Peter Temple - White Dog

‘That night, the date?’

‘December the third, 1994.’

‘So you flew from Adelaide on December 4?’

‘That’s right, yeah. Tried to ring my mum from the airport, got some pissed dickhead.’

‘And at this end, what happened?’

‘I waited at the airport for Teresa.’

‘What did she know?’

‘Wayne said I was his fiancee and my family were nutters, my brother wanted to kill me.’

‘She knows the truth now?’

Janene nodded. ‘When they killed Wayne, I told her. I thought she’d tell me to piss off but I had to tell her. She’s a good person, she didn’t owe me a fucking thing, but she just gave me a hug. She’s my friend. Lots in common now, both married to arsehole Milders, except she’s got the kids and I’m the infertile bitch.’

‘And your husbands, they know?’

‘Jesus, no. No.’

‘How old were you then?’

‘Nineteen. And a half.’

‘Katelyn?’

A shrug. ‘Looked fifteen, I don’t know.’

‘Someone must have tried to find out what happened to her.’

‘She said all she had was a half-brother but she hadn’t seen him since she was little, ten, something like that. These foster people had her, they ran a roadhouse in the back of buggery, then the man left and another one came on the scene, he was on her like a rash. She was thirteen. The mum kicked her out. That’s all I know. She told me that once.’

Katelyn Feehan, looking fifteen, dead in a five-star hotel, next-of-kin someone she hadn’t seen since she was ten. I looked at the birds, the pickings were slimmer now, they were jostling like footballers, a lot of use of the body.

‘Being scared, it’s always there, every day,’ said Janene. ‘They killed Wayne, he was fucking right about them, they’ll kill me.’

‘You can only stop being scared,’ I said, ‘when they can’t touch you.’

‘Who?’ she said, her right hand sprang out, fingers spread, sharp gesture. ‘Fucking who?’

‘If it came to it,’ I said, ‘could you identify the people you saw that night?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘The big one, I’d know him, I would definitely positively know him. And the nerd, probably. I don’t know, I’d have to see him.’

‘The spunk and the woman?’

‘Yeah, him. I’d know him. If she looked the same, I’d say yes. But if she’d changed her hair and stuff, well, maybe.’

‘The man who came to the bedroom door. Would you recognise him?’

‘Don’t know. Maybe.’

‘Janene,’ I said. ‘I’ll need your help. Will you look at some pictures?’

She raised both hands, automatic, ran middle fingers outwards along the tops of her eye sockets, under the unplucked brows. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘What kind of pictures?’

‘Just people in the street, ordinary pictures.’

‘Yeah, okay.’ She fetched another cigarette, sat down.

I opened the folder and took out the photographs of Mickey Franklin. ‘Just say if you recognise anyone and where you’ve seen them.’

I gave them all to her and I didn’t breathe.

She looked at the top one. ‘Fuck,’ she said, ‘that’s him. He’s the one came to the bedroom door, said Wayne was on his way.’ She looked at the others. ‘Yeah, that’s him. The others I don’t know.’

‘There’s a chance of settling this business once and for all,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t have to be scared anymore.’

‘Well, that would be nice,’ she said, ‘but I’m not putting myself on the line. I mean, they think I’m dead, don’t they? They don’t know I’m alive.’

‘They may know you’re alive. They may have thought you’d be too scared ever to put your head up.’

‘They’d have fucking thought right,’ she said.

‘Things have changed. Now they may want to be sure.’

‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘It’s just me, it’s just my word against them.’

‘I don’t think they’ll see it like that,’ I said. ‘They won’t want your word heard at all.’ I got up. ‘You can be kept out of this, Janene. With luck. But I might need you to look at other pictures.’

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘but I’m not coming to Melbourne, right?’

‘Can you go to Perth?’

‘Yeah, I suppose.’

‘If I need to, I’ll send the pictures over the net to someone I can trust in Perth. You can look at them there.’

‘You can send them to Teresa at home, she can do that scanning stuff. She sends progress pictures of houses all over the place. I’ll give you the e-mail address.’

Janene went away and came back with a card.

We went to the door. ‘Goodbye,’ I said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

We stood awkwardly. She puffed out her cheeks, nodded. Then, on impulse, she kissed my cheek. ‘I feel better,’ she said. ‘Like there’s some way this can end. I’m trusting you, Jack. You won’t let me down?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I won’t let you down.’

At the airport, I rang Wootton, told him what I wanted to know about the River Plaza. Then I flew home, sitting beside an elderly woman in the window seat who was going to see her grandson play football in an under-15 grand final in Dandenong.

‘Hate flying,’ she said as the take-off engine noise rose. ‘Be a dear and hold my hand, will you?’

I held out my right hand. She put her small palm on it, threaded her fingers through mine, closed her eyes. The noise increased, we were running, I could feel the tension in her fingers. I gave a little squeeze. We broke free of earth and rose into the blank white West Australian sky, lorded it over the thousands of brick bungalows, the shining solar collectors, banked over the small hills, turned in the direction of the world.

‘I think we’re up,’ I said. ‘Safe, for the moment.’

‘Thank you, dear,’ she said and let go of me. I missed her hand, I didn’t hold many hands, couldn’t remember the last hand held.

I read the Australian. The lead story on page three was the building industry royal commission. Counsel assisting the commissioner put it to the MassiBild representative, Dennis Cambanis, that until recent times the company’s building sites were ‘dirty money laundries’.

‘I mean by that there was and may still be a widespread system of paying workers cash top-ups and the cash is dirty money. It comes out of the drug trade, it is discounted money.’

‘I’ve never heard of anything like that, your honour,’ said Mr Cambanis. ‘This is just rubbish. With respect, your honour, I think counsel has been watching too much television.’

‘Like a banana?’ said my sidekick. ‘I’ve got a spare. One’s plenty for me.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘My name’s Jack.’

‘I’m Nola.’

We peeled our bananas. Nola put the peels into the banana bag. It was a good banana. I should eat bananas, a source of potassium, Isabel had always put a banana peel under her tomato seedlings.

‘Both the girls went east,’ Nola said, chewing thoughtfully. ‘Couldn’t wait. Don’t know why. Only place east I ever wanted to go was Tasmania. Saw this thing on the telly. All that water, so green. Like England. Mind you, never been to England either. My late hubby was English, he never wanted to go back. I used to say, when you retire, we’ll have a trip to England. Over my dead body, he always said. Would’ve had to have been, died a week after his retirement do, they gave him a clock. Came home, he’d had a few, he says, last bloody thing I need from now on’s a clock.’

I smiled and nodded. I didn’t want to be trusted with Janene’s life. I didn’t want to be trusted with anything heavier than a lease. Isabel died because my client Wayne Waylon Milovich thought I’d done a bad job when entrusted with his future. My life since then had been guided by the principle of taking care but not responsibility. But not over this business. I’d drifted away from my beacon, I’d lost sight of the flashing light. Now I was giving assurances.