Bad Debts (9 page)

‘If I may say so, Irish, it’s impeccable taste you’re showing dining with this lady, and she with you,’ he said, eyes never leaving Linda. ‘Not to mention your choice of establishment.’

‘It chooses itself, Patrick,’ I said. ‘For many reasons.’

‘All of them sound,’ he replied. ‘And you’ll do me the honour of accepting a little libation I’ll be sending over with the young fella.’

It was an old-fashioned Italian dish, chicken and veal risotto, the kind of thing you might cook yourself on a Sunday if you had someone to eat it with. Donelly’s libation arrived, a bottle of Barolo by Giuseppe Contratio, ten years old.

Linda tasted it. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘They know you here.’

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‘Carnal knowledge,’ I said. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

We got back to Ronnie Bishop over coffee. Linda came back from the women’s room, slid into her seat and said, ‘Listen, Jack, let’s say that the driver, let’s say that McKillop was the target. Someone wanted him in jail and they framed him. So Anne was just unlucky.’

‘Chosen at random, you mean?’ I said.

‘Yes. They had to knock someone down at a certain time of night, in a certain area. And she was there. Could’ve been anybody.’

‘It’s hard to see why anyone would go to that trouble to put Danny inside. Easier to knock him off.’

She nodded. Tips of hair slipped around and touched the corner of her mouth. She was faintly flushed from the wine. I found her very attractive and she knew it. ‘Maybe the Hoagland tenants saw their chances of escaping from the ghastly place slipping away and put out a contract on Anne Jeppeson,’ she said. ‘And whoever did the job decided to give Danny the credit.’

We laughed. I poured the last of the wine. ‘Can we do this again?’ I said. ‘Are you free to do this kind of thing?’

She looked at me with a half-smile still on her face. ‘You mean eat and drink?’

‘That or whatever else takes your fancy.’

‘You’re asking me if I’m involved with someone else?’

‘In my awkward and out-of-practice way.’

‘I’m free to do this kind of thing but I don’t think I’ve been much use to you,’ she said.

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’

‘Why are you going over all this ancient stuff?’

It was the question I’d been putting off thinking about. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said after a pause. ‘Part of it’s guilt. I’m not sure that I gave Danny a fair shake when I represented him. I was either drunk or monumentally hungover for all that time. It was just after my wife’s death. That’s not an excuse. That’s just the way it was. I didn’t ask any questions about the evidence against Danny. The cops got the bloke to trial in an amazingly short 57

time, jumped all the queues. His wife tells me he told her they fed him pills from his arrest onwards. I didn’t know that. But I wouldn’t have noticed at the time.’

I stopped talking. I could have gone on for a bit but I was just thinking aloud.

Linda smiled at me. ‘Sounds like a good enough reason,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got a running engagement at 6 a.m. Call me next week. I’ll think about Anne Jeppeson.’

11

‘Noise? I’m in Hoddle Street. In the mother of all fucken jams, that’s the noise. What’s the name of that fucken street you’re in?’

I told Senior Sergeant Tregear.

‘Be there in, I don’t fucken know. I’ll hoot for you. Gimme a word outside.’

Ten minutes later, he hooted. I went outside. He was in a blue Falcon fifty metres down the street, half on the kerb. When I got close I saw his eyes in the rear-view mirror. He raised his left arm and pointed to the passenger side. I got in. The car was warm and smelt of cigarette smoke and Chinese food.

‘Jack,’ Barry Tregear said. He was wearing a blue suit, a green shirt and a violet tie, all tired looking. ‘What’s with the fucken overalls? Joined the working class now?’

‘Helping out,’ I said. I didn’t feel like explaining.

Barry took a packet of Newport off the dash and extracted a cigarette with his teeth. He lit it with a throw-away lighter.

‘I got two minutes,’ he said. ‘Jack, listen, this McKillop business. Can I give you a word of advice?’

‘Everyone else does.’

He took a deep draw, puckered his lips and blew a thin jet of smoke up past his nose.

‘I’d give it a miss if I were you.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I don’t think it’s something you want to get mixed up in now. Sensitive business these days, cops shooting people. Wait for the inquest.’

‘That doesn’t answer the question,’ I said.

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‘Trust me, mate. I’ve got your interests at heart.’

‘I’ll think about it. Did you get hold of Scullin?’

Barry nodded. ‘Not easy. He’s a busy man.’

‘I thought you said he’d gone fishing.’

