Bad Debts Part 12

With the delighted air of someone who thinks he's trapped Wittgenstein in a logical error, Claude said, 'That doesn't answer my question: Are these developers your pals?'

There was a long silence. Then Marcia said, voice laden with menace, 'Mr Haynes, you shouldn't act as a frontman for these has-beens. If Mr Kerr has any evidence of favouritism, he should produce it. Let me a.s.sure the people of this State that this government doesn't do favours. It a.s.sesses projects and people purely on merit. It follows all processes and procedures to the letter. The developments you've named are both sound commercial propositions and job creators for this State. The people behind them are highly experienced and astute operators who can be relied upon to do a good job. Are you suggesting anything to the contrary?'

Claude cleared his throat. 'But are some of the developers supporters of your party?'

You could hear Marcia's sigh. It combined disbelief with contempt. 'Are you and Mr Kerr proposing that supporters of a governing party should be excluded from commercial life?' she said. Each word was coated with scorn.

Claude's tone went sugary. 'I think you're shooting the messenger here, Dr Saunders,' he said. 'I'm merely-'

'Don't try to hide behind the messenger argument,' snapped Marcia. 'You media leftovers from the sixties are seldom merely doing anything. But you might try to make your agenda a little less obvious.'

It went on like this. Claude kept trying to wrap himself in the rags of his dignity and Marcia kept tearing them off. I enjoyed Claude's discomfort but there was something chilling about Dr Marcia Saunders, PhD in physical education from the University of Kansas and former stockbroker. She wasn't the same person who'd smiled down from the election billboards.

After half an hour of traffic snarl, I'd had enough. I did a savage left turn in the face of traffic into a one-way street. One crime led to another, I had a few altercations and near-misses but I got to Father Gorman's address near Albert Park Lake with all the paint on.

I parked in a no-parking zone. Col Boon could knock a fellow cop and get the pension, he could beat parking tickets on this Celica.

Father Gorman's address was an oddly tapering new building. The tenants weren't short of s.p.a.ce: there were eight floors and only six bra.s.s plates on the plinth outside. The one for the sixth floor said: Safe Hands Foundation.

The name meant something to me. I remembered as I reached the gla.s.s doors: Ronnie Bishop had once worked for the Safe Hands Foundation. Helping homeless children, his mother had said. Trying to root them had been the view of his former neighbour in Morton Street.

Thc tenants were fussy about who came to visit them. A security man with a snub nose, pale eyes and skin the colour of dirty underclothing kept me captive between two sets of gla.s.s doors while he wrote down my particulars on a clipboard. A tattoo peeped out from under his wrist.w.a.tch. He wasn't too flash at writing.

Then he wanted my driver's licence.

'I'm not trying to cash a cheque here, sonny,' I said. 'Just phone the man.'

Tight little smile. 'The body corporate lays down the security procedures.' Flat Queensland voice. Pause. 'Sir.'

'This isn't Pentridge,' I said. 'Didn't they retrain you for this job? Just phone.'

He held my gaze briefly, but I'd got him in one. 'I'll check,' he said.

He made his call, came back, let me in, escorted me to the lift, up to the sixth floor, rang the bell on one of the two doors in the foyer, waited until a handsome dark youth opened the door. Through all this, he said nothing and exuded hatred.

'Come this way,' the youth said. His hair was drawn back tightly in a ponytail and he had the superior and slightly miffed manner of the waiters in most Melbourne restaurants.

I followed him through a large, elegant room and down a pa.s.sage lined with framed architectural drawings to a teak six-panel door. The youth pushed open the door.

The voice from within was rich, warm and full of authority. 'Thank you, Francis. Do remember to knock next time. Mr Irish, come in. Oh, Francis, bring us a pot of coffee, there's a good boy.'

Father Gorman was coming round from behind a rosewood table with a column and platform base. On it were three or four files, a desk blotter and a fountain pen. He was a large man, probably in his sixties, big shoulders, crisp grey hair with just a hint of a wave brushed back, even features tanned the colour of milk fudge. He was wearing a navy-blue, double-breasted suit over a brilliantly white shirt. His tie had what looked like tiny camels on it.

