Read Online Saving Billie by Peter Corris - Free Book Online

help.’
    â€˜Chick?’
    â€˜Girl, whatever. Lives there with her kids.’
    â€˜Can you get me inside the house?’
    â€˜I reckon, yeah.’
    â€˜And about the woman?’
    â€˜What about the money, brother?’
    â€˜Is there an ATM around here?’
    â€˜Newsagent got one.’
    â€˜Wait here.’
    I drew out five hundred dollars. No telling how useful Tommy might be, or his rates. I bought a diet coke and changed one of the fifties so I’d have smaller chips to play with. Tommy was standing more or less where I’d left him.
    â€˜Gotta smoke?’
    I handed him a twenty. ‘Get yourself some and I’ll see you by the blue Falcon in the car park. The dirty one with the dings.’
    He grinned, took the money and loped away. I popped the can and took a drink. Things were looking up, maybe. Tommy returned with a cigarette in his mouth and another tucked behind his ear. I stuffed the can into an overflowing bin. We got into the car and drove to the address I’d looked at before. It was one of the more hard-bitten of the houses with no attempt made in the garden, a mattress leaking stuffing on the front porch and a broken swing rusting in the side yard. Lou had described the room where she’d interviewed Billie and the furniture, including the drawer where she’d seen the photograph. I pulled up two doors away.
    â€˜Here’s the deal,’ I said. ‘I want to go in and look at a particular piece of furniture and ask about this woman I’m trying to locate.’
    Tommy blew smoke. ‘Got you.’
    â€˜Fifty for you, a hundred for whoever’s there.’
    â€˜Hey, why?’
    â€˜I’m invading their home. You’re just a go-between.’
    He thought about it as he finished his cigarette. He lit the one from behind his ear from the butt, then dropped the butt through the car window. ‘Okay. Stay here and I’ll see what gives.’
    He slipped out, slammed the door, and crossed the street, stepped through the open gate and went up the path to the door of the house. I kept my eye on him as I got out and went around to put my foot on the smouldering butt. I leaned against the car and was grateful for the sunglasses because the sun was high and bright and my battered eye still hurt a bit. The door to the house opened and a woman stood there. She had a baby on her hip and a toddler peeked around her legs at the caller. Tommy started talking and offered her a cigarette. She took it and he lit her up, still talking. He jerked his thumb back at me. She moved slightly to get a better view, shrugged and nodded. Tommy crooked a finger at me.
    I went up the path and Tommy gave me one of his winning smiles, swivelling a little to include the woman in it. ‘This is Coralie, Cliff, my man. Says you have to excuse the mess in the house.’
    I nodded. The toddler scuttled away and the infant on Coralie’s hip sucked on its dummy. Coralie was in her twenties, pale and freckled with greasy, mousy-blonde hair. Her heavy breasts had leaked, leaving stains on her faded Panthers sweatshirt. The finger she used to flick her hair away from her eyes was heavily nicotine-stained, but she blew smoke away from the baby. She pressed herself against the doorway to let me through. The smell hit me like a grenade—fried food, sweat, tobacco smoke and despair.
    Coralie pushed past me on her way to the back of the place. ‘That fuckin’ money’s in my hand in ten fuckin’ minutes, Tommy, or I’m putting the men on you.’
    â€˜No worries,’ Tommy said. ‘Make it snappy, Cliff.’
    I was more than willing. Lou had said she talked to Billie in the front bedroom to the right of the passage. I went there and found it contained a double bed, a built-in wardrobe and a chest of drawers. The room was like an op-shop sorting area with clothes and bedding and plastic bags strewn about. I pushed through the detritus