3

MY WATCH and handbag were conveyed in a plastic tray through an X-ray machine the size of a truck. As my belongings emerged, a guard opened my bag, and took out a teaspoon I kept for emergency yoghurt-snacking and put it behind the counter. I rushed under the metal-detecting arch to confront him.

‘Oh, good on you! Can’t be too careful with spoons. Lethal. I could use it to tap His Honour on the noggin like a boiled egg.’

The guard folded his arms and smiled with the smug righteousness of those with limited power. I waved my newly received Department of Justice ID at him, but he was unmoved. I glared at him, snatched my bag, and headed to court, struggling with my watchstrap. By the time I entered the courtroom it was nearly full. I saw Mrs Chol in the public gallery and eased past her supporters, neighbours, and relatives, to sit beside her. She gave me a grateful look and a quick squeeze of my hand. I had to look away; since the night of Adut’s murder last week, my obsession with his exercise book took the place of proper professional regard for my client — it made me feel like a traitor. If I had managed to get hold of the damn thing, maybe I could concentrate on other things, but every time I went to her place to try and get my hands on it something or someone hindered me. Like Bruce Copeland, the homicide detective who was in charge of the case.

He sat two rows from us playing a game on his phone. With his tortoise-shell spectacles and good manners, he was more librarian than hardened cop. I liked him because he had been in constant contact with Mrs Chol since Clacker was arrested and she had found him reassuring. But I was also annoyed with him because whenever I went to retrieve the exercise book, bloody Copeland was there and I had to leave empty-handed.

I glanced around the court. Staff of both legal teams were having last-minute whispered conferences. Clacker stood in the dock. He had a carrot-top with russet freckles and buckteeth. He wore a suit that only made him seem dodgy. The clothes, plus his slouch and botched tattoos were a biography of his childhood poverty, limited education, and time served. His tendency to use an unblinking angelic look, one I’d seen delinquents use many times, was a tell-tale sign that he was lying and gave the impression that Clacker was still a child. He was twenty-nine.

Verity Spinks, the prosecutor, stood and I leaned forward. There was CCTV footage, she said, that showed Clacker in the area of the Knock Knock restaurant at the time the kitchen hand saw Adut staggering down the alley having suffered fatal knife wounds. Items found in Clacker’s house included Adut’s phone, a knife matching the murder weapon, a large amount of cash, a small quantity of marijuana, and twenty grams of the drug commonly referred to as ‘ice’. It was, she concluded, a straight-forward case of aggravated robbery, resulting in the tragic death of a promising young teenager.

The grave personage of Finchley Price, dark-haired with a touch of grey at the temples, was barrister for the defence. He denied the significance of all of the prosecutor’s evidence. He sighed, shook his head, used the word circumstantial, and said he was bewildered as to why we were here wasting His Honour’s time.

At one point, I drifted off and started planning my evening — a two-step programme: go home, hit the cardboard. The disturbing thought arose that perhaps the wine cask in the fridge was empty, in which case, new plan: hit the bottle shop.

Eventually His Honour signalled he was ready to make his pronouncement. It appeared he did not like to see time wasted either. ‘I find sufficient evidence for the defendant Darren Clyde Pickering to stand trial for the murder of Adut Chol.’

Darren’s mother pointed at him. ‘You lyin’ fuckin cunt.’

At that moment the gallery erupted. Clacker’s supporters were yelling abuse at the magistrate, the press, everyone. Security guards and several cops stormed in and started removing people. His Honour called for calm, pounding the desk like a carpenter on crack.

Mrs Chol accepted words of comfort from her supporters, and when the courtroom was cleared we went out together. Near the main entrance, Copeland was waiting for us. He clasped her hands in both of his. ‘Do you understand the verdict?’

‘Yes, Bruce,’ said Mrs Chol.

‘There’ll be a trial. It’s a way to go yet, but we’ll get there.’

‘Thank you, Bruce,’ she said.

Copeland gave a sad little smile and pushed his glasses back. He shot me a parting look — for what, I didn’t know — and went out, where the waiting media mobbed him.

We waited inside until the photographers and journalists who were surrounding Copeland had gone further along the street. The day was becoming gloomy, and low clouds gathered over the city. Heavy drops of rain splattered around us as we went down the steps of the old court building.

‘How’s Mabor?’

She frowned. ‘Quiet.’

‘Back at school?’

‘Yes. He walks his sisters to the primary school then he goes on by himself to high school.’

