It wasn’t difficult to find Rex Patterson’s address: 65 San Andreas Street. The house might be burnt down but it was still listed in the White Pages, for now at least. I packed Joanne’s photo, my thermos flask and a packet of Panadol and hit the road.
Two hours of hot car time later, I was looking at a pile of blackened timber beside a brick garage, gift-wrapped in blue and white police tape. I pulled over and got out of the car. The tape fluttered in a gust of hot wind. There was a jangle of wind chimes from a nearby house. The only other noise was the low rumble of trucks from the highway.
Bouquets of flowers beside the pavement: dried-up and brown in the heat. Their presence suggested not everyone had hated Patterson, despite what Ernie said. I squatted down to take a closer look at the flowers. A card: Your friends, always. Birdlife, Mildura. I stood and stretched my back. Looked around the street. Houses with darkened windows: blinds and curtains closed against the heat.
Across the street, a man was sitting on his verandah, sprawled across a broken-down brown couch. Quite a skewiff kind of verandah. The man looked a little skewiff himself—messy greying hair, like he’d just got out of bed. I watched him watching me.
He was dressed in a blue singlet, black shorts and faded red thongs. A can of beer in a stubby holder beside his feet. Enjoying a late breakfast, perhaps, or a shift worker relaxing before going to bed. Or maybe his job was keeping an eye on all the happenings in the street. He lifted his can of beer and took a sip. Continued to watch me.
I crossed the road and stood at his front gate, rusted and hanging from one hinge. He put down his beer.
‘Already told the cops everything I know.’ A querulous tone—the voice of a man not accustomed to getting his own way.
‘I’m not with the police. I’m…related to Rex. Well, quite a distant relative. Haven’t been in touch for years. Anyway, I was passing through Mildura when I heard the awful news…’ I fanned myself with the neck of my shirt. Sweat was pooling in my bra.
‘Fucken tragedy.’
‘Yeah, Mum’ll be inconsolable. She’s in a nursing home, in Melbourne.’ I paused. A moment of inspiration. ‘I remember Rex from when I was little. He was a lovely bloke. Showed me how to play rock, paper, scissors.’
He took another sip from his can and looked down at the phone beside him on the couch. It squawked out something in a foreign language. Spanish, maybe.
‘You knew Rex well?’ I persisted.
He shrugged. ‘Well enough.’
‘And they reckon a woman did the fire? Woman with a Yaris? Shocking.’
He took another sip of beer. Not a talker. He seemed happy enough to have me there, though. Maybe I was his morning’s entertainment.
‘I never seen a Yaris,’ he said.
‘Oh?’
‘I told them that. Heard a motorbike that night. Told the cops that too.’
‘Right. The fire was in the night, was it? Horrible for you.’
‘Worse for Rex.’ He paused. ‘Expect you’re goin’ to the funeral?’
‘Err, when is it? I’m not in town much longer…’
‘Half an hour.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Come on, I’ll show you the way.’
It was a hot day for a funeral and the air con in the funeral director’s chapel was deader than the clientele. I sat wilting at the back next to Rex Patterson’s neighbour, who’d introduced himself as Jamie. He’d ditched the red thongs and stubbie holder and was dressed in a smart white shirt and black pants. He wiped his forehead.
I looked around at the dozen sweating black-clad people, trying not to catch anyone’s eye. It was possible Jamie and I were the youngest people in the room.
The room was a study in beige. A curved off-white ceiling, buff curtains, cream walls, flecked berber carpet and upholstery in a tasteful pale fawn. A TV screen in the top left hand corner scrolled through photos of birds—close-ups in trees and on water—and bird-watchers: cheerful-looking elderly people draped in binoculars, cameras and telescopes walking in dry-looking orange-soil bush. Sensible hats. Clothing with more pockets than I’d ever manage to use. Among all the creased faces and long-toothed grins was a boy, around ten or eleven. Dark straight hair, a serious expression.
Joanne didn’t feature in any of the pictures. But then you’d probably want to edit Rex Patterson’s suspected murderer out of his funeral photo roll. I rummaged in my handbag and sneaked a squiz at Vern’s photo. The bloke in the white Iceland cap—he had a stocky build. I glanced back up at the TV screen and kept a watch for stocky blokes in white caps. None appeared.
As the music started—Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door—there was a creak of a door opening and a young boy tiptoed into the chapel. He glanced around and then walked quickly over to my row; stood there waiting. Gave me, then my seat, an expectant look. Jamie shuffled over one place, I moved across. The boy sat down in the seat I’d vacated.
He was the kid I’d just seen in the photos scrolling on the screen. The same dark straight hair, currently damp against his head. No parents in tow, not unless they’d been seriously late starters (or finishers) and were among the senior citizens up the front. He was wearing the same uniform as the others: white shirt, dark trousers. Sleeves rolled up; a graze on his elbow.
