be pricey.
I walked past the restaurant, saw it was both licensed and BYO. I bought a bottle of Eaglehawk chardonnay at a bottle shop. Ramesh’s was an upmarket place with muted lighting and gleaming white tablecloths. The Indian decor had been kept low-key and tasteful. It was more than half full even at that comparatively early hour.
The customers were being shown to their seats by a plump woman in a sari. When it was my turn she looked around the room and made a gesture of despair.
‘I’m terribly sorry, sir. You will have to wait a few minutes for your table. Please sit at the bar and have a drink on the house. My apologies.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ I said. ‘Seating one can be awkward.’
‘Not usually, but there is a big concert on tonight and people are eating early. I’ll put your wine on the ice.’
She escorted me to the bar, spoke briefly to the barman and drifted away. I ordered a gin and tonic and looked around the room. It was the kind of place Lily Truscott and I used to like-medium expensive, good service and, I assumed, no sitar music. Eating alone was one of the things that triggered memories of Lily, who’d been murdered three years before. I sipped the drink and recalled Ray Frost’s question
There was a mirror behind the bar and I saw my face set in a kind of angry scowl. I drank some more gin and tried to change the expression.
‘Your table is ready, sir.’
The woman smiling at me wore a blue and silver sari. She smelled of something fragrant and her voice was musical. The sari, the jewel in her nose, the filigree headband and the spot of red on her forehead made a difference, but it was still Mary Oberon.
13
She showed me to a table in the corner, one of a set of tables for two slightly screened off from the body of the restaurant to allow intimacy. She smiled and walked away. A waiter arrived with a menu and we went through the ritual. I ordered the meal and he brought the wine in an ice bucket. The room was pleasantly warm and I took off my jacket. The entree samosas with the dips were tasty, the papadums were crisp and the meat dish was hot without being fiery. A couple of different chutneys and jasmine rice. It was served smoothly and efficiently and when I indicated I’d pour my own wine the waiter left me to it.
I watched Mary Oberon as she glided around the room. She took people to their tables and performed small functions to help the waiters and the cashier. She appeared to enjoy the work and to be good at it. But there was something a little off-centre about her behaviour-as if she were acting the part rather than being completely at home in it. The soft light flattered her and she appeared younger than in the posed picture Bobby had shown me. Younger, exotic and something else-wary?
Within an hour people began to drift off, presumably to the concert, so that Mary Oberon and the waiters became less busy. I ate slowly, hoping still more people would leave so that I might be able to attract and hold her attention for a while. I had two glasses of wine and poured a third. A waiter came over and asked me if I wanted dessert.
‘No, thanks. Just a long black coffee. And could you ask Mary to come and have a word with me, please.’
He looked surprised but he went to where she was standing and spoke to her. She came over, still smiling but even more wary-looking.
‘Is there something wrong, sir?’
I returned the smile, tried to look non-threatening. ‘No, I’d like to talk to you. It’s about Bobby Forrest.’
The calm poise fell away. She stared at me as if I’d spat in her face. The table had been set for two. She grabbed a knife and stabbed at my throat. I jerked up and sideways and the blade hit me in the right shoulder. It went through my shirt and in beside the collarbone. I sat, more surprised than hurt. She turned and ran, silver shoes slapping the tiled floor. The knife didn’t have much of a point and didn’t go in far. I pulled it out easily and blood welled and flowed. It soaked my shirt and dripped onto the table. The plump woman and a waiter appeared and blocked the view of the remaining diners.
I grabbed a napkin and pressed it to the wound. It was soggy with blood inside a few seconds.
‘Come with me, sir,’ the woman said. ‘We have a doctor. He will help you.’
They led me through a door a few steps away.
‘Fetch Ahmed and some towels quickly,’ the woman said to the waiter. She took me down a short passage to an office and sat me in a chair. The blood had stopped flowing but the shoulder was throbbing and the arm felt stiff.
The waiter appeared with a couple of snowy white towels, followed by a man in a chef’s uniform.
‘This is my brother Ahmed,’ the woman said. ‘He is a doctor.’
I nodded and let him tear the shirt away.
‘My bag,’ he said.
He was in his thirties and very composed. He used a towel to wipe away most of the blood and pressed it against the wound which was seeping slightly. He glanced at me as he worked.
‘I do not think you are in shock.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘You have been hurt before perhaps?’
‘A few times, yes.’
The waiter returned with a medical bag. He opened it, took out alcohol swabs and cleaned the wound.
‘No nerve damage, I think, but stitching will be necessary.’
‘I’d better get to a hospital then.’
He exchanged alarmed looks with the woman.
‘Dr Oberoi could do it,’ she said.
She sounded very nervous. Advantage Hardy.
‘You seem to have some problems,’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘This is a serious assault.’
‘Yes.’
‘A. . hysterical daughter and a brother practising medicine without a licence.’
‘Do you want me to stitch this wound or not?’
‘Just a minute, doctor. I’m willing to allow you to stitch and I won’t report the assault on one condition.’
The woman clasped her heavily ringed hands together. ‘What is that?’
‘You have to make Mary talk to me. I just want information from her. It’s not information she’ll want to give but I have to have it. If you can make that clear to her and she’ll tell me what I need to know, none of this has to cause you any trouble. I don’t think anyone in the restaurant noticed anything.’
‘Very well. I will see to it.’
‘Stitch away, doctor,’ I said.
Various members of the family lived in three flats above the restaurant. They took me up there and into a small room which Ahmed Oberoi obviously used as a surgery when he wasn’t cooking curries. He stitched me up, applied some cream and bandaged my shoulder. As he worked he told me he’d fully qualified as a doctor in India but hadn’t been able to satisfy the Australian medical authorities.
‘It was when there was all the fuss about Dr Haneef,’ he said. ‘There was a lot of prejudice.’
I nodded. Kevin Andrews had a lot to answer for.
He seemed perfectly competent to me. He disapproved when I asked for whisky and painkillers but his sister obliged. She apologised profusely for what had happened and expressed her undying gratitude to me for not reporting the incident.