‘Maybe I should come over and see how he’s going? Like tonight? How’s tonight?’

‘No, Stella, thank you. Lately, Mabor likes to keep to himself. After school he goes to his room, does his homework. He comes out only to eat. But if you want to come and visit with me, have some coffee, it would be all right. Maybe tomorrow?’

I swallowed, one more day. ‘Great. Tomorrow then.’

She hailed a taxi and I watched it meld into the sour Melbourne traffic. Taxis were expensive. If she took one to court and back every day of the trial she’d be broke in a week. I’d offered to arrange a lift for her but she was determined to travel alone by cab. To her, the cost seemed irrelevant, which puzzled me.

I turned to leave and caught sight of Finchley Price pacing down William Street. He was bleating into a mobile. His arrogant demeanour had been replaced by a hunched, anxious whispering as he made for his chambers. He looked stately though, with the black silk gown billowing behind him. The man rocked a wig and robe, I’d give him that. For my part, I fought the evening commuters for a seat on the next tram heading to West Maribyrnong. I sat down and looked out the window, but all I could see was myself sitting in the dock, humiliated and condemned, while Verity Spinks waved around Exhibit A: a battered exercise book.

Between the tram stop and my home, I detoured via the local fish and chip shop. While waiting for my order, I let my gaze linger on a wall-mounted television, a fast moving series of images: rain, floods, water washing away once firm ground. Then some perky newsreader came on, skimpy camisole, big hair, and inappropriate smile. News, entertainment — who could tell, these days?

And in finance news, mining company CC Prospecting has urged the government to maintain foreign ownership rules and disallow the entrance of non-Australian companies in the bidding war for control of the Shine Point refinery. CC Prospecting is in a bidding war with Chinese and other foreign companies for the project.

I cared not. The rain had eased to a drizzle. Passing headlights shone on the wet Union Road tram tracks. A stocky man stood across the street from my building, apparently waiting for someone. Fool, I thought, wearing shorts and thongs in this weather. He made me cold just looking at him. At least he had had the good sense to pull his hoodie up over his head, against the rain.

Entering my apartment, I dropped the parcel of minimum chips and grilled flake on the coffee table. I was in my bedroom changing out of my work outfit and into tracksuit pants when I heard the clack of heels on the landing. I opened the door to Tania, hair in an up-do and dressed in skinny jeans.

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘What’s up?’

She seemed confused for a moment. ‘Oh. Are you busy?’ She had her handbag over her shoulder and a David Jones shopping bag in her hand. In the other hand, down by her side, I could see a bottle of wine.

‘I’m not exactly busy, as such.’ Was it Thursday again already? Yes — a week had passed since I first sighted the book. Dear God, I still didn’t have it.

‘I have the shoes.’ She handed me the David Jones bag.

‘Wow. Great. I’ll try them on later.’ I went to close the door.

‘Wait.’ She fished in her handbag. ‘I got you some DVDs. I know you like movies. I thought you might like to add them to your collection.’

They were pirated — the kind found in markets all over Asia. I sorted through them: The Breakfast Club, The Blue Lagoon, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

‘These aren’t really my thing,’ I said. I’d seen them all except The Blue Lagoon. I had to draw the line somewhere. The others were average, and granted that Ferris Bueller knew how to have a good time, I didn’t want them clogging up my DVD library, sitting next to quality like Alien or A Muppet Christmas Carol.

‘Stella, please take them. As a favour to me.’

‘What do you mean “a favour”?’

‘Could you look after them for me?’

Look after them? She made it sound like she had just handed me a puppy, or a pot plant. But I was nothing if not a good neighbour. ‘If you like.’

‘You never know, you might want to binge on teenage movies.’ She laughed and continued to stand there smiling at me.

I glanced at the bottle, one of her fancy French labels. ‘Like chips?’

‘Love chips.’ She came inside and closed the door. ‘I’ll put these away for you.’ She went to my wall of indifferently assembled Swedish bookcases and found a spot for her DVDs on the top shelf, paying no heed to my filing system. I made a mental note to refile them later. She lingered by the shelves scrutinising the titles.

I got out some plates and glasses and cut my fish in half. I put a portion on her plate with a handful of chips. There was a bottle of tomato sauce in the back of the fridge. I put everything on a tray and carried it to the coffee table.

‘Want to watch one?’ I asked.

‘This.’ Tania handed me the Hornblower series. Really, she could not have impressed me more if she’d gone for The Lord of the Rings. Bonus points for The Two Towers. I slotted the disc, and she sat on my sofa and kicked off her shoes.

