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  “Your objectivity is not exactly a given here. But yeah, worth pursuing. People like Mister Rollo Keppel are always prime suspects.”

  “Why? You haven’t even met him.”

  “Those guys at the top are always dirty. And couldn’t you smell it in the case file?”

  “I don’t sniff files. I analyze and reason.”

  Mick’s chest shook, his laugh an octave above his speaking voice. “Gentle, that’s not all you do, that’s for sure.”

  The wooden gate creaked when they emerged from The Island. Peter took out his handkerchief.

  “Where did you say the lipstick is?”

  ***

  “I really am sorry, but Mr. Keppel’s busy.”

  Peter shifted from foot to foot, wilting under the woman’s scowl. Considerably shorter than him, she looked impossibly dainty and severe at the same time, a green outfit snug on her slim frame. Large black-rimmed glasses highlighted her brown eyes. Mika Hashimoto, Personal Assistant to Chief Executive, her card said. Her musky perfume enveloped them.

  “It’s imperative that we speak with him.” Mick’s deep voice carried, and Peter smiled at his persistence. Peter had been prepared to let it go and try again later. He needed thinking time. Time to sift the data. Time to look for patterns.

  He’d never been in Scientific Money House, let alone the semi-circular reception area on the top floor. The in-your-face style, all dark woods and gold trim and huge posters, reminded Peter of the offices he’d noticed in Hong Kong. Certainly the floor-standing Scientific Money logo, a red-and-gold affair that stretched from the patterned carpet to the ceiling, wasn’t typical of Melbourne offices. A receptionist busied herself at a black glass-and-metal workstation. Peter smelled money; but then again, he often smelled money.

  “I’m sure that’s the case,” Mika said. “But I repeat, he is in a meeting at the moment.”

  A door slammed back. A man plunged into the reception area, gesticulating. Peter immediately recognized Rollo’s bald pate, oiled and fringed by gray stubble, though he was more portly than he seemed in the press. Deep blue eyes and a sweeping nose dominated that Keppel oval face.

  “Shorty,” Rollo said to the stooped Chinese man in uniform behind him, “when we get to the apartment, you’ll need to bring the car around the front while I change.”

  “Mr. Keppel,” Mick said.

  Peter waited for Rollo to stop at the authority in Mick’s voice, but Rollo’s eyes never noticed the two of them. A ball of ferocious energy, he swept past and punched an elevator button.

  “I’ll need that letter first thing after lunch,” Rollo barked at Mika, who had scurried to his side. “Fit in a meeting with Marcia. Cancel the ad agency. Book a flight—”

  Peter panicked. “Um… Mr. Keppel, Kantor’s widow asked us to talk to you.” His voice sounded reedy next to Rollo’s powerful tones.

  But it worked. Rollo’s eyes swung to his. Mika’s mouth tightened.

  “Did Imogen ring you?” Peter asked. He knew how these whirlwind executives worked. One had to puncture their bubble to gain their attention.

  Rollo wore an expensive gray suit and the gold chain of a pocket watch hung from his vest. His eyes raked over them.

  “Ah, yes.” Rollo’s voice was mellifluous and unaccented in the way of investment bankers. “You must be Messieurs Gentle and Turk.”

  Rollo locked eyes briefly with Mick to signify, Peter was sure, that the misstated name was deliberate. Mick gave no sign of having noticed.

  Rollo waved them through the elevator door held open by the wrinkled Chinaman and took the central spot. Everyone, even Mika, instinctively drew away toward the sides. Peter quailed under the Chief Executive’s scrutiny.

  The last time Peter had physically seen Rollo Keppel had been at an industry luncheon, back when Peter had a job. Rollo had mesmerized the large audience, or at least had mesmerized Peter, with an eloquent speech on business principles and the power of commitment.

  Rollo had proclaimed, “The funds management industry has all the technology it will ever need. What it needs more of is talent. Bright talent. Committed talent.” And Peter had smacked fist in palm and breathed: yes!

  “You must all aspire to leadership,” Rollo boomed that day, and Peter had nodded.

  Now Peter stood in the same elevator as Rollo Keppel, one of his heroes, helping him by tracking down his brother’s killer. Although the man didn’t seem to value the assistance.

