Yesterday's Dust (22 page)

He turned back to his cabinet. It wasn't the first piece he'd reclaimed, but it was going to be the best. Stooping low he peered across the glass-like surface. In silence she watched him until he straightened. ‘Bloody beautiful wood, isn't it?'

‘It is. It is. It would sell for thousands in the city.'

‘You can have it for five hundred bucks and the keys to Toorak.'

‘I'm going now. Do you need cigarettes?'

‘Can I come with you, boss, and have six dollars to buy my own?'

‘Which one of you?'

‘The pervert, of course. I'll discuss my antiques with Mrs Lamont.' He wiped on another coat of shellac.

‘You really do a wonderful job on them.
You really do.' He made no reply. ‘I remember the day you brought home that little table you made for your mother, when you were fourteen, or fifteen.'

‘It's at Toorak.' He looked at her, then back to the pad. Cotton wool wrapped in fine sheeting. It had been made as he had been taught by the trade teacher. Just a kid then, eager to learn. He could have been anything, done anything. Back then.
‘I need some more sandpaper.'

‘What grade?'

‘Superfine. No. No. I'll go in. Something to bloody well do. We'll have something decent to eat in town.' The pad dropped into the shellac, the lid screwed down, as he'd been taught in the school room, he washed his hands with metho then wiped them on an old cloth before following her up the steps, closing the door on his own haven, his own little
hell, giving it back to the ghosts of Liza and Sam for an hour.

May was upstairs dressing when the phone rang.

‘I thought I'd killed the bloody thing,' he muttered, washing his
hands in the downstairs bathroom, pumping liquid soap into his palm because it made less mess in the basin than Solvol – so she said. She didn't have to clean the bloody basin. She paid a woman to do the cleaning, paid
old Harry to ride around on her lawn mower. She paid painters, and bloody carpet layers, spent money like water and wouldn't even buy him a bar of Solvol. He ignored the phone.

‘Pick that up will you, Sam,' she called from above.

‘That bastard is still dead, May.'

‘Will you pick the phone up?'

‘Why isn't the answering machine on?'

‘Because I'm waiting for Maxine to call me back.'

‘Bloody
Maxine. I'm not playing social secretary for bloody Maxine Parker-Jones.' The ringing stopped.

‘Thank you very much for that,' May yelled.

‘A bloody pleasure. Anything else I can do for you, just ask.'

‘It wouldn't have hurt you to pick it up.'

‘Wouldn't have done me any good either.' Then it rang again, so he picked the bloody thing up just to stop her complaining. He stood listening to the
STD beeps, and knew it wasn't Maxine Parker who had married Herb Jones – liked his money but not his name, so she'd added a hyphen, like his youngest. Mr and Mrs Burton-Smith.

‘Mr Burton?'

‘Who wants him?'

‘Am I speaking to Samuel Burton?' a stranger's voice asked.

‘So they tell me.'

‘Sergeant Robertson, Mr Burton. Your nephew suggested that you may be able to assist us with our inquiries.'

Jack's liver quivered, his shoulders crawled and he needed a drink. Nephew? Bloody Bessy's Mickey. Thirty-odd years ago Jack had named a retarded pup for that hangdog-eyed little shit. And what the bloody hell would he know about anything anyway? Didn't have enough brains to come in out of the rain, that one – but
his mother did. His stomach, his shoulders shivered. Bloody big-mouthed Bessy.

He needed a whisky. Since he'd heard that they'd found his body, he'd felt that old urge for a whisky. Since the little black-headed bitch had called last night his head had been screaming out for a whisky.

Then he realised who he was supposed to be, and it wasn't nephew Mickey Bishop who'd dobbed him in. It would be Johnny Jesus.

He drew a breath and attempted to raise Sam, all fake concern
and bullshit over his twin brother's not so recent demise, but he'd been caught on the hop by liquid soap and he hated pumping the crazy shit. Anything May wanted, she had to have it. Didn't matter what he wanted. He was an also-ran in this place.

‘We have been unable to trace your brother's dentist, Mr Burton.'

‘A bit late for dental work, isn't it?'

The cop wasn't amused. ‘If our information
is correct, you and your brother were identical twins.' Jack made no denial and the voice continued on about forensic and positive identifications while Jack lit a cigarette.

