What to do? Knock on Teresa Dilthey Milder’s door? Ask her if she knew what had happened to Janene Ballich and Katelyn Feehan, her brother’s hookers? Why should she know?
Twins were closer than other siblings.
Stuck on her, I reckon, the cuntstruck look, pardon me.
Janene’s mother, Mary Ballich, the freezing Gippsland day, the leaky weatherboard house that was a machine for consuming fuels. The sentence that came back to me, wrapping paper floating in the wind. It had no importance, not then, not now.
‘Can I get you something else?’ The waiter.
‘Where would you stay if you were a tourist?’ I said.
‘Not worryin about money, y’mean?’
I found the recommended hostelry a few kilometres out of town, although it was impossible to know where the town ended. It was mock-Polynesian, thatched with nylon fibre, built on the narrow strip of sand between the road and the sea.
I took my leave, went down the herringbone brick path to my tropical room. I poured half a tooth glass of Glenmorangie from Cam’s silver flask and went to bed. After I put out the light, I lay on my back and listened to the sluicing of the sea. Perhaps it was the book, perhaps it was just my cast of mind, but it was a dolorous sound, small comings and goings. I drifted away sad and uneasy.
Early in the morning, showered, I walked on the empty strip of beach left by the high tide. The day was grey, sea and sky joined seamlessly at the horizon. Away to the right, I could see the dark line of the pier. To the left, a long way away, a low blue cape came out from the land. I went that way, as far as the mouth of a narrow creek, possibly tidal, possibly some kind of drain. A man wearing a baseball cap was fishing in the creek, casting a spinner, a gleam of silver in the yellow water. He looked at me. I said good morning. He grunted.
I went back to the hotel and had breakfast in the restaurant, a meal that would not linger in my mind.
Dunsborough wasn’t far away, the road straight and flat, scrub vegetation on either side, Christian fundamentalist holiday camps, extravagant houses inside walled compounds. One monstrosity was called The Shack.
The town was brand new, built on sand, the houses on tiny plots shouting speculation. Paul Milder had presumably done well here. I found the tourist information centre and a map, found Blue Cape Crescent, six houses around a loop of tarmac a block from the sea. The houses were all built of unrendered brick and timber, angular, sharp roof lines, gardens of drab native plants and listless trees.
Number 14 had a green Forester in the driveway. The path from the street curved around a pond, nothing in it, a shallow concrete cone, and led to a big front door of jarrah, old timber, resawn, marked with bolt or spike holes. There was a bell, a small brass ship’s bell. I tolled it and didn’t have to wait long before the door opened, opened fully, the people who lived in this place were not suspicious or fearful.
‘Yes?’
Teresa Dilthey Milder was a big woman, handsome, long black hair pulled back loosely, she could be a native of a Mediterranean country. She looked like her co-tenant of the womb. I had his photograph in my jacket pocket, standing between Janene Ballich and Katelyn Feehan.
‘Mrs Milder?’
‘Yes?’
Her T-shirt said CAPE ESCAPE, the letters undulating on the hills of her breasts.
‘My name’s Jack Irish. I’m a lawyer from Melbourne.’ I gave her my Law Institute card.
‘Yes?’ She gave back the card.
‘It’s about Wayne’s death.’
‘What about it?’
‘It appears to be connected to another murder. Can we talk for a minute?’
She led the way into a big living room-kitchen with a glass wall. In summer, it would be shaded by a creeper-covered pergola, now bare.
‘I’ve just made tea,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cup?’
‘Please.’
She crossed the room to the kitchen. In the garden, I could see a sandpit and a swing. On the counter that divided the room were crayons and paintbrushes in a pot.
‘Milk, sugar?’
‘No milk, one spoon, please,’ I said.
Teresa came back with two mugs. ‘Sit down,’ she said.
We sat in leather chairs that hissed under us. ‘Nice house,’ I said. ‘Did you have it built?’
‘Paul built it, yes.’
‘So much light.’
‘Yes. The architect’s really good. She lives down the road.’
‘I see in the paper that you have to be a millionaire to live here.’
‘They can’t be talking about us,’ she said.
We looked at each other. She was less tense now.
‘Did you know what Wayne did for a living?’ I said.
‘Security. Clubs, that sort of thing.’
‘The last time you spoke to him,’ I said. ‘Was he worried about anything?’
Teresa hesitated. ‘No. It was about a month before his murder. We talked about the kids, my dad. Paul spoke to him for a bit, coming for a holiday, fishing, bloke stuff.’
‘They got on?’
‘Oh yes, always got on. He knew Paul and… anyway.’
‘Were you close, the way twins often are?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Dunno. Not always when we were kids. A bit, I suppose.’
‘Twins get feelings about each other, don’t they?’
A shrug. ‘I get feelings all the time. The kids. Usually wrong, thank Christ.’
I drank some tea, didn’t say anything, looked at her. Teresa was uneasy, uncrossed her legs, re-crossed them, wasn’t keen to look at me, looked at the garden, a coastal garden, not much colour.
‘Wayne was on his way here when he was murdered,’ I said.
Her head jerked my way. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I know.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘what the hell does it matter? What does it matter where he was going? What’s the point of this?’
She got up. ‘I’ve actually got things to do,’ she said. ‘So if…’
‘He didn’t ring you before he left Melbourne?’
‘No. I said so.’
‘Has anyone been in touch with you about Wayne, anything to do with him?’
‘No. No one.’ She turned, taking her mug to the kitchen.
I said, ‘Janene Ballich.’
A movement of the shoulderblades, I thought. Teresa turned, but not quickly.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Janene Ballich.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The name doesn’t mean anything?’
‘No.’ Clipped.
‘Katelyn Feehan? Did he mention her?’
‘No.’ Just as quick. I couldn’t read her black eyes.
I got up, offered my mug. ‘Thanks for talking to me. And for the tea. If you want to find out whether I’m trustworthy, I’ll give you the name of a judge of the Victorian Supreme Court. You can ring him.’
Mr Justice Loder wouldn’t be happy about giving me a character reference but he wouldn’t say no.
She took the mug, held the two in front of her.
‘I don’t think Wayne’s murder is a simple story,’ I said. ‘But I hope the story’s over. Hope. We can only hope.