  “My sister-in-law is most remiss in pursuing this course of action.” Rollo clasped his hands together, as poised as Mick, but instead of the wariness of a coiled animal, his stillness bespoke the patience of the powerful. “My brother is less than a week dead, and we’ve not only the police on our doorsteps, but now private detectives. It’s most distressing for family and friends.”

  Peter was struck dumb. He appealed to Mick with his eyes, but the leviathan had reverted to stone, and Peter’s face reddened as they descended in silence.

  As soon as the elevator doors opened, Rollo sped across the marble foyer, acknowledging a waving security guard with a nod. When they emerged along Southbank, Peter barely had time to snatch a glance across the Yarra River at the office skyline challenging gray clouds before Rollo rushed along the front of the restaurants.

  Rollo suddenly stopped in sight of the rippling river and Peter nearly stumbled. The dull roar of traffic behind the buildings competed with the chatter of tourists heading toward the casino. Businesspeople streamed across the river on the zigzag pedestrian footbridge. Peter loved this scene but all his energy was focused on Rollo.

  Rollo faced them with hands on hips. With Mika frowning on his right, and the bowed Chinaman on his left, he looked like a surreal gang leader.

  “You,” Rollo said to Mick. “I don’t approve of ex-policemen continuing their careers as gung-ho militia, and I won’t have you trampling all over my company. Understand?”

  Mick nodded. His mild eyes blinked.

  Jesus, how does he know Mick’s history? Peter thought. Rollo’s eyes swiveled to lock onto him.

  “But I feel obligated to help in easing Imogen’s mind,” Rollo said. “I fail to see how you can help the police, but if there’s any improvement in the odds of catching my brother’s killer, I’ll support you. I’m partial to actuaries, Mr. Gentle. There are too few intellectuals in this industry. So you, and you alone, can have access to the company’s senior executives.”

  Peter gulped.

  “I expect any interviews to be cordial and professional,” Rollo said, “and for your investigation to be concluded speedily. See Mika to arrange a pass and a schedule.”

  And he was gone, charging along the riverbank with Mika and Shorty in tow. Mick stood immobile. Hair flapping, Peter ran after the incongruous trio.

  “Mr. Keppel?” His chest heaved. “May I see you this afternoon?”

  Rollo stopped mid-stride and turned, eyes sparking. His lips tightened for an instant, then relaxed into a smile.

  “Very well. I’ve a full schedule but will fit you in at 2:30 sharp in my office. Mika, look after it. Now I must go. Shorty, you’ll need to drive like the wind.”

  Peter walked back through the milling crowd, legs unsteady. He found Mick staring over the railing across the water at the rusty green dome atop Flinders Street Station, the man so still that Peter found himself fearful of his partner’s reaction to being excluded.

  But Mick took a different tack. “He thinks he can manipulate you, Gentle. You’ll need to be sharp. He’s managed to push me out at the start. Smart.”

  The Melbourne skyline towered above them as they organised the afternoon’s work. They would work apart, Mick taking his Peugeot, Peter retaining his mobile.

  Seagulls cawed. Southbank pulsed, spilling out toward them at the water’s edge. Peter had never felt so hungry. Suddenly weary, he drank in the vista of skyscrapers. There was no doubt—he loved this city, with its mix of ease and fieriness. Having lived and worked in Sydney, New Yo
rk, London, and Hong Kong, no other city would do. And somewhere in his city stalked a monster, a genius killer. Only he, Peter Gentle, could track the murderer down.

  With his partner, of course.

  “You having fun so far?” Peter asked.

  Mick’s smile transformed his face for an instant. “Yeah, actually. This case has already gotten under my skin. Who the fuck killed him, eh?”

  “I don’t know.” A whistle sounded and Peter watched a cruise boat pulling away from the riverbank. “But I reckon the answer isn’t far away. Just a bit more data.”

  The passengers glanced up at Mick’s sudden laugh. “Man, you haven’t changed. So confident you can know it all. Well, we’ll see. I hope you’re right.”

  Peter did the leadership thing and raised a hand in the air. Their palms smacked together.

  “Ciao,” Peter said, and set off back toward Scientific Money House.

  “See you,” Mick said. “Say hi to your dad tonight.”

  “My father?” Peter yelled, but Mick was scything through the crowds.

  How the hell did Mick know his father?

