Peter Temple - An Iron Rose

‘Had your local jacks on the line about that special permit. Been firing the cowboy gun at the neighbours?’

‘What’d you tell them?’

‘Piss off. How’ve you been?’

‘Fair. You?’

‘So-so. Creeping age. What’s on your mind?’

‘Two things. One’s a favour.’

‘ “And every favour has its price/paid not in coin/but in flesh/slice by slice.” Know that poem?’

‘Engraved on the mind,’ I said. ‘After two hundred hearings. I need to find someone.’

‘We all do. It’s the human condition.’

‘Melanie Loreen Pavitt.’ I spelled the surname. ‘Born November 1966. Discharged from Kinross Hall November 1983. No known family. No fixed address after 1979.’

I’d gone back to the Kinross Hall print-out after talking to Dr Crewe. It said that in October 1983, in the week that Simon Walsh found the naked girl on Colson’s Road, a girl called Melanie Pavitt turned seventeen and reached the end of her two-year stay at Kinross Hall. It was a straw.

‘Thirty-two now,’ Berglin said. ‘What’s Kinross Hall?’

‘Place of safety, girls’ juvenile detention centre, whatever they call them now.’

‘Out your way?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what line you in now? Blacksmith and missing persons?’

‘It’s personal.’

‘And the second thing?’

‘I hear Carlie Mance was in that pub in Deer Park with Bianchi close to the day.’

There was a long silence. I could hear smoke expelled. Then Berglin said, ‘Bianchi’s dead, you hear that?’

‘Carlie’s dead too.’

‘I think this thing’s pretty much closed, Mac.’ Berglin’s voice was as close to sympathetic as it got.

‘Closed? Someone cuts Lefroy’s throat, rapes Carlie Mance, cuts her throat, walks away with a few million bucks in smack. On my watch. It’s closed? It’s a fucking unsolved crime. How does it get to be closed?’

Silence again. Then he said, ‘Where’d you hear this Deer Park stuff?’

‘Don’t ask.’

‘Jesus. And you want me to what?’

‘Tell them to get out the file and start looking at Bianchi. Nobody looked at Bianchi.’

Berglin blew smoke. ‘Mac, you look at Bianchi, who else are you looking at?’

‘That’s what I mean. I hear he’s about to make deputy Pope.’

‘You hear right. And you’re suggesting I dump a bag of fresh dog shit in the Vatican airconditioning. I’ll have to think about that. Give it a little thought. What’s your number? This Pavitt, I’ll tell you in the morning.’

I gave him the number. Then I said, ‘I’m clean. You know that, don’t you?’

Silence. A sigh. ‘In so far as I can be said to know anything,’ said Berglin. ‘Yes.’

I was cutting twelve millimetre steel rods with the power hacksaw when the nose of a red Porsche appeared in my line of sight through the open smithy door. I cut the power, took off the helmet and went outside.

A big man, in his forties, overweight, bald, little ponytail, dark beard shadow, corduroy bomber jacket with leather collar, was getting out of the car. Another man was in the passenger seat. ‘Afternoon,’ he said. ‘Mac Faraday?’

I said yes. He came over and put out a big hand. I shook it. Soft hand, gold chain around his wrist.

‘Andrew Stephens,’ he said. ‘Sorry to butt in. Passing by. Can we talk for a minute?’

It took a second for the name to register. ‘It’s warmer inside,’ I said.

We went into the smithy. He looked around like someone seeing for the first time a place where people worked with their hands.

‘So what do you make here?’ he said.

‘Anything. Gates, fences, fighter aircraft.’

Stephens laughed, a girlish giggling laugh showing perfect teeth, capped. His head was pear-shaped. ‘That’s funny,’ he said. He went over to the bench, took out a white handkerchief, wiped the bench, sat down, thighs wide apart.

‘Saw Irene Barbie this morning,’ he said. ‘She told me you were interested in Ian’s death, whether it was suicide.’

I nodded.

Stephens pulled at his ponytail. ‘Great friend of mine, Ian,’ he said. ‘Can’t believe he’s gone.’

I didn’t say anything.

He took a packet of cigarettes out of his jacket, waved it at me inquiringly, lit one with a slim gold lighter, blew smoke out of his nose. He was wearing a Rolex wristwatch. ‘I’d like to think he didn’t commit suicide,’ he said. ‘Irene said you asked about pethidine. What made you ask that?’

‘Heard it somewhere,’ I said.

Stephens took a drag, sighed smoke. ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘Poor bastard. Irene didn’t know. Ian suffered from depression, came on him in his twenties. We all tried to help, all his friends. Wasn’t anything you could do. Nothing. Out of anyone’s control. Pethidine’s the only reason he didn’t kill himself years ago.’

He took out the handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘I gather a friend of yours was found dead recently too,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t know what it’s like until you lose someone like that. Rather bloody not know.’

‘Yes.’

He stood up. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I was coming this way, thought I’d stop and say, you find out anything that makes you think Ian didn’t kill himself, I’d be grateful if you’d tell me. We all would. I know Tony Crewe-y’know Tony Crewe, the Attorney General? Close friend of Ian’s, of mine. Tony would appreciate hearing anything like that.’

‘I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘But I think he killed himself.’

‘Yes. That’s what’s most likely. Wonderful bloke, lovely. Well. That’s life.’

We went outside. The other man was out of the Porsche now, leaning against it, smoking a small cheroot. He was big, thick-necked, face like a ten-year-old on steroids.

‘While I’m here,’ Stephens said, ‘I’m thinking of getting someone to look after the maintenance on my properties. Big job, mainly supervision. Well paid. Think something like that would suit you?’

‘Not really,’ I said.

He nodded, put out his hand. ‘Anything makes you think Ian’s death’s other than the way it looks, you let me know. I mean first. Before you tell anyone else. That way, we make sure everything’s properly investigated. Quickly, too, I can guarantee that. Tony Crewe will see to that. Okay? And I’ll make sure you’re not out of pocket for any expenses. My duty to the family.’

‘You’ll be the first to know,’ I said.

‘Good man.’ He took out a wallet, gave me a card, tapped me on the arm.

They got into the car and drove off. I heard the engine note turn to a howl as they took the first hill.

I started at full forward, a position in the Brockley side where the ball was seen so rarely that a full forward had once gone home at the end of the third quarter and no-one noticed until the team was in the pub.

This Saturday was different. We were playing Bentham. I arrived about thirty seconds before the start, missing Mick Doolan’s tactical briefing and inspirational rev-up. He got his motivational material from studying a six-pack of videos called Modern Meisters of Motivation bought for $2.50 at a trash and trivia market. The players, many having their last cigarette before quarter-time, found messages such as Sell the SIZZLE not the STEAK and Don’t SEE to BELIEVE, BELIEVE to SEE extremely powerful: aflame, the Brockley side would stroll out, tugging at their jocks. The usual result: five goals down at quarter-time.

Not today. Either a new video found or Mick had fed the men elephant juice. Billy Garrett was, without effort, leaping free of the earth’s grip. Players who routinely handballed into the ground or to the other side were sending the ball to within metres of team-mates. Even Flannery seemed fresh from a Swiss rejuvenation clinic, backing into packs and coming out with the ball. From all over the field, players were kicking the ball in my direction. It was unnerving but I took four marks, kicked two goals and a behind. At quarter-time, we were four goals up.