by Peter Temple
D-I RAPSEY: It’s the central question on my mind, Detective Faraday. It’s the central question on many people’s minds. And we’ll answer it before we’re finished. Interview terminated at three twenty-five pm.
That wasn’t the last interview, not by a long way. But as I had sat there, looking at the men who weren’t looking at me, I had known without doubt that I wasn’t one of them anymore. It was the end of that life. Thirteen years. Thirteen years of belief and self-respect. Pride, even. Come to an end in a grubby little formica-lined office reeking of disbelief.
I could have lived with that. What I couldn’t live with was that my negligence, my confident negligence, killed Carlie Mance.
I put the file away, made a phone call and set off for Melbourne to look for the scene of Dr Ian Barbie’s end.
It took me the best part of two hours to get to Varley Street, Footscray. And when I got there, I didn’t want to be there. It was a short narrow one-way street that ended in the high fence of some sort of container storage depot. Newspaper pages, plastic bags, even what looked like a yellow nylon slipper had worked their way into the mesh.
The right side of the street was lined with the high rusting corrugated-iron walls of two factories. The steel doors of the first building appeared to have been the target of an assault with a battering ram, but they were holding. At the end of the street, one of a pair of huge doors to the second building was missing, leaving an opening big enough for a truck.
The left side of Varley Street consisted of about a dozen detached weatherboard houses, small, sad structures listing on rotten stumps behind sagging or collapsed wire fences. Several of them had been boarded up and one was enclosed by a four-metre-high barbed-wire fence. About a tonne of old catalogues and other pieces of junk mail had been dumped on the porch of the house three from the corner.
My instinct was to reverse out of Varley Street and go home. There was nothing to be gained here. But I parked at the end of the street outside a house that showed a sign of being lived in: a healthy plant was growing in a black nursery pot beside the yellow front door. I got out, locked the door, put on the yellow plastic raincoat I kept in the car, and crossed the street.
The missing door had opened on to what had probably been a loading bay, a large concrete-floored space with a platform against the right-hand wall, which had two large sliding doors in it.
Opposite the entrance was another doorway with both doors open. Trucks had once driven through to the tarmac courtyard visible beyond.
I walked out into the courtyard. There was a blank corrugated wall to the left, a low brick building that looked like offices to the right and ahead a high cinder-block wall. The day of the weeds had come. Everywhere they were pushing contemptuously through the tarmac and their reflections lay in the cold puddles in every depression.
To my right, about twenty metres along, there was another doorway, big enough for a vehicle.
I walked over and stood on the threshold.
It was a big space, dimly lit from small windows high in the street wall. People had been using it recently: there were deep ashes in a corner, surrounded by empty cigarette packets, beer cans and the ripped cartons and wrung-out bladders of wine casks. In the air was the chemical smell that comes from burning painted wood.
I walked into the middle of the space and looked up. The beams were low.
A voice said, ‘Not there, mate. Over to ya right, that’s where.’
There was a man standing in the doorway, a dark shape against the light. He came towards me, his details emerging as he moved into the gloom: long, unkempt grey hair, grey stubble turning to beard, thin body in a black overcoat over a tracksuit, battered training shoes, one without laces.
‘Ya come to see where the bloke strung hisself up, have ya?’ he said, stopping about five metres away.
‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘Not a cop,’ he said. It was a statement of fact.
‘No.’
‘Got a smoke on ya?’
I shook my head.
‘Should be chargin admission. See that beam up there?’
He pointed at the roof to my left, to one of the trusses. The crossbeams were about four metres up. ‘Rope went over there. Jumped off the car roof.’
‘How d’you know that?’
‘No other way, mate. He was hangin there right up against the car, bout three feet off the ground. Head looked like it was gonna pop.’
‘Did you find him?’
‘Na. Me mate Boris. But I was right behind.’
I took a short walk, looking up the beam, looking at the floor, looking at the campfire zone. I came back and stopped a short distance from the man. The skin under his eyes was flaking.
‘The bloke’s mum asked me to take a look,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Be a bit upsettin, rich bloke an all.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Robbo, they call me. Robert’s me proper name.’
