Bright Air (6 page)

‘Sorry,’ I panted. ‘Really am out of practice.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s often like that after a gap.’

‘But you’re absolutely brilliant.’ I couldn’t hide my astonishment. The others were good, but she made them look ponderous. Smooth and balletic in her movements, she had seemed weightless. ‘Did you really climb the DNB?’

She laughed. ‘Didn’t you believe us?’

‘It’s just … that’s pretty advanced, isn’t it? Maybe I should stick to statistics. I’ve brought those course notes, if you’re interested.’

She studied me. ‘But you won’t give up, will you? I mean, I wouldn’t mind some help with STAT 303, but this is …’ she looked up at the people hanging in space above us, ‘… it’s what I do.’

‘Right,’ I said, still waiting for the feeling to come back into my fingers. ‘No, no, of course I won’t give up. I’ll bring my proper gear next time. These shoes are hopeless.’

Later, in the changing room, I overheard a snatch of conversation from two blokes in the next aisle. One said, ‘… won’t see him again.’ I caught the words ‘bloody hopeless’ in the reply, and they both laughed. When they left I saw that it was Owen and Curtis.

A week after our meeting at Sammy’s Bar, Damien gave me a ring. He asked where I was living, and when I told him he said he’d call in at the hotel that evening after work for a chat.

He looked more composed that evening, in his expensive suit. I led him through to the bar and got us both a beer. He slipped off his jacket and dropped into an armchair.

‘Sorry I was so rushed last week,’ he said. ‘I must have seemed rude. I was just preoccupied. Aaagh …’ He stretched out in the seat. ‘Trouble with clients is you have to listen to all the crap they come out with. We didn’t get a chance to catch up. So how are things, now you’re back?’

I handed him his drink and told him about what I was doing at the hotel.

‘I remember you bringing us here,’ he said, looking around. ‘Lovely little place. As a matter of fact I’ve recommended it to several people since. Amazing it’s survived, though. The site must be worth a fortune. You’d have thought someone would have snapped it up by now. Your aunt’s well?’

‘Very. And so you’re really married, Damien.’

‘That’s right. Lauren. Wonderful girl, you must meet her. We’ll have you for dinner soon.’

‘Is she a lawyer too?’

‘Yes, and a very bright one. Much sharper than me.’

‘Same firm?’

‘No, she works down the street. I sometimes look out of my window and see her walking past and I think, how was I ever lucky enough to catch her?’

I laughed. ‘You were always good at that.’

He laughed at the compliment. ‘Oh, now, I was no Don Juan.’

‘I rather thought you were.’

‘What? I never pinched one of your girlfriends, did I?’

‘No, but I did wonder if you were after Luce at one point.’

‘Did you? No, I may have harboured lustful thoughts early on, before you came on the scene, but I decided she was too tricky for me. That’s got nothing to do with this business with Anna, has it?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Ah.’ He didn’t seem completely convinced. ‘Well, I do know how it is with Anna.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Oh, the dogged way she is when she gets some idea in her head. I gather this was her idea, wanting to get the police report?’

I made a noncommittal gesture.

‘Anna and I haven’t really kept in touch,’ he went on. ‘I was trying to remember if she came to our wedding, but Lauren says not. I can’t remember how I heard about her breakdown. Maybe Curtis or Owen …’

‘Breakdown?’

‘Mmm, two or three years ago. Didn’t you know? Perhaps a delayed reaction to what happened to Luce, I’m not sure. I’m guessing that’s what this is really all about, getting you on side to help her work things out.’

‘Was it serious, this breakdown?’

‘I think so. Not that she was hospitalised or anything. Least as far as I know … Ah!’

Mary had heard our voices and put her head around the door. She recognised Damien, giving him a warm smile, and he got to his feet and stretched out his arms.

‘Mary! How wonderful to see you again.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘I was just saying to Josh how it brought back so many memories coming here. I remember you made us all so welcome and gave us a fabulous lunch—roast lamb.’

‘Did I?’ She laughed, flattered by his charm.

‘And tell me,’ he went on, ‘how are you coping with Mr Chang?’

