by Peter Temple
‘That would be a worry,’ I said.
‘Yes. Ellen took them around the medical profession, they weren’t any help. As usual. Len of course was too wrapped up in himself to take much notice. And then one day Keith, right out of the blue, started talking to Cassie. Advanced speech too for a child. Ellen came around here, she was in tears. Tears of joy and relief. I cried with her, I can tell you. And a few days later, Victor started up, also to Cassie.’
I drank some wine. ‘So they were fine after that?’
Klinger shrugged, drank. ‘Brilliant, both of them. Reading like teenagers at six, playing the piano by ear. Writing stories, plays. Then Victor attacked a girl at school. He was about eight. She’d been taunting him but he didn’t do anything, not in class. He waited until playtime and he called this little girl around a corner of the building and attacked her. A serious attack, an assault. Premeditated assault. That was the real concern. He beat her with an empty soft drink bottle, got her down and rained blows on her. A teacher was there in seconds but the girl had teeth knocked out, her whole face was a big bruise. She was in shock, had to be taken to hospital. No one had ever seen an eight-year-old hurt someone else like that.’
He shook his head. ‘Terrible. Murderous streak, that would be from his father, no question. Len had a conviction for assault. Knocked an electrician right off a building, he fell twenty feet. And that was the one that ended up in court. There were others. I was scared of him, I don’t mind saying that.’
I said, ‘Someone mentioned an illegal firearms charge.’
‘Didn’t put that in the thesis, did she?’
‘No. I heard it somewhere.’
‘Len started going weird after Ellen’s death. Survivalist rubbish, Indonesian invasions. Built this bunker, year’s worth of food, even bloody cold storage, some silent fridge thing he devised. And this in bloody Eltham. Hardly your backwoods mountain hideout, huge city on the doorstep. But it wasn’t a logical matter.’
‘Illegal arms. What was that?’
‘Part of the lunacy. Len bought guns from a bloke in Fitzroy. Back then, you could simply have applied for a licence, they handed them out like lollies. But the conspiracy theory said the traitors were going to give the Indonesians a list of all the people who had licensed firearms. So you had to have unlicensed guns, then the Indonesians wouldn’t know and you could take to the hills of Eltham and fight back.’
‘He got caught?’
‘He had them in the four-wheel-drive and he got stopped for drunken driving. They separated the charges.’
‘I sidetracked you,’ I said. ‘You were talking about Victor at school, the assault.’
‘School wouldn’t have either of them back. They’d had complaints about Keith too but not about violence. I never quite gathered what, Ellen didn’t want to talk about it. That was unusual, we talked about everything.’
He drank, reached for the bottle, topped up our glasses. ‘I’ll get the cork out of another one, just in case,’ he said.
He got up and went to a small fridge I hadn’t noticed, opened the door. It was full of wine bottles on their sides.
I said, ‘What did the twins do about school after that, David?’
He was applying a sleek black device to the top of a bottle. ‘Ellen taught them at home. Had to, no school would take Victor. That School of the Air stuff the kids in the bush do. And Cassie, she was five years older, very smart, behaved like a real teacher. That went on till Ellen’s death. They were eleven then.’
Klinger turned his back to me, holding the bottle in one hand, the corkscrew machine in the other. ‘That was the biggest waste of a human being I know of. Ellen’s death.’
There were tears in his voice, probably in his eyes. He didn’t want me to see them, but he wanted to tell me.
‘On the Eastern Freeway. Drunks in a stolen car, bloody police chasing them at a fantastic speed, car came right across the middle, over the dip. Head-on collision.’
Nothing I could say. I looked at his back, at the rigid set of his thin shoulders under the teeshirt.
‘I loved that woman. From the moment I came into the room and saw her. The first time. The day I came for the interview with Len. Loved her. She loved me, you know. Loved me.’
I drank, waited. Klinger put the corkscrew down, pretended to be looking in the fridge, wiped his eyes with a knuckle.
