The Case of The Mad Millionaire

10

The Case Of The Mad Millionaire

    Daphne Green got home from the dairy and from collecting the kids from Louise Watkins, who’d been baby-sitting them, to find that a police car was parked outside the house. She couldn’t see, because of the net curtains, but she was positive that next-door old Ma Bailey was glued to her front windows.

    “Pleece car!” cried little Harry. He was only two: up until a few days ago the phrase hadn't been in his vocabulary.

    “Yes,” she said sourly, parking the station-waggon in the drive. She wasn’t supposed to do that, it drove Tim mad because then he couldn’t get the van round the back: only how’d he like having to lug the shopping—not to mention Harry, when he was in one of his babyish moods—up the dratted back steps every day of the week? “Pleece car.”

    At least it was only old Jim Baxter, not one of those smart-ass detectives from town. “Hullo, Sergeant Baxter,” she said wearily, bending down to the police car’s window. “Fancy a cup of tea?”

    He didn’t refuse: they never did. Apparently the New Zealand Police ran on tea. Other people’s tea.

    When Sergeant Baxter was ensconced in Tim’s big chair in the front room eating cake and drinking tea, and she’d given the kids a banana each and packed them outside to play, she sighed, sipped her own tea, and said: “Well, what is it this time?”

    He replied mildly: “Just thank your lucky stars it wasn’t you that found the body.”

    Daphne had known Sergeant Baxter all her life. She gave him a good glare. “Yes, poor Dr Browne was telling us how your lot have been pestering him!” Jim opened his mouth to say it wasn’t his lot, it was the C.I.B. types from the Big Smoke, but she swept on: “And what would I of been doing, lounging round the pool when I had work to do? And that reminds me, when are your lot gonna let us use the front door again?”

    Jim Baxter shrugged. “Don’t ask me, it’s C.I.B. business.”

    “Then why are you here, Sergeant?” said Daphne nastily.

    Jim ignored this: it wasn’t that she took after that mother of hers, it was just that she was scared stiff Jake Carrano had done it, and wasn’t letting on to herself that he might of. He replied mildly: “Aw—an extra hand: you know. And we’re not exactly rushed off our feet at the Station. Bit of petty theft at the caravan camp, that’s about the size of it. –This is great cake.”

    “Mum made it,” said Daphne glumly. “She won’t give me the recipe: it’ll die with her.” She smiled at him suddenly. “Better eat it while you can! Have another bit?”

    Jim didn’t say “No.” He didn’t say “No” to another cup of tea, either. Then he leaned back in the big chair, unashamedly let his belt out a notch over his plump tummy, and said: “We-ell… What I’m here for, ya see, the C.I.B. types want a bit more background on Jake Carrano.”

    “That Collingwood,” identified Daphne sourly.

    “Yeah.”

    “He said did I play golf or tennis, and when I said I didn’t he said maybe I wouldn’t of had the strength in the wrists to of done it!” she revealed indignantly. “And then he had the cheek to say did Polly play tennis!”

    “She does, eh?”

    “Not that well,” replied Daphne huffily.

    Cripes, the D.C.I.’s idea that Daphne was not only pro-Carrano, she was also fiercely pro-Polly Mitchell, was spot-on! Chalk one up to Collingwood, thought Jim sourly.

    He sniffed a bit and got his notebook out. Then, giving her an apologetic look, he got the little tape recorder out.

    “What’s that for?” she said, immediately going all huffy. Jim had tried to tell the D.C.I., but—

    “C.I.B. regs,” he grunted.

    “Oh. Well, go on: what do you want to know?”

    Jim didn’t know what the Hell he wanted to know, actually—but he wasn’t gonna let on. The D.C.I. had said just go and talk to her. Sound out the ground a bit more. They had fuck-all clues—he’d say this for Collingwood, he didn’t mince words—so they might as well see what local gossip was gonna give them. And Jim had better do the Green woman: he, Collingwood, had managed to put her back up, mainly because she apparently thought he thought her boss had done it. Which could indicate she thought her boss had done it. So try getting her onto Carrano, Jim.

    “Uh—well—a bit more about Jake Carrano, really.”

    “What about him?” she said, glaring.

    The unfortunate sergeant repressed an urge to run his finger round his collar. Wincing, and shifting uneasily, he said: “Uh… Well, tell ya what: this business the other week with Don Banks at the Council meeting.”

    “What about it?’

    “Uh—well, did he say anything to you about it?”

    “No,” said Daphne on a grimly pleased note.

    Jim wasn’t that thick. “Well, did you hear him talking about it to anyone else?”

    “I might of—so what?”

    “So tell us about it,” he said mildly.

    “There was nothing in it: Mr Carrano was wild for a bit, but what does he care about that stupid little Don Banks and his pathetic Puriri County schemes? Mr Carrano’s got huge companies!”

    Huge companies and a temper, thought Jim, not saying it. “Yeah, ya could be right. So what happened?”

    Looking sulky, Daphne began: “It was when I was there for that special dinner. He gave me the uniform and everything, you can’t say he’s a mean man!”

    “No, pretty generous, eh?”

    “Yes, and he always lets me have the leftovers, even if I’m not dishing up for him!”

    “Yeah. Well—he musta been a bit late, eh, if he was at the Council meeting?”

    Fortunately this set her off: “Yes, he was a bit late, only they were gonna have it quite late, but Polly was getting worried…”

    With a stealthy sigh of relief, Jim leaned back in the big chair and let the tape recorder do its job.

    The two young women had been checking the dining table and had come into the sitting-room to recheck that when Jake burst in through the door nearest the bar, wrenching at his collar. “That bloody little shit! I’ll flaming strangle him!”

    “Who?” said Polly.

    He tore his tie off and hurled it at the shag-pile. “Flaming Don Banks, who else! Jesus!”

    “Help, what’s he done now?” said Polly feebly.

    He passed his hand over his face, and sighed. “More of the usual, I suppose. Cummere, give us a hug.”

    Polly in her flared silver lamé top and narrow black velvet trousers went over to him and he hugged her tightly to him.

    “Lamé, it doesn’t crush,” explained Daphne.

    “Uh—yeah.” Well, his Moana’d be pleased to hear that bit, but he didn’t know that the D.C.I. would. “Um, pants? Thought this was a fancy do?”

    “Yes! Evening pants!” she snarled. “They were very smart!”

    “All right, they were very smart. Did you say Roger Browne was already there?”

    “Yes, so what? He showed us how to—”

    —Set the table with the soup spoons in the right place like they did in flaming Oxford, yeah, yeah, he’d got that bit, ta, or the recorder had. The D.C.I. would be pleased: to Jim’s knowledge, ruddy Browne had never breathed a word of all this.

    “Yeah. How did he get there, by the by?” he said in an idle voice.

    This didn’t work: she snarled: “He flew down in his helicopter, how’dja think he got there?”

    “Well, how did he?” said Jim feebly.

    “Walked down the hill, and so what?”

    “So did he come to the patio door?” said Jim in a very feeble voice indeed.

    “Yes. Actually he made us jump when he tapped on the glass,” admitted Daphne grudgingly.

    Right. Well, that was sort of confirmation that Browne usually came through the pool gate, but as she hadn’t said it in so many words would it be enough to satisfy the D.C.I.? Jim looked uneasily at the tape recorder but it just sat there spinning quietly to itself. Uh—how long did those bloody tapes last, anyway? “Um, well, go on,” he said weakly.

    Gradually Jake’s breathing slowed; he released Polly with a sigh.

    “Come and sit down,” she said, taking his hand and leading him over to one of the big squashy black sofas. “Want a drink?”

