Dead Point by Peter Temple Read Free Book Online Page B

the cops were interested in him.’
    ‘Always interested in barmen, the cops. Source of free drinks. I ran into your sister the other day.’ His eyes were not on me; they were on something behind me.
    ‘It’s usually the other way around,’ I said. ‘Did she mention that she’s uninsurable?’
    ‘At lunch with my friends the Pratchetts.’
    Dick Pratchett QC was the doyen of the criminal bar, a huge bearded man who cross-examined in a hoarse whisper and sometimes waited for answers with his eyes closed. Juries loved him and so did many murderers and lesser criminals roaming free.
    I said, ‘Ah. The trophy bride. Rosa’s friend.’
    Pratchett had recently married my sister Rosa’s doubles partner, a woman a good twenty years his junior. Strike three.
    ‘An attractive person,’ said Drew, still not looking at me. ‘Intelligent to boot.’
    ‘If you like booting. Her predecessor’s IQ just topped her chest size. Considerable for a chest but only for a chest.’
    ‘Rosa, I’m talking about your sister.’ Drew met my eyes, looked uneasy. ‘We’re having lunch on Sunday.’
    ‘My sister. That’s an entirely different matter.’
    Rosa was rich, spoilt beyond redemption. But it wasn’t the money that did it. It was being the focus of three adults’ lives. My maternal grandparents’ money had all gone to her and she used it to do nothing. Unless shopping, playing tennis, having brief affairs with unsuitable men and agonising over life constituted doing something.
    I let Drew wait. Then I said, ‘She usually lunches with young men. Spunks. Studs. Studs in their ears, studs elsewhere.’
    He still wasn’t too keen to hold my gaze, looked over my shoulder again. ‘More of a meeting of minds, this. No objection, is there?’
    I studied him, shook my head. ‘Really, Drew, you can look at me when you raise matters like this.’
    He looked at me. ‘Well?’
    ‘It’s your life.’
    ‘What’s that mean? Of course it’s my fucking life. Don’t you approve?’
    ‘Approval doesn’t come into it.’
    ‘So you don’t approve?’
    ‘Forget this approval stuff. You’re not asking for my permission, are you?’
    ‘Well, no. Yes, I suppose I am.’
    ‘Don’t. I don’t give permissions.’
    A long silence. I thought he was going to get up and leave, let me pay for the explosive fish stew.
    ‘So,’ he said. ‘Not a good idea, you think.’
    We fingered our glasses.
    ‘Fucking awful idea,’ I said. ‘From my point of view.’
    Drew filled our glasses. ‘Exactly why is that?’
    I’d never been called upon to do something like this. Since her mid-teens, Rosa had always had two photographs beside her bed: a photograph of Bill Irish, the father she never knew, and one of me, in tennis clothes, the older brother to whom she told everything, whether he wanted to hear it or not.
    In short, I knew too much.
    ‘The risk is,’ I said, ‘the risk is that between the two of you you’ll end up creating some fucking vast, treeless, mined no-go area. For me.’
    ‘For you?’
    ‘For me. This is about me. You’re asking me.’
    ‘What about me?’
    ‘How can I say this? You’re a divorced prick looking for love and affection. Rosa, on the other hand, is only looking for romance. Do I have to say more?’
    Drew considered this statement, looking at me. Then he said, ‘No, your honour.’ He emptied his glass. ‘Let’s get the other half.’
    Over at the trade union table, an argument had broken out between a short-haired woman with thick-lensed glasses and a man with a wispy beard. ‘The question isn’t whether it’s a women’s issue,’ said the man, ‘it’s whether it’s a union issue.’
    The woman looked at the ceiling and said through tight lips, ‘This is so fucking unbelievably eighties, it makes me want to puke.’
    ‘A lot to be said for the eighties,’ Drew said, signalling to a waiter. ‘Bernie Quinlan kicked 116 in ’83.’
    ‘That was ’84.’
    ‘No, he only kicked 105 in