A Thing of Blood by Robert Gott Read Free Book Online Page B

whether it was really such a good idea to give this information to Brian. He answered the phone, and before I had a chance to speak, said, ‘Those detectives were here this arvo. Sarah’s in Brisbane. They wouldn’t tell me what she told the Brisbane coppers, but they looked at me in a funny way, and one of them, Strachan, sort of shook his head and said, “Quite a story”, like he was accusing me of something.’
    ‘Don’t get agitated, Brian. Sarah Goodenough probably said that it wasn’t over between you, and that you’d promised to leave your wife.’
    Brian was stricken.
    ‘Why would she say that?’
    ‘That’s a question that doesn’t need answering, Brian. You know perfectly well why she’d say something like that. Firstly, she’s nuts and, secondly, if she really does hate you it would be a good way of making things difficult for you. Hell hath no fury and so forth.’
    There was silence on the line, then he said quietly, ‘Fuck.’
    ‘The problem now is that the police don’t have any suspects — except for those of us who were conveniently on the premises at the time that Darlene was abducted. Believe me, the longer it takes to find the culprit, the more impertinent and aggressive the dicks will become.’
    The front door opened and closed.
    ‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’
    ‘I have to go back to work tomorrow,’ he said irrelevantly.
    ‘I’ll call tomorrow night, if not before.’
    I hung up.
    Paul Clutterbuck came down the corridor to the small alcove that housed the telephone.
    ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said, as though he had been searching for me. ‘Come upstairs while I change, and tell me what you found out.’
    Clutterbuck was no longer wearing his American army uniform, but a beautifully cut suit with cuffs, pockets and buttons. It would have given the Austerity Committee conniptions. As I followed him up the stairs, wafts of cigar smoke and alcohol drifted from his clothing. In the bedroom he took off his shoes and placed them at the foot of the bed. He took off his coat, socks, tie, shirt and trousers, laying each item carefully on the counterpane. In his vest and underwear he went into the adjoining bathroom and ran a bath. He came back into the bedroom and opened the door to a large, custom-made wardrobe. I had never seen anything like it before. His shirts — and there were dozens of them — were grouped according to colour, and within each colour group they were graded from dark to light. Each shirt was separated from its neighbour by a stay on the rack on which they hung, so that no hanger could slide into the one beside it.
    Clutterbuck selected a shirt. He pulled out a narrow drawer, not unlike a map drawer which was segmented into many small compartments so that it resembled a specimen case of some kind. In each wooden square a single pair of socks rested. He selected a pair. The drawer beneath was pulled out, and from it he retrieved a pair of underpants, each of which, like the socks, occupied a single square. I wasn’t sure if it was admirable or disturbing that someone would go to so much trouble to curtail the disorderly tendencies of socks and underwear.
    ‘The trousers,’ he said, ‘are in the other wardrobe.’
    A wardrobe of identical design stood on the opposite side of the bedroom. He crossed to it and chose trousers from the rack within. He draped all of these items onto a chair, took off his vest and stepped out of his underwear. I wasn’t in the least perturbed by his lack of modesty. As an actor, I had abandoned my own a long time ago. There is no room for coyness when quick changes have to be made in cramped wings.
    Clutterbuck went into the bathroom, turned off the tap and climbed into the tub.
    ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Tell me what happened.’
    I sat in a comfortable armchair in his bedroom and called through the half-opened bathroom door.
    ‘Your former wife arrived just when you said she would and she met a man there.