girls play the mighty Roys.’
Norm put a hand under his cardigan and produced a fixture card, studied it through his thick, smudged lenses. ‘Says here,’ he said, ‘next week St Kilda plays Brisbane.’
‘After Brisbane, there’s another word,’ said Stan. ‘Lions. L–I-O-N-S. Brisbane Lions.’
Norm folded the card and put it away. ‘Don’t say that on my card. And it never bloody will. Only Lions left are right here.’ He waved around the room at the photographs. ‘And you, Stanley, you’re a disgrace to the memory of these great men.’
He looked at me, looked at Eric and Wilbur. ‘Am I right? Am I right?’
‘You’re right,’ said Wilbur.
‘Damn right,’ said Eric.
‘Beyond right,’ I said.
A chastened Stan brought the other beers and slunk off. We resumed our discussion of the virtues of individual Saints. Then I drove home and set about making Saturday night bearable. Ten minutes into this, the phone rang. Wootton.
‘Just checking the out-stations,’ he said, full of gin, jovial Saturday-evening Wootton, back from his golf club, stuffed with nuts and little sandwiches and bonhomie. ‘Anything to report, old sausage?’
‘The out-stations? I think you’ve got a wrong number. Wrong century too.’
‘If you have,’ he said, ‘the client will be at the same spot on the dial tomorrow morning, 9.30 a.m. Precisely.’
Peter Temple
Dead Point (Jack Irish Thriller 3)
The judge was in a zippered white cotton garment that slotted in somewhere between a NASA spacesuit and Colonel Gaddafi’s overalls. He ordered orange juice and a toasted wholewheat muffin with honey.
‘Breakfast,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way to tennis. You don’t want to eat too much before tennis.’
‘Fatal,’ I said.
We were back at the window table at Zanouff’s in Kensington, the less-hungover weekend breakfast crowd beginning to straggle in.
The juice arrived. Colin Loder drank half the glass at a swig.
‘The dead man’s name is Marco Lucia,’ I said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
It was too early for this kind of rubbish, even from a judge. I said, ‘You didn’t hear me?’
He gave me a surprised look, weighed up the matter. ‘I don’t know the name, Jack. An expression of surprise.’
I’d rung D.J. Olivier after Wootton’s call the night before.
D.J. was part of the seven-day-week world, Saturday night was just another night. A woman rang back at 10.30 p.m., found me deep in melancholy and self-loathing.
‘The subject,’ she said in a private-school voice, ‘has no criminal record. Passport issued March 1996, left the country in April that year, returned January 1998. Name mentioned in reports of a criminal case in July 1999. An article in the Brisbane Courier Mail in September ’99 refers to someone who may be the subject.’
‘What’s the criminal case?’ I said.
‘Assault, unlawful detention. Subject was the complainant.’
‘And the article?’
‘Organised crime in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Someone interviewed refers to someone of this name as, I quote, Milan’s fucking star, unquote.’
Milan’s fucking star.
I liked the way she said that. ‘Thanks.’
‘Our pleasure. Let us know if you need a broader inquiry.’
Mr Justice Loder’s muffin arrived, golden honey in a bowl. When the waiter had left, I got out the photograph of ‘Robbie’ and put it next to his plate. He looked around, unzipped a pocket and took out a spectacles case, put on a handsome gold-rimmed pair, looked at the picture without picking it up.
‘Well,’ he said, put a finger to his lips. ‘As I said, this inquiry is on behalf…’
My hands were palm-down on the table. I kept my eyes on the judge and raised the fingers of the right one. ‘I’m working for you,’ I said. ‘You get the bill.’
He breathed deeply, looked out of the window, closed his eyes for a second. He had long eyelashes. ‘You’ll understand this isn’t easy,’ he said.
‘I understand.’
He held my eyes for a few seconds. ‘I met him in Italy several years ago. In Umbria. I was staying at a friend’s house. The friend was away, and this young man arrived on the doorstep with a letter of introduction to my friend from someone in London.’
He had the diction of a schooled witness.
‘Calling himself?’
‘Robbie Colburne. He said his mother was Italian, from the Veneto, and his father was Australian. He spoke good Italian.’
‘Eat your muffin,’ I said, ‘it’s getting cold.’
He looked at the plate, broke off a piece of muffin, held it like a dead spider, put it down. ‘I think I’ll skip the muffin.’
I said, ‘I only need the pertinent bits.’
‘A relationship developed. I had a week left of my holiday. He said he was planning to spend a few years in Europe. I didn’t see him or hear from him again until a month ago. He rang me one night. My wife was away. She’s often away.’
Without looking at it again, Loder slid the photograph over to me. ‘He was an attractive person. Intelligent, full of life. And a lot of sadness in him.’
‘Most people have to settle for one of those things,’ I said. ‘Generally, the last one.’
Loder smiled, cheered up a little. ‘That’s what’s pertinent,’ he said. ‘I suppose.’
Zanouff’s was filling up, people wearing dark glasses, two couples with trophy children, dressed to be cute, caps worn backwards, expensive running shoes. One of the fathers had a tic in his right eye, a stress tic. He kept touching it but it wouldn’t stop.
‘You resumed the relationship?’
‘Yes.’
‘I won’t put icing on this,’ I said. ‘Are you scared of something?’
The judge smiled, made a gesture of openness with his arms, spread his fingers. The smile didn’t have any staying power. Nor did the gesture. He gave up, closed his arms, put one hand over the other.
‘Something’s missing,’ he said.
‘Robbie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Of what value?’
A sad smile. ‘How do you value a career?’
‘Not talking about the degree certificates?’
‘No.’
A train was leaving Kensington station, an empty rattle of train, windows flashing sky.
‘Anything happened since you noticed the loss?’
He closed his eyes again. ‘Nothing. I’m petrified. My dad’s still alive.’
‘And then there’s the dignity of the law,’ I said, cruelly.
He revived, face turning stern. ‘I suspect that the dignity of the law transcends and outlasts that of its humble servants, Mr Irish.’
A dignified response from the Bench.
‘Silly remark, allow me to withdraw it,’ I said. ‘Let me tell you what I know about Marco Lucia.’
When I’d finished, Loder said, ‘Can you be sure it’s the same person?’
‘Pretty much. Only one person matches.’
