The Trojan Dog

by Dorothy Johnston

  I said hello and told her, ‘You know, I shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Neither should I.’ Gail grinned. Her coat fluffed around her as she sat down. ‘Relax.’

  Why did people keep saying that to me? It wasn’t working.

  The screaming child was silenced by a Bubble-O-Bill. Peter had sampled one once, and pronounced it gross. I had a sudden urge to ­complain to Gail about Rae Evans, to tell her what a frustrating person Rae was, chilly, refusing my help. Had she refused help? Had I offered it?

  Gail looked at me shrewdly. ‘If we’re caught,’ she said, ‘we can bum out on the dole together. Oh, I forgot, you’re married.’

  ‘While you’re used to taking risks.’

  Gail wasn’t put off by my sarcasm. She had red hair and hazel eyes. She’d been dissatisfied with her looks as a student; hair ginger rather than auburn, skin too pale and freckled. I’d known her for two years before I saw her without make-up. She seemed to have grown into her looks, grown along with them. She’d lost her habit of glancing sideways at me when she spoke.

  ‘What’re you having?’

  I held up a polystyrene cup. ‘Something to keep me warm while I was waiting. I wouldn’t recommend it. Tastes like the scrapings off those bird cages down there.’

  Ignoring my warning, Gail walked over to the counter and came back with a lidded cup, grey murk bubbling out of the hole in the centre of the lid.

  ‘The only thing I’m allowed to say is I’m not allowed to say anything,’ she said, waving a bent spoon at me before heaping in the sugar.

  ‘An interesting story.’

  ‘It would be. If I could write it.’

  ‘I thought you had already.’

  Something had shifted in the few moments it had taken Gail to walk to the counter and back.

  ‘Could this whole thing be political?’ I asked.

  ‘A few months before a federal election? What did you say you had for breakfast, Sandy?’

  ‘Farex. With just a touch of milk.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Gail lifted her cup a fraction from the table.

  ‘On the question of style,’ I said, ‘I didn’t much like your mixed metaphors. Should’ve picked one and stuck to it. Your very own lead, or did you have a literary adviser?’

  ‘If you’d suggested the correct metaphor?’ Gail swallowed a mouthful of coffee and grimaced. ‘Put me on track, so to speak?’

  ‘I asked you to wait, remember. Had you been talking to anyone else, or did you ring me first?’

  A mobile phone rang, as though on cue, and Gail fished for it in the folds of her coat. ‘Excuse me a sec.’

  The conversation consisted of three noes and a yes. ‘Who blew the whistle on Access Computing?’ I asked when she’d finished.

  Gail looked at me and cocked a eyebrow. OK, I said to myself, I didn’t really think you’d tell me. I was already sick of pushing words back and forth like bad coffee. I looked around. The gourmet butchers offered free-range chickens, pheasant, quail, guinea fowl, kangaroo, water buffalo and game berries, whatever they were. The budgies at the pet shop chattered without pause. Would budgies be next on the menu?

  Gail started speaking quickly. ‘Loony rings me up, offers to sell me a tape of the Prime Minister fucking his grandmother. Two thousand bucks? Two-and-a-half? Happens all the time.’ She took another gulp of coffee, and I fancied I saw the muddy path it made down her throat. ‘Any rate, more often than you’d think, specially when there’s an ­election looming. If you go ahead and buy it you’ve got a vested interest in believing what it says. I still haven’t managed to figure that one out. Your guy gave us his loot for free.’

  ‘Why a man?’ I asked her.

  Gail ignored my question. In summary, she said, this was the chain of events. After her phone call to me, she’d decided to sit on the story for a while, chew it over while she worked on something else. But then the chief of staff did the rounds with his usual question, ‘What’ve you got for the day?’ and she’d blurted it out.

  The chief had been tickled pink. ‘We’ll get the techies on to tracing it right away!’

  He rang his contact in the Minister’s office, and before long half the resources of the paper had been turned towards Gail’s story.

  ‘Everyone put in their two bob’s worth. I’ve never been in the middle of anything like it before. Even the cartoonist.’

