leftover red and thought about Linda.
I dialled the silent number. The answering service said: ‘Please leave a message. If you wish the number holder to be alerted by pager, please say that the message is urgent.’
I said, ‘The message is: The chairs in my parlour seem empty and bare. Jack.’
‘Urgent?’
‘No.’
In bed, I tried reading a novel called The Mountain from Afar brought by Linda on her last visit. Very soon, I could tell a) that it was about men and their fathers, and b) that I was at long odds to finish it.
Men and their fathers.
Had Linda been trying to tell me something by leaving this book? Was there something I should be aware of? Why was I spending time on Gary Connors? There was nothing at all in it for me. Did I identify Des with my father? Of course I did. His father had seen my father and mother meet, lust across the class barriers.
I didn’t see Des as a father-substitute. I saw him as a decent old bloke who was going to be turfed out of his house because, against all the evidence of his experience and in a weak moment, he had trusted his son. Someone had to give him a hand.
Where to start? Wootton’s inquiries might take me straight to Gary’s door. It was strange how many people of reasonable intelligence kept using their credit cards while going to great lengths to conceal their whereabouts.
But Gary was an ex-cop. Ex-cops wouldn’t be that stupid. Still, he was stupid enough to be forced to become an ex-cop.
There was hope.
9
Wootton didn’t sound like a man who’d spent the night in a luxurious hotel engaged in a deeply satisfying pas de deux with the compelling Sylvia Marlowe and then breakfasted on eggs Romanoff. He sounded like a man who’d spent the night at home in the spare room and then breakfasted on burnt porridge.
‘This favour,’ he said. ‘Person was travelling in Europe. Hotels, etcetera. Came back, paid for airport parking on April 2. Three local things on April 3. Ordinary. That’s it.’
‘Nothing since then?’
‘I said, that’s it. Can I be clearer? Is that an ambivalent expression? If that wasn’t it, I would have carried on conveying my findings to you. Wouldn’t I?’
‘Of course, Cyril. Silly reflex question. By the way, look up the word ambiguous. You’ll find it somewhere before expedient. And expeditious.’
I rang Des Connors. ‘Des, Jack Irish. The day you gave Gary the cheque. When was that?’
‘Get me chequebook. Hold on.’
Outside, a high-top truck was beeping as it backed up to the goods entrance of the former sweatshop across the street. I missed the women eating and smoking and laughing on the pavement in their breaks.
‘There, Jack? Third of April, that’s the day.’
‘Right. Des, Gary been married, that sort of thing?’
‘Two. He’s had two. First one, Judy, she’s a nice girl, he was lucky there. Sends me a card on me birthday, Christmas, never misses.’
‘Know where she lives?’
‘Dunno. Know where she works. Little milkbar place in town. Down there behind the museum. Makes sandwiches. I used to pop in there before the bloody hips started actin up.’
‘Called what? Know the name?’
‘Her name. Judy’s something.’
‘She owns it?’
‘Done all right for herself after she got shot of him. You thinkin of goin round there?’
‘Might. Have a chat.’
‘Won’t do much good. Don’t reckon she’s put an eye on the bugger for years. Hadn’t last time I saw her and that’s a while. Give her me love anyhow.’
‘What about the second one?’
‘Wouldn’t know her if she wore a number. Never saw her. Don’t know her name. Didn’t even know he’d done it again till it was over.’
‘I’ll be in touch.’
I looked up Judy’s establishment in the telephone book, walked up to Brunswick Street and caught a tram into the city. As we lumbered into Victoria Parade, the sun came out and people turned their faces towards it like sunflowers.
I had coffee with the ageing beau monde at Pellegrini’s, bought a book about duelling at Hill of Content. Duelling was not something I’d given much thought to but I liked the cover. Made me think of dealing with my sister: evasion and attack.
I was also immediately taken with Judy’s Pantry. It was on the fringe of the business district, a short and narrow lunch bar strangely untouched by the rushing currents of food fashion. The people who bought lunch here didn’t want grilled capsicum, didn’t want goat cheese or sun-dried anything. They wanted things like battery chicken, extruded ham, slices of roast beef rich in chemicals, tangy tuna fresh from the can that day, chopped hard-boiled egg. And these things they wanted topped not with Sicilian caper salsa or harissa or Bhutanese sour cucumber relish but with a rip of tunnel-grown iceberg lettuce and two slices of cold-storage tomato recently ripened by the application of gas. And Judy’s customers didn’t care to have their fillings wrapped in focaccia, ciabatta, bruschetta or Peruvian machaya flatbread. They wanted it slapped on soft, milk-white bread, the bread of their childhood, bread with the texture of Kleenex.
No rush yet. A woman was leaving as I came in, another woman was being served at the counter. The four pine tables down the righthand wall were unoccupied. It was just after 10 a.m. and the bain-marie was loaded, a good sign in a lunchtime food business. Good for the business, not the customers.
Three people were at work behind the glass display counter. A woman in her sixties, long sorrowful Balkan face, was dismantling a greyish cooked chicken. A young man was assembling salad rolls, and a woman, late thirties, early forties, short bleached hair, attractive in a hard-bitten way, was serving the sole customer, putting a sandwich into a paper bag. ‘Don’t you get tired of eating the same sandwich every day?’ she asked.
‘Nah,’ said the customer. ‘Love it. Have it three times a day if I could.’
When he’d gone, I said, ‘Is Judy around?’
The woman gave me the pained look that greets salesmen everywhere. ‘I’m Judy.’
‘Jack Irish. I’m a lawyer acting on behalf of Des Connors.’
The pained look went. ‘How is he? He’s all right?’
‘He’s fine. Bit creaky in the hips, otherwise fine. This is about Gary.’
Judy sighed, sagged her shoulders. ‘Beats me how a lovely bloke like Des fathered a prick like Gary. What’s he done?’
‘Got a moment? Could we sit down?’
‘Sure. Have a seat at the back table. Things don’t get lively till eleven or so.’ Peeling off her latex kitchen gloves, she said to the young man, ‘Andy, see to customers, will you?’
Judy went into a back room, came out a moment later without her neck-high pink apron. She was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and wearing them well. ‘Nice to have an excuse to sit down,’ she said. ‘Tell me the sad tale.’
‘Des lent Gary money.’
She closed her eyes for a second or two, shaking her head. ‘Usually it’s the mums won’t give up hope,’ she said. ‘Dream is they’ll wake up one day and their little bastard’s turned into an angel. Not much money, I hope.’
‘Much. Left to Des by his sister.’
‘Well,’ Judy said, ‘that’s money past tense.’
