‘None at all on you.’
‘I’ll get the wine.’
We sat in the bed and drank the wine. We filled each other in on what we’d been doing over the past couple of years—solid journalistic work for her and plans for a book on crime in the Hunter Valley, and some interesting cases for me in amongst the routine stuff.
Marisha was still on the right side of fifty; I’d crossed that line. We stayed close, but the days of multiple fucking were past for both of us. We fell asleep before even getting near to talking about why I’d contacted her.
~ * ~
I woke up alone in the bed and had the momentary feeling of not knowing where I was or even who I was. But the sensation passed almost immediately. The bed was warm from Marisha’s body and retained her scents of sea, sweat and sex. Light flooded into the room through the open door. I pulled on my boxers and went into the sitting room where Marisha was standing by the big window with the curtain drawn back. She wore a blue silk dressing gown.
‘There’s your view,’ she said.
It was all I thought it would be—a busy road contrasting with silent dunes, an empty beach and the ocean rolling away forever. I put my arms around her and she rested back against me.
‘It’s why I bought the place.’
‘Wise move.’
‘I’ll make some coffee, then you can tell me why you’re here.’
She was slipping back into professional mode. I told her I needed to get some pills from my bag in the car. I had a quick shower, dressed and got the pills. I arranged them in the palm of my hand and ran the tap for a glass of water. She watched me as I swallowed them.
‘Every day?’
‘Every bloody day.’
‘You didn’t bring the bag up,’ she said. ‘Not planning to stay? Love me and leave me?’
I kissed her. ‘Not this time.’
‘Meaning there’ll be others?’
‘I hope so.’
She began to spoon coffee into a plunger pot. ‘Me too. So what’s on your mind?’
‘More who.’
She smiled. ‘There’s no one else around, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Glad to hear it, but I was thinking of Jobe Tanner.’
She dropped the scoop and coffee spilled over the bench. ‘My God! How the hell did you know?’
~ * ~
8
When she’d calmed down, Marisha explained that Jobe Tanner was one of the principal sources she was using for her book on crime in the Hunter Valley.
‘This is utterly hush-hush,’ she said. ‘Until now literally no one knows about it.’
I had to wonder about that after what Pete had said.
‘How did you get him to talk?’
‘It wasn’t easy. Took almost a year of negotiation. But eventually things fell my way. He’s getting old and he’s found religion. He wants to go out with a clean slate—well, a cleaner one.’
‘He’s snitching?’
‘Not exactly. He’s not naming names. Not of live people, that is. Plenty of dead ones. He’s pointing me in the right directions, showing me how things were done.’
‘Were done?’
‘Are still being done, but not by him. Now you have to tell me why you scared the shit out of me. What’ve you heard?’
I tore a paper towel from the roll, put it under the lip of the bench and swept the coffee grounds into it while I thought what to say. I tapped the grounds into the pot. ‘I haven’t heard a single thing about Jobe doing anything but being the tough, controlling bastard he has the reputation for.’
‘What then?’
I explained about being pressured by the Tanners without saying much about what had taken me to Bathurst. I told her I’d seen Pete McKnight.
‘Pete keeps himself informed,’ I said, ‘and when I said I needed a counterweight to Hector and Joseph he just stressed Jobe’s name.’
‘How do you interpret that?’
‘One, that there’s friction between father and sons and I’d already got a whiff of that. Two, that he believes Jobe is what he’s always been. That suggests your secret is safe.’
‘Mmm, maybe. I really need this coffee, then you can tell me what you want me to do.’
She made the coffee, warmed some croissants and we sat at the kitchen table. She was still anxious and I could understand why. If word got out that Jobe was talking there would be some very nervous and nasty people around. I was undecided about what to ask her. The last thing I wanted to do was add to her anxiety.