Peter Corris - The Empty Beach

Understanding is right, I thought. It seemed a rational way to deal with an intelligent person like Ann Winter. Frank Parker was acting pretty shrewdly with me; perhaps we were entering a time when the cops suited their approach to the subject. I wondered what the appropriate approach would be for the person who had disembowelled Bruce Henneberry. I looked down and realised that I’d automatically taken Ann’s tobacco and had started to roll a cigarette. I finished it and tucked it away in the pouch.

‘How long did you smoke for?’

‘Twenty-five years.’ That was true, and it meant that I’d started about the time she was born. She nodded and puffed.

‘And it still bothers you?’

‘Not much. Just when I need to think.’

She laughed. ‘It must bother you all the time, then.’

‘Not really. I do a lot of sitting in cars looking around, walking down streets with people carrying money-babysitting, really.’

‘This isn’t babysitting.’ She drained the coffee and pulled hard on her cigarette. ‘What about Leon?’ The way she said the name was an accusation. ‘You know he’s dead?’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Maybe I should give that cassette to the police.’ She stubbed the butt out, hard. ‘Only I can’t because you’ve got it.’

‘Take it easy,’ I said. ‘I’ll give it to them myself in a day or so if I don’t come up with something. I promised Parker.’

‘Constable Reynolds had a word or two to say about him.’

I invited her to tell all, but she wouldn’t. I asked her what she’d heard about Leon.

‘Just that he died. Oh, yes. I’m invited to his wake tonight.’

‘His what?’

‘Wake. He left some money and a note that said he wanted to have a wake. The woman who manages the house found the note and word got around. I got asked through a girl who fixes up the old men.’

‘Fixes them how?’

‘Fucks them, of course, or gets them as close as she can. D’you want the details? She…’

‘No, I don’t want the details, but I do want to go to the wake.’

‘Why?’

I shrugged. ‘Something might happen, someone might say something interesting. Will you take me? Where is it?’

She looked at me and didn’t reply. I reminded myself that she was trained to observe, judge and report on people, to classify and quantify them. I tried to look responsible and intelligent, disinterested and analytical.

‘Why are you looking like that?’ she asked.

‘Like what?’

‘Your face has gone stiff. You look like a moron.’

‘I was trying to look serious. I want to go to the wake.’

‘You’re supposed to bring a bottle.’

I nodded. ‘I’ll bring two. Yes?’

‘Okay. Let’s go and eat first; we’ll need a foundation for the grog.’

We ate Lebanese food at a place on the Parade. It wasn’t as good as it is in Darlinghurst, but it was better than in Glebe. I bought a bottle of brandy and a flagon of wine at a pub and we had a little of the wine just to help the food down. During the meal I noticed her pent-up nervousness for the first time. Her hands were never still; she did things with her hair, shredded the flat bread, smoked. It was as if she was afraid to be still, afraid that it would make her some sort of target. When she started tracing patterns in the hoummos with a match I reached over and moved her hand away.

‘Your people must be loaded with that house and all,’ I said. ‘Why aren’t you off skiing somewhere or learning to make stained-glass windows?’

She took it the right way and grinned. ‘Somehow I just can’t seem to get the idea of filling up my life that way.’

‘Who’s got the millions?’

‘Both of ‘em. His dough is from land development and that, bit grubby. Hers is old money from the land-New England. I’ve got an older brother just like him and a twin sister just like her, so they’re happy. They leave me alone.’

‘Do you enjoy this, the field work?’

She frowned. ‘Sometimes I hate it, sometimes it’s okay. They’re an awful mess, the girls, but they’re alive, at least. They’re tough and brave. It’s bloody confusing.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, you know, I’ve got all the middle-class, educated views on things like peace and that. But what these kids would be really good at would be a war. In a way they need a war.’

‘Or a revolution?’

‘Yeah, but…’

‘But they’d get screwed in a war or a revolution just the same.’

‘That’s right.’

‘What’ll you do when you’re Dr Winter?’

She shrugged. ‘Don’t know. It’s two years away at least. That’s too far ahead to worry about. I’ve learned that much around here.’

She was right there. Only the comfortable and secure look and plan two years ahead.

‘I suppose you think I’m a phoney,’ she said. ‘Slumming it up here in Bondi with Point Piper to go back to?’

I was surprised and concerned. I didn’t think that and I didn’t want her to think that I did. ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I don’t think you’re a phoney. You’re doing a job and you can probably do it better if you can scrub the shit off once in a while. That was the theory in the army.’

‘When were you in the army?’

‘Long time ago, in Malaya.’

‘Can’t see you as a soldier.’

‘I wasn’t very good.’

‘Why not?’

I hesitated. I didn’t usually talk about Malaya, although I thought about it a good deal. Something made me willing to talk about it now-maybe it was her interviewing technique. But she had that ability some women have of making you feel like the most important thing around at the moment. I’d met it before and I fell for it every time.

‘I was very scared,’ I said slowly. ‘But I was more scared of showing that I was scared. I did stupid things, risked other people’s lives. Also I was erratic, unreliable.’

‘Did you care about the cause? Fighting against the Chinese communists, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s right. No, I didn’t give a bugger. Didn’t understand it at all. I believed what I was told.’

‘That says a lot about you.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t believe what you’re told any more, do you? That’s your job-not believing what you’re told.’

I could see what she meant, and there was something in it. Maybe I was still an anti-soldier, but since then I’d had a bit more experience at the differences between what you’re told and what is-with Cyn, for example. I let that stay private and we sat there for a few minutes quietly. She smoked, but placidly, for her.

I poured us a bit more wine, which still left us a very respectable amount to take to the wake.

‘Two men have died since you started looking for this guy,’ she said. ‘What’s his name again?’

‘Singer.’

‘Singer. Two dead men. What does that mean, for Christ’s sake?’

‘Could be anything. Bruce might have stumbled onto how Singer got to be dead, if he is dead. Or he might have found out that he’s not dead. I just can’t get past that point.’

‘If he’s alive, why isn’t he around enjoying that yacht?’

‘And that wife.’

‘Attractive wife?’

‘Pretty good.’

‘Strikes me you ought to find out a bit more about the wife.’

‘Yeah, and about Brother Gentle and McLeary and the other operator around here whose name I don’t even know.’

‘You’re going to be busy. Do you still want to go to the wake?’

She gathered her things up and looked around for the bill. I took it, thinking that Mrs Singer would pay it and wondering where she was eating tonight and with whom. Ann was right; I didn’t know nearly enough about the lady. She’d charmed me, I knew that, but was she the kind to provoke a suicide or a murder? Ann looked at me impatiently. She was the kind not to be slowed down or kept waiting.