by Peter Corris
‘Mr Hardy is it? I understand you might have some information about my wife?’
That was encouraging. The voice was thin and strained with the rasp that comes from smoking thousands of cigarettes. ‘Not exactly, Mr Nickless,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure we have something to talk about. I might mention the name George Cousins.’
‘I want to see you straight away,’ Nickless said. ‘Right now. I’ll pay you for your time. Please. I’m in Pyrmont.’
‘I’ve got the address but it’s after closing time. Your office…’
‘Will be open, I assure you. Please come at once. I’ll be waiting for you.’
12
Pyrmont has undergone a facelift and experienced a comeback recently. There’s a nice mix of renovated business and residential buildings and the beginnings of a community life-I mean places to eat and drink and talk, especially drink. There’ll never be much in the way of public space and the air quality will never be good, but that applies to a lot of Sydney. The cityscape makes it better looking at night than in the daytime, but the transport arrangements are good and property prices will rise and rise. I knew people who squatted there in the old days and some who paid laughably low rents. Not any more.
The office of Nickless Homes Inc. Pty Ltd was in Harris Street. The block had the Dunkirk Hotel at one end and the Duke of Edinburgh at the other. There were newly planted plane trees along one side, an outdoor cafe with chrome tables, a vegetarian eatery and Thai restaurant, giving the street a sophisticated, cosmopolitan look. The traffic was thin at that hour but would be heavy for most of the day. Parking space minimal.
The company’s office was in a renovated three-storey terrace, one of several in the street that had been turned over to business. That seemed a bit incongruous to me until I got inside and discovered that one of their models was an artful reproduction of the classical Victorian terrace. I was met at the heavy glass security door by a young woman who took me up two flights of stairs to the executive area. The two bottom floors seemed to be where the work was done. The various home styles were depicted in elegant blown-up photographs beside the stairs and on the landings. Some were up on stilts, Queensland style, others were rambling affairs on slabs. There was the terrace, there were yurts and even a tree house. That amused me and I laughed.
‘Sir?’ the woman said.
‘The tree house.’
‘It’s very popular. Mr Nickless said you were to go right in.’
Rex Nickless might not have looked too impressive on the jetty down at Bingara in shorts and deck shoes, but he looked the part in a suit behind a big teak desk in his flash office with big windows affording a magnificent city view. He got up as soon as I walked in the door and came quickly towards me around the desk, hand out. ‘Mr Hardy. Thanks for coming so quickly.’ We shook and I got a surprise. He was small to medium sized, soft in the middle with receding hair and an advancing double chin, but his hand was hard and rough. This was a man who’d done a lot of manual work in his time. His blue eyes were clear and his skin was good. He looked his age but as if he had a few useful years left in him. I accepted his invitation to sit down in a leather chair and saw no reason not to also accept his offer of a drink. He operated the bar efficiently and put a solid Scotch on the rocks in my hand. He took his mineral water back behind the desk.
‘Used to drink like a fish when I was a builder’s labourer,’ he said. ‘Six-pack at lunch and a couple at the smokos. Knocked it off a few years ago, apart from an occasional blow-out.’
‘Slow and steady, that’s me,’ I said.
‘I admit I did a bit of a quick check on you after I got your call. Asked around. The consensus is you’re good at what you do. I like that. I’m good at what I do as well.’
The sun was going down and the view behind him was starting to take on a Hollywood glow. The Scotch was top of the range and under the right circumstances I could’ve just sat there and enjoyed everything. Instead, I made some sort of modest reply and suggested that we get to the point.
‘I think I can put some business your way,’ Nickless said.
‘Hold on. Not so fast. We’ve got a bit of ground to cover first.’
‘You’re right. I’m anxious. I won’t beat around the bush. You’re looking for George Cousins. So am I.’
‘I know why I’m looking for him. I don’t know why you are or if our interests are the same.’