    “Yeah—ta,” he said, sitting down heavily.

    “I’ll get it,” said Roger quickly. “Whisky?’

    “Yeah—Black Label, ta, Rog,” he said with a sigh.

    “Insult it with ice, Rog,” added Polly, smiling.

    “Yeah, do,” said Jake with another sigh. He put his arm round Polly’s shoulders and said: “The slimy little worm’s got hold of a tape that he reckons proves our consortium’s been bribing some twerp of a council member. He raked up that stuff about the Group doing business with the Arabs, ’member? –Thanks, Rog,” he said as Roger handed him the whisky. He knocked half of it back in one gulp.

    “Arabs?’ said Roger feebly.

    Even Daphne had heard of that one: in the background, she bit her lip.

    “Bribes to Arabs, Rog,” said Jake heavily. “Look, they never proved a thing, and anyway, it’s the only way to get anything done in the Middle East, they don’t think of it as a bribe, it’s their legitimate cut.”

    “Yes. Just shut up, Rog,” said Polly mildly. She patted Jake’s knee and said: “So what if he raked it up again? It’s only spite, don’t let it get to you, Jake.”

    “Sounds as if she knows how to handle him,” murmured the sergeant.

    “Of course she does! She’d be the ideal wife for him!”

    “Mm. He hasn’t popped the question, has he?”

    “How would I know?” said Daphne irritably.

    “She’d be wearing a huge great rock on the third finger of her left hand, that might be some indication.”

    “Well, all right, he hasn’t, then! And don’t ask me why! After all, he’s been divorced from that awful Whatsername for years!”

    “Mm… About twenty years, now, I think. He was pretty young when he married her.”

    “Well, there you are!”

    Jim Baxter scratched his head dubiously. He didn’t know where he was, to tell you the truth. Still, might as well get something out of her while they were on the subject. “She come round there much?”

    “That awful Esmé woman?” cried Daphne incredulously “Don’t be mad! He can’t stand her!”

    “Mm. Didn’t she marry a friend of his, or something, though?”

    “NO!”

    Jim just waited.

    Daphne said sulkily: “That silly old Polish man, Count Something, he calls himself.”

    “Jablonski,” murmured Jim.

    “Yes—well, some foreign name. He’s as nutty as a fruit-cake, by all accounts. He wasn’t a friend, he was… A friend of a friend, I think. Those people called Schmidt. Only they’re not German, they’re Polish, it isn’t their real name: I do know that, because they came round once for afternoon tea and Mr Carrano asked me if I’d mind serving it up, because the old lady’s got arthritis in her hands, and if I didn’t, she’d insist on pouring the tea!” She paused for breath. “And I know they’re Polish because they were talking some funny language—Mr Carrano and the old man, I mean—and I asked him, afterwards, and he said that’s what it was, see? And what’s more, he said that old man really was a count and that silly old joker that she married—Esmé, I mean—well, he wasn’t!”

    Jim looked weakly at the tape recorder and hoped it had got that, because he sure as Hell hadn’t.

    “And Polly knows their son, he works at the varsity, and that’s how they met!” added Daphne triumphantly.

    Jim had a distinct urge to mop his brow. “Uh—yeah. Her and Carrano—right. Young Rod Jablonski, this’d be, eh?”

    “NO!” howled Daphne. “Why don’t you stop relying on that stupid machine and LISTEN, I thought policemen were trained to concentrate on evidence?”

    “Uh—yeah. Sorry. It got a bit complicated with all those Poles in there,” said Jim sheepishly. “Hang on.” He scratched his head. “Young Rod is the old count’s son, right?”

    “He’s not a count!” she snapped.

    “No. Well, he’s old Jablonski’s son.”

    “By his first wife, of course, not her,” agreed Daphne. “She was lovely, Mr Carrano showed me a picture of her. She died when Rod was only little.”

    “Yeah,” said Jim, though he hadn’t known that and didn’t much want to, now. “So— Oh, I geddit: it’d be these Polish Schmidts—it’d be their son that Polly knows?”

    “Yes, of course,” said Daphne, but quite mildly.

    “Only she does know young Jablonski as well?”

    “Yes, of course. Well, I mean, he's round there half the time, he’s practically Mr Carrano’s godson! –And even if he wasn’t she’d know him anyway, because he’s one of her students up the varsity!” finished Daphne triumphantly.

    “Yes,” said Jim very faintly.

    “Well, do you want to hear the rest of it, or not?”

    Jim jumped slightly. Was there more? “Uh—yeah. Ta,” he said groggily.

    “Well, where was I?”

    Jim was buggered if he knew. But fortunately she went on of her own accord: “I remember: I was telling you Mr Carrano came home wild and Polly got him calmed down and got him to sit down. Mind you, I would’ve gone straight out to the kitchen, only we’d just checked on the soup: she made me take it off the heat and put a piece of buttered lunch-paper on top of it: funny, eh? And the asparagus had to be slightly crisp so we hadn’t put it on yet. Anyway, Dr Browne didn’t know anything about that Arab stuff—though mind you, Polly told me it was all over the English papers, only she reckons he doesn’t read the financial bits and he never used to have a TV, can you imagine that? So Polly got Mr Carrano to tell her the rest of what happened at the stupid Council meeting, but it was feeble, and that Don Banks, he made it all up, see!”

    That wasn’t what the papers had implied, though according to Collingwood the transcript of Banks’s famous tape that they’d published could have meant anything. Money wasn’t even mentioned. But if you had a suspicious enough mind you could have taken it that the mealy-mouthed tit from Carrano’s development consortium was offering the other mealy-mouthed tit from the Council a slice of the slush fund—yeah. Apparently nobody at the council meeting had pointed out the dubious legality of Mr Banks’s possessing this tape of a private meeting at all, but D.C.I. Collingwood had—forcibly. Daphne’s account was less than clear but then, the D.C.I. wouldn’t care: he understood it a bloody sight better than she did—than any of them did, actually—and he was only interested in her picture of the personalities.

    “It’ll be all over the bloody papers tomorrow. Probably be on the news tonight, too,” said Jake sourly.

    Polly squeezed his knee sympathetically

    “Filthy-minded little shit. Not that I give a bugger about the ruddy consortium—well, this development’s old Ron Carewe’s baby—but if ya wanna know, the little prick brought your name into it!”

    “What?” cried Roger before Polly could speak. “The bloody swine!

    “I haven’t got anything to do with the development, or—or bribes to Arabs,” said Polly in an unsteady voice.

    “He called you one of my floozies, I suppose next you’re gonna claim you don’t care about that and you don’t mind if your mum and dad see it all over the bloody media!”

    “Well, I don’t care, personally, but I don’t particularly want Mum and Dad to see it, no.”

    “I hope you strangled the filthy-mouthed swine!” said Roger viciously.

    “Yeah.” Jake leant forward suddenly and buried his head in his hands. “Yeah. Well, nearly. Lost me temper completely. Jumped the barrier and got me hands round his throat.” He looked up, sighing. “That fat little bloke that reports for the local rag was there, just about bursting with excitement. He dashed out just ahead of us—heading for the nearest phone, no doubt.”

    There was a short silence.

    “You don’t mean you literally strangled him?” croaked Polly.

    He glared. ‘Yeah.”

    She bit her lip hard. “Because he called me a floozy?”

    “YES!”

    Polly collapsed in hysterical giggles, clapping her hand over her mouth. “Sorry!” she gasped through the giggles. “Sorry!”

    Jake glared.

    “No, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh; but—but we’re not living in the 19th century.”

    “All right, I’m a dinosaur,” he said sourly.

    “Mm. Well, coming on top of the accusations about the bribes it was understandable.”

