Port Vila Blues

Twenty-nine

Vincent De Lisle was at the courthouse by eight-thirty on Tuesday morning, pushing through the door marked ‘Magistrates’, saying ‘bon jour’ to everyone.

Saying ‘bon jour’ was an idiosyncrasy he had, something quirky and appealing. He said it fifty times a day and it earned him a grin from those who knew him and alerted those who didn’t to look twice and remember.

But this time a woman he privately referred to as an ethnic dyke from the Women’s Refuge Referral Service accosted him in the corridor, scowling at the bon jour. He knew she was a dyke from the short hair and dangly earrings, and he knew she was ethnic from the ID on her lapel, Toula Nikodemas. ‘I want a word,’ she said.

‘Not now, Miss Nikodemas.’

‘This concerns your attitude, Judge.’

‘Magistrate. And there’s nothing wrong with my attitude,’ De Lisle said, sweeping past her. He sniffed the air: furniture polish, sweat and fear. Up ahead he could see a crush of defendants, their families, their briefs.

Toula Nikodemas was at his heels like a harrying dog. ‘Last week you put one of our clients in jeopardy when you dismissed her case. One could be excused for thinking you take the view that if a woman is from a non-English-speaking background, she’s less deserving.’

De Lisle halted in his tracks. He stopped being a reasonable man with work to do and became a crowder, instinctively pushing into the space around Toula Nikodemas. ‘Are you saying I’m biased, racist?’

She backed away and he pursued her, a warning finger in her face. He had small, clean, mild hands that would never pull a trigger or turn on a current, but that did not stop them from being hands that would sign a death warrant if capital punishment were still in force.

‘Are you? Because if you are I’ll sue you so fast you won’t know your hairy arse from your hairy elbow.’

The Nikodemas woman took a deep breath. ‘I banish your negativity from my presence. I shall not let you or anyone like you drain away my essence.’

Jesus Christ, De Lisle thought. He turned his back on her and strode into his office.

‘Morning Mr De Lisle,’ his new clerk said.

De Lisle glanced at her in fury, the incident in the corridor threatening to spoil his day. What was the clerk’s name? Sally Something, a bright young thing, and wearing a skirt and blouse, thank Christ. The one before her would turn up in trousers half the time. She saw his fury, and went pale. Oh, hell, De Lisle thought, mustering a smile. ‘Well, Sally, your first “Ladies’ Day”.’

Sally Something smiled dutifully at the old joke. ‘I put the intervention orders on your desk, sir.’

It was a massive desk, solid oak, topped with blotched green learner. A spill of pink-ribboned reports and folders hid the top from view and De Lisle curled his lip. ‘You might live like that at home but not in my chambers, missy.’

Sally rushed to the desk. De Lisle saw the heat rising in her face, staining her cheeks and ears red. ‘Sorry, sir, I’ll just-‘

She bent over the desk, tapping everything into order with the flats of her hands. De Lisle eyed her calves, lovely bike-riding muscles tensing under her dark stockings. He eyed her rear and the shape was perfect, but the smack he gave her was carefully avuncular as he moved immediately clear of her with his forgiving wink. ‘Not to worry. But in this business, appearances matter, remember that. One of my colleagues has been known to throw a case out of court simply because a barrister appeared before him wearing brown shoes with a blue suit.’

The blush was still there. Sally finished straightening his desk and edged away from it. De Lisle wondered if she was a bra burner. No way was he going to let her get uppity in the job. He recalled that she’d gone to a state school. Her law degree was from ANU, so she’d come a long way, meaning she was probably grateful, unlike some of the private school snots he’d had in the past, who saw everything as their birthright. De Lisle himself was the son of French immigrants. He’d put himself through law at the University of Sydney. He’d also come far, but it hadn’t been easy and now he was making up for it in ways young Sally Something couldn’t even begin to guess at. The grin was splitting his face and Sally smiled back nervously, without a clue in the world what he was thinking.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘“Ladies’ Day”. Perhaps you could brief me?’