‘Robbo, how do you know he was a rich bloke?’
He thought for a moment. ‘Had a tie on, y’know. Funny that.’
‘Anything else catch your eye?’
‘Na. Tell ya the truth, I’d had a few. Went down the milk bar to call the cops.’
‘You and Boris know this place well?’
He looked around as if seeing it for the first time. ‘I reckon,’ he said. ‘Make a bit of a fire, have a drink.’
‘You do that often? Every night?’
‘When it’s warm we just stay in the park.’
‘Must have been pretty cold that night. How come you weren’t here?’
‘When?’
‘The night the bloke hanged himself.’
‘Dunno. Can’t remember.’
‘So you came here the next day. In the morning?’
Robbo fingered the skin under his left eye. ‘I reckon,’ he said. ‘Boris’d know. He’s a youngster.’
‘I might like to talk to Boris,’ I said. ‘Is he going to be around some time?’
Robbo looked off into the middle distance. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘ya see him and ya don’t.’
I took out my wallet and found a ten-dollar note. ‘Where do you buy your grog?’ I said.
‘Down the pub. Geelong Road. Just near the park.’ He waved vaguely.
‘They know your names there?’
He thought about it. After a while, he said, ‘Reckon.’
I gave him the ten dollars. ‘I’ll leave a message for you at the bottle shop. Be sure you tell Boris. I’ll give you another twenty each when I see him.’
He gave me a long look, nodded and shuffled off.
I carried on with my look around. The wood for the fire came from cupboards and counters in the office building. Only bits of the carcasses remained. Ripping up of the floorboards had started. To the left of the office building was a laneway ending in a gate, its frame distorted and with large pieces of mesh cut out.
There wasn’t anything else to look at, so I left. As I was driving away, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a boy of about twelve, one foot on a skateboard, watching me go. I hoped he didn’t have to do all his growing up in Varley Street.
The Streeton pub. Solid redbrick building, twenty metres long, small lounge on the left, bar on the right, standing at a skew crossroads on a windy hill. I made a hole in a steamed-up pane of a bar window and watched a Volvo pull up outside: Irene Barbie, short red hair lighting up the sombre day like the flare of a match. What daylight was left was retreating across the endless dark-soiled potato fields. She was wearing a tweed jacket and jeans, didn’t seem to notice the thin rain falling, took a small black suitcase from the front passenger seat and locked it in the boot. Vet’s bag, full of tempting animal drugs. It wasn’t an overly cautious thing to do: there were men drinking at the bar who looked capable of snorting Omo if it promised a reward.
I drained my glass and went through to the empty lounge to open the door for her. She was medium height, slim, nice lines o
n her face. It was hard to guess her age-somewhere in the forties. There was no grey in the springy red hair.
‘Mac Faraday,’ I said. ‘Irene?’
We shook hands.
‘I’ll take a drink,’ she said. ‘Double scotch. Just had a horse die on me. Perfectly healthy yesterday, now utterly lifeless. Massive bloody things go out like butterflies. Thank God there’s a fire.’
When I came back, she had her boots off and her feet, in red Explorer socks, warming in front of the grate.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Disgusting to take off your shoes in public, but I feel like I’ve got frostbite.’
‘I’d join you,’ I said, ‘but I’m not sure my socks match.’
‘I changed mine at lunchtime,’ she said. ‘I had a gumboot full of liquid cow shit.’ She moved both sets of toes, waving at the fire.
We drank. I’d spoken to her on the phone. Allie knew her from working around the stables and that got me over the suspicion barrier.
‘She’s a real asset around here, Allie,’ she said. ‘District’s full of self-taught farriers.’ She had another large sip, put the glass on the floor beside the chair. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the pain is receding. I’ll tell you straight away, I had very little to do with Ian in the last two years.’
‘Something involving Ian puzzles me,’ I said. ‘A friend of mine, man called Ned Lowey, not a patient of Ian’s, went to see him in Footscray. Now they’re both dead. Both hanged. Ned, then Ian. Two days in between them.’
She was silent. Then she said, ‘Well, that’s hard to explain.’
