An Iron Rose (19 page)

Love Gaby.

I read the letter twice.

Ken?

That was the name Dot Walsh said the naked girl in Colson’s Road had said over and over.

…
saying the name Ken over and over again.

I read Gaby’s letter a third time. I was in the kitchen, sitting near the fired-up stove, but I felt a chill, as if a window had been opened, letting in a gust of freezing air.

I opened the stove’s firebox and fed in the letters from Kevin. If he was Melanie’s killer, he was probably going to go unpunished, courtesy of me. Then I went out and got the Kinross Hall records. They listed a girl called Gabriele Elaine Makin, age sixteen, at Kinross Hall at the same time as Melanie Pavitt in 1985.

I found the staff list and went through it. No Ken.

At least two people knew who Ken was and what happened on the night Sim Walsh, World War II fighter pilot and drunk, found Melanie Pavitt naked in Colson’s Road.

One of them was dead, one bullet through the left eye from a .38 Ruger from at least two metres away. If my judgment was worth anything, Melanie Pavitt had not been shot by her boyfriend, Barry James Field, unemployed building worker. Lee-Anne described Barry as a calm, sensible person who was the best thing that had ever happened to Melanie. He also seemed an unlikely owner of a weapon the cops had in ten minutes identified as stolen from a Sydney gun shop in 1994.

The other person who knew what happened to Melanie in 1985 was Gaby Makin.

I went over to the pub and rang inquiries. Then I rang Berglin. I gave them my name, we went through the rigmarole and they connected me.

‘Wanting to ask you,’ he said without preamble. ‘What is it with you and dead people?’

‘Raised the subject of Bianchi?’ I could see Flannery at the bar, hunched, staring into a glass of beer, just a shadow of Saturday’s hero.

‘I mentioned it, yes.’

‘So what’s going to happen?’

‘Don’t think it’s going on the priority list.’

‘It should.’

Berglin sighed. ‘Mac, listen. We talked about this before. Things blow up on you, it happens. The smack lost, the woman in the wrong place. Lefroy, that was a plus. Nailed him, he’d own the whole fucking prison system now, living like King Farouk, meals from Paul Bocuse, hot and cold running bumboys. Do a line anytime he likes. You’ve got another life now. Forget about the shit. Any brains, if I had them, I’d ask you can I join you out there in chilblain country, making candlesticks, whatever the fuck it is you do.’

I let the subject lie. ‘I need another trace.’

‘Jesus, I don’t know about you.’ Pause. ‘Who?’

I spelled it out: Gabriele Elaine Makin, born Frankston 1967, juvenile offender last known in Cairns. Not in the phone book.

‘Hope she survives your interest in her,’ Berglin said. ‘Don’t call me.’

‘Something else.’

Silence.

I changed my mind. I had been going to ask about Bianchi’s widow.

‘Forget it, not important.’

‘I’m glad.’

I went to the bar and sat down next to Flannery.

‘I like the next day more when we lose,’ he said. ‘Whole week more. I don’t think we should win again this Satdee.’

‘Three in a row?’ I said. ‘In another life.’

‘Beer’s on the house,’ Vinnie the publican said. ‘Few more Satdees like that, I’m takin the place off the market.’

‘Didn’t know it was on the market,’ Flannery said.

‘Pub without pokies?’ Vinnie said. ‘Pokieless pub is on the market.’

‘Tabletop dancers,’ Flannery said. ‘That’s the go. Uni girls shakin their titties, showin us the business. Have a pickin-up-the-spud competition.’

Vinnie looked over to where two elderly male customers were grumbling at each other. ‘Tabletop dancers? Need a bloody ambulance on standby outside. Mind you, that fuckin’ cook’ll need an ambulance if he doesn’t come in the door in two minutes.’

When the cook arrived, Flannery and I ate steak and onion sandwiches. From where we were sitting, I could see the wet road and the entrance to my lane. I was washing down the last bite when Allie’s truck turned in. We had work to do on the gateposts.

