‘You mean I won’t blackmail you?’ I said.
‘That’s right, I’m no good at blackmail, I can never find the right words in the newspapers to make up the threatening letter.’
His hands were pale and puffy, and he clasped and unclasped them as if he was practising handshakes. He looked even more nervous than before-nervousness is standard in a client, a sense of humour is a bonus.
I sighed. ‘I’m pretty honest, Mr Matthews, and I might be able to help you. Tell me more about this leech who has his hooks into your mother.’
He looked at his watch and I guessed he was in his lunch hour; leisured clients are a vanishing breed. ‘My father died six months ago’, he said. ‘He was old, it was expected. He left my mother quiet well provided for. She has a house free of debt, his superannuation and some income from shares and such.’
‘Do you live with her?’ I asked.
‘Oh no, I have a flat quite close. I’m single, but I left home many years ago.’ He let the words hang there for a bit, awkwardly. ‘I didn’t get along with my father,’ he added.
‘I see. What was this vampire’s name again?’
He looked puzzled for a second, the colourful language he’d used wasn’t his usual style. ‘Oh, that was a bit excessive perhaps-Jacobs, Henry Jacobs. He handled the arrangements for my father’s funeral, that’s how he and my mother became acquainted. He’s been dancing attendance on her ever since.’
‘What sort of attendance?’
‘Flowers; I suppose he gets them cheap. He takes her to dinner, it’s appalling.’
‘How old is your mother, Mr Matthews?’
‘Oh, not old, fifty-five I suppose. She was younger than father.’ Again, he hadn’t finished, he seemed to have a need to explain. ‘I’m an only child.’
He was a man of thirty-plus, still referring to himself as a child. It sounded odd and had a scent of parlours and lavender.
‘Tell me about this Jacobs.’
He described Jacobs as middle-aged and portly. He thought he might be a foreigner from the way he dressed, mentioning particularly his highly polished shoes. His funeral parlour was in Manly where Matthews and his mother also lived. I wrote down the addresses and leaned back in my chair; it creaked dangerously and I came forward quickly; the desk was a bit rickety and the carpet square was arranged off centre to hide the holes. I needed the work but I had to give him a few hard truths first.
‘I charge one hundred and twenty-five dollars a day and expenses, Mr Matthews. I also need a retainer of two hundred and fifty dollars.’
He didn’t blink. ‘I’ll be happy to pay it’, he said.
‘I have to do something’. He got out a useful-looking cheque book and I waited until he was writing before asking the next question.
‘What does your mother say about Jacobs?’
He looked up. ‘I wouldn’t dream of asking her about her personal life’, he said firmly.
Keep writing I thought, and he did. That would be right of course, he wouldn’t ask her, she wouldn’t ask him and nobody would ask dad. Clean rooms, neat garden, polished car and a shandy at Christmas if you were lucky. It wasn’t exciting-it was drawn blinds stuff, a high hedge and a smile for the neighbours, but it has compensations, it can make for very healthy building society accounts; I gave him a businesslike thrust. ‘Do you know anything about Jacobs’ business associates?’
‘Not really. He has a solicitor crony who has an office nearby. He’s introduced my mother to him. I’m very worried about it.’
‘Why?’
‘I think he might be trying to get her to change her will.’
‘Aha’, I said.
Manly is like a foreign country to people like me who live on the other side of the water. The roads are wide and the hills are gradual; some of the streets and cul-de-sacs have a European feel. Henry Jacob’s funeral parlour was genuinely Australian, that is to say, a genuine copy of the Californian model. The building was long and low with smoked glass windows and courtyards covered with little white stones. The funeral column in The News had told me that a show was scheduled for that afternoon. I parked across the street and watched the people dressed in dark, hot clothes mope about while a couple of gleaming limousines disgorged the living and transported the dead. Jacobs wans’t hard to spot; he had the act off perfect, the slow movement, the solicitude, the Nazi-like direction of the underlings. He was carrying thirty pounds he didn’t need, looked swarthy and seemed to shine somewhat from a distance. His teeth were very white and he showed them a lot. After the cortege had left I walked across the street and strolled past the sanctum; a grey-uniformed zombie standing outside the entrance gave me a hard stare. Next to Jacobs’ place was a luxury car showroom, then a Vietnamese restaurant and then a nasty cream brick building which carried a brass plate in front-W J Hornfield, LLB(Syd), Solicitor. A fine profession, I thought; my mother had wanted me to go in for the law and my father had thought I’d make a plumber-I’d been a terrible disappointment to them both.
I turned to go back to my car and saw Jacobs, who’d sent his 21C to the burning, coming out of his establishment. The zombie stepped out of a silver grey Jag which he’d driven up, so the master only had to walk twenty feet to get behind the wheel. He drove off sedately and I re-crossed the road; a woman who’d been gardening out in front of her house was watching Jacobs’ car as it cruised off. I bustled up to her fence.
‘That was Mr Jacobs was it, madam?’
‘That was him.’ She was small and old, but not frail.
‘Damn’, I said. ‘Missed him again.’
‘Are you burying someone? Give Henry a miss.’
‘No, I’m a journalist, I’m writing an article on the funeral business and I wanted to talk to Mr Jacobs. But that’s an interesting comment, madam. Would you care to add to it?’
She smiled, and all the lines on her face responded; they seemed to have been etched by good humour. ‘I might; is it worth anything?’
‘Well… expenses… I could pay you for your time, say ten dollars for a half hour chat?’
‘Come inside.’
The house was brick and tile, solid and unpretentious. It was darkish, cool and well-kept without being fussy. She sat me down in the living-room and went off to make coffee. When she came back I had the ten out and gave it to her.
‘Thanks.’ She put the money on the mantelpiece between some china dogs. ‘Black?’
‘Please.’ I got out a notebook. ‘How long has Mr Jacobs been in business here Mrs…?’
‘Wetherell, Norma Wetherell. Not too long, four or five years, I’ve been here for forty. It was all different then.’
I’m sure. Why did you say he should be avoided?’
‘He’s a crook.’ She put three spoons of sugar in her coffee and stirred vigorously. ‘A friend of mine buried her husband with him; lovely man he was, it was a shame. I tell you if he’d been alive and heard what that man charged, he’d have punched his nose.’
I smiled. ‘Bit steep is he?’
‘Steep? He’s a thief. Extra for this, extra for that.’
I made some notes. ‘Umm, he’s got a nice car. But I suppose they all make money in that game. No law against it.’
She leaned forward. ‘He’s buried two wives since he’s been here’, she whispered. ‘Rich ones too I’ll be bound.’
I almost choked on the instant coffee. ‘How d’you know that?’
She grinned, pleased at the reaction. ‘Seen ‘em, both of ‘em. He’s got a flat at the back of the place. There they were, shopping, doing the laundry and then… phftt!’ She drew a finger across her throat.
‘When did this happen?’
‘One just after he got here; the other, let’s see, about two years back. Had your ten dollars worth?’
‘Nearly; how do you know they were his wives, actually wives?’
‘Notices in the paper. Course, he didn’t lay them down himself. It’s a wonder, though, still I suppose he got