‘Good point. What else can it be but some criminal matter? Cousins kidnapped my wife. Or at least I thought he did. I paid a ransom of fifty thousand dollars.’
I looked around the office-expensive carpet, polished wood, Swedish furniture. I tasted the Scotch-single malt, no change out of ninety bucks for a bottle.
‘Not that much for a wife for a man in your healthy financial state.’
He sighed. ‘You’re right. It was all very fishy from the start. Hold on.’ He broke off and hit a button on his intercom. ‘You can go, Nadine. Thanks. See you tomorrow.’
I drank some more Scotch and waited. I wasn’t impatient. It amuses me to watch people deal with their overheads.
Nickless drained his mineral water, loosened his tie. ‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘I’ll join you.’
He topped me up from a bottle with a label I didn’t recognise and poured himself a solid jolt. He took a swig and seemed more relaxed immediately. ‘Okay, it was like this. I hired Cousins as a deckhand
… ‘
‘In Bingara, couple of months ago.’
He raised his glass, signifying agreement. ‘Right. Well, I thought Stella really didn’t like Cousins, especially when he turned up all cut and bruised the way he did. I was wrong. Last to know and all that crap. The long and the short of it’s this. We went up the coast and called in at places where our houses have been built-Byron Bay, Stradbroke Island, Noosa and north. Stella and I were getting along all right. I know I’m a mug, redneck like me marrying a beautiful woman, but I wasn’t a complete mug.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘You’ll see. Anyway, we got to Port Douglas and Stella went shopping and disappeared. Then I got a note saying that if I wanted to see her again I had to cough up fifty thousand. The envelope also contained some of her hair and big bits of her fingernails, like they’d been cut off right down. Stella was very proud of her nails. That got to me and I paid up. As you say, I can find that kind of money without too much trouble. Well, Stella turned up, all distressed and hysterical and Cousins vanished like smoke. A doctor sedated Stella and we flew back to Sydney. Two days later she was gone again and she’s hired a high-price lawyer to handle the divorce. I reckon they were in it together.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s not clear to me.’
Nickless finished his drink, thought about another, decided against. ‘We had a prenuptial agreement that limited what claims Stella could make on me if we split up. She’d get bugger-all really. She had no money except what I gave her. Suddenly, she can afford an up-market lawyer. Where’d she get the money?’
‘He might be doing it on a contingency basis.’
‘He isn’t. I checked. He’s been paid a fair bit up front. Now I’m going to have to negotiate because those prenuptial things aren’t watertight. She’s going to take me for a fair swag. Okay, more fool me. But I’ve got a good bloke on my side and I’ll wear whatever it costs me within reason. Stella’s a greedy bitch, but I knew that. Also she’s too dumb to have worked the scheme out. What sticks with me is Cousins’ part in it. He dreamed it up and they shared the money.’
‘You’re guessing.’
‘Yeah, but I’m guessing right. Anyway, he can keep the bloody money. What I want is a statement from him that Stella was in on it with him. That’ll give me some leverage when we get around the table with the fucking lawyers.’
I was thinking fast. It sounded as if I’d have to go to North Queensland to track Clinton and I didn’t want to finance that myself. When it had all seemed reasonably close to home, I’d considered getting Wesley to
re-hire me, although there were problems with that. Nickless’ problem suggested another avenue. If a statement was all he wanted from Clinton, that wasn’t inconsistent with my original brief simply to find him. It all depended on whether Nickless could be trusted, or managed.
‘What do you say?’ Nickless said.
‘About what?’
‘About me hiring you to find Cousins. You’re already looking for him anyway so you can double dip. I’ll pay your going rate and I won’t be mingy on expenses and so on.’
‘Good to hear,’ I said. ‘I’m tempted, but I’ve got an ethical problem.’
‘What’s that?’
‘D’you mean what is an ethical problem or what’s my specific one?’
‘Don’t patronise me, Hardy. I know I came up through the school of hard knocks but I know what an ethical problem is. What’s yours?’