I woke early, stood in the shower thinking about the heft of Lee-Anne’s breasts, the sight of Allie naked. Then I thought about being fifteen, digging out rotten stumps from grey rock and unyielding clay, face down in fifty centimetres of damp and cold crawl space, breathing the dank, dead air under a farmhouse near Yass. Crawling out, hearing footsteps on the boards above me, turning over and looking up through a gap between old floorboards, parched boards, tongues shrunk, parted from their grooves, unmated. Seeing from below a woman, a naked woman, mature woman, my eyes going up the sturdy legs, parted legs, pink from the bath, seeing at the junction the secret hair, the dark, curly, springy, water-beaded hair that marked the place, the little folds of belly, the plump wet undersides of breasts, a glimpse of chin, of nose. Of seeing her move her buttocks against a towel, run it over her breasts, breasts swaying, long nipples, of seeing her open her legs, wipe the towel casually between the thighs, wipe the dark, intimate folds of skin…

Time for breakfast. I was sitting in a patch of weak sunlight eating breakfast, grilled bacon and a poached egg, when the phone rang. It was Berglin.

‘That inquiry,’ he said. ‘Party’s no longer with us. Motor accident in 1993, dead on arrival.’

I swallowed my mouthful. ‘Sure about that?’

There was silence, then he said, ‘As sure as one can be on the basis of the information supplied and the absence on all available records of anyone else with identical particulars. Yes.’

‘Sorry. Thanks.’

‘One more thing. The person in the Vatican we spoke of. You with me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Extremely resistant on a number of grounds to revisiting the matter in question.’

‘So?’

‘So the future of this course of action is uncertain.’

I went back to my breakfast. A cloud extinguished the sunlight like a door closing on a lit room.

When I’d finished, I got Gaby Makin’s letter out again. It was dated 12 July 1995.

Written from beyond the grave. Either that or Berglin was lying to me. Everything was starting to remind me of the old days.

I drove into town and consulted the Cairns Yellow Pages. I tried the Mercedes dealership first, asking for the workshop.

‘Have you got a mechanic called Otto?’ I said. ‘German?’

‘Otto the Hun. Otto Klinger. Not any more. He’s at Winlaton Motors in Brissy. Couple of years now. Miss him, too.’

He gave me a number.

The workshop office at Winlaton Motors got Otto Klinger on the line inside a minute.

‘Ja, Klinger,’ he said.

‘Otto, I’m a friend of Gaby Makin…’

‘Gaby and I are no longer together,’ Otto said. ‘She has gone with another person.’

‘I heard she was killed in a car accident in 1993.’

‘Gaby? Incorrect. She has only gone approximately one year.’

‘Any idea where?’

‘No. It is no concern of mine.’

‘Do you know anyone who would know?’

Otto sighed. ‘I suppose her girlfriend down the road would know. This is important, yes?’

‘Otto,’ I said, ‘it could be a matter of life and death, yes.’

He sighed again. ‘Give me a number for you and I will speak to the woman today if I can find her.’

I gave him a name and number. On the way home, I thought about how I’d got Melanie Pavitt’s address from Berglin. Would Melanie be alive now if I hadn’t? It wasn’t a thought I wanted to entertain. Why would Berglin lie to me about Gaby? He had never heard of Kinross Hall until I rang him to trace Melanie.

But, before that, why had Marcia lied to me about Ian Barbie and Ned?

Allie was dampening the green coal in the forge when I came in the door. The dog was watching her. She was wearing jeans, a leather apron and one of her shirts with canvas sleeves.

‘Okay to fire it when you’re not here?’ she said. ‘We didn’t discuss that.’

I gave the question some thought. It had meaning. Significance. ‘You mean, can you play with my toy when I’m not here. Is that it?’

‘Pretty much,’ she said. ‘I should have raised it. Some smithies are like petrolheads, only the forge is the car. One vehicle, one driver. One toy, one boy.’

‘The toy can be played with,’ I said. ‘Day and night. And the bits in between.’

She gave me her slow, one-sided smile. ‘Day’ll be fine. I’ve got till four. Reckon we can get these giant wangers out of the way?’

We finished the things just before three pm, no feeling of achievement, just relief. I made corned beef and cheese sandwiches and we ate them sitting on the office step, reading bits of the paper, not saying much.

