The Empty Beach

by Peter Corris

  ‘I’ll wait,’ he said. ‘I have a packed lunch.’

  It was a bright, warm day. Spring comes to the Hawkesbury. There were patches of green and yellow on the rocky river banks where grass and wildflowers had gained a hold. The trees were aggressively native, gums that exhibited all the shades from khaki to grey. But we loved them. The other revellers numbered about half a dozen and included a state cabinet minister. Parliament was sitting that day as far as I knew, but the minister had a very pretty young Asian woman with him, so I suppose he could have been on a goodwill mission. I had on my best drill slacks and a denim shirt that I’d ironed. I also had my new walking stick and the bandage was off my ear.

  The boat was a wide, flat-bottomed craft with a fringed awning over the seating section and a convincing Johnson outboard motor. A thin, elegant boatman handed us in and whipped the boat out into the current.

  Half the people in the boat didn’t need lunch and the rest looked like professional dieters. The minister kept his hand on the Asian woman’s knee and looked into her almond eyes. I was glad I wasn’t driving. The restaurant had a reputation for drinkable wine.

  The restaurant is a plain brick and stone affair set right on the river. It has a couple of hundred square feet of unfashionable louvre windows that should look terrible but don’t.

  Mrs Singer was waiting for us at a corner table commanding the best view of the river. She was dressed to kill in a white linen suit. Her silvery hair had that expensive disarray and her makeup was somewhere between bold and restrained. Up close, there were signs of strain around her eyes and mouth, but she put together a pretty good smile.

  ‘Mr Hardy,’ she said. ‘That stick and limp are maddeningly attractive.’

  ‘They look better than they feel, Mrs Singer.’

  ‘Marion,’ she said. ‘What will you drink?’

  ‘Gin and tonic, thanks, like before.’

  ‘Being bashed hasn’t affected your memory. I’m sorry you had such a hard time.’

  She looked concerned, but not sorry.

  The drinks came. She seemed determined to stay off business for a while, and I let her. She was laying on the charm and affluence with a trowel and there had to be a reason. The menu arrived and we chatted about that. She had a medallion of venison and a lettuce leaf. I had a steak. She ordered a bottle of German wine, most of which I drank while she sipped Perrier. She pointed out a few local characters as boats puttered by on the river. I noticed that she’d upped her tar content—she was smoking Rothmans and plenty of them.

  No sweets by consensus; on to coffee and down to business. Marion hauled out her cheque book and wrote out a big one for days worked, expenses incurred and some for luck. Lots for luck.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Lovely lunch, too. Now, tell me how I earned it.’

  The strain was showing more clearly now; there were tiny lines running down into that superbly defined mouth and her eyes had unhappy depths. She took a couple of sheets of paper from her handbag and passed them to me. A waiter came with cigars. I thought for a second, Why not? and then I thought, Why?

  The sheets were typed on and numbered. The first carried a date two years and a few weeks before.

  Darling Marion,

  No easy way to say it. I’ve got cancer. It’s bad and there’s no stopping it. They told me in the States that I’ve got a few months to go at the most. So I’ve made some arrangements and there are a few things you have to do if you want to hang on to everything we’ve built up. First, I’ve got some stuff to take that will finish me. I’m going to take it in the water as far out as I can get. It won’t be too bad. Lyle Robinson has the will and it’s watertight. You can trust him with the legal stuff. You can’t trust anyone else, so do as I say.

  Ward and Mac will try to take over. Mac will try hardest. They’ll wait a while, maybe a year or so until the casino deal runs out but Mac will have a go. Stall him.

