Dead Point Part 15

'Beyond right,' I said.

A chastened Stan brought the other beers and slunk off. We resumed our discussion of the virtues of individual Saints. Then I drove home and set about making Sat.u.r.day night bearable. Ten minutes into this, the phone rang. Wootton.

'Just checking the out-stations,' he said, full of gin, jovial Sat.u.r.day-evening Wootton, back from his golf club, stuffed with nuts and little sandwiches and bonhomie. 'Anything to report, old sausage?'

'The out-stations? I think you've got a wrong number. Wrong century too.'

'If you have,' he said, 'the client will be at the same spot on the dial tomorrow morning, 9.30 a.m. Precisely.'

The judge was in a zippered white cotton garment that slotted in somewhere between a NASA s.p.a.cesuit and Colonel Gaddafi's overalls. He ordered orange juice and a toasted wholewheat m.u.f.fin with honey.

'Breakfast,' he said. 'I'm on my way to tennis. You don't want to eat too much before tennis.'

'Fatal,' I said.

We were back at the window table at Zanouff's in Kensington, the less-hungover weekend breakfast crowd beginning to straggle in.

The juice arrived. Colin Loder drank half the gla.s.s at a swig.

'The dead man's name is Marco Lucia,' I said.

'I beg your pardon?'

It was too early for this kind of rubbish, even from a judge. I said, 'You didn't hear me?'

He gave me a surprised look, weighed up the matter. 'I don't know the name, Jack. An expression of surprise.'

I'd rung D.J. Olivier after Wootton's call the night before.

D.J. was part of the seven-day-week world, Sat.u.r.day night was just another night. A woman rang back at 10.30 p.m., found me deep in melancholy and self-loathing.

'The subject,' she said in a private-school voice, 'has no criminal record. Pa.s.sport issued March 1996, left the country in April that year, returned January 1998. Name mentioned in reports of a criminal case in July 1999. An article in the Brisbane Courier Mail Courier Mail in September '99 refers to someone who may be the subject.' in September '99 refers to someone who may be the subject.'

'What's the criminal case?' I said.

'a.s.sault, unlawful detention. Subject was the complainant.'

'And the article?'

'Organised crime in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Someone interviewed refers to someone of this name as, I quote, Milan's f.u.c.king star, unquote.'

Milan's f.u.c.king star.

I liked the way she said that. 'Thanks.'

'Our pleasure. Let us know if you need a broader inquiry.'

Mr Justice Loder's m.u.f.fin arrived, golden honey in a bowl. When the waiter had left, I got out the photograph of 'Robbie' and put it next to his plate. He looked around, unzipped a pocket and took out a spectacles case, put on a handsome gold-rimmed pair, looked at the picture without picking it up.

'Well,' he said, put a finger to his lips. 'As I said, this inquiry is on behalf...'

My hands were palm-down on the table. I kept my eyes on the judge and raised the fingers of the right one. 'I'm working for you,' I said. 'You get the bill.'

He breathed deeply, looked out of the window, closed his eyes for a second. He had long eyelashes. 'You'll understand this isn't easy,' he said.

'I understand.'

He held my eyes for a few seconds. 'I met him in Italy several years ago. In Umbria. I was staying at a friend's house. The friend was away, and this young man arrived on the doorstep with a letter of introduction to my friend from someone in London.'

He had the diction of a schooled witness.

'Calling himself?'

'Robbie Colburne. He said his mother was Italian, from the Veneto, and his father was Australian. He spoke good Italian.'

'Eat your m.u.f.fin,' I said, 'it's getting cold.'

He looked at the plate, broke off a piece of m.u.f.fin, held it like a dead spider, put it down. 'I think I'll skip the m.u.f.fin.'

I said, 'I only need the pertinent bits.'

'A relations.h.i.+p developed. I had a week left of my holiday. He said he was planning to spend a few years in Europe. I didn't see him or hear from him again until a month ago. He rang me one night. My wife was away. She's often away.'

Without looking at it again, Loder slid the photograph over to me. 'He was an attractive person. Intelligent, full of life. And a lot of sadness in him.'

'Most people have to settle for one of those things,' I said. 'Generally, the last one.'

Loder smiled, cheered up a little. 'That's what's pertinent,' he said. 'I suppose.'

Zanouff's was filling up, people wearing dark gla.s.ses, two couples with trophy children, dressed to be cute, caps worn backwards, expensive running shoes. One of the fathers had a tic in his right eye, a stress tic. He kept touching it but it wouldn't stop.

'You resumed the relations.h.i.+p?'

'Yes.'

'I won't put icing on this,' I said. 'Are you scared of something?'

The judge smiled, made a gesture of openness with his arms, spread his fingers. The smile didn't have any staying power. Nor did the gesture. He gave up, closed his arms, put one hand over the other.

'Something's missing,' he said.

'Robbie?'

'Yes.'

'Of what value?'

A sad smile. 'How do you value a career?'

'Not talking about the degree certificates?'

'No.'

A train was leaving Kensington station, an empty rattle of train, windows flas.h.i.+ng sky.

'Anything happened since you noticed the loss?'

He closed his eyes again. 'Nothing. I'm petrified. My dad's still alive.'