He held out a hand. It was a surprisingly hard hand for a man of the cloth.

'Pleasure to meet you, Jack,' he said. 'Let's sit down.'

He led the way down the long panelled room to a setting of club armchairs and two sofas around a low military chest. A butler's table with bottles and decanters stood against the inside wall, which was covered with paintings, mostly landscapes. French doors in one exterior wall gave on to a terrace. Deep windows in the other provided a view to the Westgate Bridge and beyond. The beyond was dark with rain.

'Beautiful, isn't it?' he said, gesturing with both hands at the room, the view. 'I thank the Lord for it every day. And I thank Joseph Kwitny, the foundation's benefactor whose generosity allows an instrument of the Lord's will to live and work in such splendour.'

I got the feeling he had said this piece before but he said it very well. I sat down first and he took a chair beside me, close enough to lean out and touch.

'Well,' he said, 'and what part of Ireland do the Irish come from?'

'Not a well-known part,' I said. 'The Jewish quarter of Hamburg. My great-grandfather's name was Isadore Reich. He ran away to sea and jumped ship in Melbourne. When he wrote his name down as I. Reich for his first employer, the man p.r.o.nounced it as I. Rish. That's what he became. Irish. I'm thinking of changing it back.'

Father Gorman laughed, a sound of deep enjoyment that washed over you, made you want to laugh with him, made you happy that you'd amused him. And while he was laughing, crinkles of pleasure around his eyes, he leaned over and touched my arm.

'Don't you ever do that,' he said. 'You wouldn't be able to tell that wonderful story any more. And you'd be hurting the whole line of dear departed Irishes.' He leaned back and put his hands in his pockets. 'Well now, Jack Irish, what can I tell you about Ronnie Bishop?'

I had told him on the phone that Ronnie was missing. 'Why did he ring you?' I asked.

'Why, he wanted to come around and see me. I hadn't seen him for years. I've known the lad a long time, you know.'

'I gather he once worked for the foundation.'

'Briefly. He wasn't really suited to the work. Not that I say that in any detrimental sense, mind. It's special work, dealing with the young in distress. Not everyone has the gifts needed.'

'And did he come around to see you?'

'Of course. We talked for an hour and then I had to go to a meeting. That was...' He raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'That was last Friday.'

'How was he?'

'Well, Jack, what do you know of the man's situation?' He fixed me with a look of inquiry that said 'Let's trust each other.'

'I gather he's HIV-positive.'

Father Gorman took his hands out of his pockets, sat forward, put his fingertips together. The nails were manicured. He had a slim gold watch on his wrist. Dark hairs fought to get out from under it. He looked out at the view. 'Yes,' he said. 'He told me that and I felt his pain and anger. And his fear.'

He turned his head to look at me, a clear, steady gaze.

'I'm interested in why he came to Melbourne. Did he say anything about that to you?' I asked.

'I a.s.sumed he had come to see his family. He said he was staying with his mother.'

There was a sound at the doorway and the youth came in carrying a tray with a tall silver coffee pot. The small cups chattered as he dropped the tray on the table from a height of at least two inches.

'Ah, Francis,' said Father Gorman. 'We may have to send you to waiter school. Perhaps in your home country.' He was smiling broadly, but there was an edge to his tone, a hint of autumn on a warm wind.

The youth gave him a glance of pure malice, tossed his ponytail and left. Father Gorman's eyes followed him. 'Rescued from a life of abuse and poverty,' he said. 'But still uncertain of what the Lord wants for him.'

I thought the Lord probably wanted a good swift kick up the a.r.s.e for him, but I held my tongue. Father Gorman poured coffee. We both had ours black and sugarless. It was very bad coffee. I went back to Ronnie. 'He was working for the foundation when he testified against a hit-and-run driver,' I said.

