Deep Water ch-34

by Peter Corris

  ‘I was, still am at heart, but I’m a US citizen now by marriage. No hubby any longer, but a kid and a good job.’

  I looked up at the clear blue sky and nodded. ‘Living in climate heaven.’

  She shook her head. Her face had the sort of lines that come from experiences good and bad but mostly good.

  ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I yearn for Sydney’s seasons. Even a bloody hailstorm.’

  The Australian accent became slightly more pronounced with every word, the way it can when the other person is a genuine speaker.

  ‘I suppose it might get you down over time,’ I said, ‘but just now it’s perfect for my purposes.’

  ‘I heard you say you were a private detective.’

  ‘I was. I’m. . retired.’

  ‘You might still be able to help me. Could I buy you a cup of coffee?’

  It was close to midday. ‘What about a beer?’ I said.

  She had a nice smile. ‘Why not, although it’d horrify my colleagues.’

  We walked back towards the bar where Megan and I had sat and I told her about Megan’s surprise at being asked for ID.

  ‘Americans can be very funny about drinking. I know some who’d never dream of having a beer during the day or a glass of wine with their meals, but get bombed on cocktails every night.’

  ‘Unhealthy,’ I said.

  We sat at a shaded table and ordered two Coors, which a little experimentation had taught me was the beer closest to my taste. The frosted bottles and glasses came; we poured.

  ‘To Sydney,’ she said.

  I nodded and drank the toast.

  ‘When’re you going back, Mr Hardy?’

  ‘After all the services you performed I think you should call me Cliff.’

  She laughed. ‘You had trouble maintaining your dignity, didn’t you? Perched on top of that bedpan.’

  I’d been constipated for a few days after the operation and a proctologist had whacked in suppositories and let nature take its course.

  ‘Made me feel human again, though. You said something about needing help.’

  She told me that she’d left Australia fifteen years before to marry an American doctor who’d been holidaying in the wide brown land. The marriage hadn’t worked out, but her Australian nursing credentials had served her well in America and she had no trouble getting work that allowed her time for her daughter.

  ‘I was an only child and my mother died when I was ten. My dad was a geologist and his work took him all over the country. He did his very best for me, but I was often parked with people I didn’t know and he was busy even when he was around. I want to be there for my kid a hundred per cent. Her father lives in LA. He visits now and then and contributes financially but not emotionally.’

  For all the difficulties he’d had with his parenting role, Margaret said that she loved her father. She’d visited Australia twice during her daughter’s holidays and he’d visited once. They corresponded by letter at first and electronically in recent times. Thirteen-year-old Lucinda valued the connection with someone she called her ‘Ossie grandad’.

  We were near the end of our drinks when she got to the heart of the matter. ‘He’s disappeared,’ she said. ‘I haven’t heard from him for weeks and I can’t find out anything about him. I email and phone the company he works for and get nothing useful. A couple of his friends say they haven’t heard from him either. I’m very worried about him but I can’t. . I contacted the police and made a report but I’ve heard nothing back. I can’t go home. I need this job, and Lucinda’s involved in so many things that’re important to her. I’m stuck.’

  I asked some questions-like had he, Henry McKinley, been off on some up-bush expedition when she’d last heard from him. She said not, that he was city-based, working for a major corporation, about which she had few details. I asked about his age, his health and habits. She said he was fifty-eight, a cyclist, non-smoker and social drinker. As far as she knew he was wholly occupied with his work. His recreations were cycling, photography, archaeology and pen and ink drawing.

  ‘He was. . he is quite talented,’ Margaret said. ‘Lucinda seems to have some of the same knack. They swapped sketches over the internet.’

  Saying that broke her composure somewhat and got through to me. I said I’d contact someone I knew in Sydney and try to get an investigation underway.

  ‘I can pay,’ Margaret said. ‘Some.’

  Amazing the freedom having money in the bank can give you. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ I said. ‘Let’s see how far we can get.’

  We talked some more. She gave me her email address and said she could provide documents, photos.

