She showed me to a table in the corner, one of a set of tables for two slightly screened off from the body of the restaurant to allow intimacy. She smiled and walked away. A waiter arrived with a menu and we went through the ritual. I ordered the meal and he brought the wine in an ice bucket. The room was pleasantly warm and I took off my jacket. The entree samosas with the dips were tasty, the papadums were crisp and the meat dish was hot without being fiery. A couple of different chutneys and jasmine rice. It was served smoothly and efficiently and when I indicated I’d pour my own wine the waiter left me to it.
I watched Mary Oberon as she glided around the room. She took people to their tables and performed small functions to help the waiters and the cashier. She appeared to enjoy the work and to be good at it. But there was something a little off-centre about her behaviour-as if she were acting the part rather than being completely at home in it. The soft light flattered her and she appeared younger than in the posed picture Bobby had shown me. Younger, exotic and something else-wary?
Within an hour people began to drift off, presumably to the concert, so that Mary Oberon and the waiters became less busy. I ate slowly, hoping still more people would leave so that I might be able to attract and hold her attention for a while. I had two glasses of wine and poured a third. A waiter came over and asked me if I wanted dessert.
‘No, thanks. Just a long black coffee. And could you ask Mary to come and have a word with me, please.’
He looked surprised but he went to where she was standing and spoke to her. She came over, still smiling but even more wary-looking.
‘Is there something wrong, sir?’
I returned the smile, tried to look non-threatening. ‘No, I’d like to talk to you. It’s about Bobby Forrest.’
The calm poise fell away. She stared at me as if I’d spat in her face. The table had been set for two. She grabbed a knife and stabbed at my throat. I jerked up and sideways and the blade hit me in the right shoulder. It went through my shirt and in beside the collarbone. I sat, more surprised than hurt. She turned and ran, silver shoes slapping the tiled floor. The knife didn’t have much of a point and didn’t go in far. I pulled it out easily and blood welled and flowed. It soaked my shirt and dripped onto the table. The plump woman and a waiter appeared and blocked the view of the remaining diners.
I grabbed a napkin and pressed it to the wound. It was soggy with blood inside a few seconds.
‘Come with me, sir,’ the woman said. ‘We have a doctor. He will help you.’
They led me through a door a few steps away.
‘Fetch Ahmed and some towels quickly,’ the woman said to the waiter. She took me down a short passage to an office and sat me in a chair. The blood had stopped flowing but the shoulder was throbbing and the arm felt stiff.
The waiter appeared with a couple of snowy white towels, followed by a man in a chef’s uniform.
‘This is my brother Ahmed,’ the woman said. ‘He is a doctor.’
I nodded and let him tear the shirt away.
‘My bag,’ he said.
He was in his thirties and very composed. He used a towel to wipe away most of the blood and pressed it against the wound which was seeping slightly. He glanced at me as he worked.
‘I do not think you are in shock.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘You have been hurt before perhaps?’
‘A few times, yes.’
The waiter returned with a medical bag. He opened it, took out alcohol swabs and cleaned the wound.
‘No nerve damage, I think, but stitching will be necessary.’
‘I’d better get to a hospital then.’
He exchanged alarmed looks with the woman.
‘Dr Oberoi could do it,’ she said.
She sounded very nervous. Advantage Hardy.
‘You seem to have some problems,’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘This is a serious assault.’
‘Yes.’
‘A. . hysterical daughter and a brother practising medicine without a licence.’
‘Do you want me to stitch this wound or not?’
‘Just a minute, doctor. I’m willing to allow you to stitch and I won’t report the assault on one condition.’
The woman clasped her heavily ringed hands together. ‘What is that?’
‘You have to make Mary talk to me. I just want information from her. It’s not information she’ll want to give but I have to have it. If you can make that clear to her and she’ll tell me what I need to know, none of this has to cause you any trouble. I don’t think anyone in the restaurant noticed anything.’
‘Very well. I will see to it.’
‘Stitch away, doctor,’ I said.
Various members of the family lived in three flats above the restaurant. They took me up there and into a small room which Ahmed Oberoi obviously used as a surgery when he wasn’t cooking curries. He stitched me up, applied some cream and bandaged my shoulder. As he worked he told me he’d fully qualified as a doctor in India but hadn’t been able to satisfy the Australian medical authorities.
‘It was when there was all the fuss about Dr Haneef,’ he said. ‘There was a lot of prejudice.’
I nodded. Kevin Andrews had a lot to answer for.
He seemed perfectly competent to me. He disapproved when I asked for whisky and painkillers but his sister obliged. She apologised profusely for what had happened and expressed her undying gratitude to me for not reporting the incident.
‘It would be a disaster for the business,’ she said. ‘There is a lot of competition and a lot of prejudice as Ahmed says.’
‘We have an arrangement,’ I said.
‘I have sent someone to bring her here. It will not take long. You will be gentle with her.’
‘Yes. Has she. . behaved violently like this before?’
She shook her head. ‘Not in such a way, no. But she was very distressed when she came from Sydney. She seems to be under great pressure but she will not say why.’