‘Don’t know why I’m saying all this,’ he said. ‘Not the vaguest idea. To a total stranger. That’s probably why. I don’t think I’ve ever said that to anyone. You’re a good listener, Frank. It is Frank? Names just come and go.’
‘Frank. So Ellen taught them at home?’
‘Yes. Then Cassie had to do it. They didn’t need much maths teaching, taught themselves after a while. Len bought them a computer, pretty new then computers, and the twins were off, writing programs, all that stuff I don’t understand. Obsessed by it.’
He came back with the bottle, not too steady now. ‘That’s also from Len,’ he said. ‘Obsession. The man didn’t have interests, he had obsessions.’ I held out my glass and he poured. ‘Good to have company. Get used to being on your own but it’s not good for you. Not for men. Women, they seem to handle it better. Unfair, really. Another bloody mystery.’
‘What did the twins do when they finished school?’ I said.
He sniffed. ‘Nothing. Same as before. Stayed at home and played with the computers. Made money out of it by then though.’
‘Money? How?’
‘Games. They write games. Is that what you say? Write games?’
I had a big swig of wine, felt acid rise in my gullet, felt the muscles of my back and shoulders tighten.
‘Write, yes, that’s what you say,’ I said. ‘They write games?’
‘They make up these computer games. Beats me how you do things like that with numbers. Anyway, they do. Make quite a bit.
Not surprising, they’re good at making up things. Even when they were little, they were always making up things, putting on plays, getting dressed up.’
‘They write commercial computer games?’
‘Somebody bought the games. I suppose they still write them. I’ve lost touch since, it’s been a while, six or seven years. Can it be that long?’
Klinger fixed me with an inquiring look, as if I knew the answer to his question.
‘Lennox died in 1988, didn’t he?’ I said.
‘Died? Killed himself. You could see it coming from the day Cassie disappeared. I went around there once afterwards but I didn’t have anything to say to them. Victor would only speak to Keith and Eric, and Keith never said much, sits and looks at you with this smile. And the place is like a shrine to Cassie. She was everything to them. Not just a sister, everything. They worshipped her.’
‘Who’s Eric?’
‘He was a labourer on a house we built out in Coldstream, didn’t have any family, and Len took to him, brought him home and there he stayed. Like a slave, really, didn’t get paid, board and lodging, did all the work, built mad underground bunkers, fixed cars, anything. He’s a bit simple. Good with his hands though, fix anything, any machine. And he can cook, God knows where he learned that. Fancy things too.’ He shrugged. ‘He loved Len, the children. Happy slave though. Like a Labrador.’
He sniffed, looked into his glass. ‘Cassie stayed here for a while when she was in her second year at uni. Had to get away from home, she was being smothered by them. But Len kept turning up, taking her back. She was scared of him.’
Klinger took a sip of wine, his sips were getting smaller. stared out of the window, blinking, not seeing anything he liked.
The day had turned, night in the wings, shadows on the golf course now, golfers walking behind their giant elongated shapes. From this height, the bunkers were half-dark, sinister hooded eyes.
‘Yes,’ he said, and there was something different in his voice, ‘she was scared of him. Very scared. Scared of the twins too later on, when they were grown up. It became a very str
ange family, Len and Cassie and the twins and Eric. Very strange. Cassie was like the mother, no girl should have that sort of burden placed on her. Unnatural. The whole thing was unnatural.’
I waited. Klinger wanted to say more, moved his lips twice, licked his lips, fought off the desire to speak.
Finally, he said, with a small smile, pride in the smile, ‘And she still went to school every day, driven by Eric, got good marks. Amazing, an amazing person. Could take up burdens and put them aside, come back to them. Like her mother. One never ceases to wonder at the strength of some people.’
He stood up, now distinctly unsteady. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long day for me. Frank. Show you out. It is Frank, isn’t it? Didn’t get anywhere, from your point of view. Come again, we’ll have another session, talk architecture. Aalto was my hero, I had a model of his church, do you know the church? Imatra? Lovely building. Len smashed it to bits one day, in one of his rages.’
