that was to let whoever was interested know that I had the incriminating material. Was I up for that? Yes, I was, but how to do it?
Lily hadn’t neglected security. She’d installed a sophisticated alarm system in her house which had either been bypassed or she’d forgotten to activate it. Not unknown. Whoever I was up against now was good at whatever he, or she, or they, did. But so was I.
6
I phoned Daphne Rowley to ask her if the cops had checked on my alibi for the early part of the night of Lily’s death.
‘Just now,’ she said.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘This D got me on the phone and then came around. Had a policewoman with him.’ She gave an amused snort. ‘For protection, I guess.’
‘That’d be Gregory, would it?’
‘No. Hang on, I’ve got his card here… hard-nut wog named Kristos.’
Nothing politically correct about Daphne. ‘Came on strong, did he?’
‘I’ll say. He wanted to know the exact time you arrived and when you left. How many games we played, how long we held the table. The lot.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘What I could remember. Who keeps track of time when the balls are clicking, if you’ll excuse the expression, and the schooners’re going down?’
‘Right. Did he take notes?’
‘You kidding? He left that to the sheila and her Palm Pilot-Constable What’s-her-face.’
‘Farrow?’
‘That’s it. She seemed okay, for a copper.’
I thanked her and rang off. Here was a new player and a new level of interest, and I wondered why. I got the answer within a few minutes when Tony Truscott appeared at my door. He was wearing sweats and said he’d been doing some jogging.
‘From Hunters Hill?’
‘Fuck, no. Around your Jubilee Park here. Lily… told me about it. Jogging’s so fucking boring you need to have something to look at. I like the water and the birds and the trees and the bridge, you know.’
‘Yeah. Coming in, Tony?’
‘No, mate, I have to be at the gym in half an hour. It was a good bash for Lily, wasn’t it?’
‘Sure was. So…?’
Like most boxers, Tony had trouble keeping still. It was fatal to do so in the ring, and the habit carried over into everyday life. He swayed and jiggled, just a little. ‘I heard from Lily’s solicitor about her will. Just wanted you to know, man, that it’s cool with me. You were good for her.’
‘Thanks, Tony. I dunno… it broke me up a bit.’
‘Yeah, well, the thing is, this fucking copper came around trying to make a big thing of it.’
‘Detective named Kristos?’
‘Yeah, you know him?’
In a strange way I felt I did, even though it was only the second time the name had come up. I’d met them before- middle-ranked officers aspiring to climb higher in the eyes of their loftier bosses.
‘Heard of him,’ I said. ‘What did he have to say?’
‘Wanted to know all about you, but his fucking meaning was clear-reckoned you could’ve killed Lily for the money.’
‘What did you say, or do?’
Tony was really jiggling now. ‘Jerry would’ve been proud of me. I wanted to hit him, first off. Then I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. But I just told him to leave my home.’
I had to smile. The expression was so unlike Tony, I could imagine the control it had taken to produce it.
‘What did he do?’
‘What could he do? He’s a big bastard who looked like he’d have a go if I’d been willing. He had this sexy policewoman with him and didn’t want to look a wuss. But off he went. He’s bad news, Cliff. If you need some help
‘Like I said before, I’ll ask. Thanks, Tony. Go and sweat some more.’
He turned and moved down the path to the gate. He threw a punch at an overgrown bush, maybe a weed. ‘Are you…?’
‘I’m on it, mate. However long it takes.’
He nodded and threw a combination. ‘I’m moving up. The WBA title’s vacant. I could be in for a shot. Next one’s for Lily, Cliff.’
‘God help him,’ I said.
All I had to work with were Lily’s encrypted initials. I remembered Tim Arthur, at the wake, saying how closely he and Lily had worked on some stories. Would he know about her code? Arthur had retired in his mid- fifties as an editor, presumably on a big pay-out, but he wrote an occasional column for Blackstone, a magazine dealing with legal matters. I called the magazine and got a phone number for Arthur. I rang him and he agreed to meet me. He was due to play golf at Moore Park at midday but he said he’d get there an hour early for some practice and I could talk to him then.
The sky was leaden with rain threatening, but golfers will play any time except when there’s lightning and thunder. It was cold, too. I rugged up and drove to the course. It was mid-week and the car park was full, evidently a competition day. I squeezed into a spot between two 4WDs. The youngster in the pro shop told me that I’d find Arthur in the second bay at the driving range.
It was a massive concrete and steel structure with a roof and about thirty spots for the golfers to hit balls down into an area of a couple of acres. A machine to scoop the balls up was parked at the end of the range and when I arrived there were twenty or more devotees hitting, cursing, hitting again. Arthur was a tall, rangy bloke, still thin in his early sixties, and to my ignorant eye he seemed to have a smooth stroke. I watched him hit six or seven balls a very long way and couldn’t see why he needed to practise.
He caught sight of me and gestured for me to wait. He put the club he’d been using back in his bag, selected another and hit again. This time the balls didn’t go nearly as far but they described pretty, looping arcs and Arthur seemed satisfied. He put the club back, left the ball bucket that was almost empty where it was, and wheeled his buggy towards me. The others were still hitting and Arthur put his finger to his lips and led the way out of earshot.
We’d met once or twice before the wake and only briefly then. We shook hands. ‘Did you want to have a hit? You look like you’ve got the build.’
‘No, thanks. I’m a golf virgin and think I’ll stay that way. You looked good. What’s your handicap?’
‘Nine. Used to be four. Age adds the strokes. What’s on your mind, Cliff? Has to be Lily.’
According to the signs, we were walking towards the first tee. I told him I was unsatisfied with the police investigation and was following up some lines of enquiry of my own. I said Lily had been working on some stories and I had drafts and notes and thought they might have a bearing on her murder.
‘Possibly,’ he said. ‘She was a goer. We both got death threats when we were working on an immigration scam story. How can I help you?’
We reached the tee and sat down. A group of players were hitting and there were two other groups of four standing by. Arthur’s companions hadn’t yet arrived so I had time. A voice over the PA system told the next group to hit. I took my notebook from my pocket and showed him the list of initials that had been sprinkled through Lily’s notes.
