The Empty Beach

by Peter Corris

  I went back to the kitchen and asked Rose whether the landing light had been on yesterday in the afternoon and evening.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Some of me roomers are quite old, you know. They need the light.’

  Then I asked her why she hadn’t asked me for any identification and why she was talking so freely to me.

  ‘Nothing would surprise me now,’ she said.

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘They found quite a bit of money in Leon’s room, in the mattress. The police, I mean. They wouldn’t say how much, but someone said they filled a paper bag with it. I thought you were something to do with the money.’

  I let her go on thinking it. I was thinking myself. A derelict with a bag full of money isn’t unique; Griffo had had a few thousand in the bank when he died, and he’d been panhandling for years. Also, Leon wouldn’t have been the first man to be murdered for the money in the mattress, but in those cases the murderer usually bothered to take the money with him or her. I was sweating in the warm, still air when I got back to the car and that made a drink seem like a good idea.

  I found a pub within walking distance from where I’d parked and went in to do some more thinking over a middy. It had begun to look as if Mrs Singer had been on to something and that someone wasn’t happy about information about John Singer being passed around. My enquiry seemed to be the likely link between the deaths of Henneberry and Leon if the latter wasn’t an accident. I didn’t think it was. Information, whatever it was, had, in this scenario, caused the deaths of two men. I didn’t have the information myself but I was still looking for it and I had to face the fact that someone might object strenuously. Not for the first time I reflected that a hundred and twenty a day wasn’t a good rate for getting dead, but there was no point in upping the fees. A thousand a day is still a poor deal.

  True to my new code, I had just the one beer. Back at the car I looked across at the flats, which had lost their Hollywood Morocco air as the sun had moved on. The street was peaceful; a couple of cars drifted by and a woman strolled along the pavement with a small child weaving around beside her. It was hard to believe that two murders had been committed within a stone’s throw. Then I told myself I hadn’t clinched that the way it needed to be clinched.

  Back in College Street, I had the feeling that I was crisscrossing my tracks and not finding my way out of the woods. The cop at the desk was a survivor of the days when I used to visit Evans there, and he let me go up to Frank Parker’s office without an escort. I admired Frank’s cool even more when I saw how his working conditions shaped up when everyone was in. All four detectives were at their desks; there was a fug in the air and one of the cops was hitting a typewriter like an enraged child. Another was slamming filing cabinet doors as if it was his favourite indoor sport. Parker wasn’t fazed; he had his head down and was annotating a typed sheet with a gold ballpoint pen. His shirt cuffs were folded neatly back, and under the nasty, flickering fluorescent light the scar on his arm stood out like an airstrip in the jungle. There were three phones within Parker’s reach; one rang and he unerringly grabbed the right one. He looked up, saw me and nodded. He tucked the phone under his chin and pulled a sheet of paper towards him.

  I leaned against a filing cabinet and congratulated myself that I didn’t have to sit behind a desk covered with paper. Parker’s paper problem was enormous and although he looked as if he had the stuff well organised, it was threatening to organise him. He put the phone down quietly, finished his note-making and folded his hands on top of the paper. He didn’t wear any ring.

  ‘Hardy,’ he said. ‘What a pleasure.’

  ‘Busy, Frank?’

  He smiled cautiously.

  ‘Does anyone ever come to take any of this stuff away?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Making any progress on the Henneberry case?’

  He riffled through some paper and pulled out a sheet with some of his neat ballpoint notes on it. ‘I sent a policewoman to see the Winter girl. Haven’t got her full report yet, but she says she didn’t get anything interesting out of her. She doesn’t seem to know a hell of a lot for someone who’s going to be a doctor or whatever.’

  ‘They’re like that. It’s pretty unhealthy in Bronte right now, isn’t it?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Did you hear about Leon?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I heard about it.’ He flip-flopped his hand across the desk. ‘Down the stairs with a bump. So what?’

  ‘Did you hear about the money in his mattress?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve seen those stairs. They’re pretty gentle. Carpeted, too.’ He grunted and lit a cigarette.

  ‘I’d like to see the medical guff on Leon,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It sounds to me like he was thrown down the stairs, not pushed—thrown. Wouldn’t you say it took a pretty strong man to do Henneberry in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s a connection between Henneberry and Leon.’

  He blew out the smoke to where it could join up with the other smoke. ‘What do I want with two murders?’

  ‘Good murders,’ I said. ‘Original style. I can tell you that Henneberry saw Leon yesterday and they talked. I don’t know what about, but there’s a connection. If the case gets big you might need some help.’ I prodded at the mountain of paper. ‘Help, Frank. Administrative assistance.’

  He looked at me shrewdly but I could feel his eagerness. Frank was ambitious, Frank liked action. He caressed the words. ‘Administrative assistance,’ he said.

  ‘Right. I’m told Henneberry’s people are big noises in the States.’ That was stretching it a bit, but I was on a winning streak. ‘There’ll be pressure. This is a big case for you, Frank.’

  ‘Let’s go and look at the file,’ he said.

