Peter Temple: Dead Point

‘What brought you to Melbourne?’ I said. ‘The weather?’

Marco didn’t hesitate. ‘Weather’s okay. I like it, very noir. Actually, I came to make a fuckflick with Susan.’ He looked at her and smiled, a slow smile. ‘Worst gig of my life.’

Susan took his sleeve, punched his arm.

She was in love.

‘Who hired you?’

‘A bloke called Naismith. In Sydney. And I wouldn’t call it hire. I didn’t have any choice. People were trying to kill me.’

‘Where does Alan Bergh come in?’

‘He got on to Naismith, asked him for someone.’

‘Who hired Bergh?’

‘Doyle. Well, Sam Cundall through Doyle.’

I looked at Susan. She was tense, didn’t want to meet my eyes. I said, ‘Susan, Cannon Ridge. Can we go over that again?’

She looked into her glass, sniffed it, a delicate indrawing of nostrils, drank. ‘I lied to you,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘I passed on WRG’s tender to Anaxan. I’m not brave. The thought of the video getting out terrified me.’

Between them, Susan and Gavin Legge had convinced me that WRG were the naughty ones. Legge was going to pay a heavy price for his part.

‘I don’t understand quite how you got from blackmail to this state of affairs,’ I said.

Susan put out a hand and touched Marco’s hair. He took her hand, kissed her fingers. Victim and blackmailer, now as one.

‘Marco came around to apologise,’ she said. ‘He does that rather well.’

‘I fell in love,’ said Marco. ‘I didn’t expect that to happen.’

‘Didn’t stop the blackmail though.’

He shook his head. ‘No, it didn’t. I couldn’t stop that, Jack. We’re all victims some of the time.’

‘The dead person? The person with your wallet in your car? He’d be a real victim.’

‘He was dead already,’ said Marco. ‘A druggie. They found him dead. Overdosed in an alley.’

‘They? This is Mick Olsen we’re talking about?’

Marco blinked. ‘Yeah, someone in the cops found him for Mick. One of his mates.’

I thought about the homemade notice in the Lebanese shop, the face of a missing young man. It wasn’t hard to find a body in the city. I drank some whisky, remembered I hadn’t eaten since the croissant with nothing. When was that? What day?

‘Why did Olsen do this?’ I said.

‘Didn’t want anyone looking for Robbie. Robbie does Susan and the judge, then the book’s closed on Robbie.’ He laughed, cut it short, pained face.

‘Someone tried to kill me this morning,’ I said.

‘Oh shit.’ Marco looked down, ran both hands through his hair. ‘Fucking Doyle, he’s totally paranoid. Mad.’

I stood up. I didn’t ask who had murdered Alan Bergh, what the fate of the real Robbie Colburne had been, I didn’t want to know. Already I knew more than I wanted to know, much, much more.

‘What made you come here?’ said Susan. ‘How did you find out about us?’

‘I didn’t. I found the camera in Ros Cundall’s apartment. I knew Marco had some connection with the building and you’d told me about a digital camera. So I associated it with the blackmail attempt. When I saw the picture of the beach and the Land Cruiser, I assumed Marco had taken it. But whose vehicle? I had a look under the name of your company and found an ’82 Cruiser.’

‘And this place? No-one knows I own it.’

‘Someone told me you had a plane. I found your flight plans for Sale. With passenger. Then there was the date the picture was taken. It was after Anaxan won the tender. And you’d flown to Sale the day before with a passenger. That’s when I began to think that Marco might not be dead. Hearing that Mick Olsen ID’d Robbie’s body put the seal on it.’

She was frowning. ‘I still don’t see how you found this place.’

‘The shire council was kind enough to look you up in the rates register.’

‘Sounds simple,’ said Susan, tight smile.

‘Effortless,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the drink. I’ve got a long drive.’

Marco didn’t look up, didn’t get up. ‘What now?’ he said. ‘What happens?’

‘I’m going to ask Doyle for the album. And to behave properly. Apart from that, I’ve lost interest.’

Susan rose, strain on her face, her age showing. ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘I know, I know I can’t ask you…’

‘I don’t care who runs ski resorts and casinos,’ I said. ‘I don’t care who you told what. The matter’s closed.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. She took my left hand in both of hers for a moment. ‘Thank you.’

They followed me out, into a clear night, cold, a fast-rising full moon. At the car, I said, ‘I wouldn’t like Doyle to know I’m coming around for the album.’

Marco had his arm around Susan. He shook his head. ‘Never heard of any Doyle. Count on that.’

I didn’t say goodbye, swung the Stud in a wide reverse turn, gunned it. I could be home by midnight.

I could be home by midnight.

I was over the crest of the hill, where the road forked, when I heard the helicopter, saw its lights over to my right, heard the menacing chop and whine.

I drove back without lights, the chalky road clear in the early moonlight. At the trees, I turned the car around, faced the way I’d come.

I sat for a moment, put my forehead on the steering wheel. My body had moved a step beyond tiredness and hurt, gone to a stage where I wasn’t feeling anything except a strange sort of buzzing in my limbs, an electrical discharge of some kind.

This was not my business. My business was finished. Almost. Soon. Just as soon as I’d put a proposition to Xavier Doyle that would drain the bonhomie from his cherubic, murderous being. Then my life would resume.

Charlie would be back soon.

Libraries. Ros Cundall had phoned. She wanted a library.

We wouldn’t be doing a Cundall library.

Good.

A library every now and then was fine but not a diet of libraries. We would be doing other things, sitting in the workshop fragrant with the smell of wood and discussing philosophical matters. His extended stay in Perth would come under examination. The merits of warm weather. Swimming, perhaps.

I lifted my head, rubbed my eyes, got out. Listened.

Far, far away a dog barking, a long strangled sound. The full moon, it stirred dogs in their blood, all their fluids, people too.

It was cold, a wind coming off the lake, off Bass Strait beyond the lake, a cold passage was the strait.

I shut my mind and set off down the track into the trees, into the dark, walking quickly. The wind was animating the gums, rubbing limbs together until they squealed, pushing under loose bark.

Where the road met the clearing, I stopped. Things were as I’d left them minutes before. No sound save the wind in the trees, at work lifting the corrugated iron.

No. A voice.

Someone talking. A low monologue, no individual word distinguishable.

I crossed the space, went down the passage between the buildings, towards the water, the voice getting louder, words becoming distinct.

I knew the voice.

‘Horse prick, secret of life, hey? Fuck people, they smile? That’s the attitude?’

In the deep shadows, I stopped, leaned forward.

It seemed so close, the dark helicopter, sitting on the water at the end of the rusty cradle tracks, moving in and out on its floats. I thought I could see a pilot.

Two men on the jetty, near the tethered boat, in sub-tropical clothing, long shorts, boat shoes.

Milan Filipovic and Steve, his short-legged employee.

I couldn’t see who Milan was talking to.

‘Don’t fuck around in there,’ Milan said. He had his small sub-machine pistol in his right hand. ‘Don’t fuck with me, cockboy.’