Black Tide (8 page)

I nodded. The practice of the law teaches you that some things require no comment.

‘What sort of work did he do after the force?’

50

‘Worked for a transport company. Security. What else can ex-cops do? It’s that or deal drugs, armed robbery.’

‘Remember the name of the company?’

‘TransQuik. They were much smaller then.’

Every time you turned a corner you seemed to be behind a TransQuik truck.

‘Know how long that lasted?’

‘Still there when I put his case out with the rubbish.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘that gives me a bit of a feeling for Gary.’

Judy smiled the smile of resignation. ‘Wish I’d developed a bit of a feeling for the shit before I married him. As a matter of interest, where does he live now?’

‘Toorak. Very smart apartment. Drives an Audi.’

‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘And I’m still in Richmond with a clapped-out Corolla. Hope you find the bastard. Don’t suppose there’s any chance he could go to jail for this?’

‘No. You wouldn’t know anything about the second wife, would you?’

Two more customers came in. ‘Would indeed. Got to get to work,’ said Judy, getting up.

‘Friend of mine goes to this hairdresser in Little Collins Street, UpperCut it’s called, these two Poms run it, trained by Vidal Sassoon, all that crap. Well, one day the one Pom says Chrissy, his best girl, the bitch, is getting married. To the most divine man, he says. Gary Connors, that’s his name. What’s he look like? It’s Gary.’

I said, ‘Chrissy. When would that have been?’

She puffed her cheeks, exhaled. ‘About ’85. Around there. She’s a Housing Commission girl, apparently, Chrissy. Broadmeadows. Not that that matters.’

‘You’ve been a big help, Judy. Thanks.’

She touched my arm. ‘Give my love to Des. Tell him to come in any day he feels like lunch. Cab’s on me.’

‘I’ll tell him. Make his day.’

Outside, the sun was gone and a cold, insistent wind was running through the town. I walked to Collins Street, chin tucked in, thinking about Gary. If he could defraud his 51

father, he probably made a habit of taking people’s money. The other victims might be less passive than Des. Gary could well be on the run. That probably meant Des’s money was history, but there would be no knowing until Gary was found. I didn’t fancy my chances.

At the office, I found the shopping dockets I’d taken from Gary’s kitchen. The most recent one was from a bottle shop in Prahran. On April 3, Gary bought a case of beer and six bottles of wine and paid an employee called Rick $368.60.

Customers form relationships with their suppliers. Suppliers very much want to form relationships with customers who pay $368.60 for a slab of beer and six bottles of wine.

A place to start.

10

Gary Connors’ source of liquor was near the Prahran Market and more wine merchant than grog shop. From behind the cash register, a slick young man smiled at me: white shirt, blue tie, long dark-green apron. I showed a card.

‘Mr Connors. Got two Connors. One’s really old.’

I said, ‘He was in here on the third of April, bought six bottles of Petaluma chardonnay and a slab of Heineken.’

‘Police?’

‘No. I represent his father. Mr Connors junior seems to be missing.’

He took this seriously, frowned. ‘Rick reckons a bloke was after Mr Connors that day.’

‘Rick?’

‘Works here. He’s in the back.’ He went to the back of the shop, opened a door and shouted the name, came back. A tall youth appeared in the doorway: teenage skin, cropped hair, wearing the green apron over a white T-shirt and jeans.

‘Rick, Mr Connors, the one you deliver to in Toorak?’

‘Yeah.’

‘About the bloke following him.’

52

The youth took a few paces, stopped, sniffed, wiped his nose with a thumb. He had intelligence in his eyes. ‘I was at Ronni’s. On the corner. Saw Mr Connors get out of his car in the carpark.’

‘Remember the car?’

‘Yeah. Green Audi. Carried lots of stuff to it before. Anyway, he crossed the road, walked down this way and came in here. Then a bloke parks, blue Commodore, illegal park, on the lines, that’s why I noticed. It’s a joke around here—bout a million tickets a year in that spot. He jumps out, then he walks casual, like he’s just window-shoppin, round the corner. And he stops across the road.’

Rick pointed to the other side of the street. ‘See the bookshop there? He looks in the window, looks over his shoulder. Then he goes inside, I can see him lookin out the window. And he stays there till Mr Connors comes out of the shop with Sticks.’

‘Sticks?’

