Peter Temple - Dead Point

Near the front door, Xavier Doyle came up behind me.

‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Mind I see you down the pub now.’

‘Count on it.’

‘That Robbie, you find out anythin more about the lad?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘He’s a mystery.’

Sandra Tollman had become Sandra Edmonds but was now Sandra Tollman again. She looked up from a tray of seedlings as I came down the greenhouse aisle. I’d found her easily, through her father, who still worked for the forestry department in New South Wales.

‘Sandra?’

‘Yes.’ She was tall, with dark, curly hair cut short, wearing green work clothes.

‘I’m Jack Irish.’

She took off a rubber glove and we shook hands. A long, slim hand, strong. I’d spoken to her on the phone at home the night before. She lived outside Colac and worked for a commercial tree nursery.

‘I’ll take my break,’ she said. ‘We can talk in the kitchen. The bosses are in town.’

I followed her out of the greenhouse and down a gravel path to a weatherboard building. We went in the back door, into a kitchen with a wooden table.

‘Sit down. Tea or coffee?’

‘Tea, please.’ I sat where I could look out of the window, at a green hill with mist hanging on it.

She switched on the kettle, put teabags in mugs, got a carton of milk out of the fridge, stood waiting for the kettle to boil.

‘Nice place to work,’ I said.

‘It is. I’m lucky. Nice bosses too, easygoing, no problems about starting times, that sort of thing. My little girl spends the afternoons here with me.’

‘Rare thing, a nice boss.’

She nodded. ‘I’ve had a few shits.’

The kettle boiled. She poured water into the mugs and sat at the end of the table.

‘Robbie hasn’t crossed my mind for years,’ she said. ‘What’s this about?’

I hadn’t told her on the phone. ‘I’m afraid he’s dead,’ I said. ‘Died of a drug overdose.’

She put a hand to her mouth, eyes wide. ‘Jesus.’

‘I’m trying to piece together his history,’ I said. ‘No-one seems to know much about him.’

‘Well.’ She scratched her head, bemused look. ‘Well, I haven’t seen him since, it must have been 1994. I had a terrific crush on him at school, I thought he was just the most divine thing, it ruined my school work…anyway, yes, 1994.’

‘Where was that?’

Two birds were on the windowsill, looking around calmly, lorikeets, their colours startling in the grey day.

‘In Sydney, in Paddington, bumped into him. He was with a woman at least ten years older, more maybe, you can’t tell with some women.’

‘A friend?’

She had dark eyes, clean whites, no guile in her eyes. ‘I was walking behind them and the woman put her hand in the back pocket of Robbie’s jeans.’

‘Not looking for something, you’d say?’

‘No.’

‘And then you talked?’

‘Just for a minute. In the street. The woman walked away, looked in windows.’

‘What did Robbie say?’

‘Small talk. Said he’d dropped out of uni. But I knew that, someone else told me, a girl in our class.’

I put a teaspoonful of sugar in my tea, stirred. ‘Janice Eller.’

Surprise. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Terry Baine told me about her.’

‘Terry Baine. The fat shit.’

‘Sim’s still carrying a torch for you,’ I said.

She smiled, dropped her head, covered her eyes with a hand. ‘God, you know everything,’ she said. ‘I cringe at the memory. Me walking around behind Robbie like a puppy, Sim sending his mates to give me messages. Really dumb messages.’

‘I’m sure it was an extremely serious matter at the time,’ I said. ‘No other contact with Robbie?’

‘No.’

I took out the still photograph I’d had printed from the video, the best shot of Robbie Colburne, almost full face, held it between thumb and forefinger. ‘This is the person we’re talking about?’

Sandra Tollman looked at the picture, looked at me, shocked.

I’d known. In the unfathomable way of knowing, I’d known since I watched the video clips, since D.J. Olivier told me that there was no record of Robbie returning to Australia.

‘No,’ she said. ‘This is Marco.’

‘Marco?’

‘Robbie’s friend.’

‘Marco who?’

‘Marco Lucia. Does this mean Robbie isn’t dead?’

‘You’re sure this is Marco?’

She took the photograph. ‘It’s Marco. He doesn’t even look much older. When was this taken?’

‘Recently.’

‘Why did you think it was Robbie?’

‘He was calling himself Robert Colburne. He had a driver’s licence in the name.’

‘So Marco’s dead and Robbie’s not?’

‘Marco’s dead. I don’t know about Robbie. Possibly alive.’ I didn’t think that. ‘Tell me about Marco.’

‘I loved the name. Marco Lucia. He came up from Sydney in the holidays after year eleven to stay with Robbie, second most divine boy I’d ever met. Everyone in Walkley was just so Anglo-Irish. Blaines and Smailes and O’Reillys and McGregors. Marco could’ve been Robbie’s brother, both pale, this black, black hair. Janice thought it was the second coming.’

We looked at each other for a while. She was back there, in Walkley, age seventeen.

‘And after the holidays, did you see Marco again?’

‘No. It was just those weeks, two weeks, I was in love, teenage love. Janice and I were the class smarties, readers, suddenly Robbie arrives, then his friend, this half-Italian boy, so exotic, they were both so clever and you could talk to them about books and poetry. Very un-Aussie, two boys who weren’t petrolheads.’

‘Half-Italian?’

‘He said his mother wasn’t Italian.’ She looked out of the window. ‘I think his mother left his father, went off to be a hippy, in Nimbin, somewhere like that. His father brought him up. That’s all I know about him.’

‘Did you know where he came from in Sydney?’

‘No. Janice would have known. You know about Janice?’

‘Yes. You heard nothing more about Marco?’

‘No. I ended up at ag college in Orange. Pressure from my father. Not much talk about books and poetry there, I can tell you.’

‘Robbie went overseas in 1996. Did you know that?’

She shook her head. ‘That day in the street, that was it.’

I finished my tea. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You’ve been a great help, saved me from wasting more time.’

She walked to the Studebaker with me. ‘This is weird, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Was Marco an addict?’ she asked.

‘The dead man had needle marks.’

‘I’d like to know how it turns out,’ she said.

‘Me too. I’ll let you know.’

‘This come out of the blue,’ said Harry Strang. ‘People I done some transactin with, ’87, ’88, thereabouts. She’s got the full licence, smart lady. He’s a bit of a dill. Often that way, mind. Anyway, we had a bit of luck. Here’s the turn now, memory serves.’

We were in open country, sere, rocky outcrops, going down a deeply rutted track.

Cam was driving the big BMW. ‘Nice around here,’ he said. ‘No sheep.’

He’d rung me on the mobile on my way back from Colac. I found the pair waiting for me outside the boot factory. I hadn’t asked any questions, just fallen asleep before we reached the tollway.

‘When did this happen?’ I said.

‘Awake are you, Jack?’ said Harry. ‘Admire a man can kip anywhere. Sign of a clear conscience.’

‘Sign of someone who wants to escape life,’ I said. ‘When?’

‘After the night racin at the Valley last week,’ said Harry. ‘Jean’s very upset. Said we’d come out and have a word.’