by Peter Temple
‘For some things,’ I said, ‘all you need is looks. The key to the garage, he have that on him?’
He said nothing.
I looked upon the empty winter street, trees penand-ink lines against the sky, first hint of closure now, the imperceptible dimming of the light that some part of the cortex recognises.
Nothing more to be gained from this encounter. I said my thanks. Warren didn’t seem eager to leave the comfort of the old, squat American V-8 beast.
I said, ‘Warren, Robbie, any form?’
He shook his head.
‘A person of interest?’
He didn’t congratulate me on my intelligence, opened his door. ‘Thought you’d never ask,’ he said. ‘As I understand it, definitely. The car that attended, they called in, next thing two drug squad heavies are there, the uniform boys are back on the road.’
I said, ‘I’m not cross-examining here but are you still saying they actually believe this bloke’s an OD?’
Warren turned to me, a shrug, his eyebrows went dot, dash, dot, dash above the friendly salesman’s eyes. ‘Believe?’ he said. ‘I dunno what they believe. Believe in a Big Mac and large fries. They say there’s nothin says anythin else. What they believe I haven’t got a clue, mate.’
‘Any chance of a snap of the bloke?’ Cyril didn’t have one.
He sighed. ‘I’ll see. Duty calls. Cheers.’
I watched him go. He crossed the street, walked down some distance, crossed back and went to his car. He didn’t drive off immediately, waited a while. A cautious man. Still, there was every reason to be cautious if the drug squad was involved in the matter of Robbie Colburne.
6
The Prince of Prussia was busy for a Thursday evening, any evening, at least twelve customers. To the left of the street door, a table of young people in black and shades of grey lowered the average age of the patrons by about 25 years. As I came in the person nearest to me, a cropped-haired blonde, said, ‘I mean, he’s too exhausted for sex and then I get up to pee, it’s like 2.30 a.m., he’s on the net perving at this bondage porn. Extreme bondage. It’s his net-pal in Canada tied up like a salami. How gross is that?’
‘Well, the net’s essentially a passive medium,’ said the woman next to her.
‘This was active,’ said the blonde. ‘He was interacting. I know interacting when I see it.’
I didn’t move, looked around the room. The Fitzroy Youth Club were in position at the far end of the bar, within easy reach of the door marked GENTS.
At the black and grey table, a shaven-headed man, scalp the colour of the underside of an old tortoise, said, ‘I can tell you guys worse.’
I couldn’t go without knowing worse, couldn’t move.
‘I had this partner,’ said the man, fat finger pushing at his round dark glasses, ‘he comes home, he’s faceless, right, he’s with this Arab taxi driver and he goes: “Meet Ahmed or whatever, he’s your co-driver for the night.”’
A thin woman with a beaky nose leaned forward, shook her head and made a contemptuous sound. ‘Worse? Jesus, grow up, I’ll give you worse.’
Conquering my desire to hear baldy’s poignant tale eclipsed by some other speakable act of sexual unmannerliness, I moved to join the three men at the end of the battered bar. They were not young, not shaven-headed, not in black or fashionable shades of grey. They were ancient and in colours from the chewing tobacco, snuff and washed-out old mauve cardigan end of the spectrum. Of depravity, they could know a great deal: more than 230 years of experience sat in this brown corner.
‘So, Jack,’ said Norm O’Neill, nodding at my reflection in the speckled mirror we faced, ‘deignin to grace us with your presence.’
I said, ‘I don’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘Had to take a taxi,’ said Eric Tanner, the man next to him. ‘Bloody fortune. Extortionists.’
‘I was up north,’ I said.
It was expected that the Lark would convey the men to St Kilda games, with a stop on the way to place a few bets. Once it had been to Fitzroy games but we didn’t have Fitzroy any more, Fitzroy didn’t suit the national league’s plans, so they took the club around the back and drilled it between the eyes. Now we supported St Kilda, my idea, a misguided attempt to cheer up the lads, give them something new to argue about, something to do on weekends.
‘Up where?’ said Norm, as though I’d invented a new compass point. He adjusted the fit of the spectacles on his promethean nose.
