‘Milk, sugar?’
‘No milk, one spoon, please,’ I said.
Teresa came back with two mugs. ‘Sit down,’ she said.
We sat in leather chairs that hissed under us. ‘Nice house,’ I said. ‘Did you have it built?’
‘Paul built it, yes.’
‘So much light.’
‘Yes. The architect’s really good. She lives down the road.’
‘I see in the paper that you have to be a millionaire to live here.’
‘They can’t be talking about us,’ she said.
We looked at each other. She was less tense now.
‘Did you know what Wayne did for a living?’ I said.
‘Security. Clubs, that sort of thing.’
‘The last time you spoke to him,’ I said. ‘Was he worried about anything?’
Teresa hesitated. ‘No. It was about a month before his murder. We talked about the kids, my dad. Paul spoke to him for a bit, coming for a holiday, fishing, bloke stuff.’
‘They got on?’
‘Oh yes, always got on. He knew Paul and… anyway.’
‘Were you close, the way twins often are?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Dunno. Not always when we were kids. A bit, I suppose.’
‘Twins get feelings about each other, don’t they?’
A shrug. ‘I get feelings all the time. The kids. Usually wrong, thank Christ.’
I drank some tea, didn’t say anything, looked at her. Teresa was uneasy, uncrossed her legs, re-crossed them, wasn’t keen to look at me, looked at the garden, a coastal garden, not much colour.
‘Wayne was on his way here when he was murdered,’ I said.
Her head jerked my way. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I know.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘what the hell does it matter? What does it matter where he was going? What’s the point of this?’
She got up. ‘I’ve actually got things to do,’ she said. ‘So if…’
‘He didn’t ring you before he left Melbourne?’
‘No. I said so.’
‘Has anyone been in touch with you about Wayne, anything to do with him?’
‘No. No one.’ She turned, taking her mug to the kitchen.
I said, ‘Janene Ballich.’
A movement of the shoulderblades, I thought. Teresa turned, but not quickly.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Janene Ballich.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The name doesn’t mean anything?’
‘No.’ Clipped.
‘Katelyn Feehan? Did he mention her?’
‘No.’ Just as quick. I couldn’t read her black eyes.
I got up, offered my mug. ‘Thanks for talking to me. And for the tea. If you want to find out whether I’m trustworthy, I’ll give you the name of a judge of the Victorian Supreme Court. You can ring him.’
Mr Justice Loder wouldn’t be happy about giving me a character reference but he wouldn’t say no.
She took the mug, held the two in front of her.
‘I don’t think Wayne’s murder is a simple story,’ I said. ‘But I hope the story’s over. Hope. We can only hope. Goodbye.’
‘Bye.’
I was a few paces down the path when Teresa said, ‘Sorry, your number. In case. You know.’
‘Of course.’
I went back and gave her my business card. ‘I should have given it to you at the beginning. You might need a lawyer one day.’
When I looked back, she was still in the doorway, watching me go. She raised a hand. I raised a hand back.
Home. Time to go home. Declare an end to foreign ventures. I had seen the unexciting country, tasted the food. I had wasted time and money, mine, there was no one paying for this.
On the highway, humming with traffic both ways, new houses crammed into developments on the right. I saw a sign on a building site, Milders’ Homes. Would it be better if the apostrophe were simply abandoned? I was approaching a T-junction, some shops ahead, when the thought came to me. He knew Paul and… anyway. Teresa had been about to say something about Paul and Wayne. She hadn’t finished the sentence.
I pulled off the road, borrowed the local phone book from the man in the office at the supermarket. There it was. I’d never looked in the directory. Simone Bendsten had used the white pages on the web.
It took less than ten minutes to get back to Dunsborough. In the town, I stopped to look at the map, find Powlett Street. It was near Blue Cape Crescent, I’d driven down it. The green Forester was parked outside number 8, a private house, a city house, unseen behind a terracotta wall with a wooden gate and double garage doors.
I parked and went to the gate, tried the handle. It was open, a brick path went directly to the front door, the twin of the one made by Paul Milder. There was a brass knocker in the shape of a dolphin. I raised its head and let it fall, twice.
The wait was short. The door opened, neither fully nor fearlessly.
A woman, late twenties, tall, with short hair. Her face had filled out, but she still had the waif’s cheekbones.
‘You’re looking well, Janene,’ I said.
34
We went down a passage into a sunroom, north-facing, long and narrow, its floor tiled, cane furniture. French doors were open to a terrace, there were internal wooden shutters to close in summer against the West Australian sun.
I nodded at Teresa Milder, standing at a small bar.
‘How did you know?’ she said.
‘Just a guess,’ I said. ‘I’d like a talk with Janene.’
The women looked at each other.
‘I’ll be fine,’ said Janene.
Teresa looked at me.
‘She’s got nothing to fear from me,’ I said.
They went out together and I could hear the low sibilance of their speech.
Janene came back, elegant in her white T-shirt and khaki pants, the long legs I remembered from the photograph. She went to the bar and took a cigarette from a packet, didn’t offer, lit it with a kitchen match from an oversize box, that would be for the barbecue I could see outside, a brick structure, neat, the Milder brothers’ trademark no doubt, two brickie brothers made good in the west.
‘Well,’ she said, deep draw, violent expulsion of smoke. ‘Terry says you’re a lawyer. I’ve been waiting for some cunt with a gun or a knife. Sit down.’
I sat. She didn’t, she leant against the bar, standing between two stools.
‘What?’ she said. ‘Just tell me.’
‘I’ve got questions,’ I said. ‘But to begin, Wayne was on his way here when he was murdered. He’d sent you here, to his sister. Is that right?’
She looked away, drew on the cigarette. ‘What do you want?’
‘Since Wayne,’ I said, ‘other people have been murdered. One of them was a client of mine, a person I liked. I want to find out who killed these people.’
‘Fucking cops’ job,’ she said, moving her shoulders, restive in her skin.
‘It should be.’
A bird walked into view on the terrace, a rock parrot perhaps, olive and yellow and blue, pecking with its tiny beak. Another followed, soon there were many, all pecking. Fights broke out.
‘Your mum misses you,’ I said. ‘All these years.’
Janene looked at me, away, hugged herself, put her hands inside her short sleeves, massaged her arms, shivered in the warm day. ‘What do you want? What do you fucking want?’
‘Tell me what happened,’ I said. ‘How you come to be here. Tell me about Wayne and Mandy Randy.’
She drew on the cigarette, smoke plumed from her nostrils, she went to the door, disturbed the birds, drew again, threw the stub away, a graceful movement, like tossing a dart.
‘I’ll have to go out and get that,’ she said. ‘He can’t bear to see a fucking breadcrumb, hair in the shower, a bit of grass, weed, whatever, it comes through a crack, he kills it with this fucking spray.’
‘My plane’s at 4.30,’ I said.
‘Go,’ she said. ‘I’ve been scared so long, this doesn’t mean a shit. Go. Goodbye.’
‘Sorry to have bothered you,’ I said, getting up. ‘I’ll tell your mum you’re alive, living in a nice warm house near the beach. She’ll be happy. She could fly over and stay for a while, get the cold out of her bones.’
I left the room, walked towards the big front door. I could feel her behind me.