Dead Point

21

Tired, the feeling of the whole body being tired, not the earned tiredness of exercise, of physical work, just tired in the bone marrow. I went down the dark passage to the kitchen without bothering to switch on a light. The clock on the microwave said 9.14. I’d been up for seventeen hours, four hours in aircraft seats, three hours driving.

And bubbles of sour pineapple juice kept rising. Milan was right. It built up acid, it would probably clean the bowel. Scouring, they called it in horses.

Milk. I needed milk, drank two glasses, not terribly old. Then I opened a bottle of red and sat on the couch in the sitting room waiting for the place to warm up. Food I had no need of — I never wanted to eat again.

The buzzing of the tired brain.

Marco Lucia. Milan had not spoken well of him. But what had the judge said?

…an attractive person. Intelligent, full of life. And a lot of sadness in him.

There would certainly have been a lot of sadness in Marco if Milan had had his way and towed him around the Queensland coastline as live shark bait. Bleeding bait.

Listen, Jack, this cunt’s just a big prick and a thief. Maybe he stole somethin, made people angry. He’s no fucken loss.

A big prick and a thief. Would the judge agree with this description? Yes, if I understood the term relationship properly.

Marco Lucia on the run from something in Queensland. He comes to Melbourne. Many people think Melbourne is a long way from Brisbane.

Marco takes on the identity of his school friend, Robbie Colburne.

How was it possible to do that?

Groaning, I got up and found my notes.

Robbie Colburne and Marco Lucia both left the country in April 1996.

School friends. They’d gone to Europe together. But only Marco came back. Was it the case that Robbie didn’t need his identity any longer? Because he was dead?

Marco could’ve been Robbie’s brother, Sandra Tollman had said. Both pale, with black, black hair.

I poured some more wine, put the video in the slot, sank into the couch with the remote in hand.

Marco going into the Cathexis building. The new Melbourne landmark. Hideous but the very edge of architecture.

The unknown man at a pavement table, dark, balding, a fleshy face seen from across a busy street, then a new camera angle, a second camera, unsteady. The man drinking the shortest of short blacks, newspaper in his hand, looking around, half-amused.

Worth trying to identify the man? No, too hard.

Early evening, Marco in right profile, side on, several parked cars between him and the camera. He is waiting to cross a street, a narrow street, vehicles flashing by. He takes a break in the traffic, walking diagonally, the confident walk.

Nothing there.

Marco in his dinner jacket in a car.

I sat in the half-dark thinking about the origin of the clips. State cops? Feds? I thought about Marco waiting to cross the street, wound back.

Marco waits to cross, waits, a gap, he walks, he’s in the middle of the street. Freeze the frame.

To Marco’s right, on the other side of the street, is a parked car. There is someone in the driver’s seat.

Was Marco walking towards the car?

I looked at the clip in slow motion. Definitely someone in the car, that was all. And the number plate was visible but unreadable.

Too tired to think any more. I needed Milo and my new book, bought at the airport and only just violated. It was called Love and Football. The warm, innocent liquid and a brief read of my book, that would be my reward for a long day in the field.

Tomorrow, I’d take the video in to get some enhancements.