Peter Temple: Bad Debts

I said, ‘I want you to think very carefully. On the night Anne was killed, P. K. Vane of the Special Branch was keeping track of an East Timor activist visiting Melbourne.’

Linda nodded. ‘That’d be Manuel Carvalho,’ she said. ‘He was here often. I remember now, there was talk of Anne having an affair with him at some stage.’

‘Can you remember where Anne was earlier that evening?’ I asked.

‘With friends. In Fitzroy.’

‘Sure it was Fitzroy?’

‘Absolutely. Scott Street. I knew the people vaguely.’ She lifted her head. I saw the shine in her eyes. ‘Wait. You’re going to tell me Carvalho was in Scott Street that night, aren’t you?’

I gave her a double thumbs-up. I felt like someone who’d tipped a 500-1 shot for the Melbourne Cup. ‘That’s exactly what I’m going to tell you. I’m betting that Manuel Carvalho went back to Richmond with Anne. And that P. K. Vane, doing his duty, followed them there. And then P. K. saw something. And for some reason he kept quiet about it. He’s our man. He’s the one. His wife rang Danny. He’s the one with the evidence.’

Linda put her head back, closed her eyes, smiled and ran her fingers through her hair.

I slumped on to the sofa, legs outstretched, flooded with elation and relief. There was hope.

Linda walked across the room. When she was standing between my legs, she reached down with both hands and began to pull up her tight black skirt, working it up slowly over her thighs. When her stocking tops and suspenders came into sight, I said, trying to speak normally, ‘Since when do you wear a suspender belt?’

She wriggled her skirt up higher. She wasn’t wearing panties. My eyes were level with her dense pubic bush. She put her hands on her hips and pushed her pelvis at me

‘I always wear a suspender belt,’ she said, ‘when I want someone to fuck me senseless on the floor in front of a fire.’

She started unbuttoning her blouse. I reached out and put my hands around her waist. She stopped unbuttoning and pulled her skirt up over her hips.

‘Now you’ve seen mine, Irish,’ she said. ‘Take off your pants and show me yours.’

How can you make love when people are trying to kill you? You can. Does perfect love drive out fear? For a while. I reflected on these matters afterwards as I lay naked, sweat beginning to chill, in front of the fire.

Linda came in wearing blue jeans and a denim shirt. ‘This girl’s got everything,’ she said. ‘Maybe I should start painting.’

I got up. I have always felt silly naked the minute the other person puts something on. I kissed her and went off to shower.

I was under the spray in the room-sized shower when Linda said from the door, ‘Get a move on. I’ve found the champagne.’

The ex-lover’s clothes did fit me. I borrowed a corduroy shirt. I was passing through the kitchen when Linda said from the computer room, ‘Your glass’s on the fireplace. I’m just trying the name P. K. Vane on the Age news database.’

It was Krug, vintage, utterly delicious, the tiniest prickles on the tongue. I felt my whole body relax.

We were going to get out of this. For the first time, I felt that.

Linda came out of the kitchen.

‘There is a God,’ I said. ‘Where’s your glass?’

She said, ‘Paul Karl Vane didn’t die of natural causes. He was shot dead in the driveway of his home in Beaumaris. Shot six times, four shots from close range, three of them in the head.’

Linda went to bed at 10 p.m., subdued. Finding out about Paul Vane had taken the gloss off linking Charis Corp to the Yarrabank buy-up. I sat in front of the fire, drinking a small amount of malt whisky. My bombing was the second item on the 10.30 Channel 9 news. The helicopter looked right down into my sitting room through the hole in the roof. I looked away.

The newsreader, a woman with the teeth of a much larger person, said, ‘Police are tonight looking for the owner of the flat, Jack Irish, a Fitzroy lawyer. He is described as in his forties, tall, heavily built, with dark hair. He may be with another man, Cameron Delray, of no fixed address. Delray is in his thirties, tall, slim, dark hair and sallow skin. The men may be accompanied by a dark-haired woman, also tall, wearing a dark outfit. Police say the men were involved in a shooting incident earlier today and are believed to be armed. They should not be approached. Please ring the number that follows if you think you have seen these people.’

Jesus.

I felt the panic rising again. I got up and added some whisky to my glass. Now I had to get hold of Drew or we were going to meet the fate of Danny McKillop in the Trafalgar carpark.

First, my sister. She picked it up instantly. ‘My God, Jack,’ she said, ‘what on-’

I spoke quickly. ‘Rosa, listen. I’m okay. I want you to ring Claire and tell her I spoke to you and I’m fine. It’s all a misunderstanding. Don’t worry about the television. I’ve got to keep down for a bit but it’s going to he okay. I’ll ring you.’

‘Does that mean our lunch is off?’

‘Not necessarily. I’ll be in touch. Love.’

I put the phone down. Lunch. I shook my head in wonder. Drew. I was putting out my hand to dial when the phone rang.

I picked it up. ‘Yes,’ I said, tentatively.

‘Jack.’ It was Cam. ‘Listen, mate,’ he said conversationally, ‘time to go. There’s blokes coming up for you. With guns. Go into the studio. There’s a ladder in there, extension ladder, against the left-hand wall. You’ll see a square hole in the roof in the left-hand corner, like an inspection hatch. You with me?’

‘Yes,’ I said. The phone was trembling in my hand.

‘Get up there. You can slide the cover open, get on the roof. Pull the ladder up. First thing, go round that lift housing building up there and bolt the steel door to the stairs. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘There’s no other way up there. It’ll give you a bit of time. Get moving now. They’re on their way up.’

The line went dead.

‘What is it?’ Linda was in the doorway, pillow marks on one side of her face. She’d fallen asleep fully dressed.

I tried to imitate Cam’s calm. ‘Put your shoes on. Get the disks. Quickly. We’ve got to get out of here. Come to the studio.’

The ladder was aluminium, lightweight. I had it up against the wall beneath the hatch in the roof when Linda came in, wide-eyed, carrying a laptop and her bag.

‘I’ll go first,’ I said. ‘Get the hatch open.’

It was at least six metres to the roof. The ladder flexed alarmingly, not made for my weight.

I was halfway up when the banging started at the front door.

‘Jack Irish,’ a voice shouted. ‘Police. We know you’re home, Jack. Open the door. No-one gets hurt.’

I put one hand up and found a handle on the hatch cover. I tugged it. It didn’t move. The hatch cover wouldn’t open.

Something hard hit the front door. They were trying to break in.

The ladder was flexing alarmingly. I braced myself and got both hands to the handle.

I tugged. It wouldn’t budge.

There was a louder impact from the front door.

I tried again. I moved the handle from side to side, desperately. It shifted.

I tried again. Backwards, forwards. It moved. I’d been forcing it in the wrong direction. I pushed the handle away from me and the hatch slid open. I grabbed the edge of the hole and pulled myself up the last steps and out on to the roof.

By the time I’d turned back to the hole, Linda was half-way up the ladder. When she was near enough, I leant down and took her bag and the laptop. Then I pulled her up.

The ladder came up easily. We stood panting on the concrete roof in the dark, cold night air.