    “Absolutely!” put  in Roger. “Er, when you say you leaped the barrier—”

    “It’s one-storeyed, it’s a modern building,” said Polly quickly. “Could you just nip out to the kitchen with Daph and see that we’ve put out the right bowls as fingerbowls for the asparagus, Rog?” She put her arm round Jake’s shoulders and leant her head against his. “Ta anyway, you misguided Sir Galahad.”

    As they went out to the kitchen Daphne and Roger heard him give a little laugh and say: “Yeah! I’ve parked me white charger at the door, you needn’t worry about the carpets. Well—storm in a teacup, eh?”

    “Knows how to handle him? Wind him round her little finger, more like!” croaked the sergeant.

    “Yes,” said Daphne composedly. “Well, she’s a very feminine woman.”

    Jim goggled at her.

    “That’s what he likes,” she said simply.

    After a bit of gulping Jim managed to say: “I thought she was a Woman’s Libber and that.”

    “Only on the surface,” replied Daphne with great significance.

    Jim passed a hand across his face.

    “Like I say, she’d be the ideal wife for him,” she said smugly.

    “He comes in breathing blue murder, she cuddles up to him and calms him down, he gets all steamed up again about her honour—if ya like to call it that—and then she laughs at him—laughs at him!—and promptly cuddles up to him again and gets him over that? Telling me she’d be the ideal wife for him! In fact the country might be a lot safer if someone locked ’em up together and threw away the key until he had married her!”

    “Very funny,” said Daphne coldly.

    The sergeant took a deep breath. “Mind if I ask whether she’s like this with just any joker? Or does she only turn it on for multi-millionaires?”

    “SHE’S NOT LIKE THAT!” bellowed Daphne.

    “You’re the expert,” said Jim, very feebly.

    “I knew a man’d never understand!” she said with immense scorn and superiority.

    She wasn’t wrong, there. After a moment he said: “Have I got this right? Carrano was pretty mad with Banks but what he went really ropeable over was him having a go at Polly Mitchell?”

    Daphne looked down her nose. “Of course.”

    Ye-ah… That wasn’t the way it had come over in the media, but unless Carrano was a bloody good actor or Daphne had the whole scene back to front, neither of which scenarios seemed likely to Jim Baxter…

    After a minute he said: “You wouldn’t like to tell me a bit more about him and Polly, wouldja?”

    Daphne looked sulky. “You’d only laugh.”

    “No, I wouldn’t,” said the sergeant valiantly.

    She got up. “Hang on, I’d better rescue Harry, it sounds as if he’s bawling.” She went out, and Jim seized the chance to change the tape in the machine. Not rewinding the used one: after the various cock-ups over empty tape recorders and tapes recording nothing at all and so forth that had been going on over the last week he wasn’t gonna handle the ruddy things any more than he absolutely had to.

    Daphne came back holding the little fellow. Jim Baxter, who was a grandfather, encouraged him to climb on his knee and have a play with his walkie-talkie.

    Daphne sat down again. “Well, I’ll tell you this much,” she said mildly: “I know all you men think Mr Carrano’s some sort of—of macho ideal, or something”—the sergeant swallowed—“but he isn’t, see?”

    “Yeah, that’s right, ya talk into here, see?”  the sergeant said to the little boy.

    “Talk!”

    “Yeah: press the button and talk, see? –All right, if he isn’t, uh, the macho type, what’s ’e like, then?” he said to Daphne.

    Scowling horribly, she replied, sticking out her chin: “He’s very sensitive, underneath!”

    “That right?” he said, pretending not to be all that interested. He began pressing buttons for Harry. All at once the radio crackled and a cautious voice said: “That’s not you, is it, Sarge?”

    “Yeah. Go to sleep again,” he said shortly into it, as Harry chortled gleefully.

    The radio crackled again and said in disgusted tones—though evidently not to Sergeant Baxter: “Cripes, ’e’s playing with it again!”

    Daphne bit her lip.

    “Go on,” said Jim mildly, not looking at her.

   “We-ell… All right. But if you laugh, don’t come round here again after information!”

   “I won’t,” he said mildly.

    She looked at him suspiciously but said: “Well, I think he's quite a sensitive man: he hides it, that’s all. And Polly thinks so, too, so there! He’s quite… diffident, that’s what.”

    “That right?” said Jim Baxter in a strangled voice.

    “Yes. –I’ll give you an example: that dinner party I was telling you about.”

    “Mm?”

    “Well, he asked me if I knew what side to serve from and all that and when I said I didn’t, he said he didn’t, either, and he wasn’t going to let on to Polly, he’d get Marianne—that’s his secretary, she’s a lovely girl—to get a book from the library about it, and not to say anything to Polly!” She paused, panting.

    “Talk, talk!” cried Harry.

    “Eh? Aw—talk: yeah, okay. –You there, Ronnie?” he said into the walkie-talkie.

    Nothing happened.

    “Talk, talk!” cried Harry urgently.

    “Yeah. Think ’e’s gone to sleep. –Ronnie! You there?”

    “More talk!” cried Harry.

    “Yeah, yeah, he’ll talk in a minute, give ’im time. –’E’d better, or I’ll know the reason why,” he muttered.

    “Talk,” murmured Harry.

    “Yeah. Say ‘Hullo’ into it, then. Come on: ‘Hullo; hullo, Ronnie!’”

    “Wonnie.”

    “Yeah, Wonnie,” agreed the sergeant grimly. “Uh—sorry, Daphne: go on.”

    “Well, it just shows, doesn’t it?”

    “Yeah,” said Jim foggily.

    “And then of course when she was planning it, Polly told me all about how he felt! You can laugh if you like,” she added, sticking out her chin and entirely contradicting herself, “but it was very sad! He’s got a lot of insecurities under that hearty manner!”

    “Go on,” croaked Jim.

    “TALK!” cried Harry desperately.

    “Yeah. –Hang on, Daphne, I’ll just see if I can raise ’im. RONNIE! Are—you—THERE?”

    “I have to take a leak some time, Sarge,” said the radio in injured tones.

    Daphne choked and put her hand over her mouth.

    “Why?” asked the sergeant nastily.

    “I’m not Superman, Sarge!”

    “You’re supposed to be on duty.”

    The radio began to tell him about all those Cokes it had had, it was a very hot day, but the sergeant cut it short.

    “Yeah. Never mind all that, there’s someone here that wants to talk to you. –Come on, Harry: say ‘Hullo, Ronnie.’”

    Harry went all shy and buried his face in the sergeant’s blue-shirted shoulder.

    “Come on: ‘Hullo, Ronnie.’ –Oy, Ronnie: say ‘Hullo, Harry.’”

    “Eh?”

    “Say ‘Hullo, Harry,’ are you deaf or what?”

    Instead of saying “Hullo, Harry” the radio replied cautiously: “Where are you, Sarge?”

    The sergeant took a deep breath. “I have not been kidnapped and this is not some secret code, Ronald. I’m at Tim and Daphne Green’s, which is where I’m supposed to be; and you can verify that by asking the D.C.I., if ya like!”

    The radio made a gulping sound. “No, ta,” it said weakly. “Um—what was that I was supposed to say, again?”

    “Say hullo to little Harry Green,” said the sergeant tiredly.

    “Aw, yeah, I know him! Hullo, Harry, how are you?” said the radio in a sort of squeak. “This is Ronnie!”

    “It’s Ronnie Ngatea, isn’t it?” choked Daphne.

    “Who else?” groaned Jim.

    Daphne encouraged Harry to say “Hullo, Ronnie” to Ronnie.

