Pymble is a long way off the track I beat. By reputation, it is inhabited by people who feel good about their big mortgages and tax shelters. They write letters to the papers about capital gains tax and abuses of the welfare system. It is a place light on pubs, corner shops and cars parked in the street-not one I had much impulse to visit, and especially now, with a hard Friday behind me, a phone call to make by midnight, and no very good ideas.
I had a shower and shave in honour of the money in Pymble, and I had a beer and put my gun in the holster under my armpit in honour of Glebe. I was wearing a blue cotton shirt and pants and a denim jacket Hilde had bought me. She said the style was blouson; I said it was good for concealing a gun.
The drive to Pymble took an hour plus. I had to battle against the North Shoreites who were coming into town for a good time. For company, I had the people who were going up to their hobby farms for the weekend. It was like struggling in a river of money with the current going both ways.
In the directory, West Pymble appears as part of the peninsula of residential land that sticks out into the green belt of the Lane Cove river park. The streets were tree-lined with wide, grassy strips outside the broad frontages. To the south, the park was like a dense, dark, whispering sea. The daylight was finished when I arrived at Montague Street, and excessive street lighting must have been considered vulgar in those parts, because I found myself squinting and peering through the gloom trying to spot the apartment block.
I located it towards the end of the street; it was a new building, set back and masquerading as a hide-out in Sherwood Forest. The architect must have been given plenty of space to play with, because he’d arranged the three-storey structure around a courtyard with subsidiary gardens and discreet car parks. There were no obtrusive, high brick walls, no foot-high letters reading ‘The Gables’, no concrete patches for rubbish bins. It was all so pricey and in keeping with the stately houses in the street that the old-time residents couldn’t have objected.
Kelly’s address was Apartment Seven, another nice touch; no suggestion that there would ever be another apartment block here but this monument to good taste. I parked across the street and approached the entrance to what I was privately calling flat seven. I was behaving completely instinctively, with no plan, and only the vaguest idea of what I was looking for or what I might say.
The cars parked in the area that serviced numbers five to eight were a Honda Accord, a Ford Laser and a Citroen. One empty space; no Audi. Kelly’s apartment had a basement section that took advantage of the sloping land; there were slanted windows, like skylights, to let light into it, on either side of the entrance to the ground floor section, which looked to comprise three bedrooms at least, with plenty of space around them. Patio at the back with French windows; side door letting
out onto a flag-stoned path and vine-entwined pergola. Pretty nice if you could afford it, and didn’t mind living this far from the GPO.
There were some lights showing in the apartment, and I thought I could hear a murmur of voices. I went under the pergola and took a peep up at a window; the junction boxes and cables indicated medium-heavy security. I went up the wide brick steps and banged on the door. Nothing happened to the lights or the voices. As I retreated to the steps, a car swung in off the road, mounted the grass at the side of the gravel path, found the path again and skidded into the courtyard. It was a silver VW with a soft top and a left hand drive; the driver swung the wheel hard at the last moment and the car ended up skew-whiff, half in and half out of the empty parking bay.
A woman got out of the car and flicked the door back behind her; the action caused her to over-balance and grab at the car for support. She was tall with long blonde hair. One tanned shoulder, that had either come free of her white dress or was meant to be free of it, gleamed under the dim courtyard light. She pushed off from the car, stumbled and dropped her keys. She giggled; then she bent and clawed the gravel. She stopped giggling and started swearing. I went down the steps, crossed the gravel and grass, bent and picked up her keys. She came up from her crouch reaching for them like a dog begging. She was pretty, with a sharp-featured face and big eyes.
‘Thanks.’ She took the keys and nearly dropped them again.
‘You’re not Deirdre Kelly, are you?’
‘No, I’m not… Hey, don’t look so disappointed. That’s not nice. Don’t I look good enough?’
‘You look fine. I wanted to see her, that’s all.’
She swayed, and reached back for the fabric top of the car. ‘Won’t be home tonight. Tomorrow for sure.’
‘How do you know-for sure?’
‘Party, boy. Big party tomorrow. Hey, look, would you mind giving me a hand from here. I’m a bit pissed.’ She leaned forward to take a closer look at me, lost her balance and grabbed my shoulders. She dropped the keys again. ‘Not an attacker ‘r anything like that, ’re you?’ She smelled of gin, perfume and tobacco. ‘Don’t look like attacker. Look like a pilot or something. You a pilot?’
‘No,’ I said. I bent down for the keys, got an arm around her and helped her take a few faltering steps on her four inch heels. ‘Which way?’
She pointed a long, slim arm at number eight, and I half-carried her along the path and up the steps. She leaned against the wall by the doorway and took off her shoes. I held out the keys.
‘Oh no, no, no,’ she slurred. ‘You don’t leave little Ginny like that. C’mon in and have a drink. You open the door, I couldn’t get it in.’
She did some more giggling while I opened the door; I held it wide, and she tossed her shoes inside.