‘Queensland,’ I said. ‘Went to see my daughter.’
The heads turned to me. ‘Daughter?’ said the wizened Wilbur Ong. ‘Since when’ve you had a daughter?’
‘A while,’ I said. ‘She’s twenty-one.’ Somehow the subject of my daughter hadn’t come up in years of talking football and horses.
‘Well, this is bloody news to me,’ said Norm, aggrieved. He stared at me. ‘Now you’ve got a girl. And the young fella playin for Fremantle that’s the bloody spit of Bill? Wouldn’t know anythin about that, would ya?’
‘Not a thing,’ I said. ‘I swear.’
Bill Irish, my father, dead these many years, was a Fitzroy Football Club hero of the late 1940s, a patron of this pub. He had undoubtedly at some time stood where I was standing, resting his stonemason’s boot on the same brass rail. And his father’s workman’s boot had probably been there before his. Daniel Irish was also a Fitzroy player, career cut off in its prime by a Collingwood hoon jumping on his arm accidentally. Twice. Given these male genes, old Fitzroy supporters didn’t understand why I hadn’t played football, didn’t understand and didn’t forgive.
‘Played shockin, your team,’ said Eric. ‘The fellas got problems findin the general direction of goal.’
‘Not to mention what bloody happens when they do,’ said Norm. ‘That bugger looks like he’s outta Pentridge on day release, he misses four, couldn’t reliably piss inta the sea.’
Wilbur nodded. ‘Dunno about this coach either. Five goals behind, he lets the flower girls give up, talks to em all kind and gentle. Decent coach’d give em the red-hot poker up the backside.’ He paused. ‘Disgrace, I reckon, this team of yours.’
The trio’s eyes were on me, unblinking bird eyes, the eyes of eagle fledglings, ruthless, demanding. Even in the closing stages, Julius Caesar faced a friendlier looking audience. Better looking too, I had no doubt.
‘So now it’s my team?’ I said. ‘Well, so be it. That’s that then. I’ll stick with my team. You lot can go back to not having a team. Or go for the Brisbane Lions. No, go for Collingwood, that’s a nice team, run by television money.’
The bird eyes all flicked away. Then Norm’s came back.
‘Steady on,’ he said. ‘Man’s entitled to give his team a bit of a buttocking.’
‘A man who’s got a team, yes. Men who don’t have a team can’t.’ Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stan the publican gliding across from serving the shaven-headed man.
‘Jack, my boy.’ His smug mood was upon him.
‘Stanley. What’ve you done to your hair?’
Stan ran five pork sausages over his scalp. He’d had the sparse pubic springs shorn to a uniform height. ‘Today’s look,’ he said. ‘Got to keep up.’
‘Very fetching look,’ I said. ‘It was big in the Gulag archipelago.’
‘The what?’
‘Nothing. I see the clientele’s going upmarket.’
Stan gave his conspiratorial nod, leaned across the bar.
‘Drink vodka,’ he said, winked at me. ‘Stolly. They’re in new technology. The IT crowd.’
‘Who?’ said Norm O’Neill. ‘Eyeties? All in Carlton, the eyetalians. Accident of history. Coulda settled in Fitzroy. Makes you think, don’t it? We’da had Serge Silvagni, lotta grit that bloke, then his young fella, always rated that Steven high, I have.’
‘Barassi, he’s an eyetalian,’ said Wilbur Ong. ‘Go back a bit, them Barassis, though. Not convicts but a fair way back.’ He sighed. ‘We coulda had Barassi.’
Stan looked at the Youth Club and shook his head. ‘IT. Information technology. You blokes think the flush dunny’s new technology.’ He turned back to me, coughed a polite cough. ‘Word’s gettin around,’ he said. ‘These people, they’re on the cyberfrontier. On the other hand, they like a bit of tradition. Well, you want a bit of tradition, the Prince’s the place.’
‘Tradition?’ I said. ‘Really? Tradition of beer tasting like soap? Tradition of toasted cheese sandwiches that fight with your teeth? Tradition of needing gumboots to go to the toilet? That’s what they’re after, is it? Well, Stanley, you’re in the pound seats.’