  ‘Maybe they had advance warning of the suppression order,’ I said drily.

  Gail pulled out a cigarette. Something in her voice dismayed me. Her account had been so easy. She didn’t care what happened to Rae Evans. In fact, Rae the person scarcely figured in her version at all.

  ‘Who was it?’ I asked. ‘You must have some idea.’

  If Gail did know who’d sent her the story, now was the time to trot out the chestnut about journalists protecting their sources. Gail—at least the Gail I’d known in Melbourne—didn’t like admitting ­ignorance. What she’d said rang true to me. If she’d chosen to lie it would’ve been in a way that showed her in a better light.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘The story needs balance—’

  ‘You know that’s a breakfast cereal? I tried it, it’s foul.’

  ‘The concept, dear heart. Access Computing has been given the once-over. OK, they handled it badly. I suppose it’s possible this Angela Carlishaw’s taken off with the dough. But no-one’s proved that Rae Evans had anything to do with it.’

  Gail took a drag on her cigarette and said, ‘You always were a tight-arsed little moralist, Sandy.’

  I saw as if in close-up a long bottle of home-made vinegar on the shelf next to the orange juice. Sprigs of dill or sage floated upright in it, curving over themselves like spiky seahorses preserved in formalin.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, forcing a smile. It occurred to me that Gail might be feeling guilty, or if not guilty, then kind of circling around twinges of responsibility that did not sit well with her at all. That was why she’d agreed to see me.

  ‘I want you to do something for me,’ I said. ‘A story on clerical outworkers. Single mums who’ve mortgaged their underwear to buy ­computers. Trying to work from home with screaming babies in the next room. No need to mention any of the legal players.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Just a whack of good old bleeding hearts. It’s the story of the moment, and no-one’s bothering to write it.’

  ‘Don’t think the boss’ll buy it.’

  ‘Don’t tell him till you’ve written it,’ I said. ‘If it’s a good read, he’ll print it. I’ll give you some names and help you with the metaphors.’

  Gail raised an eyebrow. I held my breath, realising that in two seconds, without giving it any thought, I’d offered Gail names from my list of outworkers. Of course, Gail had picked it up immediately.

  Then she shook her head and said, ‘Too much of a hassle.’

  ‘But you’ll do it,’ I told her, ‘for old times’ sake.’

  A guinea pig bit a small boy’s finger and he yelled blue murder. I thought it might be time to leave.

  . . .

  The new glass-fronted buildings in Northbourne Avenue formed a guard of honour, regular, in uniform, standing to attention, their chests polished as dress swords. They bore their logos with a military bearing: Unisys, Sun Microsystems, IBM, a litany, the names of giants.

  And the little ones, the small fry, growing unnoticed like mammals in the age of dinosaurs, like Y and Z Technology, with Chinese characters alongside the English and an amateur sign in block capitals offering TUTORIAL OF SOFTWARE. I looked up computer companies in the phone book. There were pages of them now.

  Lotus, Ivan once told me, had gone from nothing to a billion dollars in three years.

  Fingerprinting

  The police turned up in our section at morning-tea time the next day.

  At first glance, the detectives looked like two well-cut suits joined together at the shoulders, Siamese twins who had miraculously grown to adulthood. Th
en they separated into a policeman and woman conferring soberly together.

  Detective Constable Gleeson was cool, unsmiling. Her expression never seemed to change. I watched her face while she grasped my hand by the wrist to bring it right over the ink pad, then, holding the base of my thumb, firmly pressed my thumb pad down.

  It was like those stamp pads small children play with, covering their fingers as well as the stamps and paper with red and green and blue ink, enjoying the mess as much as the smudged shapes of rabbits and giraffes that they produce.

  I wondered how many times Detective Constable Gleeson had taken fingerprints, smelling the nervous sweat of suspects under metallic ink while a line of people filed past, polite, affronted or guilty-looking in spite of themselves. I guessed she wouldn’t speak or interfere unless it was to tell the person that it hadn’t worked, to try again. No twitch of facial muscles, no smile of reassurance or grimace of distaste escaped her.

