Dead Point Part 33

I took a gla.s.s, put it to my lips, welcomed the smell of campfire clothes, the dark taste.

'Let's sit,' said Susan. She put the tray on the coffee table, switched on two table lamps.

We sat, Susan and Marco on the sofa, not people at ease. I drank some more whisky.

'I'd like to know a few things,' I said.

'I don't have the alb.u.m,' said Marco. 'I'm sorry.'

'Where is it?'

'The person I took it for, he's got it.' He had a gravelly voice, a man with a cold.

I didn't say anything. We sat in silence. A wind was coming up, gusting, rattling the iron roof. Marco put a hand on Susan's knee, a gesture of comfort.

'I don't know what you know,' said Marco. He tasted the whisky. 'Xavier Doyle. At The Green Hill?'

I nodded.

'Doyle's got it. They're in deep with this drug thing the judge's hearing. You know...'

'Yes.'

'The guys who brought the stuff in, they were told they'd walk, some technicality I don't understand. Anyway, the pictures, that's insurance, concentrate the judge's mind.'

'Doyle and who are in deep?'

'And Cundall. They're both in financial s.h.i.+t. Cundall went to South Africa and met this importer. The guy brings it in by the container. So he came back and worked out this wonderful scheme with Doyle.'

'The judge,' I said. 'You knew he had pictures?'

Marco blinked, twice. 'Yes,' he said. 'Doyle knew.' He drank some malt.

'How would he know that?'

'Knows everything, the X.'

'X arranged for Loder to be in the Snug?'

Marco's fingers went over his hair. He looked at Susan, a long look, his eyes came back to me.

'Yes,' he said. 'I let him blow me. Closed my eyes and thought of England.' He smiled, an open smile, careless of anyone's opinions.

'What brought you to Melbourne?' I said. 'The weather?'

Marco didn't hesitate. 'Weather's okay. I like it, very noir. Actually, I came to make a f.u.c.kflick with Susan.' He looked at her and smiled, a slow smile. 'Worst gig of my life.'

Susan took his sleeve, punched his arm.

She was in love.

'Who hired you?'

'A bloke called Naismith. In Sydney. And I wouldn't call it hire. I didn't have any choice. People were trying to kill me.'

'Where does Alan Bergh come in?'

'He got on to Naismith, asked him for someone.'

'Who hired Bergh?'

'Doyle. Well, Sam Cundall through Doyle.'

I looked at Susan. She was tense, didn't want to meet my eyes. I said, 'Susan, Cannon Ridge. Can we go over that again?'

She looked into her gla.s.s, sniffed it, a delicate indrawing of nostrils, drank. 'I lied to you,' she said in a quiet voice. 'I pa.s.sed on WRG's tender to Anaxan. I'm not brave. The thought of the video getting out terrified me.'

Between them, Susan and Gavin Legge had convinced me that WRG were the naughty ones. Legge was going to pay a heavy price for his part.

'I don't understand quite how you got from blackmail to this state of affairs,' I said.

Susan put out a hand and touched Marco's hair. He took her hand, kissed her fingers. Victim and blackmailer, now as one.

'Marco came around to apologise,' she said. 'He does that rather well.'

'I fell in love,' said Marco. 'I didn't expect that to happen.'

'Didn't stop the blackmail though.'

He shook his head. 'No, it didn't. I couldn't stop that, Jack. We're all victims some of the time.'

'The dead person? The person with your wallet in your car? He'd be a real victim.'

'He was dead already,' said Marco. 'A druggie. They found him dead. Overdosed in an alley.'

'They? This is Mick Olsen we're talking about?'

Marco blinked. 'Yeah, someone in the cops found him for Mick. One of his mates.'

I thought about the homemade notice in the Lebanese shop, the face of a missing young man. It wasn't hard to find a body in the city. I drank some whisky, remembered I hadn't eaten since the croissant with nothing. When was that? What day?

'Why did Olsen do this?' I said.

'Didn't want anyone looking for Robbie. Robbie does Susan and the judge, then the book's closed on Robbie.' He laughed, cut it short, pained face.

'Someone tried to kill me this morning,' I said.

'Oh s.h.i.+t.' Marco looked down, ran both hands through his hair. 'f.u.c.king Doyle, he's totally paranoid. Mad.'

I stood up. I didn't ask who had murdered Alan Bergh, what the fate of the real Robbie Colburne had been, I didn't want to know. Already I knew more than I wanted to know, much, much more.

'What made you come here?' said Susan. 'How did you find out about us?'

'I didn't. I found the camera in Ros Cundall's apartment. I knew Marco had some connection with the building and you'd told me about a digital camera. So I a.s.sociated it with the blackmail attempt. When I saw the picture of the beach and the Land Cruiser, I a.s.sumed Marco had taken it. But whose vehicle? I had a look under the name of your company and found an '82 Cruiser.'