  CHAPTER 7

  Time check—2:30 on the dot. Time for interview number one.

  “A beauty, isn’t it?”

  The speaker approaching Tusk looked like a dodgy salesman from tip to toe. Rumpled tan suit, a white shirt with frayed buttonholes. Wary black magpie eyes. Mousy brown hair. A flush suffusing his cheeks. A leer glued to his face, revealing stained teeth.

  The man panted and one leg dragged slightly. He thumped the roof of the Toyota next to Tusk. “A 1994 model, from a deceased trust. As reliable as they come.” A vaguely European accent. “You interested in such a model?”

  Tusk wiped dust off the car roof, inhaled petrol fumes from the choked-up traffic throbbing on Sydney Road behind him. In the distance, over the row of car yards and car repair shops, loomed dark gray stone and coiled barbed wire. Coburg: the old migrant suburb bisected by Sydney Road heading north to become the Hume Highway, pathway to Sydney. And in this wing of Coburg, Pentridge Prison, once the collection point of all the criminal sludge of Melbourne. Here they buried the body of Ned Kelly the bushranger, and in modern times, parceled the scum into separate doom-ridden blocks. Occupying a huge area, the prison had been closed for two years, and now thousands of spectators toured its bloodstained corridors. No doubt Kennett—bloody Premier Jeff Kennett—would sell it off soon, like everything else in the state of Victoria.

  “I’m not here to buy a car,” Tusk said, delighting in seeing the man’s smile fall off his face like stripped paint. “Mick Tusk, Private Investigator. Can I ask you a few questions?”

  “Why should I answer?”

  The man cocked an arm on a hip and glowered. A nasty piece of work—the prospect of pressuring him beckoned Tusk like a long lost pal.

  Tusk breathed to expand his chest. “My partner and I have been engaged by Imogen Keppel. You’re her brother Albert, right?”

  “Why didn’t you say so? Mr. Tuck, Albert Strasser at your service.”

  “Tusk.”

  “Tusk, yes.” Strasser’s handshake was all flourish.

  Strasser led Tusk through cramped cars. The car yard was little more than a small parking lot, nestled between two repair shops, the office just a wooden shack raised a few feet off the ground. Inside, a reek of sweat, smoke, and stale onions. A small, piled-up desk, a bulging filing cabinet. Hardly room for the one extra chair, which groaned when Tusk sat down.

  Strasser beamed and scratched what Tusk realized was transplanted hair. “So amazing that Imogen would hire a private detective.”

  Tusk pulled out his notebook and ran his eyes down the questions he’d prepared.

  “Mr. Strasser, how old are you?”

  “Fifty-two. I am the oldest child of our parents. Imogen was born two years after. There are no others.”

  “What can you tell me about your childhoods?”

  “What do you want to know? It was an okay childhood, quite hard. Our parents migrated from Germany after the war. You imagine what it was like to be a German in Melbourne then. My father died when I was fourteen. I left home young, at fifteen. You had to in those days to earn a quid. No fancy education for me, that’s for sure.”

  “Have you lived in Melbourne all your life?”

  Strasser tapped a cigarette out of a packet and raised his eyebrows. When Tusk shook his head, he lit up, blowing smoke toward the small open window. Tusk curbed a sudden urge to reach over and grind the cigarette out. Maybe later.

  “Yes. I’ve been a businessman all those years, mostly here in the north. Very successful, I can say.”

  “Were you and Imogen close?”

  “Imogen and I were separate our early years. Both struggling in life. Then when she came back from America and they had that tragedy…”

  The boy in the photograph! Tusk felt success surge through him. Christ, I love this work, he thought.

  ***

  When he’d risen to stretch that morning, Tusk’s first thought had been, Bugger him. Ring the bloody geek and tell him I’ve changed my mind. I don’t check out bodies anymore.

  His pulse buzzed. As he donned running shoes on the grass out back, Bully licked his face and slammed his rump against Tusk’s legs.

  Dawn in Belgrave: peach fuzz on the horizon bringing the silhouettes of eucalypts into relief.

  They headed down to the gully, his body creaking at first as he ran slowly to raise a sweat. His nose flared for the sniff of lemon from the first stand of gums. Early morning exercise was his mantra, his ritual to refresh after troubled nights. Increasing speed, his muscles sang. Bully alternately bounded ahead to gain sniffing time, then sprinted to catch up, occasionally looking up at him with raw pleasure.