Father Gorman took a sip of coffee. 'I recall that well, yes. A tragedy. Lovely young woman.'

'Did Ronnie ever say anything about his testimony?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Did Ronnie ever talk about what happened that night?'

Father Gorman put his cup down and inspected me. 'I suppose we talked about it at the time. It would have been odd not to. Is there some reason why I should recall such a conversation?'

'Not if you don't. Did Ronnie mention when you saw him that the hit-and-run driver was out of jail and had been in touch with him?'

Father Gorman shot his left cuff to look at his watch. 'Jack, my heavens,' he said. 'I've a speech to deliver. I'm going to have to be dreadfully rude and cut short our talk. No, I can't say that he did mention anything like that. Would the man want to harm him?'

'I don't think so. I think he wanted something else.'

He frowned. 'And what could that be?'

'It's not clear. Have you any idea who Ronnie might turn to if he wanted to hide, Father?'

Father Gorman was already on his feet. 'Hide? That's a strange thing to suggest, isn't it? Why would he want to hide?'

I got up. 'It seems Ronnie was worried about his safety before he disappeared.'

He furrowed his brow, a look of deep concern. 'His safety? I thought you said the man posed no threat to him? My impression was that he was deeply troubled about his health, Jack. He certainly didn't suggest that he wanted to hide. Are you sure about this?'

He was walking me along, holding my arm. I felt like a parishioner in need of comfort. 'Let me see you out. Don't hesitate to give me a call if there's anything else I can do for you. I'm sorry our talk was so short. My work's an endless round of functions and speeches. I try to find an individual message for each group, but it's a battle. You'd know that. Lawyers understand. Every client's a new client, isn't that so? I toyed with the idea of the law, you know, but someone else had other ideas.'

At the front door, something made me ask a final question. 'When did you last speak to Ronnie, Father? I mean, before he rang you about coming to see you?'

Father Gorman stroked his chin. It was shaven to perfection. 'It would have been as much as seven or eight years ago, Jack. I got quite a surprise when I heard his voice, but I placed it straight away. I don't forget voices for some reason. The Lord's compensation for forgetting everything else, I suppose.'

He saw me to the lift. In the lobby downstairs, the ex-screw made a big show of logging me out.

16

'Well, old sausage,' said Wootton. 'It'd be another matter if this was an inquiry you were pursuing on my behalf.'

I'd tracked Wootton to the street bar of the Windsor Hotel, a Victorian pile near Parliament, after ringing his office on the way back from Father Gorman's. He stopped off there every day on his way home. It was Wootton's sort of place: wood panelling, photographs of cricket teams.

We were sitting at a window looking out on Spring Street. It was just after 5.30 p.m. and the place was filling up with pudgy young men in expensive suits and club ties. Wootton was wearing a dark pinstripe suit with waistcoat, shirt with narrow stripes and a tie with little crests on it. His thinning hair was brushed back on his perfectly round skull and his moustache, dyed jet black, was bristly but trim. He looked like an old-style Collins Street banker and that was the way he wanted to look.

I'd known Wootton in Vietnam. He'd been a sergeant in stores, thankless work in the service of country. In lieu of thanks, he'd taken money from about twenty bars and brothels for supplying them with everything from Fosters beer to Vegemite. Wootton would have gone home very rich if two military policemen hadn't seized his stash of US dollars two days before he was due to fly out. He never faced trial. The MPs thought the loss would be enough of a lesson to him. He never said another word about his money. And nor did they.

'Cyril, I think I've got more than enough credit in my account to cover this little favour. But if it's too much trouble-'

'Steady on, Jack,' said Wootton. 'No need to get shirty.' He took a sip of his whisky and water and rolled it around in his mouth, lips pursed. When he'd swallowed, he sighed and said, 'I'll have to go and do this from a b.l.o.o.d.y public phone, you know. Give me the number and the dates.'

