by Peter Corris
Harvey was so disgusted he ran for council himself and won. In the end, Amplex had to modify their plan to leave a decent space between the units and the water and contribute to the rehabilitation of an adjacent wetland. He said he was off the council now but still fighting the good fight for the environment. I said I was still in the same game. We told each other how well we looked and he went off to join a party of five at another table. Good bloke.
The wine arrived just before the whitebait, as it should, and the barramundi came along exactly at the right time too. Rudi’s prided itself on efficient service of this kind, not easy to achieve in a busy restaurant. I was halfway through the fish when Barry Templeton dropped into the other chair. He’d brought another bottle of the same wine with him and a glass which he filled after topping up mine.
‘Nice to see you, Cliff. Bit sad to see you dining alone but then, I know you’re here on business.’
I raised my glass. ‘That’s right, Barry. I see business is booming. This arm of it anyway.’
‘All arms, my friend, all arms. Now, it’d be nice to chat and I’m glad to see you’re enjoying the fish, but I’ve got things to attend to, so what’s on your mind?’
Templeton was a smoother customer than Stafford. Equally well turned out but he wore his clothes with a more relaxed air, didn’t need to fiddle with his tie and cuffs. I told him I’d had a run-in with Stafford and about my connection with Paul Hampshire. The mention of the name brought a smile to Templeton’s face.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said, taking a sip of the wine. ‘Mr Under-the-radar himself
I dug into the remains of the fish. ‘Meaning?’
‘Tell me there’s some grief in this for Stafford.’
I packed my fork with the last chunk of fish. ‘There might be but I can’t promise. I can’t see the connection yet between what I’m looking into and the beef between Stafford and Hampshire. It’s possible. I can tell you there’s some grief for Sharkey Finn if I catch him without a gun in the right place at the right time.’
‘I’ve no time for Sharkey, but Wilson belongs deep down out beyond the Heads, so possible’s good enough for me. This is what I know.’
He told me that Paul Hampshire was a conman-a floater of get-rich-quick schemes that went wrong but not before Hampshire had skimmed the cream off the top. ‘The thing was,’ Templeton said, ‘although he cooked the scams up here and picked his targets, the location was always somewhere else-New Zealand, Fiji, the Cook Islands, places like that. He specialised in money laundering for people who had incomes they couldn’t account for. A serious problem. He’d launder it until it was pretty well washed away, but always in another jurisdiction. And the targets didn’t really have any comeback if they didn’t want the tax office up their arses.’
‘Sounds bloody dangerous to me,’ I said.
‘Not really. I’m not talking about heavy criminals here or about big sums of money. Nice little earners for Hampshire though, and he’d always make himself scarce afterwards. Went to America, I believe. I think he’s got dual citizenship.’
‘What about Stafford?’
Templeton laughed. ‘That’s where he made his big score. The way I heard it, Stafford came to him through some intermediary looking like the sort of guy Hampshire was used to. This time it was big money Stafford needed to squirrel away. I don’t know the details. Some kind of currency fiddle. The result was that Stafford lost the dough and Hampshire took off. Somehow it must have dawned on him that Stafford was a different kind of… client, so he stayed away. You say Hampshire’s back, eh?’
‘Did I say that?’
We’d both been working quietly on the wine and the bottle I’d ordered was gone. Templeton inspected the other bottle, which was still at a satisfactory level. He poured himself a little more and stood.
‘I didn’t expect you to tell me anything, Cliff, and it’s no skin off my arse. Happy to help make Stafford unhappy, and I know you have a knack of doing that to people.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
Templeton smiled. ‘I’d like to say the meal’s on me, but why the fuck should I? Say hello to Frank and try to improve that backhand. See you, Cliff.’