'And this place? No-one knows I own it.'

'Someone told me you had a plane. I found your flight plans for Sale. With pa.s.senger. Then there was the date the picture was taken. It was after Anaxan won the tender. And you'd flown to Sale the day before with a pa.s.senger. That's when I began to think that Marco might not be dead. Hearing that Mick Olsen ID'd Robbie's body put the seal on it.'

She was frowning. 'I still don't see how you found this place.'

'The s.h.i.+re council was kind enough to look you up in the rates register.'

'Sounds simple,' said Susan, tight smile.

'Effortless,' I said. 'Thanks for the drink. I've got a long drive.'

Marco didn't look up, didn't get up. 'What now?' he said. 'What happens?'

'I'm going to ask Doyle for the alb.u.m. And to behave properly. Apart from that, I've lost interest.'

Susan rose, strain on her face, her age showing. 'Jack,' she said, 'I know, I know I can't ask you...'

'I don't care who runs ski resorts and casinos,' I said. 'I don't care who you told what. The matter's closed.'

'Thank you,' she said. She took my left hand in both of hers for a moment. 'Thank you.'

They followed me out, into a clear night, cold, a fast-rising full moon. At the car, I said, 'I wouldn't like Doyle to know I'm coming around for the alb.u.m.'

Marco had his arm around Susan. He shook his head. 'Never heard of any Doyle. Count on that.'

I didn't say goodbye, swung the Stud in a wide reverse turn, gunned it. I could be home by midnight.

I could be home by midnight.

I was over the crest of the hill, where the road forked, when I heard the helicopter, saw its lights over to my right, heard the menacing chop and whine.

I drove back without lights, the chalky road clear in the early moonlight. At the trees, I turned the car around, faced the way I'd come.

I sat for a moment, put my forehead on the steering wheel. My body had moved a step beyond tiredness and hurt, gone to a stage where I wasn't feeling anything except a strange sort of buzzing in my limbs, an electrical discharge of some kind.

This was not my business. My business was finished. Almost. Soon. Just as soon as I'd put a proposition to Xavier Doyle that would drain the bonhomie from his cherubic, murderous being. Then my life would resume.

Charlie would be back soon.

Libraries. Ros Cundall had phoned. She wanted a library.

We wouldn't be doing a Cundall library.

Good.

A library every now and then was fine but not a diet of libraries. We would be doing other things, sitting in the workshop fragrant with the smell of wood and discussing philosophical matters. His extended stay in Perth would come under examination. The merits of warm weather. Swimming, perhaps.

I lifted my head, rubbed my eyes, got out. Listened.

Far, far away a dog barking, a long strangled sound. The full moon, it stirred dogs in their blood, all their fluids, people too.

It was cold, a wind coming off the lake, off Ba.s.s Strait beyond the lake, a cold pa.s.sage was the strait.

I shut my mind and set off down the track into the trees, into the dark, walking quickly. The wind was animating the gums, rubbing limbs together until they squealed, pus.h.i.+ng under loose bark.

Where the road met the clearing, I stopped. Things were as I'd left them minutes before. No sound save the wind in the trees, at work lifting the corrugated iron.

No. A voice.

Someone talking. A low monologue, no individual word distinguishable.

I crossed the s.p.a.ce, went down the pa.s.sage between the buildings, towards the water, the voice getting louder, words becoming distinct.

I knew the voice.

'Horse p.r.i.c.k, secret of life, hey? f.u.c.k people, they smile? That's the att.i.tude?'

In the deep shadows, I stopped, leaned forward.

It seemed so close, the dark helicopter, sitting on the water at the end of the rusty cradle tracks, moving in and out on its floats. I thought I could see a pilot.

Two men on the jetty, near the tethered boat, in sub-tropical clothing, long shorts, boat shoes.

Milan Filipovic and Steve, his short-legged employee.

I couldn't see who Milan was talking to.

'Don't f.u.c.k around in there,' Milan said. He had his small sub-machine pistol in his right hand. 'Don't f.u.c.k with me, c.o.c.kboy.'

Susan Ayliss was on her knees in front of him, something around her neck. He was holding her close with his left hand, like a dog on a choke-chain.

To my left, a voice said, 'Got the Pole's gun.'

It was a tall man, heavily built, all in black. He'd come out of the house through a sliding door, stood in the light holding a pistol upright.

'Goodonya, Mick,' said Milan.

Mick Olsen, late of the drug squad, identifier of Robbie's body.

Marco came out of the boat's cabin, carrying something. A bag, a sports bag. He put it on the cabin roof.