been dead for as long as a week.’
The helicopter went in for a closer look. I could see two men in plain clothes standing outside the house. They looked up at the helicopter and the one on the left’s lips said, ‘Fuck off.’
‘Police said the bodies had been identified. Their names are expected to be released later this evening. The property is owned by Dr Paul Gilbert, a Melbourne general practitioner who was permanently barred from practice in 1987 after being found guilty of a variety of drug offences. He served two and a half years of a six-year sentence. Dr Gilbert lived on the property. He has not been seen in Daylesford for more than a week.’
The news went on to other things. I finished my beer and drove home. The streets seemed to be full of white Holdens. Had a white Holden followed me to Daylesford? My neck hair prickled.
20
When I got home, I rang Linda Hillier. She wasn’t at her desk, said a man. He took a message. I was looking sadly into the near-empty fridge when the phone rang.
‘We need to talk,’ Linda Hillier said.
‘Endlessly,’ I answered. Then I went for it. ‘Can you come around here? No. Will you come around here?’
‘What’s the address?’
I walked around the corner to Papa’s Original Greek Taverna and bought some bread, olives, dolmades and an unidentified fish stuffed with thyme and basil from Mrs Papa. Menu price less fifteen per cent, that was our deal.
I was just out of the shower when the bell rang. I pulled on underpants, denims and a shirt.
‘Well, hello,’ she said. There was rain on her hair.
‘You’re wet,’ I said.
‘So are you. At least I’ve got shoes on.’
She had changed since this morning. She was wearing a trenchcoat over grey flannels, a cream shirt and a tweed jacket. I caught her scent as I took the coat and jacket. It was, in a word, throaty.
‘This is nice,’ she said, looking around.
We stood awkwardly for a moment, something trembling in the air between us. I looked around at the books in piles on every surface, the CDs and tapes everywhere, the unhung pictures, seeing the place for the first time in years.
‘It’s sort of gentlemen’s club mates with undergraduate student digs,’ she said.
I cleared my throat. ‘Come into the kitchen and I’ll give you a drink. What would you like?’ The kitchen was respectable. I’d cleaned it recently.
‘Whisky and water if you’ve got it.’
She had a good inspection of the contents of the open shelves while I got the drinks, watching her out of the corner of my eye and telling her about my visit to Father Gorman. I poured myself a glass of Coldstream Hills pinot noir from a bottle I’d started on the day before.
‘Cheers,’ I said.
‘Cheers. I’ve met Gorman a couple of times. He’s a walker for high-society hags. Something slimy about him.’
‘A walker?’
‘Takes them to the theatre, to parties. When their husbands are too busy fucking the secretary.’
‘You’re very knowledgeable,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a fish. If you’re hungry.’
‘A fish,’ she said thoughtfully. Our eyes were locked. I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to look away.
‘It doesn’t have to be fish.’
She bit her lower lip. ‘What else have you got?’
I wanted very much to bite her lower lip. ‘There’s some steak,’ I said. ‘Sirloin. Frozen.’
We had somehow got closer. I couldn’t remember moving. She put out her left hand and touched the hollow in my throat with one finger.
‘Sirloin,’ she said. She put her glass down on the counter and slowly folded her arms under her breasts. It was somehow a hugely erotic gesture. ‘Anything else?’
‘Dolmades?’
We looked at each other in silence. I wanted to move my erection to a more comfortable position but I was paralysed. She looked down at it.
‘Have you got a condom?’ she said.
I swallowed some wine with difficulty. ‘I suppose you’ll think I’m predatory if I say yes?’
She nodded. ‘Possibly.’
I put my glass on the counter. She put a fingertip against my lips. I kissed it. As her mouth came nearer I could smell the malt whisky. I put my hands on her buttocks and pulled her close. I could feel the elastic of her panties under my thumbs.
Our lips came together. Her right hand moved between us and cupped me. I thought I’d swoon.
‘I’m going to swoon.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘you should lie down.’
I took her hand and led her into the bedroom. We undressed with the urgency of people shedding burning clothes.
‘Bugger buttons,’ she said thickly, pulling her shirt over her head. She shrugged out of her bra and, for a moment, stood there naked to the waist, big breasts over prominent ribs. Then she stripped off her grey flannels, pantyhose and white bikini pants. She was built for movement: long bones and long muscles that showed under the skin.
The sheets were like ice. But only for seconds.
Around midnight, we ate sirloin steak sandwiches and drank the rest of the Coldstream Hills. It was too late for fish.
‘Did you live here with your wife?’ Linda said in a neutral tone.
‘Yes. But we didn’t sleep in that bedroom. That was the spare room. I couldn’t bear to go into the bedroom for a long time.’
She said, ‘You knew what I was thinking. Do all the girls ask that?’
‘One hundred per cent of them.’
She looked at the ceiling, nodding.
‘One girl, one question. That’s a hundred per cent, isn’t it?’
She smiled. ‘I knew this would happen,’ she said. ‘When I saw you coming down the newsroom with that twerp Legge.’
We were on the sofa, backs against the arms, legs entwined, chewing. Linda was wearing a sort of kimono thing my daughter had left behind. She was about a foot taller than Claire, all of it leg. I was in my old towelling dressing gown.
‘I know what went through your mind,’ I said. ‘Here comes six foot two of solid erotic pleasure.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I thought, here comes exactly the kind of rumpled, predatory, middle-aged sleazebag I always end up fucking.’
‘I thought you said you wouldn’t think I was predatory.’
‘I said I possibly would. Anyway, that was tonight,’ she said. ‘You didn’t have to be predatory tonight. All you had to do was lie back.’
‘I liked the lying back bit,’ I said. ‘You’re born to the saddle.’
‘All it takes is a good pommel,’ she said and rubbed her instep down my right calf. ‘What’s that funny shaped scar on your stomach?’
‘I was hoping you’d ask. A man shot me.’
‘Why?’
‘Trespass,’ I said.
‘Trespass where?’
‘In Vietnam. How come you’ve got such strong legs?’
She put her head back and looked down her nose at me, eyes narrowed. ‘Is that a flattering question? Don’t answer. Think. Think about the proximity of my heel to your groin.’
