Part 11 (1/2)

'Drugs? I never heard that.'

'Not drugs necessarily.'

But she didn't like this line of questions. She looked pointedly up at the clock and said she'd have to go.

'Sure. We really appreciate you talking to us, Sophie.'

'You're welcome. Who else have you spoken to?'

'Oh, you're the first we've tracked down, really. Who do you suggest?'

'Well, she was friends with Carmel Bisset, the National Parks ranger; they used to meet every day on account of their research project. And she knew d.i.c.k Pa.s.slow-that's the doctor-and his wife Pru. She was the island nurse.'

'Right.' I was making notes, playing the part of a grieving boyfriend. 'But they'd still be on Lord Howe, I suppose.'

'Not necessarily. I know the Pa.s.slows only had another year of their contract to run, though I suppose they could have extended it. Carmel would probably be in the same boat. They weren't permanent residents.'

'Sophie!' The call came from a hara.s.sed-looking young man who had burst out of the make-up room.

'Yes, coming. Sorry, I have to go.' We got to our feet and she added coyly, 'Do you still keep up with Damien?'

'Yes, saw him just the other day, actually.'

'Oh, well, you might give him my number, if you like.'

'I'm afraid he's married.'

She shrugged. 'All the same ...'

Anna spoke for the first time. 'You should be careful with all that lipstick, you know.'

Sophie looked at her in surprise. 'What?'

'It's full of synthetic chemicals. Over your lifetime you'll swallow about four kilos of it.'

Sophie raised a carefully engineered eyebrow and stalked off.

Outside, as we stepped around the rubbish bins in the lane, I said, 'Four kilos?'

'Whatever. You enjoyed that, didn't you?'

'Did we learn anything?'

'Not much. The Kelsos don't sound like very nice people to stay with.'

'No. Well, you can do the talking next time.'

Dr Pa.s.slow was in the Sydney phone book, listed under a group practice in Leichhardt. Anna rang, saying that we wanted to speak to him on a private matter relating to the death of Lucy Corcoran. He agreed to see us at the end of the afternoon's surgery, at around five-thirty.

The waiting room was still crowded when we arrived, full of Italian women and their bambini suffering from what looked like an epidemic of spring sniffles. The confined, overheated s.p.a.ce, full of coughing, sneezing, snot-encrusted infants, seemed to me like a pretty ideal breeding ground for viruses, and I thought we'd be lucky to get out unscathed. It was almost seven when we finally saw the doctor. He looked exhausted and didn't try to hide his disappointment that we were still there. In fact, as he quizzed us about what exactly we wanted, it seemed to me that he was rather worried about our appearance after all this time. He refused to elaborate on Luce's health or state of mind, and said he couldn't remember when he'd last seen her during the final week.

'Well, look,' he said finally, becoming more pompous as we became more probing, 'there's nothing I can tell you that wasn't said at the inquest. I really don't understand what you're after. You're not her relatives, are you? Is this just idle curiosity, or do you have some specific issue?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Can you think of anyone who might have had a reason to murder Lucy?'

He looked as if I'd punched him, his face going pale, mouth open. 'What? What are you talking about?'

'It's a simple question. Did she say anything to you to suggest she was afraid of anyone?'

The colour flooded back into his face again. 'No, certainly not. I'd have told the coroner if she had. Do you have some new information?'

'We just find it hard to accept that Lucy fell accidentally,' Anna cut in. 'She was a very expert climber.'

'Expert climbers are killed in accidents all the time. The coroner's investigation was very thorough. And now, years later, you find it hard to accept? Is that all?'

Anna shrugged. He shook his head in irritation and showed us to the door.

As we walked back through the waiting room a nurse stopped him with a query and I veered off to the desk where the receptionist was clearing up. 'Is Dr Pa.s.slow's wife around?' I asked, hoping he couldn't hear me.

'Wife?'

'Pru-the nurse.'

'Oh, Pru.' She smiled as if at some private joke. 'No, they divorced several years ago.'

'Don't know where I could find her, do you?'

'Sorry, no idea.'

Out on the street, Anna said, 'That was subtle. You almost had him calling the cops.'

I shrugged, becoming fed up with all this. 'I need a drink to kill some of the germs I must have picked up in there.' But Anna was reading a text message on her phone. It seemed the young bloke who looked after the computers at the nursing home had managed to unlock Luce's notebook. He didn't know what it all meant, he said, but he'd sent her the contents by email, so we walked along Norton Street until we found an internet cafe where Anna could access her account.

I waited outside on the pavement, breathing in the smell of pizza from the Italian restaurant next door. I felt tired and fed up after our p.r.i.c.kly encounter with the doctor, and I just wanted to sit down with a bottle of red and a plate of spaghetti and forget about the whole thing. I noticed an empty table for two through the window, and when I saw Anna still hunched in front of her screen, shaking her head, I decided to take the bull by the horns. I opened the door and called to her, 'Anna, I'll see you in the restaurant next door.'

She frowned over her shoulder. 'Okay ...'

I got the empty table and ordered a bottle of wine while I waited. By the time she joined me my first gla.s.s was drunk, and I felt slightly better. She was still frowning.

'Take a seat,' I said, pouring the wine. 'You look as if you need this. What's the matter?'

She slumped down and handed me half a dozen pages. 'That's the print-out.'

While she sipped at her wine I scanned the pages. On them were printed lines of letters and digits, row after row. A typical sequence of lines ran: 2509 1105 57J WF 06663 04432 055.

2509 1443 57J WF 06712 05512 072.