I went ahead, down the steel spiral staircase, fearing for his safety behind me, down towards the client entrance at the bottom. Outside the door, a brick-paved path led to the side gate.
We stood in the stairwell.
‘Thank you for talking to me, Dave,’ I said.
His eyes were thin, body swaying.
‘Dave, no one’s ever called me that. I wished at school, never mind, I don’t mind being called Dave. At all. I like that. Dave.’
We shook hands. He held on to my hand, didn’t want to let go, looked into my eyes.
‘She’s mine, you know,’ he said. ‘Cassie. She’s ours. Mine and Ellen’s. Untainted by the vile Guinane blood.’
40
‘They write computer games,’ I said. ‘They earn a living from producing computer games.’
I was back in Orlovsky’s computer room, sitting in the armchair.
‘That’s very interesting,’ said Orlovsky, ‘and it supplies a complete and satisfactory explanation for Keith Guinane’s interest in voice systems. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect him to be interested in. It doesn’t necessarily connect them with the Carsons.’
‘Alice Carson said that one day someone put on a computer game for a child and it had a tune repeated over and over.’
I remembered the way her hands had moved from the arms of her chair into her lap, that I could see that she was clenching one hand with the other by the tension in her neck and shoulders.
‘Yes,’ said Orlovsky.
‘She said she felt sick and scared. She couldn’t bear it and had to leave the room. That she vomited.’
‘She also said she’d never heard the tune before,’ Orlovsky said, deadpan.
‘It triggered a memory, something she’d closed out.’
‘I thought repressed memory was a load of bullshit.’
‘Who knows? I’m repressing a lot of memories. They come out in my dreams. What about you? How can we find a game written by the Guinanes?’
‘Frank, this is a waste of time. Accept coincidence. Think about it. Finding Guinane and Carson are both in SeineNet is like finding them both in the telephone directory. How many zillion names do you think are in SeineNet?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘it isn’t coincidence. It can’t be.’
‘Anthea Wyllie, that’s where you should be looking. Have you reminded the cops about her?’
‘Yes. How can we find the game?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know, there’ll be a fucking list of game authors somewhere, I suppose. Make some coffee. Do you know how to make espresso coffee? Is that part of officer training?’
‘If need be I can make a stimulating drink from a parasitic plant that attaches itself to mangrove roots.’
‘Costa Rican beans will be fine.’
I was in the kitchen watching the coffee drip into the glass jug when my mobile rang. Vella.
‘I should’ve called you before,’ he said. ‘The girl was dead at least thirty-six hours.’
Thirty-six hours? I’d made the demand for the photograph at lunchtime the day before I went to the station…
‘The picture?’
‘Manipulated. Taken with a digital camera. Two pictures brought together. One of her alive holding up the newspaper. Then they changed the newspaper, put another one in its place. They were expecting you to ask for proof. So they took the picture before they killed her.’
I felt tired in my legs, in my arms, in my shoulders, tired and sick.
‘She was electrocuted,’ Vella said. ‘Probably in the bath. There’s more. Not pretty. Want to know?’
‘No. That’s enough.’
‘Not going anywhere fast here. You got anything to add?’
‘No.’ What was there to tell him? That I was running SeineNet on the Carsons’ mainframe and risking his job every second that it was up? And for what? I didn’t know for what.
I was looking at nothing out of the window when Orlovsky came to the door. ‘Can’t believe it. These things can take hours. Fourteen Guinane games registered with the U.S. Patents Office, earliest one is 1985. I might be able to find it on the net. Get most of the early games.’
‘She was dead when they sent the picture,’ I said. ‘Electrocuted. The picture’s been manipulated.’
I looked around. Orlovsky had his forehead against the doorjamb, eyes closed. ‘I’ll find the game,’ he said. ‘Today. I’ll find it today.’
‘Before you do that,’ I said, ‘get Cassie Guinane’s housemate on SeineNet.’
41
Her name was Margaret Patton then and it was Margaret Spears now and it took me three hours to find her in an expensive house in expensive Albert Park. She was very reluctant to see me.
