'Flatterer,' she scoffs.
Nikki, the Rottweiler, occupies the one comfortable chair in the lounge-room and Alison really wants to sit down in it. Chandra commands obedience and the large bitch slowly retires to her sheepskin in the bedroom. Alison mentions her son, Harold, and Chandra sighs, realising she will have to move into her counselling mode.
51
…all very plausible…
Sean and I walked safely away from any eavesdroppers along the breakwater in the wind that was scattering the showers, casually talking.
'Yeah, who?' I asked.
'Al the Pal, Alison,' he answered. 'She reads palms. Nice chick.'
'I hope you don't call me fowl when I'm not around. I know Alison,' I said, and added, 'Sort of.' We strode into the teeth of the easterly. 'Let's get down to brass tacks, Sean. What is going on?'
He caught up. 'You ever been to the Mardi Gras?'
'Only as a cop,' I mumbled, looking at the spitting sea, saw its expanse and recalled how the Celtic song that Alison sang had seemed to pierce the veils of time. She must have presented yet another face to Sean as he was sure she was a Gay Coalition lesbian. I assumed, however, differently.
Not about to get into the many facets of Alison's character, personalities whatever, with Sean anyway, I asked, 'Sean, why did you think I put you in? And for what?'
'Hold it right there,' he grabbed me. 'He told me it was a woman. Ex-cop.'
'Who?' I moved out of his grip.
'Crankshaw,' he whined.
'The Crank?' What, exactly, did the Commander know about my dealings with Philippoussis? 'What do you know about drugs? That's his specialty.'
He didn't answer, but said, 'I gather he hates a poofter more than anything in the world. Scum of the earth, we are.'
We took the cliff path and I shouted, 'I thought you didn't indulge. You told me you were a radical celibate!'
Sean's voice began to shake. 'I never ever touch them.'
I stopped and faced him, 'Who?'
'Boys,' he admitted. 'Youths.'
The air was tense with salty spray and negative ions as if the barometric pressures of land and sea were at odds. I stood still to breathe in more, turned towards him and said, 'Let's walk.' I gestured up to the old lighthouse on the highest part of the foreshore. We passed conscientious older people looking after their health, and younger types with dogs. Lads, the mirror-cleaning, the lipstick, Neil's body, tick-tocked through my head as I paced out.
'Who wrote "murderer" in the hall, Sean? Not that I believe it,' I don't think he heard me.
From the white-washed relic of white man's history, we climbed halfway down the cliff-face. It seemed as though we had the wild Pacific Ocean to ourselves as we settled onto a couple of rocks. A perilous position, but I didn't want us even seen together by whomever. Here, an inch or so away from a nasty fall, Sean and I had to trust each other. We were both fit. When I looked at him I could see it was not me he was really afraid of. In fact, he looked more secure at the edge of sheer rock than around people.
'Okay, all of it,' I demanded.
Sean relaxed into his explanation and, oddly, started with the Mardi Gras. Before the first one, when he was arrested, homosexuals used amyl nitrate to enhance the sex experience; then they began experimenting with designer drugs to unite the two highs, speed, dope, LSD, until they came up with Ecstasy, which is the ideal dance-party drug. With E, the warehouse-rave organisers had the perfect chemical. It kept the punters dancing all night, it kept them happy and controllable. If not raided they made a load of money. I had no idea Sean knew so much about drugs, except of course, steroids. I said this.
He expanded. 'I don't really, well, not for a long time. This is all just theorising. I don't know. A group of friends of mine, one a school-teacher, all with the same tastes and the same respect for boundaries, decided on a style of entertainment all our own. Like, Bazza's the drama teacher at the High, and I have the hall. We never touched the boys or gave them drugs, only a bit of grass, but that was frowned upon and certainly not in my aerobics hall. What we did was fun. Dress-ups, games. High camp shenanigans, quoting Oscar Wilde, Jean Genet, you know, wit and culture. These boys, like, needed it. Needed to know they weren't alone, that there was an honourable and long tradition behind them. It was education. James Baldwin. Socrates. For Christ's sake, our intentions were noble.' I could tell these thoughts had been running around his head over and over, probably disturbing his sleep.
