Sucked In (19 page)

‘What sort of evidence?'

‘Doc-u-mentary evidence,' he said. The can tilted high, almost empty. It wasn't much past noon.

‘Doc-u-mentary evidence?' I said. ‘Like what?'

‘The sort I can stick in an envelope and send to the coppers. Really give them something to think about.' He licked his lips with relish. ‘Maybe they'll begin to wonder if those two didn't have good reason to want Merv Cutlett dead. And who knows, maybe I'll get my memory back? Tell the coppers a few things that slipped my mind last time I talked to them.'

I felt sorry for him, the wretch. Flat broke. Sick as a dog.

High as the Goodyear blimp on a cocktail of ill health, pills, booze and malice.

‘Let me get you to a doctor, have someone take a quick look. Maybe some income support.'

His face hardened into a snarl. ‘Don't you fucken patronise me.'

Abruptly, he scooted backwards, coat-tails flapping, through the gate in the Cyclone partition. He swung it closed and shot the bolt, securing it with a twisted coat hanger.

‘I'll show youse all,' he sneered through the wire. ‘Just you wait and see.'

Prancing around and rubbing his hands like he was auditioning for the role of Fagin in a Julius Streicher production of
Oliver!
, he reached into the ice-cream chiller, pulled out a fresh can and disappeared into the roofless room, shutting the door behind him.

He didn't just need a doctor. He needed the burly chaps in white with the butterfly net.

The door flew open and he emerged with something in his hands. Small items bundled together with a rubber band. He stripped off the band and advanced towards the fence.

‘Know what these are?'

I hooked my fingers on the links and peered through the chain mesh. He held two thin booklets, one in each hand.

‘Passports?' I ventured.

‘Bankbooks.' He stuffed one in his pocket and opened the other, extending it towards me at eye level.

I hadn't seen a savings passbook for years. They were obsolete, gone the way of the whalebone corset and the Betamax VCR. Gilpin shoved it at my face, close enough to read. Commonwealth Bank, 341 Victoria Street, Melbourne.

I remembered the branch. It occupied the building on the corner of Lygon Street, an august two-storey structure from the 1880s. It was something else now. Luxury apartments, probably. The side entrance of the Trades Hall was straight across the street.

The account holder's name was typed in a punch-card font. Barry Quinlan, it said. The columns showed a sequence of deposits over a six-month period, the first in February 1978. The amounts varied, averaging between one and two thousand dollars. The total balance was $18,022.07. It was withdrawn in a lump sum, all but the small change.

He held up the second passbook. The name at the top was Charles Talbot. The sum withdrawn was $14,225, leaving a balance of $2.04.

‘More than thirty grand all up,' he said. ‘Big bikkies in those days.'

I nodded. A year's wage, pre-tax, for a specialist tradesman or a mid-level manager. My own income that year would've been lucky to reach fifteen grand. He wrapped the rubber band around the passbooks and stowed them inside his coat, swapping them for his fresh can of beer. He popped the tab and foam oozed out. He licked it off his hand and waited for my reaction.

‘They had bank accounts,' I said. ‘So what?'

‘And they cleaned them out on 27 July,' he said. ‘Recognise the date, do you?'

I shrugged. ‘Should I?'

‘It's the Monday after Merv Cutlett went down,' he sneered. ‘Interesting, eh?'

It was. Unfortunately.

‘You've lost me, Sid,' I said. ‘I've got no idea what you're talking about.'

‘Quinlan will, though.' He took a long swig. ‘So you get on your bike, sport. Go tell the senator that unless he sees me right, I'll make sure these little babies come to the attention of the coppers.'

I stayed where I was, fingers threaded through the wire. ‘If these bankbooks are such hot property, how come Quinlan and Talbot let you get your mitts on them? It all sounds like crap to me, Sid.'

He flicked his wrist forward, shooing me away. I was merely the messenger, and a dumb one at that. ‘Off you go, then. Scoot.'

‘What do you want, Sid?'

He sneered. ‘What do you reckon I want?'

‘Money won't help if you're too crook to spend it. Let me get you to a doctor, eh?'

He sucked his breath inwards sharply and his eyes went hard. ‘Fuck your doctor and fuck you and fuck Quinlan.' He pounded the front of his coat with the flat of his hand. ‘These are going straight to the coppers.'