I cleaned up the last of the baby potatoes in sour cream and the asparagus, cool but still good. I ordered a long black and, since I’d come by taxi and was intending to go back the same way, I had another solid belt of the wine. Thinking back, I should have had suspicions about Hampshire early on. The bow tie, the display hanky, the toupee. The man was an actor and he’d played to his audience. But I needed the work and the problem he’d presented me with was intriguing. It still was, but it was running in all sorts of confusing directions.
The morning radio news had a report on the death in Spain of ‘Aussie’ Bob Trimboli, a Griffith drug kingpin who was wanted on various charges, including murder. He’d skipped to Spain and pulled the wool over some official eyes. That’s when he wasn’t greasing their palms. I’d run into him once when I was doing a bit of bodyguarding for a politician who’d had dealings with Trimboli that he’d come to regret. The politician had to confront Trimboli just once more and needed support to do it. The meeting was tense. I disliked them both about equally and I had to hurt one of Trimboli’s offsiders to see my man safe. There was no one happier than me when ‘Aussie’ Bob took off for the Costa Brava.
The bulletin carried a brief follow-up report on the death of a woman at Church Point. So brief as to be almost meaningless-no names, no details-and so bloodless it had all the hallmarks of a tight police clampdown. No invitation to the public to help. The newspaper coverage was much the same.
The Catholic hospice was in Woolloomooloo. It was a small place with only twenty-four patients, if that’s what they were called. The nun who took charge of me was one of the modern type, in ordinary clothes and with only a small cross on a gold chain to show her allegiance.
‘We try to make the surroundings as non-clinical as we can, Mr Hardy,’ she said. ‘Indoor plants, cheerful stuff on the walls and no obsession about tidiness.’
‘And you’re not overloaded with religious symbolism.’
She gave me a smile. ‘Unlike what you no doubt expected. There’s a chapel of course, and a cross mounted in each room, but no bleeding Jesus or saintly Madonnas.’
‘It must be hard with most of them so young.’
‘All,’ she said. ‘Yes, it is.’
We passed a couple of rooms with the doors standing open. I could see people in some of the beds, apparently sleeping. Two young men were playing cards and smoking in a sitting area. They nodded to the nun as we went past but showed not a flicker of interest in me.
‘Many visitors?’ I asked.
‘Not enough. There’s terrible ignorance about the illness. Fear of it, and a lot of shame as well. Some people are afraid to visit in case some sort of stigma attaches to them. Pierre’s along here. I think you’re his first visitor since the corrective services people brought him in, poor boy’
‘He was at an expensive school not so long ago. Someone must have paid. What about his family?’
‘You don’t know? His father was a fairly important person in the French embassy. When Pierre was expelled from the school he refused to support him. When he learned of his conviction he did nothing. When he found out about his son’s illness he applied for another posting and left the country. Pierre would have been deported on the expiry of his sentence, but that’s not going to happen.’
‘His mother? Surely…?’
The nun shook her head. ‘A member of the order met her. “Hard as iron”, was her judgement.’
The room bore out what she’d said. It was painted in light colours, the prints on the walls looked optimistic and the cross set up above the door was unobtrusive. The room held three beds-one was empty, someone was sleeping in another and in the third, closest to the window, a bearded man was sitting, propped up by pillows.
‘Your visitor, Pierre,’ the nun said.
‘ En
franfais,’ he said. ‘You must practise, sister.’
‘He’s teaching me,’ she said, ‘but I’m a bad pupil. I’ll leave you to it. Ring if you get tired, Pierre.’
I approached the bed and held out my hand. He took it and the bones in his hand almost crackled, although I’d put no strength in the grip. His face was skeletal, whittled down to a shell and only given any substance by the beard. He looked at the scrap of notepaper in his other hand.
‘Cliff Hardy, private detective.’ His accent wasn’t heavy but it managed to give the words a flavour.
‘That’s right, Mr Fontaine.’
‘Pierre, please. Take a chair. I am pleased to meet you but you should not be flattered. I would be pleased to meet anyone. The gaolers did not tell me why you wanted to see me. They think the dying have no more interest in life. They are quite wrong. We have more interest than ever before. You would be surprised. We read the newspapers from cover to cover and through again. We watch the television news on all the channels.’
