in the car.
When I’d eaten the hot food and put away two cans of Fosters, I felt ready to review the day’s findings. It didn’t amount to much: Bill Mountain had achieved some kind of an alcoholic dry-out. He had a car, maybe Terry Reeves’ Audi, and he was still dropping hints and clues to his pursuers. He planned to do some travelling.
The psychiatric angle was new and disturbing. Bill Mountain was shaping as a very complex subject. I wondered what would force him to resort to professional psychiatric help if he thought he could handle as big an emotional disorder as alcoholism on his own. His treatment of his sister was another worry. For someone as fragile as she seemed to be, what he’d done was the equivalent of squashing a butterfly with an army boot. I saw her face and heard the words falling like stones from her mouth. I’d never cared much for Bill Mountain, but I liked him even less now.
I used a public phone to ring Grant Evans. Jo, his wife, sounded pleased to hear from me after all these years, which made a nice change from the receptions I’d been getting in the last few days. Years dropped away when Grant came on the line. It’s a fact of modern life, local line telephone communication means more than long distance, it’s half way to being in the same room. Grant’s voice sounded close, comforting and familiar.
‘Cliff, where are you?’
‘Near a place called Bentleigh.’
‘Jesus, why?’
‘It’s a dirty story.’
‘I bet. Well, we’re in Brunswick and we’re expecting you right now. Have you got a Melways?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got one.’
‘You all right? Sound a bit strange.’
‘I’m all right. I’ll be glad to see you. Give me the address.’
I drove back to the city and through a Brunswick, steadily and surely, feeling the effects of the alcohol and not entirely sure that the Chinese food had found a permanent home. Grant’s street was a shade wider, had a few more trees and contained slightly grander houses than the average for the area. Grant’s house was one of the better ones, a wide freestanding terrace with all its ironwork intact, a deep front garden and a new-looking corner window. Nothing wrong with that; Grant was a senior policeman these days with a healthy salary and appearances to keep up.
I ran my hands through my hair and blew my nose, performing a traveller’s toilet before I approached the house. My skin felt dry under the stubble and my face felt asymmetrical, which it is because of the broken nose. My eyes were tired from concentrating on the unfamiliar roads, and my breath smelled of whisky and beer. It was a fine way to go calling on a friend I hadn’t seen for five years, but Grant had seen me in much worse shape. He’d probably have been more worried if I’d turned up shaved and in a clean suit. And the breath wouldn’t be a problem long if I knew Grant-he’d have the perfect red in stock to deal with it.
Grant, opened the door and we shook hands and slapped shoulders and I went into a house that bore no resemblance to the last one I’d been in. The big terrace was warm and scruffy-the banister was hung with clothes, and books and boots littered the bottom stairs. I could hear rock music playing upstairs and a dog of indeterminate breed wandered out of a room off the hall to see what was going on.
Jo Evans is a shy woman who says a lot to Grant in private, all good sense, but not much in public. She smiled hello, and one of Grant’s teenage daughters appeared at the top of the stairs to check me out. She’d left the door open behind her and the rock decibels mounted. She waved and ducked back.
‘Studying,’ Grant said. He shook his head in mock despair.
‘Where’s the other one?’
Grant looked at Jo. ‘Raging,’ she said.
Grant ushered me into his study. I sat down in an old armchair I remembered from his Sydney house, and he rubbed his hands.
‘Great to see you, mate. What’ll it be? Got some great reds.’
He looked as if he’d been sampling them more than in the old days. Grant always had a weight problem and it looked as if he’d given up the struggle. His belt was out a few more notches than it used to be, and flesh had wadded itself in comfortably around his neck and chin. He’d lost some more hair and seemed to move more slowly than I remembered, but he looked a lot happier than he had in Sydney, when he’d been trying to keep his figure neat and his hands clean.
‘Give me a belt of something rough first,’ I said. ‘I need it. Then I’ll sample your best Wimmera white.’
‘Peasant.’ He opened a small fridge, took out a bottle, pulled the cork out with his fingers and poured me a generous slug in a pottery mug. ‘What’s the job?’
I put the wine down my throat without tasting it while he used a corkscrew on another bottle. This time he filled a glass and pushed it across to me. I filled my mouth, tipped my head back and gargled.
‘Jesus,’ Grant said, ‘would you like to mix it with dry ginger?’
‘Wouldn’t mind. What is it?’
‘The best. Never mind. What is it that’s got you looking so haunted?’
‘Haunted? Do I look haunted? God, I don’t know, it’s a weird one. I wish I was out of it.’
‘That’s a change.’ He sat down opposite me on a divan and sipped his red wine. I gave him the whole thing in outline; he raised his eyebrows when I got to the part about finding the body and slipping off without reporting it, but that was his only reaction. I finished my wine and accepted another. Sleep wasn’t going to be a problem.
‘Your focus seems to be shifting,’ he said.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘You started out looking for Reeves’ car, then you seemed to get more interested in finding this writer bloke; the way you wound up it sounds as if you’re more interested in the car angle again.’
‘Maybe that’s just because it’s your field of expertise.’
‘Mm, don’t think so. I’m an expert on shits, too, and this Mountain sounds like a prize example.’
‘He probably is. His girlfriend’s a good kid, though. Maybe I’m obliging her. D’you know anything about a racket like this? Cars going off in numbers?’
‘No. Be hard to get far with that kind of thing in Victoria. Very tight at Motor Registration they tell me. Wasn’t always of course.’ He rolled some wine in his mouth, and let his cop’s mind run. ‘Insurance boys are on their toes; spray shops and spares outlets get a pretty good looking-at; stolen cars go straight on the computer and that’s working smoothly. The print-outs get around real fast, even up the bush. You’d need new plates within hours.’
‘Just a thought. It’s bloody well-organised and must’ve cost a bundle to set up. Somebody must be finding it worthwhile somewhere.’
Grant drank some more red, and I enjoyed watching his enjoyment. Then he frowned in a way I’d seen before, usually when what I was doing was grossly unpolicemanly. ‘This is tricky, Cliff. I don’t know how much there is in it, but I did hear that things aren’t as tight as they might be in the west.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You can do a bit of good with hot cars if you’ve got the right ones in the right places. In Askin’s day in Sydney, they were shuffling licences and registrations like decks of cards. I saw plenty of it.’
‘I heard,’ I said. ‘Nice sideline to the gambling and the drugs.’
Grant looked pained. It was an awkward moment; I’d have bet my life that he’d never taken a dollar, but the subject never sat easily with us. Usually I joked about it, but not always. The front door slammed and I heard a young female shriek followed by the clatter of feet on the stairs. Grant’s face relaxed. He glanced at his watch.
‘Not bad,’ he said.
I lifted my glass to toast his daughter’s return. ‘The west you say? Could explain some things.’
‘Such as?’
‘I’ve had the feeling all along that some of the methods used have been a bit over the top. The guy up in Blackheath looked like a heavy number, and they’ve been breaking arms and legs. I know people do a lot for money, but if there’s bent policemen involved, needing protection, that ups the stakes.’
‘It’s a problem,’ Grant said.
‘Sounds like something for this new Federal Crimes Commission or whatever it’s called.’
Grant smiled.
‘No good, eh?’