  What if the police found my prints on Rae’s computer keyboard? Would they think that unusual? Had they been told about the public files we all used? Suddenly our working arrangements seemed open to a number of interpretations.

  Before she left, Constable Gleeson went through Rae’s desk and rubbish bin. Ivan told me about it. Gleeson had left Rae’s door open a crack, and he’d peeked through it and seen her.

  ‘Where was Deirdre?’ I asked.

  Ivan didn’t know. He laughed coldly, flicking a fingernail against my computer and said, ‘Don’t they know the clues are all in here?’

  . . .

  Detective Sergeant Hall interviewed me in a perfectly fitted dark blue suit that smelt strongly of dry-cleaning fluid. The cut and obvious expense of his clothes indicated a man conscious of his appearance. At the same time, he looked and sounded bored. It was only when he asked me about my relationship with Rae Evans that his voice deepened into something like curiosity or interest.

  Hall had chosen, or been offered, a small room off the reception area on the first floor to conduct his interviews. There was nothing in it but a table holding a tape recorder and a folder, a computer that wasn’t plugged in, and two black swivel chairs. As soon as the policeman had shaken my hand, leaning across the table to do so, he sat down in one chair with a scarcely audible sigh and pulled the other chair close, indicating it to me. I felt too nervous and unsure of myself to move it back.

  When he asked a question, Hall held his face right up next to mine, the way some children do when they want to tell you something. It was extraordinarily disconcerting. I hoped that, by not reacting at all, by staying calm, I’d make him drop the tactic, switch to something else.

  He kept his voice low, so that if I wanted to hear every word I had to listen carefully, couldn’t pull back too far. I licked my lips and passed my hand across my forehead.

  ‘Does Ms Evans have any enemies that you’re aware of?’ Hall asked, making Ms sound like an insult.

  ‘No,’ I answered.

  He looked at me and waited, as though my awareness of what day it was might well be incorrect. He would have already spoken to Felix, Jim Wilcox the division head, the Deputy Secretary and the Secretary too for all I knew, starting at the top and working his way down. He would have gathered people’s opinions of Rae and would know that she was unpopular. He might have been told that she’d singled me out for some reason. Did this mean that from one word he knew that I was lying?

  ‘How would you describe your working relationships, Mrs Mahoney?’

  ‘I’d say they were cordial.’

  ‘You were happy to get the job here?’

  ‘Very happy.’

  Hall was clean-shaven, with a face that I could imagine sculptors being drawn to, chunky without being fat, bones squared off at the jaw and temples, eyes wide-spaced with flawless whites, as though their clarity in close-up could bore a confession out of you. His hair was dark brown with a flickering of grey.

  ‘What about the one with all the hair?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Hall opened the folder and referred to a list of names. ‘Semyonov. Does he own a suit?’

  ‘You’d have to ask Mr Semyonov that.’

  ‘Law unto himself, is he? Bit of an eccentric? Do you ever discuss your problems with him?’

  ‘Which problems?’ I asked.

  Hall moved his face a fraction closer. ‘There seems to be a feeling around that these—ah, viruses, are the work of students. Local students?’

  ‘Whose feeling?’ I said.

  The policeman leant even closer again, giving me the message that my responses were getting us nowhere, and it was his job to ask the questions. I realised that my fingers were clenched tight. Deliberately, giving the action all my attention, I unclenched them and moved my chair back.

  ‘Evans,’ the Detective Sergeant said, his eyes flicking to my chair’s new position on the floor. ‘Is she worried?’

  I felt an absurd sense of victory that he hadn’t moved his chair.

  ‘Worried about what might happen after the elections?’ Hall continued. ‘Possibility of having her budget cut to ribbons?’

  I stared straight at him and said, ‘I think you might be mistaken about the sorts of things Rae Evans would discuss with me.’

  Hall raised an eyebrow, and I moved my hands in my lap, pointlessly clasping and re-clasping my fingers. I thought he’d finished with me, but suddenly he growled, ‘And what’s your opinion of Access Computing?’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘Is it a bona fide organisation?’

