ThornyDevils (21 page)

Peter grabbed his coffee cup and stood up when his phone rang. He let it ring several times before snatching the receiver off the hook. ‘Yeah?’ he said curtly.

‘Someone wants to talk to you, Peter,’ Shazza replied. ‘I’ll put him through.’

‘Who it is?’

‘I dunno. It’s a man,’ Shazza answered. ‘He’s speaking very softly and he’s difficult to understand. All I could make out was
Peter
and
urgent
.’

Peter toyed with telling the man he was busy.

‘He sounds stressed.’

‘All right,’ he said, ‘put him through.’ He heard a click. ‘Who is it?’ he began.

‘It’s me,’ the voice murmured.

‘Sam?’ Peter said urgently, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Can’t talk too long,’ Sam began, ‘I’m using the phone in the office. They’ve gone outside.’

‘Okay.’

‘A lawyer’s here. The police are on their way. Sorry, got to go.’ The phone went dead.

Peter threw down the receiver and ran into Bob’s office. ‘Sam’s rung. Said something about the police going round to the O’Leary’s.’

‘What are you doing here? Fucking go!’ Bob replied waving his hand furiously at Peter. ‘Don’t wait to tell me.’

By the time the Stag screeched to a halt on South Pier near the security checkpoint, a squad of uniformed police, detectives and the rapid response group had already enveloped the area. The stupid bastard in the box wasn’t letting anyone in, unless they were police. That was, until Peter pulled out the warrant badge that he kept in his box of tricks: his
Cunning Kit
. Well, it had fallen out of a copper’s pocket in the Press Club toilet and Peter just hadn’t gotten around to returning it.

They’ve come prepared
, he thought as he ran towards the cordon around the office. The police were here in force but where was the media?
Beaten to the punch once again by Peter Headline Clancy
.None in sight.
Ilmo, where are you?

Peter saw McCracken lead Tommy O’Leary out in handcuffs first, then another detective followed with Robbie. Strangely, both Tommy and Robbie looked relaxed. This, despite having an array of guns trained on them.
Too calm.
Peter could see Sam consoling a middle-aged woman crying near the office doorway.
That must be Babs Bell.
The police were carrying out stacks of files and boxes.

Peter sneaked close to the first unmarked police car, the one he assumed would take the O’Learys to the police station. He guessed right.

‘What are you doing here, Clancy? Only police allowed in,’ McCracken growled as he pushed past him, gripping Tommy’s hands, which had been cuffed tightly behind his back.

‘I was fishing nearby and I heard the commotion,’ he smirked.

‘In a suit?’ McCracken sneered.

‘What’s happening here?’ asked Peter.

‘No comment.’

Peter turned his attention to Tommy. ‘Do you know why you’re being arrested, Tommy?’

‘Fuck off,’ Tommy retorted, spitting in Peter’s face. To add insult to injury, McCracken laughed as he pushed Tommy into the back seat. Peter backed away, hastily got out a handkerchief and wiped the spit off his face. The second detective led Robbie past in handcuffs, just as Peter shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket.

‘Any comments about why you’re being arrested, Robbie?’

Robbie replied in the same manner as his brother, but this time Peter was prepared. He jumped aside as the wad of spit shot in his direction, whistled past him and landed near his shoe.

‘What are you people?’ Peter responded angrily, ‘a mob of fucking alpacas?’

Peter watched as Sam continued to console Babs and the police continued to remove reams of papers from the office. It crossed his mind to attempt to get an interview with Babs, but thought the better of it. No reason to further jeopardise Sam’s tenacious position.

He had turned to walk back to the Stag when he caught a vision of her. Of
her
. He stopped dead. She was a woman of around thirty, attired in a filmy white dress with a pastel woollen cardigan over it, collar out, pearls around the collar. She floated out of the office behind the police, an English rose in a field of Patterson’s Curse. To complete the look, she had a Hermes scarf wrapped loosely around her shoulders. She was the model Sloane Ranger, a Lady Diana clone, right down to the peaches and cream complexion and soft blue eyes. Peter nearly tripped over himself as he tried to approach this vision of pure loveliness. Her thick blond mane was shaped into a purdey. Like Lady Diana. It was his secret, his deepest darkest secret that no one should ever know. Ever. He was in love with Lady Diana. His secret fantasy. To work in London, then, in the event that Charles and Diana ever divorced—which everyone knew would be never—he’d be first on the scene to offer succour and support to the poor girl.

Now, she was standing on South Wharf calmly talking into a mobile phone the size of a brick.