‘Just a manner of speaking. He’s a smart fella. Runs some kind of security business now. Makes big bucks.’

‘What did he say about McKillop?’

‘He says he never talks about police business.’ Barry wound down his window and flicked the cigarette stub out. It landed on the bonnet of a car on the other side of the street.

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s all.’

‘You drove around here to tell me that?’

‘No. I wanted to tell you something else.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Jack,’ he said, ‘don’t ask me any more questions about McKillop. Okay?’

Ronnie Bishop’s mother lived deep in working-class Brunswick. But even here the first seeker after capital gains had appeared. Right next door. The humble weatherboard dwelling had been given a picket fence, brick paving, two silver birches, a paint job and a brass ship’s bell. Mrs Bishop’s cottage appeared to be trying to lean on the newly straightened frame of its facelifted neighbour.

Mrs Bishop looked at me long and hard from behind a security gate after I introduced myself. Behind her the house was dark. She was probably in her seventies, small, sharp-featured, well-preserved and dressed like someone going out.

‘I rang about Ronnie,’ I said.

She held up a hand. ‘Sorry to stare. You look like my sister’s late boyfriend. Now there was a devil. Come in.’

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We went down a dark passage, two doors on each side. She opened a door at the end and light flooded in. Beyond was a large new section, the width of the house, with full-length windows looking on to a paved terrace crammed with greenery.

‘This is nice,’ I said, looking at the glossy sealed floorboards, the newish upholstered chairs and sofa. Next door wasn’t the only place on the street that had been smartened up.

‘Ronnie paid for it,’ she said. ‘Sent me to Noosa for two weeks, rained all the time, never mind that. Came back, I nearly fell over, I can tell you. Opened the door and there it was, new furniture, everything. Like a dream, really. Sit down. I’ve just made some tea.’

There were biscuits too, bought biscuits but nice, on an EPNS server in the shape of a giant leaf.

‘Nice and warm, isn’t it,’ Mrs Bishop said. We were both sitting on the sofa. ‘Ronnie put in the central heating. Before that I used to sit on a hot water bottle with my feet on another one some days. Cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss, my late husband used to say.’

‘You said on the phone that Ronnie was depressed…’

Mrs Bishop looked away and when she answered all the cheerfulness had gone out of her voice. ‘Ronnie has AIDS, Mr Irish.’ Tears began to run down her powdery cheek, turning pink in the clear light from outside. I felt deeply helpless. I cleared my throat.

‘Do you think that had something to do with his disappearance?’

She turned back to me, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know. When I went to the police, they didn’t seem interested after I told them Ronnie was…was sick.’

‘How long was he going to stay in Melbourne, Mrs Bishop?’

‘Only a few days. Then he said he had to see someone and he’d be back soon. And he didn’t come back. And I’ve heard nothing. He wouldn’t do that.’

‘Why did he come to Melbourne?’

‘To see someone. And to see his mum, of course. He’s a lovely boy, Mr Irish. There’s no harm in him.’

‘Yes, I’m sure. Did he see the person?’

Mrs Bishop tidied her hair. ‘I don’t know, Mr Irish. But he said something to me a few days before he disappeared.’

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I nodded helpfully.

‘He said, “Mum, if anything happens to me I’m insured for two hundred thousand dollars and most of it goes to you.” And then he said something else.’

She put both hands on my sleeve. ‘He said, my blood went cold, Mr Irish, he said,

“Mum, if I turn up dead somewhere don’t ever believe it was my own fault.” That’s what he said. He was standing over there by the window. He’d been walking around the house for hours. Just smoking cigarettes and walking around.’

‘You told the police this?’

‘Of course. I told the lady policeman, Miss Ryan. She wrote it all down.’

‘Mrs Bishop, do you know any reason why anyone would want to harm Ronnie?’

She looked out of the window again. ‘No.’

‘And you don’t know who the person was he came to see?’

‘No, I don’t. Ronnie never talked about himself, Mr Irish. Doug always said Ronnie would make a good spy.’

‘Did he take anything with him that day?’

‘No. Nothing. Everything he brought is here. I even found a CD he’d brought for me.

Didn’t say a word, just slipped it into my rack. Just like him. He gave me a kiss and said he was going out for a while and he didn’t come back. I wanted to put a bandaid on the scratch on his cheek but he didn’t want me to.’

‘He had a scratch on his cheek?’