There was real menace in his voice. The guy was barking mad. Maybe the kennel and the chalk-stick turds were his.

‘The senator's in Canberra for the next few days,' I said. ‘Is this something I should talk about on the phone? Calls to federal parliament are recorded, you know.'

Gilpin's paranoid cunning was racing ahead of itself. Whatever his plan, he hadn't thought it all the way through. ‘When's he coming back?'

‘Later in the week.' I had to say something. ‘Thursday.'

‘Tell him he's got until Wednesday, close of business.'

‘You have a figure in mind?'

‘Tell him to make me an offer.' He fixed me in his yellow, puffer-fish gaze, an idea crossing his eyes like a fast-burning fuse. ‘And while you're at it, take the same message to whatsername. That stuck-up bint from the office. The one Talbot had his tongue out for. Married her, didn't he? She must be worth quite a few bob now. Careful bloke like him would've been insured to the hilt. And the super. Politicians have always got a shitload of that.' He chugged on his can. ‘Oh, yeah. She'd pay almost anything, I bet, to preserve Charlie-boy's good name.'

He stayed in his cage as I walked up the aisle of worthless trash. As I neared the door, he called out.

‘Don't get any smart ideas. They're well stashed. And if I see you or anyone else around the place, the deal's off.'

When I looked back at the shed from the kerb, he was standing at the back corner, his coat drawn around him, watching me go.

Fliteplan Travel operated from a low-rise art deco apartment block in St Kilda Road, the vestige of a bygone era on an avenue of glass-clad office buildings. The elms were shedding their foliage and eddies of brittle brown chaff swirled around the angular metal sculptures in the granite forecourt of the advertising agency next door.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor, found the flat with the sign on the door, gave a light rap and went straight in.

Fliteplan did most of its business over the phone, so Margot hadn't wasted any money on décor. The living room doubled as her office, and I could hear muted female voices and computer tapping noises from the direction of main bedroom. A big window overlooked Fawkner Park, level with the treetops, and the wall of the kitchenette had been replaced with a laminex bench.

Margot was sitting at her table, working her way through the mail. She'd painted up and fluffed her hair, but her face was still drawn and a bit emptied-out. She looked up and gave me a convalescent smile.

‘Murray, love,' she said. ‘What a pleasant surprise.'

‘A surprise,' I agreed sombrely, ‘but not too pleasant, I'm afraid.' I shut the door leading towards the rooms where the staff were working. ‘I've just been to see Sid Gilpin.'

Margot cocked her head sideways and stared at me, mystified.

I sat down at the table. The neat piles of envelopes were the same sort as I'd seen at the house. Condolence cards. Margot had been slicing them open with a letter opener and making a list.

‘He's all hopped up,' I said. ‘Mad as a cut snake. He showed me his so-called evidence of corruption at the Municipals. It's a couple of old bankbooks. One in Charlie's name, the other in Barry Quinlan's. Substantial sums were deposited in the months before Merv Cutlett's death, then withdrawn immediately afterwards.'

Margot gave me a blank look and shrugged.

‘You don't know anything about this?'

She shook her head. ‘You told me nobody was taking Gilpin seriously.'

‘That might change.' There was no point in pussy-footing. ‘A journalist, Vic Valentine, has taken an interest.'

The thin wash of colour drained out of Margot's face. ‘The crime reporter?'

‘He's not a bad bloke, as journalists go,' I said. ‘Gilpin tried to flog him the corruption story but Valentine gave him the bum's rush. Since then, unfortunately, another angle has come up. Valentine's got inside information on the state of the remains. The forensics suggest that Cutlett was shot, then dumped in the lake.'

Margot furrowed her brow. ‘Shot?'

‘There's a hole in the skull, apparently.'

‘A bullet hole?'

‘It's absurd, I know.'

Margot reached into her handbag, its strap slung over the back of her seat, and fished out a pack of cigarettes. ‘Open the window, will you, Murray?' she said. ‘Can't smoke in here. Hell to pay.'

I slid open the glass. A concrete windowbox was built into the ledge. Red geraniums. Margot held a cigarette to bloodless lips. I found my lighter and summoned up a flame. Margot inhaled sharply, her hand trembling.