‘Other bloke works here. He carried the stuff to the car. When they get down by the corner, the bloke in the bookshop, he comes out and he’s up the street, movin quick, not window-shoppin now. Not quick enough, the cop’s just puttin the ticket under the wiper. He gets in, doesn’t even take the ticket off. When Mr Connors comes out of the carpark, he hangs a U-turn and he’s off after him.’

‘What’d he look like?’

‘Sort of medium. Like a businessman. Suit. Dark hair, not long. Little limp.’

‘Limp?’

‘Yeah. Not much. Like a sore knee, sort of.’

I found a ten-dollar note. ‘Thanks, Rick. I’m being paid, so should you.’

He looked at the boss, took the note, nodded, left.

‘Thanks for your help,’ I said to the man behind the counter.

‘Not a problem.’

‘By the way, Mr Connors ever talk to any other customers? You get to know people at your bottle shop, don’t you?’

‘Sure do. Haven’t seen Mr Connors’ mate for a while either.’

53

‘What mate’s that?’

‘Mr Jellicoe. Chat down the back there, where the fine wines are.’

‘Regularly?’

‘Every now and again, yeah. Two, three weeks. Mr Connors comes in when Mr Jellicoe isn’t here. But if Mr Jellicoe comes in, you know Mr Connors will be here soon.’

‘You wouldn’t have an address for Mr Jellicoe, would you?’

Doubtful look. ‘Not supposed to give you that. Shouldn’t give out customers’ addresses.’

‘It’s just to ask about Gary,’ I said. ‘We’re very worried about him. His father would appreciate your help. No mention of how we got the address, of course. Absolutely confidential.’

‘Well, if you don’t mention us. He’s on the mailing list, gets the newsletter.’

He went over to the computer, tapped a few keys, gave me an address in East St Kilda.

Mr Jellicoe lived in a narrow single-storey house, fifties infill, behind a high pale-yellow wall. I pressed the buzzer. No answer.

A newish Saab did a smart reverse park outside the house next door and a thin middle-aged woman in denim overalls got out, pulled a briefcase after her.

I buzzed again, longer. Waited, tried the solid wooden gate. Locked. No luck here.

‘No-one living there,’ the Saab woman said sternly. She was standing at the next-door gate, key in hand.

I smiled at her. No response. Inner-city suspicion.

‘I’m looking for a Mr Jellicoe,’ I said. ‘He lived here until recently.’

‘He’s dead,’ she said. ‘Someone bashed and strangled him. Police say he must have surprised a burglar.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Dead for a VCR. When?’

She softened a little, pulled a face. ‘Early April. Third or the fourth,’ she said. ‘We’ve been done over twice in a year. I came in and found the one. Pathetic creature, really.

Hanging out for a hit. It’s totally out of hand.’

54

‘Makes you want to move to the country,’ I said. ‘Country of Lapland. I don’t even know what Mr Jellicoe did for a living.’

‘Something to do with travel,’ she said. ‘In the city.’

I drove back to Fitzroy. All the way, at the lights, men in cars and utes and panel vans picked their noses, admired the findings. The greasy-grey day, in its terminal stage, had a ruddy tinge, whole western sky the colour of a feverish child’s cheek.

Sitting in the clotted traffic provided lots of time to think about Gary. Gary and his sophisticated switched-off security system, Gary being followed by a man, Gary vanishing, the man Gary regularly met at his liquor store being murdered.

Stuck at a light, I rang Wootton. ‘That earlier inquiry,’ I said, ‘I need more.’

‘On a fee-for-service basis, I presume.’

‘At the discount rate extended to people who have performed services far, far beyond the call of duty. Yes.’

Wootton sniffed. ‘What exactly do you need?’

‘The party’s source of income.’

Wootton laughed, a flat, false laugh. ‘That’s quite impossible, I’m afraid. Not a service on offer.’

‘Just a thought,’ I said. ‘Having a drink after?’

‘Very likely.’

I parked at the stable and took a tram into the city, only half a dozen people on board.

Going the other way, the trams were crammed with the tired and oppressed on their way home.

I got off at the first stop in Collins Street and walked back up the slope to Spring Street.

The street had its winter evening feel: light the colour of a ripe peach falling across the pavement from the windows of expensive shops, falling on hurrying people, people in dark clothes, overcoats, scarves, a dark red the colour of drying blood the colour for women’s lips this year, background noise of hooting, of clanking trams, and, in the air, the pungent, urgent smell of exhaust fumes. Near the corner, a tall woman, dark-haired, long and intelligent face, severe grey suit, bumped into me, just a touch, a meeting of bodies. But she was wearing Linda’s perfume. It overwhelmed me, caught in my nose, my throat, my heart.