'And then there's the dignity of the law,' I said, cruelly.

He revived, face turning stern. 'I suspect that the dignity of the law transcends and outlasts that of its humble servants, Mr Irish.'

A dignified response from the Bench.

'Silly remark, allow me to withdraw it,' I said. 'Let me tell you what I know about Marco Lucia.'

When I'd finished, Loder said, 'Can you be sure it's the same person?'

'Pretty much. Only one person matches.'

We watched another train, saw the faintest tremor in the plate-gla.s.s cafe window.

'Your advice,' said the judge.

'Option one is that you save yourself a lot of money by popping around to your local jacks and telling them what you're missing.'

'And read the first rumour in the paper tomorrow? Option two, please.'

'I can keep looking. There's always the possibility of turning up something.'

'Keep looking,' he said.

'The missing item?'

'Photograph alb.u.m. Red leather.' He gave me his sad smile again. 'You're asking yourself how I could be so stupid.'

'No,' I said. 'I've stopped asking that question. I know the answer.'

He got up. 'Thanks, Jack.' A pause. 'It's silly but I find the fact that you're a colleague strangely comforting.'

A judge calling me a colleague. As he went out, it occurred to me that this was probably the high-water mark of my legal career.

I caught the 6.05 a.m. flight to Brisbane, two hours in the air, hired a car and drove for ninety minutes, never once lost, to reach the imposing gateway to Haven Waters. It was halfway across a 500-metre land bridge just wide enough for two lanes.

A man in a police-style uniform, light-blue and dark-blue, armed, left the gatehouse, came out into the white-porcelain light.

'G'day,' he said. 'Have to ask for your name, address and purpose of visit, sir.' He was a wiry man, ginger and freckled, big freckles. Cold and grey climes would have suited him better.

I gave my particulars. He wrote them down on a clipboard. Then he asked for two means of identification. Fighting my instincts, I handed over my driver's licence and my Law Inst.i.tute card. Forever on another record. One day D.J. Olivier might find me there and a young woman with a private-school voice would tell someone.

'Only take a minute, sir,' he said and went back. I saw him pick up a phone, talk, nod, put it down. There was someone else in the gatehouse, a movement. Expensive, a two-person guard, six s.h.i.+fts, that would cost management two hundred grand a year, plus benefits. Just to check tickets. Perhaps the second person also did patrols, that would ease the strain.

Gates opened. The man was waiting for me inside, gave me a map printed on card, laminated.

'Down this road, sir. At the T-junction, turn left. Then first right, go past the golf clubhouse and the village.'

He was English, I caught that now.

'First residence after the village. The entrance is on your right, first gate. Adriatica, that's the name. It's marked on the map. And the name's on the gate.'

He pressed a small plastic disc, the size of a fat ten-cent coin, onto the windscreen above the registration sticker. 'So that we can find you if you get lost, sir,' he said. 'We'll take it off when you leave. Enjoy your visit, sir.'

Bugged, I drove across the bridge, down a curving road, through a landscape sculpted by bulldozers, blanketed with imported soil, planted with thousands of mature sub-tropical trees, gra.s.sed, lavishly watered. Water was always visible, on both sides deep inlets. I saw two fat joggers, a thin runner, half-a-dozen walkers, a woman in jodhpurs on a high-spirited chestnut horse. Then the golf course was on my left, greens like great dollops of pureed spinach, people on motorised buggies. I watched a man duff a tee shot.

The golf clubhouse was low, sinuous, heavy with flowering creepers, and then the village appeared on my right, a semicircle of whitewashed buildings of different heights, different roof shapes and pitches, a clock tower in the middle, someone's idealised Mediterranean village, water glimpsed beyond the buildings, flashes at the end of narrow lanes. Two small parking areas were as sn.o.bbish as stockbroker bikies, European metal only, nothing j.a.panese here.

This was where big money came to die, water without, guards within.

I found Adriatica behind a white creepered wall broken by bays housing big shrubs, leaves large and polished. Its gate was black wrought iron, ornate metal stems and leaves. It was a gate for cars. No-one arrived on foot in this place; there was nowhere to walk, nowhere to park, no pavement, no kerb, no gutter.

I parked in front of the gates, got out. It was warm. I took off my jacket and approached the gates.

'Take off the coat,' said a voice.

'I'm not wearing a coat. I'm carrying my coat.'

He came into view from the left, a thin man, not young, slicked-back hair, one eyebrow like a furry caterpillar stuck to his forehead. The weapon held at his side, pointing at the ground, was extravagant, a long-barrelled .38.

I said, 'Put that f.u.c.king thing away. I've got an appointment to see Mr Filipovic.'

He shrugged, opened the gate.

I walked up a paved driveway to where a path through tropical jungle branched off to the house. The air was dense with exotic scents.

At the front door, a huge studded Moorish creation, another man, young, tee-s.h.i.+rt and jeans, was waiting, holding a device like a cordless telephone. 'Gotta check you over,' he said, then ran the metal detector over me.

'Give him your coat,' he said.

The man with the revolver had come up behind me. I complied.

'Arms up,' said the detector of metal.

I raised them. 'Looking for a wire?' I said. 'Go very carefully.'