Black Teeth (36 page)

I say, ‘Don't leave it out for Rudy to see tonight.'

‘Why not?' He seems to genuinely wonder.

‘Because…' And I realise he's right. There's no reason why not.

‘So I've been thinking,' Tyan says, putting the box on the kitchen table. ‘Maybe we should do that test. The DNA…the paternity test. So that it's official and everything.'

‘Yeah, no…That'd be great.'

‘I don't really know how to do it…'

‘That's okay. I'll look it up.'

‘And if Friday night is free now, how about we go for dinner? I'll pay.'

Friday. It feels like years away.

‘That sounds great.'

He holds out his hand and we shake. Just like I did with Rudy half an hour ago.

‘Good luck,' I say. I think that's also what I said to Rudy.

‘You'll never have to draw that silly thing there again.'

He's talking about the fake tattoo.

I'm like, ‘Can you call me tonight? I mean…Just to tell me it's over.'

He nods his sage nod. ‘All right. Yeah.'

‘Okay. Good luck.' I try to find something else to offer but it's not there.

Tyan walks me to the porch and I leave with an awkward wave. From the gate I look back and see him disappear behind a closing door.

61

By the time of Beth's second call today, I've found a clipping that mentions a young Desmond Jeremy Carne, the name he was born with. It's on the State Library website, from their archive of the
Truth
.

The heater pukes its warmth in my face but somehow I'm still cold. Clouds outside gather like a gathering storm, but don't they always look like that? The light from my displays is a soft sideways snow.

I do not answer the phone. I hope she's fretting that she won't get to me in time. Hope she's pacing that tiny living room, waiting for the call back that's never going to come.

Superimposed behind the words is a photo of Henry and Lydia, their faces clean white in the overexposed style of the day. He is smiling, hair thinning, tall and dripping with wealth. She does not smile, her
hair held aloft in the form of a miniature beehive, but peers back at the camera like she knows what the accompanying text implies.

There's no picture of Desmond.

After another hour's searching, it's clear that Desmond Jeremy Blake is one more numpty with no existence on social media. Just like Tyan and Rudy. All the players in this comedy seem to have missed the digital revolution. It's like they never
left
1999.

So I have to scrounge.

By the time of Beth's third call, I've found tax summaries. His primary occupation at the time of Cheryl's murder was ‘pest extermination'. He gave his address as a Mornington caravan park.

Desmond had a son of his own in 1985, with a woman named Maria Talumbi. They named him Franklyn after his late father. Des and Maria were never married and from what I can tell they never lived together. That they
met
at some point is about all I can discern.

His income tax is regular and neat and he never paid money to Maria or his son. It's not clear he had any contact with them at all. They were listed as dependents when he applied for a small-business grant in 1998, but that appears to have been a lie. And he didn't get the grant.

Then, in 2000, there's this.

So a week after Cheryl Alamein is murdered, Desmond Jeremy Blake kills his own mother for no discernible reason and goes to
Severington for life. The end. Despite a load of google dorks on Desmond Blake, Gary Blake and Lydia Blake, there's nothing more to the story. Blake never explained what his motive was.

But then, at the precise moment of Beth's fourth call, I find this postscript on Blake's LEAP file: he was moved to a prison hospice in Fairfield last year. The treatment he received, is probably still receiving, appears only as ‘severe psoriatic arthritis' and ‘SCLC extensive stage'.

Words that mean very little to me.

What I might do next is squeeze my way into the Adult Parole Board database, wallow in that glut of information. But an exploit like that is a monumental timesuck and isn't going to answer the biggest question of all.

By the time of Beth's fifth call, I'm in Mum's old Mitsubishi Magna, heading east.

62

There's an entrance off the street that's as sad as I imagined. The concertina wire around the carpark appears to serve no purpose but to reinforce that this is indeed a correctional facility. Inside, the absence of windows serves likewise. Young faces of security personnel meet me at the archway of a metal detector, but even as I step through they don't appear to notice me. Like
I'm
the ghost, despite their translucent skin and walled eyes.

My mother died in a place like this. Except that the inmates could come and go as they pleased, if they were capable of it. Most of them weren't so I suppose it probably felt like a correctional facility. The same stench of sweat, bleach and microwaved soup as I walk the long corridor. No posters about the strength to be found in hope or the miracle of each day; the echoey beige walls are nothing more than functional and the beige lino is somehow less colourful for the coloured lines that lead you where you want to go, chipped and faded and entirely worn away in parts. At the end of this walk is the visitation wing where weak green light struggles out from the fluorescent tubes with a buzzy moan. Another uniformed stooge at the reception desk tries to look busy, but if his job is to preside over an overwhelming sense of hopelessness I can't imagine what more there is to be done. Saddest of all is the set of bench chairs and the shiny spots on the wall behind them, the paint worn away by a thousand heads tilted back to ponder the reality of a loved one dying in jail. But for now, at least, no one else is here.

The uniform seems to roll his eyes as I approach the desk. Not
another
visitor in the visitation wing.

I'm like, ‘Good afternoon.' Try to be cheerful.

He says nothing. Beyond him there's a set of heavy double doors with enough steel around its frame to indicate a magnetic lock. On the reception desk are three displays, two of which feature live vision of what's going on behind those doors, broken up into nine segments apiece with running timecode. Most of the segments show hospital beds, people in them.

‘I was just wondering how I can arrange to see Desmond Blake?'

The uniform doesn't look at me, presses keys on his keyboard.

‘Visiting times don't start for another fifteen minutes.'

He's got a lisp, I think. But it might just be how little effort he's putting into speaking with me.

‘So I can see him in fifteen minutes?'

‘There's a stipulation on Desmond Blake.'

And he looks back flatly, like that settles it.

‘What does that mean?'

A digital bell rings somewhere. The man analyses his displays and his hand moves under the desk. One of the heavy doors swings open and a female officer exits, another cool blue uniform. She walks past, purposeful, back the way I came. As the door falls shut I glimpse an empty bed and a curtain in a bleak hospital space. Less like a hospital, more like a dorm.

The uniform says, ‘No one can see him without written permission.'

‘Written permission from who?'

The man sighs. This means clicking a button on his keyboard and it's awful for him.

‘Franklyn Blake,' he reads. Desmond's son.

‘How do I get in touch with him?'

‘Can't give you that info.'

‘Then how can I get permission?'

He shrugs with a dour face, like that question's a doozy but it's not his problem.

‘You can tell me I need permission, but not how to get it. So you're, like, the Riddler?'

The man says nothing, seems to wait for me to go away. For less than a second I consider blindsiding him, triggering the doors from under the desk. But who am I kidding?

‘Is there a manager I can talk to?'

‘Only me, mate.'

I sigh in search of a remedy. If Franklyn Blake came to visit today, maybe he'd let me in to speak with Desmond. I can wait. And sooner or later this blue-clad power trip has to be relieved. Maybe by someone more helpful.

The bench chairs are empty because no one else has shown up early, but as I slump into one a slow trickle commences, emerging from the wide corridor, registering at the desk. They look like people who would leave stains of misery on the walls. None considers this a pleasant Tuesday outing. Some are more stoic than others.

A woman sits next to me and immediately breaks wind. She's about as old as people get, but apparently she's come to visit
someone else
who's dying. What a maudlin row of pain we make, me and her and the Sudanese man next.

My mother died in a place like this. Only it had fewer security guards and more windows, some with flowers on the sill. But the spirit of death was ubiquitous there, too. Is it the smell of the place, or your state of mind?

Facing me is a Japanese woman with a rugged-up kawaii