by Peter Temple
White Dog
( Jack Irish - 4 )
Peter Temple
Peter Temple
White Dog
1
‘I say again,’ I said. ‘Is this strictly necessary?’
We were on the Tullamarine tollway, now at its early-evening worst, a howling blur of taxis, trucks, cars, trade vehicles, drivers all tired and vicious.
‘I don’t want to die not knowing,’ said Linda Hillier. She was looking exceptionally attractive, as people leaving often do.
‘I don’t understand that,’ I said. ‘Why shouldn’t you die not knowing? Why is that worse than dying knowing? Let’s say you’re a mountain climber, you get a chance to climb Everest or K-47, AK-47, Special K, an unusually large piece of vertical landscape. You fall off it or into a glacier, you’re going to be snap-frozen, like a baby pea. In that instant, you know. Now, why is that better than…’
I felt her eyes on me. I didn’t want to risk a glance. I was driving her car, a new Alfa, much too refined a creature for someone only at home with V-8 American brutes, crude things, power without responsibility.
‘Jack,’ she said. ‘They’ll probably terminate me in two months, pay out the contract. I’ll send for you. We’ll take an apartment in Paris, wake late, coffee and croissants, walk around, eat expensive lunches, hit the pleasure mat in the afternoon…’
I closed on a plumber called John Vanderbyl, a blocked-drain specialist towing a trailer holding his video-equipped probing instruments. He was a laggard and himself guilty of clogging so I moved out and left him behind. Then I had to curb the Alfa’s instinct to stay in the right lane, overtake everything. Like me, it was a natural front-runner. Unlike me, it could sustain it.
‘That’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘You have to lose for me to win. You’ll be heartbroken, I’ll be impotent. On the other hand, if you win, I stay in Carrigan’s Lane wearing a dust mask while you’re bouncing on George V’s famous mattresses with Nigel, your priapic young Eton-educated production assistant.’
‘How do you know about Nigel?’ she said.
‘An educated guess. If the Poms want an accent, why can’t they find a nice girl from Liverpool? Why do they want an Aussie on London radio?’
‘They like us. We don’t quite get the class system. We don’t instinctively defer to upper-class and upper-middle-class twits. We understand irony and understatement. Also we can do attack dog.’
Linda was good at being an attack dog. A calm attack dog, though, taking politicians’ calves firmly in the mouth without breaking skin, not letting go, giving little shakes from time to time.
A space appeared in the right-hand lane and, for no good reason, I pulled out to overtake a representative of Bottom-dollar Carpets, then eclipsed a four-wheel-drive and an old Mitsubishi.
‘When we get there,’ I said, ‘any chance of a final romp?’
She put a hand on my thigh. ‘I think not. I want to leave you wanting more.’
‘Which has always been the case. Why isn’t it enough to be the best in this town?’
How stupid a question. I had turned it over in my mind, which made asking it even more stupid.
Linda was looking out of the side window. ‘Naked ambition,’ she said. ‘Also I feel like a fake, someone who’s lucked it.’
‘Of course. Anyone can luck it. All you need is a chainsaw brain and a voice like Lauren Bacall. That’s after you get a start in the business, which requires great legs, willing hands and passable knockers.’
‘Passable? Hold on, mate, these knockers took work. I started knocker exercises at thirteen.’
‘Race-fit knockers, I’m sure. You might have given me a bit more notice of this.’
I heard the petulant tone of my voice.
The long fingers squeezed my thigh. ‘Wasn’t any more to give,’ she said. ‘They rang, they offered the money, they wanted me soonest.’
‘Just like me. Without the offer of money.’
The airport exit loomed.
‘There’s a lot of food in the boot,’ she said. ‘Perishables. I was at the Vic Market yesterday.’
‘I’ll park,’ I said.
‘No. Do an illegal at the international. Don’t switch off. I’ll get my bag out and be gone in seconds. No farewells, my father said. He couldn’t bear goodbyes.’
I thought that I would have liked her father, a farmer crushed by the bank and a tractor, gone without a farewell.
