across the road and down a bit, then yanked on the park brake. He and Dunny watched her unlatch the little wrought-iron gate and march up the red brick path bordered by roses. Before she even lifted her arm to knock, the front door was opened by a bloke in a beige cardigan. Kegs could picture the interior of old wood and rich carpeting. The place held a lot more than that, including a state-of-the-art alarm system, as he’d found out the hard way. It was the last job he’d pulled, and the first time he’d stood up to Mr Carlson. He’d been on thin ice ever since.
He checked his watch again. Shit. He should have called Mr Carlson ten minutes ago. It was a toss-up which the boss hated more—bad news or waiting. As soon as the girl went inside, he picked up his mobile and hit the numbers. No point keeping Mr Carlson waiting any longer. It rang just long enough to let him think he might be off the hook.
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