Sheila told me that the man she knew as Seamus Cummings, known to Angela Warburton as Sean Cassidy, was, or had been, a soldier. She didn't know in what army he'd served- who he'd fought for or against.
'He was sexy,' she said.
Looking at the photograph, I could see the cause of the attraction, especially when he had a bit more flesh on his bones. He looked confident, and that means more to a lot of women than good looks. Certainly more than a full head of hair or the other things that men worry about and put store in. She said Cummings had never met Patrick as far as she knew, but had seen his photograph.
'He went wild when I told him I was dropping him for Paddy.'
'Violent wild?'
'Not to me; more to himself. He did threaten Paddy, but instead of doing anything he went on a week-long drunk and finished up in jail.'
'This was where?'
'Brisbane. I was buggering around in a crummy little theatre company and Paddy was still in the army but getting ready to leave.'
We'd finished the coffee and were on the sofa. I was sitting; she was lying with her head on my lap. I stroked her hair. We'd got past the point of antagonism or misunderstanding. She saw that I wasn't probing her, just pursuing a line of inquiry.
'Did Patrick have a beard back then? Say, in the photograph this guy, whatever he calls himself, saw? He certainly recognised him at the ceilidh.
'It's a lovely word for a piss-up, isn't it? Let me think. Yeah, I think so. They weren't allowed to have beards in the army, but he was on leave. Paddy's beards were sort of reverse deciduous-on in winter, off in summer.'
We were both tired, more than a little drained by the recent events in our separate and combined lives. Our hands moved, independently, to the places we wanted to touch. Tired can be good.
'One last question,' I said. 'What was Cummings doing in Australia?'
'Jesus, you detective, you. He had family here. People who'd emigrated. He said he came out pretty often to look them up. He wouldn't kill Paddy over something that happened that many years ago, surely.'
Sheila was up early, before me. She spent a lot of time in the bathroom and then on her mobile phone. She skipped breakfast and took off in a hurry. I'd found recently that I needed something in my stomach for the heart medications to lie comfortably, so I sat down to two poached eggs and coffee with my notebook. I drew a firm line through Sheila's name, cancelling her as a suspect. It wasn't just the feelings I had for her. She'd scarcely mentioned her claim on Patrick's estate and was clearly more excited by her acting prospects than anything else, including, I suspected, our relationship. I was sure she wasn't acting now. If she was, she was better than Meryl Streep.
Men don't commit murder over failed love affairs twenty years in the past. I was down to two possibilities-Frank Szabo, or someone connected with Patrick's smuggling activities. The latter seemed more likely but I was unsure how to go about investigating it and, anyway, that would be what the police were concentrating on. I logged on and brought up the Western Warriors website. 'Up Hawkesbury way' translated into a property on the river above Wisemans Ferry.
The web entry gave details of the property and fairly precise directions to it. A photograph of what was called 'The Compound' showed a high cyclone fence with a reception booth. There were telephone and fax numbers for the Commander and the Personnel Officer. Didn't look like a place where you just dropped in.
The WW, as it was styled, described itself as 'dedicated to masculinity, courage, resourcefulness and survival'. The activities included physical training, orienteering, rafting, scuba diving, unarmed combat and war games. It sounded like one of the 'Iron John' outfits popular in the nineties in the US. They spouted right-wing political agendas, of course, but were basically harmless-run by fantasists catering to the insecurities ofother fantasists. I'd read that these organisations generally morphed into mechanisms for extracting money from those who signed up. Some switched focus and became wacko cults. It was hard to see Szabo playing those games, but Marvis Marshall had hinted at something more serious with his mention of soldiers of fortune and ordnance. And there was that reference on the website to war games.
Hank called in, checked my landline and gave it the all-clear. He spent some time with the computer and told me he'd installed firewall protection for my emails-whatever that meant. He used the upstairs bathroom and came down sniffing ostentatiously.
'You've got a lady friend, or you're turning weird on us.'
'Mind your own business.'
'Megan'll be pleased. She said she couldn't see you as a long-term celibate.'
I packed a bag, fuelled the Camry and headed north. I had no particular plan for getting inside the WW stronghold, but you can sometimes talk your way past caretakers, concierges, even armed guards. And I'd been over, under and through cyclone fences before.
It was mid-week on a mild, cloudy day. Traffic on the highway is never light but it wasn't too bad and the car handled well. I played some Kasey Chambers, the Whitlams and Perry Keyes' album, The Last Ghost Train Home. It rained and the road grew slippery and the trucks threw up oily spray. I turned the music off and concentrated on my driving, glad to leave the freeway at Hornsby.
The road wriggles up past Galston and through Glenorie and Maroota. Nice country and pretty restful driving so that I could play the music again. Not that I really heard it. I was running possible courses of action through my mind. The toy soldiers, for all their openness, might not welcome me or give me time with one of their number. I could ask about them in the place nearest their property-a hamlet called Battle, which might have inspired their choice of site-and feel my way into the situation.
I resisted the impulse to have a drink in one of the Wisemans Ferry pubs, crossed the river on the cable ferry, and pushed on up a road that degenerated from tarmac to dirt to gravel and clay. The country looked lush after recent rain and the river had a strong flow. The road skirted the edge of the national park as the land rose with every kilometre west. I rounded a bend as the road veered away from the river and Battle came into view-from this distance just a collection of tin roofs with some smoke rising in the cold, still air.
The place consisted of a general store with a petrol bowser attached and a handicrafts shop. The shop was closed and looked as though it only opened at its owner's whim, but the store was open for business. It served as a DVD hire, post office, fast food outlet, bottle shop and pool hall. A gossip and information centre if ever I saw one. I was in cords, boots, a flannel shirt and denim jacket and the car had acquired a coating of mud and dust on the trip. I hadn't shaved that morning and I fancied I didn't look like a city slicker.
A man and a woman were working behind the several counters-both overweight, both talking loudly to the four or five customers needing their services. Loudly, because a TV tuned to a game show was blaring. The patrons divided their attention between the TV and their orders, and they ignored me after a cursory glance. Both shopkeepers were flat out, and I wandered around, inspecting the DVDs, a rack of second-hand paperbacks and the pool set-up: two tables with battered surfaces, the cloth lifting in some spots and worn almost bare in others. It was a fair bet that the cues were warped.
Toasted sandwiches, loaves of bread, litres of milk, beer and cigarettes dispensed, the customers filed out one by one after taking last looks at the screen. I was about to approach the counter to buy a six-pack and ask my question when I heard the scrape of boots on the coir mat at the door. A tall man, heavily bearded and wearing a bush hat, modified military fatigues and a Driza-Bone walked in. He saw me, mock saluted, and pulled off his hat.
'Paddy Malloy,' he said. 'What the hell are you doing here?'