Dead Point (19 page)

Who else knew that I was interested in Robbie/ Marco? My anonymous caller knew. But there was no way to find out who she was. Had the judge told someone? Not likely. The people at The Green Hill knew. But why would they be interested in helping me find out more about a dead man they had employed under another name? And where would they get the video?

This line of thought wasn’t going to produce anything. If I knew more about Robbie/Marco, the questions would probably answer themselves.

I got out the enhanced pictures and looked at them again. Trying to identify the woman in the car belonging to Jamie Toxteth and his partner hadn’t met with any success. That left the fleshy man at the sidewalk table.

How to begin?

I was looking out of the window. I could see Kelvin McCoy’s front door. A young woman came into view, dressed in what from this distance appeared to be a garment fashioned from colourful rags, offcuts from a tie factory perhaps, and carrying a big flat folio bag. At McCoy’s portal, she paused, uncertain for a moment. Oh God, she had been invited to show the unwashed charlatan her drawings. I felt I should open my door and shout a warning. Too late, she knocked. A brief wait, the door opened, I glimpsed the brutal shaven head, she was drawn in. The beast would see a lot more than her drawings before the day was out.

Ah well. Life went on.

The fleshy man. In the glass behind him, the cafe window, a reflection of writing on an uneven surface, the word
asset
.

Written on what outside a cafe? What was uneven?

An apron, it was on an apron, a long black apron of the kind favoured by Melbourne cafes. A reflection of a name on a waiter’s apron.

Asset?

My stupidity dawned on me.

I walked up to Brunswick Street and weaved and jinked my way along a pavement crowded with young artists, fashion students, actors, directors, script-writers, drug dealers, filmmakers, fashionistas, off-duty
baristas
, models, writers of forgotten grunge novels published by Penguin,
Age
lifestyle journalists, internet entrepreneurs, meme-carriers of every description. Many of them were on the phone to like-minded people. Why did people have so much more to communicate these days?

At my destination, a good bookshop next door to what had been a good gun shop with a bad clientele when I came to Fitzroy, I bought a copy of a guide to cheap Melbourne eating places. Cheaper.

Near the office, I heard the phone ringing, ran, wrestled with the lock, got in, panting.

‘Jack,’ said Wootton, ‘the client wants to meet very, very urgently.’

I took the book with me. You never know how long you’ll be kept waiting.

The door was huge and studded and the steps before it had hollows worn in them big enough for birds to bathe in. I pressed the button and waited no more than a minute or two.

A tall, thin man in a dark suit opened the door. ‘Mr Irish?’

‘Yes.’

‘Please follow me.’

We went up a curving staircase to a lobby, then down a grand corridor, stopping at a door near the end. The man opened it with a key and ushered me into a panelled reception room with desks and computers, no-one at work. He knocked at a door to the left, listened, opened it, and said, ‘Mr Irish, Your Honour.’

He stood back for me to enter and closed the door behind me. I stood in an impressive room: high ceiling, dark panelling, cedar bookcases tight with bound volumes, small oil paintings in gilt frames lit from above. It was exactly the chamber I’d expected a judge to inhabit. Only the computer station was out of place.

Mr Justice Colin Loder, no jacket, was coming around his leather-topped desk. ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘thanks for coming.’

‘Your Honour.’ We shook hands.

‘Colin. I should’ve said that before. You know too much for formality.’

‘Something’s happened.’

‘Sit down.’

I sat on a chair with buttoned green leather upholstery.

The judge went back to his seat, sat upright, forearms on the desk. A long yellow envelope lay in front of him. He touched each of his cufflinks, modest silver ovals, checked them, pointed at the envelope with his eyes. ‘The worst,’ he said. ‘Worse than I expected. Left downstairs an hour ago.’

I waited. He pushed the envelope over.

‘Read it, please.’

It had been opened with a paper-knife. I removed one sheet of white paper, twice folded. A good computer printer had produced half a page of type:

Mr Justice Loder
,

The accused in the so-called ‘cocaine jackets’ hearing before Your Honour are innocent victims of a Federal Police conspiracy. In its eagerness to make up for its incompetence, this agency has often resorted to illegality in the past and has done so again in this matter. As you will know only too well, an option is available to you when this matter resumes. Choosing it will be in keeping with your well-deserved reputation as a defender of the citizen against improper conduct by government agencies. Therefore I am sure Your Honour will see fit to use your discretion to exclude evidence relating to importation, from which it follows that the accused must be acquitted, since without this evidence the prosecution must fail
.

