I was surprised and concerned. I didn’t think that and I didn’t want her to think that I did. ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I don’t think you’re a phoney. You’re doing a job and you can probably do it better if you can scrub the shit off once in a while. That was the theory in the army.’
‘When were you in the army?’
‘Long time ago, in Malaya.’
‘Can’t see you as a soldier.’
‘I wasn’t very good.’
‘Why not?’
I hesitated. I didn’t usually talk about Malaya, although I thought about it a good deal. Something made me willing to talk about it now-maybe it was her interviewing technique. But she had that ability some women have of making you feel like the most important thing around at the moment. I’d met it before and I fell for it every time.
‘I was very scared,’ I said slowly. ‘But I was more scared of showing that I was scared. I did stupid things, risked other people’s lives. Also I was erratic, unreliable.’
‘Did you care about the cause? Fighting against the Chinese communists, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s right. No, I didn’t give a bugger. Didn’t understand it at all. I believed what I was told.’
‘That says a lot about you.’
‘What?’
‘You don’t believe what you’re told any more, do you? That’s your job-not believing what you’re told.’
I could see what she meant, and there was something in it. Maybe I was still an anti-soldier, but since then I’d had a bit more experience at the differences between what you’re told and what is-with Cyn, for example. I let that stay private and we sat there for a few minutes quietly. She smoked, but placidly, for her.
I poured us a bit more wine, which still left us a very respectable amount to take to the wake.
‘Two men have died since you started looking for this guy,’ she said. ‘What’s his name again?’
‘Singer.’
‘Singer. Two dead men. What does that mean, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Could be anything. Bruce might have stumbled onto how Singer got to be dead, if he is dead. Or he might have found out that he’s not dead. I just can’t get past that point.’
‘If he’s alive, why isn’t he around enjoying that yacht?’
‘And that wife.’
‘Attractive wife?’
‘Pretty good.’
‘Strikes me you ought to find out a bit more about the wife.’
‘Yeah, and about Brother Gentle and McLeary and the other operator around here whose name I don’t even know.’
‘You’re going to be busy. Do you still want to go to the wake?’
She gathered her things up and looked around for the bill. I took it, thinking that Mrs Singer would pay it and wondering where she was eating tonight and with whom. Ann was right; I didn’t know nearly enough about the lady. She’d charmed me, I knew that, but was she the kind to provoke a suicide or a murder? Ann looked at me impatiently. She was the kind not to be slowed down or kept waiting.
‘Yes’, I said, ‘I want to go to the wake.’
11
There were a few extra lights burning in the boarding house, but no extra cars in the street. It wasn’t that sort of a party. I went through the security routine I’d developed for party-going many years before-wallet locked in the glove box, car keys tucked up underneath the vehicle, mad money folded small and wedged down in a pocket. Ann watched me incredulously.
‘Where’s your gun?’ she said.
‘In the car. Reckon I’ll need it?’
‘No. Got the grog?’
The front door was open and we walked down the passage towards the back of the house where I could hear soft, mournful music. The kitchen was crowded with men and women, and Mrs Jenkins sat at the table with those big, fat tears rolling down. Behind her a wizened-up monkey of a man was working his piano accordion and moaning out ‘Kevin Barry’. He was very drunk. The music was all right, but he hit and missed the notes like a housewife on Amateur Hour. Some of the others joined in when the words came back to them, but they weren’t much better.
I sat the bottles down on the sink, got two paper cups and poured two hefty whacks of the brandy. I handed one to Ann and when I turned back for mine the bottle had gone. I sipped the drink and studied the company. Mostly, the guests bore the marks of alcohol but not the broken veins of the whisky drinker or the gross bellies of the ten-schooner-a-day-folk. These were metho drinkers, eaten away to the bone by the stuff, or port people with their metabolisms shot to pieces by the rushes of alcohol and sugar. Half of them were thin, with the sugar-loaded blood of uncontrolled diabetics-they’d piss a lot and their noses would run from the colds they’d be a prey to and sex would be a distant memory. But tonight they were happy; tonight they were on plonk and beer and spirits and Leon’s death had given them a focus, a target for the emotions and energies which were usually concentrated on the next bottle.
I whispered to Ann, ‘Do you know any of these people?’
‘A few. See that woman in pink? How old do you think she is?’
‘Sixty?’
‘Forty.’
‘Jesus.’
I finished my brandy and a man leaning against the sink produced the bottle with a courtly flourish.
‘A refill, squire?’
‘Okay. Thanks’.
He poured me a judicious one and half-filled his own mug. He raised it.
‘Lucky Leon,’ he exclaimed.
‘Why do you say that?’
He dropped his head on his chest. His hand shook, but he was an expert at keeping fluid in a vessel held in a shaking hand. He was wearing cast-off clothes that were too big for him and heavy, broken shoes that had been expensive and stylish fifteen years before. He said something, but a burst of clapping at the end of a song drowned him out. I bent down to hear better and his smell almost floored me. He had it all, layers of body odour, urine and the rotten meat smell of decaying teeth.
‘A clean exit to a better world,’ he said.
‘Do you live here, Mr…?’
‘Montefiore. I have, not now. Are you making enquiries?’
‘God, is it that obvious? Yes, I am in a way, but I’m also here to pay my respects.’
‘You’ve done it.’ He held up the bottle. ‘Leon would have been pleased to know that such a quality beverage was being served at his wake.’
‘Did you know him well, Mr Montefiore?’
‘Edgar. Yes, quite well.’
I looked around the room. Ann was talking to the woman in pink, who was swaying on her chair. A great lock of red hair had fallen across her face and she was trying to push it back, but getting less interested. Mrs Jenkins had brought out a cigarette-rolling machine and Ann was making them. A few people around the table were watching with critical, greedy eyes.
I turned back to Edgar, who was filling his mug again. The high-quality beverage was getting to him because he was rocking slightly and his bloodshot eyes were glassy.
‘Edgar, do you happen to know what Leon had been doing the day he died?’