    Jim encouraged Harry to say “Hullo, Ronnie” to Ronnie.

    Finally Harry said in a tiny, weeny shy voice: “Wonnie,” and buried his face in Jim’s shoulder again.

    After congratulations all round the sergeant told Ronnie to get off the line and after a certain amount of shouting from the sergeant and expostulation from Ronnie, Ronnie signed off.

    “Does he always say ‘Over and out’?” asked Daphne weakly.

    “Only when he’s really pissed off or that cold bugger of a D.C.I. from the Big Smoke’s standing right… behind him,” ended the sergeant sheepishly.

    They laughed, and she asked weakly: “Are they all that bad?”

    “Well, two of the others are. The fourth one’s the other way: does it all by the book. Ya can’t get any sense out of him at all: it’s all Rogers and Niners and Ten-Fours and stuff.”

    They laughed again.

    Daphne glanced at the clock. “Tim should be home any minute now… Would you like a beer, Sergeant Baxter? He usually has one when he gets in.”

    “I wouldn’t say No,” replied the sergeant, beaming.

    Daphne fetched him a cold beer. After Harry had been given a sip the sergeant took a great swig, sighed and said: “That’s better! Well, what were you gonna tell me about Jake Carrano?”

    A cautious look came over Daphne’s round, cheerful face. “It’s only what Polly told me. Hearsay, isn’t that what it’s called?”

    “I dare say, only you aren’t in the witness box.”

    “I won’t have to be, will I?” she asked in horror.

    “Not unless you happened to be lurking up the hill behind a flaming oleander last Tuesday night and saw someone push Don Banks in, no.”

    “No. Good. Well, all right, then, but it’s only hearsay.”

    Polly and Daphne were arranging the dining-room and practising setting the table for the party. Polly leant against the table, sighing. “It’s too big.”

    “Um, yes.”

    “I thought it might have leaves in it—you know.”

    “Um… Oh, yeah! My Granny had a table like that! She used to make Uncle Bill put all the leaves in at Christmas time. He used to swear like billyo!”

    Polly shuddered slightly. “Yes. Grandma Macdonald—Mum’s mum—had one of them. I can only just remember her. She was a wonderful cook, but really terrifying. A bit like Aunty Vi—just a little person—only matriarchal with it.”

    “Help.”

    Polly sighed and stared blankly at the giant sideboard that matched the mighty table. After a moment she said: “Is that thing Australian jarrah, too?”

    “Um, I dunno. Ask Mr Carrano.”

    “I’m not up for asking him anything even faintly related to this dinner, Daph, in fact I wish I’d never suggested the thing: he’s got the heebie-jeebies over it.”

    “Oh, dear,” said Daphne in distress. “But he’s had people to dinner before.”

    Polly made a face. “Not people as up-market as Philip and Natalie Cohen. I hadn’t realised he’s never actually met her; he knows Philip from that stupid club. Oh, and that golf club in town: that membership costs a fortune and he hardly ever bothers to play.”

    “He’s too busy,” said Daphne loyally.

    “Well, yeah, but if there wasn’t two hours’ travelling time, minimum, involved to get there and back he might be able to fit a bit more in! There’s a perfectly good public course just up the road, why can’t he be satisfied with that?”

    “Tim’s dad plays there,” said Daphne cautiously. “He reckons it’s not as good as that one in town: that’s where they have the New Zealand Open and everything!”

    Polly eyed her drily. “I think any reasonable stretch of lawn’d be good enough for macho idiots trying to hit a tiny little ball with a great long stick.”

    Daphne collapsed in sniggers, gasping: “Yeah! It’s not like on the TV at all, me and Tim walked round with his dad one Sunday and all he did was hit the silly thing into the bushes—when he managed to hit it at all—and swear!”

    “Exactly!” They grinned at each other. Then Polly said: “Oops. Pardon me,” and removed a pretty china candlestick from the huge sideboard.

    “He told me that was an antique.”

    “Yes, it’s an antique that swears at everything else in the room. It ought to be in a lady’s sitting-room, or a boudoir. At the very least a bedroom.”

    All of the bedrooms were very modern—in fact the whole house was. Daphne licked her lips uneasily.

    “He told me to see the room didn’t show him up in front of Natalie Cohen,” explained Polly heavily.

    “Ooh, heck!” she cried sympathetically.

    “Yeah. There is nowhere this can go.”

    They thought about it. She was right, there wasn’t. Well, there was the locked room, but they’d have to ask him for the key and Daphne didn’t know what Polly was thinking but she had an idea it was the same as what she was thinking, which was they’d have to explain why, and that’d embarrass the poor man.

    “If you put it in Mr Carrano’s own room, at least they wouldn’t go in there. Um, but come to think of it some ladies ask if they can look over the house.”

    Polly winced. “I’m bloody sure Natalie Cohen won’t!”

    After a moment Daphne said in a small voice: “Isn’t it manners, then?”

    “Don’t ask me, I grew up on a backblocks farm!” she said with her lovely smile. “Um, no, I’m pretty sure Natalie’ll think the house is hideous. They’ve got an old two-storeyed house in Remuera—I went there once, she had some of the University Women over for a meeting. It’s very traditional. This candlestick’d feel right at home!” she admitted with a gurgle.

    “I see.” She watched dubiously as Polly put it back on the sideboard. “Um, no, Polly: you were right: it—it sort of doesn’t go. It’s too, um, feminine.”

    “Hang on.” She squatted and unlocked one of the sideboard’s cupboards.

    “That’s—”

    “Full—yeah.” Polly extracted a bottle from the cupboard. “Grab this.”

    Numbly Daphne grabbed it.

    Polly got up, took the candlestick, put it carefully in the cupboard, relocked the cupboard, and put the key in her pocket.

    “What’ll I do with this?” said Daphne numbly.

    “Anything. Drink it. Pour it out. Shove it in the pantry. He never to my knowledge so much as opens that little secret cubby-hole, let alone drinks anything from it.”

    “Maybe he’s saving it for a special occasion.”

    Polly peered at the label on the bottle. “Cognac. Dunno what’s special about that: he’s got a cellarful of the stuff. Actually, if it was special it’d be in the basement under lock and key at a temperature-controlled four degrees Celsius like the rest of the miles of muck he’s got squirreled away down there.”

    “You’re right. It must’ve been left over,” decided Daphne.

    “Yeah. Well, we’ve done all we can in here,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s take it into the kitchen and introduce it to a bottle of cold ginger ale.”

    Daphne gave a guilty giggle. “Shall we?”

    “Why not? What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve over: he’ll never even know it’s gone! Come on!”

    They did that. It tasted all right: it hadn’t gone off or anything.

    Sergeant Baxter was goggling at her.

    “Don’t look at me like that!” she said loudly. “She’s his girlfriend: if she thought it was all right, why should I argue with her? And it was a really hot day and we’d been working for hours, rearranging the stupid dining chairs and trying to find a tablecloth that’d look decent and match the serviettes, and trying out different placemats that all looked horrible with the china or swore at the seats on his dining chairs, and trying out vases that’d look nice with the china—”

    “Yes,” said Jim faintly.

    “And polishing all the silver!” said Daphne loudly and angrily.

    “Uh—didja? Yeah. Smelly job, eh?” he said kindly.

    “I’ll say! She wouldn’t let me do it all myself, she helped. And she said I didn’t have to do the blimmin’ rose bowl, she said if he asked me where it was I could tell him there weren’t enough roses out yet to put in it and if he didn’t believe that she’d tell him herself it was a Victorian abortion that swore at his china and his sideboard and expecting any woman to polish the bumps on a thing like that was tantamount to… slavery,” finished Daphne sheepishly, swallowing. “Sorry, Sergeant Baxter. It was that stinking hot Tuesday, ’member?”

