Saving Billie

She pulled in at a pub. Thank you, Billie, I thought. Thank you very much.

She got out, hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, and went into the pub. It was old style with a balcony running around the front and sides one floor up and other remnants of the original structure not ruined by probably several phases of renovation. It looked welcoming. I followed her into the bar and saw her heading off to the women's toilet. Maybe she was just paying a visit for that purpose. I hoped not. I ordered a light beer and was relieved when she came out, ordered a gin and tonic and took the drink through to an outside area where she could smoke. She lit up and settled down at a table with a view across some paddocks to the hills.

My eye was throbbing. I swallowed a couple of painkillers with the last of the middy and ordered another. I bought a packet of chips at the machine and munched them slowly, trying not to be too obvious about watching the woman. Five or six people were in the bar minding their own business. A television set was tuned to the races and I looked up at it from time to time, pretending an interest. With my glass half empty I ordered a gin and tonic, surprising the barman.

'For the lady,' I said, pointing.

He nodded, more interested in the races.

I had another good, long look at her as he prepared the drinks. Tommy had said she'd looked ill when he'd seen her. Must have made a quick recovery because she looked healthy now. Back straight, head up. What she really looked was angry. She flicked ash from her cigarette without caring where it went and sipped her drink without apparent pleasure.

'Shit,' the barman said, and I gathered his horse had lost as they mostly do.

I took the drinks through to the outside sitting area and reached over her shoulder to put the gin down in front of her.

'Hello, Billie,' I said.

I moved around to face her and she looked at me as if I'd just tipped the drink down the front of her top.

'My name's not Billie,' she said. 'And who the hell are you?'

8

It took us quite a while and another drink to get it sorted out. Her name was Sharon Marchant, and she was Billie's younger sister.

'I know we look alike,' she said after a few preliminary exchanges, 'but we're not twins. I'm taller; she's thinner.'

'I've only seen a photo that goes back a few years.'

I said I'd followed her from Liston, showed her my credentials and gave her a carefully constructed version of the reason for my interest in her sister. I implied that money could be a factor, but didn't say how much or how it might be earned. She listened, smoking, drinking. Then I asked the obvious question.

'So what were you doing in Liston, Sharon?'

She wasn't about to jump into anything. 'Have you got the number for this client of yours?'

'Sure.'

She took a mobile phone from her bag and raised an eyebrow. I read off the number from Lou's card and she dialled it.

'Hello, Ms Kramer? My name is Sharon Marchant. I'm Billie's sister. I understand you talked to her not so long ago-that right?'

There aren't many things worse than being excluded from a conversation that interests you intensely. I fiddled with my glass.

'Okay. And you've hired a man named Cliff Hardy to help you?'

The painkillers and the alcohol had cut in. I was feeling competent, in control, and let my gaze wander to the horizon. Maybe the painkillers were having a mind-altering effect because I was suddenly aware of what had been nagging at me since I'd reached Campbelltown. The sky was immense, the horizon far distant and human problems seemed less important than they do in the enclosed environments of the city. Careful, Cliff, I thought, you've got a living to earn.

Sharon closed her phone and picked up her glass. 'She wanted to talk to you but I said she could do it on her own dime.'

'My mobile's in the car. I kind of dislike it.'

She shrugged.

I guessed her age at around forty but she was carrying it well. Her figure was firm and her face, though lined, was still taut where it mattered. Those Marchant genes had to be good. 'Well, I'll tell you why I was in that shit-hole. Billie's there. She's shacked up with this Tongan arsehole, Yolande.'

'I've heard of him. Some kind of vigilante?'

'I dunno about that. He's a God botherer, like a lot of them, and he's trying to get her off stuff.'

'Stuff?'

She raised her glass and took a pull on the cigarette she'd puffed on throughout the phone call. 'Fags and booze, speed-you name it. She got desperate and called me and I went there. Shit!'

She ground out the cigarette. 'They're praying over her when she's asleep and reading the Bible at her and singing their hymns and it's driving her crazy. I tried to get her to come away with me and I reckon she was almost ready to even though she's in a mind-fucked fog, and then that big bastard arrived.'

'Manuma.'

'Right. He's got them all under the thumb. Shit, I don't know what to do. She's my sister and I love her, but… I know she's trouble. Fair killed our mum.'

'What about the boy?'

She almost dropped her lighter on its way to the cigarette in her mouth. 'You know about him?'

I showed her the photograph.

She got the cigarette lit, inexpertly. 'How did you get this?'

I told her. It seemed to make her take my presence and interest in her sister more seriously. She flattened out a corner of the photo that had got bent. 'She'd love to have this back, I'm sure.'

'Why would she leave it behind?'

'She overdosed accidentally on some bad shit. Yolande packed her up and moved her to his place. She's been there ever since, under… what d'you call it? House arrest. Getting the Jesus treatment. What she needs is proper stuff-detoxification, counselling and that.'

'Is this Yolande the boy's father? What's his name by the way?'

'Samuel. Sam. No, not Yolande. That's only been going on for a couple of years. Sam came along, oh, fifteen years ^a g°{

'Before Eddie?'

She blew smoke. 'You do know a bit, don't you?'

'I knew Eddie. He was in the same game, but he played by different rules.'

'Eddie,' she said. 'What a loser. To tell you the truth, I don't think Billie knows who Sam's father was. She had a thing for black blokes at the time.'

'Black as in?'

She shrugged. 'Kooris, mostly. We both went that way for a while. We're said to have a touch of it ourselves, would you believe?'

'Plenty do, they say. A lot more than know it or admit it. But you've dodged the question. Where's Sam now?'

All of a sudden, the initial wariness she'd displayed was back. 'Look, you've bought me a couple of drinks and showed you're caught up in something involving Billie. But I don't know anything about this Clement you mentioned. Why d'you want to know about Sam?'

I took off the sunglasses and let her see my eye. 'My client, Lou Kramer, the woman you just spoke to, claims that Clement had Eddie Flannery killed because he knew something about Clement's business and tried to make a quid out of it. Clement found out I was working for Lou and I copped this for my trouble. Lou thinks Billie might know what Eddie knew and, if she does, she's in danger. The kid makes her vulnerable if Clement gets wind of him. Does any of this make sense?'