White Dog

WHITE DOG

Also by Peter Temple

Shooting Star

An Iron Rose

The Broken Shore

In the Evil Day

THE JACK IRISH BOOKS

Bad Debts

Black Tide

Dead Point

WHITE DOG

Peter Temple

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by

Quercus
21 Bloomsbury Square
London
WC1A 2NS

Copyright © 2003 by Peter Temple

The moral right of Peter Temple to be
identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available
from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 85738 770 7

ISBN (HB) 978 1 84724 540 3
ISBN (TPB) 978 1 84724 541 0

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, organizations, places and events are
either the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Typeset in Meridien by Ellipsis Books Limited, Glasgow

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

For Anita and Nicholas, with love and thanks.

‘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.’

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.