Death Delights (31 page)

‘Tell me yourself,’ I said. ‘I know that when I lie it’s out of fear. Fear of hurting someone.’

Charlie laughed and shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘that’s bullshit. That’s the cover story we feed ourselves. It’s because we don’t want to deal with the other party’s anger when they know the truth.’

‘Okay, I’m prepared to concede that.’ I considered. ‘But in this case, with Mrs Bower saying she didn’t see the car, she’s got to have had a strong reason. No one seems to have questioned the word of the vicar’s wife.’

Our meals came with amazing speed and there was a lull in our conversation while we started eating. Charlie was hoeing into a plate of chips and a pie.

‘There’d be no reason to lie,’ said Charlie, eating a chip, ‘if she was an innocent bystander.’

I stopped chewing and looked at my brother’s intelligent, lively face. ‘She wasn’t innocent,’ I said. ‘Our sister was photographed in her garden by someone a couple of days before she was abducted.’ I leaned over the table. ‘Mrs Bower said in her statement that she couldn’t give a description of the car because “everything happened so fast”. How could she know that everything happened so fast unless she’d witnessed it?’ I put my fork down, too animated to eat any more. ‘Charlie, I’m convinced she saw that damn car. I’m convinced she saw the whole thing.’

Charlie had lifted the lid off his pie and was scooping out the contents, leaving the piecrust.

‘She saw that car,’ I continued. ‘Then we find that same car in the garage of a suicided pedophile twenty-five years later. That car is a link between Mrs Bower and Bevan Treweeke,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how and I don’t know why. But there’s a connection here and I’m just not seeing it.’

Charlie regarded me over the last chip. ‘Or,’ he said, ‘there’s no connection whatsoever, but your mind hasn’t found a way to impose the connecting grid on it yet.’

It was true and it was irritating to be reminded. ‘Why do you always eat pies like that?’ I asked him, pointing to the discarded piecrust sitting like a little dish on his plate. I wanted to criticise my brother, cut him down to size.

‘It’s simple,’ he said to me. ‘I don’t like pastry.’

I pulled out the photograph of the adolescent boy with the floppy hair. ‘Which also leaves me wondering who he is, and where he fits in.’

Charlie wiped his fingers on his napkin and reached over to take it. ‘Who could he be?’ he said.

‘I’m going to find out,’ I told him. ‘I want to talk to Mrs Bower.’

•

The minute I got home I started ringing around. Eventually, I learned that Mrs Elizabeth Bower was living at an Anglican retirement village in North Sydney. I was about to drive straight there, when I realised I hadn’t checked my message bank.

‘Hullo,’ said Nigel’s voice, ‘I’ve got a result for you on those metallic fragments you wanted tested.’ For a second I had no idea what he was talking about. Then I remembered the anonymous letters and the tiny particles adhering to the paper. ‘We found traces of a water-soluble gel and the story’s quite surprisingly romantic. I’ll fax the full report if you like. Give me a call.’

The next message took me by surprise. ‘It’s Iona,’ came the voice. ‘Can we talk? There are some things I need to tell you. I’ll be working from home over the next few days. Call me and make a time to drop in.’

Drop in? I thought. Or drop dead? But there was no denying the fizz of excitement in my chest.

I steadied myself and rang Bob to tell him about my suspicions regarding Mrs Bower and my sister’s abduction. ‘I think she saw everything that happened.’

‘Christ,’ said Bob, ‘it was a long time ago, Jack. A lot of time and energy went into that investigation. Do you really think you’re going to find anything new?’

‘I can’t say,’ I said. ‘But I can’t rest easy until I’ve checked everything out.’ I thought of the little ghost that kept rising in the midst of my other investigations.

‘We still haven’t turned up your mate Staro,’ Bob was saying. ‘Everyone in Sydney is on the lookout for him.’

I thought of the skinny man who’d somehow become more than just an informer to me. ‘Maybe she’s killed him, too,’ I said, ‘and that’s why he hasn’t been seen since the night at Centennial Park. Maybe she recognised him when he recognised her and took off after him.’

‘There’s a lot of maybes in your scenario,’ said my colleague. ‘I’ve got a palm print to support mine.’ And he rang off.

Someone else had rung while I was talking to Bob. I checked the message and did what the caller said, driving to the Collins Club.

•

Pigrooter was in his usual corner, except by this hour of the day he’d already finished the
Times
crossword and was reading. He put the book down as I approached him. I went to the bar and ordered my soda, lime and bitters, bringing it to his table. He looked at me as I sat down.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve got the information you wanted.’

