The Empty Beach ch-4 Read online

  ‘Did you care about the cause? Fighting against the Chinese communists, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. No, I didn’t give a bugger. Didn’t understand it at all. I believed what I was told.’

  ‘That says a lot about you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t believe what you’re told any more, do you? That’s your job-not believing what you’re told.’

  I could see what she meant, and there was something in it. Maybe I was still an anti-soldier, but since then I’d had a bit more experience at the differences between what you’re told and what is-with Cyn, for example. I let that stay private and we sat there for a few minutes quietly. She smoked, but placidly, for her.

  I poured us a bit more wine, which still left us a very respectable amount to take to the wake.

  ‘Two men have died since you started looking for this guy,’ she said. ‘What’s his name again?’

  ‘Singer.’

  ‘Singer. Two dead men. What does that mean, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Could be anything. Bruce might have stumbled onto how Singer got to be dead, if he is dead. Or he might have found out that he’s not dead. I just can’t get past that point.’

  ‘If he’s alive, why isn’t he around enjoying that yacht?’

  ‘And that wife.’

  ‘Attractive wife?’

  ‘Pretty good.’

  ‘Strikes me you ought to find out a bit more about the wife.’

  ‘Yeah, and about Brother Gentle and McLeary and the other operator around here whose name I don’t even know.’

  ‘You’re going to be busy. Do you still want to go to the wake?’

  She gathered her things up and looked around for the bill. I took it, thinking that Mrs Singer would pay it and wondering where she was eating tonight and with whom. Ann was right; I didn’t know nearly enough about the lady. She’d charmed me, I knew that, but was she the kind to provoke a suicide or a murder? Ann looked at me impatiently. She was the kind not to be slowed down or kept waiting.

  ‘Yes’, I said, ‘I want to go to the wake.’

  11

  There were a few extra lights burning in the boarding house, but no extra cars in the street. It wasn’t that sort of a party. I went through the security routine I’d developed for party-going many years before-wallet locked in the glove box, car keys tucked up underneath the vehicle, mad money folded small and wedged down in a pocket. Ann watched me incredulously.

  ‘Where’s your gun?’ she said.

  ‘In the car. Reckon I’ll need it?’

  ‘No. Got the grog?’

  The front door was open and we walked down the passage towards the back of the house where I could hear soft, mournful music. The kitchen was crowded with men and women, and Mrs Jenkins sat at the table with those big, fat tears rolling down. Behind her a wizened-up monkey of a man was working his piano accordion and moaning out ‘Kevin Barry’. He was very drunk. The music was all right, but he hit and missed the notes like a housewife on Amateur Hour. Some of the others joined in when the words came back to them, but they weren’t much better.

  I sat the bottles down on the sink, got two paper cups and poured two hefty whacks of the brandy. I handed one to Ann and when I turned back for mine the bottle had gone. I sipped the drink and studied the company. Mostly, the guests bore the marks of alcohol but not the broken veins of the whisky drinker or the gross bellies of the ten-schooner-a-day-folk. These were metho drinkers, eaten away to the bone by the stuff, or port people with their metabolisms shot to pieces by the rushes of alcohol and sugar. Half of them were thin, with the sugar-loaded blood of uncontrolled diabetics-they’d piss a lot and their noses would run from the colds they’d be a prey to and sex would be a distant memory. But tonight they were happy; tonight they were on plonk and beer and spirits and Leon’s death had given them a focus, a target for the emotions and energies which were usually concentrated on the next bottle.

  I whispered to Ann, ‘Do you know any of these people?’

  ‘A few. See that woman in pink? How old do you think she is?’

  ‘Sixty?’

  ‘Forty.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  I finished my brandy and a man leaning against the sink produced the bottle with a courtly flourish.

  ‘A refill, squire?’

  ‘Okay. Thanks’.

  He poured me a judicious one and half-filled his own mug. He raised it.

