She took a mobile phone from her bag and raised an eyebrow. I read off the number from Lou's card and she dialled it.
'Hello, Ms Kramer? My name is Sharon Marchant. I'm Billie's sister. I understand you talked to her not so long ago-that right?'
There aren't many things worse than being excluded from a conversation that interests you intensely. I fiddled with my glass.
'Okay. And you've hired a man named Cliff Hardy to help you?'
The painkillers and the alcohol had cut in. I was feeling competent, in control, and let my gaze wander to the horizon. Maybe the painkillers were having a mind-altering effect because I was suddenly aware of what had been nagging at me since I'd reached Campbelltown. The sky was immense, the horizon far distant and human problems seemed less important than they do in the enclosed environments of the city. Careful, Cliff, I thought, you've got a living to earn.
Sharon closed her phone and picked up her glass. 'She wanted to talk to you but I said she could do it on her own dime.'
'My mobile's in the car. I kind of dislike it.'
She shrugged.
I guessed her age at around forty but she was carrying it well. Her figure was firm and her face, though lined, was still taut where it mattered. Those Marchant genes had to be good. 'Well, I'll tell you why I was in that shit-hole. Billie's there. She's shacked up with this Tongan arsehole, Yolande.'
'I've heard of him. Some kind of vigilante?'
'I dunno about that. He's a God botherer, like a lot of them, and he's trying to get her off stuff.'
'Stuff?'
She raised her glass and took a pull on the cigarette she'd puffed on throughout the phone call. 'Fags and booze, speed-you name it. She got desperate and called me and I went there. Shit!'
She ground out the cigarette. 'They're praying over her when she's asleep and reading the Bible at her and singing their hymns and it's driving her crazy. I tried to get her to come away with me and I reckon she was almost ready to even though she's in a mind-fucked fog, and then that big bastard arrived.'
'Manuma.'
'Right. He's got them all under the thumb. Shit, I don't know what to do. She's my sister and I love her, but… I know she's trouble. Fair killed our mum.'
'What about the boy?'
She almost dropped her lighter on its way to the cigarette in her mouth. 'You know about him?'
I showed her the photograph.
She got the cigarette lit, inexpertly. 'How did you get this?'
I told her. It seemed to make her take my presence and interest in her sister more seriously. She flattened out a corner of the photo that had got bent. 'She'd love to have this back, I'm sure.'
'Why would she leave it behind?'
'She overdosed accidentally on some bad shit. Yolande packed her up and moved her to his place. She's been there ever since, under… what d'you call it? House arrest. Getting the Jesus treatment. What she needs is proper stuff-detoxification, counselling and that.'
'Is this Yolande the boy's father? What's his name by the way?'
'Samuel. Sam. No, not Yolande. That's only been going on for a couple of years. Sam came along, oh, fifteen years ^a g°{
'Before Eddie?'
She blew smoke. 'You do know a bit, don't you?'
'I knew Eddie. He was in the same game, but he played by different rules.'
'Eddie,' she said. 'What a loser. To tell you the truth, I don't think Billie knows who Sam's father was. She had a thing for black blokes at the time.'
'Black as in?'
She shrugged. 'Kooris, mostly. We both went that way for a while. We're said to have a touch of it ourselves, would you believe?'
'Plenty do, they say. A lot more than know it or admit it. But you've dodged the question. Where's Sam now?'
All of a sudden, the initial wariness she'd displayed was back. 'Look, you've bought me a couple of drinks and showed you're caught up in something involving Billie. But I don't know anything about this Clement you mentioned. Why d'you want to know about Sam?'
I took off the sunglasses and let her see my eye. 'My client, Lou Kramer, the woman you just spoke to, claims that Clement had Eddie Flannery killed because he knew something about Clement's business and tried to make a quid out of it. Clement found out I was working for Lou and I copped this for my trouble. Lou thinks Billie might know what Eddie knew and, if she does, she's in danger. The kid makes her vulnerable if Clement gets wind of him. Does any of this make sense?'
'I need another drink.'
'You'll be too high to drive.'
'I can walk. I live here. Get me a drink while I think this over a bit.'
I kept my eye on her while I got the drink, wondering whether she might do a runner. But she sat, apparently doing what she said-thinking. I glanced out of the window at my car and thought Lou Kramer must be frantically trying to call me on the mobile. Given the way she'd been playing things I didn't mind the ball being in my court for a bit. I put the drink down on a coaster near the ashtray.
'Not having one?'
'I'll be driving.'
'You're going to have to tell me a bit more about this woman you're working for.'
I'd been very sketchy on that and a few other matters and now I filled in some details.
'How much money's she making out of this?'
'I don't know, but a good deal. Clement's a high profile figure, a big poppy. When they come down there's always a lot of interest. Plus he's got connections to other people who're even more interesting than him.'
'Like?'
If I mentioned Peter Scriven and the lost millions she'd know who I was talking about-every news magazine in the country had run articles on him and his face was as familiar as Ian Thorpe's. But I wasn't quite ready to go that far, talking that kind of money, which, anyway, Lou had said wasn't her main interest. I pushed some chip fragments around the wet table top.
'Look, Sharon, we're fencing here. You're playing Sam's whereabouts close to your chest and I'm inclined to do the same from my end. How about you tell me a bit about yourself, your connection with Billie and Sam and Eddie, and we can take it from there.'
She was half drunk by now. 'You're a careful type, aren't you?'
'Middle name.'
She sighed and suddenly looked tired and every day of her age. She fiddled with an unlit cigarette and went into a rambling account of her life, almost from day one to now. Connected narrative wasn't her strong suit and the grog wasn't helping. She and Billie were only two years apart and they'd been very close as kids. Both tearaways, drop-outs, broken home products. In her twenties Sharon had slowed down, married but it didn't last, had a child, gone to art school and now earned her living as a children's book illustrator and giving painting lessons. Billie had stayed on her original track with Sam being about the only good thing that had happened to her.
'Certainly couldn't call Eddie that,' she said, 'or Yoli. I got Sam away from Billie a few years ago. I know where he is, she doesn't.'
'What about your child?'
'She's fine. I was lucky. Her dad's supportive, sort of. She's in her first year at uni. Flats in Campbelltown, comes home a lot.' She raised her glass, snapped the cigarette in half with her other hand and dropped the pieces into the ashtray. 'You probably won't believe me, but this is the most serious drinking and smoking I've done in years.'
