by Peter Corris
Open File
( Cliff Hardy - 33 )
Peter Corris
Peter Corris
Open File
PART ONE
Prologue
My Private Enquiry Agent licence was cancelled, my appeal having been rejected with a clear indication that the ban was for life. I’d reached a crossroad. That sounded better than a dead end. With money inherited from my murdered part-time partner Lily Truscott I was ready to take off overseas for a while. See her brother fight in an elimination bout for a shot at the WBA welterweight title, travel around the States and Europe, drink with friends. Bringing down the people who’d killed Lily had helped with the grief and guilt, but I still had some things to come to terms with.
I’d found a handyman friend to sit my Glebe house while I was away and continue making some much-needed repairs.
Hank Bachelor, who’d helped me out more than once, was due to take over the Newtown office now that he’d got back his enthusiasm for the PEA business. A few hours before I was due to fly out business class, I went to the office to clean it up a bit. At least leave Hank some space in the filing cabinets.
A lot of the stuff could be hurled, some I’d take back home and stack away in a cupboard. I was sorting through it when I came across a thick folder that I hadn’t touched in over twenty years. It was in a box of case files I’d moved from Darlinghurst to Newtown when St Peters Lane was targeted for renovation and rent rise.
The file with the words ‘Hampshire Open and the date ‘1988’ scrawled across it was an inch – call it three centimetres – thick, unusual for me. My case files mostly didn’t run much beyond a copy of the contract, my expense sheets, bank deposits and pages of scribbled notes, mostly illegible, from interviews. Photographs sometimes, photocopies, and microfilm and microfiche printouts in the old days. No internet downloads back then. Sometimes I included a few pages of the notes, diagrams and squiggles that I used to try to make sense of what was happening as things went along.
Reluctantly, I took the folder out of the box, slapped it on the desk and looked at it. It was dusty and musty and the blue folder was yellowed and crisp. Why was I punishing myself? I had money in the bank, was about to take a long overdue break. I’d been good at what I did until being good wasn’t enough, and in this time of spin and protect your arse at all costs, I’d slipped up.
Back then I hadn’t slipped up but I hadn’t succeeded either. I opened the folder…
1
1987. I was sitting in my St Peters Lane office, reading about the $100 000 compensation being paid to the members of the Ananda Marga sect for wrongful imprisonment over the Hilton hotel bombing. They’d served seven years and a quick calculation told me that amounted to a bit over fourteen thousand a year. Not princely. They’d been fed and housed, but I doubted they were grateful. The pardon didn’t surprise me: the little I’d had to do with security service types suggested that most of them would have had trouble passing a true or false test where the odds were even.
I put the paper aside when I heard the knock on the door and took my feet off the desk. I was expecting him, but he was late. I didn’t like Paul Hampshire from the jump, and I never warmed to him. He came in trying to hide the fact that the two flights of stairs had put him out of breath. He wore a blue suit with a handkerchief in the jacket pocket and a bow tie. I’ve never trusted men who sport bow ties and handkerchiefs. I suppose they think it looks natty.
Anyway, nattiness was out of place in my office, which would be described as drab although I preferred to think of it as functional. There were places to sit, places to put things. What else do you need? I could make coffee and I had a cask of red in a drawer and paper cups. A sixth-hand bar fridge kept the water, the white wine and the beer cold. The dirty windows made it a bit dim on a dull day, but that’s kind of appropriate. The sunshine could struggle through at other times.
Hampshire had introduced himself over the phone an hour or so before and now he did it again in a loud voice, as if he needed to remind us both of who he was. I shook his hand-a bit soft, no sportsman, no gym-goer. He was tallish, but carrying too much weight, which accounted for the trouble with the stairs. There was something off about his sandy hair.
‘I was told you’d seen military service,’ he said. ‘I prefer to deal with veterans, being one myself
He said this while still standing. He had the bearing and the moustache. I invited him to sit and he did, with only the barest glance of distaste at the chair. He didn’t protect the creases in his trousers-that won him points, but he shot his cuffs, which lost them.
‘What’s the problem, Mr Hampshire?’
‘Missing son. Mind if I smoke?’ He had the cigarette out and the lighter up almost before I could make the appropriate response. I pushed an ashtray across the desk between us. He sucked on the cigarette and blew the smoke out in a cloud; he tapped on the edge of the ashtray but some of the ash didn’t land in it-one of your dirty smokers. I made allowances for stress. I pulled a notepad towards me.
‘Your son’s name is?’
‘Justin. He was seventeen and in his last year at school.’
Only just, I thought, seeing that it was March. And why the past tense? ‘What’s the name of the school?’
‘Bryce Grammar, in Dee Why.’
I was a Maroubra High boy. My ex-wife, Cyn, who’d been to SCEGGS, kept in touch with her old school friends-Janey this had married Simon that of Shore, and Susie something had married Charles something else of Kings, and I’d overheard the gossip, but no mention of Bryce Grammar.