  Getting fit, sitting in the sun, thinking about swimming, reading, watching HBO is all very well, but I knew I was going to miss my former profession and now I had that feeling for real, and very strongly.

  Naturally the flat had a computer connected to the internet and a printer and scanner and other hardware unfamiliar to me. I’d kept my email address so as to stay in touch while I was overseas and I sent a message to Margaret McKinley to establish the contact.

  I was never much of a web user but now I read some newspapers and blogs from home and was pleased to see that the conservative government was in trouble at the polls. The opposition was scoring better on most counts and the commentators were predicting a close election, with some reading it one way and some the other. I’d be back in time to cast my vote for change. It was well past time.

  Margaret’s message came through with a number of attachments-two photographs of Henry McKinley, one obviously taken a few years back showing him with his daughter and grand-daughter, who looked to be about ten. There was a photostat of his driver’s licence and several newspaper clippings recording his winning a number of awards-one for a book on water management in the Sydney basin, another some kind of medal from the Australasian Geological Society, and one for the first over-55 finisher in the Sydney to Wollongong cycling race.

  Margaret’s notes said that her father owned the townhouse he lived in at Rose Bay, that he had no pets and that his mail went to a post office box, so there was nothing at the flat to indicate that it was unoccupied. She included the phone number and URL of the corporation he worked for and documented the times she had made calls and emailed enquiring about her father. She listed the friends she had referred to when we spoke, and a number for the secretary of the Four Bays Cycling Club. It was an impressive dossier-she was obviously highly organised as well as very worried.

  Henry McKinley was tall and lean with tightly curled fair hair. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles and his expression would best be described as good-humoured. Hard to judge from the snapshots and newspaper photos, but he looked weather-beaten, which I guess is natural for a geologist and a cyclist. He was born in Canberra, the son of a public servant father and an academic mother. He did his bachelor and master’s degrees at the ANU, topped off with a PhD from Cambridge. He’d worked briefly as an academic but then branched out into consultancy, taking on commissions from state and local governments and the private sector. He’d worked for mining companies, presumably for big fees, and advised, pro bono, a couple of major archaeological excavations on the geology of their sites. In recent years he’d accepted a post as chief geologist in the Tarelton Explorations and Development Company.

  I eased back from the screen after absorbing this information.

  ‘A good bloke,’ I said.

  Spending too many days alone, I was beginning to talk to myself. It was definitely time to get in touch with other people. I phoned Margaret McKinley and told her I’d found the material she’d sent both helpful and worrying and that I was relaying it to a colleague in Australia with a recommendation that he begin an enquiry.

  ‘Thanks, Cliff. Won’t he need. . what’s it called? A retainer?’

  ‘He’ll need a contract, but we can deal with all that later. I’m booking a flight home for next week and I’ll take it up with him then. His name’s
Hank Bachelor. He’s an American, as it happens. Resident in Australia. The reverse of you.’

  ‘Globalisation,’ she said.

  I laughed. ‘Right. Can I see you before I head off?’

  We met at a middle-range restaurant of her choice on the edge of the old town, walking distance from my flat. Margaret wore a dress, heels and a linen jacket; I wore a blazer, freshly dry-cleaned trousers and shirt, no tie. We’d dressed for what it was-somewhere between a date and a business meeting. That could have felt uncomfortable but it didn’t. There was a confident easiness about her that communicated itself to me and we were soon chatting, ordering-oysters, fish, boiled potatoes and salad both- and enjoying ourselves. The place was busy without being packed and the service was casual but efficient. We had a bottle of Jacob’s Creek chardonnay.

  ‘We’re going Dutch, aren’t we?’ she said.

  I shook my head. ‘This is my first meal in company since my heart attack. It’s an occasion for me, and you’re my guest.’

  She smiled. ‘Should’ve ordered caviar.’

  ‘Not too late.’

  ‘I’ve never liked caviar. Never saw what the fuss was about.’

