by Peter Corris
‘What’s Darcy afraid of? Why the guy with the keys and the escort home for you and everything.’
‘He’s not afraid. You should be.’
‘What did he say to you after I left?’
‘That’s three.’ The phone clicked in my ear.
It was very late and I was tired. The car was reluctant to start, putting me in a bad temper which wasn’t improved on New South Head Road by the early hours traffic—speeding Alfas and weaving Jags and not a cop in sight. I should have felt better about the night’s work. Darcy was involved in something heavy and there was a connection through him to the Greenwich Apartments via Tania Bourke. Despite my promise, Jackie George could be a useful source of further information. And I had a name. All I had to do now was find what blue-shirted organisation Joe Agnew belonged to and I was on the trail. But the sluggish car and the tiredness and the fear in Jackie’s voice made me sour. It made me think of how many different kinds of people wore blue shirts and how hard it might be to trace the photographer if he’d changed his name from something else, like Spiro did. And that was really depressing—the last I’d heard of Spiro Agnew was that he was rich and happy, like his former boss, advising, consulting and not admitting that he’d ever done anything wrong.
10
HOME around 3 a.m. The cat was sitting out in front of the house with an accusing look on its face. It stalked into the house ahead of me and went up the stairs. The house was quiet and the only light showing was in the kitchen; an anglepoise lamp burned on the bench and a letter from Helen sat in the circle of light:
Dear Cliff,
Woke up when you left and couldn’t get back to sleep. Great movie—Bermagui, I mean. Gone for a drive and a think. I might drop in on Ruth at Balmoral and have an early breakfast with her at Mischa’s. I will, in fact. At 7.30, say. Might see you? If not, later in the day.
love,
Helen
Ruth, a cousin of Helen’s, had a flat overlooking Balmoral Beach. She was a clothes designer and the only woman I’d ever met who liked to drink white wine at breakfast. This was an old habit of mine which I gave up when I found that having a clear head until 6 p.m. wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to you. Breakfast at Mischa’s was one of the good Sydney things to do—I’d only tried it once but I could taste the scrambled eggs and the coffee that came from a bottomless pot. But my chances of making it were zero and I had the feeling that I wasn’t really welcome anyway. I followed the cat upstairs and didn’t even have the strength to kick it off the bed.
I dreamed that Helen took flat one in the Greenwich Apartments. I was on stake-out, camped in a tent in the courtyard around the clock, but couldn’t go inside. Very frustrating. Then she was living in Ruth’s flat at Balmoral. I had to climb hundreds of steps up from the beach and the steps were made of sand and kept crumbling under my feet. Also frustrating, and sweaty besides.
I woke up around eleven when the cat licked my face. I rolled out, fed the cat, cleaned myself up and looked at the morning paper while I drank coffee very inferior to the stuff Helen would have had at Mischa’s. ‘Talking up’ seemed to be the key phrase; everybody was talking up something—the economy, Australian sport, the dollar. Trouble was, nobody seemed to be doing anything, just talking.
The cat wanted to go out; it wouldn’t come back until it wanted more food and somewhere warm to sleep. Great ecological niches, cats have carved out. I got my notebook and looked through my information and expenses so far. That’s one of the rules that has to be observed from time to time—check whether results and expenses are in line. This time, it was hard to say. There were threads hanging off the case. The usual procedure is to pull the threads but this time I had a few too many to pull and I didn’t know which way they’d run. Perhaps I’m getting conservative or maybe it’s just these clear-headed mornings—I decided to try the institutions first.
The real estate agent had been alerted by Wise that I would call, but he wouldn’t say anything over the phone. I drove to Newtown and virtually wasted my time. He wouldn’t say a lot over his desk either, mainly because he didn’t have much to say. Mr Bushell was a bald man with glasses and a stammer. It was hard to imagine him high-pressuring anybody; maybe people bought houses from him because they felt sorry for him. He looked up from the thin file his secretary had brought in.
‘Leased in 1981,’ he said. ‘Ran its course and then she rented month to month.’
‘She?’
‘Ms Tania Bourke,’ he read.
‘One name only? No mention of a tenant, no sublet?’