    “Oh, yeah. So which day was the dinner party: the Wednesday?’

    “Not ruddy likely! Polly’s got more sense! No, we did the room and the silver in advance, see? The dinner was on the Thursday. He wanted the Friday, only she said it wouldn’t be tactful because they’re Jewish, even though they’re not, um, Orthodox, I think it was.”

    Jim scratched his head. “Thought their Sunday was Saturday, though?”

    “That’s what I thought. Anyway, she told me it was the wrong thing to say, because he got really cross and told her to call him Tactless Terry.” She looked at the sergeant’s expression. “I think he made it up, only it wasn’t really a joke.”

    “I getcha.”

    “And he was really upset because she asked him to watch his language in front of Debbie Cohen.” The sergeant’s blank expression registered. “That’s their daughter, Polly wanted Mr Carrano to invite them because she’s keen on Dr Browne, see? She’s quite young and Polly said she’s the sort of nice St Ursie’s girl that only knows doing the flowers with Mummy—um, well, she’s been going to university this year, but you know what I mean. Well, of course Polly went there herself, but that was different, she’s a country girl. Anyway the point is that Mr Carrano made a joke of it but underneath, you could tell his feelings were hurt!”

    “Cripes, she’s not on again about how sensitive Jake Carrano is, is she?” asked Tim Green in horror. He came into the room and plonked an opened beer can on the coffee table in front of the sergeant. “Have another, you’ll need it.”

    “Ta,” he agreed, switching the tape recorder off.

    Tim sat down. “You could ignore that lot,” he said, nodding at it.

    Jim was wondering, with a sinking feeling, whether he’d switched it off at the point when cold buggers from the Big Smoke got mentioned. Oh, heck.

    “Uh—yeah, I mean, no, it was very valuable. Thanks, Daphne.”

    Daphne glared. “He is a sensitive man! See?”

    “Yeah,” he said mildly, drinking.

    Daphne didn’t look convinced: she was very red and cross, and still glaring. This could have had something to do with the fact that Tim Green had just choked into his beer and was sitting there with his wide, bony shoulders shaking. She got up. “If that’s it, Sergeant, I’d better get on with tea.”

    “Yeah, righto: thanks. And thanks for the afternoon tea,” he added, smiling.

    “That’s all right.” She directed a last glare at Tim and went out.

    “Women,” said Tim reflectively.

    “Yeah,” agreed Jim.

    Tim drank deeply. “Think the sun shines out of Jake Carrano’s arse, or something!”

    “I got that. Funny, eh?” He pulled his ear.

    “Hilarious,” agreed Tim on a sour note.

    The sergeant sniffed slightly. “Don’t think much of ’im, yourself, then?”

    Tim shrugged. “Aw, he’s okay, I s’pose. Don’t see that much of ’im, meself. Get a bit sick of her bending me ear on the subject all the time, though.”

    “Mm.”

    They finished their beers reflectively and the sergeant then made his farewells.

    Tim strolled into the kitchen. “What’d you have to say all that to Sergeant Baxter for?”

    “All what?”

    “All that stuff about Jake Carrano being a sensitive plant. It’s a load of garbage!”

    Instead of replying in kind Daphne took a lofty tone. “No, it isn’t. Sergeant Baxter understood what I meant.”

    “Well, that’ll make three of you, then.”

    “What?” she said suspiciously.

    “You, and Polly Mitchell, and old Jim Baxter: you all understand what really makes Jake Carrano tick.”

    Daphne merely sniffed.

    “What I wanna know,” said Tim, leaning against the bench and pinching a slice of tomato, “is, if Polly understands ’im so well and all that—how sensitive he is and everything,”—he leered at her but Daphne loftily ignored him—“is why she hasn’t got him to pop the question.”

    “Don’t be so blimmin’ vulgar!”

    “Well?”

    “How should I know? Maybe he doesn’t want to get married! Maybe Polly doesn’t want to marry him!”—Tim snorted.—“Well, I don’t know,” said Daphne: no longer sounding lofty or defiant, but rather tearful.

    Oh, Gawd, thought Tim. “Maybe he’ll get around to it,” he said kindly.

    “Mm.”

    He scratched his sandy head. “Beats me, though. I mean, anyone can see he’s nutty about her. Remember that time they were down the beach when we took the kids for that sausage sizzle?”

    “Ye-es,” said Daphne uncertainly.

    “Well, he was all over ’er like a rash!” He paused. “You know. What’s the expression? Proud of her, and that… Uxorious!”

    “Eh?”

    “Well, something like that. Thought she was wonderful. You know!”

    “Yes, but that’s the point, Tim, he’s like that all the time! He obviously think she’s wonderful, and she’s a lovely person! Why doesn’t he ask her to marry him?”

    Tim made an awful face. He swiped another slice of tomato. “Secretly married to some fat Catholic dame ten years back and got a dozen kids by her?”

    “That’s isn't funny!” shouted Daphne. “And LEAVE THAT TOMATO ALONE!”

    Tim left it alone. He left it all right alone. He wasn’t that dumb.

    Jake’s turned up early on a Saturday afternoon. Usually these unannounced visits commence with him dragging me into the bedroom, or sometimes only getting as far as the rug in the front room. Only this arvo I was sitting under a tree in the old orchard, reading, and he just sat down beside me with a sigh. Then he lay flat and closed his eyes, so I just got on with my journal.

    Eventually he sits up, groaning and stretching. “Wanna come up the bach?”

    I’m folding my journal up, Jake, but I’m not prepared to take this at face value. “Why?”

    “Why? Flaming Norah, it’s Sat’dee arvo, you’re the dame me roving male fancy’s alighted on, I ask ya to come for a nice drive in the country, and ya wanna know why?”

    “I want to know whether the object of the exercise is to have a nice drive up to Carter’s Inlet, or to get up to Carter’s Inlet and brood over the Don Banks mess. Not to mention work out a devious plot to take over those holiday cabins of his and do him in the eye posthumously by building an even bigger and better leisure development up there.”

    “What the fuck brought that on?”

    Gee, Jake, the unending Banks saga of the last fifteen months? “Something Ken said.”

    “He’s mad.”

    He's not the only one.

    “Look, do I want a load of yuppies infesting the place all summer?”

    “You seem to want a load of yuppies infesting this place all summer, Jake.”

    “Eh? Aw. Well, the original idea was extend the development all down the hill—get rid of that dump of mine, too.”

    After it cost a fortune to build? It and its Olympic-size indoor pool that you hardly ever use, and its flaming so-called games room with the giant billiards table that you hardly ever use, and its unnecessary TV room that you hardly ever— “Why?”

    “Dunno. Too far from all me ole cobbers, or something.”

    “Oh, of course: the image! You’ll be moving into town to be with all the other millionaires on Millionaires’ Row!”

    “Hah, hah. No, well, I’m rethinking the whole bit.”

    “Oh.” Has this change of heart been brought on by Don Banks’s murder?

    “Are ya coming?” he says, scrambling up.

    “We-ell, if you promise not to talk about the murder or any of Don Banks’s devious plots.”

    “I’ve got no intention of it! But if ya wanna know—” Breaks off.

    “What?”

    “Nothing,” he says heavily. “Well, Collingwood’d haul me in for it if he could break me alibi, that’s bloody clear. He seems to think I rung Jock McElroy round eleven to reinforce the fact that I’d been out with Prior all evening.”

    “That’s logical.”

    “Look, Polly, just don’t do ya logic thing!”

    “Don’t you talk about the murder, then.”

