Dead Point Part 4

He shrugged. 'Don't know.' Pause. 'How come his family don't know?'

'Drifted apart, lost touch.'

'The cops wanted to find the next of kin. Has the family been in touch?'

'I presume so. Did Robbie come with references?'

'References only mean anything for kitchen staff in this business. He said he'd worked all over the place. Queensland. We gave him a one-hour trial. He knew what he was doing.'

'Anyone around who worked with him? Just so that I can tell the family I talked to a colleague.'

There was a slight unease about him, something more than having his time wasted. He cleared his throat, picked up a slim telephone handset. 'I'll see.'

He tapped three numbers. 'Janice, call up Robbie Colburne's last three shifts, see if anyone on them's here now.'

We waited. He didn't look at me, looked at the computer screen on his right. Figures in columns, a payroll possibly.

'Okay, thanks.' He put the handset down. 'Down the Pub. Ask for Dieter.'

'Thanks. I appreciate your help.'

He didn't say anything, didn't smile, just nodded, looked at the screen again.

You couldn't get into Down the Pub from the street. Entry was through a heavy studded door in a narrow lane separating The Green Hill from its neighbour. No need for pa.s.sing trade here. Beyond the door was a vestibule and then you pa.s.sed through small-paned gla.s.s doors into a long room where lamps in mirrored wall niches cast a warm and calm yellow light. The walls were wood panelled to the ceiling, there were booths and tables with leather chairs, and the oak bar with bra.s.s fittings was like an altar to drink.

The place was almost empty: two couples in a booth, three men at a table, two lingering male drinkers at the bar. I stood at the counter as far from them as possible. The barman stopped polishing a gla.s.s and was in front of me in an instant.

'Sir,' he said. He was tall with wavy dark hair and a neat beard.

'I'm looking for Dieter.'

'I am Dieter.' A German accent.

'Jack Irish,' I said. We shook hands. 'You knew Robbie Colburne?'

'Not too well, a colleague for a short time,' he said. 'It's very sad. Are you family?'

'He lost contact with his family.'

Dieter recognised the evasion. 'So you're not family?'

'No. I'm acting for the family.' I was, at a small remove.

'Acting? I don't...'

'I'm a lawyer.'

'Legal business?'

'Sort of, yes. There's an estate involved.' There had to be.

He nodded. 'I saw him here only. A friendly person, a person easy to work with. Yes. Not like some.'

'Friends?'

'Friends?'

'Barmen have friends. They make friends.'

'Oh, friends? I don't know. He was friendly to everyone. But that's part of the job.'

'So he didn't have any personal friends come in?'

'Excuse me, sir.' Alerted by something, he left me to pour a gla.s.s of red from an open bottle. I glimpsed the label: a Burgundy, a Pommard. Dieter took the drink over to the florid man at the opposite end of the bar and came back.

'Robbie's friends,' I said.

'Yes. No. Not here at work.'

A voice behind me said, 'Now Dieter, the guest hasn't got a drink, what's goin on?'

It was an Irish voice, a lovely purring, lilting Irish voice. The owner was a man in a tweed suit, a pale, handsome man in his mid-thirties with dense black curly hair, red lips and perfect teeth. He had his hand out to me and he was smiling.

'Xavier Doyle,' he said. 'I'm the publican here and I don't know your face and I want to do somethin about that.'

'Jack Irish,' I said.

'Irish? There's a name to make a man sing. What'll you be drinkin? First one's on the house, first and a few too many in the middle says the accountant. Got no heart, these counters of beans.'

He was a man you could like without thinking about it.

'A beer,' I said.

'Not just a beer in this establishment.' He waved. 'Dieter, my fine Teutonic friend, a couple of pints of the Shamrock, there's a good lad.'

'Sir.' Dieter slid off.

Doyle leaned his back against the bar, patted my arm.

'Now Jack, the feller upstairs says you're askin about young Robbie. There's a tragedy for you. Why would a young feller like that get into the drugs? We'll never know, that's the answer, isn't it?'

'Someone who knew him well might know.'

'I can't say that I did, Jack. I wish I could. You'd like to know all your staff well, wouldn't you? But there's near sixty work here and they're comin and goin, gra.s.s's always greener, and the compet.i.tion always out to poach em.' He paused, a sad look. 'So, no, I can't say I knew Robbie well. But an excellent worker, top of the cla.s.s, we'd a put him on permanent at the drop.'

The beers came, silver tankards topped with two fingers of foam.

'Let's get in front of some of this Irish gold,' said Doyle. He had a way of holding your eyes, as if looking into them gave him great pleasure.

We drank. It wasn't bad stuff. I wiped off my foam moustache. 'Robbie didn't want a full-time job?'

'Bernie asked him but he said he had other commitments.'

'Another job?'

'Entirely possible. How'd you like this beer?'

'I like it.' I drank some more. He drank, wiped his lips with a red handkerchief drawn from his top pocket.