Who needs to be available at all times? Those stupid things will never catch on
. Peter caught her attention by waving inanely just as she finished her conversation. She put the phone into a leather satchel slung over her shoulder and looked back at Peter with those dewy blue eyes. She smiled radiantly.
My God!
He felt himself becoming a dizzy schoolboy again.
Even her teeth are pure white.
He wanted to touch her.

‘You’re a journalist, aren’t you?’ she asked. Her accent betrayed a private school education. To the uninitiated, it might have even sounded a little public school English. ‘You are, aren’t you?’

Peter’s heart threatened to leap out of his chest and his breathing increased.
What the hell is wrong with me? It’s not Lady Diana.
He considered telling her that he was an aristocrat that just happened to be in the area.
Would you like to come back to my Bentley for a bottle of Moet and some canapés?
‘I am,’ he replied meekly. He felt himself breaking into a lopsided smile that could belong in a terrible school photo.

‘You’re Peter Clancy?’

‘How did you know?’ he stammered. ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘I read your column,’ she replied. ‘I think it’s the best in Melbourne.’

‘Really? Wow. That’s great.’ Peter felt as lightheaded as if he’d downed a six-pack.

‘Poppy,’ she said, as she held out her hand. ‘Poppy Reynolds.’

‘Poppy,’ Peter cooed as he shook her hand.
Her skin is like velvet
. ‘Poppy.’

‘You like long handshakes?’ she asked coolly as she slipped her hand away from Peter’s.

Where’s my composure gone?
‘Sorry,’ he stumbled. ‘The reactions from the O’Learys sort of threw me.’

‘To be expected.’

‘How do you know them?’ Peter’s composure was returning.

‘I’m their solicitor.’

‘Their solicitor?’ he repeated aloud.

‘Do you find that fascinating? Or strange?’ Poppy said curtly. ‘Is it to do with the fact that a woman is representing the O’Learys?’

‘No. No,’ Peter backtracked, ‘I just thought Frank Galbally would be doing this. I thought the wharves were his turf.’ He’d met Galbally on occasion when he had been invited by Bob to watch a Collingwood
game in the members’. One of Australia’s greatest criminal lawyers, Frank Galbally was a mesmerising character with a large dash of Irish charm. He seemed more the O’Leary type than Ms Poppy Reynolds. A passionate advocate of the underdog, Galbally was, a defender of many a Painter and Docker.

‘Frank’s been taken ill and he’s asked me to take care of the O’Leary family in his absence.’

‘Do you want to tell me why they have been arrested?’

‘Of course not. I’m a lawyer. I don’t talk to journalists.’ She smiled faintly. ‘Got to go.’

‘Right,’ Peter replied, barely masking the pain in his voice. ‘So, I’ll see you around? Give my regards to Frank.’

Poppy smiled at him once more and glided down the wharf towards the silver, soft-topped Alfa Romeo Spider that was parked near the Stag. Unabashed, he continued to watch her. When she was two hundred metres away from him, Poppy turned around.

‘If you come down to St Kilda Road later today you might find out more.’

He kept observing Poppy until she reached her Alfa and drove away, right up until the car could no longer be seen. Then she was gone.

Peter returned to the office feeling giddy, as if he’d just been on his first date. The office was empty. He popped his head through the doorway of the staff room, even though he knew it was rarely used. He was surprised to see Dave and Shazza sitting together, sharing a Chinese takeaway. Peter stood there, unnoticed. She was instructing Dave in the use of chopsticks.
Cute.

They turned around when Peter cleared his throat. ‘You both look cosy,’ he teased.

Dave put down the chopsticks and picked up a fork. ‘Want to join us?’ he asked. ‘I know you like Chinese food.’

‘Not now. Too much to do,’ he replied with a wide grin as he leaned against the door.

‘You survived?’ Shazza asked.

‘Yeah,’ Peter said vaguely. ‘The O’Learys are now in jail.’

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Shazza asked, leaning across the table to take a closer look at Peter. ‘Have you been drinking?’

‘No,’ Peter blushed. ‘Just happy at the moment.’

Dave interjected. ‘You probably want to know what went on today. Stella can fill you in on what happened to us.’

‘Well, then,’ Peter announced as he straightened up, ‘I better go and find her.’

‘You sure you haven’t been drinking?’ Shazza asked again.

‘Shit no,’ he retorted. ‘Can’t a man be happy with life without the booze?’

Peter tapped softly on Bob’s door. There was no answer. He usually barged in anyway, but he felt somehow gentler, calmer, and so he turned the handle and swung the door open ever so slowly to reveal…

Holy shit!

