Read Saving Billie for Free Online Page B

It’s just that I have to make the most of this time for my own work.’
    â€˜Understood.’
    She wore loose pants, sandals and a denim shirt. The top of a packet of her anti-smoking gum peeked from the breast pocket. No makeup, hair barely combed. Working, and not bothering about anything else.
    â€˜I’ll get to the point,’ I said. ‘Have you told anyone about hiring me?’
    â€˜Why?’
    Not the answer I’d hoped for. ‘Because I think Clement was behind the attack on me. There was more to it than just Thomas getting even. By the way, does Clement have a son?’
    â€˜Yes, big lump of a lad, a nasty type, did a bit of mercenary work—Jonas Junior.’
    â€˜He was there last night. More or less in control. You haven’t answered my question, Lou.’
    â€˜I told someone, yes.’
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜I can’t tell you.’
    I drank some coffee and looked at her. She drank and didn’t look at me. ‘Why not?’ I said.
    â€˜I’m not supposed to be seeing him. He’s married and all that.’
    â€˜You think I’d spill it to “Stay in Touch”?’
    She shook her head. ‘Of course not. It’s just that I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone. Look, Cliff, I trust him. He wouldn’t . . .’
    â€˜Does he have any connection with Clement?’
    â€˜I . . . I’m not sure.’
    â€˜C’mon, Lou.’
    She wasn’t the kind of woman you could push. She flared. ‘Do you want to back out?’
    I looked around the room again. It had the appearance of a journalist’s place—lots of print, up-to-date media machines, a couple of Whiteley prints and Dupain’s ‘The Sunbather’ on the walls. I finished my coffee and stood.
    â€˜Let me see your workroom.’
    â€˜Shit, why?’
    â€˜Indulge me.’
    She shrugged and pointed to a half-open door. I went into a room with the blind drawn. Bookshelves, filing cabinets and a big pine table with an iMac computer, printer, scanner and thumb drive lit by a desk lamp. The surface was awash with scribbled notes on post-its, notepads covered with scrawled handwriting, pens and pencils. Squinting in the dim light, I browsed the bookshelves. The Paul Barry best-selling jobs on Bond and Packer; Christine Wallace on Germaine Greer; D’Alpuget on Hawke; Watson on Keating; Knightley’s A Hack’s Progress; some Richard Hall and a full shelf on African travel, politics and economics. And much else—Bernard Levin, Clive James, David Leich, Paul Theroux, and Bob Ellis. She was a journalism junkie, with a yen to travel.
    I turned back to see her standing in the doorway. She opened her hands and did a perfect imitation of the guy in the beer commercial who freaks out his girlfriend in the spa.
    â€˜What?’
    I grinned. ‘Nothing. What you read you are.’
    â€˜Another stolen line.’
    â€˜Right. I don’t think I’m getting a fair shake here. Your cheque’s going to bounce—’
    â€˜It’ll clear tomorrow.’
    I ignored her. ‘You won’t tell me your deadline; you say Eddie was murdered but the official version is it was an accident; you won’t name your mystery man . . .’
    â€˜I’m sorry.’
    â€˜Tell me the deadline.’
    â€˜Oh, all right. I’ve got three months to finish the bloody thing and I’m battling to make it, especially if . . .’
    â€˜You don’t find Billie.’
    â€˜Yes. Are you pulling out?’
    â€˜No,’ I said. ‘It’s personal now.’

5
    I told Lou to be careful about where she went and the company she kept. If my suspicion that Clement had tried to frighten me off was right, he wouldn’t be beyond renewing his attacks on her. Except that I was an independent operator in a not-highly-regarded profession and she was in the media, the new aristocracy.
    â€˜I go from here to the