White nodded. I get it.

Id tried to tell it matter-of-factly, but it hadnt been like that at all. Ramona Beckett was hell on wheels, tall, dark, thin with sexual energy in every gesture. She ate like a wharfie and was a junior gymnastics champion who ran fifteen kilometres every day. She had a fast metabolism but her touch was strangely cold. She got by on five or six hours sleep, she read a lot of books and liked to wear black leather, the way she had the night I turned the tables on her. She was a living, breathing contradictiona feminist, a reactionary, a corrupter and an idealist. She genuinely believed that she could improve life in the state for everyone, if only she could acquire the power to do it. She ended up hating me, of course, but I couldnt say I had the same feeling for her. I got a tissue from a pocket pack in the desk drawer and blew my nose. Clear the sinuses and you can clear a lot more besides. Any number of people could have had reason to kill her, I said.

Including the guy you worked for?

I shrugged. Who knows? Maybe. Maybe he didnt tell me the whole story. But hes definitely not a candidate to bring in the reward on because hes dead.

Out came the tobacco again and the brown-stained fingers rolled the cigarette just as deftly as before. He looked at it, burred over the ends, smoothed out the wrinkles, tapped it on his thumbnail and didnt light it. Better not, he said. You might make me laugh again.

Ill try not to. Why dont you try not beating about the bush? You said you had a line.