‘Yes, sir.’
There was a pause and then De Lisle pushed down on his desk, lifting up and out of his chair with a grunt. ‘Well, the courtroom awaits.’
First up, as Sally had promised, was a Turkish woman requesting an intervention order against her violent husband. She was a Muslim and things got off to a bad start when she said she wouldn’t swear on the Bible. De Lisle leaned over the bench at her. ‘You must swear an oath. How can I accept your word if you don’t?’
The woman’s lawyer stepped forward. ‘Sir-’
De Lisle rounded on him, snarling, ‘If she won’t swear on the Bible then I will not hear her case.’
The lawyer conferred with the woman. De Lisle watched in distaste. She was swaddled in cloth. Eventually the woman swore on the Bible, her eyes closed and averted. Her hand, he noticed, was a centimetre short of actually resting on the Bible. Still, he let it pass.
Then the evidence was presented. De Lisle had heard it all before. A husband, driven to distraction by something his wife has done or said, tries to sort her out and finds she’s slapped a court order on him.
So De Lisle questioned the woman. ‘How serious would you say these punches were?’
She would not look at him. ‘He broke two of my ribs.’
‘Look at me when I’m asking you questions. Did your husband’s punches break the ribs, or did you perhaps fall down the stairs?’
Still she would not look at him. It went on like that for ten minutes, a farce that De Lisle had to nip in the bud. He told the woman, told her lawyer:
‘Your request for an intervention order is denied. I simply cannot accept the truth of testimony presented to me by a person who cannot maintain eye contact. It’s shifty, meaning the testimony of such a person is shifty.’ He lifted and dropped a handful of folders. ‘I don’t doubt that there was some violence involved but I urge you to seek a culturally appropriate remedy.’ He looked hard at the woman’s downcast face. ‘Madam, surely you’re aware of the powerfully patriarchal nature of your culture? Clearly violence is an expected outcome of the values of your particular society. There must be some more appropriate course of action you can take. Speak to the old women, the old men, cultural leaders who know what to do in cases like this. Application denied,’ he concluded, and busied himself with making notations on the brief while the woman and her lawyer left the court and the murmurs in the background died away.
The hearings dragged on through the day and De Lisle found his attention wandering. Being around Sally all day had stirred something in him. Cassie Wintergreen. He’d go and see Cassie Wintergreen, maybe stay the night if she was amenable. He had a key, so he could let himself in if she wasn’t there.
He went home, changed, and got to her house in Double Bay at six. He fixed himself a scotch. More news about the Asahi robbery on the six-thirty news.
She came storming in at seven-thirty, and she looked terrible.
‘You bastard. You didn’t tell me that gold butterfly was stolen.’
De Lisle waited a moment, spoke carefully. ‘How do you mean?’
‘How do I mean? I’ll tell you how I mean. Last time you were away gallivanting in Vanuatu, it was stolen from my safe, and now I learn it was stolen to begin with.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes, ah.’
‘Cass, listen, did you report it?’
It was Wintergreen’s turn to choose her words. ‘I don’t want to go into the reasons, but I had cause not to report it.’
Well, that was a relief. ‘Cass, what makes you think it was stolen.’
‘I was informed of the fact, wasn’t I?’
De Lisle breathed out heavily, keeping a rein on his impatience. ‘I’m listening.’
“There I was, in the office this evening, minding my own business, when who should come calling but the man who burgled me.’
‘Huh,’ De Lisle said.
‘Is that all you can say? This fellow had a bit of style. Not your regular burglar. He wanted a chat, kind of thing. You know, where did I score the Tiffany, so on and so forth.’
Pause. ‘Did you tell him?’
Nasty chuckle. ‘I guess you’ll soon know one way or the other.’
Whore. ‘Cass, can I use your phone?’
‘Why darling, you’ve gone all pale.’
De Lisle scowled, wheeled around, made for her study, rapidly mapping his way out of Australia. He’d need to keep the risk of detection and interception down. Ansett to Coffs, first thing in the morning, charter a small jet to Suva, bugger the cost, sail the Pegasus back to Vila, where the Asahi stones would be waiting for him.
Meanwhile, though, he couldn’t risk going back to his apartment. De Lisle made his phone calls, wondering exactly how he could sweet-talk Cassandra Wintergreen into letting him stay the night.
Thirty
After his run of piss-poor luck, things were beginning to look up, Baker could feel it. Things were beginning to fall into place.
He’d seen the Goldman bitch before lunch the previous day, and this time he’d quizzed her about De Lisle. Just casual, not making a big thing of it, just stuff like: was De Lisle Australian? Did he have a wife and kids? Did he live in a wealthy suburb? Was it true they called him the ‘hanging judge’? Why ‘hanging judge’ when hanging wasn’t allowed any more? Did he always have a go at people in court, their surnames and stuff, making them feel small? Maybe he lived on the North Shore? When was he next headed for the Pacific? Stuff like that.
Goldman had acted busy and abstracted again in her little partitioned office. A whole mob of ethnics going yap yap yap outside, waiting to see a duty lawyer, keyboards tapping in the background, printers whining, high heels up and down the corridors, phones ringing, clerks yelling out names and docket numbers and what court to go to. Plenty to distract the bitch but she went cagey on him and wouldn’t give him a straight answer. Just, the surname was French but as far as she knew he was born in Australia; she didn’t know about his private life; yes, he had a reputation for sternness; ‘hanging judge’ was just an expression; she was sorry, but she had no intention of discussing De Lisle’s movements or where he lived.
She gave him a hard, level look. ‘Terry, I hope you’re not thinking of doing something stupid.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like having a go at him.’
‘Give us a break,’ he’d told her. ‘What do you take me for?’
‘A man with a grievance,’ she said, ‘just because another man called him a loafer. A man who was supposed to seek professional attention for a drug and alcohol problem but didn’t.’
‘Yeah, rub it in,’ he said sourly. Then he brightened. ‘Besides-’ smirking, ‘-I can’t find him in the phone book.’
She smirked back. There wasn’t much humour in it.
Okay, if she wouldn’t tell him where De Lisle lived, he’d follow the bastard. Baker walked right back down the corridor to the notice board, found the day’s listings, saw which court De Lisle was in, and took a seat in the back corner where he couldn’t be seen clearly.
He watched through the long afternoon. De Lisle seemed to be in a hurry, rushing through the hearings. He’d been in the sun, Baker guessed, taking in the man’s mottled skin-unless it was due to his shitty personality. Entirely possible, Baker decided, watching De Lisle lean forward at one point, practically spitting in some poor bastard’s face: ‘Mr Patakis, why are you dressed like that?’
The Patakis geezer was about twenty, small, agile-looking, a gold stud in each ear, long black hair, a lot of hair on his bare arms, legs and chest. Probably what was getting to De Lisle were the loose gold satin shorts, the perforated powder-blue workout singlet, the sockless high-top Nikes.
Patakis looked down at himself, briefly brushing one hand down the black hairs on his legs. He looked genuinely puzzled. ‘This is top gear, judge. Three-fifty, four hundred bucks worth.’ His mouth hung open. Baker knew he was handing De Lisle a line.
So did De Lisle. He snarled, ‘It’s an insult to come into my court dressed like that.’
Patakis took a different tack. ‘I was in court six yesterday, judge-’