  An hour later he sat on a towel in the family room to cool down. Bully panted by his feet, tongue lolling. Tusk unpeeled the plastic over The Age and checked the weather forecast: sunny periods, then a cool change with thunderstorms. A headline in the business section caught his eye. “Scientific Money Fund Wins Award Despite Death of Founder.”

  Christ, Tusk thought. Trust the Brainiac to take the highest profile case in town.

  Uncertainty gripped him. Yes or no?

  In the end curiosity won. Who killed Kantor Keppel?

  ***

  Tusk asked Strasser, “You mean the son?”

  “Yes, did Imogen tell you about Walter? A tragedy, drowning right before her eyes. After that, Imogen needed family and looked me up. We have been close since then, maybe for fifteen years.”

  “You knew her husband Kantor?”

  “You bet.” Strasser’s face tightened into a scowl. “He was a no-good son-of-a-bitch, and I tell… I told Imogen every time I saw her.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Hey, I know.” Strasser waved his cigarette in the air. “Believe me, I know. When they came back from America in the early ’80s, I was good enough to give Imogen a share in a business of mine. You know business is a lottery, Mr. Tuck? Some win, some lose. Well, this one went down for a while, had cash flow problems, but it could have got up over time. But that mongrel Kantor refused to contribute more capital.”

  Tusk had met a hundred Strassers on the job, small-time hustlers and rip-off merchants. Maybe the guy had taken advantage of Imogen after the mysterious Walter’s death.

  “He never talked to me again.” Strasser’s face was alive with indignation. “His own flesh and blood. Well, it was no skin off my nose, I can tell you. He was always stuck up, looking down on anybody outside the bloody Keppels.”

  “You know Rollo?”

  “What do you think? He’s a Keppel, never had time for me.”

  The indignity of it all sent Strasser silent. He drew on his cigarette and squinted at Tusk, as if trying to see behind the sunglasses. Tusk waited and his patience paid off.

  “The world thinks the sun shines out of the Keppels’ arses,” Strasser said. “But me, I know the inside sto
ry. I bet Lord Keppel told you how much he loved his goddamn brother, eh?” The voice at high pitch, sweat over the lip. “Well believe me, Rollo wasn’t always the loving brother of Kantor. Kantor was the clever one, and Rollo hated that. Not until he needed Kantor’s brains, then it became all sweet and light.”

  “You suggesting Rollo killed his brother?” Tusk leaned forward and was rewarded by Strasser shrinking back. The room swam with cigarette haze.

  “Not me. I am suggesting nothing.”

  Tusk changed tack. “What about Willy Keppel?”

  “Ha!” Strasser thought this hilarious. “Have you met him yet? That’s one bad man. Did you know he was on drugs? Did the high-and-mighty Keppel brothers help him? Like hell. Just like they treated me, they treat their own family like crap.”

  “Would Willy harm Kantor?”

  “Would he? Who would not?” Strasser smacked the desk, setting it shivering. “Maybe I wanted to kill the mongrel, eh? Over the years, maybe I wanted to?”

  “Did you, Mr. Strasser? Kill your brother-in-law?”

  Strasser’s face turned sullen. “No. I already told the police, I was at a party.”

  Tusk felt suffused with power. Five days, he thought. I’ve got five days and five days will solve it. My focus plus some of Gentle’s brainpower. We’ll bring down the perp.

  “What can you tell me about Imogen’s daughter?” he asked.

  “Straw?” Strasser licked his lips. “As if my sister doesn’t have enough to worry about. I always told her to put Straw in a home. It’s not right to have her just sitting around all day, never saying anything. But Imogen, she has a heart of gold. She would never hear of it. Me, I don’t know Straw well. She spent all her time with Kantor. I guess she’s another Keppel really, even if she is loony.”

  “How often do you see Imogen?”

  “Me? Maybe once a month. Sometimes I go to her house, sneaking in like a common thief because Kantor forbids me to come into his castle. Sometimes she comes to see me.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “Not since April.”

  Tusk had everything he needed. The police file made it clear that Strasser’s alibi was strong. He hadn’t killed Kantor, though he was glad someone had. Tusk handed Strasser one of the makeshift business cards he’d written out.