about in their doorways as I followed Ailsa’s firm white-denimed buttocks down the corridors of their dreams.
The heat hit us like a jet engine blast when we reached the street. Ailsa had slipped the Porsche I’d seen the day before into an illegal but unobtrusive place behind the building. It was unlocked and she stepped in and reached into the glove compartment, also unlocked, for the keys. I wondered if she ignored security the same way in her house. As she pulled out from the kerb I noticed a red Volkswagen pull away half a block behind. I watched it in the rear vision mirror for a mile or so till it turned off or fell a long way behind. I couldn’t see the driver. The light wouldn’t fall right for me to get a look at him even when the car was close. I directed Ailsa out to Watson’s Bay where the big pub on the beach serves the best fish in Sydney. If Ailsa was only half-way through her story it looked as though we could string it out through lunch, and I was on expenses. She didn’t talk much. She drove fast and well using the Porsche’s power when it was needed and not for show. We reached the pub just before eleven and she slid the car into a patch of shade where a tree hung over the parking bay. She reached over to drop the keys into the glove box.
“Lock it,” I said.
She gave me a sharp, unfriendly look and shook her head.
“For me,” I said. “Your security’s lousy, it’s time to start improving it.”
She shrugged and locked the car putting the keys in her shoulder bag. We went through the cool lounge, up some stairs and into the dining room which has a view of the boats and the water that puts twenty-five per cent on the price of the food and drink.
“What will you drink?”
“Tonic and a slice of lemon. I hardly drink at all these days.”
I gave the waiter the order. I had the same with gin. Out came the cigarettes and she took up her story again without preamble.
“It was all different with Mark. We had a good sexual relationship at the start and he was a very different proposition to James.”
“No playing around?”
She shook her head. “Out of the question. It was all much more complicated. Brave can judge people. He’d picked me and Mark as a good fit and he was right. But the fit wasn’t all that comfortable.”
“The children?”
“Right. Mark doted on them and they were as suspicious as hell of me. He doted, but kept a tight rein on them. He seemed to have them scared. He scared me too at times.”
“Where was Brave in this scene?”
“I’m coming to it.”
The drinks arrived and I tried not to show an indecent interest in mine. She gave hers only the attention it deserved.
“Brave seemed to be a friend of Mark’s in a low-key way. Mark advised him in business matters and helped him to get the land the clinic’s built on. You’ve seen it?”
“Yeah, must have been quite a deal.”
“It was. Some old houses came down. Mark had people in his pocket as I told you. I was interested in Mark’s business. I thought I’d been wrong not to pay more attention to what James did, it might have kept me closer to him. Well, I talked business to Mark quite a bit. In bed mostly, and he gave me the gist of what it was all about. He was involved in land and property speculation. He got tips from people in high positions and he profited from them. He paid off the people who gave him information, in cash sometimes, more often in land and shares. Sometimes the payments came years after the deal, sometimes the kick-backs went to the wives, you understand?”
I did. If I’d got any kick-backs when I’d had a wife I’d definitely have seen that they went into her Swiss account. But the only kick-backs I’ve ever had have been of the in-the-teeth variety. I finished my drink and signalled for another. Ailsa’s had scarcely lost a drop.
She went on: “Sometimes he told me names, but not often. Sometimes it was obvious to me who he was talking about even if names weren’t mentioned. It became a bit of a game with us, a sort of Mata Hari thing, a bedroom game. I’d probe and he’d be indiscreet.”
“It sounds like a bloody dangerous game to me,” I said.
“It turned out to be. Mark roasted me a couple of times when I let a name slip in company, when I’d had a bit to drink. I watched myself after that. Mark would say that he had things on everyone, there was no one who had anything on him that he didn’t have something on in turn. When he was low he even told me that he had something on his children, he never said what, and something on me. I didn’t understand and I didn’t want to. I used to try to pass it off as a joke. That was hard because Mark didn’t have much of a sense of humour, like Susan. He had a dramatic sense, our bedroom spy games showed that, but that’s about it. Jokes for him were visible, practical things. You know what I mean?”
I nodded. “Yes. I’d say Bryn’s a bit that way too. Speaking of the practical-minded, did Gutteridge keep records of his deals?”
“I’m not certain but I think so. I’ll get to that.”
She drank down the tonic and lemon peel in a few gulps and refused another. I accepted the wine list, a little early perhaps, but busy people often eat early lunch I’m told. Ailsa sent the waiter for cigarettes and tore them open untidily as soon as they arrived. When she had one lit she went on.
“I used to see Ian Brave occasionally, have a drink with him. I didn’t need him as I had before, but he was a confidant of sorts and I still didn’t have any friends to speak of. I had problems with Mark’s children and occasional bouts of depression. I went to the theatre with Brave twice. The second time he doped me.” She sucked in her cigarette and blew the smoke out in a thin, vicious jet. “He took me back to his place — not the clinic, a house he has on the beach. He put needles into me, he questioned me for hours and hours. You can guess what about.”
“Yeah. Where was your husband then?”
“Away on business, interstate. He often was. When I came out of it, some time early the next morning, Brave told me what I’d told him. That is, he gave me some snippets, about big names. He thanked me and told me to forget what happened. He said he’d leave me alone.”
“I don’t follow.”
She stubbed the cigarette like it was her last and she was giving it up for life. Except that she lit another straight away.
“Oh shit. He had some pictures. Are you with me?”
“Photographs?”
“Right. He used them to keep me quiet and he used the information I’d given him to blackmail Mark to glory.”
“Did your husband suspect that you were the source of Brave’s information?”
She fiddled with the cigarette and lined up a napkin, an ashtray and her lighter on the table. “I’m not sure,” she said, “I suppose so. He became morose and withdrawn. I couldn’treach him, no one could. My feeling is that Brave had him so cold he didn’t care anymore.”
“His whole approach to things had been turned round on him?”
“Something like that.”
“Did he still see Brave? Socially I mean?”
“No, not to my knowledge. But they hadn’t met regularly anyway.”
I was interested but there were lots of loose ends. I played with the menu while I considered them. The story had a ring of truth but it was a bit too close to the first episode of husband and betrayal for comfort. Her innocence looked to be stretched a bit thin. I tried to keep the scepticism out of my voice as I asked the question. “How do you know all this happened? You said you weren’t aware of what Brave had done in the case of your first husband. Why are you so sure about all this now?”
The question was important. If she slid about on it the whole thing could be a pack of lies. Dancers can be actresses. Only another good serve of her directness would incline me to believe her. She was direct.
“Brave told me himself,” she said, “I went to him one day when Mark was black-minded and told him that I thought he was driving Mark crazy. I threatened to go to the police and accuse him of drugging and molesting me. I said I’d finish him professionally and in every other way.”
“What did he say?” It wasn’t hard to guess.
“He laughed at me. He said there were good reasons why I wouldn’t do what I’d said. He threatened to name
