Saving Billie

Whether Clement used his information about Peter Scriven as a bargaining chip, I don't know. In any case it was no business of mine. Scriven had chiselled honest people out of their businesses and savings and if he was being bled by Clement that was all right with me. They never recover any money from these crooks who do a runner anyway.

Tommy did a terrific job at Mike's place and went on to do the painting and repair work. Still at it, and Mike's promised him a job driving when he's finished. I drop around there from time to time and always come away thinking I should get someone to do a job on my place. Never get around to it, though.

I went to Frank and Hilde's on election night, looking forward to seeing them but not expecting any joy. They had a few other people over, ex-cops, social workers-the area Hilde had gone into-and tennis club friends. It was a good group, lively, with a good gender mix and a range of political positions that meant the results pleased some and displeased others. There was a good deal of chiacking in an Aussie way that really says we think all politicians are bastards at heart.

Interest went out of the result very early and people started to drift away. Frank took me aside around 11 pm. We were both a bit depressed by the outcome, both a bit drunk.

'I hear you're sailing close to the wind with this Clement thing, mate,' Frank said.

'Yeah, I'm looking at a licence hearing. You going character witness for me?'

'Did it before an' I'll do it again. You could be out on your ear.'

'Viv Garner reckons just a suspension.'

'Viv's a bloody optimist, always was. Cliff, have you ever thought of packing it in and doing something else?'

'Like what?'

'I dunno. You need a business plan. Sell that bloody great terrace and buy a flat and invest the balance and…'

'Yeah, Frank?'

'Fuck it, you won't.'

He was right there.

Lily Truscott had agreed to come to the party with me even though I hadn't been able to follow through with any dope on Greaves. Harry Tickener was there too, and he told me the publishers were trying to see if there was anything they could do with the draft bits of manuscript they'd got from Lou Kramer on Clement now that he was in the news. They were playing it very close to the chest so there was nothing for Harry. I'd disappointed them both, and we were all depressed by the election. But Lily came back to my place and stayed the night so the evening wasn't a total loss.

I got a cheque from Sharon in the mail although I hadn't submitted an account. Enclosed in the envelope was a caricature of a bloke with grizzled grey-black hair, a broken nose, suspicious eyes and a humorous expression. Can't think who it could be.

Steve Kooti stays in touch with Tommy and I've run into him once or twice. He tells me that nothing much has changed out at Liston. John Manuma's protection centre is still working its scams and the Island Brotherhood was celebrating the conservative victory in the federal election.

'That'd be right,' I said to him. 'What about your mob?'

'Greens.'

I didn't hear anything more about Rhys Thomas and for a while I watched out for bow-legged men with attitude, but I didn't really expect to run into him. If he was smart he'd be far, far away, but given Clement's connections there was a good chance that he was dead and buried.

I thought that was it, filed the contracts, my notes on the case, the photos I'd taken outside Lou's apartment block and Sharon's sketch, and got on with other things, but Sharon turned up at my office one day out of the blue. She was in her overalls and sneakers so she wasn't there to take me to lunch at the Mixing Pot. I sat her down and brewed some coffee.

She tasted it and pulled a face. 'That's terrible,' she said.

'I can't make good coffee,' I admitted. 'It's always bitter. Other people use my gear and it turns out fine, but I can't do it.'

'Have you got anyone yet, Cliff? You know-a significant other?'

'No, not really. You?'

'Might have. We'll see, but I came to tell you about Billie. She rang me and said she wanted to see me. She's in Newcastle. I thought what the hell, good place, be a change, so I drove up there.'

'When was this?'

'Two days ago. Of course, she wanted the rest of the money but that wasn't why she wanted to see me. I mean, I could've sent her a cheque. So I went to her flat-nice place in the heart of the city. She looked pretty good- tarty as hell, but that's Billie. She told me she was working in a high-class brothel. Drove me round a bit in her Celica, although she lost her licence a few years ago. Secondhand car but pretty good. She showed me the brothel, looked all right as such places go-not that I'd know.

'But she was as nervous and edgy as anything. I thought it was the speed or the smack, but she swore she was off everything except a little coke sometimes to help her through the night. She was smoking something fierce but she always did, from the age of, I dunno, ten?

'Okay, so we go back to her flat and she opens a bottle of wine. I give her a cheque for the rest of the money-after what I paid you and a few of my expenses. She hardly looks at it and then it comes out. I bet you can guess.'

'Sammy,' I said.

'Right. She wants him back. I mean, there she is, hooking in Newcastle, using coke, probably up to here in debt and she wants her kid.'

'What did you do?'

'Well, I thought about it for like, a tenth of a second. But then I thought back to all the crap we'd been through-you getting bashed and seeing two people get killed, and the threats to me and Sarah-and we still didn't know what they all wanted from her.'

I nodded. 'Pissed me off for a while, but I've got used to untidy endings.'

'I'm not. I sort of strung her along and asked her why she was so afraid of the cops. Remember that?'

'Yes.'

'She hemmed and hawed and didn't want to tell me but I had her over a barrel, so she did. She killed Eddie.'

'Jesus. Did she say how?'

'She said she got him drunk and pushed him down some steps. She said he'd found out about Sammy and was calling her a mongrel bitch with a mongrel kid. She'd had enough and did for him. Didn't mean to kill him, she said, but she reckoned crippled'd do.'

'Rings true, doesn't it? Eddie was a real piece of shit.'

'Yeah.' Sharon drank some more of the coffee, as bad as it was. I could see that she needed to go on and that she hadn't got to the hardest part yet. I waited.

'So I let her think that had got her some points and I asked her about what Eddie had told her about that guy who'd skipped. All the stuff you told me about-where he is and that.' 'And?'

'She laughed her head off. She said she didn't know a fucking thing about it. Zip, zilch. Funniest fucking thing in the world. She let that Kramer woman think she knew something. Just big-noting herself, and hoping she might get something out of it in some way. That's what started all this off and she didn't give a stuff. She's a moral zero, Cliff, my own sister.'

There was nothing to say. I sat there and a silence seemed to fill the room, although the traffic noise from King Street must still have been coming through. But that's the way it is in some moments, when the weight of what's being said just kind of hits the mute button.

Sharon sucked in a breath. 'Know what I did? I'd prepared myself for this. I had a photo of Sammy, taken a fair while after Billie had last seen him. Since I'd found him the place where he'd be looked after. Here it is.'

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a polaroid photo. It showed an adolescent boy, clearly the same person as in the earlier photograph I'd seen. He'd grown, gained confidence, and looked ready to take the next steps.