to drink?” he asked. I looked at Haines who nodded at a cupboard over the sink. Tickener went across, opened it and pulled down a bottle of Cutty Sark. He took four glasses from the draining rack on the sink and poured solid slugs into them. He brought them over, I accepted one, so did Haines and in one smooth, snakey movement Pali knocked the one he held out to her to the floor. Tickener shrugged.
“Your loss, Miss,” he said.
I took a pull at the whisky. It was good but it burned my dry throat and didn’t help a slight headache that was ticking away inside my skull. It was a bad way to feel when there were some sharp distinctions to be made. I rolled a cigarette and accepted a light from Tickener who lit up one of his stinking tailormades. Haines refused his offer of a cigarette and Pali didn’t even acknowledge it. She was starting to take an interest in proceedings again though. I drew a breath and started in again.
“What happened after Mark Gutteridge died?”
“I hid the files.” Haines took a sip of the whisky and nearly choked on it. He coughed and snorted into a tissue. Pali gave him a look of contempt and reached out her hand to Tickener.
“Cigarette please.”
Her voice startled him but he obliged her fairly smoothly. She leaned back in the chair and crossed her legs, the pink denim stretched tight over her thighs and her breasts lifted under the cloak as she lifted the cigarette to her lips.
“Go on, boy,” she said, “this is damn interesting.”
Haines made a better job of his next go at the Scotch. “I sat it out for a while. I hid the files, I could see what they were worth. I did some night classes, I got a job at Sleeman’s. I formed a relationship with Ailsa. I thought I could bankrupt her without any trouble. I used to watch Susan Gutteridge, I hated her and I wanted her dead. She looked very ill most of the time anyway.”
“Yeah, that was Bryn’s work, Brave’s too maybe. You remember Brave, from Adelaide?”
“No.”
“You should. He was the psychologist you spilled the beans to in the orphanage. He’s been working the other side of the street.”
He got that genuine puzzled look again. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind, go on.”
“I got some money from the politicians and lawyers, and a couple of policemen; I bought this place. I kept on at Susan Gutteridge, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do anymore.”
“I was!” Pali’s voice was like snakeskin rippling through your fingers, beautiful and repellent.
“Shut up you!” I snapped. “You’ll get your turn.” I looked at Haines. “Do you see it?” I said. “You told Ian Brave about your suspicions that you were a Gutteridge. You did some work on it and squeezed Mark Gutteridge. Brave also had something else on him that concerns you. He had information from Ailsa as well. Maybe he killed Gutteridge, maybe not, we’ll never know. That is, if you’re telling the truth and you didn’t kill him.”
“I didn’t,” said Haines, “I wanted to but I didn’t.”
“I believe you, well, anyway, Brave misses out on the files. He doesn’t know you’re around, you’ve got a beard and keep a low profile. Ailsa he can’t approach because he’s lost an old hold he had on her but she doesn’t seem to fit the bill. He suspects Susan, so does Bryn and they go to work on her. Brave turns up with this one.” I nodded at Pali. “She’s got political axes to grind, Ailsa and Susan have business interests in her country and Australia didn’t do much about the French atom tests. Right?”
Pali sneered at me and blew smoke at the ceiling.
“OK,” I went on, “I put it together this way: Bryn didn’t know about you Pali, and you started going it alone, making the heavy phone calls and so on. You fell out with Brave and he fell out with Bryn. Bryn panicked a bit, people Haines was squeezing started putting pressure on him. He called me in. Brave went right off, he killed Bryn’s boyfriend. Pali blows the whistle on Brave when she finds out he’s into mad sidelines like sheltering escaped crims. We raid Brave and he’s out of the picture for a while. Bryn goes on the rampage and finishes up dead. Then Brave gets a real line on Haines and the files and he and Pali get back again for one last fling. That brings us all here folks.”
“What was all that stuff about bombing?” asked Tickener.
“Ailsa Sleeman’s car got bombed and Susan Gutteridge was run down,” I replied. “At first I thought it had to be someone working in with Haines or Brave, now it looks as if it was his bird on her own hook. That right?”
There was no getting under her skin. She turned to look at me, her face was beautifully boned and every fold and curve of her skin added up to the sort of beauty you don’t often see. She knew it too and her cool smile infuriated me.
“Listen you savage,” I said violently, “you might think you’re Angela Davis, but you’re just another homicidal mess to me.” I ticked off the points with a forefinger across the palm of my hand. “One, I’ve got a gun with your fingerprints on it, that gun killed a man here tonight; two, your car will have signs on it of your running down Susan Gutteridge; three, I’ve traced where you got the materials for the bomb. You’re gone a million girlie, you’re in prison or deported if I tell what I know. You might leave Australia under your own steam if you co-operate now.”
It didn’t touch her, she was a fanatic. She blew more smoke.
“Since this is all so civilised among you nice white people,” she said evenly, “could I have that drink now?”
Tickener picked up the glass and poured a generous dose, at a gesture from me he passed the bottle over and we had a little more all round. The girl tossed the whisky off and held out her glass for more, Tickener poured and she sipped a toothful. She looked at me and her mouth split open in a wide, bitter grin.
“If it does your ego any good Hardy, you’re pretty right in what you’ve said. Australian capital is screwing New Caledonia and those bitches you’re protecting are up to their twats in it.” She let the grin down into the glass for a second and when she looked up her face was a mask, vaguely triumphant and hard as flint. “Australia doesn’t care about the nuclear tests as long as the shit comes down on our dirty black hides and not yours.”
“Spare us the rave. You’re a killer, you can’t criticise anyone.”
It was a pathetic response, she knew it and I knew it.
“But you’ll let me go Hardy,” she said softly. “You’re a liberal, soft as butter, you haven’t got the guts to do anything else. You probably half agree with me.”
“You might be right,” I said wearily. “Anyway you’re not important. It suits me to have you on a plane to New Caledonia tomorrow and that suits you too. You’re on your way.”
“Jesus, Hardy!” Tickener was up out of his chair spilling his drink down his shirt. “You can’t just turn her loose. She killed a man tonight. I don’t have a bloody clue what’s going on. Look at her, I’m not sure she should be allowed out on her own, she looks like she’d cut off your feet and eat them.”
I laughed. “She’ll go like a lamb Harry.” I picked the bottle up and poured him another drink. “You’ve got all you need, you can break the Brave story once and for all, final chapter, in about two hours. I’ll phone the cops and your story only needs a few touches to it.”
“Yeah, like who killed Brave?”
“That’s easy, we don’t know. I’ll phone in that he’s dead, I won’t identify myself, the cops will think it’s a spin-off from the Costello thing. That’s easily fixed. You get an anonymous tip. It’s simple.”
Tickener scratched his chin. “That puts you and me in very deep. Three people know what really happened. You’re clean, why not let it all come out the way it really was?”
“I’m protecting my client.” I said. “This way no one gets hurt, no injustice is perpetrated. Do you really think most situations like this get properly aired and resolved down to the last detail? Come on, Harry.”
“I guess not. OK, have it your way. What about them?” He pointed to Haines and the girl.
“She’s leaving the country tomorrow.”
All eyes swung to Haines. He was finishing his drink, his face was white and his big body looked light and fragile. I was reminded of Cavendish’s description of him as passive, given to violent outbursts. There didn’t seem to be an outburst left in him.
“What about him?” said Tickener.
I looked at Haines again and something clicked in my mind and I felt sorrier for him than I’ve ever felt for anyone in my life, except myself.
“No worries there,” I said softly, “I’ve just worked the last little piece into place. He’ll do whatever I say because I can tell him what he’s needed to know all his life.”
