“Exactly. And talk to this man Bennett about the rest.”
“Bit soon for all that, isn’t it?”
“The authorities will want to know what we have before signing off on any deal. Like I said, your word alone won’t be enough.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll think about it. Don’t book your ticket yet.”
A chair scraping, sounds of movement; Percy hurried around the reception desk and back outside, the bell thudding dully ashe closed the front door. He found a corner to hide behind and moments later watched Billy McBride—older since he last sawhim, heavier, looked to have put on some weight—step out of the law office, glance up at the broken bell, put his hands inhis pockets, and walk away along the street.
Percy didn’t bother following. He already knew what Billy had planned.
* * *
In a box at His Majesty’s Theatre on Queen Street, Police Commissioner Edmund Noone sat with his wife, Cassandra, and theirtwo daughters and their husbands, watching an evening performance of La Bohème. The men were dressed formally in dinner suits, the women were expensively, elaborately frocked. Five rapt faces fixatedon the stage, while Noone’s gray gaze wandered the stalls. He was intolerably bored. All this warbling about poverty and love.He shifted in his chair—the thing had been going for hours—and Cassandra reached for his hand, gripped it so tight her nailsdug into his skin. Evidently something had happened. It seemed someone was dying onstage. A woman lay in bed while a man wailedover her; idly Noone patted his wife’s hand, hoping this might mean they were nearing the end.
“There there,” he whispered softly. “There there.”
The curtain fell finally. An eruption of applause from below. People began standing, including his family; Noone felt obliged to do the same. He didn’t applaud. One of his sons-in-law whooped and shouted “Bravo!” Noone glowered at him and he stopped. He disliked both of his daughters’ husbands. In their way they were perfectly suitable, of course—came from the right families, with the right prospects, careers in politics and law—but when they’d asked his permission for marriage it had been mostly apathy he had felt. But then, the girls had to marry eventually, so why not these two dolts? Truthfully, any suitor that presented himself would have been as unsatisfactory as the next.
He leaned close to Cassandra, eyeing the exit door behind. “I’ll see you outside,” he told her, and she glanced at him reproachfully,her hands still a blur of applause; the actors were now taking their curtain call. Noone didn’t care whether she approvedor not. He found these social occasions utterly stultifying. Rise and fall, clap and cheer, shake hands, kiss cheeks, thebanality of the conversations he endured. As he’d already done during each intermission, he would now be expected to minglein the bar, talking to all the right men. He was so thoroughly sick of it, the mundanity—yesterday he had opened a new policestation, cutting the ribbon like some trumped-up mayor. And Noone couldn’t stand the mayor of Brisbane. Never had a welderrisen so far.
He left the box, waved away the startled usher, and stood on the balcony overlooking the foyer. Waiters and bellboys scurrying,preparing for the end of the show . . . and Percy down there waiting for him, leaning against a pillar near the doors. Noonestraightened. A shiver of excitement down his spine. With a lightness belying his age he skipped down the curved staircaseto the ground floor. The years had not diminished him. In fact he looked very much the same. No gray in his hair or mustache,few lines creasing his skin. He strode across the foyer to Percy. “My boy,” he said. “Thank God.”
“You ain’t enjoying the show then?”
“I’ve been to better funerals. Tell me, what’s happened?”
“Billy McBride’s in town again. Staying at the Bellevue.”
“Another milkmaids’ convention, is it? A symposium on castration techniques?”
“He’s just been to Henry Wells’s office. I seen him there myself. They was talking about the lawyer going out to Bewley, visiting the crater, talking to that cunt Bennett, after cutting some deal here with the high-up law.”
Noone’s face hardened. Hollow eyes staring down. “When?”
“Not yet. Billy’s headed to Melbourne first. Wells says he’ll make enquiries, they’ll meet up when he’s back.”
Noone inhaled deeply, his chest swelling, his nostrils flared. The smile when it came was wicked. “Oh dear, Billy-boy. Whathave you done?”
Chapter 34
Tommy McBride
Tommy leaned casually against the bakery counter, waiting for Emily to finish for the day. Wrapping up the leftovers, wipinground with a cloth, an easy economy in her movement, she’d done it so many times. She was wearing a plain white dress anda flour-stained brown apron and her hair was tied up in a bun. Rosy-cheeked from the bread ovens, and all those customers,hour after hour on her feet. Tommy smiled absently. Tired after another day in the fields, lost in the rhythm of her work.It was dark outside, for three-thirty. Thick clouds threatening rain.
“Stop it,” Emily said, glancing up at him.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me like that. I’m trying to work.”
“I’m only looking.”
She paused. “No you’re not. You’re thinking. I can hear the wheels turn.”
“You’ve not even given me an answer. Are you coming back or not?”
“I said maybe. Let me get finished up here first.”
“It’s been ages.”
She laughed. “It’s been two days.”
“Well, it looks like we’re in for a soaking if you don’t hurry up deciding.”
“You go. I’ll walk up if the weather holds.”
“We could eat them two leftover pies if you fancy. Take them off your hands.”
She smirked at him. “You’ve only ever wanted me for my pies.”
“Now come on, that’s not fair. Bread, pasties—you know I ain’t choosy.” She laughed again, couldn’t help herself. Tommy said,“Is that a yes, then?”
She took up wiping. “I think you hear what you want to hear.”
“I haven’t heard a no.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, there’s just no arguing with you, is there. All right, give me ten minutes. Meet me round the back.”
Tommy slapped the counter victoriously. “I’ll be at the pub.”
He crossed the road to Mickey’s, the rusted, iron-roofed shack