‘Sorry, I was really just buying time to think. Your assumption that I was looking for the man you call Cousins on a criminal matter was wrong. My original client is simply concerned about his welfare. The fact is, I took the investigation as far as I could and reported a no-show. Then I got another lead that looked promising and I followed it up off my own bat. It brought me to you. Strictly speaking, I haven’t got another client now.’
‘Then what’s the problem?’
‘None, or not a big one, if you’re fair dinkum that you’re not going to lay charges.’
‘You’ve got my word on it. I’ve told you what I want and that’s it. I certainly don’t want to have anything to do with fucking courts. Let’s have another drink.’
I was going to have to taxi home if I accepted but how often did I get a chance to drink a single malt? Besides, I was beginning to like Nickless and not just on account of his whisky. I held out my glass and got another solid measure. He forgot about the ice this time. But to like is not necessarily to trust, and I didn’t know whether to believe him absolutely. He was a difficult man to read with his soft belly and hard hands. I doubted that you could get as far as he had in the building game, especially starting from the bottom, if you were soft at the centre.
‘You married, Hardy?’
‘Was once.’
‘Third time for me this was. You’d reckon I’d learn. I hope I have. I’ve got a good business here. Makes money, employs people and provides something useful and environmentally acceptable.’
‘Good for you.’
‘I want to hang on to it. If Stella took me to the cleaners it’d all be at risk. That’s the truth. Shit, I want to fight her for my pride’s sake and for all sorts of selfish reasons, but it’s not entirely selfish.’
The whisky was going down like warm honey. ‘I believe you.’
‘I’m ready to lose the house. I’ve written that off. Never liked it much anyway. Her taste, not mine. But I don’t want all this crap to cripple a good business I’ve worked like a dog to create.’
I believed him but I knew a bit about men like Nickless and some of the prints on the wall were a giveaway. ‘What about the boat?’
He blinked nervously several times, looked at me and took a drink, a big one. ‘Yeah, right. I don’t want to lose the Coral Queen. I love that boat.’
Like the rest of us, the rich have their soft spots. Different things, but they make them just as vulnerable. I nodded and finished my drink.
Nickless turned what was left of his around in his big, meaty hands. ‘Can we come to terms then?’
‘What were you going to do about Cousins if I hadn’t shown up?’
He shrugged. ‘Nothing. I had no idea what to do.’
‘Okay, I think we can work something out. I’ll need to talk to your wife.’
He snorted. ‘I wish you luck. She’s in London, doing it all by remote control.’
‘Then I’ll have to go to Queensland. Track him back from there. It’ll be expensive.’
He shrugged. ‘Not as expensive as if I’ve got no cards to play with. What’re your rates?’
I told him and he wrote a cheque that would finance my trip to Queensland in style. I felt vaguely guilty as I folded it and tucked it away. I didn’t know whether I’d be able to persuade Clinton Scott to do what Nickless wanted, even if I found him. I was flying by the seat of my pants and more concerned about seeing a job through and getting back on good terms with Wesley than with Nickless’ problem. I hadn’t resolved my ethical problem at all.
After leaving Nickless I went for a walk through Pyrmont to sober up and stimulate thought. There was a lot of dust in the air from building sites and the considerable revamping going on around Union Street. But the breeze from Darling Harbour was moving it around in true Sydney fashion. In this city you take the significant rough with the much greater smooth. I sobered up and did a lot of thinking, but I was already on my way to the sunshine state.
13
It wasn’t the best time of the year to visit north Queensland-too late, too hot, too sticky-but I was able to afford air-conditioned motels and cars and that would make all the difference. Swimming pools would help as well, along with gins and tonic, fresh fish with chilled wine and top quality insect repellent. I booked on a midday Qantas flight to Cairns with the comfortable feeling of knowing that the cheques I’d posted had given me plenty of clearance on my credit cards. Plus I had cash in my pocket. I packed summer clothes and, although I’d recently regained my permit to carry a weapon-a right I’d lost as a result of serving the short prison sentence some time back-I left the Smith amp; Wesson at home. The rigmarole of taking a gun on a domestic flight isn’t worth it, and you can always get a gun in Queensland if you know where to look.
