Dead Point Part 20

Cam got in. 'Marie, Jack Irish. Your mum knows him. He's a lawyer.'

'Hi,' she said again. 'I've only got a minute. What's it about?' Her speech was rushed, nervous.

Cam took out his Gitanes, offered her one. She took it, leaned across for a light, had a coughing fit.

'Jeez,' she said, 'what is it?'

'There's somethin milder here somewhere,' said Cam.

'No, it's cool.' She coughed again. 'Just a shock.'

Not turning, I said, 'Marie, we're trying to find out who bashed your mother.'

I could hear her exhale smoke. 'Yeah,' she said. 'Yeah, that's good. It's like a nightmare. Weird.'

I waited a few seconds. 'How long have you had a habit?'

Silence. 'Christ, what's this s.h.i.t? I'm out of...'

Cam leaned over the seat, draped his arm. 'Marie, listen, it's not about you and drugs, right? It's about who nearly killed your mum. You love your mum, don't you?'

More quiet. Marie began to cry, a sniffle, throat noises.

'Don't you? Love your mum?'

Then she was making crying noises, not loud, and saying, 'Oh, Jesus, oh Jesus...'

We waited.

After a while, I said, 'Tell us about it, Marie.'

She did a lot more sniffing, then she said, 'Mum sent you?'

'No,' said Cam. 'Your mum told me you'd had a problem, but that now you're clean. She's proud of you, your mum.'

The sniffing resumed. Then she said, courage plucked, 'There's nothing to tell, like. What's this-'

I said, 'Last chance, Marie. You could go to jail for this. Conspiracy.'

This time it was a cry from deep down, a wail, then more sobbing. I looked at Cam. He was looking at Marie, flicked his chestnut-brown eyes at me. I thought I detected a hint of compa.s.sion. Probably just the light.

We waited.

'I just told this bloke my mum did big-money bets,' she said, sad voice. 'Don't even know how it works-'

'Which bloke?'

A long silence.

'Can't go back now, Marie,' said Cam, gently. 'Which bloke?'

'Around the bike shop. He deals, everyone knows him, it's safe.'

'Why'd you tell him?' Cam said.

Sigh. 'I dunno, I just told him one day.' Sigh. 'Like I thought it was smart, like my mum didn't do ordinary kind of... Just stupid. Mum always said... Oh, s.h.i.t.'

'You told him that and then what happened?' I asked.

She became matter-of-fact. 'He said, give us the word when you've got a horse. I didn't know anything about that, Mum never said a word, all I knew is some days she's got something on at the races, she's phoning people, you can't understand what she's saying to them.'

'You told him you never heard the names of horses?' I said.

'Yeah. Then one day he says, tell me when your mum's going to the races and I'll give you a hit.'

Silence, waiting, Cam leaning over the seat, looking at Marie, tendons like cable in his neck.

'And?'

'That day, I was hanging out, didn't have a cent...'

'You told him,' said Cam.

'Yes.' Tiny voice. 'I'd've cut my wrists before I told him if I knew what...'

'Where's the bike shop?'

'Elizabeth Street.'

Cam started the vehicle and waited to pull out.

'My mum,' said Marie, 'you're going to tell Mum?'

'No,' said Cam, getting into the traffic, 'you've got your punishment. This bloke always there?'

Marie sniffed. 'Most of the time. He sees you're chasin and he meets you at the Vic Market. Keeps the stash there.'

'We'll drive by. See if you can point him out.'

We went around the corner into LaTrobe Street, turned right into Elizabeth Street.

Marie saw him almost immediately.

'Next to that white car, the bloke on the bike.'

'Sit low,' said Cam.

He was across the street from the motorcycle dealers, sitting on a black BMW, helmet on his lap, talking to someone in the pa.s.senger seat of a car. We got a good look at him tall, curly red-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, short beard around his mouth.

We took Marie back to Swanston Street. As she was getting out, she said, 'Cam, I'm so scared my mum'll find-'

'Not from us,' said Cam. 'Stay clean or you'll break her heart.'

'I'm staying clean. That's over, over.'

We watched her go, long-legged walk, bag swinging.

'Get that number run?' said Cam.

'Five minutes. Find a public phone.'

Cam took out a mobile. 'Safe phone,' he said.

I didn't ask what that meant. I took it and dialled Eric the Geek.

There was a fax from Jean Hale waiting at the office. Two names on the Lucan's Thunder betting team were circled. One was someone called Tim Broeksma. In the margin, Jean had written: He's new. Sandy doesn't know much about him. A plumber He's new. Sandy doesn't know much about him. A plumber.

The other name was Lizard Ellyard. There were quotation marks around Lizard.

He's got a firewood business. Bit of a sad case, was in a bad accident, I think. Anyway, he didn't show up on the day so he really shouldn't be on the list.