She nodded. ‘He said he scratched it on a hedge on his way to the corner shop to buy cigarettes.’ She looked at me as if something had just occurred to her. ‘You’re not a policeman yourself are you, Mr Irish? Two policemen came and had a really good look around. I’m not sure what they were looking for.’

‘No, Mrs Bishop. I’m a lawyer. I was involved in a trial years ago where Ronnie was a witness. There’s been some new developments lately and I thought Ronnie might be able to help with some information.’

‘I’m sure he’d be delighted to help,’ she said. ‘Did you know he was a social worker once? Helping the poor homeless children on the streets. Of course, what he really wanted to do was make films. Ronnie loved films. He saved up to buy a movie camera.

He was always filming things.’

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‘Was he a trained social worker, Mrs Bishop?’

‘Well, not really. He was a clever boy and he started at Melbourne University but he didn’t really settle down. Doug and I were living in Queensland then, for Doug’s health.

Not that it improved. He missed the football so much, you know, I think it lowered his resistance.’

‘So Ronnie was a paid social worker, was he?’

‘Oh yes. He worked for the Safe Hands Foundation. They help the homeless.’

I’d never heard of the foundation but that didn’t mean anything. ‘Why did Ronnie move to Perth, Mrs Bishop?’

She pondered this for a moment. ‘I don’t know, really. Just wanted to go somewhere else, I suppose. Young people are like that, today, aren’t they?’

Ronnie was always going to be a young person to his mum. ‘He bought a new car before he left. That must have been expensive.’

She smiled. ‘He won some money on the Lotto. He took me to Georges to buy a winter coat. I’ve still got it. Beautiful. He’s such a generous boy.’

It was time to go. Mrs Bishop came to the front gate with me. In front of the house next door, a man in a dark double-breasted suit was leaning against a BMW, talking into a mobile phone. He gave Mrs Bishop a wave: five stiff fingers moved from side to side. He’d be making her an offer for the house any day now. I said I was sure Ronnie would be in touch soon, gave her my card, shook her small hand, and left.

12

I went back to my office and brooded for a while. Ronnie Bishop came to Melbourne a worried man. Perhaps his friend Charles Lee, the man who’d answered his telephone, could tell me why. He certainly wasn’t going to tell me on the phone. That meant going to Perth. I didn’t want to go to Perth. Did I owe it to Danny? What did I owe Danny, anyway? Bloody something. I phoned Veneto Travel.

‘Perth?’ said Shane DiSanto. He had recently inherited the business from his uncle Carlo. It was a big change from panel beating.

‘Put Denise on, Shane,’ I said.

‘Jack, Jack, Jack, I’m the boss here now. You’re talking to the owner. I can handle this.

What you want to go to Perth for? You don’t go to Perth in winter. I can do you 62

Hamilton Island. You can’t live at home and eat McDonald’s for what I can do it. Dirt, Jack, dirt. Are you listening?’

Shane eventually agreed to let me go to Perth and made the booking. I rang Linda Hillier and left a message on her machine. Then I considered ringing Charles Lee and decided against it.

When I went to pick up the ticket at the airport, they’d never heard of me. I rang Veneto and got Denise.

‘You’re lucky it’s only Perth,’ she said. ‘He made all the bookings for Frank La Bianca’s daughter’s honeymoon. High season in Florence. Lucky couple had to have sanctified root numero uno in the back seat of the Hertz car.’

I hired a Corolla in midair from a steward called David. He thought a person like me would be happier with a BMW. So did I.

It takes hours to get to Perth, flying over the huge shark-infested dent in the continent called the Great Australian Bight. And when you get there, you’re two hours in the past.

I didn’t know Perth; it was just an airport on the way to Europe. They tell me the locals have secessionist tendencies. I can understand that. Judging by the accents, they’ll probably have a fight over whether to rename the State Manchester or Birmingham.

It was a sunny day in Perth, insignificant wisps of cloud decorating a sky the colour of old blue jeans. I studied the map book for about ten minutes and set off for Fremantle.

On paper, getting there was a matter of keeping to the highroads. On land, however, the Corolla had a tendency to wander off the beaten track. On my second sighting of the same pub I stopped for lunch and directions. I sat out in the beer garden with a bottle of Swan Lager and a big piece of charred West Australian steer. Around me the locals, mostly Britons with flaking skins wearing towelling hats, were being enthusiastic about the chances of the West Coast Eagles against Carlton. I thought it would be nice if they both lost but this wasn’t the place to say it.