  You’re going to need a stirrer. Rhino Jackson could do it and you know him. But he’s a drunk. Ron Clingan is tough enough and pretty smart. He’d do. The best would be this private detective named Cliff Hardy. He’s ex-army, which is a plus. He’s pretty hard and he sticks. But he’s not dumb, so you have to be careful. When Mac gets difficult you should contact this Hardy and tell him some story about me still being alive. You’ll have to put on a good act. Get him working on it. Pay him what he asks, but no more. Keep him keen. Don’t tell him about Mac and Ward, he’ll find out and make trouble for them. The word on him is that he keeps going until he gets there. He’ll scare the shit out of Ward, who wants to get out of stuff here as you know. But he’s got that terrible temper. Mac isn’t that bright and he’s got a crook heart, I found out. This Hardy should be able to push them into doing something silly and get them in so much trouble they’ll be off your back.

  Your one problem is that Hardy could get himself killed between now and when you need him. If that happens, be patient and get the best man you can for the job. I thought of killing Freddy and Mac myself but I wouldn’t get both of them, and it could make a lot of trouble for you.

  So do it this way, love. It was all great with you, lots of fun and no-one really ever mattered to me except you. I want it to go on for you. I had to pull out a lot of cash to cover some things and people, but you hang on to the rest.

  Goodbye, Marion.

  The signature was a bold scrawl: ‘John’.

  I read it carefully, and read parts of it twice. Marion Singer got another Rothmans going; her eyes were wet and a muscle was jumping out of control on the left side of her face.

  ‘Well, it worked,’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’ She blew smoke awkwardly. ‘He was just the smartest man I ever knew. It worked perfectly.’

  I remembered that Sandy Modesto, one of the ones who never really mattered, had used almost the same words about Singer.

  ‘But …?’ I said.

  The hand holding the cigarette was shaking, and she looked every one of her fifty-plus years. ‘You won’t believe this. I can hardly believe it myself. But I’ve been told that John is in Bangkok. He was seen. He’s had plastic surgery. There’s a girl … Shit!’

  She smashed out the cigarette. The ashtray hopped and sprayed ash and spent matches over her white suit. I grinned.

  ‘Don’t look like that! Hardy, don’t! I must know! I’ll pay you anything you ask to go to Bangkok. I’ll pay you fifty thousand dollars.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  man in the shadows

  1

  A LONG shadow fell across the corridor outside my office. The shadow obscured the scuffed lino tiles on the floor and almost touched the card thumb-tacked to the door. The card reads ‘Cliff Hardy—Investigations’. It’s not the original card, not the one I pinned up almost fifteen years ago, but it’s very like it. I’ve always felt that a nameplate or stencilled letters might bring bad luck, so I’ve stuck with the card.

  I walked towards the door and a man stepped from the shadow. He was tall and thin and I instantly felt that there was something wrong with him. Not something to make me reach for a gun, if I’d been wearing one, but something to be sorry for. It was there in the way he moved—slowly and tentatively—and in the way he stood as I came closer. He looked as if he might suddenly flinch away, retreat and dive down the fire stairs.

  ‘Mr Cliff Hardy?’ he said. He swung the small zippered bag he was carrying awkwardly.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You … investigate things?’

  I pointed to the card. ‘That’s what it says. You want to come inside?’

  The question seemed to cause a struggle within him. He wasn’t a bad looking man—under thirty, full head of dark hair, good teeth, regular features, but there was something missing. His face was immobile and was like a painting which the artist hadn’t quite finished off. But he nodded and moved closer as I unlocked the door.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  I got him settled in the client’s chair. He put his bag
on the floor beside him. For some reason that I couldn’t account for, I pulled my chair out from behind my desk and sat more or less across from him with nothing in between. He wore a grey suit, white shirt, no tie. I smiled at him. ‘I usually start by asking my client for a name. I don’t always get the real one.’

  ‘Gareth Greenway,’ he blurted.

  ‘Okay, Mr Greenway, how can I help you?’

  He looked slowly around the room. There wasn’t much to see—filing cabinet, desk, calendar on one wall, a bookcase of paperbacks and a poster from a Frida Kahlo exhibition. ‘You haven’t got any recording devices or anything like that, have you, Mr Hardy?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘Good. Have you ever heard of psychosurgery?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Psychosurgery was performed on me nine months ago against my will.’