I drowsed in the captain's chair, mind picking daisies. Cam and I had lunched well at a pub in Abbotsford. It was a place frozen in time like the Prince, except that this pub had been deliberately frozen, used as a television series location for years, and it was in excellent shape. Halfway through the sausages and mash, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

'Straying out of your territory, Mr Irish.'

Boz, in jeans and a jerkin. I introduced her to Cam. She sat down for a few minutes and I told her about Mrs Purbrick's party.

'You'll end up choosing her books, Jack,' said Boz. 'I saw the signs.'

She was getting up to rejoin a table of people, all talking, telling stories, film people if I read the signs, when Cam said, 'I do a fair bit of movin. Got a card?'

Boz shook her head. 'Got a pen?' She wrote her name and phone number on a drink coaster. He put it in an inside pocket.

I saw the signs.

Now, half-asleep in my office, I was thinking again about who had given me the Marco video. The people who'd taken it? I'd a.s.sumed it was a cop video federal, local. That might still be true. But I had to a.s.sume that the cops hadn't given it to me.

Who then? And why me? Why would someone other than the cops give me a surveillance video? What could they want from me?

Who else knew that I was interested in Robbie/ Marco? My anonymous caller knew. But there was no way to find out who she was. Had the judge told someone? Not likely. The people at The Green Hill knew. But why would they be interested in helping me find out more about a dead man they had employed under another name? And where would they get the video?

This line of thought wasn't going to produce anything. If I knew more about Robbie/Marco, the questions would probably answer themselves.

I got out the enhanced pictures and looked at them again. Trying to identify the woman in the car belonging to Jamie Toxteth and his partner hadn't met with any success. That left the fleshy man at the sidewalk table.

How to begin?

I was looking out of the window. I could see Kelvin McCoy's front door. A young woman came into view, dressed in what from this distance appeared to be a garment fashioned from colourful rags, offcuts from a tie factory perhaps, and carrying a big flat folio bag. At McCoy's portal, she paused, uncertain for a moment. Oh G.o.d, she had been invited to show the unwashed charlatan her drawings. I felt I should open my door and shout a warning. Too late, she knocked. A brief wait, the door opened, I glimpsed the brutal shaven head, she was drawn in. The beast would see a lot more than her drawings before the day was out.

Ah well. Life went on.

The fleshy man. In the gla.s.s behind him, the cafe window, a reflection of writing on an uneven surface, the word a.s.set a.s.set.

Written on what outside a cafe? What was uneven?

An ap.r.o.n, it was on an ap.r.o.n, a long black ap.r.o.n of the kind favoured by Melbourne cafes. A reflection of a name on a waiter's ap.r.o.n.

a.s.set?

My stupidity dawned on me.

I walked up to Brunswick Street and weaved and jinked my way along a pavement crowded with young artists, fashion students, actors, directors, script-writers, drug dealers, filmmakers, fashionistas, off-duty baristas baristas, models, writers of forgotten grunge novels published by Penguin, Age Age lifestyle journalists, internet entrepreneurs, meme-carriers of every description. Many of them were on the phone to like-minded people. Why did people have so much more to communicate these days? lifestyle journalists, internet entrepreneurs, meme-carriers of every description. Many of them were on the phone to like-minded people. Why did people have so much more to communicate these days?

At my destination, a good bookshop next door to what had been a good gun shop with a bad clientele when I came to Fitzroy, I bought a copy of a guide to cheap Melbourne eating places. Cheaper.

Near the office, I heard the phone ringing, ran, wrestled with the lock, got in, panting.

'Jack,' said Wootton, 'the client wants to meet very, very urgently.'

I took the book with me. You never know how long you'll be kept waiting.

The door was huge and studded and the steps before it had hollows worn in them big enough for birds to bathe in. I pressed the b.u.t.ton and waited no more than a minute or two.

A tall, thin man in a dark suit opened the door. 'Mr Irish?'

'Yes.'

'Please follow me.'

We went up a curving staircase to a lobby, then down a grand corridor, stopping at a door near the end. The man opened it with a key and ushered me into a panelled reception room with desks and computers, no-one at work. He knocked at a door to the left, listened, opened it, and said, 'Mr Irish, Your Honour.'

He stood back for me to enter and closed the door behind me. I stood in an impressive room: high ceiling, dark panelling, cedar bookcases tight with bound volumes, small oil paintings in gilt frames lit from above. It was exactly the chamber I'd expected a judge to inhabit. Only the computer station was out of place.

Mr Justice Colin Loder, no jacket, was coming around his leather-topped desk. 'Jack,' he said, 'thanks for coming.'

'Your Honour.' We shook hands.

'Colin. I should've said that before. You know too much for formality.'

'Something's happened.'

'Sit down.'

I sat on a chair with b.u.t.toned green leather upholstery.

The judge went back to his seat, sat upright, forearms on the desk. A long yellow envelope lay in front of him. He touched each of his cufflinks, modest silver ovals, checked them, pointed at the envelope with his eyes. 'The worst,' he said. 'Worse than I expected. Left downstairs an hour ago.'