Stan shrugged. ‘Jack, too critical, always bin your problem. Take the world as you find it, my old man always said.’
‘Morris never in his life said anything like that,’ I said. ‘Morris can’t stand the world as he finds it. And what’s this past tense? Either Morris is alive or he’s been phoning me every day from the afterlife.’
Stan’s father owned the Prince and five small commercial properties around the suburbs. I acted for him in his endlessly problematic dealings with his tenants and he sent me instructions daily from his retirement villa in Queensland.
‘On that subject,’ said Stan. He leaned his head closer. ‘Listen, Jack, the wife’s talkin to someone the other day, he reckons I could get power of attorney for the old bloke, no problem. Eighty-eight, infirm of mind, that sort of thing.’
‘Could we get a round here?’ I said. ‘The old technology crowd. Soapy beer will be fine.’
Stan didn’t move. ‘Course you’d still do the legal stuff, don’t worry about that.’
I put my face within five centimetres of his. ‘Stanley, when I detect any signs of mental infirmity in Morris, you’ll be the first to know. As things stand, the message is more likely to go in the other direction.’
Stan worked this out, sighed, went to get the beer. I settled down to a serious discussion with the repentant Youth Club of the Saints’ chances against West Coast on Friday night. Perfect hatred of the non-Victorians drove out any fears about the ability of our side to orientate themselves towards goal.
I drove home through a cold drizzle, the Lark’s erratic wipers smearing the lights. It was just after seven, the truce time, day people retreating, night people not ready to advance. At the Queen’s Parade lights, I punched the radio, got a boring man talking about tax reform, punched again, got a silly pair of teenagers talking about bad exam experiences, punched.
A voice said: Should the new government have scrapped its predecessor’s granting of a licence for a privately run ski resort and casino at Cannon Ridge? Let’s hear your views on 1300 3333, that’s 1300 3333. I’m Linda Hillier, talking with you on 3KB, Melbourne’s station for the new century.
It was a voice I hadn’t heard for a long time. Drivers behind me began to hoot. I came back to the present and got the Lark moving, turned left. Outside the boot factory, parked under a dripping elm, I listened to Linda Hillier and her callers. She had the talkback touch: silk and steel, kiss them and kick them. Touch had always been her strong point. Early in our relationship, we’d sat in this car at this spot, glued at the mouth, hands going about their business, the business hands want to go about.
But that was long ago.
I killed the radio and lugged the shopping bags upstairs. Each year, the eventide falls faster and only sound and activity can hold the gate. I lit the fire, put on some Mahler, loud, got busy cooking, rang Cyril Wootton’s numbers, all of them. I found him in the last refuge of the scoundrel: home.
‘My God,’ he said, ‘where are you, what’s that ghastly noise?’
I turned down the volume. ‘The person. There’s room for speculation here.’
‘Matter’s closed. You’ve been remunerated.’ The clipped military tone was blurred by a long day of duplicity and substance abuse.
‘Time on the meter, as you well know. Tell the client your information is that the official explanation doesn’t hold up.’
I could hear him suck his teeth.
‘Get back to you, old fruit,’ he said.
Back was five minutes. ‘The client would like a meeting. Maximum discretion is required.’
‘And who,’ I said, ‘is better equipped to provide that?’
Then I rang Cam’s latest number. A woman answered, light voice, not a voice I knew. ‘I’ll see if Mr Delray is in the mood for callers,’ she said.
Cam came on. ‘Jack.’ He’d been close enough to hear my voice. What did that mean? Silly question.
‘I’d cross Cyril off the list,’ I said. ‘There are things you can’t fake.’
‘Glad to hear it. Monday morning, free early? Eight-fifteen? We could eat.’
‘What meal is that, your time?’
‘Too soon to know yet. Pick you up where?’
‘Charlie’s. He’s away. I’ve been slacking. Bring something.’
I ate in front of the television, watching the first part of a British drama about a middle-aged artist with an unsympathetic wife, a doctor. The man hit the singing sauce closer to breakfast than lunch, rooted the nanny in the mid-afternoon lull and, before dinner, wine glass in hand, delivered a withering attack on bureaucrats, multinationals, cultural imperialists, and people he didn’t like much.