  I let out a slow breath as I studied him more closely. There were no physical signs; he didn’t twitch or dribble, but he had the air of an alien, of someone for whom everything around him was strange and new. ‘How did that happen, Mr Greenway?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s the problem. I can’t remember. I know I was in the hospital for some time.’

  ‘What hospital?’

  ‘Southwood Private Hospital. It’s what you’d call a loony bin.’

  That was the first flicker of aggression I’d seen; he opened his eyes wider as he spoke and seemed to be flinching back, although in reality he didn’t move a muscle. I didn’t react; I’d seen enough psychoanalytical movies to know how to behave. ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘They did this to me, made me like this, and I don’t know why. All I know is that they’re going to do it to Guy and they’ve got to be stopped.’

  ‘Who’s Guy?’

  ‘He was my friend, my only friend, in there.’

  ‘I see. Why do you think he’ll be … treated the way you were?’

  ‘This is the hard part,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why. I just have these impressions. They won’t come together properly. That’s what things are like since they cut into me. That’s the idea. You don’t make connections between all the things that’re wrong in your life so they don’t bother you as much. You see?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t quite work with me. I’m still bothered. They tell me I was violent. I don’t feel violent anymore. I was an actor. I couldn’t act now, I wouldn’t know how. That’s what it does to you. How would you like it, Mr Hardy? Would you trade in all your anxieties for the sort of peace of mind that stopped you from doing what you do now? Even if that’s what causes the anxieties? I assume you have some?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘No, I wouldn’t. What do you mean about it being the hard part?’

  He leaned forward. ‘I’ve been to see the police, doctors, the health authorities, everyone. They won’t listen. I know, from something I saw or heard that I can’t … reassemble now, that Guy is in danger and that that place is hell on earth. But no one will listen because I’ve been certified insane and psychosurgeried. I’m a vegetable, I’ve got no rights, I …’

  ‘Easy. Why did you come to me, Mr Greenway?’

  ‘Annie Parker told me to.’

  ‘Annie Parker!’ That made me sit back and set memories running. Annie was a heroin addict I’d had some dealings with a few years back. The daughter of an old friend, she’d been in big trouble which I’d extricated her from. She’d gone to England. ‘Is Annie at this hospital?’

  ‘She was. She died of an overdose a while back. We used to talk. Annie was pretty wrecked; some money she’d inherited from her mother was keeping her going.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You probably don’t. I’ve got a few thousand dollars. I can pay you.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To help me get Guy out of there. To stop him ending up like me. To save his life.’

  He put his back against the chair rest and held himself straight. He looked tired suddenly, almost exhausted by the effort he’d made. I felt confused. I was sympathetic towards him; he seemed like a serious, responsible person who’d taken a terrible knock. He had a friend he cared about. I’d cared about Annie and her mother. It should have been straightforward, but mental illness and the medical profession set up strong feelings.

  He waited for me and I floundered.

  Do you want to be on the side of the patients or the doctors? I thought. Neither. Don’t touch it. Walk away. Say you’re sorry and go out and have a drink in memory of Annie and all the other damaged people you’ve helped but not enough to make any difference.

  ‘Tell me more,’ I said.

  2

  GREENWAY gave me five hundred dollars in cash which was unusual but not something for me to tear my hair out over. Then he surprised me by standing up, grabbing his bag and jerking his head at the door. ‘You’ve got a car, haven’t you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I don’t like small rooms very much. Let me show you the place we’re talking about.’

  We went down to the lane at the back of the building where I keep my 1984 Falcon on a slab of concrete Primo Tomasetti the tattooist rents to me. Primo was standing in the lane having a smoke. He recently declared his tattoo parlour a No Smoking zone on a trial basis. He looked at the car which had replaced a 1965 model, same colour, fewer miles, less rust.

  ‘Looks great, Cliff,’ he said. ‘Just like you’d be with a facelift.’

  ‘Are you thinking of going into that business?’ I asked him. ‘It’s only a sort of sideways move.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘The first’d be the toughest. You volunteering?’