  Like everything else, police records are getting the computer treatment. Frank told me he’d done a computer course after joining the force so the visual display terminal system was child’s play to him. We went into a small room that contained six desks set up in front of small screens with typewriter-style keyboards mounted under them. Frank sat down and started punching buttons.

  ‘The preliminary stuff should be here,’ he said. ‘The autopsy will be, because the technical boys know how to use the system.’ There was a suggestion of contempt for people who didn’t know how to use it. I nodded sagely and tried to look informed.

  The greenish-grey screen suddenly filled with white print, which Frank scrutinised closely. He hit the buttons some more and the print rolled on.

  ‘Multiple fractures,’ he said. ‘Skull in a couple of places, ribs.’

  ‘Not there from a fall,’ I said. ‘No way.’

  ‘Probably pissed,’ he said, and hit another button. He read some more and looked up. ‘Not pissed, not by his standards.’

  ‘There you are. There’s a light at the top of the stairs, too.’

  ‘Looks funny.’ He rubbed his chin and then jerked his hand away as if he was disciplining himself not to rub his chin. I wondered what he did for fun.

  ‘It stinks,’ I said. ‘Someone’s got to talk to all Leon’s mates. He might have seen someone after he talked to Henneberry and passed something on. There’s got to be a reason behind it.’

  ‘You’re a great talker, Hardy, but the obvious connection is with what you’re working on, and you’ve told me bugger all about that.’

  ‘All I know is that they talked, I don’t know what about. I’m in the dark, too.’ That wasn’t quite true; I had a few indications and the ashram to look into, but what I said next was the whole truth. ‘Look, Frank, I’ll tell you the lot in a day or so, as I promised. Shit, I’ll want you in the minute anything breaks, if it does. I don’t want to go up against the Bronte strangler all on my own—I’ll want dogs, horses, gas, the lot.’

  ‘All right.’ He unfolded his long legs from under the desk and stood up, rea
dy for action. ‘I’ll put in a request for someone to work on that mess and I’ll get out on the street.’

  For a minute I thought he was going to thank me, but that would’ve been asking a bit too much. Cops like being on the street, of course, the good ones because they feel they’re doing something useful out there and the bad ones because of their lubricity—for the free women with the drinks and food thrown in. But Frank Parker didn’t look about to slide from good to bad.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ I said.

  ‘No more bodies, Hardy. Please, no more bodies.’

  10

  THE ashram in Salisbury Street was a converted car showroom or something similar. It was long and low and had a big window onto the street. This had been blanked out by yellow paint; the whole place was painted yellow, not the bright, buttercup version but a deeper colour shading down towards orange. There was no sign on the building to indicate its purpose, but on either side of the wide doors were posters. They were blowups of a photograph of a weird scene and I stared at it for a full minute without comprehension. It looked like a moonscape with a Hitler youth rally going on, except that the faithful wore loincloths. The poster had the word ‘GIVE’ in capitals above and below the picture.

  The joint was painted yellow inside too; at least, as far as I got, which was only into a small, partitioned-off reception room. There was a picture on the wall of a scrawny little number with no chin and rimless glasses. He looked to me a lot like Heinrich Himmler, but I could have been free-associating with the picture outside. An old woman wearing yellow robes reproached me for flippancy when I asked the name of the guru. I asked for Brother Gentle and she told me he wasn’t in. I asked for his second-in-command, and she said that there was no command structure in the ashram. I gathered that she was minding the fort while all the able-bodied devotees were out filling the money bins. I left a card and said I’d call back. Her wrinkled old face arranged itself in a smile and she said something in one of the many languages I don’t understand.

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

  ‘May the sun fill your heart.’

  ‘And yours,’ I said.

  I found some old shorts and a towel in the car, changed and went for a swim. It was cold but the surf was low and I ploughed along, telling myself that giving up cigarettes was the smartest thing I’d ever done. In sheer physical moments like that I almost believed it. After the swim I jogged gently along the beach in the sun; the sand was hard-packed and substantial and I stretched out trying to get some bounce into my forty-year-old style. Off to the west the buildings and the foreign-looking trees had a temporary, painted-on appearance, as if a big wind could get up in the centre of Australia and push the whole lot into the sea.

  I went to sleep on the sand and woke up with a start. I’d been dreaming about a wave. It started as a little fellow just spanking the water’s edge, then it went back, rolled in again and got bigger each time. The last time it was really big, rolling over the sand towards the pavilion.

  I went for another swim and then sat watching the movement of the tide. The beach emptied around me; where bodies had been, there were now just impressions in the sand casting low shadows. Soon the water would come up and smooth them out. The beach got a clean slate every day, unlike people.

  Manny was polishing glasses when I got to the coffee bar. He held one up. ‘Drink?’

  ‘All right. Thanks.’

  He poured two hefty tumblers of yellowish fluid. I took a swig. It was raw and fruity.

  ‘Make it myself,’ he said. ‘Very bad about Bruce.’

  ‘Very bad.’

  ‘Very dangerous place, Sydney.’

  I grunted, wondering what other dangerous places he knew.

  ‘The police were here,’ he said.

