She moved into the light and her finely-shaped head picked up a sort of aura. She was wet and breathing heavily; I should have heard that from the path, but it wasn’t my night for professional standards.
My initial feelings were completely erotic. Extreme tiredness can do that to you. I wanted to hurry inside with her and let everything go to hell except sex. The fantasy lasted perhaps a tenth of a second before the veneers of civilisation and notions of professional conduct and God knows what other inhibitions crowded it out. I took hold of her arm and I could feel her shaking. I hung on hard, got the key in the lock and opened the door. She stumbled ahead of me into the passage and threw her hand up over her face when I turned on the light. I clutched her harder, perhaps out of a fear that she’d run away, perhaps from lust. She wrenched her arm back and I felt the pain shoot along and affect her voice.
“You’re hurting me!”
I said I was sorry and let her go. I went past her into the house turning on lights and leaving her to follow me if she wanted to. I opened the refrigerator and got out some wine.
“Drink?”
“Yes, thanks.”
I poured the drink and set it down on the table. I didn’t look at her too closely. I was conscious of the slenderness of my hold on her and she was the only tangible thing I had left of the Noni Tarelton case. If she was part of it at all. Suddenly I was sure that she was. She stood in the middle of the kitchen dripping water on the floor from the soaked nap of her coat. I sat down at the table.
“Take your coat off, Penny, and sit down. I’m sorry I hurt your arm, I’ve had a rough night and I’m not thinking too straight.” I mustered up a smile from somewhere and made unbuttoning motions with my hands. She undid the coat, slipped out of it and dropped it over a chair. A stream of water ran off it and made a pool on the floor. She sat down and drank three inches of wine in one steady pull. The tiny breasts pushed up under her white skivvy and I tried to distract myself with the wine. I drained my glass and poured some more. I held the flagon up enquiringly.
“No, this’ll do.” She sipped the stuff as if it had a name and an age.
“Why are you here, Penny? What’s going on? Sunday told me you wanted to contact me.”
She curled her hands around the glass and wouldn’t look at me.
“I saw Noni. Just by accident. In Balmain. I tried to tell you.”
“Why didn’t you call again?”
“I couldn’t. They left the cafe. I rang Jimmy while they were eating.”
“What were you doing in Balmain?”
“I got a job there, in a solicitor’s office. I started yesterday. I won’t have the job now, I haven’t been in today.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been looking for you, waiting for you.”
“Why me?”
“I want to see Noni in a box. You said you’d let things work out the way they had to. Noni’s with a man who’ll kill her. I’m sure of it.”
I described Berrigan and she nodded vigorously. “Yes, that’s him!”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I was in this cafe having coffee and reading the paper. I was hidden by the paper when they came in. They sat down a couple of tables away and ordered food. I could just hear what they were saying.”
“Which was?”
“They were having an argument, about plans or something. His plans and her plans. And about money. I couldn’t catch the details.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I tried to get you through Jimmy. I got a bit closer to them when I came back. I was wearing these big shades and Noni didn’t look at me. She wouldn’t recognise me easily anyway. She hasn’t seen me often enough.”
“What did you hear this time? Where was this by the way?”
She named an all-night cafe in Darling Street. “I heard him say that if it all went alright they’d have the money anyway. She was saying they’d missed the money or something like that.”
I drank wine and thought about the story. It sounded alright, a bit too pat perhaps but she’d had time to get it straight. It fitted the facts as far as I knew them but it didn’t lead anywhere.
“Anything else?”
She drank some more of the wine, a little nervously I thought. She stood up, went across to the coat on the chair and dipped into a pocket. She came up with some filter cigarettes and I lit one for her. She puffed at it and fiddled with the spent match.
“I know where he… where they’re going after the plan is finished, whatever that is.” She drew in smoke and expelled it through her finely-shaped dark brown lips. The hand holding the cigarette was shaking and she was staring at my face as if willing me to do what she wanted, including, maybe, believe her.
I tried to keep anxiety out of my voice. “Where would that be Penny?”
“I’ll tell you if you promise to take me with you and let me in on whatever happens.”
I shook my head. “No, it could be rough. Besides, I’d have to search you for concealed weapons.”
“Nothing like that,” she said fiercely, “I promise. I just want to be there. I could help.”
I was sure she wasn’t telling me the whole truth, but I could only guess what she’d left out. I was sure that she didn’t know of Berrigan’s death. That meant we’d both be heading into a tricky situation with only partial knowledge of the background facts. That sounded like a recipe for misunderstandings and disaster. But in the plan that was slowly forming in my head she could certainly be a help. In fact, the more I thought about it, she was indispensable. I couldn’t take her on without checking her story though. That done, I could risk it. I had to, anyway.
“Alright, I’ll take you. Where?”
“Macleay. I know where in Macleay, too, but I’ll tell you that when we get there.”
I grinned. “You’re like an old pro. Fair enough, I’ll check the flights.” I got up and started to move out of the kitchen. “Got any money?” I said over my shoulder.
The airline informed me there was a flight north at seven-thirty a.m. I booked two seats. When I got back Penny had tipped the contents of a small embroidered purse over the table and had arranged things in piles. The money didn’t amount to much of a pile. “Twenty three dollars, thirty eight cents,” she said quietly.
“I’ve got about a hundred. We’ll need more. I’ll have to go out tonight and get some.”
“Don’t go out.” I looked up, surprised at the different note in her voice. She was pushing her hair back with both hands. Her figure was lean and flat but definitely female. I felt the juices flowing again and she came around the table to where I’d sat down. She leaned over and pushed the wine away, then she bent and kissed me on the lips. She tasted fresh and salty like a clean stretch of sea on a clear day. I hooked my arm up around her neck and pressed her head down for another kiss, a long one. I felt my tiredness drop away. I felt eighteen years old and I wanted her. I stood up and put my arms around her. She was slim and firm like a young tree. It seemed as if my arms could go around her twice and I was feeling younger by the minute. I was hard and breathing fast and she was pressing her hips forward at me and then suddenly it felt all wrong. I was twice her age and a few years more and she was alien and strange. The bones of her back felt fragile under my hands and I felt clumsy and old. I eased her away.
“It’s not a good idea,” I croaked.
She looked incredulously at me. “You want to, you’re hard as a rock.”
“I know, but I don’t go to bed with teenagers. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”
“Bullshit.” She embraced herself, crossing her arms, and pulled off her skivvy. Her tight trousers had a silky sheen and they shimmered as she slipped out of them and let them slide to the floor. I watched her thumb down her pants and the hard, spare lines of her brown body cut off my breath. She squeezed her minuscule breasts together with the spread fingers of one hand.
“Come on, I like you.” Her teeth shone in her beautiful dark face but her eyes were as hard as agate. I was suddenly aware that she was giving a performance, a good but cold one and I resisted the knowledge but it took over and gripped me. I reached for the wine.