‘Colour’s gone,’ she said.

It was a relic, my television, and everything on the screen was a shade of purple, but I couldn’t be bothered fixing it. ‘I’m used to it.’

And so, while we watched Horatio sail his frigate into a nest of Dons, we dined on fillet of shark and salted pommes frites, paired with smooth Bordeaux. For her part, she stuffed the chips in her mouth by the handful like a hungry adolescent boy, while I drank most of the wine. To my relief, she was not one to talk while I was trying to watch TV, but every so often she checked her phone.

‘Expecting a call?’

‘Not really,’ Tania said. ‘I meant to ask — how did the hearing go?’ She blinked her black lashes at me.

‘It’s going to trial,’ I said and skulled my wine. My thoughts lingered on Finchley Price. He was in his element striding around the court but I couldn’t imagine him having the same air of supremacy in, say, the TAB or the greyhound racetrack. ‘Heard of Finchley Price?’ I asked.

‘No, what’s that?’

‘That,’ I said, ‘is a barrister. Nice looking.’

‘Ew! Are you insane? Barristers are ugly. They’re all creepy hunchbacks with pasty faces and feathery hair.’

‘Hunchbacks?’

‘Totally gross.’

‘Calm down, I get it. I didn’t know you were so familiar with the legal fraternity.’

‘I used to do the mail for Faurtinaux Bath.’

I hadn’t figured Tania as the itinerant-worker type, with actual life experience. ‘When was this?’

‘Straight after school. Gap year. My friend Jimmy and I got the job together. We called them “Fart and go Barf”.’

I didn’t know what to say that. I looked at her for a moment, while she stared at the screen. I was onto my fourth glass of red and feeling carefree. ‘Tania, can I ask you something?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Have you ever done anything you were ashamed of?’

‘Oh God! All the time! I sent this tweet once. I was drunk and —’

‘No, I mean like wrong.’

‘You mean like killing a sheep?’

‘What? No!’ I clearly couldn’t confide in this ninny.

She made her hurt face, which I ignored. After a moment she said. ‘How’s your client holding up?’

‘The unfathomable Mrs Chol? Who can say?’ I rubbed a chip in tomato sauce. ‘She seems pretty tough.’

Tania nodded eagerly. ‘She sounds amazing. Raising five kids on her own. Well, four now.’ She cringed. ‘But you know, starting a new life in a foreign country. Incredible.’

‘Yeah.’ I shrugged. Whatever. I sipped my wine, wanting Tania to stop yapping so I could concentrate on the fetching lieutenant dangling from a rope over a shark-infested sea. On cue, Tania took her handbag and went to the bathroom. I hit pause, and dropped the empty bottle in the recycle bin and dumped the plates in the sink. I tried to push the chip paper into the bin but it was stuffed to capacity. I took off the lid and leant on the rubbish with my knee until it surrendered.

The difference in years was an issue. I preferred the company of women my own age.

My former best friend, Phuong, and I had known each other since our university days. Sure, we were temperamentally different. She was reserved and cautious and thought men were an optional extra, and I was brash and loud and needed men — a boyfriend, to be exact — like an addict, like a punter at the track, desperate for a sure thing in the last race to recoup her losses. On the plus side, we shared similar values, a love of horror movies, and had the verbal shorthand of an old married couple. As friends, we had the kind of bond that tolerated normal human misconduct in the other. We validated. We supported. We enabled. It was what we did. That was before Phuong found Buddha and became a sanctimonious bore.

Tania reappeared with freshly applied makeup and we watched the rest of Hornblower. When it was over, I stood, rather unsteadily, to walk Tania to her door. She unlocked her door and flicked on the light.

‘All clear,’ she said, a little bashfully.

I turned to leave and she grabbed my arm. ‘I’ve just had the most awesome idea.’

I looked at the indentations her nails were making in my forearm. ‘That’s nice.’

‘A gold triple! We go to the salon early, before it opens.’

‘Gold triple?’

‘It’s three kinds of treatment, all of them fantastic for your skin.’

‘My skin?’

‘Yes, if we go before it opens, I can do it for free.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow. Be here early, before seven.’

Seven? ‘Look Tania, I’m not sure —’

‘No, you have to! Promise you’ll do it. Promise.’

‘Um. I promise.’

‘Afterwards we can go shopping for a new outfit, the beginning of the new you.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘See you tomorrow.’ And I got the hell out of there before any other promises were made.