see at times of stress-like violence or abusive language. I’ve even seen examples of mild and not so mild self-harm. That’s not for public consumption, by the way.’
‘Nothing I do is for public consumption, Mr Simmons. I understand what you’re saying. Did the boys have free time while they were down there? I suppose you were looking at a farm or something.’
‘Vineyards, actually. Yes, they had the best part of an hour to look around the town. The idea being to see if the agricultural history was reflected in the architecture. It usually is, in one way or another.’
‘I see. I’ve got one more question-is there a war memorial at Bangara?’
His pale, washed-out eyes opened wide in surprise. ‘I have no idea.’
I went back to the registrar’s area and Belinda gave me the original of Justin’s mother’s note and a warm smile.
‘A terrible thing,’ she said.
‘Yes. Did you know him?’
‘Of course. I know them all, more or less.’
‘One thing puzzles me, Mrs…?’
The smile again. ‘Belinda.’
‘Belinda. I don’t hear any mention of friends. Kids at school, they usually pal up, don’t they? With one or two others? Did Justin?’
She glanced back at McKenzie-Brown’s door, looking troubled. ‘I’m not sure I should…’
‘As I said to the teachers, nothing I learn is for public consumption-ever!’
‘Justin was what they call a loner, but I did notice that he spent some time with Pierre Fontaine. He was an exchange student from France.’
‘Where is he now, d’you know?’
‘I don’t know. Please don’t ask me any more questions.’
Belinda had reached the end of her string of indiscretion. She swivelled around in her chair and began typing as though she had the manuscript of War and Peace to finish before she went home and was only halfway through.
I left the school with a few things to think about. I didn’t remember seeing the name Pierre Fontaine among those the police had talked to initially. In fact only a couple of students had been interviewed and they were sports team mates, confirming Belinda’s judgement-a loner. I really needed to talk to someone of the relevant generation. I didn’t have high hopes of Ronny. Sarah seemed the most potentially useful but I didn’t have much optimism there either.
I found a phone and called Angela Pettigrew.
‘Have you learned anything?’ were her first words.
‘I’m getting a fuller picture. I really need to talk to Sarah.’
‘To Sarah? Why?’
‘I gave a lift to the youngster who was there with her yesterday.’
‘Why on earth did you do that?’
‘It was raining. Sorry, what I mean, is I’ll get information any way I can. He told me about something Justin said to Sarah. I’d like to talk to her about it. And there’s another-’
‘Wait!’
I hung on to the phone and heard voices loud and soft, near and far, as well as music. Then Ms Pettigrew came back on the line.
‘She’s taken the day off. Not for the first time. She says she’ll talk to you but only in person. Really, I don’t know. Is it so important?’
‘It could be.’
‘Where are you now?’
I told her and she said I should come back to the house. That didn’t sound like the best of ideas and I said so. She had the answer.
‘The dragon mother will absent herself. She’ll be in the garden. It needs work.’
A lot of things around that place needed work but the arrangement sounded okay. I stopped at a liquor store and bought a can of draft Guinness. A chop in every glass. A kilometre short of the house I opened the can, carefully let it foam into a paper cup and drank it down. Ah, the gift of we Irish to the human race.
5
The rain had gone and the steps up to the house had dried out, but the water had caused crumbling in some places and a few of the bricks looked ready to head south. Angela was facing some serious maintenance problems. She opened the door to me, ushered me in without speaking, knocked on Sarah’s door as we went past and continued through to the sunroom. She was wearing jeans, rubber boots and a faded denim shirt. She picked up a straw hat and a can of insect repellent from a table near the door to the wooden steps leading down to the garden.
‘She smokes. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘A lot do. The smart ones stop.’
‘We live in hope.’ A quick smile and she was off.
Sarah came into the sunroom wearing white jeans and a black T-shirt with the face of Cold Chisel’s Jimmy Barnes printed on it. She was barefoot but stood several centimetres taller than her mother. The makeup had gone and her long, fair hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was a good-looking young woman with a generous mouth and big eyes that did not bulge in the slightest.
I met her in the centre of the room and we shook hands. ‘Hello,’ she smiled. ‘I’m sorry about what I said to you the other day. Ronny called and said you’d given him a lift. That was nice of you.’
‘It was raining pretty hard and he was sloshing along, but I admit I wanted information from him. That’s what I do. Let’s sit down, Sarah.’
She sat across the low coffee table from me and looked like the private schoolgirl she was-straight back, knees together. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Angela told me you’re trying to find Just.’
‘That’s right, working for your father.’
Her ‘Mmm,’ was sceptical.
‘I’ve seen a record of the interview you had with the police back then. You didn’t have much to say.’
‘I was a kid, and I didn’t know anything.’
‘Well, you might have known more than you thought. Justin said something to you about being a soldier of fortune. Ronny told me that.’
‘Jesus, that’s right. But I didn’t remember when I was talking to the policewoman. She wasn’t very smart. I don’t think she knew what she was doing, really.’
‘So what can you tell me about that?’
‘Hang on.’ She got up, hurried out and came back with a packet of Stuyvesant and a lighter. She offered them, I shook my head and she lit up. It was a bit studied but she was getting the hang of it. She moved the squeaky clean ashtray on the table closer and tapped off the minimal amount of ash produced by one draw, the way they do.
‘Just was always on about the army and how the Hampshires had fought in every bloody war under the sun. I used to tease him about it and say how America got beaten in Vietnam and how they burnt villages and raped women and that. It made him angry and that’s what I wanted to do. I loved him, but…’ She smoked, tapped ash. ‘You know, brothers and sisters, especially after Dad left and Angela went round the bend. It all got a bit, you know, tense. Anyway, this time I said something like that and he just nodded. Then he swore and reckoned he wanted to do it properly, like a soldier of fortune’
‘Did you know what he meant?’
‘Not really. I had some rough idea, from a movie or something. I said what about the army, and he said fuck the army.’
‘That’s all? He didn’t mention a country or a place?’