We travelled in silence. It was starting to rain. I couldn’t find the wipers.
She showed me how you did it.
‘This car?’ I said.
‘Keep it at your place. Drive it. I’m coming back for this baby. Baby. Also I forgot to switch off the fridge and freezer. Do that for me?’
‘Only if you’ll promise to keep yourself nice.’
‘Of course. And if I don’t, you won’t hear it from me.’
I went up the ramp and stopped behind a taxi. Linda took my head in both hands and kissed me, hard, pulled back, kissed me again, mouth open a little, a decent kiss.
‘More,’ I said. ‘Baby.’
‘Later. Baby. Wish me luck.’
I nodded, not inclined to speak.
She leaned across me, hair against my face, and made the boot rise. She took her travelling bag from the back seat, brushed fingertips across my lips, and she was out, plucked her slim case from the boot, closed the lid. I saw her go through the doors, not a backward glance, gone as if posted.
I drove home with something lodged in my throat, travelled at a measured speed beneath the high, cruel lights, no urge to overtake anything, smelling new leather, hearing the soft sound of the Italian wipers, like the breathing of a sleeping child. At the old boot factory, I parked beneath the oaks. The mobile rang.
‘Tomorrow,’ said Andrew Greer, my former partner at law, ‘I will be attempting to spring a client now languishing in remand. Thereafter your expensive services will be needed.’
2
Andrew Greer was on his feet, long feet in narrow, shiny black shoes, everything about him long, all the visible things.
‘Your worship,’ he said, ‘the defendant is a person of impeccable reputation who is traumatised by what has happened. There is no risk of her absconding. She will vigorously contest the charge against her and looks forward to the court clearing her name. I ask that she be granted bail on whatever conditions your worship deems fitting.’
The magistrate looked at the prosecutor, who rose. He was a sad man, not at all the state’s doberman, more its stiff-legged labrador, looking forward to the day’s end, the worn spot by the fireside, the peace of dog as his head came to rest on his paws.
‘No objection to bail, your worship,’ he said.
I could see by the movement of Drew’s head, the way he looked at his client, that he had been expecting a fight.
The magistrate didn’t ponder the matter: $60,000, passport surrendered, report once a day. Court adjourned.
Nothing showed on the woman’s face except that she blinked rapidly. When she spoke to Drew, she inclined her head towards him, almost touched his chin with her forehead. Her name was Sarah Longmore and she was charged with murdering her former lover nine days before.
I went outside. It was raining in the same half-hearted way it had been when I left my abode after daybreak. The media were on the pavement — print journos and photographers, many of the latter skinheaded, three television reporters touching lacquered hair, camera and sound people, worried about nothing, complaining, smoking, spitting.
A black four-wheel-drive, a small one with tinted windows, arrived and double-parked: the getaway transport.
Drew and the woman came out, both tall, both in black overcoats. She was supposed to be in her mid-thirties.
She could have been a seventeen-year-old ballet dancer, sharp cheekbones, short dark hair combed back with a left parting, over-exercised, living on vitamin pills, cigarettes and chocolate.
The media surged. Two wiry short-haired women in casual clothes appeared and shepherded the pair. Sarah Longmore held her chin up, looked straight ahead. For her, no dark glasses, no undignified attempt to hide her face. There was something disciplined about her, the way she kept her shoulders back, the way she held her head. The shepherds were good, clearing a path without bumping, just using their bodies, arms out, pushing backwards. At the kerb, the woman touched Drew’s shoulder, put her mouth to his ear and whispered something, went between the parked cars.
The passenger door of the four-wheel-drive opened, she slipped in and was gone.
Drew turned to face the scrum, the microphones pointing at him. I saw on his serious face a desire to entertain the cameras, and then I saw him deny the advocate’s thespian urge, shake his head. He said a few words, presumably no comment at this time, turned his back and set off across the street. The microphones drooped. They let him go.
I crossed the street too. He was waiting for me. In rain that was now gaining heart, we walked the two blocks to his old Saab in a lucky parking space near Grice Alley. It took many tries to excite the vehicle and, when it groaned, Drew flooded the carburettor and the engine died.