This put Sally on firmer ground. ‘Yes, sir. First up is…’

‘Sit down, girlie.’

Sally sat and De Lisle sat and they faced each other across his heaped desk. ‘First up is a North Ryde woman whose husband-’

De Lisle spat the word. ‘Nationality?’ ‘Turkish.’

De Lisle shook his head but didn’t speak. He scribbled ‘# 1, Turkish’ on his pad, then looked up again. ‘Skip the next part, I know it by heart. She in some refuge at the moment?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right. Next case?’

‘Same thing, sir. A woman-’

‘Nationality, Sally. Nationality is vital.’

‘Vietnamese.’

That was interesting. De Lisle pursed his lips. ‘You get young Asians knifing each other, demanding protection money from their own kind, but you don’t often get domestic violence. It’s been my understanding that your Asian values the family.’

He looked inquiringly at his clerk and it was a while before she responded, picking her words carefully. ‘I don’t know if these things are necessarily culturally determined, sir. Men-’

De Lisle slammed his hand on his desk. ‘Hah! Got you! I know where you’re coming from, missy.’

She was confused. ‘Sir, it just seems to me-’

‘Seems? Forget seems. Use your eyes and your ears and look at the facts, that’s my advice to you. I’ve been doing this for twenty years and I know the difference between what things seem to be and what they really are.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Look, Sally, we’ve got how many hearings on the slate today?’

‘Ten.’

‘Breakdown?’

She looked at her notes. ‘Four intervention order this morning, six thefts and assaults after lunch.’

‘Jesus Christ. The same parade of trash day in, day out. Give me the ethnic breakdown of the intervention orders.’

‘A Turkish, a Vietnamese: I told you those. Plus another Turkish woman and a name that looks like it could be Serb or Croat.’

‘Lovely,’ De Lisle muttered, scribbling on his pad. If it wasn’t stupid everyday scum it was scum of a different kind, like the rock spiders, boy-fuckers, uncovered during that inquiry he’d worked on last year. Still, something had come out of that, and he’d be reaping the benefits for a long while to come. Meanwhile…

‘You book the tickets?’

‘I asked Julie-’

De Lisle had to lay down the law again. ‘Typists do not make opera bookings for me. I asked you to do that and I expected you to do it. Same as it won’t hurt you to make coffee now and then.’ He held up his hand as if to stem a tide of protest. ‘I know, I know. But just remember this-you’re starting at the bottom and when you’re at the bottom you have to expect to do some of the shitwork, pardon my French.’

Sally breathed in, swelling her chest, and breathed out again, a protracted sound of grim acceptance. Otherwise, she was silent.

‘Speaking of French,’ De Lisle said, ‘some of my Vanuatuan cases have been very instructive.’

Sally tried to look interested.

De Lisle rubbed his hands together. ‘Sometimes they have a nice tribal killing or two lined up for me, the occasional smuggling racket.’ He sat back and grinned at her. ‘I actually had a firebombing once, in New Guinea. So-called freedom fighters chucked a molotov cocktail through a Nestles depot in Port Moresby, saying what was wrong with milk from a mother’s breast?’ De Lisle laughed and his eyes dropped to a point below Sally’s neck. ‘I could do with an assistant,’ he said, in a different tone of voice.

‘Sir?’

‘This circuit court caper through the Pacific. Life would be a whole lot more pleasant if I had an assistant along with me.’

‘Yes, sir.’

There was a pause and then De Lisle pushed down on his desk, lifting up and out of his chair with a grunt. ‘Well, the courtroom awaits.’

First up, as Sally had promised, was a Turkish woman requesting an intervention order against her violent husband. She was a Muslim and things got off to a bad start when she said she wouldn’t swear on the Bible. De Lisle leaned over the bench at her. ‘You must swear an oath. How can I accept your word if you don’t?’