    “I—No, okay. So are ya coming?”

    “Yeah, sure.”

    At the junction of Pohutukawa Bay Road and the main north highway there’s the usual wait for the stream of traffic heading south to thin before we can get into the much heavier stream of traffic heading north.

    “Ah!” The macho male puts his foot down and the silver Merc shoots across the highway!

    Shit! Grab at the door.

    “Before you tell me not speed through Puriri, people live there, I’ve noticed that, thanks. Not that ya could speed, in this lot.”

    “Most of them are probably going to the Puriri supermarkets.”

    “Are they open this late on a Saturday?”

    Groan! “They’re open all day Saturday, what world do you live in? There was an awful stink when the Puriri County Council made that decision, even I noticed it, and I didn’t even live up here then!”

    “Daph does most of my shopping for me,” he says, unabashed. “Was the stink because the shop assistants didn’t wanna work longer hours, because the rival shops up here thought they’d lose trade, because the shops back in town thought they’d lose trade, or because of the increased traffic?”

    “Yes.”

    “Goddit,” he concedes, grinning.

    I give in and giggle.

    We’re through Puriri proper—it takes approximately five minutes, even in heavy traffic—and on The Hill, so now you get the view of the plutey houses on The Hill, what’s visible of them for the plutey trees their up-market owners have insisted the builders leave standing, and he growls: “Shoulda strangled the little shit with me bare hands years back.”

    Oh, heck. Okay, it’s on his mind. “Don Banks, is this? That would’ve solved a lot of problems, yes, except that you’d be doing your entrepreneur stuff from gaol as we speak. Why on earth didn’t you just sell him a strip through the property and let his dratted holiday-cabiners drag their trailer-sailors to the water? You could’ve built a huge fence all the way along it, you’d never have known they were there.”

    We shoot up The Hill and on past the turn-off on the right to Kowhai Bay. He grimaces at the road ahead. “Whaddaya think? Bloody Esmé wouldn’t have a bar of it, that’s why. ‘The last piece of property my dear father left me!’”—Ouch! That was a quote, was it?—“The stupid bitch never sets foot on the place, of course: never has done, since well before old Harry Carter popped ’is clogs, poor ole joker.”

    Gulp. He hardly ever refers to his ex-wife, and he’s never really said anything about his eight-year marriage. He’s always seen a lot of Rod, but as far as I can make out—and most of that’s sheer guess-work—that’s because he blames himself for ever having introduced Esmé to Rod’s father. –Free will apparently doesn’t come into all this, but to macho men with responsibility hang-ups, it never does. Not other people’s, that is.

    “I see. Not even a strip?”

    “No. Well, to spite me, think that was,” he admits, suddenly squeezing my knee hard, ooh!

    We pass the old pub up beyond Kowhai Bay and the highway clears. He puts his foot down.

    “When we got divorced,” he says loudly: “we split the lot that old Harry had left us jointly into equal shares, so’s we could each do what we liked with our half. Only when it came to the bach, the bitch dug ’er toes in. She could see I wanted it, see? Wouldn’t let me buy her out. –Don’t start feeling sorry for her,” he adds, giving me a quick glance, “she always hated the place. Not toney enough for her. Me and Harry were the only ones that ever used it: used to get away up there for a bit of fishing and that.”

    Right: the macho weekends without the little woman: no wonder poor Esmé hated the place!

    “’Course, the road was pretty bad in those days,” he adds.

    “What? Oh—yes. Well, it still is.”

    “Eh? No! Not the road up Carter’s Inlet, ya nana! This road! The highway!”

    “Oh.” That’s gonna remind him of his age, of course. Help.

    “Anyway, that’s why we still own it jointly, see?”

    “Mm.”

    He squeezes the knee again. “There’s no logic in it, if that’s what you’re wondering, only spite. Don’t ask me why she suddenly caved in and agreed to sell the whole place lock, stock and barrel to Don. She’s mad as a meat-axe. Poor ole Jerzy, being lumbered with that!”

    “Mm.”

    “Mind you, he’s batty, too. Drinks like a fish, what’s more.”

    “I know. Poor Rod.”

    “Now don’t start that! He’s well out of it—went flatting when ’e was seventeen, and good luck to ’im!”

    I still feel sorry for him. Never mind Mum’s watering-pot act and the ceaseless nagging from Aunty Vi, I wouldn’t swap my family for Rod’s for all the tea in China. Or for all Jake Carrano’s millions! “I’m glad I’m me.”

    He smiles and grips my knee very hard. “So’m I.”

    So I put my hand gently on top of his—back when we first met I wouldn’t have dared, partly feeling too shy of him, and, um, can't explain it, um, partly thinking he might feel it was too intimate, too soon? Well, I guess I’ve sort of got more accustomed to, um, being part of a couple? ...Well, yeah, I’m glad you’re glad, Jake, but how far does it go?

    Up the far end of Carter’s Inlet he directs a sour look at the shabby little clutch of holiday cabins on the other side of the dirt road from the old creosoted bach, but says nothing.

    “Um, you could always buy that place off Margery and Jack and knock the cabins down, if you hate them, Jake.”

    “Right, and have ya mate Collingwood arrest me on the strength of it!”

    Ouch! Okay, wrong thing to say. I’m keeping my trap shut.

    He gets out, wrestles with the rusty padlocked chain on the five-barred gate in his half mile of rusty barbed-wire fence, gets the thing open, gets back in, drives through and bumps over the rough grass to a spot conveniently handy to what’s technically the back door of the bach, though it faces the road. At least the bach is blessedly ordinary: really dingy, just like anyone’s. True, he’s put a king-size bed in its one main room, but that’s about it. The fridge is about as old as he is. However, it works well, so let’s hope he left it on last time he was up here. Otherwise it’ll be warm beer, won’t it?

    … “Phew! Cold beer! Ta, Jake.”

    Knocks his back. “Come on, bit of a dip, eh?” Begins to strip.

    Is the tide in? The inlet’s horribly shallow at the best of times, and if the tide’s out you have to wade out about fifty yards before the water reaches your knees. Oh, well, too bad. I get slowly undressed, watching him out of the corner of my eye. …Ooh! Well, that’s all right, anyway! The silence on the way up must just have been because he’s still brooding about the murder.

    “Whatcha looking at?”

    “That.”

    “Aw, this, eh?” Grabs his prick and waggles it a bit, help, Jake, you oughta know what that does to me by now! Goodness knows why, but it does. “Give you a bit in a minute. Come on, last one in the water’s a monkey’s uncle!”

    Okay, I’m a monkey’s uncle again. I just let him throw the bach’s battered French doors open and run across the thirty feet or so of scrubby grass to the shore and dash into the shallows and— Yeah. About to mid-shin.

    The so-called dip lasts about five minutes and then he puts his hand in an interesting place; then he gets very excited and make me kneel up and gets behind me and shoves his face in there and I let out a shriek to raise the dead.

    “Come on!” he gasps, clambering onto me from behind.

    This isn’t gonna work: we’ve already discovered my bum’s too fat and he can’t get the last glorious half-inch, his expression, up there.

    “Ooh!” He has managed to get a good deal of it up there.

    “Jesus, you’re wet!” He gets his hand round the front and fiddles—

    “I’ll come!”

    “Wouldn’t wantcha to do that, can’t get the last glorious half-inch up there, Madam Fat Bum. Turn over.”

    All right, I’ll turn over, but watch it, this is water, ya macho twit. “Don’t drown me.”