He was trying to raise Sam. He coughed, but perverted Sam was slow in coming this morning. It was one thing to play the bastard for a day, a week, a bloody month, another entirely to live him, day in, day out, year in, year
out. It didn't get any easier.

‘Still so hard to realise he's dead,' he said, looking for Ss while taking Sam's glasses from his breast pocket, putting them on. It helped sometimes, but not this morning. He was Jack and today he felt like Jack, black as bloody original sin. He ran a hand through Sam's long hair, he tensed his jaw, then relaxed it into Sam's. He sniffed his hand. It smelt of Sam.
He sniffed at the hand holding the cigarette. Overtones of Sam with a bit of Jack's nicotine. The bastard hadn't taken up smoking until after he was dead; Sam's hands had always smelt like a woman's.

‘Yes. Yes. We've been away. Heard the news last evening. The shock. Not functioning at all well at the moment. Where exactly did you find the body, Sergeant?'

‘Approximately twenty kilometres east
of Mallawindy. He had been buried in a shallow grave.'

‘Sad news. Very sad. He didn't bury himself, I take it?' Sam's hissing Ss were coming.

‘As you say, Mr Burton.'

The policeman spoke on while Jack raked at his scalp and, as always, checked his fingernails for movement. He felt an itch near his eyebrow, and knew the little bastards were migrating south. Then his beard and his mo began itching.
He scratched. Listened and scratched. Eaten alive by bloody head lice. He looked closely at his nails while the copper waited for a reply, but Jack wasn't too certain of what had been said.

How could you tell nits from dandruff? Nits were eggs. Eggs didn't crawl.

‘Mr Burton?'

‘Yes. So, you're treating his death as a homicide, Sergeant?'

He'd preferred the suicide theory. Ellie wouldn't get
the insurance if he'd suicided, and he didn't want her to get it. She'd get his trust fund, though. There was no justice in the bloody world and never had been; she'd end up with the lot and he didn't have enough in his pocket to buy a packet of smokes or a bottle of louse shampoo.

‘The black woollen sock and the briefs found on the body have been tentatively identified by your sister-in-law
as those worn by her husband.'

‘Have you been able to ascertain the cause of death?'

‘A small calibre wound to the rear of the head.'

‘Shit!'

That one got away. Shit! he thought. Poor bloody Jack, executed and buried in his underdaks. He almost felt sorry for himself.

West of Daree. West of Daree. Who was west of Daree? He
searched his mind, allowing memory to travel that road. He tracked
the farmhouses, saw Jim Watson's place, Harry Docker's, then he had it and his chin lifted while a smile broke across his features. Buried in his underdaks might suggest Jack had died in bed, and Vera Owen had a welcoming bed out the Daree Road. Charlie had surprised him in it one night, sleeping like a babe. And the bastard had brained him with a tyre lever. Maybe it was payback time. Maybe the
day wasn't going to be a total write-off after all.

Then Sam came. Just like that. The voice lifted, his Ss became a sibilant hiss, and his vowels became more rounded. ‘I assume you've spoken to Charles Owen? I believe he owns a few acres in the vicinity.'

May was behind him.

‘Who is it, Sam?'

‘Jack,' he snarled, but quietly, then altered his tone. ‘It's concerning brother Jack, my dear. Sergeant
Robertson is on the line.' He liked doing Sam's Ss, he'd mimicked them from childhood.

‘We are holding Charles Owen for questioning, Mr Burton.'

‘Has he been charged?'

‘What are you doing?' May hissed.

‘Doing my best to assist the police with their inquiries, my dear.' He cleared his throat and lit a cigarette from the butt of his last, standing the old butt on its end on May's telephone table.
‘Oh, and I believe the eldest son, John, arrived home shortly before my brother went missing. There was always bad blood between Jack and his son. Just between you, me and the gatepost, Sergeant Robertson, I wouldn't trust that one as far as I could kick him. An ex-priest – '

May snatched up the cigarette butt, replaced it with an ashtray, then attempted to relieve Jack of the phone, but she'd
nagged him to pick the bloody thing up and she wasn't going to get it off him now. He was having fun. He was starting to enjoy himself for the first time in weeks. He held the phone high, well out of her reach.