  Greenway was standing by, not paying any attention. I unlocked the passenger door and opened it for him. He got in slowly and gracefully. Primo stared. ‘Who is he?’ he whispered. ‘A doctor?’

  I winked at him. ‘The Pope’s grandson. Keep it under your hat.’

  It was the last week in March. Daylight saving was a recent memory and the sun was still high in the late afternoon and a problem as I was driving into it. I asked Greenway to get my sunglasses out of the glove box.

  ‘You should have better ones than these,’ he said. ‘These are shit.’

  ‘I lose ’em; leave ’em places. Makes no sense to buy good ones. Aren’t you hot? Take your jacket off.’

  I was in shirt sleeves, light cotton trousers and Chinese kung fu shoes; behind the windscreen it was like a greenhouse as we drove into the sun. I was sweating freely.

  ‘I don’t feel the heat or the cold. Not since the treatment.’ I glanced at him; sweat was running down the side of his face and wilting his shirt collar.

  ‘Tell me about this place. I thought they were under strict supervision. Aren’t there … visitors, or something? Official inspections?’

  He snorted. ‘The visitors are senile hacks. They should be in there, not … the patients … us. You’ll see. The place? It’s like a concentration camp. Fences, out of bounds areas. Cells …’

  ‘Cells? Come on.’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘How? If it’s a registered private hospital we can’t just walk in and make a private inspection.’

  ‘I know a way in. Don’t worry.’

  I was worried, very worried. For the rest of the drive I watched Greenway closely. He appeared to take no interest in the surroundings, spoke briefly to give me directions, and otherwise seemed to be asleep with his eyes open. We were forced to a crawl by the road works at Tom Ugly’s bridge where they’re putting in another span. I followed the signs to Sutherland.

  ‘You know Burraneer Bay?’ Greenway said abruptly.

  ‘Heard of it.’

  ‘That’s where we’re going. Left here.’

  I followed the road through Gymea into the heart of the peninsula. The houses tended to be big on large blocks with expensively maintained lawns and carefully placed trees; a few were smaller and struggling to keep up appearances. Greenway directed me past the bowling club towards
the water where the houses seemed to be craning up for a good view. We stopped in a short cul-de-sac occupied by a few Spanish-style houses; one had added a mock Tudor effect for insurance. The street ended in thick bush.

  ‘Turn the car around,’ he said.

  Five hundred dollars made him the boss for three days. I turned the car so it was facing back up the street. Greenway got out carrying his bag. For the first time I wondered what was in it.

  ‘Have you got a gun?’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. The hospital’s down here.’ He pointed to the trees. ‘We can take a look from the high ground and I know where we can get through the fence.’

  ‘Why?’

  He looked at his watch. ‘It’s exercise time. I want to see that Guy’s all right. That’s all. We can talk about what to do next afterwards.’

  He was suddenly much more decisive and alert. I was still worried; I wanted time to think about it but he plunged into the bush ahead of me and I followed him, feeling confused but protective. The trees shut out the light and made it seem later in the day than it was. I squinted ahead as Greenway forged on, pushing branches aside and crunching dried leaves underfoot. Then we were through and light flooded over a large open space ringed around by a high cyclone fence. There were buildings inside the area, concrete paths, garden beds. I saw a swimming pool and a tennis court half buried in shadow.

  The blue water of Port Hacking hemmed in all the land. The sun still lit up the western edge but the advancing shadows were turning the water darker by the second.

  Greenway tugged at my arm. ‘Down here.’

  We scrambled along the perimeter until he located a section of fence where the metal post was standing slightly askew. He hooked his bag over one shoulder, gripped the post and heaved. It came out of the ground; the fence sagged close to the ground for five metres on either side. Greenway trampled over it. ‘Come on!’ he shouted.

  He raced down the slope towards the centre of the compound. I could see light shapes moving slowly around behind a hedge. What could I do? Stand there and watch? I ran after him, more with the idea of hauling him back than going with him, but he was covering the ground like Darren Clarke.