Montefiore: ‘I could do with a drink and a fuck.’
Lewis: ‘Yeah, that’d be right. In that order.’
Montefiore: ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
Lewis: ‘Just go to sleep.’
Montefiore: ‘C’mon, Fay’
Lewis: ‘No, he’ll hear us. Anyhow, you should complain. I’m out of smokes and nicotine’s more addictive than alcohol… and heroin.’
Montefiore: ‘Yeah, yeah. You can smoke yourself to death when we get the money. Shit, sorry, love. Didn’t mean that. This fuckin’ boat…’
Lewis: ‘Is it any wonder I won’t tell you the name? How could I trust you?’
Montefiore: ‘I could make you tell me.’
Lewis: ‘No, you wouldn’t have the guts.’
Montefiore: ‘You’re right, torturing women’s not my scene. Anyway, I know the name, so really you’re just along for the fuckin’ ride, aren’t you?’
Lewis: ‘You don’t know it.’
Montefiore: ‘Eastman, right? Frank Eastman. That’s when he wasn’t Phil West.’
Lewis: ‘Wrong.’
Montefiore: ‘I don’t think so. I talked to Rory, remember, before he went missing and you fucked that bastard?’
Lewis: ‘Jesus, Jay. Let it rest.’
Montefiore: ‘I’m getting most of that dough back from Reg.’
Lewis: ‘You’re all talk.’
Montefiore: ‘No, listen, I know this gay guy in Sydney. Just Reg’s type, looks ten years younger than he is. I’ll line him up with Reg and he’ll find the money and-’
Lewis: ‘Talk, talk, talk…’
There was more-squabbling, bitching, contradicting each other, both on edge from withdrawal and tension. Eventually they went to sleep just before the tape ran out. I tried the reverse side but it was blank. I rewound the tape and played it again without learning anything more.
A number of questions arose. Had Penny played the tape? Probably, although I hadn’t seen a recorder in my quick search. Perhaps he’d set the recorder up with a fresh tape to record more of the intimacies between his passengers. In that case the police were likely to find it and God knows what could be on it. If Penny had heard the tape, it was unlikely he would have allowed Montefiore to provide him with a playmate, however attractive. So the man I’d seen on the boat probably wasn’t Montefiore’s acquaintance. Was he Penny’s killer or had the Noumea mystery man done the wet work with a different MO? And where was the Noumea money, whoever had it? If it was on the boat or in the flat the cops would be back to me with more questions. Or playing a waiting game.
I drained the coffee mug and realised that the afternoon had drawn in and was getting cool. My shoulder was aching and I took everything back inside and swallowed some painkillers with a weak scotch and water. I wasn’t happy. I was in illicit possession of evidence relating to three homicides; I’d involved two innocent people in dangerous situations, and my relationship with my client had been through some choppy waters and could go there again.
I wandered around the house, thinking, until I heard noises from the front. I looked out and saw Hank Bachelor and Clive lift the aluminium dinghy from the Patrol’s roof rack and carry it into Clive’s front yard. Hank waved at Clive and drove away.
I heard the chirp of my mobile and went back to the kitchen where I’d left it beside the coffee mug and the dirty plate.
‘Hardy.’
‘Bryce O’Connor. I’ve been hearing things about your comings and goings, Hardy. I hope you’re not going to need legal representation.’
‘So do I.’
‘Stewart Master will see you tomorrow at 10 am. I haven’t quite put that accurately. In fact, he insists on seeing you.’
20
Master wasn’t the same man. He stalked across to the cubicle ignoring everything else until he was a metre from me, almost within punching distance, and he looked as if there was nothing he’d rather do than land one.
‘You cunt,’ he said.
‘Sorry you feel that way. You don’t think you’re possibly a bit to blame yourself?’
He dropped into the chair across the table and some of the steam went out of him. ‘Yeah, in a way of course it’s all my fucking fault, but what sort of an idiot takes a woman into a set-up like that?’
‘She was looking at paying out a hell of a lot of money. I thought she should get a look at who she was paying it to and she could bail out if she didn’t want to go the whole distance. Also, I thought she was probably a good judge of character, with an exception in your case.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Fuck you. That should go for you as well. So you reckon she’s a good judge of character, do you? Been having little chats?’
‘Listen, Stewart, I don’t give a shit about you. In my book she’d be better to let you rot here for ten years and let your kids grow up without you. Better for them, better for everyone. But I know there’s some conspiracy here and you’re in the middle of it. Your wife and I have been shot at. Three of the blokes you had dealings with in Noumea are dead and-’
‘Three? Rory and Jay, who else?’
‘Reg Penny. I found him on his boat yesterday morning with four, let’s make that five, knife wounds in his chest. He’d been there a while. It didn’t smell good and it didn’t look pretty.’
It rocked him. He leaned back in his chair and had trouble stopping himself from covering his face with his hands. Then he surprised me. ‘You’ve seen Lorrie,’ he said quietly. ‘How is she?’
I’d thought he was the type to worry only about himself and he’d proved me wrong. It gave him points on my score-card-not a lot, but some. ‘She’s all right, worried about the kids but that’s all in hand. She’s got a guard and there’ll be one when she goes home. She didn’t need major surgery or anything. I imagine she’ll have a scar of some kind, but…’
He nodded. ‘How come you didn’t get hit?’
‘I pulled Lorrie down. He was mainly concerned to get Fay and Jay. By the time he got to us I’d grabbed a gun that was there and got off a couple of shots. Didn’t hit him but he took off.’
He gave me a long, searching look. Had he picked up on my inadvertent use of Lorrie’? Hard to tell, but it seemed like the time to put the question.’ Who is he, Master? What’s it all about? Who’s Eastman, or is it West?’
He sighed and leaned back in the chair. As before, there were other prisoners and their visitors in the room, but neither of us registered them or the guard. We were both closely focused. I waited while he seemed to turn things over in his mind, weigh them, decide. But he wasn’t quite ready. ‘Tell me what you know first.’
I gave him Montefiore’s version more or less verbatim- that the reward for setting Master up was the green light for a major dope shipment into Australia and a share of the profits. I said that Rory McCloud had knocked it back and been eliminated and that Pascal Rivages was a main player.
‘And did you believe all that?’
‘I didn’t know what to believe. I thought there was something in it, but I couldn’t see the point of dropping you in it, or why the prosecutor and the other people at this end would go along, or why you appear to have gone along with it.’
‘No?’
‘I guessed there was something in it when I learned you’d put in a bid for the Atlas. You were looking to make big money somehow.’
He grimaced. ‘And you told Lorrie that and she read me the riot act.’
I shrugged. ‘I was trying to shake something up.’
‘You fucking did.’
‘It’s my job.’
‘Yeah. Everything’s changed now. Did he know the woman with you was Lorrie?’
‘I hate to say it but I think he could’ve. I found out later my phones were tapped. I was slack.’
‘You were. All right, I’m going to have to trust you, and that goes against the grain. If this goes any further, I’m dead in here. I’ve asked around. A few blokes say you’re a complete prick but you’ve got some balls and you’re not a talker. This is how it was. I was approached to be an inside man in the prison system to track how the drugs were getting in. I was supposed to be convicted of a medium level import, get five years, be out in under three. They were going to move me around and I’d report to them how the system worked. The conviction was going to be overturned and I’d be paid a big compensation with a lot more under the counter.’