Eden by Dorothy Johnston Page B

for over thirty years. I’ve learnt to handle more difficult situations than ex-clients landing on my doorstep.’
    â€˜You gave him to Denise.’
    â€˜I thought Denise would suit him.’
    â€˜You were right?’
    â€˜I was.’
    â€˜No sign of the old problem?’
    â€˜None.’
    â€˜But he wanted you.’
    â€˜Who told you that?’
    â€˜Isn’t it obvious?’
    â€˜You’re married, aren’t you?’
    â€˜Was,’ I said.
    â€˜You’re living with a man?’
    â€˜He’s in Moscow.’
    â€˜Has he left you?’
    â€˜He’s visiting his sister.’
    â€˜Then forgive me if I state the obvious. You’re sentimental about men. I’m not. Ed didn’t patronise my club because he wanted to have sex with me. All that was a long time ago. He used my services because I knew his tastes and could accommodate them. He wanted a girl, someone half my age. That’s why men go to brothels. They can fuck their middle-aged wives at home.’
    Carmichael didn’t have a middle-aged wife at home. He didn’t have a wife of any age. But it could have happened the way Margot told it.
    The hardest thing, it occurred to me, watching Margot watching me, was not to reconstruct a crime scene, or discover why a senator had cancelled an appointment with a local politician. The hardest thing was to return desire to a dead man.
    Two girls walked in, arms around each other’s shoulders, laughing softly, stopping when they saw us.
    They looked like twins at first glance, but I noticed that one was a few years older than the other. Both had short, pale hair and clear, creamy European skin. They wore identical make-up, bright red lips and fingernails, red tube tops and skirts. The older one gave me a quick, appraising glance, but the younger one’s eyes stayed glued to Margot’s face, her grip tightening around her companion’s arm.
    They moved on without speaking. A back door closed behind them, while Margot offered me the smile of a hunter certain of its prey. Fatigue seemed to be falling away from her, as though she’d found reserves of energy and determination that had been buried deep.
    â€˜Mieke and Kristina. They’re very popular,’ she told me.
    â€˜Did they come down here from Sans Souci ?’
    â€˜Who told you about Sans Souci ?’
    â€˜Who did Carmichael leave his flat to?’
    â€˜How should I know?’
    â€˜No reason,’ I said, ‘except I thought it might be you.’
    . . .
    I left Margot, my thoughts on the wig, and, more particularly, its smell. I couldn’t put a name to it, but the metallic, possibly petroleum-based scent, was the same I’d noticed in the corridor leading to my office the night my house was broken into.
    I had a nodding acquaintance with Detective Sergeant Saunders, the officer in charge of the investigation into Carmichael’s death. He belonged to the generation after Brook’s, joining the force with a crimi­nology degree. Though I was beginning to think he might be interested in my information, I didn’t feel ready to go knocking on his door. I did wonder, though, what he made of the fact that Margot had inherited Carmichael’s apartment.
    I rang Canberra’s wig manufacturers and suppliers, hoping to find the shop where Margot had bought hers. It was a small job, since there were only two retail outlets listed, one in the foyer of the Canberra ­hospital. Most of their customers were cancer patients, and they often hired out their wigs, rather than sold them. I was sure it couldn’t have been them.
    The other supplier responded to my question with a ‘you’re wasting my time and I don’t have time to waste’ attitude. Unless I could give her a date for the purchase, she couldn’t help me.
    â€˜Blonde,’ I said. ‘Real hair. Exclusive.’
    â€˜All our products are exclusive.’
    I