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I called Reggie on his home number, and he sounded groggy when he answered. It was 10:46 PM.
I said, ‘Did I wake you up?’
‘No, what? Why would I be asleep?’
‘Reggie, why would someone be afraid of a book?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘A guy threatened Tamsin Lyons. He told her not to publish a book.’
‘Which guy? What book?’
The line crackled and Reggie’s voice went quiet. ‘Hon, I’ll be right there. It’s only Matt.’ His voice came back strong. ‘Which guy?’
‘I’ve only got his first name. Gav.’
‘Who the fuck is Gav?’
‘He works for Lyons Media, and he beat a woman unconscious today, then stabbed me with a butterfly knife.’
‘What? Jesus, Matt! Are you at the hospital right now? What happened?’
‘We had a fight and the fucker stabbed me with a butterfly knife right under the collarbone. Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious.’
‘Nothing serious?’
‘I’m at home. I patched it up. Forget it. Look, this book might be one of the reasons why Tamsin’s gone AWOL. Gav said something about court. Is there any way you could check and see if there is a case, or if there was a case, against Jeff Lyons or Lyons Media?’
‘Why the hell did he stab you? What did you do?’
‘I danced the fucking cha-cha. He assaulted two women, almost killed one of them. Can you check the courts, or what?’
‘Take a pill, Jesus. It could take a while. Don’t hold your breath. D’you go to the cops?’
‘That could be problematic.’
‘How so?’
‘Lyons doesn’t want police involvement, remember?’
‘Not about this, Matt! You don’t have to tell them why it happened, just how it happened.’
‘So, you’ll check the courts?’
‘Yes. Fuck. Yes, I’ll check. It’s eleven at night.’
‘Whatever you can do, Reggie, that’d be great. Thank you. Oh, and Reggie? You know about the two girls murdered last Friday?’
‘Yeah.’
‘One of them was Renee Prestwidge, Tamsin’s roommate. Both she and another woman were killed with a butterfly knife approximately nineteen centimetres long with a squared-off back.’
‘What are you saying? This guy who got the jump on you...?’
‘Gav.’
‘Gav, right. You’re saying just because he’s got a butterfly knife and stabbed you with it, he’s also the murderer of those two women?’
‘I’m saying Jeff Lyons hired me Friday night at 8:00 PM to find his daughter, and not three hours later both Tamsin Lyons’ roommate and another woman from the same university were murdered with a butterfly knife. This guy Gav not only admits to following me today across the city, but he’s been visiting the very brothel where Tamsin works, threatening her not to publish a book or he’ll kill her.’
The line went silent for a while before Reggie said, ‘Tell me everything you know about the book.’
I gave him the author’s name and the title.
‘It’ll help if I know what I’m looking for,’ he murmured. ‘I suppose people have been known to put injunctions on books, suppression orders and the like. I’ll check Caselaw and see if there’s anything in local and district. I’ll let you know.’
‘Thanks, Reggie, appreciate it. Sorry for calling so late.’
‘Now he apologises. Go to bed!’ He hung up.
I didn’t sleep well. A matter of loneliness, and a feeling I wasn’t accomplishing as much as I should, made me anxious. If the book mentioned Jeff in any way, my obligation sat with him, and I needed to maintain his confidentiality and find out what he knew. I had to think of ways of circumventing Evelyn.
***
In the morning, I called a subsidiary Lyons Media office in Redfern, and in a moment of irrationality thought Evelyn might answer. A woman named Melinda eventually picked up.
‘Melinda, Matt Kowalski, Evelyn Turner’s associate. Would I be able to speak with Jeff Lyons about a particularly sensitive issue?’
‘I’m sorry. Mr. Lyons will be out of the office for most of the morning.’
‘Melinda, would you have any idea where I could reach him urgently? It’s in relation to his daughter.’
She cleared her throat. ‘Mr. Lyons is at the stables, inspecting the weanlings.’
It didn’t surprise me Jeff had interests in horses, the so-called ‘sport of kings.’ I wondered how the horses behind the screens at race tracks felt about that phrase.
She said, ‘I can take a message and have his personal assistant call you back?’
I took a punt. ‘I know how close he is to his horses. Is it possible I could meet him out there?’
Wherever ‘there’ is.
Her higher educated voice went into overdrive and pronounced each vowel distinctly. ‘Unfortunately, The Birches won’t grant access to the general public without a prior appointment.’
I heard the familiar beeps of someone else trying to get through to me on another line. ‘Then I’ll make sure to see him personally at the office this afternoon,’ I said. ‘Thanks again.’
I hung up before she could say another word, and let the other call come through.
‘Bingo! I got a hit. Or what do you guys say? ‘Housie’?’
‘Either, or Reggie.’
