Peter Temple - Shooting Star

The database recorded that Lennox Guinane had a conviction for driving under the influence and convictions for assault and illegal possession of firearms.

‘An armed and violent architect,’ said Orlovsky. ‘You’d have had a lot in common.’

‘I couldn’t change the name from Sitesong,’ said David Klinger. ‘Appalling name but it was there before I was. I’ve lived with it all these years. Used to be very trendy.’ He sniffed. ‘Trendy. Not a word you hear today either. We were a bit trendy, a bit fashionable then.’

He drank half a glass of white wine, glass the size of a cricket ball. ‘Len was a guru, one of the mudbrick gurus.’ There was no admiration in his voice.

David Klinger, all that remained of the architectural practice of Sitesong, was a man having a go at defying age. He was well into his sixties, shaven head, rimless glasses, thin body in a black teeshirt and black jeans. We were sitting at a table in his studio upstairs in a square tower attached to a house. Half a cheese and lettuce sandwich lay on a large white plate, next to it, two open bottles of white wine, one half-empty. A drawing board with a plan on it looked over a golf course.

‘Very much gurus,’ I said. ‘Both of you. That’s why I was keen to do something on your practice when this assignment came up. I was thinking along the lines of short biographies with details of major works.’

‘Len’s been done,’ said Klinger, filling his glass. ‘A student at Melbourne Uni did a Master’s thesis on the mudbrick pioneers. What’s her name now? Kilpatrick, Fitzpatrick, something like that. They’ll all be in there, Knox, Len, the others. Visionaries, all of them.’ Much less than admiration in his tone. ‘Mind you, I’ve never seen it. She promised to give me a copy, spent bloody days here, let her see all the sketches, plans, everything. Never heard from her again. That’s bloody gratitude for you.’

He studied me, narrowed eyes. ‘You’re from where?’

‘Burnley, part-time.’

‘Teach architecture there now?’

‘It’s a landscape design project,’ I said. ‘We’re encouraged to see the buildings as part of the landscape.’

Klinger nodded. ‘Enlightened of them. I did a bit of teaching at Melbourne, place was full of career-change hopefuls. Didn’t have a clue what they were getting into, most of them, not a clue. This practice’s been going since 1956 and on average I doubt whether we’ve made more than the basic wage. People don’t understand that. Bloody brickie makes more, much more. Go and be a brickie, that’s what I used to tell them. They didn’t like that.’

‘I’m holding on to my day job,’ I said.

He was studying the view without seeing it, glass in one hand, tapping the bony knuckles of the other on the table. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Melbourne Uni will let you see the thesis on the gurus, get what you need out of that.’

‘I’ve seen the thesis,’ I said. ‘But what I wanted to do was talk about your partnership. I wanted to talk to you about how you worked together, how you influenced each other.’

Klinger laughed, it turned into a cough. He stilled it with wine, a little warmth came into his gaze. ‘Won’t have a drop? The Queen Adelaide, all I can afford these days. Price of wine’s bloody outrageous. Influenced each other? I don’t know about influencing Len. I’d studied in Europe, of course. Len never left Australia, very narrow was the guru.’

‘So you brought a wider vision to the practice.’

He drank wine, turned his lips down. ‘I was younger,’ he said. He burped. ‘Excuse me.’

‘That would’ve made a difference.’

‘Nothing made a difference to Len. He was a bulldozer. Get in his way, he’d go right over you, didn’t give a damn. Got into these fearful rages.’

Klinger finished his glass, filled it, most of the bottle gone. ‘Didn’t drink before sundown in the old days,’ he said. ‘Can’t stay awake long after sundown now.’

‘Lennox had a bad temper?’

‘Tantrums. Like a child. Ellen told me, that was his wife, died in an accident. Tragedy. I loved that woman.’ He fell silent, stared at his glass. Then he looked up. ‘What was I saying?’

‘Ellen told you…’

‘Yes, the tantrums. Len’s father was the same. Ellen’s father-in-law. He was a doctor, used to rage at his patients, felt they were letting him down. Ellen said he went to see a patient in hospital one day and shouted at the poor fellow so violently the man had a heart attack on the spot.’

‘That kind of thing can run in a family,’ I said. ‘Did he pass it on to the children?’

Klinger sighed, sipped. ‘Sure you won’t?’

‘Perhaps half a glass. That would be nice.’

‘Excellent.’ He was pleased to have drinking company. ‘I’ll just get a glass. Frank, it’s Frank, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘David. Call me David. No one’s ever called me Dave. I wouldn’t have minded that. Dave.’

He went to a cupboard in the corner and came back with another goldfish-bowl glass, splashed it three-quarters full.

‘What were you saying?’

‘His temper. Passed on to the children?’

‘Ah, the children.’ Klinger’s good mood dimmed a little. ‘The twins, well, they were a worry from early on in the piece. There’s something about twins, something mysterious, I don’t know. They were both late developers, didn’t start talking properly until they were, oh, five, thereabouts. But they had this private language, they made these sounds, not quite words. Word-like sounds. Only to each other, didn’t respond to their parents or to Cassie for ages, more or less ignored them.’

‘That would be a worry,’ I said.

‘Yes. Ellen took them around the medical profession, they weren’t any help. As usual. Len of course was too wrapped up in himself to take much notice. And then one day Keith, right out of the blue, started talking to Cassie. Advanced speech too for a child. Ellen came around here, she was in tears. Tears of joy and relief. I cried with her, I can tell you. And a few days later, Victor started up, also to Cassie.’

I drank some wine. ‘So they were fine after that?’

Klinger shrugged, drank. ‘Brilliant, both of them. Reading like teenagers at six, playing the piano by ear. Writing stories, plays. Then Victor attacked a girl at school. He was about eight. She’d been taunting him but he didn’t do anything, not in class. He waited until playtime and he called this little girl around a corner of the building and attacked her. A serious attack, an assault. Premeditated assault. That was the real concern. He beat her with an empty soft drink bottle, got her down and rained blows on her. A teacher was there in seconds but the girl had teeth knocked out, her whole face was a big bruise. She was in shock, had to be taken to hospital. No one had ever seen an eight-year-old hurt someone else like that.’

He shook his head. ‘Terrible. Murderous streak, that would be from his father, no question. Len had a conviction for assault. Knocked an electrician right off a building, he fell twenty feet. And that was the one that ended up in court. There were others. I was scared of him, I don’t mind saying that.’

I said, ‘Someone mentioned an illegal firearms charge.’

‘Didn’t put that in the thesis, did she?’

‘No. I heard it somewhere.’

‘Len started going weird after Ellen’s death. Survivalist rubbish, Indonesian invasions. Built this bunker, year’s worth of food, even bloody cold storage, some silent fridge thing he devised. And this in bloody Eltham. Hardly your backwoods mountain hideout, huge city on the doorstep. But it wasn’t a logical matter.’

‘Illegal arms. What was that?’