‘I’m not convinced Ned killed himself,’ I said. ‘Can I ask you whether you could see Ian killing himself?’
She considered the question, looking at me steadily, grey eyes calm under straight eyebrows. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I could.’
‘Why’s that?’
Sip of whisky, audible expulsion of breath, wry face. ‘It’s not easy to talk about this.’ She looked into my eyes. ‘Are you married?’
‘Not any more. Does that disqualify me?’
‘People who haven’t been married have trouble understanding how things can change over the years. I was married to Ian for nearly twenty years and I knew less about him at the end than I did at the beginning. Yes, he could kill himself.’
Now you wait.
‘If you ask around about Ian, you won’t hear anything but praise. Everywhere I went, people used to tell me how wonderful he was. It’s worse now that he’s dead. People stop me in the street, tell me how they could ring him in the middle of the night, never get a referral to a duty doctor, never get an answering machine. How he’d talk to them for twenty minutes, calm them down, cheer them up, make them feel better, traipse out at two am to comfort some child, reassure the parents, hold some old lady’s hand. And it’s all true. He did those things.’
‘Sounds like the old-fashioned doctor everyone misses,’ I said.
She smiled, without humour. ‘Oh, he was. Like his partner, Geoff Crewe, seventy-nine not out. And Ian wasn’t just a good doctor. He was wonderful company. Mimic anyone, not cruelly, sharp wit. He noticed things, told funny stories, good listener.’
She looked around the room, looked into her glass.
‘But,’ I said.
‘Yes. The But. That was Ian’s public face. Well, it was his private face too. In the beginning. There was an unhappiness in Ian and it got worse over the years. After about five years, it was like living with an actor who played the part of a normal human being in the outside world and then became this morose, depressed person at home. He’d come home full of jokes, talkative, and an hour or two later he’d be slumped in a chair, staring at the ceiling. Or in his study, head on his arms at the desk, or pacing around. He cried out in his sleep at night. Almost every night. I’d wake up and hear him walking around the house in the small hours. He used to love skiing, one thing that was constant. Went to Europe or Canada every year for three weeks. Then he just dropped it. Stopped. If he’d been drinking, he’d try to hurt himself, hitting walls, doors. He put his fist through a mirror once. Forty stitches. You couldn’t reason with him. All you could do was wait until the mood swung. It happened a few times a year when we were first married. I was in love. I sort of liked it. It made him a romantic figure. In the end, we didn’t speak ten words a day to each other. I stuck it out until our daughter left home and then I left him.’
‘Did he have treatment?’
‘Not while I was with him. I’d try to talk to him about it but he wouldn’t, he’d leave the house, drive off, God knows where. And I was always too scared to push it for fear he’d do something in front of Alice.’
‘He wasn’t like that when you met him?’
‘You had to live with him to see that side. People who’d known him for donkey’s years had no idea. I met him at Melbourne Uni. He was fun, very bright, near the top of his class. We went out a few times, but I didn’t impress his friends and he dropped me. Then I met him again here when I started practice.’
‘He was a local?’
‘Oh yes. Part of a little group from here at uni. Tony Crewe, Andrew Stephens, Rick Veene.’
‘Tony Crewe-is that the MP?’
‘Yes. All rich kids. Except Ian. His father was a foundry worker. Left them when Ian was a baby. His mother was Tony’s father’s receptionist for about forty years. I think Geoff Crewe paid Ian’s way through St Malcolm’s and through uni. They ended up partners.’
‘And the group? Did Ian stay friends with the others?’
Irene had a sip of whisky, ran a hand through her hair. ‘It’s not clear to me that they ever were friends. Not friends as I understand friends. Mind you, I’m just a Colac girl. Ian was sort of…sort of in their thrall, do you know what I mean?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Andrew Stephens was a golden boy. Clever, rich, spoilt, got a sports car when he turned eighteen. Scary person, really. Completely reckless. His father was a Collins Street specialist, digestive complaints or something, friend of Geoff Crewe’s from Melbourne Uni. They were very close once, I gather. Andrew was sent to St Malcolm’s because Geoff’s boy went there. The Stephenses had a holiday place outside Daylesford called Belvedere. Huge stone house, like a sort of Bavarian hunting lodge. Andrew lives there now. With the gorillas. Sorry. Shouldn’t say that.’