In passing, may I say how sad it was to hear of Robbie’s death. The album of photographs you lent him, so touching in their intimacy, will be returned to you at the appropriate time. You will not, of course, wish to recuse yourself or to find some other reason for not hearing this matter. Such actions will have the unfortunate consequence of your reputation being damaged beyond salvation
.

Naturally there was no signature. I folded the page, put it on the desk, looked into the judge’s brown eyes, eyes the colour of strong tea, the bag left too long in the mug.

‘Appropriate is a bad word,’ I said. ‘What’s the cocaine jackets?’

‘Cocaine concealed in ski jackets. Two men charged. It’s what’s called a controlled importation. The Federal Police ran the thing using an undercover agent, an informer. I don’t think it would be unjudicial of me to describe the operation as a massive cock-up.’

‘The demand. Lawyers wouldn’t be stupid enough?’

‘No. Not even lawyers are that stupid. They wouldn’t know about this. This is from people associated with the accused. Trying to make sure it goes their way.’

‘What kinds of people are the accused?’

‘They’re not Mr Bigs, these two, they’re mules, really. But they’re all the Feds could lay their hands on. Desperation stuff after spending huge amounts of money.’

‘Why wouldn’t the people higher up simply let them go down?’

He turned his mouth down, raised his hands. ‘Don’t know. They may know something. And should they get long gaol terms they might agree to co-operate with the police. Could be other reasons. Family, who knows?’

‘Distinct legal tone to the letter. Lawyer in there somewhere. The finding it suggests, could you make it?’

‘Are you familiar with
Ridgeway
?’

‘Familiar’s probably not the right word.’ It was the landmark High Court decision on police entrapment.

‘Well, that’s what they’ll be arguing. And yes, it’s a possible finding, depends on what happens when we resume.’

‘When’s that?’

‘Next Thursday.’ He sighed, made a resigned face. ‘I suppose I should call the police in now, issue a statement to the media. This’ll kill my father.’

‘You could ignore the letter. See what happens. It may be bluff, they may just go away.’

The judge shook his head. He’d aged years in a few hours. ‘No, Jack. Any finding I reach would be tainted by this. The well’s poisoned.’

‘Give me a few days.’

His chin sank a little. ‘Any point?’

‘We have to assume that Robbie took the album with this or something like this in mind. If I can find out what happened to him, it’s possible I’ll know who the blackmailer is.’

Another sigh.

‘I won’t keep you in suspense,’ I said. ‘If I’m not getting anywhere by Tuesday, I’ll pack it in.’

Silence for a while. The sounds of the city didn’t reach the room.

‘I’ll give you a mobile number,’ he said. ‘It’s not in my name. I’ve borrowed it.’ He took out a notebook, flipped through it, wrote down a number on a desk pad, tore off the page and gave it to me. ‘I feel as if I’ve entered the underworld myself.’

I stood up. ‘Can I get a transcript of the proceedings?’

The judge stood up too, went to a wooden filing cabinet and found a yellow folder, gave it to me. He walked me to the door. We shook hands.

‘We could get lucky,’ I said. ‘Chin up.’

He smiled. ‘Thanks, mate. Thanks for everything.’

‘Don’t say thanks till you’ve seen Wootton’s bill.’

The thin man was waiting outside to escort me to the side entrance. On the way to Fitzroy, stuck in Little Lonsdale, I picked up the cheap eats guide, flicked through to the index.

There it was, on the first page I scanned.

La Contessa, assetnoC aL in reverse, was a narrow place in Bridge Road, Richmond, that looked as if it had been there longer than those on either side in what was now a smart strip.

Although it was cold and too early for the after-work crowd, the half-dozen tables outside were taken. Inside, there were only a few customers. I found a seat near the kitchen. The man operating the coffee machine was not of the new generation of cafe people; he had the pained expression of someone too long standing to perform a repetitive task: the assembly-line worker’s look.