The boy’s attention span was a lot better than mine. I fidgeted through the service, but his gaze never wavered from the front. He gave his full attention to the sweaty celebrant’s gravel-voiced monologue while a man in front of me blew his nose.
Eventually, the celebrant stood aside, and a stiff-legged woman slowly made her way to the podium. Rex Patterson had been a keen birdwatcher, the woman told us. ‘He wasn’t a man with close family ties, but he had many friends.’
I counted up the number of people in here. Twelve people, including an interloper, me. That constituted ‘many’ friends? Still, he had been in his eighties—some of his mates were probably no longer around to see him off.
I turned my attention back to the woman speaking. She dwelt for a moment on Patterson’s unsurpassed knowledge of birds and love of the natural world, then: ‘And how thrilled he was to see a new generation in our club.’ She glanced at the boy sitting beside me.
Later, at Murray Pines Cemetery, as the mourners sat in plastic chairs under a white sunshade and I stood behind them, trying to be invisible, the boy stood beside me with his attention fixed on his phone. Rex Patterson’s neighbour, Jamie, had left after the service. I never bin much for cemeteries, he said.
A stocky man walked briskly along the path towards us. Dark wavy hair. He was wearing a stripy business shirt and neat charcoal trousers. It took less than a second to place who he was—it’s odd how the memory is always extremely efficient at bringing forth the people you find obnoxious. It was the man from the Mallee Environmental office, the one who’d been rude to Bron. And called me love.
He had a motorbike helmet in one hand, a briefcase in the other. He stood a few feet away from the mourners’ tent. No one greeted him. His jaws moved rhythmically, like he was chewing something. I took the photo out of my handbag and had another look. Did the man in the photo have a similar build to Mr Unpleasant from Mallee Environmental? Possibly. And it wasn’t too hard to shave off a beard.
I spent a moment trying to work out who among the mourners were Rex Patterson’s family. There was no obvious widow and no one young enough to be his offspring; well, no one except the bloke from Mallee Environmental.
The celebrant said a few words, then the coffin was lowered into the ground, the stiff-legged woman throwing in the first handful of soil. The mourners stood, gathered up their sticks and walking frames, and started to move towards their cars.
The boy standing beside me touched my arm.
‘Are you with the private detective?’ he spoke in a low voice.
‘Sorry?’
‘Do you work with Mel?’
It took me a moment to place the name. Mel who’d come into my shop looking for Joanne. Pockmarked face. Sufficient effrontery and bad judgment to assume my coffee was shit.
‘Err, no. But I’d really like to find Joanne Smith.’
He nodded. ‘Jo would never have hurt Rex—they were friends.’ He paused. ‘I’m Liam.’
He reached out and shook my hand. Warm hand. Firm handshake.
Well, that made two people who thought Joanne was decent. Vern and Liam. And me, I guess. At least, I like to keep an open mind.
‘I’m Cass. So, how do…did you know Rex?’
‘We went birdwatching together.’
‘Oh. I thought he might have been your granddad.’
‘Rex didn’t have any kids. He’s got a sister. She hated him.’ He swatted a fly away.
‘That’s no good. Why’d she hate him?’
‘Money, Dorothy said. I’m not going to care about money when I grow up.’
Ah, the shiny loveliness of untarnished idealism.
‘Any idea where Joanne might be?’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘I hope she’s all right.’
‘Me too.’ My voice sounded grimmer than I’d expected.
‘Was there anyone who might have wanted to…harm Rex? Anyone who didn’t like him?’ I said.
‘No, Rex was great. Well, he was a bit grumpy sometimes, especially if you went near his cameras and stuff, but he was OK. As long as you didn’t talk when we were birdwatching. Not like Dan.’ He nodded his head at the retreating mourners.
I pondered a moment on the ethics of interrogating a grieving child. ‘Oh?’
‘Yeah, the last trip we had, Rex totally lost it with Dan. Told him he couldn’t come anymore.’
I looked over at the hunched, black-backed group shuffling away.
‘Which one’s Dan?’
He pointed. ‘The tall man. White hair. Sticky-out ears.’
I squinted against the sun. ‘The bloke on the walking frame?’
Liam nodded.
Hard to say at fifty paces, but a rough guess would put Dan at eighty-five. Would an eighty-five-year-old be capable of setting a house on fire? I pondered. Well, what does it take? A can of petrol, a match, a brisk hobble away. Maybe there’s no upper age limit on arson. A sufficient level of hatred might be the key prerequisite. Would being banned from bird trips lead to that kind of rage?
‘Rex didn’t like him much either.’ Liam nodded at the bloke from Mallee Environmental, who was following behind the other mourners. ‘Andy Devlin.’
Ah. I was about to launch into more questions, but before I could grill this extremely helpful young person any further, the stiff-legged woman arrived, shot me a look of reproach, grabbed Liam’s arm and walk-dragged him away.