Peter Temple: Bad Debts

I shook my head.

‘Good, good. Your suffering won’t be in vain. I’ll get you something for pain and suffering. This bloke’s loaded. Dudded plenty of insurance companies.’

I followed him down the passage into the kitchen at the back of the building. We sat at the formica-topped table. Drew opened two bottles of Coghills Creek lager. I had a sip, put the bottle down and put my hands in my pockets. Reformed binge drinkers know how things start.

‘What’s this about Helen?’

Andy drank about a third of his bottle, held it up to the light and gave a little laugh. ‘Gone, mate. Gone to live in Eltham with a painter. Left me with the kids.’

‘House?’

‘She doesn’t get the house. Not if I can help it.’

‘The painter. Does he paint houses?’

‘Oh. No fucking way. This is a romance. With a serious artist. Though no-one’s ever heard of the cunt. Bruce Seal. You ever heard of Bruce Seal?’

‘I hate to say this, but yes.’

‘You’re not supposed to say that. You’re supposed to say never heard of the cunt.’ He drank more beer and wiped his moustache. ‘What have you heard about him, anyway?’

‘Just your normal Eltham bloke. Hugely talented artist. Speaks five languages. Plays classical piano. Two-handicap golfer. Fourteenth dan in karate. Twelve-inch dick. Why?’

‘Forget it. I don’t think I’m going to get the sympathy I’m looking for.’ He drained his beer and opened another one.

‘How’s Lorna?’

Drew looked at me suspiciously. Lorna was a public prosecutor he’d been having a desultory affair with for a long time. ‘Lorna’s fine. This has got nothing to do with Lorna. Helen doesn’t know about Lorna.’

‘What do the kids think?’

He held up his hands, palms outward. ‘I don’t know what Michael thinks. Only five billion people on the Internet know what Michael thinks. Vicky thinks it’s cool. She was probably the only girl in her class living with both her parents.’

I had a small sip. ‘What’s Helen say?’

Drew looked at the ceiling. ‘She says she’s fallen in love with a wonderful man and it wouldn’t have happened if I’d found a little more time for her over the last twenty years. Does she think I’ve enjoyed working my arse off?’

I said, ‘She might. Everyone else does.’

‘You prick. This is what I get in my hour of need.’

‘Sounds like that’s what Helen got in hers. If it’s a consolation, it probably won’t last. They say Bruce is more of a hunter than a farmer.’

‘They say that, do they? Your artistic friends.’

‘You’ve got to broaden your social horizons, mate,’ I said. ‘There are people out there who aren’t lawyers, cops or crims. Listen, what did you do with my old files?’ I had a final swig of beer, got up and poured what was left into the sink.

It took me about twenty minutes to find Daniel Patrick McKillop’s file. He’d pleaded guilty in the County Court on 22 November 1984 to a charge of culpable driving. The victim was a twenty-year-old woman called Anne Elspeth Jeppeson, knocked down in Ardenne Street, Richmond, at 11.40 p.m. on 18 June 1984. She died instantly. The Crown called a witness who saw McKillop driving the car minutes after the collision and later picked him out of a line-up. McKillop was found asleep at the wheel of the vehicle about an hour after the collision. He had a blood alcohol count of 0.1. Blood and clothing fragments on the vehicle matched those of Anne Jeppeson.

The headline on a clipping dated 23 November 1984 said: WITNESS SAW JEPPESON DEATH CAR.

The story read:

The car that knocked down and fatally injured public housing campaigner Anne Jeppeson was seen swerving almost out of control three blocks from the scene, a court was told yesterday. The driver, Daniel Patrick McKillop, had a blood alcohol reading of 0.1 more than two hours later, according to evidence.

Mr McKillop, 24, of Zinsser Street, Richmond, pleaded guilty in the County Court to a charge of culpable driving on 18 June.

Anne Elspeth Jeppeson, 27, of Ardenne Street, Richmond, was killed instantly when she was struck by a vehicle outside her home on 18 June.

Mr Ronald Bishop said he was driving along Freeman Street, Richmond, at 11.40 p.m. on 18 June when a yellow car came weaving towards him.

‘It almost hit the parked cars on my side of the street then it swerved across in front of me over to the other side and almost crashed into the cars there. The driver had to brake to avoid hitting them. It was almost out of control.’

Mr Bishop said he saw the driver’s face clearly. He noted part of the car’s registration number and telephoned the police when he got home.

Senior Constable Ivor Wilkins said Mr McKillop was found asleep behind the wheel of a yellow Ford Falcon belonging to him in the garage of his home. Mr Bishop later identified Mr McKillop as the driver of the vehicle he saw in Freeman Street.

Senior Constable Lauro Martines, of the traffic alcohol section, said Mr McKillop’s blood-alcohol content was 0.1 per cent more than two hours after the accident.

Dr Alfred Hone, of the police forensic laboratories, said blood and fragments of cloth found on Mr McKillop’s vehicle matched those of Miss Jeppeson.

Mr McKillop was remanded for sentencing until 4 December.

I found the clipping on 5 December under the headline: JEPPESON DEATH: DRIVER GETS TEN YEARS.

The story said that Daniel McKillop had a previous conviction for driving under the influence and had just emerged from his licence suspension at the time of the accident. He had been drinking in two hotels earlier that evening and had no recollection of the accident. The judge said some harsh things about drunken drivers, expressed regret at the loss of a ‘courageous young woman with her life ahead of her’ and complimented Mr Ronald Bishop on his public-spirited behaviour. McKillop got ten years in spite of his lawyer’s plea that he was as much a victim as Anne Jeppeson: ‘an unloved boy who has drifted into multiple addictions’.

I looked for his previous convictions. They took up half a page, mostly juvenile stuff. He had two convictions for drunken driving and was on a two-year suspension at the time of the accident. Somehow he’d never been to jail. The judge made up for that: McKillop got a non-parole period of eight years.

All of this was complete news to me. I looked at the date again: November 1984. It was at the beginning of the forgotten zone, the year or so I spent drunk and semi-drunk after my wife’s death.

I looked through the other files for 1984 and early ’85. There were only five or six after McKillop. I didn’t remember any of them either.

I went back to Drew’s office. He was reading something, beer on the desk.

‘When I went off the rails back then,’ I said, ‘after Isabel’s death…Did you try to keep me out of court?’

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘I think you could say that,’ he said. ‘If it’s worrying you, I hijacked all the defended matters between that day and the day you quit. I don’t think you did any damage. Except to yourself.’

‘And the firm,’ I said. I felt a rush of gratitude towards this gangling, unemotional man.

He put his glasses back on and reached for the beer. ‘Nothing permanent,’ he said. ‘We had a fair bit of goodwill to live off.’

‘This McKillop who was looking for me. Remember him?’ I offered him the file.

He took a minute to look it over. ‘No, not him. The woman was a bit of a name on the left. Used to drink at the Standard with the free housing push.’ He handed the file back. ‘Danny got what was coming to him, Jack. Probably just in the shit again.’

At the front door, Drew said, ‘I think I might take up seriously with Lorna.’