Dead Point by Peter Temple Read Free Book Online Page A

in minutes, a minefield of a dish. You chewed uneventfully and then you bit on anti-personnel chillies and your eyes lit up from behind. Fortunately, it came with a glass of a sweet off-white substance, a neutralising agent, possibly crushed antacid tablets in a sugar solution.
    ‘Interesting,’ I said, recovering. ‘Fusion brings electrocution. Tell me about The Green Hill.’
    Drew was savouring the Kashboli fish and chilli stew with no sign of strain, no resort to the pale liquid.
    ‘The Green Hill?’ He raised his glass of Bolivian cabernet to the light, his eyes narrowed, the long face took on a stained-glass religious look. ‘Not your kind of place. Very few geriatrics arguing about football at The Green.’
    ‘Tell me,’ I said.
    ‘Thinking of taking someone? A date, is it?’
    ‘With destiny. It’s for a Wootton client. And I’ve been there. This afternoon.’
    ‘Shit. Boring. How is the love life?’
    ‘She’s taking pictures in Europe. Not enough time between assignments.’
    ‘To do what?’
    ‘Fly home for twenty-whatever hours and go back the next week.’
    ‘Serious concern?’
    ‘I suppose.’
    ‘Extremely fetching person. In a mildly intimidating sort of way. Not talkative exactly,’ said Drew.
    ‘No. Well, she can be. Depends.’
    ‘Yes. All life depends. It’s pendant.’
    ‘The Green Hill?’
    ‘Testimony to one man’s dream,’ Drew said. ‘Xavier Doyle, heard of him?’
    ‘I met him. Very affable. He shouted me a pint of Shamrock, told me to call him Ex.’
    ‘Radiates charm, Mr Doyle. Gave character for a bloke of mine, waiter at The Green, stark naked outside the National Gallery on New Year’s Eve, pointed his bum at a cop. By the time Doyle was finished, I thought the mago was going to award the lad compensation.’
    Ronnie Krumm was coming our way, a white tent with a large shining head where the flagpole should be, hipping his way through the tables.
    ‘Everything all right?” he said. ‘Not too hot for you?’
    ‘Was this a hot one?’ said Drew. ‘Ronnie Krumm, Jack Irish. Jack used to be my law partner.’
    I shook Ronnie’s fleshy hand.
    ‘And you eat together,’ said Ronnie. ‘Amaazing. I’m still trying to kill my ex-partner.’
    ‘I never heard you say that,’ said Drew. ‘Call me when you succeed, I’ll see what I can do.’
    Ronnie winked and moved on to one of the tables of trade unionists.
    ‘Yes,’ said Drew. ‘Xavier Doyle, the boy’s a dreamer and a doer. Cook from Dublin, guitar player, he sees the huge old place, used to be a temperance pub, falling down. So he finds the money to buy it, plus megabucks for renovations.’
    ‘How do you do that?’ I tried to defuse a bite of stew with a big swig of the Bolivian.
    ‘I don’t know exactly. They say he won over Mike Cundall. And Mrs Cundall, no doubt. And now he’s in with little Sam Cundall and the Sydney sharks, tendering for ski resorts and casinos.’
    The Cundall family were in commercial property, carparks, mortgage lending, internet dream factories, many other things. They also gave away large sums and, by all accounts, turned on a good party.
    ‘Cannon Ridge. How do you know he’s in that?’
    Drew was looking into his glass. ‘Because I know things. So what’s the interest in The Green?’
    ‘Someone called Robbie Colburne was a casual barman there. Dead of an overdose.’
    He drank, rolled the wine in his mouth, squinted. ‘Bolivian,’ he said in wonder. ‘Excellent. Half the price of an equivalent local drop. And made by Aussie mercenaries. What happened to loyalty? Patriotism?’
    ‘You sound like Cyril.’
    ‘Now there’s a patriot. Fought abroad for his country.’
    ‘Which broad was that?’
    He gave me the Greer frown. ‘Very weak, Jack. It’s all that buggering around with carpentry. You don’t do enough law. Keeps the mind alert. So what’s the problem with a dead waiter? The more the merrier, I say. Did he have a ponytail?’
    ‘A barman. I’m told