Hampshire was working through his cigarette as if time spent not puffing was time wasted. It was going to be a smoky interview. I wrote down the name of the school and encouraged him to give me the details. He lit more cigarettes, dropped more ash and visibly aged as he smoked and talked. He’d come in looking, say, fifty, and appeared more like sixty by the time he’d finished. But I had difficulty finding sympathy for him. I was sure that, convincing as some of it was, not everything he was telling me was the truth.
His son Justin was seventeen when he disappeared two years ago. Why was I being invited on board this late? Because Hampshire had been overseas, estranged from his wife and not really in touch with his son.
‘I had a very big business deal in progress that needed my complete attention twenty-four seven, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Plus I had… personal complications in the States. It was difficult. Angela is a hysteric. I never knew how much to believe and… time just slipped away.’
‘But now you’re back and concerned.’
‘I was always concerned.’
‘But busy.’
‘I’m told you can be very provoking. I’m determined not to be provoked. I need your help, Mr Hardy.’
He butted his third cigarette and didn’t light another to show how committed he was. He said his wife had reported their son’s disappearance to the police and that all the usual procedures had been gone through.
‘I’m not saying the police didn’t take it seriously,’ Hampshire said, ‘but it wasn’t the same as a ten-year-old schoolgirl. Justin was a big chap, about your size and build.’
That made him around 186 centimetres and 85 kilos- strapping for a teenager. I asked Hampshire for a photograph and he took one from his wallet. I wanted the photo but it’s always nice to get a look at a wallet. Justin Hampshire was dark-haired, regular-featured, and wore a confident, head-up expression. He looked pretty much the way his father would have done before years, work and a fair bit of play had left their mark. Athletic? Probably. Intelligent? Hard to say, in both cases.
The kid was standing beside a car with P plates, looking proud. The car wasn’t new but it wasn’t a bomb-something Japanese a
nd sporty, like a Honda Accord.
‘I bought him the car just before I had to go over to the States. I taught him to drive in the times he stayed with me.’
That memory seemed to put a dent in his stoical recital. He fished for his cigarettes but stopped himself.
‘You can smoke if it helps,’ I said. ‘This is going to be difficult and there’s a lot more you’re going to have to tell me-about the boy, about the marriage, your wife…’
‘Ex-wife.’
‘Right. Other family members here and people in America. Friends.’
‘This has nothing to do with me in America.’
‘How do you know he didn’t go over to take a look, didn’t like what he saw and took off for Alaska?’
‘He was all set to go to Duntroon, family tradition. What you’re saying’s absurd.’
‘Nothing’s absurd in a missing person case, Mr Hampshire. Nothing’s too good, nothing’s too bad. I’m guessing he had a passport, from when you stumped up for a trip to… Bali? He can ski, right? He could be in Aspen, giving lessons.’
Hampshire stared at me. ‘How could you know that?’
‘I told you I was guessing.’
‘It was Thailand, not Bali, but you’re right, I paid for Justin and Angela and Sarah to go.’
‘Sarah?’
‘My daughter, I think. She’s fifteen now.’
I added a note.
Hampshire ran a finger around the inside of his collar. Take off the silly fucking tie, I thought, but he didn’t. His colour rose and he didn’t look well. I got up and turned on a fan that moved the warm air around a little. I took a paper cup from the desk drawer, opened the bar fridge and poured him some cold water. He drank it down, undid the buttons on his jacket and leaned back in the chair.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’m not in the best of shape-overweight, blood pressure. The pace of business over there is horrific.’
‘I’ve seen the movies.’
‘Yeah. And you’re right again. Justin’s an expert skier, in fact he’s hell… I was going to say on two wheels, but that’s not it. He surfs, snowboards-the things he could do on a skateboard would freeze your blood.’
‘It freezes my blood to see them go over a gutter. It’s coming through to me that you had a lot of feeling for your son.’
‘I do. My God, I hadn’t meant to go into all this. I thought I could just… but somehow you’ve…’
He really opened up then and it became clear that he was a man under a considerable amount of stress. His business deal in the US had gone sour along with a relationship he’d entered into there. The divorce had punitive alimony provisions and he more or less admitted that he’d done a flit. I’d seen it before-marry or partner up on the rebound, get bounced and go back to where you started, or try to.
‘I got in touch with Angela when I arrived back. I thought… but she didn’t want to know. Didn’t want me to see Sarah. I should’ve known how much Justin’s disappearance had affected her but I didn’t. I’m not the most sensitive man in the world. That’s why I’m here now. If I can show that I’m doing something about Justin, however late, and if you can find him…’
‘I won’t kid you,’ I said. ‘Two years is a long gap. So much can happen.’
His mouth turned down. ‘Don’t I just know it.’
He was a strange mixture of cockiness and distress…self-esteem and self-reproach. But if I’d waited for a straightforward client I’d be sitting in my office bending and straightening paperclips for a long time. I got as much as I could from him-his ex-wife’s address and phone number, the location of Bryce Grammar, the name of the police officer who’d stayed in touch with Angela Hampshire through the active search time. I didn’t push for details about his experiences in America. Maybe later if it became necessary.
He signed a contract and gave me his contact details. He was living in a serviced apartment in Rose Bay. He wrote me a cheque. Doing that seemed to restore his confidence.
‘How will you proceed, Mr Hardy?’