‘You’d think you’d have the hang of it by now,’ I said. ‘This’s been going on since the late eighties.’
‘It’s not a matter of the hang,’ said Drew, ‘it’s a matter of proper observance of a time-honoured ritual.’
We waited, the windows liquid. The car smelled of orange peels and desiccated apple cores, a hint of salty old swimming towel forgotten under a seat, stiff as a dead rabbit.
‘My first time in court for a while,’ I said.
‘Through luck not judgment,’ said Drew. ‘Bastards took me by surprise. Last I heard, they wanted her kept in the slammer. Good thing I had the escape ready.’
‘Was that Bully West?’
Bully was a bouncer, a reformed standover man who did semi-legal odd jobs for Cyril Wootton, my sometime employer. I’d glimpsed Bully’s brutal, pitted chin when Sarah Longmore slid into the car.
‘It was the Bully,’ said Drew. ‘Courtesy of Cyril. Alert of you.’
He tried the ignition again and the car started, the engine rough as sacks. All caution, Drew put his head out of his window and looked back. Then he pulled out, into the path of a taxi. Above the rubber scream and the hooting, I thought I could hear the cabdriver swearing, not in English.
After we caught the lights and turned left into Bourke Street, Drew said, ‘Shit, where’d he come from?’
‘The rear.’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t be so fucking sanctimonious. Remember a certain left turn near Piedemonte in St George’s Road? Hit an island, cracked the sump, we took off. Airborne, cropdusting the grass with engine oil.’
‘It wasn’t an island,’ I said. ‘It was a peninsula, and it wasn’t there the day before. Also there was no grass. In addition, I could plead youth and inexperience.’
‘Ah,’ said Drew, ‘and how fleeting is the time allowed for that defence.’
‘On fleeting, I saw the fleeting touch of the lapel.’
Drew looked down, touched his left lapel. ‘Just admiring the finest cloth Mr Buck stocks. Fleece of house-reared Aussie bleaters, hand-woven by toothless crones in the dim crofts of the Alto Adige. She is, of course, without sin in this affair.’
The oxygen was running low in the airtight Swedish vehicle. I tried to wind down my window but the handle didn’t work. The side vent resisted but a fist thump ended that and the city smell came in — cold, moist, petrochemical. It carried memories of late nights, arms around waists, kissed ears, kisses behind ears, the shivery feel of a hand not your own in your hip pocket.
We turned left into Elizabeth Street.
‘Mickey Franklin was in the shower on a Saturday evening,’ said Drew. ‘Five shots, very messy, all over the show, fired through a towel. The one that killed him went in the back of the head, in the hollow, bullet going upwards.’
I tried to wipe the windscreen with my hand, unhappy to be blind to the many dangers we faced. ‘And where was the sinless one? In her own words.’
‘At the fatal moment, at home in St Kilda watching television.’
‘How come they’ve got the weapon?’
We were at the LaTrobe Street lights. Drew looked at me, ran a finger under his nose. ‘They found it in a garbage bin near the scene. Cleaned and wrapped. She knows the thing, a. 32 Ruger, never licensed. She says Mickey Franklin lent it to her when she had a couple of break-ins, other strange stuff.’
The engine sounded even worse when we turned right at the lights, making the uneven, misfiring sounds of crippled Spitfires approaching the white cliffs of Dover in old World War II films.
‘Echo Bravo Foxtrot to Control,’ I said. ‘I say, old beast, I rather think this kite’s dying on me.’
‘Hiccups,’ said Drew. ‘It’s the weather. The weapon is awkward.’
‘Awkward, indeed,’ I said. ‘Found when?’
‘The morning after. Yesterday week. They sprang it on her before she called me.’
‘Clever devils. Drop me at the office? I’ve got an engagement.’
He looked straight ahead. ‘Where are we engaged today? In the Valley of the Moonee? On the Field of Caul? At Headquarters? Or at some idyllic country paddock, marvelling at what man and horse can together achieve? Assisted only by undetectable kick-arse drugs, diuretics and industrial-strength marching powder.’