It was an autonomic reaction, in the same league as a dying man’s last gasp for breath. Peter tried his best to divert his eyes away from what he was seeing. Yes, it was Stella and Bob. But not as he had expected, seated on opposites sides of the desk making polite conversation. No. Stella was sitting astride a totally naked Bob and they were both in the deep throes of passion. Peter might have had enough time to quietly extricate himself without being discovered, except for Stella’s wild head-toss in his direction. She caught sight of him shuffling backwards, head down, out of the office.

‘You should…knock,’ Stella managed to gasp.

Peter held out his hand in a stop motion. ‘Just popped in to tell you that the O’Learys have been arrested,’ he blurted before easing the door shut.

He tried his best to work on the O’Leary arrest story but to no avail. His fingers sat limply on the keys. He just couldn’t get the scene of Stella and Bob coupling out of his head. He’d accidentally caught friends in bed with their girlfriends before, but Stella and Bob! On the desk. Totally unexpected. Was Bob’s health up to shagging a woman younger than himself? There was that, too.
Bob looked like he was really straining. Dirty old bugger. Maybe Bob wanted to go out on a shag high. My God,
Peter thought,
there I go again. Focus on the story. On the story.
Though it was comforting for him to know that love was alive and well in
The Truth
air: Dave and Shazza sharing an intimate takeaway. Stella and Bob. Maybe Peter and Poppy, the Sloane Ranger? And what about Sam?

It was another ten minutes before Stella emerged from Bob’s office, adjusting her dress with one hand and trying to push her well-shagged,
tousled hair back into its original arrangement with the other. Peter pretended to type when she reached his desk.

‘You said the O’Learys were arrested?’ No apology, no excuses. Business as usual.

‘Yes. I’ll go to St Kilda Road later for an update. I met their solicitor,’ he said trying not to look at her. ‘And you?’

‘There was a drive-by shooting at the Donarto house. Someone sprayed the stone wall surrounding his mansion. No one injured. He wasn’t there, but his elderly Italian mother was screaming at the police in front of the house. I was hoping she’d attack one of them so I could get a better story.’

Peter smiled dimly and looked up at Stella. ‘Funny.’

‘Who needs a Doberman when you have an Italian mother guarding your home, right?’

Peter smiled faintly again.

‘Well, at least I thought that was funny.’ She realised that they would have to discuss the elephant in the room sooner or later. She decided it had better be sooner. ‘It’s about what was happening in the office.’

‘Well. I didn’t expect to see Bob and you having a shag.’

‘Shag?’ Stella asked vaguely.

‘Sexual congress. Intercourse. Coitus. Whatever you want to call it.’ Stella turned away so he wouldn’t see tears welling in her eyes. ‘Can you keep a secret?’ she pleaded.

‘Of course I can.’

‘Bob and I were close in New York. We were lovers, in fact, but we never lived together.’ She sighed. ‘Then our careers got in the way and other complications happened. And then that was it. Bob came back to Australia and I stayed in New York. I thought that was the end of it,’ she continued, ‘but Bob got in contact a year ago. And we reconnected. Now I’m here.’

‘So you didn’t come to Australia to see the wide horizons and cuddle our fluffy marsupials,’ Peter grinned.

‘No, not really, but I am glad to be working on this story. And I’m also glad to be working with someone like you.’

‘You’re a suck, Stella,’ Peter blushed. ‘But it’s wasted on me.’

‘Suck?’

‘Someone who ingratiates themselves,’ Peter shook his head. ‘I’m really going to have to teach you our slang.’

***

Four o’clock in the afternoon. Four o’clock on an overcast Melbourne afternoon. St Kilda Road Police Complex. Another press conference. Another press conference packed with the flotsam and jetsam of Melbourne’s media.
This story is growing by the minute.
Peter almost expected journalists from the
Woman’s Weekly
to be there. Well, didn’t he just overhear a journo saying he was from
Australian Playboy
?
They all want a piece of the carcass
.

He took up position again near the rostrum. He didn’t have to shove his way into that privileged slot near the speaker. He breezed into pole position.
They’re depending on me to open up this story and dig into the shit the deepest.
They were waiting for him to make the moves. Or the mistakes. Peter Headline Clancy? Or Peter Fuckup Clancy. He wondered why he’d bothered to come. It would just be a formal announcement of the arrest of Tommy and Robbie O’Leary.
That’s it. Blah, blah. But where was Poppy
?