Saving Billie

'You've had pneumonia,' I said. 'If you're not careful you could get very sick.'

The clinical word seemed to pull her up for a moment, but she waved it away and reached for the orange juice. 'Anything to give this a boost? Where's that brandy from last night?'

'We drank it,' Sharon said.

'Fuck you. Hey, lighten up, you guys. I'm going to be fine. I'm a fast healer, right, sis? Remember when I had that… well, never mind.'

'Clap,' Sharon said. 'At the clinic they said they'd never seen anyone get clear of it so fast.'

'That's me. Now let's talk about what's going to happen next. Where's the cute kid, by the way?'

I said, 'He's having a rest. Been working since first light. What's going to happen is that we're trying to keep you clear of Jonas Clement and Barclay Greaves, who both want you talking, then dead.'

Billie swigged orange juice from the container and didn't turn a hair. 'Clement I know, sort of; don't know the other one, but I've dealt with pricks like them before.'

Sharon snatched the drink bottle away. 'Didn't you hear what was said last night? That guy was going to torture you.'

Billie shrugged. 'Didn't happen. I don't worry about shit that doesn't happen.'

'You're impossible.'

Billie lifted a shoulder and the top of the nightdress slid further, exposing a firm breast with a large brown nipple. 'No, I'm very possible. What's Mr Resourceful here going to do next?'

Sharon slammed her fist on the table and walked away.

'Hey, bring back the fucking juice.'

When Sharon didn't respond, Billie turned her attention to me. She cupped her hand around the bare breast and teased the nipple with her fingers. 'Well?'

'Very nice,' I said. 'I bet when you were stripping you could swing the two tassels either way together, or one to the left and the other to the right.'

She laughed. 'You bet I could, while doing the fuckin' splits.'

'Bit past it now though, aren't you?'

Her eyes were dark recesses surrounded by lines, and the skin on her hands was slightly wrinkled, puckered around her wrists. For all her emaciation there was an underlying flabbiness about her, the result of years of abuse, and she seemed to be aware of it all at once. The animation left her face and she sagged in the chair. She hitched up the nightdress.

'You're an arsehole.'

'An arsehole who might stop you getting killed.'

'Yeah, well, I'm all for that as long as I get a go at the thirty grand.'

'Twenty.'

She grinned and tried to recover some of the bravado, but her bedraggled appearance and sour breath let her down. 'We might try to up the ante.'

'Don't even think it. They're out of your league.'

'How about yours?'

'We'll see. Go back to bed, Billie. You're tired.'

She went and passed Sharon on the way. They didn't speak.

Sharon picked at the crumbs on the table. 'She drives me mad, always did. Why d'you think she was so desperate about not seeing the police? I mean, with a lawyer and everything they couldn't do too much to her. She doesn't seem to be having withdrawal problems.'

'I don't know, but I agree she was desperate about it. As for the withdrawal, she's still got a fever and she's still got alcohol and Valium in her system. It might hit her yet.'

'God help everyone if it does. Now, I heard what you said to Tommy and his uncle about getting things sorted out. Sounds as if you've got a plan.'

'It's sketchy.'

'Are you going to tell me what it is?'

'Better you don't know. For your own good.'

She stared out at the work-in-progress yard and made an exasperated grunt. 'Men are always telling women what's for their own good, instead of letting them decide for themselves.'

'I suppose that's true. In this case…'

'When's it going to change?'

I got up, reaching for my notebook which is never far from hand. 'When you rule the world,' I said.

'Roll on the day.'

She wandered out into the back yard, picked up a rake and started to tidy up some of Tommy's rougher spots. I checked the numbers and dialled the radio station owned and performed on by Jonas Clement. '2BC FM.'

'I have an important message for Mr Jonas Clement.'

'I'll put you through to his secretary.'

When the secretary came on the line I asked to speak to Clement and was told he wasn't available.

'I understand that,' I said. 'I have a very important message for him. You should get this down word for word, okay? Tell him that Cliff Hardy called-he knows the name-and that if he wants to learn something about his son he should meet me tomorrow at eleven fifty am at the coffee shop on the top level of the Queen Victoria Building, Town Hall end. He's to come alone and be strictly prompt. Have you got that?'

'I think so. But what-?'

'Just read it back.'

She did and had it pretty right. I corrected a few things. She didn't like it and tried to press for more personal details but I overrode her. 'Just get that message to Clement or I guarantee you won't have a job tomorrow.'

I cut the connection, rang Oceania Securities and went through the same procedure, except that the message to Barclay Greaves referred to Clive McGuinness rather than Clement's son and the time I specified was midday.

I put the phone down and nodded to Tommy as he went past me out into the yard. He and Sharon wrestled for the rake and both laughed when Tommy let Sharon win. It was the most light-hearted moment I'd seen in some time and it gave me a lift. Then I put in a call to Hank Bachelor. I'd told Clement and Greaves to come alone, but I didn't believe they would and neither would I.

Why is it that, with emails and mobile phones, people are harder to get in touch with than ever? Probably because they move around more. There's spam, so they put off reading emails or wipe them by mistake; the mobiles go on the blink, run out of charge and there are blank spots where they don't work. Whatever the reason, I couldn't get in touch with Hank. I was swearing about it when Lily Truscott rang me.

She doesn't beat around the bush, Lil. 'Anything on Greaves yet?'

'Not yet. Maybe soon.'

'Like when?'

'Don't hold the page, Lil. Put in an ad.'

'I'm not the editor anymore, remember? Oh well, is there anything I can do for you?'

'Thanks. No. Why?'

'You sound stressed, Cliff. Not your upbeat self.'

We talked for a while about nothing in particular and I felt better. I changed into my gym gear and helped

Tommy in the yard so that by evening I was tired. Tommy, Sharon and I cleaned up the remainder of the lunch food as well as plenty of toast. Billie slept or sulked. I slept.

22

I'd been in the QVB a few weeks before buying audio books for my daughter Megan at the ABC shop on the second level of the three-gallery structure. She was going on tour with a theatre company-a lot of boring bus travel. Megan's an addicted reader but, like me, she gets sick trying to read in a bus. Okay on trains and planes. I got her The Woman in White and The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Seemed like a balanced selection. I remembered noticing that the coffee shop had been busy, and I wanted plenty of people around when I confronted Clement and Greaves, to deter them, or more likely their backups, from doing anything violent.

After her additional doses of antibiotics, Billie was feeling a lot better in the morning and was beginning to harass Sharon about her money. I told Sharon to hold off until the afternoon when I hoped to be able to report some development. I had no real expectations; I just wanted to break the deadlock and see where the chips fell.

Clement and Greaves had to be in the dark about a number of things. Clement didn't know that Rhys Thomas was really working for Greaves. God knows what he'd been told about the death of his son. It depended on how Thomas and Kezza had played it, but it was unlikely to be the truth. Greaves had to be wondering about McGuinness and what had happened to the woman he'd had abducted and paid out money for with no result.