warfare than our withdrawal from Kabul…” and taking another drink of the rum and thinking what a shambles the Tarelton case was in and then nothing more. The couch was big enough and soft enough and I was drunk enough. I slept.
20
When I woke up Penny was standing over me with a cup of something emitting steam in her hand. I groaned and pulled myself up on the couch. I took the cup and sipped it. Instant coffee. Not the worst thing for my head just then but not the best. I ungummed my eyelids a second time, enough to see that Penny had put her clothes back on. Not that it mattered. I was in no condition to take her up on her offer of the night before if she should repeat it. Her hair was damp from the shower and her skin shone like polished copper.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“Thanks. What’s the time?”
“Six-thirty. The taxi’s due at seven. You’ve got time for a shower.”
“Thanks again.” I set the coffee down on the arm of the couch and swung my feet off it. My head rang like a J. Arthur Rank gong. I headed unsteadily for the shower. The water helped a bit. I felt better still after a shave and ready for a drink after I’d dressed. In the kitchen Penny was sinking a big white tooth into a piece of toast. I shuddered when she offered me some and got the white wine out of the fridge. When a tall glass of riesling and soda was fizzing in my hand I felt well enough to compliment her.
“Don’t work in offices. Go on television, advertise things, make yourself some money.”
“I might,” she said and knocked back half a pint of orange juice.
Carrying the drink with me I went from place to place collecting things. I packed a cassette tape recorder and a pair of binoculars into an overnight bag. An old credit card Ailsa’s firm had issued me and not cancelled went into my wallet and an unlicensed Colt automatic went into the lining of the parka where the. 38 had been. She had her coat on and the glasses and plates and cups were rinsed and stacked when the taxi honked outside. We went out of the house into a neutral and uncertain dawn.
We preserved silence on the drive to Mascot. The airport preliminaries weren’t any more complicated than usual and I still had a few dollars left after buying tickets, papers and magazines. Unlike most people, Penny was easy to travel with; she was there when she was needed and not in the way when she wasn’t. We got looks, usual I suppose for couples of mixed colour; half curiosity, half hostility. Penny noticed me glowering at the lookers.
“Don’t worry,” she said, taking my arm, “your lot have been staring at us since you got here.”
Flying was a novelty for her and she enjoyed the rituals of it all. I sat in my seat and obeyed orders slavishly out of some dark belief that this would keep me safe. When we were airborne Penny stared out of the window at the few flashes of green and brown that showed through that high-flying fog. We were half a hundred people flying blind, trusting our lives to a few fuses and valves. I tried to concentrate on the papers but couldn’t. Penny read in a desultory fashion for a while and then I felt her go tense beside me. I sneaked a look across and she was gnawing her lip.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m frightened.”
“Of flying?”
“No.” She waved strong men’s traumas away with one thin hand. “No, of course not. It’s nothing, flying. I thought it would be more exciting. It must be boring after the first time.”
I nodded. “Well then…?”
“All this. How’s it going to end? You haven’t even told me what’s happening.”
“You’re holding out on me, too.”
“Where they’re going? I told you I’ll tell you in Macleay.” She glanced around the cabin. “I suppose I can tell you now. We’re not going anywhere else.”
“It can wait,” I said sharply. “I think I know anyway. No, you’re holding back something else, but I’m not going to press you. In fact I’ll tell you things and not ask for anything from you. OK?”
“Why?” she said warily.
“I have reasons. Partly because I have to. I want you to do something for me and it won’t make sense unless you know what’s going on.”
I filled her in on some of the details – on the ransoms for Noni and who paid them and how the police were in on the whole thing now. I didn’t tell her about Berrigan’s death or about “Percy White”. She’d heard a little about Coluzzi and the fight game from friends. I expanded on that a bit and kept away from the subject of Ricky Simmonds until I mentioned Trixie Baker. Penny looked interested in the name.
“I’ve heard of her,” she said, “from Ricky I think. Doesn’t she have a farm or something?”
“That’s right, just out of Macleay. Ricky talked about her?”
The smooth brown skin on her forehead wrinkled. “I think so, once when he was a bit drunk, not so much about her as about someone who worked for her, one of us.”
“An Aborigine?”
She snorted. “I don’t mean a Hottentot.”
“OK, OK, keep your hair on. What did he say about this person of your own race?”
She looked at me to decide whether to take offence or not but I’d arranged my face in its most winning shape and she let it pass.
“I told you Ricky always seemed to be looking for someone. Well I asked him about it this time, when he was full and he said ‘I’m sure that was him, at Trixie Baker’s’ or something like that. I didn’t push him, it didn’t make sense to me. Does it mean anything to you?”
“I think so. Ricky was looking for his father, I reckon. I think his father and Berrigan robbed a bank in Macleay in 1966. Berrigan was connected with Trixie Baker, maybe Ricky’s father was too. Perhaps Ricky got a lead on him but couldn’t clinch it. Anyway, this is where you come in – I have to ask the Baker woman some questions and I haven’t got a chance in a million of getting in to see her.”
“Why?”
“The police already dislike me for leaving the scene of the crime – her bashing that is. I did, but I had no choice. That’s sort of been squared now in a way, but I’ll still be very unpopular around Macleay.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Done any acting?”
“A bit, street theatre, black theatre stuff.”
“That’ll do – this is a cinch for you. I’m going to get hold of a hospital cleaner’s uniform. Dressed in that you should be able to sneak around the hospital and find Trixie Baker. It can’t be a big place. I want you to take this in,” I tapped the bag with the tape recorder inside, “and ask her some questions. The right answers will sort this mess out. Will you do it?”
She seemed about to ask a question, an important question, but she bit it back.
“Yes,” she said quickly, “of course I will.”
“There’s another thing. Is there anyone in Kempsey, one of you I mean, who’d know all about the Aborigines in the area – who’s who and when and where?”
She didn’t have to think. “Yes, Charley Gurney, he was initiated, he’s old, a clever man. That means…”
“I know what it means. I’ve read Elkin. Would you take me to see him?”
She nodded. “Anything else?”
“That’s all for now, except to warn you that you’re in for a rough time. I expect all this to sort out, but I don’t expect it’ll come out neat and pretty.”
She shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“Yeah.” I picked up her hand. In my yellowed, scarred claw it looked like a soft, brown orchid. “I’m sorry as hell I had to refuse you last night, I didn’t want to.”
“You were right I think, but I’m sorry too.”
I put her hand back on the seat rest. “It’s better we didn’t because we’re on opposite sides in this even if you do help me. I want to get Noni Tarelton back home to her rich Dad in one piece and you’re not going to stop