  ‘I’ve no reason to doubt that it is.’

  ‘Have you had anything to do with them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘This Angela Carlishaw? Have you spoken to her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you reckon she’s fair dinkum?’

  I knew it was a mistake, but I couldn’t help myself. The detective sergeant had responded to my cryptic answers by becoming more aggressive. I couldn’t blame him for this. In his position, I might well have done the same. Why hadn’t I been more forthcoming when he asked if Rae had enemies? Why hadn’t I stated plainly that in my view yes, she had several, and rattled them off? I didn’t know, except that my first impulse when faced with a police interview had been to say as little as possible.

  Now I compounded my mistake by saying in a loud voice, ‘If I was planning to make a bogus grant to an organisation, the very least I’d do would be to make it payable to a real person.’

  I stomped back to my office, heart racing, sweat between my toes.

  Ivan patted me on the shoulder, made a sympathetic face and said, ‘Copper get to you?’

  ‘He asked me about your hair.’

  ‘Sure he did.’ Ivan primped, pretending to look coy and flattered. ‘Only wear it like this to put pigs off the scent.’

  Ivan had his own theory about the police search. ‘Knew they couldn’t find anything, but they had to put up some sort of show. Did you watch their faces? They were just as pissed off at being here as we were with them.’

  When it came to Ivan’s turn, the detective sergeant’s manner didn’t seem to bother him.

  ‘Your BO probably saved you,’ I said crossly.

  Ivan grinned and said, in his old teasing way, that he’d suggested to Constable Gleeson a more efficient way of putting their fingerprinting files on computer.

  ‘How did she take that?’ I asked.

  ‘Philosophically.’

  . . .

  I guessed that the man in the crumpled blue suit talking to Detective Sergeant Hall in the corridor was another policeman. He was much shorter than Hall, and shorter than Detective Constable Gleeson as well. The two men stood conferring together in a shallow alcove by the lifts, Hall stooping a little and the shorter, stockier man shifting his weight around and moving his arms, his face half-hidden under a wide-brimmed Akubra hat. He managed to look unyielding and vulnerable at the same time.

  It was what happened next that made m
e remember the smaller man. In mid-sentence, he stumbled against Hall, knocking his arm and throwing him off balance. Hall moved quickly and gently to steady him and help him upright. Nobody had pushed him, and there’d been nothing for him to stumble over. But I had the feeling that neither man was surprised; that whatever it was had happened before.

  . . .

  After Di Trapani’s interview with the police, she disappeared into the warm arms of the travel centre, recovering from hard questions or catching up on smokes. When she came back upstairs she looked more withdrawn and miserable than I’d ever seen her.

  The atmosphere in our small office was thickly quiet. The words of the introduction I was trying to write blurred and wriggled in front of my eyes. I glanced up through the window at the trees in Northbourne Avenue. There will be a point, I thought, when the questions will cease. The police will have found out all they can. The inquiry will be over. Maybe it will be next week or the week after. Maybe I won’t know until the questions stop, but I will know it’s happened. Like a sponge layer cake that collapses.

  I felt very much alone, too frightened of incriminating myself to try and talk to Di or Bambi, even Ivan. My belief in Rae Evans’s innocence began to seem slippery, dodgy, unsustainable.

  Outside a strong wind, growing stronger, tormented the trees. People hurried, many of them half-crouching, along the footpaths and across the street.

  I began to think that maybe the approach the police had taken wasn’t so silly after all. Taking fingerprints gave them a chance to watch us together and separately, to note whether we co-operated or objected, whether we were inclined to laugh at the proceedings or take them ­seriously. If this was a tactic, rather than a way of gaining information valuable in itself, it must be because they suspected one of us.

  . . .

  There was a phone message waiting for me when I got back to my office after lunch. Peter was in the sick bay at school. I had to bring him back to work.

  I found a spare chair and sat Peter down beside me while I rang for an appointment at the doctor’s, Peter complaining of a sore throat and earache.