I pulled up a chair, being careful not to let it scrape and disturb the sleeper.
‘Don’t be concerned,’ Fontaine said. ‘He’s dying fast.’
He pointed to the other bed; his arm inside the pyjama jacket was stick-thin. ‘Sebastian went last night. The prettiest boy he had been. He spent the last hours looking at pictures of himself taken one year ago.’
For someone who looked so frail his voice was strong and for someone nearing death he spoke with an edge of humour I couldn’t help admiring. I told him about being hired to find Justin Hampshire and that I’d learned of their association at the school.
‘Find Justin? Pourquoi? Why?’
‘He went missing. He hasn’t been seen for two years.’
‘Ah.’
‘You spent some time with him just before you ran into trouble, right?’
He nodded and the action hurt him. The look that passed over his face was like a cloud across the moon. He coughed and that hurt as well. I poured water from the jug on the bedside cabinet and handed it to him. He sipped and nodded his thanks.
‘Not afraid a cough’ll pass the virus?’
I shook my head.
‘Some think this. Merde. Yes, Justin and I were friends for a little time. Not lovers, you understand. He wasn’t gay.’
‘Was he taking drugs?’
‘Mr Hardy, I would laugh except that it would hurt me too much. No.’
‘Look, Pierre, I’ve been told that Justin was a loner. Apart from the people he skied and surfed and snow-boarded with, he didn’t have any real friends. I don’t see you as the sporting type.’
He smiled; he was already tiring, and this time the smile seemed to stretch the skin on his face to splitting point and force his dark eyes deeper into his skull.
‘You want to know why he… what is the expression? Took me up?’
‘Yes.’
‘He was clever, you know that of course. He was paying me to teach him French. I did. He learned some quite quickly’
‘Why?’
There was a long pause and I could almost see his brain working, going back to a time when there were possibilities, a future. Then the sad shadow returned.
‘He said he wanted to join the Foreign Legion.’
I thanked him, asked if there was anything he wanted that I could help with, but he was exhausted and didn’t reply. We shook hands again.
Before leaving I put most of whatever I had in my wallet in the donation box.
11
S
o Justin wasn’t gay, wasn’t into drugs and had tried to learn French in order to join the Foreign Legion. That sounded like a fantasy, and the police had established with a reasonable degree of certainty that he hadn’t left the country. He’d found out that neither his great-grandfather, grandfather or father were war heroes. Was that enough to turn him away from school, Duntroon and his family? Had he found out that his father was a crook?
All these interlocking questions occupied my mind along with plenty of other related ones-like, who killed Angela Pettigrew and why? And what were Paul Hampshire’s chances out and about in Sydney with Wilson Stafford after him, ably and viciously assisted by Sharkey Finn? And where did I stand if my client, obviously ‘a person of interest’ to the police, became of more interest?
I’d walked to the hospice after driving to Darlinghurst where I had an arrangement with the owner of a house in Forbes Street. His terrace house had a side recess that I could just fit the Falcon into and he let me park there for a modest fee. After the confrontation with Stafford and his henchman, I’d taken to keeping my licensed. 38 Smith amp; Wesson to hand. I took it from the car and went up to the office. These old buildings have many pitfalls-poor lighting, dodgy stairs, places to hide. I observed all the precautions, feeling, when I reached the office safely, a mixture of relief and guilt at being paranoid.
For all the civility and humanity of the nun and the courage of Pierre Fontaine, the hospice experience had shaken me and I poured a solid slug of cask wine before I sat down to look at the mail and the faxes. There was nothing that couldn't wait or simply be ignored. I dug Watson's card out of my wallet and rang him. I identified myself and the indifference in his voice was packed into one word.
'Yes?'
'I wondered whether you were making any progress on the Pettigrew case?'