The woman’s lawyer stepped forward. ‘Sir-’

De Lisle rounded on him, snarling, ‘If she won’t swear on the Bible then I will not hear her case.’

The lawyer conferred with the woman. De Lisle watched in distaste. She was swaddled in cloth. Eventually the woman swore on the Bible, her eyes closed and averted. Her hand, he noticed, was a centimetre short of actually resting on the Bible. Still, he let it pass.

Then the evidence was presented. De Lisle had heard it all before. A husband, driven to distraction by something his wife has done or said, tries to sort her out and finds she’s slapped a court order on him.

So De Lisle questioned the woman. ‘How serious would you say these punches were?’

She would not look at him. ‘He broke two of my ribs.’

‘Look at me when I’m asking you questions. Did your husband’s punches break the ribs, or did you perhaps fall down the stairs?’

Still she would not look at him. It went on like that for ten minutes, a farce that De Lisle had to nip in the bud. He told the woman, told her lawyer:

‘Your request for an intervention order is denied. I simply cannot accept the truth of testimony presented to me by a person who cannot maintain eye contact. It’s shifty, meaning the testimony of such a person is shifty.’ He lifted and dropped a handful of folders. ‘I don’t doubt that there was some violence involved but I urge you to seek a culturally appropriate remedy.’ He looked hard at the woman’s downcast face. ‘Madam, surely you’re aware of the powerfully patriarchal nature of your culture? Clearly violence is an expected outcome of the values of your particular society. There must be some more appropriate course of action you can take. Speak to the old women, the old men, cultural leaders who know what to do in cases like this. Application denied,’ he concluded, and busied himself with making notations on the brief while the woman and her lawyer left the court and the murmurs in the background died away.

The hearings dragged on through the day and De Lisle found his attention wandering. Being around Sally all day had stirred something in him. Cassie Wintergreen. He’d go and see Cassie Wintergreen, maybe stay the night if she was amenable. He had a key, so he could let himself in if she wasn’t there.

He went home, changed, and got to her house in Double Bay at six. He fixed himself a scotch. More news about the Asahi robbery on the six-thirty news.

She came storming in at seven-thirty, and she looked terrible.

‘You bastard. You didn’t tell me that gold butterfly was stolen.’

De Lisle waited a moment, spoke carefully. ‘How do you mean?’

‘How do I mean? I’ll tell you how I mean. Last time you were away gallivanting in Vanuatu, it was stolen from my safe, and now I learn it was stolen to begin with.’

‘Ah.’

‘Yes, ah.’

‘Cass, listen, did you report it?’

It was Wintergreen’s turn to choose her words. ‘I don’t want to go into the reasons, but I had cause not to report it.’

Well, that was a relief. ‘Cass, what makes you think it was stolen.’

‘I was informed of the fact, wasn’t I?’

De Lisle breathed out heavily, keeping a rein on his impatience. ‘I’m listening.’

“There I was, in the office this evening, minding my own business, when who should come calling but the man who burgled me.’

‘Huh,’ De Lisle said.

‘Is that all you can say? This fellow had a bit of style. Not your regular burglar. He wanted a chat, kind of thing. You know, where did I score the Tiffany, so on and so forth.’

Pause. ‘Did you tell him?’

Nasty chuckle. ‘I guess you’ll soon know one way or the other.’

Whore. ‘Cass, can I use your phone?’

‘Why darling, you’ve gone all pale.’

De Lisle scowled, wheeled around, made for her study, rapidly mapping his way out of Australia. He’d need to keep the risk of detection and interception down. Ansett to Coffs, first thing in the morning, charter a small jet to Suva, bugger the cost, sail the Pegasus back to Vila, where the Asahi stones would be waiting for him.

Meanwhile, though, he couldn’t risk going back to his apartment. De Lisle made his phone calls, wondering exactly how he could sweet-talk Cassandra Wintergreen into letting him stay the night.