Peter Corris - The Washington Club

I walked to the window. I could see Claudia in a rocking chair on the deck. She was wearing her white dress and rocking backwards and forwards, with apparent serenity. There was a length of batik cloth hanging on a hook on the back of the door and I wrapped it around me and went to the bathroom.

Under the shower I washed everything and let the warm water ease some of the ache from my bones. There were several toothbrushes in a mug. I selected the most battered, used it and dropped it into the tidy bin. I put a fresh Band-Aid on my cut hand, ran a wide-toothed comb through my hair and was ready to do whatever came next. On almost every front, I had very little idea of what that would be. I went out through French windows onto the verandah, scuffling my feet so she would hear me. The wind had dropped and the surf beating on the sand was a low murmur, like a deep bass note. She stopped rocking. I went up behind her and slid my hands inside the top of the dress. How many men have attempted to soothe away doubts by feeling a pair of tits?

‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘That’s nice.’

She reached back around the chair, went inside the lap-lap and gripped my cock. Her hand was cold.

‘Nowhere to go from here,’ I said. ‘I’m a detective, not a contortionist.’

She laughed, let go and turned around. She must have washed her hair which had been stiff with salt because it was now frizzed and rippled and wafted around her face. She had no make-up on and looked pale under the dim outside light. The recent stresses and scars had put faint lines beside her mouth.

‘We have to talk,’ I said.

‘Pity. We were doing so well with no talking.’

‘Things have been happening.’

‘Not here. Nothing ever happens here. That’s why I like it.’

‘You can’t… ‘

‘Ssh. I know. I found the wine. It was sweet of you to bring it. I drank the bit of gin Angela had here and couldn’t be bothered getting any more.’

We went inside to the old-fashioned but comfortable kitchen and I sat down at a big pine table. There was a combustion stove that must have been a plus in the winter and everything was solid and functional-frying pans on hooks, a pine dresser full of unmatched cups and plates and glasses, an Early Kooka gas oven. Claudia opened both bottles of wine-my mum would’ve liked her style- and set out biscuits, cheese and salami.

‘It’s tomorrow,’ she said, drinking a mock toast. ‘I wonder what the date is. I’ve got through another day. Well, Mr Detective, tell me all about it.’

I told her everything I’d done, leaving nothing out, although I might have got the sequence wrong here and there. I told her about killing Henderson and how it happened and about the grenade parts I’d found. I didn’t go into details about Anton Van Kep’s recreational practices, but I had to tell her enough for her to appreciate how the blackmail had been applied.

She looked me straight in the eye. ‘I’m surprised,’ she said. ‘He was perfectly adequate with me.’

I drank most of one bottle and put away a fair bit of the food. Claudia had a couple of glasses, toyed with the food and smoked a few of her Salems while she listened. When I finished she sat quietly and looked at me.

‘You put yourself in danger a couple of times.’

I shrugged. ‘It happens. I did all right with Rhino but I should probably have handled Henderson some other way. Maybe I should have used Noel to get to talk to him, but I didn’t think of it at the time.’

‘How do you feel about killing him?’

‘Not too bad. He was a killer himself. He tried to kill me and he might have killed Cy. I can live with it. I’m more worried about being found out. Also, it could be argued that I’ve made you an accessory after the fact.’

‘Having been framed for a murder, I’m not too worried about that. Who else knows about Henderson but you and me?’

‘As things stand, no one, unless Noel has a way of piecing it together. But he has a lot of reasons to keep quiet.’

‘Well, that might be all right. As a properly trained lawyer I shouldn’t say that, but I’ve learned lately that what they teach you in Criminal Law Honours doesn’t line up too well with the reality. But I don’t understand what’s going on. Who threatened Judith and who was this Henderson creature working for?’

‘That’s one part of the question I don’t know the answer to.’

‘What’re the other parts of the question?’

‘What this is all about. Say Henderson killed your husband and set Van Kep up to frame you. Say he was working for someone who’s organising all of this. Why? Who profits, and how?’

She stared at me, sipped some wine and didn’t answer. I got up and fetched my jacket from where it had been left on a chair outside the bathroom. I reached into the pocket and took out my notebook. The fake magazine mock-up and the brochure from the Washington Club came with it and I took the stuff back into the kitchen. I showed Claudia the diagrams of names, boxes, circles and arrows I’d made on loose sheets which I’d folded and put in the notebook.

I hadn’t looked at the sheets for a while and I added a few things from recent events. ‘I’m a bit behind with this.’

‘I’d say you were about twenty years behind. They do all this sort of thing with computers now. What does it tell you?’

I drew a line through the Judith Daniels box. ‘Not much. I thought I had something here with your stepdaughter… ‘

‘Ugh, don’t call her that.’

‘Sorry. But I believed her, more or less. I don’t envy Rhino.’

‘No, she’s a sad specimen. He’ll get clear of her sooner or later, the way all the others have. No self-esteem, that’s her problem. I tried to like her but it was impossible. She doesn’t like herself and won’t let you like her. Julius neglected her, then spoiled her rotten, then neglected her again. He made her what she is. Wouldn’t admit it of course, but in the end he didn’t much like what he saw.’

I drew another arrow connecting the Wilson Katz and Daniels boxes. The first one had gone Katz to Daniels, this went the other way.

‘What’s that for?’

‘Rhino told me she wanted him back.’

‘Poor thing. When you say you believed her, d’you mean you believe that Julius was afraid of me?’

I looked at her. I was feeling the effects of the wine, but not so much as to miss the challenge in her tone and manner as she fiddled with a cigarette and matches. Careful now, Cliff.

‘No,’ I said. ‘But I believe he told her so. Why, I haven’t a clue.’

She put the cigarette and matches down and had a sip of wine. ‘I’ve thought a lot about him these past couple of days. He was a devious man. I doubt if he ever trusted anyone, including himself. Slippery, you know?’

I nodded, relieved that the tense moment had passed. It was worth another belt of the dry white.

Claudia spoke slowly, as if weighing the words as they came out: ‘It would be like him, while thinking about how to get rid of me, to suggest to someone that the boot was on the other foot, so to speak. Do you understand?’

‘I understand what you’re saying, but that would be a pretty twisted mind.’ Then I thought of some of the subterfuges I’d perpetrated in my time and the question I’d been holding back all this time flashed in front of me in neon lights: Why did you come here?

‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘I suppose all minds are twisted in one way or another.’

She lit the cigarette and puffed the smoke away from me, but not that far away. ‘You’re chewing on something there in your twisted mind, aren’t you?’

I forced a grin. ‘Shit, I’m the one with the gypsy grandma. I should do the mind-reading act.’

‘C’mon, Cliff. Let’s be all grown-up about this. No, let’s be earthy! Let’s talk as good as we fuck.’