‘That vet,’ I said. ‘Rottweiler or Jack Russell?’

Allie frowned. ‘Labrador, it turned out. Nice but not too bright.’

‘Sometimes,’ I said, standing up and taking her plate, ‘that’s what you want in a dog.’

She looked up at me from under her straight eyebrows. ‘Maybe it’s a mongrel I’m looking for.’

‘Flannery’s between engagements.’

‘Then again, maybe it’s not. Do we have to deliver these monstrosities?’

‘No. Spared that. He’s picking them up. Feel like a beer later?’

She pulled a face. ‘Would be good but I’m heading way over the other side of town. Tomorrow?’

I suddenly remembered it was Friday. Football tomorrow. No, thank God, we had a bye. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘I’ll ring,’ she said.

I worked on a chef’s knife until the drink called. Mick Doolan and Flannery were at the bar.

‘Tactics, Moc, we’re talkin tactics,’ Mick said. ‘Just a couple more wins and we’ll be bookin a finals berth. Wouldn’t that be grand?’

Flannery groaned. ‘Extra games,’ he said. ‘We’ll be playin on cortisone. Can they test for that?’

I was watching the Saints beating the Eagles in Perth when the phone rang.

‘Klinger,’ Otto said. ‘This stupid girlfriend of Gaby’s wishes to telephone Gaby and to tell her why you wish to speak with her, and to get permission to give you Gaby’s telephone number. I think she thinks that it is I who wishes to find out Gaby’s number. That is a very foolish thing to think, I can tell you.’

‘Thanks, Otto. Can you tell the friend I want to talk to Gaby about someone called Melanie Pavitt.’ I spelt the name.

‘I will call again,’ Otto said.

He rang back in twenty minutes.

‘That is all okay. Here is Gaby’s telephone number.’

I thanked him, wrote it down. It was in Victoria. I dialled it. A woman answered: ‘Yes.’ Wary.

‘Tony Mason,’ I said. ‘I sent you the message through Otto. I’d like to talk to you about Melanie Pavitt.’

‘What about her?’

‘About her experiences after leaving Kinross Hall. Immediately after she left.’

She thought about this for a while. ‘Who are you?’ she said.

‘Investigator for the Department of Community Services.’

‘Why doesn’t she tell you?’

Gaby didn’t know that Melanie was dead. This wasn’t the time to tell her.

‘She has, but I’d like to talk to someone who was at Kinross at the same time and who heard about what happened directly from Melanie. It won’t take long.’

‘On the phone?’

‘No. I’ll come and see you. Or we can meet somewhere, whatever suits you.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose so. But I’m out in the country.’

‘That’s not a problem.’

I left long before dawn in the freezing and wet dark, trees stirring in the wind, huddled sheep caught by my lights on the bends. By 9.15 am I was in the high country, in Mansfield, eating a toasted egg-and-bacon sandwich and drinking black coffee. It was cold up here, hard light, pale-blue cloudless sky. The coffee shop was full of people on their way to ski, groups of rich-looking people: sleek but slightly hungover men, just edging pudgy; women with tight smiles and lots of blonde hair; vicious children, all snarls and demands, woken early for the trip. The women had a way of tossing their heads and flicking their hair from below with their fingertips as if it were tickling their necks. In the street, it was all four-wheel-drives, BMWs and Saabs.

I wasn’t going towards Mount Buller. I was going northeast. On the way to Whitfield, following Gaby’s instructions, I turned right onto a dirt road, turned again, again, thought I’d missed the place, found it, a brick, stone and weatherboard house, low, sprawling, expensive, a long way from the road, at the end of a long curving avenue of poplars, bare. Off to the right was a corrugated-iron barn and beyond that what looked like stables. Gaby had done well for herself.

Going through the gate either triggered something or sound travelled long distances in this air. A woman was waiting near the barn when I came around the final bend. She pointed to the road that led to the stables and turned to walk in that direction. She was big, tall, not fat yet, pale hair in a ponytail, dark glasses, sleeveless quilted jacket.