He shook his head. ‘We don’t allow sub-letting. A boarder would be her business.’
‘And the rent was paid how?’
‘The way it is still being paid, directly from a bank. We’re holding the receipts as we were instructed to do in … ah … 1982.’
‘Must be quite a pile of ‘em’.
He smiled and felt the skin on top of his head. ‘Yes.’
‘Does the money come from Ms Bourke’s account?’
‘I don’t know. The draft we get just has an account number on it.’
‘Which is?’ I had the notebook out.
‘S 4571.’
‘And the bank?’
‘Federation Bank.’
‘Didn’t you find this rather unusual, Mr Bushell? Two years and no contact between you and the tenant?’
He smiled again but this time he accompanied the smile with an adjustment of the glasses and left his skull alone. ‘I’d call it ideal. No complaints, no requests for renovation, no late payment.’
‘You’re all heart.’
‘It would have been awkward if Mr Wise had increased the rent, but he never did.’
I stood and put the notebook away. I was suddenly glad I was a home owner, after a fashion, and not a renter. He went with me politely to the door. ‘Mr Bushell,’ I said, ‘have you seen a woman named Helen Broadway in the last day or so? Looking for a flat or a small house?’
‘No. To buy?’
‘Could be.’
‘I have a lovely place in Erskineville.’
I’d heard of lovely places in Erskineville—you have to walk along the railway tracks to reach them and use scuba gear to get into the kitchen. ‘Thanks Mr Bushell. I’ll let you know.’
Newtown still has a few pubs that remind me of the old days, when people weren’t looking forward to the production of the cholesterol self-monitoring kit and checking the ph level before buying shampoo. As I walked along King Street, looking for one of these pubs, I remembered a Christmas lunch when an uncle of mine, the one who’d made all the money running the two-up at Tobruk, leant back in his chair and said to another uncle, the one who’d told me about getting orders to put Mills bombs in the pockets of German prisoners and refusing to do it: ‘Great smoke, Neil, and a good beer.’ They were both still alive, thanks to pacemakers and bypasses, while my teetotal father who’d worked in a munitions factory for most of the war, was long dead. ‘Them’s the skids’, as the younger fry say.
I found the pub, ordered a light beer and a sandwich and phoned the head office of the bank. Mr Carstairs would see me at 3 p.m. I ate and drank; I knew what Uncle Neil would think of the light beer—he’d cut railway sleepers for a living during the Depression and managed municipal swimming pools after the war. He probably wouldn’t think much of Mr Carstairs either.
I put the Falcon in a car park in Kent Street and walked the couple of blocks to Martin Place. I had a newspaper clipping pinned up on a board at home that showed the route of the proposed monorail to run people between the Darling Harbour development and the city. I tried to imagine it, thin and noiseless on its slender pillars above Pitt Street, and I couldn’t. I also couldn’t decide whether I was for or against it. Not that it mattered; if the people who liked phrases such as ‘high speed people mover’ got their way we’d get the monorail and the citizens would just have to live with it. Like always.
I’d kept Leo Wise’s cheque, drawn on the Federation Ba
nk although not the head office, for just this purpose. Mr Carstairs of Customer Services looked at it and then at me with a fraction more interest. He was a thin, dark man who looked a lot like photographs of the young T. S. Eliot in a biography Helen was presently reading.
‘Making inquiries for Mr Wise. Yes, I see.’
I read the number of the account from my notes and looked inquiringly at Mr Carstairs, who looked inquiringly back. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘What exactly are you asking?’
‘Whose account is this?’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that.’ He took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and massaged the place on his nose where they sat. I wondered if T. S. Eliot did the same in between stanzas of The Wasteland.
‘Why is that? We’re talking about a few hundred dollars a month,’ I said.
‘Yes. Over several years, I understand. That is a considerable sum of money.’
Bankers are selective about what constitutes a considerable sum of money—they never use it when it’s yours—say, when they make an accounting error. I held up Wise’s cheque. ‘It goes to Mr Wise eventually, surely as his agent …’
He shook his head. ‘The bank cannot reveal such details.’
‘What would it take to get them?’