‘Mr Chang? From Hong Kong? Do you know him?’

‘He’s a client of ours. When he wanted to know where to stay in the city I told him he had to come here. I knew it would be perfect for him. Didn’t he tell you?’

‘Well, no. But he’s one of my regulars now, Damien. I should thank you. He’s such an interesting man.’

‘And very rich.’ Damien chuckled.

I poured Mary a glass of her favourite sauvignon blanc and she took it without shifting her eyes from Damien’s.

‘But I’m so very sorry about your friends, Owen and Curtis, Damien. You must be as devastated as Josh.’

‘Yes … But at least they died doing something they loved.’ I thought that sounded rather glib, and then he added, ‘It’s the people they left behind I feel most sad for, Curtis’s mum and dad are devastated, of course, and as for Owen’s family …’

‘Ah yes.’

‘I went to see them the other day, Suzi and the kids. It was Thomas’s birthday at the weekend, you know. Six. He kept talking about his daddy. Heartbreaking. I felt so inadequate, taking him a little present. What can you say?’

‘Oh, I know. And will they manage financially, now?’

‘I’m helping Suzi with that, negotiating with Owen’s employer and their super fund to get her the best possible deal.’

Mary put a hand on his forearm and gave it a squeeze, a glint of a tear in her eye. I thought guiltily that I might have gone to see Suzi too, but it hadn’t occurred to me. I had no idea it was the boy’s birthday. Frankly, I was amazed at Damien’s thoughtfulness, and began to wonder if I’d misjudged him. Mary was obviously impressed. She said she had things to do in the kitchen, and gave him a big hug when she left.

‘Anyway,’ he said with a sigh, ‘I’ve done what you asked.’ He opened the briefcase he’d been carrying and handed me a thick spiral-bound document. The title read
INQUEST INTO THE DEATH OF LUCY CAROLINE CORCORAN
. I hadn’t heard of the Caroline before. ‘This is a copy of the complete police report to the coroner. It wasn’t that easy to come by, but anyway, I pulled a few strings and managed in the end.’

‘I really appreciate it, Damien.’

He sat back and took a deep draw on his beer and wiped his mouth. ‘Well, good luck, but don’t let Anna drag you into some morbid soul-searching is my advice. It was a shocking thing, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. Oh, by the way, I ran into one of your old mates the other day. One of your BBK London pals, Brian Friedland.’

‘Oh yes? I didn’t know him well. He’s in Sydney, is he?’

‘Passing through. No, he said you hadn’t been in the same office, but apparently he’s moved over to Risk Management now, working as right-hand man for Lionel Stamp, your old boss, under Sir George whatsisname.’

I felt a chill deep inside me. His voice was casual but he was watching me closely, and smiling. ‘Small world, isn’t it?’

After he left I sat on the terrace with the report. It weighed heavily on my lap, hundreds of pages, tens of thousands of words devoted to Luce’s last hours, but I just couldn’t face it. What was I supposed to make of all that? I remembered the judge sitting in this same cast-iron chair, as reluctant to open the report on his knee, as uneasy perhaps at the futility of finding some needle of truth in such a haystack. I compromised with myself, reading the index. It listed the dozens of statements, diagrams, medical reports, telephone records and other documents compiled by Detective Senior Constable Glenn Maddox of the Homicide Unit, Major Crime Squad, based in Kings Cross, Sydney. Even allowing for the press interest in the case, he seemed to have been extraordinarily thorough. I wondered if it was usual for an accidental death to be investigated by someone from the Homicide Unit.

Then Mary called to me from the kitchen window, having trouble with a blocked sink, and I closed the report thankfully and went to help. Later I decided to take it to Anna at her work the next day. I was curious to see her in that setting, imagining her at the hub of a smoothly operating enterprise, surrounded by crisply uniformed minions and genteel clients. It took a few phone calls to track her down to the Walter Murchison Memorial Nursing Home at Blacktown, and the next morning I drove out there. I didn’t warn her I was coming. I thought I’d surprise her—it was what she had done to me, after all, that first Sunday evening at the hotel.