  I told her I’d relayed all the material she’d sent me to Hank Bachelor and that I’d see him about it as soon as I got back to Sydney.

  ‘It’s over a month,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t look good, does it?’

  ‘A month’s not that long if he’s had an accident and amnesia, or even if he had to take off suddenly for some godforsaken spot and can’t get in touch.’

  ‘Thanks, but. .’

  There was no point in kidding her and she seemed the type to be able to face facts. I asked her whether her father had made a will and she said she didn’t know. I asked if he had life insurance or superannuation. She thought for a while.

  ‘He said something once about managing his own fund. What are you getting at?’

  ‘Just that if he’s dead you’d be his heir, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘We’ll have to try to track down his lawyer. Maybe this Tarelton mob’ll know.’

  She went quiet and we got on with our eating and drinking. She’d already told me that she’d come by taxi because the San Diego police were red hot on DUI. She was drinking her share. I asked her a few things about her work but she barely answered. I tried to tell her something about the private enquiry game in Sydney but she scarcely listened. Eventually she put down her fork (she’d been eating in the American manner, cutting up the food and using her fork), without finishing.

  ‘If he’s dead,’ she said, ‘and if I inherit his house and his money, I’ll come home to deal with it. But please, please, I don’t want you to find that he’s dead.’

  And then she wept.

  3

  Tom Cruise in Rain Man was wrong about Qantas as he no doubt found out later when he was with Nicole- you didn’t have to go to ‘Mel-born’ to catch it. You could pick it up in LA and fly to Sydney. I gave myself plenty of time to cope with the absurd security screening, tougher in my case because I had a couple of minor criminal convictions to my name. I’d pulled strings to get the entry visa, but the men and women, black and white, in the starched uniforms with the epaulettes checked and rechecked before conceding that Guantanomo wasn’t an option. I travelled first class, stretching my legs, walking about to avoid DVT and enjoying the Australian accents, the beer and the barramundi.

  ‘Been away long, Mr Hardy?’ a steward named Frank asked, as he poured a Crownie.

  ‘Felt longer than it really was,’ I said.

  ‘Right. Home in time to vote.’

  ‘You bet.’ I raised my glass. ‘To better times and better people.’

  A man sitting opposite heard me and did the same, repeating the toast a touch more loudly. I glanced around the section-more smiles than frowns. Encouraging.

  At Mascot, I was met by Hank Bachelor and Megan. I shook hands with Hank, and resisted his attempt to take my cabin bag and my single suitcase. I hugged Megan.

  She stepped back. ‘We’re an item,’ she said. ‘We think.’

  I laughed. ‘Since when?’

  Hank said, ‘We sort of got together when we heard about what happened to you in San Diego.’

  Their happiness communicated itself directly to me and cut through the jet lag. ‘I should be able to come up with something about the heart and growing fonder and all that,’ I said, ‘but I’m too knackered. Good luck to you. Let’s have a drink.’

  A few days later, installed back in my house and with outstanding correspondence and obligations, mostly financial but also social and medical, dealt with, I called on Hank in his Newtown office to talk over the Henry McKinley matter. I climbed the familiar stairs from King Street but now a fluorescent light made them more negotiable. As I was making my way up a man coming down fast bumped into me and almost knocked me off balance. He steadied me with a strong hand.

  ‘Terribly sorry,’ he said. ‘Are you all right, sir?’

  I was until you called me sir, I thought. I nodded and he went down, turning at the bottom of the stairs to look back. I signalled to him and went on.

  Formerly mine, the office had been carpeted and painted and the windows cleaned. Hank had rented two adjoining rooms and put in partitions and doors so that he now had a small suite.

  ‘You must be doing OK,’ I said as I settled into a chair about three times more comfortable than the one I’d provided for my clients.

  Hank shrugged. ‘There’s work about. The politicians and spin-doctors are worried about bugging, so I’m doing regular sweeps. Quick and easy and well paid.’

  ‘Politicians on which side?’