I cancelled the paper delivery and asked my neighbour Clive, a taxi driver who works irregular hours like me, to collect my mail and keep an eye on the house. Clive has a length of lead pipe bound with insulating tape under the driver’s seat of his cab. Just what you want in a house-minder.
Cairns was windless, overcast and hot, but the tropical smell lifted my spirits. It’s hard to say why. After my stint in Malaya I swore I’d never go north of Coffs Harbour again, but that passed and I feel a sense of freedom up north. People and things move more slowly and the air’s better. I rented a Pajero with all the trimmings and got on the road to Port Douglas. The road was good and the Pajero handled well. I was passed by several stretch limos but felt no envy. I found Radio National and half-listened to a program about the El Nino effect as I admired the greenery. I’ve always liked palm trees and I don’t mind a sugarcane field either.
Port Douglas retains some of the features of the fishing village it once was, even though millions of dollars have been poured into it. As far as I could see, the renovations, restorations and new buildings had kept the north Queensland emphasis on timber, glass and tin and there were no high-rise monstrosities in sight. My expenses didn’t run to the Mirage resort, where Christopher Skase is said to have spent a million dollars just on palm trees to line the drive. Well, it wasn’t his money.
Just for fun I’d picked up the Mirage brochure at the airport-golf course and driving range, tennis courts, acres of swimming pools and three five-star restaurants. I booked into a motel with a swimming pool and a restaurant without stars. The minibar was well stocked and the airconditioning worked, all I needed. I didn’t play golf, wouldn’t have time for tennis and twenty metres of swimming pool was enough for me.
After a swim and a shower I changed into shorts, sneakers and T-shirt and began the rounds, showing Clinton’s photo down at the waterfront, in the pubs and shops, at the real estate agencies and car rental outfits. Over the next few days, I talked to white people and black people and Asians and mixes of all three, males and females, gays and straights, the drunk and the sober. I talked to a wary, suspicious policeman and to some women in a very welcoming establishment where I could’ve blown my expenses in no time flat.
I picked up his trail at a used car yard where he’d bought an ancient 4WD for a song.
‘That’s him,’ the owner
said. ‘Bit rougher, but that’s him all right. What’s he done?’
‘Run away from home. How’d he pay?’
He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. ‘In cash, mate, in cash.’
‘Did he show you any ID? Did you see his licence?’
‘No need. Cash transaction. Vehicle was registered. All above board.’
‘What name did he use?’
‘George.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘Yup.’ He shifted his feet uncomfortably. ‘Look, mate I’ve got things to do… ‘
‘Last thing. Did he say where he was going?’
‘Said he was going bush.’
I got the registration number of the Land Rover and a description-khaki and black, roof-rack, bullbars-and went to a large barn of a place that supplied building materials and camping gear. They remembered George. A young black guy who’d helped him load his purchases remembered the vehicle in detail.
‘Fuckin’ bomb. I told him it wouldn’t get him fuckin’ far but he didn’t pay no notice. Nice bloke, though. Asked me a few questions about the language and stuff, you know. I know fuck-all about that shit. Tell you what, he had a ton of grog on board and lots of tucker-cans and packets and that.’
Peter Corris
CH22 – The Black Prince
‘Did he have maps?’
‘Think so, yeah.’
‘Of what?’
He shrugged. ‘Search me.’
Back at the motel I took Roger, the proprietor, into my confidence. I’d eaten at his restaurant, made liberal use of his minibar and praised his swimming pool; he was mine. I explained my mission to him and produced a few maps I’d bought where ‘George’ had most likely bought his.
‘All I’ve been told is that he was going bush and he had camping and cooking gear and plenty of supplies. Where d’you reckon he’d go, Rog?’