'The boys, Sean?' I prompted.
'The pick, the cream,' he eulogised. 'Their intelligence and their beauty. It was my fantasy come true. I don't know if they had sex with each other, but none of the adults did. That was our solemn vow, and I kept it. I don't any more. Look at these.' He pointed to the healing shiners on his face.
Staring out to sea, I asked, 'Where did you score those?'
'I refused sex with a guy,' was the reply.
'Assault and battery,' I named the crime. 'Did you charge him?'
Sean shook his head with the same resignation and lack of litigious bottle you see in many women, the power and connections of the attacker too much to take on.
Still looking straight ahead, I pressed, 'Was one of your boys, by any chance, Neil Waughan?'
'Uh huh. Yes. May he rest in peace,' he sobbed. Sean's tears moved me. I bit back my own sentiment.
'Why does everything turn to shit?' Sean screeched at the waves crashing beneath us.
'The Friday evening before the dance on Saturday, was that a dress-up day?' Now I looked at him.
He nodded, 'School sports day.'
'So?' I urged. A sea eagle rode the air currents.
'Two of them came, asking if they could use stuff. They had a plan, to walk through town as girls they said. But,' he said. 'Bazza and I were busy with the Elizabethan costumes. They just wanted modern stuff, chiefly make-up.'
'Who was the other boy?' I asked, snuggling into the shelter of the cliff as the wind increased.
'Hugh,' he confirmed my suspicions. 'Oh, he chickened out at the last minute. Neil was totally disgusted. They left together about five. Like a straight couple. They were up to something.'
'And,' I sighed, you didn't see them again?'
'No,' he snapped.
Sean was falling into a fug of self-pity, so I shot my question sharply, 'Did you know Hugh died as well?'
'Yes,' he answered slowly. 'Well, it must have been the Cat.'
Giving up I rationalised, 'I had no idea you were into that so, no, it wasn't me. What did the cops want you for?'
'To harass me. Crankshaw. Filth,' he spat. 'I got the impression he was not sharing his intelligence with his colleagues.'
'How did you get that impression?' I interrogated.
'Just the way he shut other dees out. He reckons paedophiles use young boys to experiment with new designer drugs. He was trying to say that was what our group did. But I told him we were clean.' Out on the wet coastline I could see the petulant Queen Elizabeth the First gliding around with her courtiers on roller-blades in the wind-reddened face of my friend, the queer. 'Not that he would understand the word.'
Although I felt I didn't need to ask, I inquired, 'Did he believe you?'
Sean sparked up a bit. 'Doubt it. But I have no idea. There were times when I thought he was onto a real gang of predators, if so, I'm with him. Give homosexuals a bad name, they do. But he is on the wrong horse, heavying me. My phone's tapped. Well, he won't find anything. I don't have those connections.'
'The distinction might be a bit subtle for him,' I commented, knowing the Crank to be of the old school. 'Did he ask you to go undercover by the way?'
'Beg yours?' He glanced suspiciously up at a single-engine aircraft making its slow way along the coastline, flying low.
'Nothing,' I muttered. 'He depends more on informers than proper coppers. There is, probably, another group out there without your ethical stance. Neil, and maybe, Hugh, got involved with them as well. Probably too trustin
g. Too young. Who was your assailant?'
'Tow-truck driver by the name of Paul. Forget you know anything about him, he would squash you like a beetle, Margot. Long criminal history,' confided Sean. 'There must be some alliance between him and the Crank because, otherwise, things don't add up.'
'Why was Tiger Cat hanging around your gym all the time?' I asked, 'Any link between her and your guy, Paul?'
Sean meditated on the roiling sea beneath us, and mused, 'How am I going to keep the business going with all this aggro? She is some pill freak! I think she raided my cabinet but all she would have found was Sustagen and astringents. Then she offered me deals on human growth hormones. Incredible, like she wanted to distribute illegal gear through my establishment, but she really didn't have a clue what it was about. Not that I do.'
I laughed, 'Is it possible the Crank is upright? Using her?'
