Peter Temple: Dead Point

‘Everything all right?” he said. ‘Not too hot for you?’

‘Was this a hot one?’ said Drew. ‘Ronnie Krumm, Jack Irish. Jack used to be my law partner.’

I shook Ronnie’s fleshy hand.

‘And you eat together,’ said Ronnie. ‘Amaazing. I’m still trying to kill my ex-partner.’

‘I never heard you say that,’ said Drew. ‘Call me when you succeed, I’ll see what I can do.’

Ronnie winked and moved on to one of the tables of trade unionists.

‘Yes,’ said Drew. ‘Xavier Doyle, the boy’s a dreamer and a doer. Cook from Dublin, guitar player, he sees the huge old place, used to be a temperance pub, falling down. So he finds the money to buy it, plus megabucks for renovations.’

‘How do you do that?’ I tried to defuse a bite of stew with a big swig of the Bolivian.

‘I don’t know exactly. They say he won over Mike Cundall. And Mrs Cundall, no doubt. And now he’s in with little Sam Cundall and the Sydney sharks, tendering for ski resorts and casinos.’

The Cundall family were in commercial property, carparks, mortgage lending, internet dream factories, many other things. They also gave away large sums and, by all accounts, turned on a good party.

‘Cannon Ridge. How do you know he’s in that?’

Drew was looking into his glass. ‘Because I know things. So what’s the interest in The Green?’

‘Someone called Robbie Colburne was a casual barman there. Dead of an overdose.’

He drank, rolled the wine in his mouth, squinted. ‘Bolivian,’ he said in wonder. ‘Excellent. Half the price of an equivalent local drop. And made by Aussie mercenaries. What happened to loyalty? Patriotism?’

‘You sound like Cyril.’

‘Now there’s a patriot. Fought abroad for his country.’

‘Which broad was that?’

He gave me the Greer frown. ‘Very weak, Jack. It’s all that buggering around with carpentry. You don’t do enough law. Keeps the mind alert. So what’s the problem with a dead waiter? The more the merrier, I say. Did he have a ponytail?’

‘A barman. I’m told the cops were interested in him.’

‘Always interested in barmen, the cops. Source of free drinks. I ran into your sister the other day.’ His eyes were not on me; they were on something behind me.

‘It’s usually the other way around,’ I said. ‘Did she mention that she’s uninsurable?’

‘At lunch with my friends the Pratchetts.’

Dick Pratchett QC was the doyen of the criminal bar, a huge bearded man who cross-examined in a hoarse whisper and sometimes waited for answers with his eyes closed. Juries loved him and so did many murderers and lesser criminals roaming free.

I said, ‘Ah. The trophy bride. Rosa’s friend.’

Pratchett had recently married my sister Rosa’s doubles partner, a woman a good twenty years his junior. Strike three.

‘An attractive person,’ said Drew, still not looking at me. ‘Intelligent to boot.’

‘If you like booting. Her predecessor’s IQ just topped her chest size. Considerable for a chest but only for a chest.’

‘Rosa, I’m talking about your sister.’ Drew met my eyes, looked uneasy. ‘We’re having lunch on Sunday.’

‘My sister. That’s an entirely different matter.’

Rosa was rich, spoilt beyond redemption. But it wasn’t the money that did it. It was being the focus of three adults’ lives. My maternal grandparents’ money had all gone to her and she used it to do nothing. Unless shopping, playing tennis, having brief affairs with unsuitable men and agonising over life constituted doing something.

I let Drew wait. Then I said, ‘She usually lunches with young men. Spunks. Studs. Studs in their ears, studs elsewhere.’

He still wasn’t too keen to hold my gaze, looked over my shoulder again. ‘More of a meeting of minds, this. No objection, is there?’

I studied him, shook my head. ‘Really, Drew, you can look at me when you raise matters like this.’

He looked at me. ‘Well?’

‘It’s your life.’

‘What’s that mean? Of course it’s my fucking life. Don’t you approve?’

‘Approval doesn’t come into it.’

‘So you don’t approve?’

‘Forget this approval stuff. You’re not asking for my permission, are you?’

‘Well, no. Yes, I suppose I am.’

‘Don’t. I don’t give permissions.’

A long silence. I thought he was going to get up and leave, let me pay for the explosive fish stew.

‘So,’ he said. ‘Not a good idea, you think.’

We fingered our glasses.

‘Fucking awful idea,’ I said. ‘From my point of view.’

Drew filled our glasses. ‘Exactly why is that?’

I’d never been called upon to do something like this. Since her mid-teens, Rosa had always had two photographs beside her bed: a photograph of Bill Irish, the father she never knew, and one of me, in tennis clothes, the older brother to whom she told everything, whether he wanted to hear it or not.

In short, I knew too much.

‘The risk is,’ I said, ‘the risk is that between the two of you you’ll end up creating some fucking vast, treeless, mined no-go area. For me.’

‘For you?’

‘For me. This is about me. You’re asking me.’

‘What about me?’

‘How can I say this? You’re a divorced prick looking for love and affection. Rosa, on the other hand, is only looking for romance. Do I have to say more?’

Drew considered this statement, looking at me. Then he said, ‘No, your honour.’ He emptied his glass. ‘Let’s get the other half.’

Over at the trade union table, an argument had broken out between a short-haired woman with thick-lensed glasses and a man with a wispy beard. ‘The question isn’t whether it’s a women’s issue,’ said the man, ‘it’s whether it’s a union issue.’

The woman looked at the ceiling and said through tight lips, ‘This is so fucking unbelievably eighties, it makes me want to puke.’

‘A lot to be said for the eighties,’ Drew said, signalling to a waiter. ‘Bernie Quinlan kicked 116 in ’83.’

‘That was ’84.’

‘No, he only kicked 105 in ’84.’

There was a moment of non-recognition, then the old woman said, ‘Mr Irish, yeah, wait on.’

I heard the boards complain as she went back down the passage. Through the crack in the door came a smell of cat pee, pine-scented disinfectant, paint and food cooked to disintegration.

The old planks signalled Mrs Nugent’s return. She opened the door, revealing that she was wearing a yellow plastic raincoat. ‘Paintin,’ she said. ‘The kitchen. Here.’ She offered me a suitcase. ‘Good clothes, mind you give em to the boy’s rellies.’

‘Have no fear,’ I said. ‘It was the landlord, was it?’

I’d left my card with Robbie Colburne’s neighbour and she’d been on the answering machine when I got back from The Green Hill.

‘Yeah. Come round yesterdee. Give me $20 to clean up the place. Take anythin I liked, give the rest to the Salvos, throw it away.’ She hesitated. ‘Money’s money.’ A further hesitation. ‘The towels and that, the kitchen stuff. Kept that.’

‘Right thing to do,’ I said. ‘Didn’t find anything with an address on it? Letter, anything?’

She shook her head. ‘Them others coulda taken anythin like that.’

‘Others? Police?’

‘Police? Yeah, spose. Who else? Young blokes.’

‘Not in uniform?’

Mrs Nugent looked at me with fowl eyes. ‘Been in uniform I wouldn’t have to bloody spose, would I? Haven’t gone that stupid.’

‘No. Sorry. They take anything away?’

‘Dunno.’

I got out my wallet. She held up a hand, palm outwards.

‘Don’t want no money. Just give the suitcase to the family. Tell em the neighbour says he was a nice young bloke. Had manners. Musta bin brought up right. Only saw him the coupla times in the beginnin, don’t know he actually lived here.’