Peter Temple: White Dog

‘I say again,’ I said. ‘Is this strictly necessary?’

We were on the Tullamarine tollway, now at its early-evening worst, a howling blur of taxis, trucks, cars, trade vehicles, drivers all tired and vicious.

‘I don’t want to die not knowing,’ said Linda Hillier. She was looking exceptionally attractive, as people leaving often do.

‘I don’t understand that,’ I said. ‘Why shouldn’t you die not knowing? Why is that worse than dying knowing? Let’s say you’re a mountain climber, you get a chance to climb Everest or K-47, AK-47, Special K, an unusually large piece of vertical landscape. You fall off it or into a glacier, you’re going to be snap-frozen, like a baby pea. In that instant, you know. Now, why is that better than…’

I felt her eyes on me. I didn’t want to risk a glance. I was driving her car, a new Alfa, much too refined a creature for someone only at home with V-8 American brutes, crude things, power without responsibility.

‘Jack,’ she said. ‘They’ll probably terminate me in two months, pay out the contract. I’ll send for you. We’ll take an apartment in Paris, wake late, coffee and croissants, walk around, eat expensive lunches, hit the pleasure mat in the afternoon…’

I closed on a plumber called John Vanderbyl, a blocked-drain specialist towing a trailer holding his video-equipped probing instruments. He was a laggard and himself guilty of clogging so I moved out and left him behind. Then I had to curb the Alfa’s instinct to stay in the right lane, overtake everything. Like me, it was a natural front-runner. Unlike me, it could sustain it.

‘That’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘You have to lose for me to win. You’ll be heartbroken, I’ll be impotent. On the other hand, if you win, I stay in Carrigan’s Lane wearing a dust mask while you’re bouncing on George V’s famous mattresses with Nigel, your priapic young Eton-educated production assistant.’

‘How do you know about Nigel?’ she said.

‘An educated guess. If the Poms want an accent, why can’t they find a nice girl from Liverpool? Why do they want an Aussie on London radio?’

‘They like us. We don’t quite get the class system. We don’t instinctively defer to upper-class and upper-middle-class twits. We understand irony and understatement. Also we can do attack dog.’

Linda was good at being an attack dog. A calm attack dog, though, taking politicians’ calves firmly in the mouth without breaking skin, not letting go, giving little shakes from time to time.

A space appeared in the right-hand lane and, for no good reason, I pulled out to overtake a representative of Bottom-dollar Carpets, then eclipsed a four-wheel-drive and an old Mitsubishi.

‘When we get there,’ I said, ‘any chance of a final romp?’

She put a hand on my thigh. ‘I think not. I want to leave you wanting more.’

‘Which has always been the case. Why isn’t it enough to be the best in this town?’

How stupid a question. I had turned it over in my mind, which made asking it even more stupid.

Linda was looking out of the side window. ‘Naked ambition,’ she said. ‘Also I feel like a fake, someone who’s lucked it.’

‘Of course. Anyone can luck it. All you need is a chainsaw brain and a voice like Lauren Bacall. That’s after you get a start in the business, which requires great legs, willing hands and passable knockers.’

‘Passable? Hold on, mate, these knockers took work. I started knocker exercises at thirteen.’

‘Race-fit knockers, I’m sure. You might have given me a bit more notice of this.’

I heard the petulant tone of my voice.

The long fingers squeezed my thigh. ‘Wasn’t any more to give,’ she said. ‘They rang, they offered the money, they wanted me soonest.’

‘Just like me. Without the offer of money.’

The airport exit loomed.

‘There’s a lot of food in the boot,’ she said. ‘Perishables. I was at the Vic Market yesterday.’

‘I’ll park,’ I said.

‘No. Do an illegal at the international. Don’t switch off. I’ll get my bag out and be gone in seconds. No farewells, my father said. He couldn’t bear goodbyes.’

I thought that I would have liked her father, a farmer crushed by the bank and a tractor, gone without a farewell.

We travelled in silence. It was starting to rain. I couldn’t find the wipers.

She showed me how you did it.

‘This car?’ I said.

‘Keep it at your place. Drive it. I’m coming back for this baby. Baby. Also I forgot to switch off the fridge and freezer. Do that for me?’

‘Only if you’ll promise to keep yourself nice.’

‘Of course. And if I don’t, you won’t hear it from me.’

I went up the ramp and stopped behind a taxi. Linda took my head in both hands and kissed me, hard, pulled back, kissed me again, mouth open a little, a decent kiss.

‘More,’ I said. ‘Baby.’

‘Later. Baby. Wish me luck.’

I nodded, not inclined to speak.

She leaned across me, hair against my face, and made the boot rise. She took her travelling bag from the back seat, brushed fingertips across my lips, and she was out, plucked her slim case from the boot, closed the lid. I saw her go through the doors, not a backward glance, gone as if posted.

I drove home with something lodged in my throat, travelled at a measured speed beneath the high, cruel lights, no urge to overtake anything, smelling new leather, hearing the soft sound of the Italian wipers, like the breathing of a sleeping child. At the old boot factory, I parked beneath the oaks. The mobile rang.

‘Tomorrow,’ said Andrew Greer, my former partner at law, ‘I will be attempting to spring a client now languishing in remand. Thereafter your expensive services will be needed.’

Andrew Greer was on his feet, long feet in narrow, shiny black shoes, everything about him long, all the visible things.

‘Your worship,’ he said, ‘the defendant is a person of impeccable reputation who is traumatised by what has happened. There is no risk of her absconding. She will vigorously contest the charge against her and looks forward to the court clearing her name. I ask that she be granted bail on whatever conditions your worship deems fitting.’

The magistrate looked at the prosecutor, who rose. He was a sad man, not at all the state’s doberman, more its stiff-legged labrador, looking forward to the day’s end, the worn spot by the fireside, the peace of dog as his head came to rest on his paws.

‘No objection to bail, your worship,’ he said.

I could see by the movement of Drew’s head, the way he looked at his client, that he had been expecting a fight.

The magistrate didn’t ponder the matter: $60,000, passport surrendered, report once a day. Court adjourned.

Nothing showed on the woman’s face except that she blinked rapidly. When she spoke to Drew, she inclined her head towards him, almost touched his chin with her forehead. Her name was Sarah Longmore and she was charged with murdering her former lover nine days before.

I went outside. It was raining in the same half-hearted way it had been when I left my abode after daybreak. The media were on the pavement — print journos and photographers, many of the latter skinheaded, three television reporters touching lacquered hair, camera and sound people, worried about nothing, complaining, smoking, spitting.

A black four-wheel-drive, a small one with tinted windows, arrived and double-parked: the getaway transport.

Drew and the woman came out, both tall, both in black overcoats. She was supposed to be in her mid-thirties. She could have been a seventeen-year-old ballet dancer, sharp cheekbones, short dark hair combed back with a left parting, over-exercised, living on vitamin pills, cigarettes and chocolate.