I identified strongly. Not much later, I went to bed and succumbed to the arms of Milo. One day these crumbly grains will be a listed substance, prescription only, traded on cold streets, the price floating on the surging sea of supply and demand.
7
‘Do you know who I am?’ the man in the perfect dark suit asked.
I nodded. My inclination on seeing him had been to leave and, later, to chastise Wootton severely for not warning me. ‘What would you like me to call you?’
He hesitated for an instant. ‘Colin will be fine.’
The waiter arrived, a plump young woman in black, not fully alert yet. In that condition, we were companions.
‘Weak latte for me, please,’ said Mr Justice Colin Loder.
‘Short black.’
The judge was short and trim. His curly dark hair was razor-cut, parted at the left with the aid of a ruler. He looked as if he’d gone to sleep before 9 p.m. the night before, and come to our meeting fresh from swimming five kilometres followed by a full-body massage. I envied that in a man.
We were sitting at the window table in a cafe called Zanouff’s in Kensington, in Bellair Street, across the road from the station. You could see the trains taking the condemned into the city.
‘Don’t judges have flunkeys they send out on business like this?’
‘Good flunkeys are hard to find these days,’ he said.
Colin Loder put his elbows on the table, put his fingertips together. Steepling they called it in the body-language trade. ‘You have something to tell me about Robert’s death.’
‘I don’t think it was an accidental overdose.’
A deadpan look. ‘Why would you know better than the police?’
I gave him a dose of steepling. He noticed. ‘It’s hard to know what the police know,’ I said. ‘You can’t find out from what they say.’
He unsteepled, moved his mouth, almost a smile. ‘Like politicians. What do you know?’
‘I don’t like the proposition that someone doesn’t come home for days and when he does, he accidentally overdoses in his garage.’
Colin Loder’s black eyes were on me. ‘But it’s possible, isn’t it?’
I said, ‘Yesterday I was told that the police were interested in Robbie before his death.’
He touched his chin with a finger, brushed the blue cleft. ‘Told by?’
I looked at him, letting him know I wasn’t going to answer, my expression telling him, you’re not in your court now, Mr Justice Loder.
He held my gaze and then his mouth moved, a tiny twitch of the ruby lips. He’d got it.
‘What does interested mean?’ he said. ‘Exactly?’
‘It’s an inexact term.’
‘Here we go,’ said the plump serving person, striving to be cheerful. ‘Weak latte and a short.’
We watched a train leave the station.
Colin Loder sipped, put his cup down. He wasn’t going to lift it again. He wasn’t meeting me for coffee, probably didn’t drink coffee, for health and fitness reasons.
I tried mine. Terrible. ‘Would you know about police interest in Robbie?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘No, I wouldn’t know about that.’
Spots of rain on the tarmac outside. I wanted to end this encounter, drive to Meaker’s and there drink decent coffee and dwell on more interesting matters. For example, the form for Cranbourne.
‘Well, I thought I should express my doubts to you,’ I said. ‘I’ve done that. And the coroner will probably agree with the police.’
I stood up. He didn’t.
‘It’s Jack Irish?’
‘Yes.’ He knew that.
‘Someone said he couldn’t understand how you kept your practising certificate.’
‘Someone?’
‘I mentioned your name to someone.’
‘Tell someone I’m of a lovable disposition and my legal clients don’t complain,’ I said. ‘That’s how I keep my practising certificate. Nice meeting you.’
He held up a placatory hand, a pink-palmed soft hand. ‘Sit down, Jack.’
Reluctantly, I did.
‘I’m sorry,’ the judge said. ‘That was impertinent of me. And I’m sure your doubts are well founded.’
I didn’t want an apology. I wanted a reason to leave.
‘Well, obviously we need to know more,’ he said.
‘I don’t think there’s anything more I can do.’
He looked down. ‘I’d deem it a kindness.’
Pleading is hard to bear, even a judge’s pleading. ‘It would save lots of money if someone gave me Robbie’s history,’ I said.
‘This may sound strange, but I don’t know anything about him. Just that he came from Sydney and was a casual barman at The Green Hill.’