‘A man with an easement problem is coming in.’
‘A man seeking ease,’ said Drew. ‘Aren’t we all? In the old days, your clients were seeking to stay out of the hard hotel.’
‘This is better. These clients tend to have their complete ears and comparatively few are tattooed inside their lower lips.’
Drew turned left into Russell Street. ‘Ah, the holy ground once more,’ he said.
The Melbourne Magistrates’ Courts had been in the stone building on our left, police headquarters across the street, all kinds of squads and units in the building nearby.
Trades Hall and its annexe, the John Curtin Hotel, were just down the road. Drew’s office was two blocks north. Once it had been the office of the firm of Greer amp; Irish, Barristers and Solicitors. The Greer and the Irish often walked down Drummond Street to appear for their clients at Russell Street. They also often drank at the Curtin, took pees with a future prime minister, standing side by side, swaying a little, aiming at white disinfectant balls.
But that time ended when my wife, Isabel, was murdered by a client of mine and I developed a powerful urge to destroy myself.
‘Strictly speaking, Wootton should tell you,’ he said. ‘The person who will add his exorbitant margin to what I am sure are your modest billed hours.’
‘Tell me what?’ I said.
‘To swab Mickey. As man of the track, you’ll know the swab.’
‘Cyril already has a swabbing expert. Cheap.’
‘We don’t need cheap. I can tell you that Cyril’s expert failed the police entrance test. Tester couldn’t fit two pencils above the eyebrows, one between the eyes.’
In silence, we drove down Victoria Parade and turned into Smith Street, Collingwood. The street seemed to be having a dealer-free day. From time to time, the cops came in numbers and displaced the drug sellers. It was like squeezing a balloon. When the pressure was removed, it returned to its original shape.
‘What would I be looking for?’ I said.
‘Christ knows. Anything.’
I waited and then I said, ‘Drew, the force’s full of dick-heads but they don’t generally land up in homicide.’
‘It may not be about dickheadedness. It may be about something else.’
‘I think your client’s reaching parts clients don’t normally reach,’ I
said.
‘Fuck off. Where’s your sordid little alley?’
‘Next sordid little alley after this one. How’d you get involved in the first place?’
‘I appeared for her on a little drugs charge. A long, long time ago. Her father came to court. I clearly made an impression on Sir Colin.’
‘Cut of your jib, the lapels. Why was he knighted?’
‘Services to something or other. Being rich. A complication is that the deceased had moved on to screwing Sir Colin’s younger daughter. Sarah’s gone into hiding now.’
‘What was Mickey’s secret? Screwing one Longmore woman would have been success enough for most men.’
‘Perhaps just another peak in the range. A climber, a stranger to the concept of enough. Upwards, ever upwards. I have no fucking idea.’
Drew was nibbling at his lower lip, something he did when unhappy. You notice things like this when you spend too much time with people.
‘Sarah wants me to do the trial,’ he said. ‘Compounding the stupidity of pleading not guilty. When her old man rang, I knew it was a job for Pratchett QC, freed more murderers than the stormers of the Bastille. But no. Me.’
We threaded the lane and parked across the street from my office. I said, ‘So, find further ways to harm poor dead Mickey Franklin. That’s the task.’
‘Dead but not poor,’ said Drew.
‘We’d just be taking her money, Wootton and I.’
‘I have no doubt that you will apply the standards expected of you as an officer of the court.’
‘I said that. Take money for no obvious return. Well, things are quiet.’
‘She hasn’t confided in me, of course.’
‘Of course. Nor would you allow her to.’
‘Here’s the number.’ He offered a card.
I put it in my top pocket. ‘This enjoyable excursion,’ I said, ‘would it be billable?’
Drew looked at me, down his nose, shook his head. ‘I think the sawdust’s getting to you,’ he said. ‘The man’s worth millions.’
I tried the door handle, it resisted. ‘A little thing before we part. Any tips on where to go with this?’