Sean made out he was taken aback. 'Actually, could be I suppose.' Sean shook his head. 'She's harmless, I reckon. She didn't dob me in, now I think about it. Talking with you has made me feel better, Margot. I wasn't myself with all the fear. What the Cat was on about was pathetic. She's crooked all right, but dumb.' He nudged me. 'Both of us bent queers but straight as arrows.'
Not as close to him as he would have liked me to be, I protested, 'But Tiger Cat is so in love with the power of being surreptitious, the idea that you could have been defending your virtue would not have occurred to her! She wouldn't even think the term outside the context of a lawsuit.'
'She's a scout for a gay and lesbian community bank they're trying to set up in Sydney. Anyone who entrusts their savings to her needs his head read. She's on commission,' Sean divulged as if he had just remembered.
'Money!' I exclaimed, 'Knock me down with a feather!' I put that small fact on hold. It could be helpful elsewhere. Shaking my head, I noticed there was a fisherman's goat track along the side of the cliff. 'I take it you didn't invest?' Complete dismissal of Tiger Cat was not going to help me. I wanted get to the bottom of the boys' deaths. The Crank being onto a paedophile ring rang true; it explained his treatment of Philippoussis, who was fundamentally a good heterosexual man, not grubby enough to infiltrate. Hardened slimy crooks would see him coming, and he would get nothing from them. Pip didn't even think his trips to the marina were worth much. There was all that stuff on Neil's computer that Alison had kept going, which in context could be very useful.
'Anyway, she's left town, I'm told.' Sean was speaking. 'You know I really believed it was you, and I felt hurt. But now I see he was being clever in not actually naming you.'
'Well, he lied, Sean. It probably pissed him off, you being a red herring and all,' I concluded. 'But the lads probably thought they could insinuate their way into the lion's den.'
'Things must be getting hot for a couple of kids to be a threat,' he muttered. 'Though they can turn on you.' His bitterness bit through the biting wind.
'They mess up your aerobics room? Hugh's friends? Neil's friends? Your youths?' I was convinced I understood the rocketing testosterone of adolescents, from sensitivity to aggression, from loyalty to hatred. 'Don't fancy that teacher's chances in this district.'
'Bazza? No,' confirmed my trainer. 'He's leaving. More's the pity.'
It started to rain. As we left our rock roost, Sean and I had a choice.
'You or me?' I pointed to the goat track.
'How is your Achilles tendon?' Sweetness and Light was full of concern now that he had unburdened himself of his own troubles.
'A vulnerability you might say. A blessing in disguise. I'd like you to get me back to fitness over the winter,' I said, feeling a nostalgia for the simple focused life of the athlete.
'Signed your new Nike contract, yet?' Sean, the small businessman, was on the ball.
'It's in my in-box. Haven't dealt with it yet. Nor have I done anything about the audition, yet. Been busy the last couple of weeks.' I made excuses.
'You should.' He looked up at another aeroplane beneath the clouds. 'I'll take the low road and you'll take the high road and I'll be in Scotland afore you.'
'And the rest.'
'Be careful.'
'Take care.'
We parted, both better off for having cleared the air between us. I made it to my car before the rain really hit.
Flicking through my notes as to the aims and objectives of my day, I decided on my next destination. Dr Neville was actually a jolly, harassed and popular GP. His waiting room was warm and full of tiny tots, all playing happily in a well-stocked pen of sensible toys. Their mothers flicked through a generous stack of expensive glossies which combine quite interesting articles with fabulous ads targeting the power-suited woman in black and white with a spot of colour, the perfume, alcohol, jewellery on offer. I didn't manage to finish reading about baby-farming in South America as he was prepared to squeeze me in between two appointments, at reception, while checking the state of hysteria behind me with a sweep of his eyes.
After that, I drove to the cop shop. Front desk directed me to an entirely new set-up for the Detective Constable I wished to see. Different building. Different atmosphere.
The autopsy conducted on Maria proved her death was accidental, Philippoussis told me. Adamantly. 'Absolutely accidental.' He murmured, looking vaguely about at the as-yet-unpacked boxes on the floor, 'I mean who would deliberately put a toad in a kettle?'
'Indeed.' Sofia, Cybil, Jill, Libby, Alison, I was not about to speculate. Any of the junkies, Maria herself.
