She’d been staring at the ground in front of her shoes. Now she lifted her head and looked straight at me. Those dark, slanted eyes seemed to weigh and assess me according to a finely graduated and completely accurate system. ‘The broken nose and the careless shave and the cheap haircut don’t inspire confidence, but you’re not stupid, are you?’
‘Only sometimes,’ I said, meaning it.
‘I didn’t tell Sackville I loved Julius. He assumed it. Does he have a young, handsome wife?’
‘Yes.’
She shrugged. ‘There you go. Transference.’
‘Why didn’t you love him?’
She was staring at the ground again. ‘That sounds like one of your stupid questions. Love, not love, in love, out of love, what does it all mean really? You can love someone one day and not the next; you can love two people at once and then no-one at all. It’s a cheap word and it’s been debased.’
I couldn’t argue with that. She lit another cigarette and smoked even less of it than the previous one before grinding it out.
‘Your husband must have had some knowledge of Van Kep when he took him on. References or something such. Where are his business records?’
‘I don’t know. I knew almost nothing about his business.’
‘Did he have an assistant, a 2IC?’
She gave me that look again. ‘I thought you’d be poking around in the underworld, using your sleazy contacts to investigate Van Kep.’
I laughed. ‘I spend as little time in sleazy company as I can. The people have b.o. and bad breath and try to borrow money all the time. The real underworld lives better.’
‘You think Julius was a high-class crook?’
‘I assume that of all millionaires until I learn different.’
She smiled. Her head tilted a bit as she did so. The slightly bucked teeth were perfectly shaped and near- white. An ambitious dentist would go mad with indecision. ‘There’s a man named Wilson Katz. He worked for Julius in some very senior capacity. He might be able to help you.’
We walked back to St Peters lane. I unlocked the Falcon and she got in without comment or reaction. To a discerning person, the car bears the signs of having had some money spent on it where it matters. To the undiscerning it just looks old. The interior was hot and I started to sweat as soon as I got in. Claudia didn’t sweat, or if she did it didn’t show. The engine started immediately and ran smoothly but there was no air-conditioning and I’d have to rely on a breeze through the window to cool me down.
‘Vaucluse?’
‘No. I hardly spent any time there and I haven’t been back since Julius died. There’s a flat in Kirribilli. Julius liked to spend some time on the other side of the harbour. He said it made him feel like a true resident of the city.’
I released the brake, engaged first gear and drove quietly towards Forbes Street. ‘Good thinking. If you had a spot at Dover Heights and somewhere on Pittwater and down south you’d have the place covered. What other properties are there?’
She wound down her window and the breeze wafted through. ‘What you really mean is, did he leave everything to me? Why don’t you ask straight out?’
I drove up Forbes Street, stopped at the lights. ‘Did he leave everything to you?’
‘Just about. Solid provision for wife number one and daughter Judith. Enough not to make it worth their while to challenge. Quite a few donations here and there-the fund to build a new synagogue at Bondi, the Fred Hollows Foundation-that sort of thing. The rest to me. Want to know how much?’
‘No,’ I said.
The flat in Kirribilli turned out to be the top floor of a three-storey block housing three flats on each of the other two levels. So the Fleischmans had three times the space of anyone else as well as a roof garden and a view that might not have been as good as the Prime Minister’s or Governor-General’s but would do. Directly across from the Opera House with plenty of the Bridge in sight on the right and a good sweep down the harbour to the left. All this was unveiled for me after I refused the offer of a parking place under the building and left the car in the street. Claudia explained that she didn’t drive and didn’t know what had happened to Julius’ Merc. ‘Maybe Wilson Katz has it,’ I said.
She inserted a security card in the device in the high wall that surrounded the apartment block and the gate slid silently open. ‘Maybe. I couldn’t care less.’
As we climbed the stairs I wondered whether her attitude indicated that she’d always had money or just that she acquired so much of it that it ceased to matter. I had no idea.
‘Julius bought this block a few years ago. From a failed bookmaker, I gather. That pleased him. He had good people work on it and it turned out pretty well. He refused to put in a lift. Said the stairs were good for his heart and my legs.’
She laughed, I laughed and I just managed to stop myself from looking at the limbs in question.
‘He amused you then, Julius? You liked him?’
She didn’t answer. We crossed a broad expanse of carpet to a door where she used the card again. We went into several air-conditioned rooms that contained furniture, paintings, vases and other things that looked like money. I suppose I gawked a bit and when Claudia excused herself I wandered out onto the terrace and up the outside staircase to the roof garden where I experienced the view. Suddenly, among trellises trailing tropical plants and a fountain and oiled teak benches, I felt shabby in my off-the-rack clothes and cheap haircut. And I felt angry for feeling that way. Fuck it, I thought. She probably offed her husband for the dough. It was probably just another dirty bit of business and all the money and the house in Vaucluse and the flat in Kirribilli and the yacht couldn’t make it any cleaner.
‘Why are you looking like that?’
She was standing below me on the terrace looking up. She’d combed her hair, maybe freshened her make-up, and she had a cigarette lit. Every line of her body was graceful, every plane of her face was enticing. Once again I didn’t want to think any of the things I was thinking or believe what I was halfway to believing. I forced a grin that probably came off as pretty ghastly.
‘Like what?’
‘You’ve got a face like thunder.’
It was a tired phrase but somehow right on the perfect afternoon.
‘Probably caused by envy,’ I said.
‘I don’t believe it. I don’t think you envy anyone. Come down. I can’t climb those steps in heels.’
I came down to the terrace in time to see her drop the half-smoked Salem into a pot containing a plant with spiky leaves. She saw me noticing and smiled. ‘Julius hated me smoking. He’d have died if he’d seen me doing this.’
She realised what she’d said and shook her head. ‘It’s almost impossible not to make faux pas.’
I nodded. ‘The case against you isn’t tremendously strong, Claudia. I’m surprised they’ve scheduled the committal hearing so early.’
‘It’s strong enough for them to have taken away my passport and have me reporting to the police once a week. Sackville says he expects them to come up with some more material between now and then. They’ll have to disclose it of course, but we won’t have long to counter it. Julius was a very important man and I’m nobody. The authorities don’t want his murder listed as unsolved. Very embarrassing for them.’
Her analysis fitted the facts but her coolness troubled me.
‘You seem very calm.’
‘I’m not. I’m frightened, but what’s the point in showing it? I’ve got Sackville, who’s said to be one of the best barristers in Sydney, and he recommends you. I’m fighting the only way I can. Here.’
She handed me a card with a couple of addresses and phone numbers written on it. I was being given my marching orders and I took them.