‘Okay, listen to this. A publishing house in North Sydney called Capital Letter were all set to publish a non-fiction book called Broken Trust, written by Heather Morrison, three weeks ago. It features nine first-hand accounts from Australian women sexually abused by someone they love. For reasons not specified in the court documents, Lyons Media got wind of it, filed legal proceedings against Capital Letter, of which the magistrate issued a court-ordered injunction against the publishing of the book.’
‘What does all that mean?’
‘It means Lyons is scared shitless and willing to pay good money to block the book from getting into the hands of the public for an indefinite amount of time.’
‘Sounds expensive.’
‘The costs wouldn’t be outlandish, but not exactly a kick in the pants, either.’
‘Do you have any idea if Lyons is mentioned by name?’
‘I got bupkis. The manuscript’s under lock and key at a very expensive law firm.’
‘Good job, Reggie. It gives some weight to Gav’s threats.’
‘Yeah. Stay away from the psycho, you hear me? Call Ivers if you run into him. I’ll see you.’
‘Hey, wait. Reggie? Who appeared for Capital Letter in court?’
‘Guy called Warwick Fripp. He’s a production editor, whatever the hell that is.’
I made a note of the name and the publishing firm. ‘Reggie, you the man.’
‘I’ll be the man on your ass if my incomings stay neutral.’
I hung up.
***
The Birches was situated on eighty acres of land an hour’s drive northwest of The Gong. As the two-lane blacktop changed to a single lane, bullet-sized raindrops cracked against my windscreen and blurred my vision. I flicked the wipers to high speed as evergreens stooped and bowed against the strong southeasterly gusts.
The road ended in a cul-de-sac, at the end of which a large sign adorned a tall gate listing rules and regulations, none of which were discernible through the blurred windscreen. I pulled up next to a rusted intercom, wound my window down, and pressed the squeaky button. It got stuck, and I prodded it several times until it popped back out with a snap.
Rain dotted my arm and spattered the door interior when a crackly voice said, ‘Yes? Do you have an appointment?’
I explained who I was and that I had vital information relating to Jeff Lyons’ missing daughter. Discovering my client blocked the publication of a book played against his interests, but desperate times called for desperate measures, as they say in the classics.
After a minute of silence, I considered pressing the button again, when the same voice came back. ‘Follow the road on the left about half a click, until you reach the weanling stables on your right.’
The gate opened with a buzz. I wound my window up and followed the directions as given. The rain eased a little as I slowly guided my ute across muddy potholes, careful to protect the suspension. Various brick outhouses covered in ivy dotted the tree-lined track, and swaying birch trees lined the perimeter of the property.
The only thing I knew about horses was that rich people got richer by making them run in circles.
After what seemed to be the right distance, a white stable house appeared on the right, and I parked off the road. It resembled the house in The Amityville Horror, and I hoped it wasn’t an omen.
I got out, careful to avoid literal steaming piles of manure, and trudged up a muddy incline until I reached the open doorway. Inside, the smell of damp hay and wet hide steamed the air. Horses shuffled in their pens and the rain intensified on the roof. Standing at the opposite end of the barn, Lyons, in a long black coat, stood hunched with a man dressed in white jodhpurs and a navy jacket. As I approached them the man in the equestrian get-up regarded me with a haughty look, and Jeff straightened.
‘Good God, Matt,’ Lyons murmured. ‘You’ve found her, haven’t you?’
I shook my head. ‘Not as yet. I’ve tracked her last known movements to Wednesday, 11 March, and after that it’s a blank. But it’s not what brings me here, Jeff. Tamsin’s roommate was found murdered Friday night. Another woman’s body was found Saturday morning in Camperdown Park. Both were stabbed with the same knife. I believe the two are connected, but how they relate to Tamsin, I have no idea just yet.’
Lyons stood still, and his face gave nothing away.
I said, ‘Do the names Renee Prestwidge or Pavali Singh sound familiar to you?’
Lyons didn’t flinch. ‘No. Should they?’
‘No, I didn’t expect they would. I’m just covering some bases.’
‘You keep doing that. You have any interest in thoroughbred brood mares, Matty?’
I shook my head. ‘I lost two big ones on the ninety-eight Melbourne Cup, and swore I’d never gamble again.’
‘Two grand’s nothing to cry over.’
‘Two hundred.’
Lyons swapped a look with the Jodhpur man and smirked. ‘Mind giving us a minute, Fred?’
Fred nodded and made himself scarce.
‘It’s not so much how you play,’ Lyons said, ‘but how you work it—less punt drunk, more entrepreneurial. You want to make some serious dinero? You put in eighty hours a week. You walk the track, you watch trials, you check track work, you study race tapes, and you scrutinise every horse in the mounting yard. Stick to fixed odds and you won’t go wrong.’
He opened his umbrella and tramped over uneven ground to a fenced-in pen.
I joined him at the gate as heavy rain pelted my head. A stunning-looking mare stood with a foal sheltering in a far corner, wearing matching blue turnout rugs.
