Dead Man's Footsteps

going back to being closeted in the SOCO van with Norman Potting, suddenly it seemed to have a lot going for it.

21
OCTOBER 2007
    It was Abby’s room-mate, Sue, who had inadvertently changed her life. The two of them had met working in a bar down on the Yarra waterfront in Melbourne and became instant friends. They were the same age and, like Abby, Sue had gone to Australia from England in search of adventure.
    One evening, nearly a year ago, Sue told Abby that a couple of good-looking blokes, a bit older than them but very charming, had been in the bar, chatting to her. They said they were going to a barbie on Sunday with a fun crowd of people and to come along if she was free, to bring a girlfriend with her if she liked.
    Having no better offers, they went. The barbecue was at a cool bachelor pad, a penthouse apartment in one of Melbourne’s hippest districts, with fine views across the bay. But, in those heady first hours, Abby had barely taken in her surroundings because she had been instantly and totally smitten with her host, Dave Nelson.
    There were a couple of dozen other people at the party. The men, ranging from about ten years older than her to north of sixty, looked like extras from the set of a gangster film, and the women, dripping with bling, all seemed to have just stepped out of beauty salons. But she barely noticed them either. In fact, she hardly spoke aword to anyone else from the moment she set foot in the door.
    Dave was a tall, lean, rough diamond in his late forties with a rich tan, short gelled hair and a world-weary face that had probably been seriously handsome in his youth, but now looked comfortably lived in. And that was how she felt, instantaneously, with him. Comfortable.
    He moved around the apartment with an easy, animal grace, lavishly sloshing out Krug from magnum bottles all afternoon. He was tired, he said, because he had been playing poker for three days around the clock, in an international tournament, the Aussie Millions, at the Crown Plaza casino. He’d paid an entry fee of one thousand dollars, and had survived four rounds, building up a pot of over one hundred thousand, before being knocked out. A trip of aces, he’d told Abby ruefully. How was he to know the guy had two aces in the hole? When he had three kings, two hidden, for Christ’s sake!
    Abby had never played poker before. But that night, after the rest of the guests had gone, he’d sat her down and taught her. She’d liked the attention, liked the way he looked at her all the time, told her how pretty she was, then how beautiful she was, then how good she made him feel just being there with him. His eyes scarcely left her face in all the hours they sat there together, as if nothing else mattered. They were good eyes, brown with a hint of green, alert but tinged with sadness, as if there was some loss hurting him deep inside. It made her want to protect him, to mother him.
    She loved the stories he told her about his travels, and how he had made his fortune dealing rare stamps and playing poker, mostly on the internet. He worked agambling system which seemed so obvious, when he explained it, and so clever.
    Internet poker games took place all over the world, 24/7. He’d use the time zones, logging on to games that were being played where it was the small hours of the morning by people who were tired and often a little drunk. He’d watch for a while, then join in. Easy pickings for a man fully awake, sober and alert.
    Abby had always been attracted to older men and this guy, who seemed so tough, yet was passionate about tiny, delicate, beautiful stamps and enthused to her about their links with history, fascinated her. For a girl from a staid British background, he was totally different from anyone she had ever met. And although there was that vulnerability about him, at the same time there was something intensely strong and manly that made her feel safe with him.
    For the first time in her life, breaking her own rule with total abandon, she slept with him that very night. And she moved in with him just a couple of weeks later. He took her shopping, encouraging her to buy expensive clothes, and often came home with jewellery or a new watch or an insanely lavish bunch of flowers if he’d had a good poker win.
    Sue had done her best to dissuade Abby, pointing out that he was a good deal older than her, that he had a somewhat uncertain past and a reputation as something of a ladies’ man – or, put more