Read Online Red Herring by Jonothan Cullinane - Free Book Online

another and then another. He reframed to the left and got what felt like a good snap of the driver. It would be grainy but there was still enough light. The two men walked quickly to the Plymouth. Molloy slumped in his seat as the sedan turned and drove off down Chamberlain Street. He put the camera on the seat and started the ignition. He did a fast U-turnand almost crashed into the butcher’s red panel van, which was backing out of a driveway. The driver got out and glared at Molloy.
    “Got a licence to drive that thing?” he said.
    “Sorry, cobber,” said Molloy.
    “Yeah, well.”
    Molloy put his car into reverse and backed up a couple of yards, changed into first and drove round the van. There was no sign of the Plymouth. When he got to the junction at the bottom of Chamberlain Street the road was empty in both directions.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    Molloy parked in front of the Premier Building on the corner of Wyndham Street and Queen Street where he had an office on the fourth floor. It wasn’t much of a place — one room with a desk and a filing cabinet, and a framed photograph of Phar Lap winning the Melbourne Stakes, left by a previous tenant — but it was somewhere to go during the day. He had the key to a tiny shared kitchen with an electric kettle and a compact Frigidaire, which had somehow made its way there from the US Navy Hospital in Victoria Park after the war. The plastic door on the freezer cabinet was shot and there was rust appearing around the rim, but it kept the milk cold.
    He had set up a darkroom in an unused cupboard in the hallway. He closed the door, pulled a curtain across and turned off the safelight, took the roll of film from the Voigtländer and got to work. A few minutes later a strip of negative was clipped to a line with a wooden peg. He set the timer and went into the kitchen and made a pot of tea. He returned to his office and found the number of the Grey Lynn RSC in his notebook. He had applied for a phone line in May the previous year and Post & Telegraph had installed one four months later. It didn’t ring very often but Molloy knew it was the future. He picked up the receiver and dialled, turning the pot twice as the phone rang.
    “Are you there?” said Bones Harrington.
    “G’day, Bones,” said Molloy. “Johnny here.”
    “Who’s that?” said Bones. “You’ll have to speak up.”
    “Johnny Molloy.”
    “Oh, g’day, Johnny,” said Bones. “It’s chocker tonight. Cops raided the Dublin Club on Sunday. Closed it down, the bastards. Roughed up Basil and them. All their members seem to have come over.”
    “That’s no good,” said Molloy. “Is Billy Burgess there?”
    “He is,” said Bones. “Want me to get him?”
    “If you wouldn’t mind.”
    “Hang on a tick.”
    The receiver clattered onto the bar.
    “Billy! You’re wanted on the telephone!” Molloy heard Bones shouting. “Hey, Steve! Get Billy for me, willya?”
    Molloy poured a cup of tea.
    “Are you there?”
    “Hello, Billy,” said Molloy. “It’s Johnny Molloy.”
    “How can I help you, son?” said Burgess.
    “Wondered if there were any overseas sailings tonight. Auckland or Mangere?”
    “There’s nothing scheduled for the next two days,” said Burgess. “The Moana ’s going to Sydney on Thursday from Napier but she’s just stopping for crew. Otherwise everything’s stuck in the channel.”
    “Thanks, cobber,” said Molloy.
    “That’s all right, son.”
    “Sounds like quite a show in there tonight,” said Molloy.
    “Aye,” said Burgess. “All those bastards from the Dublin Club. You heard what happened?”
    “I did,” said Molloy. “See you later, Billy.”
    “’Night, Johnny.”
    Molloy checked his watch, stirred his tea, put his feet on the desk, and opened the previous day’s Auckland Star. American, French and Dutch troops were fighting around the Han River near Seoul. The timer rang. He went back into the broom cupboard and unpegged the negative from the line.