I sat down and waited. Very fat people all have similar faces, I thought. They lose the edges of their features because fat is deposited in the same places on all of us.

‘You’re not going to be very happy,’ he said. ‘And I don’t feel happy about handing you something for nothing.’ He tapped the book and I read the cover upside-down. It was a book on alternative therapies,
Healthy Consciousness: Healthy Body
with angels and beetroots on the cover. ‘People don’t value things unless they’ve paid for them.’

‘I’ll owe you one,’ I said. ‘A big one.’

‘I heard you’ve acquired over two hundred thousand dollars. I want half.’

I tried to keep my face from showing anything. ‘What makes you say that?’ I said, keeping my voice in neutral as I’d learned to do long ago.

‘From the man himself. The dealer your daughter was living with.’

I felt a thrill of fear shiver through my spine. ‘So you know who he is,’ I said.

‘You know him, too,’ said Pigrooter, looking at me with his sharp little eyes. There was a silence until I wanted to scream,
‘Just tell me!’
but I sat there, seemingly impervious as ever, watching the waxy face and the bright eyes. Finally, Pigrooter smiled. A lot of gold gleamed in the darkness of his mouth.

‘Your girl’s got herself mixed up with our old workmate and your one-time colleague, Kapit. He’s been dealing for a couple of years now.’

If I’d been shocked before, hearing that name numbed me totally. For a second or two, nothing happened. It was like the nanosecond that elapses between slamming the car door on your thumb and the scream.

‘That bastard,’ I said, and my voice was low and hoarse with rage. I’d disliked John Cleever Kapit from the first day I met him in the job twenty years ago. I hated him for his affair with my wife. Now I had reason to hate him even more. Something like acid coursed through my blood—hatred, and the desire for vengeance.

‘Scoring the double like that,’ said Pigrooter disapprovingly, referring to my wife and my daughter. ‘He’s a vain arsehole, Kapit. Fancies himself. Thinks he looks like Harrison Ford. But you’ve got his money so you’re ahead.’ Pigrooter tossed back the last drops of his liquor. ‘What’s the prick going to do about it?’ he sneered. ‘Go to the police?’

‘I don’t give a fuck about the money!’ I said, furious. ‘My little girl—’

‘She’s not your little girl any more,’ said Pigrooter. ‘Don’t be sentimental.’ He picked up the book from where it lay face-down on the table. He put a coaster in to mark the page he was up to and closed it sharply. ‘I want my hundred. I’m reduced to this sort of brokering,’ he said, with a shrug that wobbled through his upper body, ‘because I’ve lost my licence over a technicality with those fuckwits in the New South Wales police. Some jumped-up little arsehole inspector decided he didn’t like my attitude.’

‘Hundred grand?’ I said. ‘That’s not brokering. That’s robbery.’

‘You can let me have it by the end of the week. Don’t let me down.’ He stood up to leave. ‘I’m in touch with people who’d do your granny over for a packet of chips.’

I went straight to the Police Centre and took Bob up onto the roof where I hoped no one could hear us. Dirty Sydney pigeons infested the nooks and crannies and their droppings caked in grubby stalagmites under any sheltered areas. I told Bob what Pigrooter had told me while both of us stared out through the turbid afternoon pollution that dulled the city dirty bronze. Sydney was filthy and now I felt part of the dirtiness.

‘Kapit’s name came up when I spoke to Stan Lovell,’ said Bob. ‘He’s been a person of interest to the fellows in the Drug Squad for some time.’ I thought of my stupid wife and her crim lover and how much pleasure I was going to get when I put her right about her boyfriend. ‘Kapit’s too toey for physical surveillance and he keeps moving house,’ Bob said. ‘The technical people have been breaking their hearts trying to stay on him.’

‘I want to nail the bastard,’ I said. ‘Get him put away for a long time.’ I could feel my fists clenching as I spoke, nails digging into my palms.

‘It won’t be easy to get him. You’ve got to get him with the gear. People like Kapit are too smart to handle it themselves.’

‘I’ll fit him,’ I said. ‘I’ll buy heroin and spread it through his flat. I’ll stick it under his house, up his chimney. There’ll be no way he can get out of it.’

‘You’d better split the money with Pigrooter,’ said Bob. ‘He took Larry Askin out with him pig-shooting last year. He lost most of his head in a shotgun accident. Turned out Askin owed him.’ A Boeing airliner flew past in the east, heading for the airport. The sky was darkening, fast-moving storm clouds rolling in from the south-west while I planned my dream of revenge. ‘It’s only dealer’s money,’ Bob was saying. ‘Put it away somewhere safe. Sit tight. It’s not as if it’s hurting anyone to keep it.’ A lot of police officers over the years had formed that conclusion, I knew only too well.