‘What makes you think I’d talk to you about that?’
‘Did you get to talk to Hampshire? I’d be interested to hear what he had to say.’
‘I’m hanging up, Hardy.’
‘Before you do, does the name Wilson Stafford mean anything to you?’
He didn’t hang up and I enjoyed the moment and the change in his tone.
‘Why should it?’
‘Well, I had a meeting with him yesterday. Not a pleasant one, but one way or another things came up that might interest you.’
‘Okay, Hardy, you’re living up to your reputation as a pain in the arse. What do you want?’
‘Just a quiet talk. I tell you some things and you do the same. Remember, I’m still looking for the missing son of a murdered woman and a man you’d no doubt describe as a person of interest.’
‘I don’t want you interfering.’
‘I don’t want to. I’m looking for mutual cooperation. Where’re you based, Sergeant?’
‘Chatswood.’
‘That’s not so far. Why don’t we have a get-together over a drink later today?’
‘You’re pushing it.’
‘I listened to the news and read the paper. You’ve put a tight wrap on the thing, but as I look at it you haven’t got a fucking clue who killed the woman or why.’
He let go an exasperated sigh. ‘Six thirty, Tosca’s wine bar. See if you’re a good enough detective to find it.’
He hung up. Temper, temper, I thought. I wrote up some notes on the meeting with Fontaine and did some more of my diagrams with the boxes and the connecting arrows and the dotted lines that meant maybe this related to that.
Chatswood was changing fast, with high rises springing up; the holes in the ground and cranes in the air indicated that more were on the way. I located the wine bar on the ground level of an apartment block. Not far to go for a drink, a coffee, a paper, the dry-cleaning, a bunch of flowers or a loaf of bread. Everything to hand. Thursday night. I was deliberately a bit late and the evening shoppers were having a quick one before heading home or out to eat.
Tosca’s was the usual sort of place, trying to make up its mind whether it was Australian, European or American and getting everything wrong. The bottles in the wicker baskets clashed with the chrome tables that didn’t harmonise with the sports prints on the walls. But there were free nuts and olives on the bar, which was a welcome sign anywhere. Watson, still in his black jacket but without the tie, sat at a corner table with an inch of red wine in his glass and a cigarette in his hand. He gave me the briefest of nods. I scoffed some nuts, bought two glasses of red and joined him.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘We’re off to a good start.’
‘I wouldn’t say that necessarily.’ He stubbed out the cigarette, finished the wine in his glass and moved the other one closer. He looked tired, long hours and no result showing on his face. He glanced around, an automatic action, checking for anything he didn’t like, or anyone he didn’t want to see. He had all that sitting right in front of him and his attention switched back to me.
‘So. What’s this about Wilson Stafford?’
I drank some of the wine. Not bad, not great. A bit overpriced but I could always go back for some nuts and olives. ‘Sorry, Sarge. It’s a two-way street. How are you going with the investigation? Did you talk to Hampshire?’
‘He’s your client. Hasn’t he been in touch?’
I had another pull on the drink. Didn’t answer.
‘Okay, you want something. We’re not making progress-no witnesses, no sightings. Forensics are a zero. Hampshire showed us a copy of the record of telephone calls he made from where he was staying over the relevant time. He had two pizza deliveries and sent out for booze and an escort. He couldn’t have made it to Church Point. Somehow I don’t think he was in the country long enough to have had the time to organise a hit.’
‘Any sign of Ronny?’
‘Your turn, Hardy.’
‘Right. Was there any sign that Angela Pettigrew had a lover?’
‘No, not from interviews with neighbours and friends. Come on, what’ve you got?’
I told him that when the confrontation with Sarah and Ronny had happened, Sarah had called her mother a hypocritical bitch and Ronny had asked if I was the new bloke-implication obvious. I had a little more up my sleeve-Hampshire’s hint that Sarah wasn’t his daughter- but in these situations you don’t show your hand until you have to. I kept that in reserve.