'Next time you come we'll be drinkin The Green Hill pinot noir. We're takin delivery of vintage number one in a coupla days. From our own little estate out there on the Mornington. Nectar, I tell you, a drop fit for a crowned head.'

He waved at the barman.

'Some of them pecan nuts, Dieter lad. Now Jack, you're in the legal line the boyo says. That's the solicitorin, is it? Or are you one of them fellers wears a ferret on his head?'

'Solicitor.'

Dieter positioned a silver bowl of pecan nuts.

'Good few of your kind drop in here,' said Doyle. 'Corporate, a lot of em, the Lord knows what they do. How'd you get involved in this unfortunate affair?'

I chewed a nut. 'His relatives,' I said. 'Lost touch with him, now they want to know a bit more about his life.'

Doyle nodded. 'Perfectly understandable.' He flashed a cuff, looked at his watch. 'Day's flyin away from me. Jack, it's a pleasure to meet you. We'll be seein more of you now? Promise me that.'

'Promise,' I said. 'Xavier.'

'Call me Ex,' he says. 'It's what they call me.' He turned his head to Dieter. 'Fix this feller in your mind,' he said, 'and take proper care of him.'

He was at the inside door when he turned and came back. 'Next week we're launchin this little cookbook we've knocked out, Jack. The Green Hill Food The Green Hill Food it's called. Lots of the legal brotherhood comin. And the sisterhood, mind you. Your presence is required. Got a card on you?' it's called. Lots of the legal brotherhood comin. And the sisterhood, mind you. Your presence is required. Got a card on you?'

On the way out, I waved goodbye to Dieter. He was standing at a hatch talking to a young woman on the other side. They were both looking at me. He waved back, a polite wave.

Outside, in the rain, the meter had long expired and the Stud had a note under the driver's wiper. It read: 'If you ever consider selling this, ring me.' There was a name and a number and, after it, in parentheses, the words Traffic Inspector. Such is luck.

'Kashboli?' I said, studying the menu. 'What does Kashboli mean?'

'Where have you been, Jack?' asked Andrew Greer, my former law partner and friend since law school. 'Kashmiri plus Bolivian. Two interesting cuisines.'

I loosened my tie. 'With absolutely f.u.c.k-all in common.'

'Exactly. Until united by fusion cuisine.'

We were sitting in the window of Kashboli, an eating and drinking place on lower Lygon Street whose premises had previously housed a famous Carlton dry-cleaning establishment. Where a bar with a mosaic top now stood, garments were once handed over, precious garments, mainly Italian men's items handed over by Italian women dinner jackets the men had proposed in, wedding suits, good linen trousers, dark single-vent jackets, many let out a bit at the seams by the skilled fingers of loved ones. It had been my dry-cleaner when I was a five-suit man practising criminal law with Andrew in nearby Drummond Street.

'h.e.l.lo, young lovers, wherever you are.'

A seriously big man, big and fat man, in loose white garments, shaven skull, no neck, head like a nipple with features, had appeared behind the bar, sang the line in a singing pose, chin raised, hands up, palms outwards.

Andrew gave him a wave. So did all the other patrons, late-working trade unionists from headquarters down the road by the grim and dedicated look of them.

'Our host, Ronnie Krumm,' said Drew.

'Is that Kashmiri Ronnie Krumm or Bolivian Ronnie Krumm?'

'Neither. Ronnie's from Perth, travelled widely in search of the new. I understand the family's in hardware, very big in the hardware.'

'Hardware, software, Ronnie's big all over. What's the fat content of Kashboli tucker?'

Drew was intent on the menu. 'Excessive but only good fats. Premium, I'm told. No finer fats available. Well, what's your fancy or will you be guided?'

'Be my trained labrador.'

Drew ordered what appeared to be a form of fish stew. It came in minutes, a minefield of a dish. You chewed uneventfully and then you bit on anti-personnel chillies and your eyes lit up from behind. Fortunately, it came with a gla.s.s of a sweet off-white substance, a neutralising agent, possibly crushed antacid tablets in a sugar solution.

'Interesting,' I said, recovering. 'Fusion brings electrocution. Tell me about The Green Hill.'

Drew was savouring the Kashboli fish and chilli stew with no sign of strain, no resort to the pale liquid.

'The Green Hill?' He raised his gla.s.s of Bolivian cabernet to the light, his eyes narrowed, the long face took on a stained-gla.s.s religious look. 'Not your kind of place. Very few geriatrics arguing about football at The Green.'

'Tell me,' I said.

'Thinking of taking someone? A date, is it?'

'With destiny. It's for a Wootton client. And I've been there. This afternoon.'

's.h.i.t. Boring. How is the love life?'

'She's taking pictures in Europe. Not enough time between a.s.signments.'

'To do what?'

'Fly home for twenty-whatever hours and go back the next week.'

'Serious concern?'

'I suppose.'

'Extremely fetching person. In a mildly intimidating sort of way. Not talkative exactly,' said Drew.

'No. Well, she can be. Depends.'

'Yes. All life depends. It's pendant.'

'The Green Hill?'