‘You wouldn't happen to have heard Jack mention the name of his dentist, would you, my dear? Didn't go against my will and pay
any of the unprincipled swine's accounts, did you? I know
how fond you were of him.'

May had dressed for town, her make-up smooth, her frock expensive; appearances were deceptive. The little bitch trod on his foot, ground it into the floor, choosing the site of the perennial corn that still dogged his smallest toe.

She didn't fight fair. He paled, and his voice paled. ‘She doesn't know,' he breathed, hopping, dragging the shoe from his foot, tossing
it across the room to hit a small table and send it and a vase of flowers crashing to the floor, water darkening the pale carpet.

May retrieved the vase, unbroken. She placed it on the mantelpiece, collected her scattered flowers, and his shoe, which she aimed at him.

Bloody-little-wild-cat-bitch, he mouthed. He was easy to lip-read.

Not a tendril of her champagne blonde hair out of place,
agile, slim as a girl, a well-born lady, but the language she mouthed back from across the room was not that of a lady. Always a fast learner, May.

‘When did you last see your brother, Mr Burton?' the distant voice continued, unaware his words were falling in the midst of a battle zone.

‘Some years ago. Six and a half to be precise.' May had picked up the cracked guts of the phone, held it poised
to throw at him –and she'd do it too. ‘I'll pass the handpiece to my wife.' He got in his last Ss, dropped the receiver onto the floor and left her to it.

Ten minutes passed before she placed the phone down, then she began in earnest. He'd heard it all before. He replaced his shoe, tied his lace and leaned against the doorframe, raking at his scalp with his fingernails until she drew breath.

‘Shot in the back of the head with a small calibre handgun, May.'

‘And you told them to speak to John! And that other man. Who was Vera Owen? He said Jack had been involved with a married
woman, a Vera Owen. What in God's name are you?'

‘I dunno, May. Finish telling me and we'll both bloody well know, won't we?'

‘You're a womanising conscienceless miscarriage of nature, and no better than your
father. You're worse than your father ever was. You make him look like a gentleman. And I can't take any more of you. I will take no more of you, Jack. Get out of my sight.'

‘I was going anyway. I can't bloody stand living with you, you manipulating bloody rabbit-food-eating little bitch.'

‘You can't go, you insane fool.'

‘Make up your bloody mind then.'

‘He wants you up there. He knows that
you and Sam were identical twins.'

‘I know he knows, and how do you think he bloody well knows?'

‘John.'

‘And that blackmailing, black-headed little bitch. She didn't waste any time.'

‘What did you expect? I wanted to call her back last night. Sergeant Robertson said they were holding Charles Owen on other charges.'

‘He bloody nearly killed me one night. Split my skull open with a tyre lever.
I hope they hang the bastard.'

‘I'm going to call Ann.'

‘She doesn't want to know you.'

‘She doesn't want to know
you
! You are the reason she stopped coming here. What did you expect her to do? Call you Uncle Sam?'

‘I expect bloody nothing from nobody, and that's all I ever get, May. And it's almost eleven-a-bloody-clock. I thought we were going to eat in town.'

‘I've got to clean up your
mess. And on the new carpet too. You are the limit, Jack. How did you get to be like you are?'

‘Dead easy. Blame the old bastard. He screwed up my life.'

‘You're like a spoiled six year old, always blaming someone
else. Your father has been dead for damn near forty years. You can't blame him forever, and you can't blame Sam forever either.'

‘I'll blame who I bloody well like. Blame you too,
you nagging little bitch.'

‘Do you ever stop and think of the consequences of your actions? Have you ever once in your life stopped to think of anyone other than yourself?'

‘I try not to. What's for lunch?'

‘It's too early. Make yourself a coffee.'

‘I ate my bloody cornflakes early, didn't I?'

‘Then make yourself a sandwich!'

‘There's no butter and I don't want a bloody sandwich. I want
steak and chips at the restaurant.'

‘Your cholesterol is sky high.'

‘I like my cholesterol high. It's about all that is these days.' He walked out to the kitchen muttering, ‘A poor bloody dead man will fry himself some bread, that's what he'll do.'

He was heating his margarine in the frying pan when the phone rang again.