The original house had been enveloped by a confusing aggregation of new wings and extensions, and these so filled the site that car parking was pushed out into the surrounding suburban streets. I found a space, eventually, and walked back to a driveway that seemed to lead into the nursing home. It ended in a yard blocked with two skips and a row
of bins smelling of kitchen waste. Beside them was a large clear plastic bag, filled with shoes. To one side a ramp led up through a small densely planted courtyard. There was a steel gate at the top with a locking mechanism designed to foil the infirm. Eventually I managed to open it without dropping my bulky package, and stepped onto a broad veranda. Clearly I hadn’t found the main entrance. After following the deck around the building for a while I came to a set of glass doors, through which I could make out elderly people seated in a lounge room. There was a keypad beside the doors and a sign that said
RING BELL FOR ENTRY
. I couldn’t see a bell.

Eventually a tiny grey-haired woman appeared through the glass and tapped in the entry code on the pad on her side. The door opened to a gust of Elvis Presley from a loudspeaker somewhere inside, and I said, ‘Thank you. I seem to be lost. I’m trying to find the manager.’

‘Mr Belmont?’ The woman was smartly dressed in a white blouse and dark suit, and I took her for a member of staff.

‘No, my name’s Ambler.’

‘No, I mean you’re looking for Mr Belmont, the manager?’

‘Oh.’ I wondered if I’d come to the wrong place. ‘No, Anna Green.’

The lady chuckled. ‘Ah, you mean our
activities
manager. Do you have an appointment?’

‘No. I’m, er, here to deliver something she’s expecting.’

‘Follow me.’

I stepped into the room, my eyes adjusting to a dimmer light. The old people, seated in a circle of assorted armchairs, seemed either asleep or deep in thought, and oblivious to both my arrival and Elvis’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. There was a doorway on the far side, but to reach it we had to cross the circle of vinyl floor, in the middle of which lay a large white
blob of something wet. A very shrivelled old man was hunched forward in his chair staring at it, white dribble running down his chin.

‘Oh, Stanley!’ the lady said. ‘What have you done?’

Stanley didn’t respond. At that moment a woman in a green apron passed the door and my helper called out, ‘Maureen, Stanley’s done it again.’

‘That’ll be right.’ The woman swept in with a mop and set to work while we skirted the circle and made for the door.

‘I’ll take you to the library,’ my friend said. ‘I’m Rosalind, by the way.’

‘You work with Anna, do you, Rosalind?’

‘Not exactly.’ She gave another chuckle. ‘I’m seventy-nine—I’m one of the residents. But I do work with her in a way. I help her look after the library.’

‘And Anna’s in charge of activities, is she?’

‘Yes, she organises the bus outings and bingo and sing-alongs. She’s very efficient. I don’t know what we would do without her. Are you in the aged-care business, Mr Ambler?’

‘No, no. I’m a friend of hers. We were at university together.’

‘Really!’ She stopped and turned to examine me more closely, obviously intrigued. ‘How very interesting. Do you see a lot of each other?’

‘Not exactly. I’ve been abroad, and I’m just catching up with old friends.’

‘Ah. We love Anna dearly, but she is something of a mystery to us. We’d like to learn more. For instance, is it true she was a mountaineer?’

‘Yes, we used to go rock climbing together.’

‘Ah! The two of you?’ She gave me an eager glance.

‘A group of us.’

‘With a rather striking blonde girl?’

‘That’s right. How did you know that?’

‘She used to have a photograph on her desk. You weren’t in it, though.’

She was leading me through a confusing labyrinth of corridors in which every wall seemed to be painted a different colour and none of the furniture matched. In places we came across seated figures whose appearance shocked me, as if a Nazi doctor had administered some grotesque experimental poison that turned people into shrivelled wrecks. Naive of me, but I just hadn’t seen anything like this before. The Nazi doctor was Nature, of course, and the poison was old age and its crushing diseases. There was nothing like this in EverQuest. My guide must have noticed my reaction, because she smiled at me and said, ‘Don’t worry, not much further.’