'Unfortunately,' he continued, 'she had been in proximity to both Hugh Gilmore and Neil Waughan the night they died. And the possibility that, Hollywood style, someone was running around murdering people has to be scotched, formally.'
With an office to himself, a change had come over my man. He was altogether more comfortable. His phone rang. Philippoussis held down the mouthpiece and said, 'One of your friends.'
'Who?' I wanted to know, but he wouldn't say.
'Seems like your Tiger Cat has done a bunk,' he said.
'So I believe. She is a member of an Internet group called House-sitters. She's been living rent-free for yonks. Probably just moved to another,' I said. But I wondered, 'Why would she leave the area?'
He was nonchalant, unforthcoming. 'Why not?'
'They pay a couple of hundred a year and when people go on holidays, they move in, look after the cat, mow the lawn and take in the junk mail. Suits both parties,' I said, playing for time. 'She could have got another one here.'
'Wonder who gave her a reference,' he said, as if he knew more about her shady activities than I did but didn't consider them important.
'All of them, probably.' He handled some papers on his desk with a finalising gesture. He stood up to fish files out of cartons. Myself? I kept the conversation going. 'Neil's doctor said he had a heart condition. Nothing particularly serious, except he had to watch his intake, keep his stress levels down. Apparently, too much adrenalin, even, was risky.'
We compared notes and hypotheses. Philippoussis' change in confidence was caused by his secondment to the Coroner's Office. Now he was independent of the Crank and answerable to the magistrate. The deputy coroner turned out to be a go-get-'em, young female solicitor, with brains, energy, body, the lot. Perhaps too ambitious to be loaded with a policeman for life, let alone Greek in-laws. But for now, Pip was happier than I'd known him. For some superstitious reason, he thanked me for it. He was out of the octopus reach of intelligence-based policing. The other detectives had had to hand over their work and there would be a full inquiry into Neil Waughan's death. Shuffling a manila folder, he found a sheet which listed Neil's regular medications: the kid was on Valium. I glanced at other pages, some with photographs attached. CID had done a better job than Phil had previously indicated. Hugh Gilmore was a classic disillusioned rural male using heroin at the age of sixteen, into a bit of petty thieving, one hospital admission, overdose. He was the link to the paedophiles in the motor cruiser. The police had noted sightings o
f the vessel, but it was not registered at the marina. They had not, from the papers I was going through, anyway, the information I had, that Hugh and Neil left Sean Dark's gym on the night in question in fancy dress. There was one other person who might have conveyed that detail.
'Was Catherine Tobin an informant, Phil?' I asked, mentioning her drug-habit and her hanging around Spiders Coalition events canvassing for investment. I needed hard fact. 'Her file?'
Philippoussis obliged by leaning over and tapping the keyboard of his computer. He ran down her data sheet with his eyes, saying, 'Unofficially, you could say. She was in a relationship with a gay liaison officer in Sydney. Though prior to that she is not known to be into her own gender, so to speak. She left the department a good ten years before that after an unsuccessful sexual harassment charge, which was generally believed to be trumped up. More a case of entrapment. Not a popular girl by all accounts. But seems to be able to talk her way into schemes. Up here, no, she wasn't a snout. I did check it, because you told me to, Margot.' He looked up and grinned at me. 'Vanity is her thing. Body-building. She is funded a little by an organisation that wants to set up a Gay Bank, a home mortgage scheme. She does recruit investors. They aim to provide cheap housing.'
'How could such noble-minded people trust someone like her?' Wonders will never cease.
'Oh, they haven't actually done anything yet. It's all on paper. At this stage you wouldn't know whether it was ridgy-didge or bodgie. Catherine Tobin, aka Tiger Cat, just hands over names and details, addresses, phone numbers, whatever. The finance is handled further down the track.' Philippoussis clicked out of the software I recognised, plainly wanting to get on with his unpacking.
At the door, as I was about to leave, it occurred to me to ask, 'How does CI fit into all that?'
He finished our session with the curious detail that the Fraud Squad was keeping its eye on a certain member of this Gay Bank Collective because of previous history.
'Interesting,' I thanked him and left.
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