55

Around the corner, in Spring Street, people were disappearing from sight into the underground as if being sucked into quicksand. I looked across at the State Parliament.

On the steps, a television crew with lights was filming a fair-haired woman interviewing a man in a dark suit.

Wootton was on his window seat in the Windsor Hotel’s street bar, whisky glass on counter, newspaper in hand. At the long bar, the youngish, smartish patrons, not a pierced protuberance or a shaven head to be seen, were braying and whinnying at one another.

I bought a beer and joined him. ‘Cheers,’ I said.

Wootton looked up from the newspaper, took off his horn-rimmed glasses, folded them, put them behind the triangle of red handkerchief in the top pocket of his dark-grey pinstriped suit.

‘In the courts this afternoon,’ he said.

‘Sorry to hear that. Bail obviously wasn’t a problem.’

He ignored my flippancy.

‘The Crown dropped all charges against Brendan. Free man. As we speak, a free man motoring to his place in the country near Maryborough. There is a just God.’

‘A just God,’ I said, ‘would ensure that as we speak Brendan O’Grady was being crushed by a fully loaded car transporter. As for his country place, it used to belong to a bloke called Cicchini. Bren had him knocked so that he could harvest about four tonnes of weed the guy had ready for market. Plus he wanted to comfort the wife. And the daughter. Possibly the dog.’

I drank some beer.

Wootton coughed. ‘Sends you his best regards,’ he said. ‘Moving on. You’re in luck. Tax Office audited that fellow of yours last year.’

‘Why?’

‘Travel claims, most likely. Probably just picked him up in a computer sweep. Big claims.

World traveller.’

‘On business?’

Wootton nodded. ‘Allowed them, too. Makes a fair living, I can tell you.’

56

‘Source?’

‘Variety of sources. Printout’s in the bag.’ He pointed down at his brown buckle-up suburban bank manager’s leather briefcase.

‘Occupation?’

‘Security consultant. A line of work I often wish I’d pursued. Studying the security needs of large corporations, designing security strategies, advising on equipment…’

‘Selling information to the opposition, taking kickbacks. You’d be a natural.’

Wootton sighed, drank. ‘Dear me, your discount on this information just shrank to nothing. And the surcharge for gratuitous offensiveness has just cut in. Are you buying the chips? Salt and vinegar, please.’

I bought the chips, then transferred the printout in Wootton’s briefcase to a white plastic shopping bag supplied by his formidable woman friend behind the bar. We had another drink and parted. Wootton strolled off to his parking garage. I rattled home on a tram—me, a blind man with a guide dog, four tired-looking Vietnamese women travelling together, and a large, florid drunk who talked and sang to his reflection in the window.

Plastic bag in hand, I hiked along the narrow streets to my stable.

No Linda on the answering machine. Only Andrew Greer, Brendan O’Grady’s new lawyer. He didn’t identify himself:

Nice little hand of statements there. Pair is good but threes? Other side folded, gave up the game. Bren wants to have your babies. I’m out getting drunk with whores tonight but give me a call tomorrow.

I put on water to boil for pasta, stuck frozen sauce in the microwave to defrost, lit a fire on the ashes of at least ten old fires.

The chairs in my parlour seem empty and bare.

That was a compelling message to leave. Guaranteed to strike a chord in Linda. E. A.

Presley’s silliest number. Never heard together.

I ate my meal without relish and settled down with the history of duelling. In the course of learning about how painful the consequences of giving offence once could be, I fell asleep, missing the appearance of the thirty-something spunk and the man who kissed her ear. Waking to a dry mouth and audible eyeballs, I made tea and watched an ABC

documentary on Ulster. There was clearly something rubefacient in the water or the air 57

of Ireland. More evidence for this came in the person of the presenter of the current affairs program that followed, a man of Irish descent possessing a distinctly russet hue.

I went outside to fetch another log and when I got back the host was jousting with a bald man displaying the sad and silken demeanour of an undertaker.

I didn’t care about current affairs. I switched off. I wanted to ring Linda, hear her laugh, hear her suggest that loving me and missing me were not out of the question. I wanted to go to sleep in the sound knowledge that impressions to the contrary were paranoid. But the sensible part of my intellect, now only marginally more than vestigial, said No.