I sipped my beer and read the Herald Sun Wootton had left behind while I waited. The lead story was another police shooting. A policewoman had shot dead a man who came at her with a knife when she attended a domestic dispute in Reservoir. The new Police Minister, Garth Bruce, was quoted as saying: 'As a former policeman, I know the demands and dangers of the job. I am not, of course, pa.s.sing any opinion on what took place in this incident. The coroner will decide that. But I'm determined that the police force will move away from the culture of the gun that's become entrenched over the last ten years or so.' There was a photograph of the Minister: a big serious man with short hair and rimless gla.s.ses.

Wootton was away about fifteen minutes. He came in brushing rain off his suit. 'Can you believe it?' he said. 'Supposed to be a b.l.o.o.d.y five-star hotel. Had to go outside in the rain to find a phone that worked.'

A black Mercedes pulled up outside and two j.a.panese men in soaked golf outfits got out of the back. They stood close together in the drizzle, cap peaks almost touching, watching the driver unload two ma.s.sive golf bags and wheelchair-size chrome golf buggies from the boot.

'Sons of Nippon,' said Wootton, flicking moisture off his moustache. 'Don't know if I'd go swanning around Tokyo if I'd worked thousands of j.a.ps to death in World War II.'

'Those two look a bit young to have worked anyone to death in World War II,' I said.

'Don't be facetious. I need something to eat.' He went over to the counter. A barmaid served him immediately. They knew the man here. He came back opening a bag of salt and vinegar chips. 'Want some?'

I shook my head. He crammed a handful in under the moustache. Pieces stuck to it. 'Well,' he said, 'it'll take about ten minutes for the reverse directory.'

Until Wootton went back to his phone, we continued our argument about how much I'd added to my fee for getting a gun pointed at me by Eddie Dollery.

When he came back, Wootton took an old envelope out of his inside jacket pocket and handed it over. On the back were about a dozen telephone numbers, all the calls to different numbers made on Mrs Bishop's telephone in the three days Ronnie was there. Against each one, in Wootton's neat hand, was a name and address.

'Well,' he said, 'I hope I've contributed to you finding your catamite.'

'Sodomite,' I said. 'He presumably had catamites. I only asked you to do it for me because I'm sworn to uphold the law.'

Wootton stuffed some more chips in his mouth. Through them, he said, 'Hah b.l.o.o.d.y hah. Joined the Boy Scouts, have we? Dib, Dib, Dib. Dob, Dob, Dob.'

'That's the Cubs, Cyril,' I said. 'But how would you know?'

I went home and tried Linda Hillier at Pacific Rim News. She was in Sydney, a man said. Back tomorrow. I poured a gla.s.s of white wine from an opened bottle in the fridge and studied the phone calls from Mrs Bishop's number. The calls to Danny McKillop and Father Gorman jumped out at me. That left nine calls. I rang Mrs Bishop. We went through the other calls from the beginning of the list. She had made all the calls except the last one. It was to a P. Gilbert, Long Gully Road, Daylesford. Made at 4.07 p.m. on the day Ronnie vanished.

'That must be Paul Gilbert,' she said thoughtfully. 'I haven't thought of him in years. Dr Paul Gilbert, he was. He went to school with Ronnie. Lovely boy, very clever. He had a surgery in St Georges Road.'

'The address is in Daylesford,' I said.

'Well, he's not a doctor anymore,' Mrs Bishop said. 'There was some trouble over drugs. It was in the papers. He started uni at the same time as Ronnie. I used to see Paul's mum sometimes. She was so proud of her boy before it happened.'

I rang the number twice before I went to bed. No answer. I fell asleep thinking about Linda Hillier. She probably had a good laugh at being come on to by the likes of me. Why had Gavin Legge called her a starf.u.c.ker and a groupie? What star? What group? I hoped she wasn't avoiding me.

17

The bare limbs of Wombat Hill's English trees still smoked mist as I drove into Daylesford just after 9 a.m. The commuters were all gone and the small town's locals were easing themselves into the day. I parked in the main street and asked at the butcher's for directions to Long Gully Road. Butchers are the most friendly shopkeepers. It must have something to do with working with dead animals.