‘Cm in.’
I was still half-supporting her, and it was beginning to be a job. She was slim, but five feet ten or so of slim, drunk woman is still a fair weight. We went down a thick-carpeted hall towards a light burning dimly in the distance. It turned out to be a kitchen light shining through a smoked glass door. I pulled at the door with my temporarily free hand; she giggled and pushed.
The kitchen was new and glowing. It was one of those things you buy in a package and have installed by a team of men in T-shirts who sing snatches from Gilbert amp; Sullivan while they work. Ginny supported herself on the bench that divided the room and then made a gliding lunge for a chair set up beside a big, circular pine table. She hit it hard; the chair creaked but held.
‘Get a drink,’ she croaked. ‘What d’you like?’
‘Wine.’
‘Me too. Champagne in the fridge.’
There were several bottles of assorted good brands in the refrigerator. I pulled out the nearest, found some glasses and a tea towel and joined her at the table.
“s good stuff. I want fizz.’
She jumped at the pop of the cork and giggled. I poured a full glass for me and a half for her. She smiled loosely, drained the glass in a gulp and held it out for more. I poured again and took a mouthful of the crisp bubbles. She lifted her glass and drained it again.
‘Toast to me,’ she said. ‘Toast to Ginny Ireland.’
‘Ireland?’
‘Like the place. Oh, can’t toast, glass’s empty.’
I filled her up. ‘You sound like an American.’
‘Was. Aussie now, married an’ divorced an Aussie. What’s your name?’
‘Cliff.’
‘Cheers, Cliffy.’
We drank some more. Her big, dark eyes started to take on a faraway look, and I reckoned that the time I had left to question her could be measured in millilitres. ‘Will you be going to Deirdre’s party, Ginny?’
‘Sure, always go to Dee’s. You goin’, Cliffy?’
‘I haven’t got an invitation, I’d like to see Dee though. Got some business to discuss among other things.’
‘Sounds boring, but I guess you’re sorta in the same business.’
I didn’t say anything but let her ramble on until I could pick up my cues. After some hiccupping, it became clear that she’d fixed on the idea that I was an airline pilot. I let her run with that, and agreed with her that I’d be retiring soon and had to look after myself. That seemed to satisfy her in the way of a connection with Deirdre Kelly. She up-ended the bottle and watched it drip into her glass. I had a hand ready to catch it, but she set it down with the excessive carefulness drunks have at this stage.
‘She’s okay, Dee. She’s okay, I don’ care what they say.’
‘Who says what?’
She bent her head to lap at the brim full glass. Strands of her hair fell in the wine and she let them drift into her mouth where she sucked them. She’d drunk nearly two thirds of the bottle on top of the load she already had, and her gaiety was dimming into something slow and studied. ‘Say she’s crazy, say she ‘magines things that don’t really happen.’
‘What do you think?’
The gloss was peeling off her fast. Sweat beaded her face and the wet strands of hair were dark and matted; the make-up around her eyes was smeared and her nose was shiny under the bright kitchen light. ‘Everybody makes up things. I do. You do, doncha?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Course you do. Dee’s friends’ve got no right saying things ‘bout her like that. Bet they make up things.’
‘Sure. Be interesting to meet a few of ‘em, guess what they’d make up.’
She banged her fist on the table. ‘Hey, you’re right. Like a party game: what’re your make-believes, bet I c’n guess.’ In her new mood the whim was taking on a solid reality. Less do it.’
I grinned and sipped.
‘Less do it tomorrow night. Lots there. You can come with me, Cliffy. Be fun.’
I nodded. Her eyes, which had been sliding around the room trying to find something to focus on, finally held on my face for an instant. Her head came forward in a disjointed imitation of my nod, but the movement kept on and her forehead hit the table with a light thud. She twitched once and passed out.
I sipped the rest of my wine and waited until her shoulders had slumped and she was breathing regularly. Then I prowled through the big apartment. Her bedroom was furnished in the same packaged style as the kitchen with matching double bed, built-in cupboards and dressing table. There were enough clothes to outfit Charlie’s Angels and none of them was cheap. The fur on the pile of cushions on the bed looked real. Other rooms held basic-furniture and there was no indication of where the funds came from.
I turned on a soft light by the bed, peeled the covers back to the black silk sheets and shoved some pillows into place. Back in the kitchen I located some aspirin and put them with a glass of water on the table by the bed. Ginny had slipped forward and was in danger of ending up under the table, literally. I picked her up, carried her to the bed and set her down. She stirred briefly and grabbed a pillow. On a sheet torn from my notebook I wrote: ‘Looking forward to the party. I’ll be here around nine. Love, Cliff.’ I added a quick and not too inaccurate sketch of an airline pilot’s wings to the bottom of the note, because I thought Ginny’s visual recall might be better than her verbal.
I put her keys on the bedside table, and her shoes neatly together in the hall. I turned off a few lights and thought I could hear a light snoring as I let myself out of the apartment.