  ‘Lucky Leon,’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  He dropped his head on his chest. His hand shook, but he was an expert at keeping fluid in a vessel held in a shaking hand. He was wearing cast-off clothes that were too big for him and heavy, broken shoes that had been expensive and stylish fifteen years before. He said something, but a burst of clapping at the end of a song drowned him out. I bent down to hear better and his smell almost floored me. He had it all, layers of body odour, urine and the rotten meat smell of decaying teeth.

  ‘A clean exit to a better world,’ he said.

  ‘Do you live here, Mr…?’

  ‘Montefiore. I have, not now. Are you making enquiries?’

  ‘God, is it that obvious? Yes, I am in a way, but I’m also here to pay my respects.’

  ‘You’ve done it.’ He held up the bottle. ‘Leon would have been pleased to know that such a quality beverage was being served at his wake.’

  ‘Did you know him well, Mr Montefiore?’

  ‘Edgar. Yes, quite well.’

  I looked around the room. Ann was talking to the woman in pink, who was swaying on her chair. A great lock of red hair had fallen across her face and she was trying to push it back, but getting less interested. Mrs Jenkins had brought out a cigarette-rolling machine and Ann was making them. A few people around the table were watching with critical, greedy eyes.

  I turned back to Edgar, who was filling his mug again. The high-quality beverage was getting to him because he was rocking slightly and his bloodshot eyes were glassy.

  ‘Edgar, do you happen to know what Leon had been doing the day he died?’

  ‘Doing?’ he slurred. ‘Didn’t do anything, old chap. Started off at the Haworth and went on from there.’

  ‘Where did he get the money?’

  ‘Pension cheque and… donations.’

  ‘Street donations, or did he knock on doors?’

  ‘Had a theory, Leon. Principle really-charity begins at home. Didn’t care too much for foreign relief in India, if you take my meaning. Used to call in where he saw signs of charity being dispensed and claim his share. Had a wonderful line of chat.’

  ‘You don’t know specifically where he went that day?’

  ‘No, sir. Saw him in the street in the afternoon.’ He tipped up his mug. ‘Do you know, I think he was very close to sober. Disgraceful, I said. Pale, he was, and shaking. Suppose he was sick. Suppose that’s how he fell. Negotiated those stairs myself many times, drunk as a lord, never fell.’

  ‘It could have been that,’ I said. But I was thinking of the ‘give’ poster outside the ashram and wondering what it took to make a confirmed drunkard sober in the late afternoon.

  The booze was reaching the celebrants’ motor centres; the accordionist had put his instrument down and was sitting quietly, smoking one of Ann’s cigarettes. One man was slumped in a corner, snoring. The woman in pink stared fixedly at a paper cup in front of her and poured small amounts into it from the variety of bottles on the table. The front of Rose Jenkins’s dress was soaked with tears or wine or both; she was talking to Ann, who smiled and nodded in reply. A tall, thin man slid down against the wall and the beer bottle in his hand smashed on the cement floor. No-one took any notice.

  Edgar held the brandy bottle up to the light and read from the label in a loud, stagey voice. ‘Product of Australia,’ he intoned. He closed his eyes as if great pain had gripped him. ‘Australia. God.’

  I looked across and caught Ann’s eye. She nodded and patted Mrs Jenkins
’s vast upper arm.

  ‘Thanks for coming, dear,’ the woman said mournfully.

  We went towards the door, stepping over the man in the corner, who was sitting oblivious in a pool of beer. Halfway down the passage, a question occurred to me and I told Ann to wait while I hurried back to the kitchen. Rose had her nose in a cup of brandy that Edgar had given her; he was leaning over her and touching his fingertip to her ear in a parody of sexual play.

  ‘Mrs Jenkins,’ I said. ‘Were there any strangers in the house yesterday?’

  ‘Stranger?’

  ‘Yes; anyone wearing yellow, for example?’

  ‘White, did you say? No, yellow-no-one in yellow.’ She hiccoughed and wheezed.

  ‘Was there someone in white?’

  She slurped the brandy. ‘Don’t remember. Go ‘way.’