    “Uh—no. All right, come in a bit further,”

    We go in a bit further and Jake decides that in order not to drown me he better lie on his back, propping himself on his elbows, and I better lie on top of him— “No, lie, don’t try kneeling, ya know ya can’t manage it like that, this isn’t the Kamasutra, girl!” Okay, lie, not kneel, and sort of edge down—

    I’m edging— I don’t have to edge far because he sort of, well, ducks up with his pelvis? Raises it, anyway, and shoves his prick up there.

    Is his back all right in that position? But it’s too good, specially as he’s now grabbed me round the ribs and he’s helping me to slide up and down— Ooh, ooh, he’s ducking up and shoving it in and out at the same—

    “Gi’s a kiss!” he gasps.

    I lean down to him and he sticks his tongue in my mouth and works it fiercely round mine, ooh, my ears have got very, very hot, and— “Aa-eeeiii-AAH!”

    Ooh, Jake! He’s—still— No, here it—comes.

    “AAARGH! Uh—AAARGH!”

    … Cripes. I think he enjoyed that almost as much as I did!

     “We couldn’t,” he notes, lying back in the shallows quite some time later, “have done that if poor ole Don’s holiday-cabiners had access to the water, eh?”

    “Nope!”

    He lies back, resting on his elbows, and looks into pure blue sky. “Not too hot for ya?”

    “Hot enough!” Mmm... I roll onto my front and prop my head on my arms.

     He pats my bum. “Hey, tell us something.”

    “Mm?”

    “When does it start to get wet?” he asks conversationally.

    What? Help! “I can’t define the precise moment. Well, being cooped up with you in a moving vehicle for forty-five minutes is a good recipe for it.”

    “Really?”

    I’d class that as a beam of delight. Oh, dear, they’re kind of pathetically simple-minded, really, aren’t they? “Yes, really.”

    “Good. –The male mind, eh?”

    “Absolutely.”

    “Talking of your burning bum,” he says, putting his hand on it again, “ya better go in soon, don’t wanna dose of sunburn.”

    “Mm. I might have a nap.”

    “Yeah, do that.” He yawns. “Me, too,” he admits sheepishly. “Not as young as I was.”

    “No-one’s as young as they were, that’s the normal effect of time on living beings in the space-time continuum.” I get up. “Come on, then.”

    I wake up in the warm room with the ancient dark brown blinds pulled down to find him pressing against my back, nuzzling into my neck and trying to shove something meaty between my thighs.

    “Again?”

    “We both been asleep for three hours,” he grunts. “Cummere!”

    So I turn over slowly and he kisses me fiercely, warning: “Don’t dare to say you wanna have another piss!”

     Uh—okay, I won’t. “Jake—”

    “Shuddup,” he grunts, rolling heavily on top of me. “I’m gonna fuck like a buck rat for hours,” he warns.

    “Okay.” –Yeah? Normally this dire warning means he’s gonna get it up there and come like the clappers.

    “Kiss me,” he grunts, covering my mouth with his.

    I do, and he shoves it up me without more ado and fucks really hard for ages, grunting and groaning like anything. Well, it’s not the first time, no, but usually he’s so good about making sure I’m ready… Okay, if he needs it, he needs it.

    Finally, fucking like mad, he yells: “AAARGH! Uh—AAARGH!” More or less; there’s always that grunt in the middle. Is it because he sort of, um, shoots it out in two goes? Though a couple of times, whether it was the angle or not, goodness knows, I have felt it actually being squirted into me, and it felt more, um, continuous. He’s panting and sweating like anything, so I just go on hugging him.

    After a long time he gives a deep sigh and rolls off me.

    “That was a bit urgent, wasn’t it?”

    “Uh.”

    Okay, not up to speech, yet.

    Quite some time later he says on a sheepish note: “Sorry. Ya want a come?”

    “No, I’m fine.”

    Eyes me suspiciously. “Is that true, or is it what ya think I want to hear?”

    “Eh? It’s true, of course!”

    He lies back against the pillows, scowling.

    “I can’t make you believe it, Jake, but it’s true.”

    “Look, I know perfectly well that half the time you’re just doing or saying what ya think I want ya to!”

    “I’m not, you idiot, that’s precisely what I’ve tried not to do with you!”

    “Yeah? I don’t know another dame that’d just lie back and let me without tearing a strip off!”

    “Really? There’s cultural brainwashing and cultural brainwashing. Perhaps all those dames were too liberated.”

    “Very funny,” he says sourly.

    “Then perhaps I haven’t been brainwashed into the stance that believes it’s a female’s right to have everything her way regardless of what her partner might need or want. Sex-wise and every other wise. There is a very strong strain of that in our culture, I dunno whether you’ve noticed it.”

    “I—” Breaks off.

    “I could see you wanted it, Jake, and I wanted you to have it, what’s wrong with that?”

    “Uh—yeah. Well, it felt all right at the time, only, uh, it always does.”

    Sigh. “I’d say that’s indicative of the fact that it is all right.”

    “I suppose I get it. Only how do you reconcile it with the independence stuff?”

    “Now who’s being relentlessly logical? Anyway, I wouldn’t have said I was all that independent.”

    “Balls! You wouldn’t let me pay for that dress ya liked in flaming Hobart, and you insist on paying rent for that bloody chalet!”

    “Is that independence? I think Dorothy Sayers would have said it was a sense of honour.” That came over as rather dry, but I can't say it wasn’t meant to.

    “Who the fuck’s she, when she’s at home? Another of those Lezzie hags from the bloody Women’s Group?”

    Help! “No. Just a detective story writer. Um, well, ’member we were talking about detective stories that day you came round and found out about Baz and Gary’s loan and rang up Mike? She was the one that wrote the Lord Peter Wimsey stories.”—Shit, why did I start this speech?—“Um, with the eyeglass.”

    “Then what the Hell’s she got to do with this?”

    “Um, just that there was a woman in her books, Harriet, who, um, was very independent.”

    “Aw, right: ya mean she wouldn’t accept anything from the Lord Whatsit tit with the eyeglass, regardless of whether or not it hurt the poor bastard’s feelings?”

    “Um, yes, that was exactly it.”—Have to swallow.—“He was very rich.”

    “Was he, just?” he replies evilly.

    Yikes. Should I say that it was all right in the end and Peter and Harriet got married? No, because then he might think I’m hinting. Phew, he doesn’t ask how it turned out! “Anyway, I really wanted you to have a come.”

    “Uh—yeah. Righto, ya did. Well, ta.”

    Ugh, still scowling.

    “Look, Polly—”

    Oh, cripes, now what? “What?”

    “When I asked you to come with me on the South American trip back in October, you claimed I was taking you over.”

    “You were. You hadn’t even stopped to wonder what I might have had scheduled for October, which only happens to be the time when term ends and exams start and we launch into endless rounds of continuous assessment meet—”

    “YES!”

    Short silence.

    “All right, sorry: I know that now. And I dare say it’s slipped your memory, but you gave me a load of garbage about not feeling as if you were a person.”

    “No, because you tend to see me only as a female.”

    “I DON’T!”

    “It isn’t your fault, it’s hormonal preconditioning for a man to force a woman into that rôle.”

    “You are a female, you stupid cow!”

    “Yes, but I’ve thought of myself as a person—an autonomous entity—for twenty-nine years.”

    He sighs and passes a hand across his face. “Yeah, yeah. I have never tried to take you over.”

    He doesn’t know he’s doing it, more like. Added to which, he can’t grasp that I’m not blaming him for it! I won’t  pursue it. “Um, do you think we oughta get going?”

    He gropes for his watch. “Uh—oh. Missed the worse of the late afternoon traffic, we’ll be in nice time to cop the early evening lot. Well, yeah, there’s nothing to eat here.”