‘We’ve only just moved in,’ she said. She was fortyish, fair and pretty, flushed cheekbones, a doll’s face, a grownup doll wearing a dress with pleats in the front. ‘We got back from England three weeks ago.’
Her husband came down the passage, a tall man, sleek dark hair. ‘Hamish Spears,’ he said, putting out a hand. ‘It’s related to this awful Carson thing, is it?’
I shook his hand. ‘Frank Calder. Yes, it is. I’m sorry to be a nuisance.’
Margaret Spears said, ‘I don’t understand how Cassandra is connected…’
‘We don’t either,’ I said. ‘But we think there’s a possible connection. If I can have ten minutes.’
‘Of course you can,’ said Hamish Spears. ‘Come in. I’m an accountant. Abergeldie, Smith, Alberstam. We’ve done some work for CarsonCorp. Shopping-centre business. Nice people to do business with.’
Carson, the magic name, opener of doors, inspirer of greed and fear.
He led the way into a chintzy sitting room with a pale rose-coloured carpet and plump furniture. ‘Frank, I’ll leave you two alone,’ he said. ‘Maggie, give Frank a drink.’
She cocked her head. I shook mine.
‘Please sit down,’ she said. ‘It’s so long ago. What can I tell you now?’
‘I’ve read the transcript of your interview with the police in 1986,’ I said. ‘There wasn’t much you could tell them.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Well, I didn’t really know her. It was just a notice-board thing. And we were both private people. To tell you the truth, we were unlikely house-sharers. She saw my notice on the board. My parents had bought the house and I needed a tenant. We weren’t friends or anything. I was a bit straitlaced, I suppose.’
‘And she wasn’t?’
‘Well. After she moved in, someone told me she’d had an affair with a lecturer when she was an undergraduate. In second year. That’s not very straitlaced, is it?’
‘No. Men came to the house?’
‘No. Only her father. He was a frightening type.’
‘In what way?’
Margaret shrugged. ‘Big and angry-looking. A beard. He always seemed to be angry with her. Never came in. She’d go out and they’d talk in the street or in his Land Rover. Dirty, covered in mud. She seemed frightened of him. Terrified, really.’
�
�You didn’t tell the police that.’
‘Didn’t I? I suppose it didn’t seem important. They weren’t interested in her father. Boyfriends, anyone I’d seen her with at uni, that’s what they wanted to know about.’
She paused, scratched her hairline with perfect nails, moved her head quickly. She was uncomfortable.
I waited.
‘I really didn’t want to get involved,’ she said. ‘Frankly, the father scared me too.’
I waited, looking at her. She couldn’t hold my gaze, swallowed. There was something else she wanted to say.
‘I was a coward. Just a girl from the country. I didn’t want the police going to her father and saying that I said she was scared of him. Anyway, I was just reading that into her behaviour, I didn’t know that.’ She frowned. ‘I didn’t know her. If I’d known her…’
‘That’s perfectly understandable,’ I said, smiled at her, waited, wouldn’t be the one to speak.
She exhaled loudly. ‘Yes, well, about four years later, the strangest thing happened. The place next door had been standing half-renovated all the time I’d been in my house. This man who owned it, a Greek, a Greek person, he’d work on it for a weekend, then he wouldn’t be seen for six months. Anyway, one day he knocked on the door and said he’d found this book in the rubbish skip in his back yard and was it mine? You know, you get burgled and they find your stuff dumped all over the place?’
‘You’d been burgled?’
‘Often. Well, at least twice before then. It was a diary. And it had Cassandra Guinane written on the cover. I rang the Guinanes and her brother came around and fetched it. I suppose he’d have passed it on to the police if there was anything important in it.’
‘I’m sure he would have. You didn’t open it?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Of course not. So you never actually saw Cassie with anyone?’
‘No. Well, the closest was, that was months before, someone dropped her at the end of the street. It was a Sunday morning. I was going to get milk or something, the papers, and we met. She said she’d been to Mount Hotham, it was lovely in the summer, no one there.’