39

BEN’S MAZDA was mine while he was serving a short sentence for receiving stolen goods. In it, I motored north on the Hume Highway. I was a licensed driver and my destination was Shepparton and the country estate of Mrs Chol. Along the way, two magpies flew for several seconds in front of the car, low over the road, a kind of avian escort. The birds flew together, wings touching, only metres from the car, then veered right to survey a dry paddock. A certain type of person might regard that sight as a sign. I was humming as I drove and reflecting on how far I’d come since that day at Dead Mans Soak.

Of that day, much that happened was still a blur. I was cleaned up, dressed, and fed. Randall slipped me a beer, bless him. The Lloyds were questioned about what exactly they had told Crystal. And later, the bodies of Maurangi and Merritt Van Zyl were taken back to the morgue in Perth. The autopsy report said his face was a mess but the knife didn’t penetrate his brain — it was a myocardial infarction that killed him. Crystal Watt’s body had not yet been found.

At one point the Laverton librarian, who had heard some gossip about a rumble in the desert, came to the police station. Turns out I had left Tania’s DVD in the computer I’d used at the library. The police told her they would hand it to me, but she wanted to give it to me personally, which she did.

A lovely afternoon — we went outside to a terrace where I listened to Mrs Chol explain that Mabor was back at school and was dux of his class. And she showed me around her newly acquired property, a seven-bedroom house with a swimming pool. The three little girls were in local schools and doing very well, and were also taking tennis lessons and had joined the pony club. Mrs Chol then let slip that she had sent a large donation to a charity for the education of girls in Sudan.

Where she got the funds for these things was not explained. And I did not ask. She was invited by Mucous Pukus to be a JUNKIE champion, for the so far less-than-successful Justice and Community Services program known as Justice Uniting Neighbourhood Knowledge with Inter-agency Expertise, but she declined.

In the afternoon, I bade her farewell and travelled back to Melbourne to prepare for an evening celebration at the Station Hotel.

The Hume Highway started to get busy when I got closer to town. It was later than expected when I finally got home and drove my little car into its parking space.

Upstairs I opened the door. The painting I had been working on was still on the kitchen table. Every part of the flat now served as a studio. It would have to do until I found something more suitable. The painting was a bad copy of a Boyd landscape. It needed a lot of work.

I showered and dressed, and thought about the desert.

Randall had found Ashwood still in Crystal’s car. He’d got bogged trying to escape and was stuck in loose sand. And Finchley Price had been arrested.

As for the death of Merritt Van Zyl, Randall had backed me up. And no charges were brought.

So I was free.

And I was now looking forward to meeting up with Phuong and Bruce Copeland at the Station Hotel.

‘Word on the street is Cesarelli had close to a million in cash stashed at his farm, but so far there’s still no sign of it,’ Copeland said to me over an oyster.

‘Well, that is careless, Detective.’

He frowned at me. ‘How is Mrs Chol?’

‘Oh, she’s grand.’ I sipped my champagne and smiled to myself.

Bruce finished his drink. ‘I better call it a night. Court in the morning.’

When he’d gone I gave Phuong a gentle nudge. ‘Why didn’t you leave with him?’

She ordered another round. ‘I don’t have court in the morning.’ Her trademark smile was like a Zen koan, cryptic and beautiful. ‘And what are your plans for tonight?’

I tried to match her air of mystery. ‘A night of debauchery with a depraved artist in his garret.’

She raised her flute. ‘Good for you.’

After a few more oysters and more champagne, I snuck out of the pub and walked alone through the Footscray streets towards Brophy’s studio. I chose the backstreets, past the rows of narrow-fronted workers cottages — TVs on in front rooms. Some had housed the same immigrant families for more than fifty years, some were gentrified restorations and others were junkie squats. I found the clamour of the inner city soothing. Distant trucks roared down Whitehall Street — and brought Russell Hardy to mind. What I had of my father now, whether from the Hardy stamp on my cells or as the result of my early years in Russell’s company, manifested in me, sporadically, as strength. Sometimes that was the strength to succeed. Sometimes, it was only the will to survive. It was like Brophy said: courage. That was my inheritance. It was there in the desert. The alternative was to be not walking, not breathing.

From the studio windows, the light glowed yellow. I waited outside, taking my time, enjoying the anticipation.

Two weeks before, Brophy and I had been swinging in a hammock built for two, on a tropical island, as a gentle South-Pacific breeze warmed our Melbourne-white skin. We were passing the day in idle chat, quizzing each other on such things as popular culture and our views on western civilisation.

‘Best invention of the twentieth century?’

‘The shower cap.’

He laughed, but didn’t argue with me. And because of that, and because he was looking at the ocean, I decided to tell him about the money. He listened without interruption as I explained that I’d received a call in the middle of the night from a client. He wanted me to come over, straight away, he had said, because he and his friend had been threatened; he said they were going to the police and they wanted a witness, because they’d had trouble with cops in the past. When I got there, they were in their twelfth-floor apartment of the Flemington Housing Commission flats, already dead. Blue faces, cold to the touch. I called the ambulance, because there’s always a chance to bring them around, I guess. I saw the fit on the filthy mattress beside them. And I knew he had a habit, and his friend was a junkie, too. Skin and bones, they both were. The place was a rat-infested hole and stunk of old garbage. I was waiting for the ambulance and I saw a plastic shopping bag near the bodies, and it’d tipped on its side, open. Spilling out were wads of cash — twenties in bundles.

‘It was late, like about three in the morning. I was tired,’ I thought for a moment. ‘No. I’m just making excuses.’

‘How much?’

‘Thirty-four thousand.’

‘Fuck me.’

‘Six years of waiting to be found out.’

‘Stella, Cesarelli’s dead. It’s over. You’re free.’

I looked up now and saw Brophy through the window, walking around in the studio. I lingered for a moment longer. It had been the first proper hot day of summer, and the descending cool of night was a welcome relief.