Part 24 (1/2)

I rang Linda's number. She answered straight away.

'I want you to make sure you're alone and get a cab to the place where we ate. The first time, remember?'

'Yes,' she said. 'What's wrong?'

'Something very serious. I'll tell you when I see you. Get the cab to park as close to the place as possible. Wait in the cab until you see me.'

'Jack, what's going on?' she said.

'Half an hour from now. Okay?'

'Yes. Okay.'

'See you then. Love.'

'Yes,' she said. 'Love.'

29

I got back into the Granada. Cam was reading the paper, smoking a Gitane.

'I'll get off your back in an hour's time,' I said. 'I won't take up that offer of yours. Need to disappear for a day or so.

Cam gave me a long look. 'I'll miss the excitement,' he said.

I was looking in my wallet to see how much money I had. There was a piece of cardboard in the note section. I took it out: I rembered somthing else about what you was asking about. See me at my house. B. Curran, 15 Morton Street, Clifton Hill.

Clifton Hill was as safe a place as any to pa.s.s the half-hour until it was time to pick up Linda.

'Can we take a little drive around to Clifton Hill?' I said.

The man was wearing the same outfit as before: dirty blue nylon anorak, black tracksuit pants. There was every chance that it hadn't come off since our previous meeting.

'Wondered when you'd come,' he said.

'You remembered something else about Ronnie Bishop,' I said.

He looked at me, said nothing.

I took out my wallet and offered him a twenty.

He took it. 'Had to walk round to your place,' he said. 'b.l.o.o.d.y long way. Had to take a cab back. Me legs is bad.'

I found a ten and gave it to him.

'Wait,' he said. He shuffled down the dark pa.s.sage and came back a minute later, folded newspaper in his hand. ''Member I said cops come around next door couple times?'

I nodded.

He coughed and spat past my right shoulder. 'One's a c.u.n.t called Scullin.'

'You told me that.'

He sniffed. 'Didn't know who the other was. Do now.'

'Yes? Who?'

He unfolded the paper. It was the Herald Sun. He looked at the front page. 'This b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' he said.

He turned the newspaper to face me. There was a large colour photograph of a man sitting in front of microphones. He was flanked by two high-ranking policemen in uniform.

'Which cop?' I said, studying the policemen.

'Not the cops. The c.u.n.t in the middle. The f.u.c.king Minister. That's him.'

I was about to put the phone down when the woman answered.

'I need to get in touch with Vin McKillop,' I said.

She started coughing, a loose, emphysemic sound. I waited. When she stopped, I said again, 'Vin McKillop, I need-'

'Vin's dead,' she said. 'Overdose.'

I didn't ask her any questions.

I went into the sitting room. Linda was standing in front of the huge fireplace in the centre of Cam's absent girlfriend's place off Crombie Lane in the heart of the city. Her apartment occupied the top floor of an old six-storey warehouse. She was an artist. Paintings were everywhere, mostly landscapes at different stages of completion.

'Vin McKillop's dead,' I said. 'Pixley's dead, Vin's dead. It's like a battlefield.'

'Oh, Jesus,' Linda said. 'Oh, Jesus.'

'Garth Bruce visited Ronnie Bishop with Scullin more than once around the time of Anne Jeppeson's death,' I said. 'If Scullin fixed up Danny for killing her, Garth Bruce must be part of the whole thing. He was setting us up.'

Cam was lying on a sofa, long legs over the arm, head propped up by cus.h.i.+ons, drinking Cascade out of the bottle.

'So Bruce's got the motor's number,' he said. He'd had no trouble grasping my explanation of what was going on. It didn't seem to surprise him either.

'I suppose that was dumb,' I said, 'but you don't expect the Minister for Police to try to kill you.

'It's just possible he's not involved,' Linda said. She was dressed for business in a suit, cream silk blouse, black stockings and high heels. Overexcited though I was, the sight aroused a frisson of l.u.s.t.

'I don't think we should operate on that a.s.sumption, I said. 'What can we do about the car?' It was now in the girlfriend's garage on the ground floor.