She was right. It had been good, tentative to begin with as we discovered what worked, what was exciting and unusual. We used our hands and mouths and I only entered her at the very end, almost as a courtesy that neither of us cared too much about. That, of course, made it all the more exciting and we finished by bucking and thrusting each other into sweaty exhaustion.
‘It’s only about eight o’clock,’ she said. ‘And we haven’t eaten.’
‘Hmm. I wouldn’t say that.’
She laughed. ‘D’you want to go out to eat, or something, Cliff?’
I kissed the top of her head. ‘No. I’ll eat anything you’ve got in the kitchen that isn’t actually moving. I’ve had a very hard day- interviews, research, surfing, sleeping on the beach
‘What beach?’
‘Redhead. Why?’
‘Nothing. I thought you might’ve gone to see Mr Jacobs with your information.’
‘I can’t do that until I talk to you.’
I felt her body stiffen slightly as some of the sexual languor departed. Well, it had to happen. I felt lazy and relaxed physically, but as I lay there and looked out at the night sky I was aware that this was only part of the story. I hadn’t only come there to fuck. We seemed to reach similar states of mind simultaneously; she rolled away and reached for her shirt which was on the floor by the bed and I swung my legs clear and felt for my pants. We were holding up the garments, arranging them for putting on, when we both burst into laughter. We rolled on the bed, hugging and kissing and I felt the soft swell of her belly and the warmth between her legs.
‘I’m too old,’ I said.
‘Don’t be silly. Do the best you can. I don’t mind.’
It was another half hour before we dressed and went back to the kitchen-dining room, both now seriously hungry and thirsty. Glen wasn’t much into house-keeping. She had bread and cheese and eggs and a lettuce and tomatoes and onions and that was about all, apart from breakfast cereal and milk and some grapes. We boiled the eggs and laid the rest of it out, minus the cereal, on the table and ate it with a few glasses of the white wine to wash it down. I took the Bach file from the floor where it had fallen and showed it to her. It wasn’t a time for negotiation-we were into the realm of trust or the past two hours had meant nothing at all.
She read through the papers as she ate and drank, diluting her wine with mineral water so that after the first two glasses it was scarcely alcoholic at all. I followed suit, heavier on the wine.
‘How did you get on to this?’ she said.
I told her about the interview with Mark Roper and the opening of Oscar Bach’s box.
She examined the map with the crosses and pulled a face. ‘You’re hoping it’s negative on these four places for rapes and abductions?’
I nodded.
‘Don’t know yet. The computer records aren’t that good. I’d have to say it’s maybe for Wentworth Falls at least.’
‘What’s the case?’
‘Sixteen-year-old. Not the type to go missing, but vanished without a trace. Pretty blonde girl. Isn’t it amazing? We fucked while we were holding on to this sort of information.’
I shrugged. ‘They screwed in Belsen. Did you find out anything else about Schmidt?’
She tapped the photostats into a neat pile and slipped them back inside the manilla folder. ‘Sort of. If anyone had bothered to look he would’ve shown up as very odd. His commercial references don’t check out. He didn’t register his business, didn’t have any insurance. The name is a deed poll job, pretty recent. The driver’s licence is an outright fake. He must have known somebody in that racket.’
‘That figures,’ I said. ‘The question is, did he assault, rape or kill anyone in any of those four locations? If he did, you have to act on this, Glen.’
‘I know. Get in touch with the detectives who worked on the cases, if there are any, contact the parents… shit! Well, that’s my problem, but I can see yours-Mr Jacobs.’
‘Right. He’ll probably fire me. He won’t want to hear any of this. Now that’ll be OK by his son, Ralph
‘Who probably put the frighteners on you the other night.’
I looked at her, possibly with my mouth hanging open.
She reached over and touched the healed cuts on my face. ‘We know about Ralph. He’s a Sydney smoothie now, dead respectable, but not so long ago he was a real head-kicker. It wasn’t too hard to figure out that he’d try to discourage you. Didn’t work, did it?’
‘No. I’d rather like to meet him again.’
‘Again? So he warned you off?’
‘The motto on my tombstone should read “he only had himself to blame”.’
She digested that as we cleaned up the kitchen. She smoked a cigarette while she made coffee. She’d put on her silk shirt and her knickers but her legs were bare and I admired her slightly chunky calves as she moved. She caught me looking. ‘Perv,’ she said.
‘You’re safe for tonight.’
‘You underestimate yourself, or me. Are you staying?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ll come to your motel if you like. How’s the bed?’
‘I think it’s got automatic massage.’
‘Unnecessary. What’s wrong?’
I would have been hard put to say. I liked her more than any woman I’d been with in years. The sex had been good and we were communicating well and building something, maybe. But I didn’t know whether that was what I wanted. I could hear Helen Broadway’s voice and the worst thing was, as I drank some wine and smelled Glen Withers on my fingers, the smell reminded me of Helen. There was no way to tell her this. I grinned and put the sheets back inside the manilla folder. My brain raced to find something to say to her that would explain my movements. ‘Glen,’ I said.’ All that checking and talking to detectives is going to take time. After tomorrow I probably won’t have an employer but there’s something I’d still want to do. You’ll think it’s crazy.’
She came across and gave me a kiss that tasted of salad and cigarette. ‘No I won’t. You want to go down to Heathcote and talk to Rory Coleman. I’d want to do the same. Just so long as you come back.’
14
I stayed the night. We made love again and slept and in the morning we walked down the gravel road to the beach which was clean and bright apart from a few things left on the sand by the tide. Glen walked along collecting plastic bottles and other rubbish and deposited it in the one bin on the beach. The bin was rusted and holey and the smaller bits of debris fell straight through onto the sand. I scraped them up and wrapped them in a plastic bag that had been half buried in the sand.
Glen shook her head. ‘Animals. I saw a kid get off his board with a broken ankle strap. Would have been the easiest thing in the world to bring it up here, but he just tossed it on the sand. We don’t deserve these beaches.’
‘Looks like you do what you can,’ I said.
‘I have to go to work; she said. ‘You could get to Horrie Jacobs’ place by foot from here if you wanted to. Just go to the end of the beach and you’ll find a track. It’ll bring you out down below his place. The walk’ll do you good.’
She gave me a quick kiss and moved away. I knew what she was doing-drawing some kind of a line under last night, avoiding goodbyes. I wasn’t going away, just walking on the beach. She’d showed me where the key to her house was. I had her phone number. We were still co-operating as investigators. Anything else would develop, or not, according to whatever laws govern these things. As I walked towards the far end of the beach I felt something like the kids at Redhead-seizing the time. It was a good feeling.
There was less wind than yesterday and the promise of a warmer day, building on what had been left behind. The beach was wide and the grass and shrubs on the low dunes seemed to have a good purchase. There