  ‘Hey, I’m a resident alien. I’m neutral. Both sides.’

  ‘And you’re finding what?’

  ‘Paranoia and zilch, but who’s complaining?’

  ‘Any serious work?’

  ‘Some insurance fraud-autos, personal accident. I cleaned up a couple of those cases you left me. Gave me a kick start.’

  I’d seen another desk in one of the other rooms and one in a cubicle. ‘You’ve got some help?’

  He nodded. ‘A casual. He just left. Must’ve passed you on the stairs. And. . Megan.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Cliff, she was keen. She’s enrolled in the TAFE course. I got her associate status-provisionally.’

  ‘What happened to acting?’

  ‘She got tired of it, and it was going no place.’

  My relationship with Megan was complex. Because I hadn’t known her as a child, I didn’t feel the full weight of a father’s responsibility and attachment. I felt a lot of those emotions but not the full serve and, of course, I felt guilty about that. Complex. My warring feelings must have shown in my face and body language.

  ‘She’s basically a clerk,’ Hank said.

  ‘Stick around. She won’t be for long. OK, we’re all adults here. I’m not laying down any laws. How’s the McKinley thing looking?’

  Hank eased himself out of his chair the way a fit thirty year old can, took two steps and opened a filing cabinet. Forget the paperless office. Never happened. You can have anything you like on hard disk and flash drive but nothing beats a printed sheet when you want a quick grasp. Hank had several sheets in the standard manila folder and he spread them on the desk.

  ‘Waiting for your input,’ he said, shuffling the pages. ‘I can tell you that there’s something funny about this Tarelton company. Their website says they’re a minerals and natural resources exploration company. You know that. But just where and what they’re exploring and developing is kind of hard to pin down. It’s a private company, so there’s only so much it has to reveal about its personnel and operations and, in its case, that’s virtually zero.’

  ‘Margaret McKinley had the idea that it was paying her father well.’

  ‘Oh, it’s got assets-an impressive building in Surry Hills, staff, a fleet of cars. But what the hell does it do?’
r />   ‘Who or what is Tarelton?’

  Hank tapped one of the sheets. ‘Edward Tarelton- South African or maybe Canadian. Fifty-one or forty-nine. Mystery man.’

  ‘What happens when you make enquiries?’

  ‘What the client said-the run-around. When I made a big enough asshole of myself that someone actually talked to me I asked about McKinley. Here’s what I got.’

  Hank flipped a switch on a console on his desk.

  ‘We have personnel all over the world and do not discuss their whereabouts or assignments.’

  ‘That’s an illegal recording,’ I said. Hank shrugged. ‘The machine was on, like, accidentally.’

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘What’s that expression you have? No names, no pack drill. What’s that mean, anyway?’

  ‘Take too long to explain. Well, we need to get busy- file a missing persons report with the police-’

  ‘Did that.’ Hank held up a card. ‘Got a file reference.’

  ‘-and a letter of authorisation from Margaret. I’ll see to that.’

  ‘Cliff, you’re not a private eye any longer.’

  ‘No, I’m a concerned friend, and I know a couple of cops who’ll vouch for me.’

  ‘And a couple of dozen who won’t.’

  ‘It’s who you know, mate. It always has been.’

  There’s no law against talking to people or accessing public records. There were people who’d do me favours in return for things I’d done for them in the past, and others who’d have been pleased to hear that I’d dropped dead on Ocean Beach pier. The thing to do was make use of the former and avoid the latter. It’s not even against the law to use a false name and claim to be something you’re not, unless your intention is to defraud.

  Margaret had given me a list of McKinley’s friends with home and business telephone numbers-the secretary of the cycling club, Terry Dart, and the owner of a gallery where McKinley had exhibited some drawings, Marion Montifiore.

  I had the names on a slip from the notepad that had come with the San Diego apartment. I got it out and was about to reach for the phone on Hank’s desk when I remembered who and what I was. I covered the action by scribbling a meaningless note on the slip of paper before standing up.