First off I’ll deposit the cheque, I thought, but I said, ‘I’ll have to talk to the former Mrs Hampshire.’
‘Please do. At least she’ll know I’m doing something.’
‘Are you still in touch with her?’
‘Brief phone calls.’
‘What about Sarah?’
He shook his head.
‘How are you occupying yourself now?’
‘I have investments to manage, and legal matters to negotiate.’
‘This could be expensive.’
He sighed. ‘What isn’t?’
‘How did you hear about me?’
‘I read a newspaper report about a matter you were involved in. It was hardly flattering, but it mentioned your military service and your reputation for persistence.’
‘It didn’t say anything about how brainy and honest I am.’
Hampshire almost smiled. ‘I checked on that with a police acquaintance. He said that you liked to… take the piss.’
‘This is a difficult and serious matter, Mr Hampshire. I’ll give it serious attention.’
We shook hands and he left. I sat at the desk and made a closer examination of the photograph of young Hampshire. He was big, with a heaviness to his neck and shoulders that suggested he’d be bulky in later life. He didn’t look anything like his father but that didn’t mean much. My father was fair and on the small side. Justin looked healthy and untroubled, but a lot can be going on under the surface in an adolescent-family trouble, girl trouble, boy trouble. Maybe he didn’t want to go to Duntroon. Maybe he wanted to try out for NIDA or the Sydney Dance Company. Good set of shoulders on him, probably just right for skiing. I hoped I didn’t track him to some snowfield. I hate the cold.
The newspaper report Hampshire had mentioned was about a fraud involving counterfeiting and blackmail. I’d spent nearly six months on it-hunting people down, unravelling the connections. It had ended with me putting a man in hospital and almost being charged with assault. But the good outcome had overridden that. The bonus was useful, the publicity wasn’t. The headline on the page three item had been something like ‘Private Eye goes too far’, but it had caught Hampshire’s attention. The report was almost a year old, published when Hampshire, according to what he’d told me, was still in America. It wouldn’t have got a run in the New York Times, the LA Times or the San Francisco Chronicle. He must have been reading the Sydney Morning Herald. Despite his troubles, still calling Australia home.
2
I got to the bank in time to deposit the cheque. Funds were low so it’d be a help when it cleared. If it cleared. Clients imagine you can just drop everything and hop straight into the job they’ve given you, but it wasn’t like that. I had another matter on hand I had to see through and if young Hampshire had been missing for two years, another day before I got on his trail wasn’t going to make much difference.
There are quite a few cases on record of men faking death for one reason or another-to allow someone to claim insurance, to escape from financial troubles, like the British MP Stonehouse who turned up here after disappearing from an American beach, or out of a simple wish to start all over again. They’re still not sure about Lord Lucan and some of the smart money says he’s in Kenya without his moustache. I hope they catch him; a more useless human being I never heard of. But it’s very unusual for a woman to play this game, and that was the case I’d been working on for some time.
Melanie Hastings was a businesswoman importing Taiwanese-made clothing, screens and decorative fans. She was in comfortable, but not affluent, circumstances. She apparently vanished while on a skiing trip. A storm had blown up and her party had got into difficulties. The party consisted of Ms Hastings, a friend named Brenda Costello and their guide and instructor, Helmut Manne. The guide and Ms Costello made it to a hut but no trace was found of Melanie Hastings. Her life bad been insured for four hundred thousand dollars, and the beneficiary was her friend Ms Costello.
‘That was the clever part,’ Tom Cooper said.
Cooper was an American who’d come to Australia after visiting on R amp; R during the Vietnam War. He’d married an Australian and set up a go-getting, fast-tracking, low-overhead insurance business, among other things. He’d taken Melanie Hastings’s business because the insurance product he was offering included very high premiums. Cooper didn’t employ a full-time investigator, and he’d contacted me on the recommendation of a satisfied client. He was brash and ambitious and not given to any sentimentality.
‘What’s that Aussie expression? Means spotting a sucker.’
‘She saw you coming,’ I said.
‘That’s it.’ He sat back in the chair in his austere office and laughed. You couldn’t help liking him. The pay-out would hurt him badly, but he was sort of enjoying the dramatics. That’s rare when big money is involved.
I’d worked for an insurance company in the past, mainly as an investigator of arson claims. This was beyond my experience. ‘You mentioned cleverness,’ I said.
‘Right. It didn’t take long for the cops to find out that Brenda and Helmut were an item. Motive for disposing of Melanie obvious, but there was no evidence. Not a single person thought there was any hostility between the two dames. Both Brenda and Helmut passed lie detector tests- for what they’re worth: Did you kill Melanie? No. Needle doesn’t jump.
‘It’s a fucking snowfield. What’re the cops going to do? They wait until the snow melts, although it’s a cool summer and it doesn’t melt all that much and they keep making the artificial stuff. They dig around. Nothing. I’m looking at a big loss, a doozy. Won’t break me but won’t help.’
‘Don’t seven years have to elapse before someone can be declared dead?’
Cooper thumped the desk. ‘In theory! But a good lawyer can work around it and guess what Brenda’s profession is?’
