Bleeding Hearts. Lindy Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ pursed her lips and tried not to grin. "Allegedly, his autobiography is fiction."

      "Why do you have to redo it?" Kit asked. "And when did you do what needs redoing?"

      "Two weeks ago. Darian had to rush his girlfriend to hospital, just as we were getting to the interesting bit. A false labour, as it turns out. So we're going again tomorrow."

      "Two weeks? Was that before or after the first note?" Kit asked.

      "Um, before - I think. I'm not really sure though. But why would Darian...?"

      "Do you know him? I mean had you met before this interview?"

      "No."

      Kit shrugged. "There's a posse of reporter types trying to get the juice on whether or not this guy's for real. Do you know anything they don't?"

      "I don't think so."

      "Did you let him think you did?"

      Rebecca shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

      "And you don't think that might be a motive for a bit of extracurricular creative writing?" Kit suggested, pushing the envelope back across the table.

      "It's a bit of an overreaction to threaten my pussy with Dr Death," Rebecca protested.

      "Yeah, well a degree in overreacting is also listed on the CV of every garden variety whacko," Kit observed. "I think Mr Renault deserves some attention. Can I come with you?"

      "Ah, yes of course. I'm not asking for a bodyguard though."

      "I'm aware of that. But I need to know what you know and the best way to do that is follow you around for a couple of days so that I can see who you see, or rather see who sees you, especially if you're revisiting people."

      "Okay. Who will you be?" Rebecca asked.

      "What do you mean?"

      "Who shall I say you are? I can't tell the truth, obviously."

      "Oh. We can work that out in the morning. How about I meet you in the Café in your hotel. I'll bring my contract for you to sign, while I look at the other letters and the list which you will have prepared for me by then," Kit proposed.

      The front doors of the Terpsichore, Melbourne's longest running full-time women's venue and Kit's home away from home, burst open as the entire Spangles baseball team and their hangers-on spilled out on to the street. Kit stood aside to let them pass, agreeing that 'yes they were, without a doubt, the greatest.'

      Kit paused for a few seconds, just in case there were some straggling Spanglettes bringing up the rear, and then pushed open the door of the piano bar-restaurant-disco more commonly known as Angie's. She stopped dead, hoping that it had in fact been Angie or her partner Julia's idea to apply purple and gold paint to the faces of the four goddess statues in the foyer pond or - greatest or not - the Spangles would be banned for life.

      Kit pushed on through into the bar and surveyed the crowd. A woman she'd never seen before was playing the piano, half the booths were occupied, about 15 women were crowded around the main pool table and two of her best mates were deep in conversation across the bar.

      Kit slid onto the bar stool beside Del Fielding, leant her head on her friend's shoulder to say hello and nodded to Angie, who was showing off a lovely two-months-in-the-South-Pacific tan and a rainbow-coloured T-shirt that read: I love with gay abandon.

      "Well, if it isn't the dyke dick," Angie remarked. "Have you been out sleuthing?"

      "That's charming," Kit said. "I am not now, nor have I ever been, a dick."

      "She's right Angie, that's not very nice. Don't call her names."

      Kit sat up and stared at Del. Yes, it was her. The same tall, handsome, grey-haired woman she'd had coffee with that morning. "What's with you? Since when do you stick up for me, in this company?"

      "I'm not sticking up for you, but there is someone here who might not like to hear things like that about you," Del said, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

      "I don't like to hear things like that about me. Who the hell else would care? And why would you worry that they did?" Kit asked suspiciously.

      "There's someone playing pool, now, who's been waiting for hours to see you," Del said.

      "Who?" Kit queried swivelling on her stool so she could see the pool room. "What? Rabbit wants to see me?"

      "Don't be silly, why would Rabbit want to see you?" Angie laughed.

      "Well who?" Kit asked, and then caught sight of the who that Rabbit MacArthur was playing with. "Oh, my, God! What is she doing here?" she demanded. "Del?"

      "Hey, it's not my fault. Besides she's having a great time."

      "I bet she is!" Kit exclaimed. She slid off her stool and, with her hands on her hips, approached the woman who for some strange reason was wearing a huge but official Spangles T-shirt over her green twinset, pearls and tartan trousers.

      The crowd around the table took a collective step back as the 58-year-old mother of two very grown-up children, used her pool cue to wave hello and exclaim, at the top of her voice, "at last!"

      "Mum, what are you doing here?" Kit asked.

      "Playing pool darling. And call me Lil."

      "Why?"

      "I don't want everyone to know I'm your mother," Lillian replied, as if she was stating the very-bloody-obvious.

      I don't either, Kit thought. "Why not?" she asked.

      "Sometimes I like to be myself."

      "But you've never been Lil," Kit laughed.

      "Well I am tonight. Rabbit, Booty and Sal have been teaching me how to play pool. Your father never taught me how to play. You never taught me how to play. So I'm making the most of what started out as a very traumatic evening."

      "Traumatic? Why, what? Tell me again why you're here."

      "She crashed her car," Rabbit volunteered.

      "Mum?"

      "Well it's true. Don't go panicking now Katherine, three hours after the event. Obviously I am fine. The car is a wreck, but I am fine. I just need a lift home, that's all."

      "What were you doing in this part of town?" Kit asked.

      "God, you ask a lot of questions O'Malley," Rabbit commented.

      "She's a private eye, Rabbit," Lillian said, instructively. "That's what she does, she asks questions. And to answer the last one, I wasn't in this part of town until after the accident. A tram driver ran me into the pub wall on that corner in Richmond. So after all the usual business with police and tow truck drivers and such, I walked to your place. You weren't there, Delbridge was, and here we all are." Lillian finished with another flourish of her pool cue.

      Kit raked her hands СКАЧАТЬ