‘The police think Charlie shot Merv Cutlett?'

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Far as I know, they still haven't got a positive ID on the remains. They're waving around photos of a wristwatch found at the recovery scene, trying to establish if it belonged to Merv. I'm pretty sure it didn't. But even without a confirmed identification, it seems a fair bet they're proceeding on the assumption it's him. The hole in the skull can't be ignored and there's some inconsistencies in Charlie and Barry Quinlan's original testimony. Exact location of the accident and so forth. So they've got a potential victim and possible perpetrators. Right now, I imagine they're casting about for a possible motive.'

‘And you think these bankbooks might give them one?'

‘Gilpin certainly does,' I said. ‘He's threatening to send them to the cops anonymously. Set the cat among the pigeons. He's prepared to back off, he says, but it'll cost.'

She drew back hard and exhaled. ‘The little shit.'

I went into the kitchenette, found a saucer and put it on the table between us. Margot tapped her gasper hard against the rim. It didn't need ashing.

‘How much does he want?'

‘Money won't fix it,' I said. ‘Sid's off with the goblins.'

She tapped a couple more times, her thoughts turned inward. ‘What about Barry Quinlan? Have you talked to him?'

‘I came straight to you,' I said.

A draft came through the window, ruffling the pages of Margot's notepad. She used the saucer as a paperweight and stood, staring out over the windowbox, one hand on her throat. She suddenly looked about a million years old.

‘“Don't worry”,' she said. ‘That's what Charlie told me. “It's over and done with”. And I believed him because that's what I wanted to believe. But of course it's not over, is it?'

She left her cigarette burning in the saucer, sending up a thin curl of smoke. I picked it up and took a drag. It tasted of nothing. ‘I'll do whatever I can to help,' I said. ‘These bankbooks…'

‘I don't know anything about them.' Her tone was sharp. She turned her back and stared out into the park. ‘But I do know that Charlie didn't kill Merv Cutlett. And neither did Barry Quinlan.'

‘Of course not,' I started. ‘I'm not…'

‘It was me,' she said. ‘I'm the one who put a bullet in his brain.'

A woman, late twenties, with funky specs and a hedgehog haircut bounded out of the work area, a coffee mug in each hand.

‘Oops,' she blurted. ‘Didn't realise we had a visitor.'

I hastily grubbed the cigarette out in the saucer. Margot didn't miss a beat.

‘Jodie, this is Murray,' she said. ‘A friend.'

Jodie had registered the tension in the air. She gave me a cagey nod. Friend or not, I was obviously the bearer of bad news. A smoker in other people's workplace, come to heap even more sorry business on her boss's shoulders.

She clanked her mugs down on the metal sink top and began to run a stream of water into an electric jug. ‘Can I get you a cup of something?'

Margot slid the window shut. ‘That new lunch place next door,' she said. ‘Today might be a good time for you and Michele to give it a try.'

Jodie took the hint. Shooting daggers at me through her Jenny Kee eyewear, she collected her workmate Michele and the two of them scuttled through the pregnant silence and disappeared out the front door.

‘I want a full report,' Margot called after them, reassuringly.

Then she turned and stared through the window, her elbow cupped in one hand. An elegantly turned-out businesswoman in her fifties, shoulders square, her hair just a shade lighter than the overcast sky. Down in the park, the spindly fingers of the treetops clawed uselessly at the air.

The silence stretched out, taut as a piano string. The bell had been rung. There was no unringing it. I extended a fresh cigarette. She smiled bleakly and let me light it for her, steady now. When she sat down, I reached across the table and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. It was ice.

She took a deep breath and began to talk.

‘Charlie would never tell me what happened up there at Nillahcootie,' she said. ‘He'd only ever say that it wasn't my fault, none of it, Cutlett's death included, and that nobody else knew. About me, I mean. But whatever happened at the lake, it gave Barry Quinlan some sort of a hold over him, at least for a while. If this comes out, Quinlan will blame Charlie for everything. I won't let that happen. I'll go to the police myself.'

The words were gushing out, tumbling over each other, dissolving her hard-maintained self-control. A fearful and frightening look had entered her eyes. I held up the palm of my hand.