‘Don’t start. You know what I mean.’
She shrugged, reached into her bag and took out cigarettes.
‘No,’ I said.
66
‘Fuckin’ puritan.’
‘Light that and I’ll take it and burn a hole in your coat.’
She sighed, dropped the packet back in the bag and stroked the leather. ‘Know what this cost?’
‘No. Do you?’
‘Have you got a woman?’
I didn’t answer.
‘Probably not, from the look of you. Or some daggy droob in a tracker and flatties.’
I did the rest of the drive in silence. She stared out the window at the cars and the lights and the people as if they had nothing to do with her. I wound through the Padding-ton streets and pulled up outside a smart terrace-three storeys, white, black wrought iron, crafted front garden. ‘Are you sure this’s you?’
She did a quick repair job on her face, opened the door and stepped out. ‘Surprised, aren’t you? Come on, but give me some space. Not quite sure who’ll be home.’
I stayed a little ahead and opened the gate. She glided past, brushing against me, and I wondered if she was going to start playing games again. We went up the steps and she rang the bell. I waited a metre away. Footsteps sounded and the door opened. She was as quick as Cathy Freeman. The coat was open, the tits were showing and she was screaming as she pushed me away.
‘Help me, help me. He’s hurting me.’
The guy who came through the door was big with muscles bulging inside a too-tight T-shirt. He was also very fired up. Kristina ducked away and he was on me before I could react. I just managed to stop his punch from landing squarely but the weight of it, catching my shoulder, rocked me and I hit the wall. My head bounced off the bricks and I went down with noises booming inside my skull. That little bit of the world spun and kept spinning. I felt cold bricks behind and cold tiles underneath me, and I knew I had to close my eyes in order to take a breath- couldn’t do both at the same time.
When I decided I could breathe and open my eyes without everything echoing and spinning, I found the man who had hit me standing over me and sounding apologetic. Couldn’t be true. I closed my eyes again.
‘Jesus, mate, I’m sorry. Are you all right?’
‘What?’
‘She was bullshitting. She took off.’
‘Took off, where, how?’
‘Fuck, she just ran down the steps through the gate and jumped into this old heap outside and took off.’
Although it hurt and I knew it wasn’t going to do any good, I felt in the pocket of my jacket for the keys.
‘She took my car,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t live here?’
He shook his head and, with my vision clearing, I had a closer look at him. Thirtyish, balding, built like a bull. I felt I should know his name but couldn’t bring it up. Almost, but not quite. For such a formidable figure he suddenly looked embarrassed, sheepish, vulnerable. I eased myself up, sliding against the brickwork, until I was at eye level with him. I turned my head to the open gate and the blank space in front of the house.
‘You assaulted me. She stole my car.’
‘Jesus, mate…’
Another vocabulary-poor individual, although the other one had had tricks up her sleeve. She knew this address and the resident. The picture was becoming clearer. ‘We’d better have a talk,’ I said. I took my wallet out and showed him the licence. ‘A place like this’d have a couple of bathrooms, right? And, Jason, a bloke like you’d have something on hand to drink.’
The name had come to me in a flash-Jason Garvan was an almost legendary rugby player. A fan of the Ellas in the past, I’d followed rugby in spurts and it was hard to open a paper a few years back without seeing his picture. He switched from League after a dispute in the club and then came into the big money when rugby went professional. Not so prominent now. He didn’t look happy that I’d recognised him, but he was smart enough to know he had to play along with me.
We went into the house, which was done up in the way a professional decorator treats an inner-city terrace. They start out looking like mine when the yuppies buy them and they end up looking like this-painted, carpeted, polished. The front room off the passage served as a kind of den-cum-bar-cum-memorabilia room. Trophies galore in a couple of cabinets, photographs showing Jason with celebrities and team photographs on the walls.
He went behind the bar. ‘What’ll it be?’
‘Brandy.’ I sank into a chair and felt the back of my head. My hair was matted with blood but the wound had stopped seeping. Better not to lean back against his leather upholstery just the same. He gave me a tumbler half full of brandy and poured a solid vodka for himself. I took a swig. Smooth.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to make trouble for you, although God knows I could.’
‘You’ll have to report your car stolen, but.’
‘Could’ve happened anywhere. I’m talking about you having sex with an underage female and assaulting me.’
‘Jesus, mate…’
‘If you say that again I’ll change my mind. Just shut up and let me sit here for a bit and think.’
He wasn’t used to men he outmeasured and outweighed telling him what to do, but he squatted on a stool, sipped his drink and watched me. After a while he asked me what I was working on. I told him and it didn’t make him any happier. Quite the opposite-he poured another drink.
‘That’s not going to do your speed any good.’
He was about to tell me to get fucked but thought better of it. I drank half the brandy and felt steadier but the headache was building.
‘Got any painkillers?’
Of course he did. He nodded and left the room. The mobile in my jacket pocket rang. I answered and Kristina’s voice came through clear and crisp.
‘Your crappy car’s in Oxford Street near the barracks. The keys’ll be under the front seat. I hope you’re not too badly hurt. Leave me fucking-well alone.’
I put the phone back in my pocket, downed the rest of the brandy and grabbed the bottle from the bar. I walked out leaving the front door open. Give Jason something to think about apart from tackles and knock-ons.
Every step I took along the streets of Paddington sent shock waves through me and I wished I’d stayed for the painkillers. I found the car exactly where she said it’d be and sat in the seat quietly for a minute to make sure I was up to the drive. My bag was there, untouched, also the books and other bits and pieces. A card with my mobile number on it was crumpled up on the seat. The keys were under the seat.
I stopped at the first open chemist, bought painkillers and washed them down with a paper cup of water while the pharmacist looked shocked at the number I took.
‘You’ll shred your liver,’ he said.
Oncoming lights dazzled me, rough patches on the road shook me and the analgesics on top of the hefty dose of brandy made me light-headed. I drove, gritting my teeth and forcing myself to focus on every movement. I thought if I allowed myself to drift into auto-pilot mode I could finish up in Parramatta or wrapped around a lamppost. If the cops found me in this condition, with the open bottle of brandy in the car, I’d be off the road for six months.
No maudlin thoughts about not wanting to go home this time. My door, my hall, my kitchen, my bathroom had never looked so good. I stripped, had a shower and cleaned the head wound with alcohol swabs. I hadn’t eaten since the pub lunch, so I slapped together some leftovers and microwaved the lot into a sort of bubble-and-squeak. I ate a few mouthfuls and then threw the lot up into the sink. I knew I was slightly concussed and couldn’t remember the treatment. I filled a plastic bag with ice cubes and held it to my head. Better.
I sat in the living room wrapped in a towelling robe, holding the plastic bag to my head. Some detective. I’d caught my quarry and let her get away by completely misreading her. Something had happened to Kristina between Tempe and when I’d met her. That sounded right-at least I was thinking again. Where had the clothes and accessories come from? She couldn’t have gone far even in Paddington at that time of night, dressed as she was, without courting trouble, so how had she been able to ditch the car so soon? She could have ducked in somewhere and called a cab on her mobile. Maybe. But where was she going? On balance it looked to me as if she had a provider, a protector. A pimp.