    He doesn’t say much on the way down and he doesn’t suggest we could stop off in Puriri and grab some fish and chips from the good fish and chips shop up Sir John Marshall Avenue, so I don’t, either. Is that being too submissive or something? Possibly it is, but heck, I don’t want to make things worse! …Whatever “things” might be.

    When we get to the top of Pohutukawa Bay Road he says, not looking at me: “Drop you off at your place, okay?” Not a question. Or not one requiring the answer “No.”

    What on earth have I done wrong? I get out glumly at the turning circle. “See ya.”

    “Yeah. Ta-ta,” he grunts, driving away.

    “Yes, hullo, Grey, good boy!“—Rub, rub, rub, purr, purr.—“All right, let’s get your tea. ...Some of us thought that had gone really well. Well, heck, he was keen as mustard, the sex was really good, and he had two thumping comes… Well, don’t ask me what’s going through his thick macho head!”

    In the big house on Reserve Road Jake poured himself a whisky, sat down on a big black leather couch with his back to the view of the patio, and brooded.

    It wasn’t so much… Well, he reckoned he could cope with the “not real” garbage, if it had knocked him back a bit just at first. No… wasn’t that, really.

    He was too old for her, that was what. The worst of it was that she’d seemed so happy and contented these last couple of months—well, after he’d got back from South America, when she seemed to have forgotten how pissed off she’d been at him for not stopping to ask what varsity crap she might have on her plate. Jesus, she’d even accepted that bloody watch! He’d originally bought it months back but chickened out when it came to the point. Finally, when she’d suggested that dinner do for the Cohens, he’d thought now or never.

    He’d sort of thought he’d cracked it, nit that he was, because she’d been thrilled and told him it was really pretty.—Didn’t have a blind notion how much it had set him back, of course, thought it was costume jewellery.—Then she’d worn it into work—was it the very next day? Well, maybe he’d had one or two days’ grace: couldn’t remember, with all the crap that had happened since. That cow Joanie Whatserface had taken one look at it, gasped: “Real diamonds and emeralds!” snatched it off her, and defaced the window glass of wherever it was—library workroom or something—to prove her point. So Polly had made him admit the stones were real. She hadn’t thrown it back in his face, no: not her style. What she had done was sit down and write out a cheque to fucking Corso on the spot. Was it? Save the Children, maybe. Anyway, her own money. Completely illogical: right. So then he’d lost his rag and shouted that he’d write out a cheque for the fucking charity, if that was what she wanted. Apparently it wasn’t, but he’d done it anyway. Jesus!

    Jake stared miserably into his whisky tumbler. Couldn’t let it go on, oughta break it off soonest; she needed a younger bloke: someone who could give her a decent number of years together—someone, Goddammit, to grow old with; someone who could share her own interests instead of sitting there like a moron with his gob at half-cock when she prattled on about her blessed linguistics! –It didn’t occur to him that with the recent dinner party for the Cohens resulting in Roger’s making a date with Debbie Cohen he had apparently just successfully assisted her to get rid of the best-qualified candidate who had as yet appeared on her horizon.

    He tossed back the rest of the whisky and got himself another. Of course, he could pop the question… Yeah, and get himself turned down flat by Madam Independent Woman—Ms Autonomous Person—right.

   Anyway, what if he did pop the question, pigs started circling in the blue, and she said yes? He was fifty; she’d just turned twenty-nine. Well, work it out: maybe five good years he had left? Ten if he was bloody lucky? Charming. And look at how many jokers came down with something fatal in their sixties. Early sixties. Look at poor old Andy Carstairs; and Jack Merrihew; and Clay Barratt: now, that was one for the books! One minute he was standing up in court giving Wal Briggs as good as he got, and the next minute stiff and stark. Fifty-two, that’s all he’d been. Fifty-two. Left a stunned widow and three teenage kids. Very nice.

    And if him and Polly had kids, he’d be over sixty by the time the first one was ten! A kid didn’t want an old man turning up to cheer him on from the side-lines at his sports matches, he wanted a young dad that could throw the ball around a bit with him, show him how to put that extra spin on when the pitch was hard… Young Rod never had been able to grasp that. Not much interested in cricket: tennis was his game. Well, that wouldn’t be bad, either: sign the kid up—didn’t the Puriri Tennis Club have a junior section, or some such…?

    Jake came to with a start and realised he was day-dreaming. The colour rose up behind his bronze skin. No point: he wasn’t gonna ask her, she needed a younger bloke.

    He twisted the tumbler round and round, staring blankly at the ice. He’d let it go on for too long as it was. No will power.

    And now there was this flaming Banks business. Sod bloody Don Banks—sod him! Not enough that he’d tried to turn a perfectly ordinary business deal into some kind of Puririgate—the staff in at the Carrano Building were calling it that behind his back: it didn’t make him feel all that more cheerful about it, actually—no, as if that wasn’t bad enough, then ruddy Banks hadda go and get himself knocked off in the bloody patio pool! Bad enough that the nasty-minded little twat had to mention Polly’s name in the fucking Council meeting—okay, she’d laughed, but— No, well, that was bad enough; but what if the next thing was a murder trial? Oh, lovely. She’d be the star witness for the defence, Christ! “And where were you on the night in q., Mr Carrano?”—““Well, I was up the hill doing me girlfriend like usual, see.” And it looked bloody like it might come to a trial, too. Collingwood had spotted the flaw in that alibi, straight off. “What time did you get to Polly’s?” –Oh, yeah? “And how long do you estimate it took you to get home from Puriri?” –Oh, yeah? “And this fellow who gave you the lift down the highway as far as Pohutukawa Bay Road,”—disbelief sticking out all over him—“you can’t describe him? And you’d never met him before, to your knowledge?” Never laid eyes on him in me puff. And with my luck, it’ll turn out he was some married man on the loose that wouldn’t come forward if his life depended on it…

    No, can’t ask her to get engaged to a bloke that’s about to be tried for murder! She’s the sort that’d stick by you—Christ! Clean break, then? Yeah, and not before fucking time!

    … Don’t reckon she even wants to get married at all. Never given any sign of it. Never any hints or that. Don’t think she even likes coming down here, much: always quite content to spend the night up at her place—in fact if you ask me, she’d rather be up there with the bloody cat than down here with me!

    And as for the fucking linguistics! Crikey, even in the so-called flaming holidays she’s up at crack of dawn and in to varsity. No time to do your research during the term, or some such crap. Gotta put it all on the varsity computer or some such flaming garbage. No, you can’t possibly give me an IBM p.c., Jake. Why not? Oh, they cost too much, ya see. Shit, there’s a terminal on every desk in the Building and some of those jokers have managed to get two! –Yeah, look into that, now I come to think of it.

    And then it’s the ruddy Women’s Group every other Tuesday and the bloody University Women’s Association every first Thursday of the month, regular as clockwork: God knows what those moos get up to but she always comes back from those does as bloody-minded—! And it’s not just the independent-woman bit, oh, no. Down with capitalist entrepreneurs, that’s what it is, half the time. More than half the time. Does she even know anybody besides me that isn’t a flaming pinko socialist? No, dammit, I don’t reckon she does!

    ... No: I don’t reckon she is interested in marriage. Anyway, I’m too flaming old for her. And too flaming dumb. –Okay, not dumb as such. Not educated enough, put it like that. Yeah, put it like that and you’re putting it exactly how it is. Clean break, that’s what’s needed. A clean break.

    … If it was just the “not real” garbage on its own, I could cope with that, all right. Well, marriage’d make a difference, eh? Soon know what was real and what wasn’t! Yeah...

    Chance ’ud be a fine thing!