A young man, possibly the son, came out of the kitchen. He was wearing the apron in the picture, a long black apron with La Contessa printed on it. I asked for a short black. When it came, I had the picture out, facing him.

‘That’s probably you,’ I said, tapping on the reflected apron.

He was intrigued, had a good look. ‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Who’s that?’ I said, my finger on the fleshy man.

‘Alan Bergh,’ he said, suspicion starting. ‘What’s this, what’s this about?’

‘I’m a lawyer.’

This statement often has the effect of briefly paralysing the brain of the hearer.

‘Right.’ Uncertain. ‘What do you—’

‘I’d like to get in touch with Alan.’

‘Yeah, well, he’s away.’

‘Away from where?’

‘Where? His office.’

‘Where’s that?’

He indicated with a thumb. ‘Vietcong supermarket. Upstairs.’

He’d learned that from his father. The war in Indochina was not over. The battle for the hearts and minds of the invaders had still to be won.

I didn’t pursue the matter. The waiter left, went outside.

The coffee was terrible, sour, third-rate beans, old, probably black market.

‘Come again,’ said the father, giving me my change.

‘Can’t wait to.’

I walked in the direction indicated by the son’s thumb. Halfway down the block was a business that satisfied his description. Beyond it, a heavyweight door with a mail slot carried the names of two businesses on the first floor: VICACHIN BUSINESS AGENCY and CORESECURE.

The door was locked. I pressed the buzzer on the wall.

‘Yes,’ said a woman’s voice, hissing through holes in a slim stainless-steel box beside the door.

‘Client of Coresecure,’ I said. ‘Here to see Alan.’

‘Mr Bergh not here,’ said the voice, staccato.

‘When’s he coming back?’

‘Don’t know.’

I accepted that, wrote down Vicachin’s phone number. Coresecure didn’t have one on the door. Then I went home, a slow journey in failing light in the company of irritable people.

Coresecure wasn’t in the White Pages. Nor was it in the Yellow Pages in any category I could think of. I packed up for the day, not a great deal to pack, and drove around to Lester’s Vietnamese takeaway in St Georges Road.

Lester was alone in the shop, in the kitchen. When the door made its noise, he looked up and saw me in his strategically placed mirror.

‘Early, Jack,’ he barked. ‘How many?’

‘I need a favour,’ I said.

‘Ask.’

I asked. He nodded, took the piece of paper and went back to the kitchen, held a long, rapid-fire conversation in Vietnamese on the phone.

He came back and returned my slip of paper. ‘They talk to you,’ he said. ‘You can go there tomorrow.’

I drove home in drizzle, tail-lights turning the puddles to blood, listening to Linda on the radio taking calls on Victorians’ gambling habits. The daylight was gone before I found my mooring beneath the trees.

Upstairs, I put on the kitchen radio to hear a man say: …
accept that the state’s now on a gambling revenue drip and raise the tax till the bastards scream
.

Linda:
You’re saying gambling’s a fact of life, so get the most public benefit out of it?

Caller:
Exactly. And this Cannon Ridge casino, the Cundall casino, slug it. Playground for the rich, double the bloody gambling tax
.

Linda:
Thank you, Nathan of Glen Iris. Now there’s a challenging point of view, even if the logic may be slightly fuzzy. What’s your view, Leanne of Frankston?

Leanne:
Linda. I’m a compulsive gambler, I’ve had treatment
…

Enough. She would ring or she wouldn’t. It was probably better if she didn’t. We could meet from time to time as friends. Old friends. We’d made a good start at that.

Had she rubbed her left leg against my right? Not a rub, but a linger. A touch and then a linger.

How old did you have to be before this kind of rubbish stopped?

I got a fire going, bugger cleaning the grate. Everything was dirty in my life, why worry about a pile of soft, clean ashes?

Now, a drink. I looked in the cupboard. Campari and soda, Linda’s end-of-day drink, the bottles not touched since Linda. I poured a stiff one, settled on the couch to think. The phone rang.

‘No doubt,’ said Drew, ‘I find you poring over your footy memorabilia, sniffing old Fitzroy socks, marvelling at the size of your antecedents’ jockstraps, lovingly preserved.’

‘Large in their day but dwarfed by those to come,’ I said. ‘I gather you’ve found a form of happiness with some unfortunate.’

Tell me that it is not Rosa, please.