Lyons pointed with a gloved hand. ‘That’s my two-point-four-million-dollar baby. Bred from racing stock. She won’t be a Winx, but I’ll make damned sure she’ll run Rosehill. I’ll keep her here in the upper paddocks now she’s weaned from her mother. In a month, she’ll be in the lunging yard and straight onto the walking machines to get her ready for next year. Her mother’ll be in-foal by then, and I’ll buy that one too.’
‘Jeff, how much do you know about the security guard who worked the door Friday night at the Peekaboo launch?’
‘Which one?’
‘The bald Pommy one, Gav. Three-day growth? Built like a whippet?’
He furrowed his brow and looked out over a paddock. ‘HR hire the temp staff. I’ve got nothing to do with that.’
‘I’ll need some background information on him.’
‘Tell me, Matty. What did you do for a crust before you started snooping around women’s underwear drawers?’
I ignored the blind hook and smiled. ‘I worked a stint as a bouncer for five years, a long time ago. And I did some stunt work for TV. Nothing major, just soaps, mainly.’
He eyed me carefully. Water from the ends of the umbrella dripped in patterns around him.
‘My old man became a millionaire when he was twenty-two. He got lucky with property, bankrolled it into stocks and got lucky again. Bought a ranch, stables, horses, the whole lot. He gave me a white Arabian for my tenth birthday, born March the 20th, 1971, 4:28 in the morning—fourteen hundred pounds of stallion. I trained that horse to do everything. I could let that thing lie right down flat, when you get on it. When I turned fifteen, he said I had to get my hands dirty and earn money. He made me work the doggers in Echuca, used to be the biggest knackery in the state. All the old race horses ended up there. Those beasts were shadows of their former selves—fat legs, busted hooves, bones sticking out of ‘em like Kampucheans. They were put up for sale, and if a horse didn’t sell, I’d have to walk ‘em to the killing box and shoot ‘em through the head.’
He sniffed and stared at the foal. ‘If that didn’t work, I’d slit their throat and cut off the tail. Flay the hide, grind ‘em up for export—the Russkis and the Japs love ‘em. Every time I led ‘em down, you could see the whites of their eyes rolling around in their skulls—mad eyes, as if they knew. They may have won a few bob for a bunch of drunks back in the day, but those horses did more for the world dead than they ever did alive.’
He shifted his feet. ‘I worked ten-hour days for seven years straight. It was like a process line: they came in, they went out. And the damndest thing happens. The whole concept of a horse leaves your brain. They became these things that you have to cut up. They weren’t good for anything, not breeding stock, nothing. Then one summer, a car hit my horse’s back leg. Can’t repair a knuckle. I killed it in 1977, December the 21st, first day of winter.’
His pale face seemed to dull in the light, and when he turned and fixed me with his eyes, they were as cool and clear as the oceans. ‘Tamsin used to call me a fascist and a nihilist. Always made me laugh. Evelyn tells me you talked to some Muslim who knows Tamsin.’
‘He’s an executive with Alliance. So far he’s the last one who had any contact with Tamsin.’
‘Is she sleeping with him?’
Rain dripped off my nose and I wiped it. ‘Our agreement extends to finding Tamsin, not exposing her dirty laundry.’
‘I’m the one lining your fucking pockets, sunshine.’
‘I’ll provide you with detailed reports at a time when all reasonable lines of enquiry have been expired.’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t sow the seeds of doubt with me, son. My gut’s telling me I made a mistake. Did I make a mistake?’
‘Jeff, if you have real concerns for Tamsin, you’ll give me all the information you have on file on Gav. He may be involved with Tamsin somehow, and it may involve a book of some kind.’
He turned to face me squarely. ‘What fucking book?’
‘I thought maybe you’d know.’
His face reddened, and his gaze didn’t leave my eyes. ‘For the last forty years, I’ve had maggots crawling out of the woodwork trying to box me into a corner for a chunk of my money over some bullshit story. Fucking ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome.’ Those bastards would love nothing more than to drag my name through the fucking mud. In this day and age, you’re guilty before proven innocent.’
He cupped a hand to his mouth and faced the stable house. ‘Fred!’
‘I think the book might point me in the right direction,’ I said. ‘If I can find out why the book is so important—’
Lyons flared. ‘Get it through your fucking Pollack head! I’m not paying you to look for a fucking book! Fred!’
Fred appeared at the barn door and cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Mr. Lyons?’
Lyons reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar notes. ‘I hired you to find my daughter.’ He threw the money to the ground. ‘Fucking find her!’
He turned away from me. ‘Fred! Mr. Kowalski and I have concluded our business.’
I looked down at the flurry of notes in the mud, then heard a crash.
Lyons had fallen heavily against the pen gate.
I ran over to him. ‘Jeff?’
He groaned and clutched his chest as he fell to his knees. Then he collapsed, face down in the mud.