  Edgar Montefiore put his index finger with its black-rimmed nail into her ear. I went away. Back in the hall, Ann was pinned back against the wall by a big man with an Ulster accent who was haranguing her about Ireland. He wasn’t drunk or sober and he was pressing closer, making the attack physical as well as verbal. I put my hand on Ann’s shoulder and gently eased him back. I had an elbow ready for his ribs if he turned nasty, but he said something uncomplimentary about Protestants and moved off towards the grog.

  The encounter upset Ann more than I’d have expected. She was pale and the shoulder muscles under my hand were knotted and tense as we went out to the street.

  ‘I hate that,’ she said fiercely.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Needing to have a man around to rescue me.’

  There was nothing to say to that-chivalry is chauvinism, protection is paternalism. She was five foot ten and weighed ten stone; with tae kwon do, she’d be a terror on the mat. But tae kwon do is no good if you’re upset and, like it or not, that’s how most women react to a physical threat. I’ve talked it over with them, especially Hilde, and they argue that male violence makes them react that way. So they win the argument and still lose the fight. I took my hand away.

  ‘Did you have an interesting time?’ Her voice was edged with irony and hostility.

  ‘Yes. You?’

  ‘Poor cows,’ she said. ‘I asked Pearl, she was the one in the pink, about your Mr Whatsit. She reckons she knows a lot about them, the Singers. I think she meant the wife, too.’

  ‘What’s her name, that woman?’

  ‘Well, she’s going by the name of Spenser right now, I think. She’s had other names. Names are a bit fluid in this crowd. Some people have a couple. For the pension, you know?’

  ‘I’ve heard of it. I thought it got stamped out.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘I should talk to her.’

  ‘Not much point now; she’s too pissed.’

  ‘Would you go back and ask? There’d be some money in it for her.’

  She shrugged. ‘If you like.’ She turned and walked away very straight, the way you do when you’ve had enough drinks to care about how you walk.

  The car was up ahead. I took a few very straight steps and suddenly there was a pain in my arm and I wondered why. Then there was a whole lot of pain, a flood of it, and some very loud noises. My feet left the ground and my head swooped down towards it and there was nothing after that.

  12

  When I could feel things again, I wished I couldn’t. I was lying still and yet moving, there was a constant sound and also a deep silence and my head felt as if it was flapping loose and I couldn’t move my body. I was very confused. After a while I worked out that I was on the back seat of a big car. My hands and legs were tied, my shoulders were on the seat but my head was hanging half off it. I wriggled and thrashed until I got some support for my head. It still hurt, but at least it felt attached to my body.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, feebly. ‘Hey!’ I twisted and pushed until I forced my head up far enough to see two heads and two pairs of shoulders. I could excuse the driver for not responding; you need to concentrate on your driving when you’ve got someone trussed up on the back seat, but it was just plain rude of the other guy to ignore me. Still, that’s what he did and kept on doing. It was dark and I couldn’t see much out of the windows except the odd light. To judge by noises I wasn’t in the city, but I wasn’t on the Nullarbor Plain either.

  I fought to control the panic that the thought of an unsolicited trip to the country with strangers is apt to bring on. I tried to think of any reasons why anyone should be thinking of a shallow grave in the bush for me. There was nothing pressing. I thought I could risk a little resistance so I drew my legs up to my chest and pushed them back hard to thump against the door. A hand came over with a big black gun in it. The metal slammed down hard on my shinbone and I yelped.

  ‘Don’t,’ a voice said.

  I closed my eyes and tried for some of that displacement of body and spirit that Jack London wrote about in The Jacket. His hero travelled in time, fought off pirates and fired flintlocks at circling Indians from the cover of a wagon. I think he got girls every time. Nothing happened and I began to worry about Ann. Was she in a car, too, or had she been around the corner when they took me? Then I thought: Why, again, and who? Good questions, no answers.

  I could see the moon through the window but I couldn’t tell the time by the moon. Who can? The car stopped, turned and followed what felt like a rough, unmade road for a while and then it stopped again. The man with the gun got out, the car moved forward a few yards, stopped and he got back in. Private property.