‘You asked her why?’
‘Of course, but she will say nothing. We have been very worried. In a way perhaps it is good that you are here. Perhaps we will learn something.’
Mrs Oberoi checked my name. She took me into a sitting room and offered tea which I refused in favour of more whisky. They brought Mary in about an hour later. The sari, headband, nose jewel and caste mark were gone. She wore boots, jeans and a sweater and her hair was tied up in a knot. No makeup. Her mother spoke to her in what I took to be Hindi. Mary nodded and her mother left.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I panicked.’
‘I’ll mend. Your uncle did a great job. I know you’ve been scared. I know about the man who tried to run you down in Burwood.’
‘Then you know all about. . what do you know?’
Mrs Oberoi had brought my jacket to the room. I reached into the pocket with my right hand without thinking and grimaced at the pain. I used my left hand and took out the photograph of her that Bobby had given me and the one I’d found in Simisola’s house.
‘You know a lot,’ she said. ‘How much have you told my mother?’
‘Nothing and I’ve got no reason to. What I don’t know is who put you up to contacting Bobby and harassing him when he didn’t respond.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘You have to. Otherwise I report this,’ I touched my shoulder, ‘to the police. You’re in trouble and your uncle is in trouble.’
‘You’re a bastard. If you found me, they can find me.’
‘Your choice. How did you keep your family from knowing what you did in Sydney?’
‘They don’t read the papers or watch television. They just work, night and day.’
She reached for the whisky bottle, uncapped it and took a swig. The hard shell she’d needed in Sydney was forming again.
‘You know Simisola’s dead. Did that have anything to do with you?’
‘No. How did you find me?’
‘Isabella.’
She laughed. ‘How much?’
‘Seven fifty.’
‘Cheap. How much are you offering me?’
‘I’m offering you my silence.’
‘They’re good people, my family.’
‘They seem to be.’
‘I’m the black sheep.’
‘So was I.’
‘There’s a difference. I was born in Fiji and brought up more strictly than you can believe. The only thing on the minds of my mother and father was to save money and get to Australia. They moved heaven and earth to do it. And I had to be good at all times. There couldn’t be the slightest thing the immigration Nazis could object to. They applied and waited and waited until the day came.’
I let her tell it her way. I had the feeling she’d give me what I wanted but she had to talk herself into it first.
‘My uncle had applied from India and he got here, too. Eventually. But he couldn’t practise. That was a blow. The strictness towards me continued but, hey, this is Australia. I wouldn’t wear it. I went to Sydney, tried to break into acting, but. . couldn’t. Have you got a cigarette?’
‘Sorry, no.’
‘Bugger.’
Hard to see why she didn’t make it as an actress. She was pretty good. The performance as a demure, exotic Asian restaurant host had been convincing and now she was a convincing tough chick.
‘One thing led to another,’ she said, ‘and I ended up at Black Girls. It wasn’t so bad-mostly call-outs to nice places. They keep too much of the money and they watch you like hawks but. . Anyway, there was this guy who was something to do with the management. He came to me with a proposition.’
‘To entrap Bobby Forrest.’
‘Yeah. It was a good deal. He bought me a computer and showed me the ropes. It wasn’t hard to get under Bobby’s skin, believe me.’
‘At first.’
‘Right, at first. He was very cute and I didn’t mind that much that he couldn’t get it up. A lot of men can’t. There’s other ways if they’ve got any imagination.’
‘But Bobby didn’t have any imagination.’
‘No, he agonised and carried on. I only saw him twice.’
Bobby said once , I thought. They never give you the whole story.
Mrs Oberoi opened the door. ‘Is everything all right?’
Mary looked ready to shout at her but she fought the impulse down.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
Mary rubbed her forehead where the red spot had been. ‘Then Bobby met that woman and didn’t want to have anything to do with me. So I had to keep the pressure on. You know about all that?’
‘Yes. Who was this man?’
‘I’m afraid to tell you.’
‘Why did he want you to do all this?’
‘It wasn’t for him, it was for his boss. The boss owns the brothel.’
‘Why did you go to Burwood?’
‘After Bobby got killed and that media stuff about Miranda appeared I panicked. I wiped all the emails and the stuff on the site. He wanted them to send to the bitch Bobby took up with but I was scared to have them on my computer so I wiped them. That freaked this guy. He wanted me to get right away, go to Melbourne. To a brothel down there. I didn’t want to go. I hate Melbourne. It’s cold and wet and flat and bad things happen there.’
‘Bad things happen everywhere. Why Burwood?’
‘Burwood was as boring a place as I’d ever been to. I thought I could hide there. But he found me.’
‘And threatened you?’
‘Big time. I think he would’ve really hurt me but there was someone watching from across the street.’
‘What’s his name, Mary? You have to tell me.’
‘You’ll go away if I do? You won’t say anything about this,’ she pointed to my shoulder, ‘or say that I gave you his name?’
‘Right. You have my word.’
‘Piss on your word. His name is Alex Mountjoy.’