‘You’re right,’ I said, and left all the other things unsaid.
As we made the turn out of the national park, Felicia said, ‘I suppose you know you’re screwing up my life?’
We had made love before leaving the house early in the afternoon. It hadn’t been as good as the other times and we both knew it. We had both pretended otherwise, and we knew that too.
I had the photographs in the glove box and the gar-bag on the back seat of the Falcon. I was thinking more about them and all the questions surrounding them than about the woman. That was part of the trouble.
‘I’m sorry you feel like that, Fel. I wish you wouldn’t.’
‘I suppose you think we’ll end up just good friends when all this is over. Is this part of your investigative technique? Screwing one of the principals?’
I forced a laugh which sounded false, even to me. ‘I’m more likely to get screwed by the principals. Tell me, did you and Barnes talk much about him and Eleni Marinos?’
She was silent for a while, then she said, ‘Just once.’
‘Can you talk about it?’
She thought for about a mile before deciding she could talk. She told me that she’d found out that Barnes had spent a weekend at Thirroul with Eleni Marinos not long after their marriage. She had tackled him about it. ‘Barnes said it was to break off with her finally. I told him I thought our marriage was supposed to do that. He told me I didn’t understand. Shit!’
She reached into the glovebox for tissues; out of the corner of my eye I saw her hand fall on my gun in its holster. She was close to tears but she started to laugh instead. ‘Christ,’ she said. ‘A businessman who turns out to be a romantic and a tough guy who boils three-minute eggs. I can really pick ‘em. My life’s turning into a fantasy.’ She didn’t cry, so she didn’t need the tissue. She balled it up and threw it over her shoulder into the back seat with the gar-bag.
I reached across her and closed the glovebox.
‘Haven’t you got a licence for it?’ she said.
‘I have. Let’s stick to the point. Barnes must’ve said something more than, “You don’t understand.” He wasn’t an inarticulate man.’
‘Sure. Sure. He said she’d helped him at a time when he needed help. She’d encouraged him when he needed encouragement. I wanted to hear that like I wanted to read my own obituary.’
‘That’s all?’
‘He said she was in a bad way now, and that there was nothing sexual between them. He couldn’t just cut her off.’
‘What did he mean by that? Business or personal trouble?’
We were in Sydenham, negotiating the heavy traffic. I saw an Athena Security van up ahead and nearly braked as a reaction. She saw it too.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’m beginning to think that these business types don’t make a distinction. Like you.’
‘Come on, Fel. It’s not like that.’
‘Isn’t it? Well, anyway, I don’t know whether it was the one or the other. I got in a rage and didn’t listen.’
‘Try to remember. It could be important.’
‘Business. Personal. Who knows? There was a name mentioned. God, I don’t know. Reagan? No, that’s not it. Riley. Right. Riley was part of her trouble. Who the fuck’s Riley?’
‘He’s in the picture,’ I said. ‘He owns trucks. And people.’
All the oldtime pirates, bushrangers and bank robbers thought the same-if you’ve got something to hide, they reckoned, stash it somewhere that’s already been searched. Given that principle, I had plenty of hiding places available. I drove to Coogee, keeping a very careful watch for a tail. I circled the block around the Todd house, stopped, parked and pulled out at irregular intervals. It was warm in the car, and the procedure was tedious.
‘When can we stop this?’ Felicia said.
I was doing a careful check of all the parked cars for a couple of blocks in each direction. I had three or four more streets to cover. ‘When I’m sure,’ I said.
‘Wake me.’
I went on with the tour and included the Coogee Bay hotel in the survey. A good pub to while away some time in, but I saw nothing suspicious. Finally I stopped outside the house. I opened the bag, put on my rubber gloves and eased out two stocks and barrels. I wrapped a T-shirt lightly around them and put them with the photographs under the driver’s seat. I put the plastic bag inside my overnight bag and zipped it. ‘Okay, Fel. Let’s go inside.’ I knew what I wanted. I wanted to put the bag in her house and take her back to mine.
‘You’re going to walk into my house carrying your dirty weekend bag?’
‘Has to be that way. I’m sorry. Are you worried about your reputation?’
She slung her own bag over her shoulder. ‘Who gives a shit?’
We went through the gate and up the path towards the house. ‘You haven’t been back since the break-in, have you?’ I pointed to the bushes by the verandah. ‘That’s where I ripped my shirt getting up.’
‘Sue me,’ she said.
We went inside. Felicia prowled through the house, noting the results of the search-the disturbed rooms, the broken window in the kitchen. I gathered up the sheets she stripped savagely from the bed and put them on top of the gar-bag in the laundry basket that stood in the second bathroom beside the washer and dryer.
‘Finished, have you?’ She stood in the doorway, still holding her coat and looking at me as if I was the one who had desecrated her house.
I tugged at a sheet to give the laundry basket a natural look and didn’t answer. The telephone rang and she grabbed it. She listened, sighed and tapped her foot.
‘All right,’ she said, and hung up.
I watched her as she paced the floor like a nervous parent. ‘Piers Lang,’ she said at last. ‘I gather you and he had a little talk?’
Her expression was fierce. I didn’t reply.
‘I can’t stay here,’ she said. ‘I want to go to Redfern.’
I looked at her. She was standing with her legs slightly apart as if balanced to throw a left hook. It wasn’t the right time for me to offer her the comforts of my overpriced, undermaintained terrace. ‘That’s a good idea. I’ll drive you.’
‘I don’t care whether you think it’s a good idea or not. I’m going. My car’s in the street. I’ll drive myself. And you can go to hell.’
I didn’t argue. I left the house after getting the registration number of her white Camira and making sure she had my home and office numbers. I checked her car over carefully for signs of interference, found nothing and drove off. I parked at the top of the street and waited until she left the house and got into the car. The Camira had stood idle for a good few days and she had some trouble starting it. I wondered if it would become a farce-me giving her a push. But the car started. She drove away fast and recklessly and I followed her, taking precautions. She parked in Chalmers Street and got out of the car, carrying her bag. She banged her knee and swore. Then she moved stiffly, tight with anger or sorrow or both. I would have liked to comfort her.
It was late in the day and I was tired. The embryonic beard was itchy on my face. I wanted a shower and a shave; I wanted a big drink and a house that didn’t leak and smell of mould. I wanted a woman who didn’t lie to me more than I lied to her and didn’t change her mind and mood in ways I couldn’t fathom. And I wanted to find Kevin O’Fearna.
22
I slept badly. I fancied I could hear burglars and arsonists and graffitists working their way through the
