Peter Temple: Black Tide

Smart muscles. Intuitive muscles.

The mileage on Stuart’s tripmeter, the mileage for his last trip in the car, that mileage would take him to Metung and back.

Stuart had bought the video camera to interview Brent Rupert.

Seriously ill Brent Rupert.

Brent Rupert, partner of Steven Levesque and the Attorney-General, Mr McColl.

Of course, he’s got the firewalls up now. Moved on. But he’s been in blood up to his naval, the bastard.

That was Brent Rupert speaking on the transcript trawled from Stuart’s computer hard disk.

Brent Rupert gave his dying testament to Stuart Wardle, expert on the Philippines. Was the deal that Stuart would wait until after Brent’s death to publish?

Not a long wait. A matter of hours.

And soon after that Stuart went to New Zealand and never came home again.

Stuart Wardle never went to New Zealand.

Stuart Wardle’s passport went to New Zealand.

Stuart Wardle probably died in this house.

Stuart Wardle could save my life.

I went back to the kitchen. ‘Where’s that phone log?’

‘There. On the counter. I was looking at it again yesterday. Brings things back to you. And mystifies you.’

‘What’s mystifying?’

Lyall came to the counter, flipped through the book. ‘July 3,’ she said. ‘Message reads, Bradley for Stuart, “Martin says you can use the box. He’ll tell them and leave the key with Alice.” Mystifying.’

‘Know the names? Martin and Alice?’

‘No. Stuart’s phone index thing’s here somewhere. The pop-up thing.’

She found it and came back, put it on the table, ran the pointer up to A, pressed the catch.

‘Alice, Alice. Here, Alice. No surname.’

I pulled the index across, took out the phone and tapped the numbers. Ringing. Deep breath, offered the phone to Lyall.

‘Ask her about Martin and the box.’

She put the phone to her ear. ‘Hello. I’m trying to get hold of Alice. Ah, hello Alice. I’m a friend of Stuart Wardle’s, Alice. Yes. Actually, he’s been missing for quite a long time. Yes. We don’t know. Alice, do you know someone called Martin? Yes, that’s probably him. He left a message here in July ’95 saying Stuart could use the box and collect the key from you. Can you remember that? Ah. Right. I see.’ Long listening pause. ‘Well, that clears that up. Yes. Thank you very much, Alice. Bye.’

Lyall gave me back the phone.

‘So?’ I said. ‘Don’t make me wait.’

‘Safe-deposit box at a place in Collins Street.’

I breathed out loudly.

‘Martin is Martin Seeberg, one of Stuart’s American friends. Used to live in Melbourne. I think I vaguely recall him now, might have come here once or twice. She says Martin still gets bills for the box. She sends them on to him in the States. He hasn’t been back for years, she says.’

‘The key. Where would the key be?’

‘Probably took it with him.’

Was this the time to say it? Yes.

‘I don’t think Stuart went to New Zealand,’ I said. ‘I think Stuart was murdered. Possibly on the road between here and the Gippsland lakes. Possibly somewhere else.’

She didn’t blink. ‘It had to be something like that, didn’t it?’ she said. ‘At the back of my mind, I always knew it would be something like that.’

‘Put on something warm,’ I said. ‘I think we’re going to find out why Stuart died. I’m going to bluff them into opening Martin Seeberg’s safe-deposit box. I’m going out the back gate. Pick me up opposite the movie house in Faraday Street.’

I went out the back gate, down the lane, studied the street. Nothing.

‘Allison,’ said the manager, ‘please come down with us. I’ll need a witness when I open the client’s box for Mr Irish.’

We went downstairs, manager, secretary, me, Lyall at the rear, down to the repository of secrets, to the rows of safe-deposit boxes.

Martin Seeberg’s box was one of the bigger ones.

At the last moment, the manager got cold feet. ‘We should wait for Mr Seeberg’s permission in writing,’ he said. ‘I’m not happy about this.’

I said, ‘I’ll say it again. The last person to use this box, my client Stuart Wardle, has been missing for three years and is thought to have been murdered. I’ll get a court order but it’ll take a day. You have a witness. I don’t seek to take anything away or to open anything. All I want to know is what the box contains.’

He nodded, unhappy. ‘Yes, all right.’

The lock opened with a snap.

Grey steel slide-out box with a hinged lid. He slid it out, carried it over to a carrel.

We crowded around him.

With a flourish, he opened the lid.

Empty.

We set off back to Parkville in silence.

‘Stuart was murdered because of an interview,’ Lyall said. ‘Is that what you think?’

I nodded. ‘Bits of a transcript are on his computer hard disk.’

Lyall said nothing, looking out of the window. We were at the Victoria Street intersection, when she said, ‘He asked me about video copying. How you did it.’

I came close to sideswiping an old Datsun. ‘When?’

‘When he bought the video equipment. The day he was learning to use it.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I told him to go to Imagebank. They do all sorts of photographic work, video, make certified copies, do vision enhancing, manipulation, that sort of thing. They seal and store stuff for you. Very efficient.’

‘Where are they?’

‘In South Melbourne. Fawkner Street.’

No-one has done the trip between Victoria Street and South Melbourne faster. We left in our trail many frightened people, people on foot, people in all forms of motorised transport.

I parked in a loading zone. How did contravening a municipal ordinance rate against the laws I’d seen broken in the past twenty-four hours?

‘July 1995?’ the bearded man said. ‘That’s not a problem. What’s the name?’

I told him. He went to a computer terminal.

Lyall and I looked at each other. She was wearing a soft leather jacket, brown, hair loose. I put my hip against hers, pushed. She put her hand down and ran her nails up my thigh.

‘Large men in suits make me randy,’ she said. ‘It’s a power thing.’

‘This is not the time or place,’ I said.

The man looked up. ‘Yes, Stuart Wardle, paid with a MasterCard. We copied two videotapes.’

Another moment to hold the breath.

‘Store them?’ I said.

He tapped the keys.

I closed my eyes.

‘No.’

We went back to Lyall’s house by reversing the way we’d left it. I followed the same route from Faraday Street, walking across the university campus in the darkening late afternoon. A wet wind was pulling at people’s hair and clothes and they had their chins down, holding books and files and bags to their chests.

This time I didn’t have to climb Lyall’s back wall. She was waiting to let me in the gate. Inside, I sat at the kitchen table and stared at the wall, mild panic rising. After a while, I said, ‘I should have said this earlier. People are trying to kill me.’

Lyall was at the fridge, getting out coffee. She didn’t look around. ‘An everyday predicament for your suburban solicitor, would you say?’

‘I would not, no. I’d better go. I shouldn’t have come back. Without Stuart’s tape, I’m feeling a bit vulnerable. Plus I don’t want to bring anything down on you.’

She came over and ran fingers through my hair. ‘What about the police?’

I shook my head. ‘Some of these people are the police.’

Lyall sat down opposite me. ‘You think Stuart came back here from his interview, transcribed it from the videotape, had the videos copied?’