‘Why not?’
She emptied her glass. ‘I’m going to risk another one. What about you?’
‘I’ll get them,’ I said.
She shook her head and went to the serving hatch. I was admiring her backside when she turned and caught me at it. We smiled.
‘The gorillas?’ I said when she came back with the drinks.
‘Doesn’t do to talk about valued clients. I’m due out there to look at a horse tomorrow. Still. Andrew’s got two large men with thick necks living on the property. We call them the gorillas.’
‘What do they do?’
‘Nothing as far as I can see. Well, except take turns to drive the girls around.’
‘His children?’
She laughed. ‘Right age. No. He doesn’t have children. Two marriages didn’t take. There’s always a new girl at Belvedere, two sometimes. Some of them look as if they should be at school. Primary school, my partner once said.’
‘What’s Andrew do for a living?’
‘It’s not entirely clear. Developer of some kind. They say he owns clubs in Melbourne. His father apparently left him a heap. He used to talk shares with Tony Crewe-shares and property and horses.’
‘So you’ve been with them?’
‘Oh yes. We’d go to dinner with Tony and current woman and Andrew and sometimes Rick Veene and his wife two or three times a year. I have to say I hated it. I think Ian did too. He turned into a kind of court jester when he was with Tony and Andrew and Rick. I once suggested we turn down a dinner invitation and Ian said, “You don’t say no to Tony and Andrew”. I said, “Why not?” and he said, “You wouldn’t understand. Th
ey’re not ordinary people”. Anyway, Andrew and Tony had some kind of falling out and the dinners stopped.’
‘Did Ian ever talk about Kinross Hall?’
‘No. Geoff Crewe was the place’s doctor for umpteen years and I think it sort of passed on to Ian. The director came with Tony Crewe to dinner a few times. Marcia Carrier. Very striking. Ian didn’t get on with her so he gave up the Kinross work.’ She swirled her drink around and finished it. ‘Night falls,’ she said. ‘None of this helps in finding out why your friend went to see Ian, does it?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Why did Ian give up his practice and move to Footscray?’
Irene shrugged. ‘No idea. Seems to have happened overnight. About a year ago, he phoned Alice, our daughter, and gave her a new phone number. She rang me.’
‘Thanks for taking the time,’ I said, getting up.
She gave me a steady look. ‘If you want to talk again, give me a ring.’
We went out to her car in the deepening dark. There was a house across the road and I could see into the kitchen. A man in overalls was staring into a fridge as if he had opened a door on hell. As she was getting in, I said, ‘Ian’s pethidine habit. How long did he have that?’
Irene closed the door and wound down the window. The light from the pub lit half her face. ‘What makes you think Ian had a pethidine habit?’
‘Heard it somewhere,’ I said.
She looked away, started the car. ‘News to me,’ she said. ‘Give me a ring. We’ll talk about it.’
I watched the cheerful Swedish tail-lights turn the corner where the ploughed paddock ran to the road and nothing interrupted the view. The line between night and day was the colour of shearers’ underwear. Far away, you could hear the groan of a Double-B full of doomed sheep changing gear on Coppin’s Hill. In the pub, a hand grenade of laughter went off.
The man across the road slammed the fridge door: hell contained. For the moment.
‘Well, get on with it. What d’you want to know about Ian Barbie?’
‘Why would he kill himself?’
Dr Geoffrey Crewe, age seventy-nine, gave me a sharp look from under eyebrows like grey fish lures. He was a big man, parts of whom had shrunk. Now the long face, long nose, long ears, long arms did not match the body. The body was dressed in corduroy trousers, what looked like an old cricket shirt, an older tweed jacket, and a greasy tweed hat. What had not shrunk was the value of his house. He lived across the road from the lake, redbrick double-storey facing south. I’d arrived as he was leaving on a walk. He set a brisk pace, even though his left leg buckled outward alarmingly when it met the ground. It occurred to me to ask him whether he fancied a game of football on Saturday. He could certainly outpace Flannery over a hundred metres.