The plastic came away easily and the gun was still in good condition as far as I could tell. No rust and the magazine released easily. I expelled the bullets, which also seemed to be as good as new. I doubted that the pistol had ever been fired. How she got hold of it I never knew. I worked the action a few times and it seemed free. I had cleaning equipment at home. What’s a private detective without a gun? Except that I wasn’t a private detective any longer. I put the Walther in the pocket of my leather jacket, zipped it up tight.
I carted the boxes of files and other things like the coffee maker, the fax machine and the computer and printer back to Glebe and installed the useful bits in the spare room. The files stayed in boxes on the floor. After watching the news-nothing on Gregory-and eating something, I poured a glass of red and amused myself by cleaning the pistol. I was putting off ringing Townsend for an update on Jane Farrow. I’d had a few glasses and was feeling the effects. I thought about my once-legitimate. 38 revolver and the illicit. 45 automatic and a bit of the Oscar Wilde line popped into my head, with a variation: To lose one pistol, Mr Hardy…
I was smiling at my own wit when the door buzzer sounded. I assembled the pistol and went to the door. The peephole showed me Lee Townsend standing back so that I could see most of him. Townsend, the short-arse, knew better than to stand close up.
I opened the door, holding the pistol behind my back. He was carrying a bottle. Shaped up as a better guest than I was a host. He came in and saw the gun.
‘Jesus Christ, Cliff. What’re you expecting?’
I laughed. ‘I was cleaning it. I was going to ring you but now you’re here.’
‘You’ve had a few.’
‘Ready for a few more. What’s that you’ve got there?’
‘Wolf Blass. We have to talk.’
‘Right. Through here.’
I led him to the kitchen and handed him the corkscrew, always to hand. ‘Crack it. I’ll get the glasses.’
To do him credit, he didn’t make a survey of the sixties decor or the much earlier structural decay. He opened the bottle with an expert touch. I got two glasses and we perched on either side of the bench. I put the gun on the sink and poured.
Townsend drank half the glass in a gulp. ‘Have you been married, Cliff? Or lived with women? Other than Lily, I mean.’
The wine was several notches better than the stuff I’d been drinking. I sipped it. ‘Yeah, two or three.’
‘Did you ever think you’d made one happy?’
It wasn’t what I wanted to talk about, but something in his manner made me respond. I thought about Cyn, Helen Broadway, Glen Withers…
‘No,’ I said, ‘not really.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Not sure. Partly to do with me, I guess, the way I am. But I don’t think the women I’ve been with had a great capacity for happiness. Not many women do.’
‘Just women?’
I supposed this was leading to Jane Farrow by a roundabout route so I went along with it, although philosophising wasn’t my strong suit. ‘I think men achieve it more easily, at least for some of the time, from what they do. With women, it seems to be harder. This’s partly the wine talking. Where’s this going, Lee?’
He drained his glass as if he was trying to catch up with me. I poured him some more.
‘Jane tore strips off me when she heard about what she called our cowboy show last night.’
‘That shouldn’t surprise you.’
‘No, what surprised me was some of the things she said about… well, us. I mean, there was mutual attraction, sure. And good sex. But I thought her real interest in me was closely tied in with what I could do for her. But it turned out she was more on about how disappointed she was that I hadn’t trusted her and had gone behind her back and shaken the feelings she was starting to have for me. Coming from someone like her, I tell you it cut through.’
I nodded and we both drank some more wine.
He went on, ‘I got defensive, angry, upset. She wanted to know how it was we weren’t charged and how there was nothing much in the media.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I was tempted to tell her the truth, but my back was up and I lied. I said that Parker had used his influence as a former deputy commissioner to get us off the hook and the police had given the media bugger-all. She seemed to accept that.’
‘Good.’
‘We were at my place. We both calmed down and sort of apologised and we ended up in bed.’
‘Good luck to you. When was this?’
‘This afternoon. She had the day off. The thing is, she wants to go ahead with her plan, and just the way you suggested-targeting Perkins. And she wants to do it soon.
23
I could think of a number of theoretical objections to the plan, but remembering the character of Jane Farrow, I knew that none of them would sway her. If she was determined to go ahead, that was fine with me and the thing for Townsend and me to do was offer her as much support as we could and look to satisfy our own needs-for me, justice for Lily’s death, for Townsend, a big story and, possibly, the saving of his relationship with Farrow.
I said these things, more or less, as we finished off the bottle of wine. For a small man, Townsend appeared to hold his grog well. He was determined to drive home so I got out some biscuits and cheese as blotter and brewed coffee.
‘How soon’s soon?’ I asked.
‘She says a couple of days.’
‘Can you set things up that quickly? You told her it’d take a week. It’ll be a rush but she’s calling the shots.’
‘Hmm… First I have to know the meeting place. She says she’ll try to make it somewhere people can hide.’
‘Their people or ours?’
‘That’s one of the problems, isn’t it?’
‘It could be. When d’you expect her to get back to you on that?’
Townsend shrugged. ‘With her, who knows? She’s an alpha female. There’s a bit more I have to tell you.’
I told him to have something to eat and to drink some coffee before he did. Gave me time to anticipate what it might be. Difficult to see how things could be more uncertain or dangerous.
He cleared his throat. ‘After we’d… reconciled, I showed her the little Morello video and told her about the photographs.’
He obviously expected me to explode and, maybe if I hadn’t had so much to drink, I would have. But for an aggressive, assertive man, he was now showing a vulnerability I hadn’t seen before and I didn’t have the heart to make it any harder, at least until I’d heard him out. Stay calm, I told myself.
‘That’s without showing the face of the woman or using her name, right?’
Relief showed in his every movement as he drank more coffee. ‘Yes, of course.’
I felt I’d been too soft. ‘It wasn’t a fucking rhetorical question. Did you or didn’t you use the name, let it slip between kisses?’
‘I did not.’
‘Okay. Well, in a way it puts the matter into an interesting perspective. Did you tell her I had the photos?’
‘No, but she knows we’re working together and…’
‘Right. So if anyone comes after me or you in the next couple of days, we’ll know she’s playing for the other side, won’t we?’
He went pale, almost yellow under my spotty light. ‘I didn’t think of that.’
‘Have to think of everything. Cheer up-you’ve got good security and so have I. Just keep a wary eye out.’
Some of the self-confidence was back. ‘You’re making fun of me.’