‘I wasn’t thinking about the money,’ I said. Bob leaned his back against the wall.

‘Genevieve’s been having an affair with Kapit,’ I told him. ‘That’s why I left.’

My friend’s face registered the shock, heavy eyebrows angled. ‘I knew you were going through a hard time,’ he said.

‘First, he’s involved with my wife,’ I said. ‘Then he’s got Jacinta living with him. And using.’

‘You could have him charged along those lines,’ Bob suggested. ‘She’s only a kid, for chrissakes.’

We walked back towards the exit. ‘I’m having a couple of days off,’ Bob said as we parted. ‘Ring me at home if you need me.’

I went straight to the hospital where my daughter still lay in her other world. The physio was with her, and I took over after the woman showed me what to do, moving the thin arms and legs in a counterfeit of lively movement. I brushed Jacinta’s hair over the pillow and straightened the ribbon someone had tied in it. Somewhere, her mind rested and her narrow body was becoming freer of the addiction that had taken her hostage. I looked at her emaciated face and my heart melted. I laid my head down on the pillow next to hers, remembering the beautiful child she’d been. Get well and strong, I told her, come back to me and help me be your father. Teach me what you need from me and I’ll be a willing learner. I sat up and kissed her goodbye.

•

Next morning I drove to the retirement village, a quiet, leafy place near the Lane Cove river. A tiny young Asian nurse, neat in her uniform, took me to Mrs Bower’s room.

She was sitting on a long closed-in veranda with an untouched cup of tea cooling at her side, her misty eyes staring straight ahead. As I approached, she looked up at me and I recalled the woman of twenty-five years ago. Now, all that remained of her was the slightness and the anxiety. But the deep-set eyes seemed very familiar.

‘When does this ship leave?’ she asked me, slightly querulous, not quite focusing on me.

‘I don’t think it will be too much longer,’ I said as I sat beside her.

She seemed satisfied with that, lost interest in me and we continued to sit together in silence for some time. Around me, old people waited patiently in their chairs, or shuffled past on frames. Opposite us, a woman plucked distractedly at the rug covering her knees, picking at things that weren’t there.

‘Mrs Bower,’ I said finally, ‘my name is John McCain. Our family used to live near yours. In Wentworth Street, Springbrook.’

She turned to me again, studied me closely, then frowned. ‘This man is not my husband,’ she said in a loud voice.

‘That’s right,’ I said, ‘I’m not your husband. I used to live down the street. When I was a kid. The McCain family. My sister Rosie…’ I stopped, startled by the spasm that had galvanised the frail body.

Mrs Bower started rocking, moaning. ‘Oh no, oh no,’ she cried, ‘it was a terrible thing to do. Oh no, oh no.’ Her whimpering became more agitated and I looked around for a nurse but could see no one in charge, just the patient old people, some watching us, others sleeping in their chairs, mouths open.

‘Mrs Bower,’ I said, ‘is there something I can do for you?’ But she was weeping loudly now, tears running down her face, her hands with their almost transparent skin clutching the sides of the chair. ‘Please, Mrs Bower,’ I said, ‘don’t distress yourself like this.’ I stood up and looked around, desperate and then thankful to see a woman in a pale blue uniform heading in our direction. ‘She became distressed,’ I said to the nurse as she came up. ‘I wasn’t sure what to do.’

‘Oh, we do that from time to time, don’t we, lovey?’ the nurse said. Then she squatted and pushed the cup of tea closer. ‘Not having your lovely cup of tea, dear?’ The nurse sat back on her heels. ‘Mostly she’s like this.’ She indicated the weeping old woman. ‘But she has her moments of complete lucidity,’ she explained. ‘Don’t you, darling?’ she asked Mrs Bower in a louder voice.

As if to prove the nurse right, Mrs Bower gave her a look of anger, and pushed herself back in her chair, pointing at me, speaking in a strong, loud voice.

‘I know who you are,’ she said. ‘You’re the brother. I didn’t know till it was too late.’

I was riveted. Not only had the name ‘Rosie’ elicited a strong reaction from the old woman, but now she was referring to me as ‘the brother’. She certainly did seem to know who I was. Maybe I’d be able to ask her some questions after all. I was standing there, wondering how to go about this when she spoke again.