Peter Corris - Aftershock

I walked through the stretch of reserve to the bottom of Bombala Street and up the hill to the Jacobs’ house. There was no-one in the shaded front yard, so I went up the steps onto the deck and around to the back of the house where the sun would reach. I found Horrie Jacobs sitting in a bright patch of sunlight at a wooden table with the newspaper and the remains of his breakfast in front of him.

‘Cliff. Where the hell did you spring from?’

I told him I’d been talking to a police officer in Whitebridge, without giving him any of the intimate details. He poured me some coffee, then shook his head. ‘It’s cold. I’ll make some more.’

‘Don’t bother. This’ll be fine. I haven’t got any good news for you, I’m afraid.’

‘You believe Oscar was killed though. I can see it in your face. And you’ve got a policeman on side, haven’t you?’

He was seeing something, but not what he thought. I nodded.

‘But you don’t know who did it?’

‘There’s a few candidates.’

He bristled. ‘What does that mean?’

I told him, keeping it simple, not coming on too strong. I told him about Mark Roper and Gina Costi and about Greta Coleman and the prison term and the name change. I didn’t tell him about the knife and the map. Something about the way he took the news, the way he drew himself up and sat rigidly, alerted May, who had been sitting inside the house with a view of the deck. She came out quietly and sat down next to Horrie. She heard some of it. Enough.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he said.

‘The evidence is all in my car. I can have it here inside an hour. Senior Sergeant Withers can verify it all. I’m sorry.’

‘He was my friend,’ Horrie muttered. ‘My only friend.’

May reached out and took his hand. He didn’t resist, didn’t seem to notice. The healthy colour had drained from his face and he looked old and frail. The woman looked at me and shook her head. I mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry’ again and she nodded and gave a slight shrug. A cloud moved across the sun and the deck was all at once in shade and cool. I shivered in my still damp shirt.

‘You’d better go, Mr Hardy,’ May said. ‘I always knew that nothing good would come of this.’

I left them sitting there, close together, the man encased in misery and disbelief and the woman trying to communicate silently with him. She lifted her hand in what I thought was a small wave but she stroked his head. I dropped my own hand and felt like a doctor giving a patient the worst news possible. I slouched around the deck with my own distress building, wondering whether to get back to Whitebridge via the beach or the road. I stood in the carefully tended front garden, undecided, indifferent. I’d decided on the beach when I heard movement behind me. May Jacobs came down the steps from the deck and advanced towards me. She was wearing white track pants and a blue T shirt and she looked capable of jogging down to the beach and back up again.

‘Cliff,’ she said. ‘That’s a very unhappy man you’ve made. Don’t say you’re sorry again. That’s no good.’

‘What would do any good, May? Just tell me.’

‘Now you’re planning to do what?’

‘I didn’t tell Horrie, but Bach might have attacked some other women. I’m working with the police on that. Horrie was right, you know. I think someone killed him and I want to know who.’

‘Why?’

I shrugged. ‘Just to complete things, I guess. A matter of professional pride. I ask a lot of questions and I like to get answers.’

‘You make it sound like Trivial Pursuit.’

It was the first light note that had been struck since I arrived and it was welcome. I smiled. ‘Something like that.’

‘I love that man, Cliff. I can’t stand to see him unhappy. There is something you can do. Find out all you can about who killed that man. Everything. Horrie Jacobs can face the facts. He spent his whole life doing it and he hasn’t changed just because of the money’

I nodded.

‘He’s worried that the money has changed him. It hasn’t. I know. But he worries. Now this. It’s better that he knows everything. Now it’s me that’s hiring you. You understand? I’ll send you a cheque.’

I started to protest but she cut me off with an angry gesture. ‘Find out! And tell us.’

She turned and marched away. I changed my mind and decided to go the road route. The sun came out from behind the cloud and I felt quite a lot better.

The walk to Whitebridge took about half an hour. Near the football ground, flanked by the two pubs, I saw a sign which warned of ‘burning chitter’. I’d seen similar signs on the south coast and it indicated that the oval had once been the pit head. There was probably a shaft under it heading straight out to sea or back under Ocean Street, or both. That also explained the two pubs-an early and a late opener to cater for the mine shifts. I bought a paper in Dudley and glanced through it as I passed the school and the Post Office. Ailing economy, political manoeuvring at home, trouble abroad-nothing new.

Glen had taken Oscar Bach’s box and the evidence it contained as I’d said she could. I was left with my file and photocopies of some of the notes she’d made on her own Bach researches. I had a shower, drank a can of beer from her fridge and left her a note that said a whole lot or nothing, depending on how you looked at it. Being a snoop, I wandered through the house, snooping. It was a very plain place, solid, with what the agents would call ‘tons of potential’. The trouble is, you need money to realise the potential and Glen didn’t seem to have it. The renovations-a larger deck, bigger windows-had been done on the cheap and the lino tile laying and most of the painting had been done by an amateur. She had a few nice pictures on the walls and a family photograph on top of a bookshelf stuffed full of paperbacks, including Lonesome Dove. The picture showed a good-looking woman and the not so good looking Edward Withers with a boy and a girl who could only have been Glen and her brother. Wholesome stuff.

I put the key where it went and drove back to my motel to shave, pack and check out. The cleaner wouldn’t have much of a job to do there. The sun was high and bright and I was sorry to be leaving Newcastle. I tried to enjoy the views as much as was consistent with careful driving. Along the road there were several blocks of land for sale. Two carried Mario Costi Real Estate signs, but they also had fresher signs from other agents. I wondered who was running Mario’s business now. Maybe Bruno. Certainly not Ronny.

I was almost to Belmont before I noticed the dark grey Toyota. It stayed well behind in the thin traffic and I couldn’t get a look at the driver. I considered trying some tactic to intercept it but nothing suggested itself. If I stopped it could pass and pick me up somewhere else. Presumably the driver knew the road patterns. I shrugged and let the car follow me all the way to the Swansea Bridge. It peeled off once we’d crossed the water and I felt like an outlaw being escorted across the county line. I made a mental note to ask May to call Ralphie off.

I made Glebe in under two hours which was good going for a couple of well-worn vehicles like the Falcon and me. The cat is well-worn too, and he can survive my absence for anything up to a week. The first couple of days he doesn’t even notice and he was casual about the food and milk I put down for him.

‘Screw you,’ I said and he yawned, lapped up some milk and went off to lie in the sun on the bricks that Hilde had laid, beside the rubber tree Helen had installed. Dangerous memories, Cliff, I thought. You’re about as much use to a woman as a crack in a glass eye. I used the beeper to get the messages on the office answering machine and learned nothing worth knowing. Then to the detective’s secret weapon-the telephone directory. Rory Coleman still operated in the southern suburbs. He had a home address in Engadine and his showroom-there seemed to be only one now, but big-was on the Princes Highway at Heathcote. It was early afternoon on a bright, sunny Friday. Where would an aggressive marketeer like Rory be? In a meeting? On the golf course? In the showroom? My information was sixteen years out of date but I bet on the showroom.