‘A Federal policeman might gain access with the right court order. Might.’
Suddenly, I got angry. Maybe it was the dreams, maybe the phony Swedish decor, maybe my dislike of T. S. Eliot. ‘Look,’ I said sharply. ‘Did you know Mr Wise’s daughter was gunned down in Kings Cross a couple of days ago?’
He looked shocked. ‘No.’
‘Yes. He’d be a big customer of yours, wouldn’t he—Wise? I’ve seen his office. It’s a bloody sight more impressive than this.’
‘There’s no need to be offensive.’
‘Yes, there is. A twenty-year-old girl is dead and her father wants to know why. He’s upset, understand? He wants to cut corners. He’s not in a mood to be pissed around.’
Mr Carstairs arranged paper clips in front of him on his spotless white blotter. ‘I see.’
‘You’re good at seeing. How are you at doing?’ I read out the number again. ‘Whose account is that?’
‘I’d have to ask …’
‘Don’t ask anyone. Do something off your own bat for once.’ I had him wavering and it was time to sweeten the pill. ‘Look, Mr Carstairs, Leo Wise probably has lunch with some of your directors at City Tatts. If you help me I’ll see that those directors learn from a satisfied customer that you’re a man of judgement.’
His eyes slid sideways to his desk computer. ‘What was that number again?’
I told him and he pressed keys. He watched the screen, rapt. I speculated on whether I should press my luck by coming around the desk to take a look. Decided against. ‘Well?’ I said.
‘Joseph Agnew.’
I let out a long, slow breath. ‘Ah hah.’
‘Is that what you wanted to hear?’
‘Maybe. Branch?’
He hit some keys. ‘Newport Beach.’
I wrote it down so as to look keen. ‘And do we have an address for Mr Agnew?’
He looked alarmed and took his hands away from the keyboard as if the fingers might go into business for themselves. ‘I can’t.’
‘City Tatts,’ I said. I mimed lifting a glass. ‘Bright chap that Carstairs at Martin Place …’
Clickety, click. ‘2 Bougainville Street, Shetland Island.’
‘Thank you, Mr Carstairs.’
11
I should have asked Carstairs whether Agnew’s account was still active and several other things besides, but I thought I’d played the hand out. Movies were on my mind as I walked back to Kent Street. Bermagui and others: in Desk Set Tracy asks Hepburn what’s the first thing she notices about a person and she answers ‘Whether it’s a man or a woman’. Obvious, but easily overlooked. I had that feeling about the case I was on now. That there was something entirely obvious about it that I hadn’t seen. One of the troubles with this sort of feeling is that it leaves you uncomfortable but with no clues. I tried checking Angew, J., Shetland Island, in the telephone book, but there was no entry. One of the other troubles is that the feeling can be wrong—there may be nothing obvious and everything is just as confusing and complex as it appears.
Luckily, I don’t have this feeling too often. For a private detective it amounts almost to incapacity. I phoned the house and told the recording machine that I’d be back later. I phoned Helen’s cousin at Balmoral, got her recorded voice and told it nothing. This was done at a phone in the car park. I stood with the receiver in my hand wondering who I could try, to make it a recording machine hat-trick. I couldn’t think of anyone and hung up. The abortive phoning had pushed my parking fee up into the next bracket. Poor Leo.
I nudged the expense sheet up further with a full tank of petrol and set off for the peninsula. The trusty .38 was back in the kitchen drawer but I had the less trusty Colt .45 under the dashboard. I drove wondering why the thought of the gun had come to me. I don’t believe in premonitions. Why couldn’t I think of movies instead? What did Woody Allen say was the only cultural advantage to be had in Los Angeles? I was heading for the part of Sydney where the film people live—actors, writers, directors. They sit in the sun, sip wine, look out to sea and think of dark, threatening things to make movies about.
The Spit Bridge was up and I sat in a stream of waiting traffic, breathing the lead-laden air and considering my next moves. Agnew and his photographs were a key to something. For no good reason the thought came into my mind that there might be two dead women in the case. Maybe Agnew had killed Tania Bourke. Why? And why leave a flat paid for and vacant for years? Maybe Tania Bourke had killed Agnew. Maybe Lionel Darcy had killed them both, and Carmel Wise. I decided this was mental babble. I found Bougainville Street in the Gregory’s and worked out that the best way to get to Shetland Island was to hire an outboard in Bayview. Practical steps, no theory. The bridge opened and I concentrated on my driving.