  I bounced and rolled around on the seat and tried to work out how far we were going from the road. I couldn’t; it might have been one mile or six. When the car stopped, the gunman opened the back door and looked at me. The interior light was on and I looked back: he had a meaty face with a dimple in his chin. He would have been handsome in an overblown way except for small, close-set eyes that gave him a slightly piggy look. When he was satisfied that I was still tied up, he pulled my legs and tumbled me out inelegantly onto the ground. He put his gun away in his belt.

  ‘He here yet?’ he asked.

  Another voice behind me said, ‘No. What’ll we do with him?’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Morning, probably, early.’

  ‘Shit.’

  I looked around as best I could with my face half in the dirt. I could see white painted fences, trees and the dark shapes of buildings, one very large. I spat out the dirt and sniffed the clean country air. I groaned, thinking that they might put me on a bed if they thought I was hurt. The car door slammed and I saw the feet and legs of the car driver come into view.

  ‘What’s the trouble, Rex?’ he asked. He had a soft American accent, southern or something. It wasn’t the voice of a humanitarian; more a ‘kick him in the head’ voice than a ‘lay him gently on the bed’ one.

  ‘No trouble,’ Rex said. He was the gunman and the weapon in his belt looked like a nine-millimetre Browning, which is a lot of gun when your target is tied up like corned silverside. He pulled me up to my feet and I tried to grin at him.

  ‘Think you’ll need the gun, Rex?’

  For an answer he hooked my feet out from under me and I fell heavily. It had been a dry winter and the ground was hard; now my shoulder hurt as well as my shin. I decided that I didn’t like Rex.

  ‘We’ll put him in the squash court,’ he said. He kicked me lightly in the ribs.

  ‘Crawl, smartarse. Over there.’

  I lay still, so he kicked me again harder and I crawled. It’s hard to crawl when you’re tied up like that; things stick into you and hurt. I got a cramp in the calf after a few yards and stopped. I felt his shoe again and moved on. It wasn’t far, maybe less than a hundred yards, but my clothes were badly ripped and there was a lot of skin missing from me when I got there.

  The driver and Rex had followed my progress, chatting chummily. At one point, at a pause for breath and to respond to a boot-delivered change in direction, I got a look at the driver. He wore white overalls and sported
a heavy, dark beard. He was built strong and wide and looked like he could do a few useful things besides drive cars. At the end of the crawl the driver pulled out a bunch of keys and unlocked a door. Rex got hold of some shirt and flesh and pulled and pushed me over a low step; then he gave me one of those funny little kicks he was so good at and I pitched over onto a hard wooden floor.

  They closed the door and it was very dark. I propped myself up against the wall and checked for serious injuries a limb at a time. I seemed to be in working order, although a lot of the normal movements hurt like hell. There were no windows in the room and I edged my way around the walls, feeling for a light switch with my head and shoulders. I found it and turned it on with my chin, but no light resulted. That was a disappointment. I squatted down again and told myself that a big house like this, and that shape had been really big, would have a master switch to turn off the light in the outbuildings. It was only natural; it wasn’t a direct strike at Hardy.

  The squash court was like a coffin. The floor was made of sanded, tightly-packed boards and the walls were smooth. I tried to remember what a court looked like in the light and couldn’t. I’d never played the game, which seemed to me like a barbarity designed solely to make people sweat. I assumed there were lines painted on the floor, but there were no cupboards, no fittings, no racquets left lying about. I was wearing jeans and a denim shirt, desert boots and socks; it wasn’t cold but it felt as if it could get cold, and that’s nearly as bad. However I positioned myself it was impossible to sleep-I lost consciousness a few times, that’s all.

  I watched the light seep in around the edges of the door as the morning broke. I’d been wrong about the lack of windows; there was a skylight shaded by a tree. Enough light came in to show me the lines on the floor and wall; somehow, in that grey light, the room felt even more menacing than it had in the dark. I’d said a lot of unkind things about squash in my time, and I had the nasty feeling that squash was fighting back.