  I looked up at the shelf where the cassettes were stacked. He shook his head. ‘Didn’t tell them about that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He finished off his wine, if that’s what it was, in a gulp. ‘Where I come from we have a saying—don’t trust your mother or your sister or your brother, they might be sleeping with a policeman.’

  I nodded and took a conservative sip. ‘How did you get involved with this? I mean, Ann and Bruce?’

  ‘Bruce came in for coffee and we got talking. I said there weren’t too many young men around like him, made strong. They’re all, what is it—weedy? Or fat. But Bruce, he was strong.’

  ‘Yeah, he was.’

  ‘We arm-wrestled a couple of times.’ He looked me over dubiously. ‘You wanna try it?’

  ‘No thanks.’ His biceps and neck muscles stretched the ribbing on his T-shirt. ‘Who won the wrestling?’

  ‘Bout a draw. I used to want to be a writer. Long time ago. Bruce talked about his writing and Ann, she’s a writer too isn’t she?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘So you helped them?’

  He shrugged and poured himself another slug. ‘Have another?’

  ‘No, thanks, I’ll go steady. I’m expecting Ann in soon.’

  His moustache seemed to droop even more and his eyes and mouth pursed up tightly. ‘You going to work with Ann?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Should,’ he said. ‘Drug scene here is real bad.’

  ‘Not my line,’ I said and, saying it, remembered what my line was. I pulled out my photographs of Singer and handed them to him. ‘Ever see this bloke?’

  He looked at the pictures carefully, first at one and then the other. He seemed to be analysing the images, judging them, but by what criteria I had no idea.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Hardy, never seen him. What’d he do?’

  Before I could answer, Ann Winter came dodging between the tables. She was wearing the same clothes as she had the day before but her hair was shining with Point Piper shampoo.

  ‘ ’Lo Cliff, ’lo Manny.’ She sat down near us and began to roll a smoke. Manny slid away towards his coffee machine and I moved across to sit opposite her. She looked up from the makings to smile at me as if she liked crows’ feet and broken noses. Maybe she did.

  ‘How were the cops?’ I asked.

  ‘Cop,’ she said. ‘Interesting.’ She ran her tongue along the edge of the paper and completed the cigarette. Manny put a coffee down in front of her and lit the cigarette in a series of nice fluid movements. There was something threatening about his combination of good manners, bulk and deft movement. Ann bobbed her head at him and went on talking through her smoke.

  ‘She’s young and she studied sociology. We had a good talk. It was a bit like a seminar, really.’

  I finished the wine in a swallow. ‘Sociology?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. Majored in it, same department as me. She was very understanding.’

  I was used to cops who majored in football with sub-majors in Holdens and snooker. It looked as if Frank Parker had some classy help in the field.

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘Nothing much. What do I know? I didn’t mention you.’

  ‘Take your tapes?’

  ‘No, I explained that they were my research material and she said that was okay.’

  Understanding is right, I thought. It seemed a rational way to deal with an intelligent person like Ann Winter. Frank Parker was acting pretty shrewdly with me; perhaps we were entering a time when the cops suited their approach to the subject. I wondered what the appropriate approach would be for the person who had disembowelled Bruce Henneberry. I looked down and realised that I’d automatically taken Ann’s tobacco and had started to roll a cigarette. I finished it and tucked it away in the pouch.

  ‘How long did you smoke for?’

  ‘Twenty-five years.’ That was true, and it meant that I’d started about the time she was born. She nodded and puffed.

  ‘And it still bothers you?’

  ‘Not much. Just when I need to think.’

  She laughed. ‘It must bother you all the time, then.’

  ‘Not really. I do a lot of sitting in cars looking around, walking
down streets with people carrying money—babysitting, really.’

  ‘This isn’t babysitting.’ She drained the coffee and pulled hard on her cigarette. ‘What about Leon?’ The way she said the name was an accusation. ‘You know he’s dead?’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘Maybe I should give that cassette to the police.’ She stubbed the butt out, hard. ‘Only I can’t because you’ve got it.’

  ‘Take it easy,’ I said. ‘I’ll give it to them myself in a day or so if I don’t come up with something. I promised Parker.’

  ‘Constable Reynolds had a word or two to say about him.’

  I invited her to tell all, but she wouldn’t. I asked her what she’d heard about Leon.

  ‘Just that he died. Oh, yes. I’m invited to his wake tonight.’

  ‘His what?’

  ‘Wake. He left some money and a note that said he wanted to have a wake. The woman who manages the house found the note and word got around. I got asked through a girl who fixes up the old men.’

  ‘Fixes them how?’

  ‘Fucks them, of course, or gets them as close as she can. D’you want the details? She …’

  ‘No, I don’t want the details, but I do want to go to the wake.’

  ‘Why?’

  I shrugged. ‘Something might happen, someone might say something interesting. Will you take me? Where is it?’

  She looked at me and didn’t reply. I reminded myself that she was trained to observe, judge and report on people, to classify and quantify them. I tried to look responsible and intelligent, disinterested and analytical.

  ‘Why are you looking like that?’ she asked.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Your face has gone stiff. You look like a moron.’

  ‘I was trying to look serious. I want to go to the wake.’