I hadn’t been to the Bayview marina for a few years. They’d had a fire since then and things had changed a little; there was new timber and fresh paint around; aluminium had replaced some of the rusted iron railings. The place had moved with the times: the shop was new and the emphasis on windsurfing equipment was very new. At the office my Bankcard and driver’s licence got me a runabout with a big Johnson outboard. A young, sleek woman handled the boat hire and turned me over to a heavily built, middle-aged man who looked as if he belonged to the previous, less smart days at the marina.
‘Going over to Shetland?’ he said as he helped me with the boat.
‘Right.’
‘Know people over there?’
We had the boat at the bottom of a short ladder and I dropped into it, feeling it rock, and adjusting. ‘Fellow named Agnew,’ I said. ‘Joe Agnew. Know him?’
He shook his head and unlooped the rope. ‘Nope. Have a good trip.’
‘Hold on. Look, this is just on spec. I don’t really know this bloke but I want to have a word with him. He’s a bit younger than me, smaller. Dark, I think. I’m told he wears a blue uniform sometimes.’
He scratched his stubbled chin. ‘Well, you know, I’ve been here for donkey’s years. They come and go. Lot go by ferry. I don’t think I know anyone like that.’
‘He’s a photographer. Probably carries a camera, maybe a couple of cameras, lenses and that.’
More chin scratching and then he gave a tug on the rope that almost upset me. ‘Yes, sure. Now you mention it. There was a feller like that. Took photographs. He worked for the Customs someone told me.’
‘Customs! Yeah, that fits. Have you ever talked to him?’
‘Me? Nah, just seen him around, you know. But not lately. Not for a few years at least. I don’t think you’ll find him there now, mate.’
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘I’ll have a look anyway.’ He threw me the rope. ‘Thanks for the help.’ He nodded—he thought I
meant help with the boat. I started the motor and took the boat out into the channel. Shetland Island is about two miles from Bayview. The island is roughly circular, very roughly, and about a mile across. I’d only been there once and that was for a picnic as a kid, about 30 years back. I remembered a park in the middle of the island, a lot of bush and nothing much more.
It was late in the afternoon and cool on the water. I’d put on a zipped jacket to give me a deep enough pocket to put the Colt in, but I was glad of it now for the warmth. Navigation was simple: the island was there, dead ahead over the slightly choppy water. All I had to do was head for it. Landing might be a bit tricky: were there beaches, a public wharf, private jetties? I didn’t know.
In other circumstances it would have been a pleasant run. Some yachts looked graceful off to the east and I was passed by a cabin cruiser also heading for Shetland Island. The helmsman gave me a wave which I returned as I bounced across his wake. The breeze whipped at my hair and the spray stung my eyes but I wasn’t in the mood for the beauties of aquatic nature. If Agnew was a Customs officer that made sense of the entries in the notebook. K was KLM, Q was Qantas, P was Pan American and so on. The numbers referred to flights and the other letters to pieces of luggage. I didn’t think that Joseph Agnew was on the lookout for native birds or Aboriginal artefacts.
The island, green in the distance, was multicoloured closer up. I could see houses on the hills, roads paved and unpaved and different kinds of foliage. The side I approached first was rocky with a light surf beating against the cliffs. I kept well back and circled to the east. There was an indentation in the coast which offered some protection which jetty builders had taken advantage of. Several wooden structures edged out from the beach; there were some boats at anchor between them and others tied up to the piles. Gulls circled overhead and swooped down to duck their beaks under the deep green water. More natural beauty I had no use for. I turned the boat towards the largest of the jetties, cut the motor too far out and had to drift in with oar at the ready to prevent bumping. Off to the right, a couple of houses occupied a short promontory; they were half-surrounded by water and I could see rough timber walls and low, long verandahs. Great spot to get away from it all, if you had a hundred thousand bucks not working.
