Black Tide by Peter Temple Read Free Book Online Page B

security monitor. It held a video recorder. Gary could tape his callers. If he got around to putting in a tape.
    The front door closed silently behind us. In the lift, I said, ‘I’d say he’s been away a fair while.’
    Des shook his head in disgust. ‘Lyin low. Told ya.’
    Inside the gate, I offered him the keys. ‘You might want to check Gary’s mailbox.’
    ‘You do it,’ he said. ‘Me fingers can’t do the fiddly things anymore.’
    Box number five was empty.
    Outside, Des said, ‘Reckon you could run me home?’
    ‘Easily. Anyone been asking about Gary?’
    ‘Ask me about Gary? Might as well ask a bloody sheep where the dog’s gone.’
    Des lived in deepest Northcote, near the railway line. As we pulled in to the kerb, two young women, both in black, both with cropped bleached hair, comb number one, nose rings, both carrying plastic shopping bags, arrived at the gate next door. One was a full head taller than the other. Des gave them an enthusiastic wave. They waved back, smiling.
    ‘Lovely girls,’ he said. ‘Strong too. Mow me lawn. Push-mower. Never asked em. The small one, what’s her name, forget for the minute, one Satdee she knocks on the door, says she’s mowin for exercise, mow anything, free mowin, what about me lawn? I was in that. Thinkin of payin some bloke to do it if I could find the extra. Lots of girls live around here. Mostly girls, really. Bloody paradise for a young bloke.’
    I had my doubts about that, but I didn’t mention them.
    ‘Got the phone on?’
    ‘Course.’
    ‘Give me the number. I’ll ask around, give you a call.’
    Des studied me. ‘Dead spit of Bill,’ he said with a shake of the head. ‘Didn’t play any footy, did ya?’
    ‘Not much.’
    ‘Got photos of the old days. Laurie Diggins used to take em. Mad bugger. That day too, day yer mum read us the bit. Hold on. Give ya somethin.’
    He got out. I passed him the briefcase. Watched him lurch up the path, struggle to get the key into his front door. Open. No. More struggle. Wait.
    I should have gone with him, helped him.
    Open. He’s in. He was gone no more than a minute, came out with a big black album in his hand. Paused at the gate, rested the album on it, leafed through. Found what he was looking for in seconds, put a finger in the place.
    He came over to the car, leant down and looked at me. ‘Never took anythin out of this book before,’ he said. ‘The wife kept it up. Gave her all me old photos, ones me mum took, and she kept it up. The Brownie. Box Brownie. Took good photos.’
    I said, ‘Des, don’t take anything out of the book. I’ll come around, you can show me the pictures.’
    He pulled a photograph out of its corners, offered it to me.
    ‘The day,’ he said. ‘That’s the day.’
    Back at the office, I sat at the tailor’s table and studied the small sepia picture for a long time. My mother at nineteen or twenty was striking, a face of planes and hollows, a wryness in the way she tilted her square chin. Something of her was in Claire, my daughter: the sharp cast of face, the emphatic nose, the quizzical eyes.
    Women. For men, all I had on the Irish side was my father and his father in old smoke-stained photographs on a pub wall. It was all I wanted. My mother’s father, I first feared and then loathed. For the rest, women. My grandmother, my mother, my sister, my transient first wife, my daughter, my wife Isabel, missed every day.
    Linda, loved, absent, presumably gone.
    I shut down on women, turned my thoughts to the home of Gary Connors. There was no toilet bag in the bathroom. The second largest suitcase of a four-bag set, a three-day suitcase, was missing. Gone on a trip. But the alarm system was off. No tape in the security video recorder. And there wasn’t a single personal paper in the place—no letters, bills, statements, nothing.
    I had a bad feeling about Gary Connors.
    I rang Cyril Wootton.
    ‘Belvedere Investments,’ said Mrs Davenport, Wootton’s secretary. She