by Peter Corris
I approached the car on the driver’s side. It was empty. Probably taking a stroll around while he waited for me, I thought. I went inside, leaving the gate and the front door open, and put the coffee on. I opened a bottle of white and sampled it. Good enough to drink. I took the glass out to the front and leaned on the gate looking up and down the street. I finished the drink and went back inside for a refresher. Still no sign of De Witt after about twenty minutes.
I put the glass down and went out to take a closer look at the car. Back and front seats empty. The windows to the utility area at the back were too dirty to see through so I opened the back doors. Long, lanky Aaron De Witt was compressed and folded in a foetal position along with some tools and a couple of children’s toys. I recognised him from his clothing and from the nicotine-stained hand that lay lifelessly clear of the body. His features had been mostly obliterated by a shotgun blast.
So again it was a long session with police and more contact with Farrow and eventually the arrival of a TV crew and me losing my temper with the reporter and only just holding back from assaulting him in the presence of police. The SOC officers did their thing; the ambulance took the body away and a tow truck carted off De Witt’s vehicle.
I was left standing by my gate with Aronson from the Glebe station, who’d done the liaising with Farrow. He wasn’t sympathetic.
‘I said you were a nuisance, Hardy, and I meant it. You got that guy killed.’
I’d only just missed being killed myself, and so, probably, had my client, but it didn’t seem like the time to point that out. I didn’t say anything.
Aronson looked at my house with its cracked cement path, lifting porch tiles, warped wrought iron fence and sagging guttering. He shook his head. ‘How many people are sorry they ever met you?’
‘Too many,’ I said.
I went back inside the house with a strange sense of loss for someone I scarcely knew. I felt responsible as well, even though I knew De Witt was a volunteer. The coffee I’d prepared for him reproached me. I poured a mug and added a slug of whisky. No matter what they say, you can use alcohol to take the edge off mental as well as physical pain. I sat in the sun in the back courtyard and let its warmth and the warmth of the whisky run through me. I was close to feeling better when I thought of Elizabeth. I rushed inside and called her, first at home, then at the university, getting answering machines at both numbers. I left the same message—go somewhere else and be very careful. Ring me when you can.
I went upstairs and turned the computer on, thinking she might have emailed me in response to my report. There was no message from her but there was one from De Witt.
Hi Cliff
Guess you’ve read the papers. Big scoop and you’ll see I kept you out of it. I’m coming up to Sydney today on another story but I’ll hunt you up. Things to tell you, like about how MacPherson set up the right sort of insurance policy for Frederick Farmer and Buckingham got nervous when he heard you were looking for him and took steps. Stuff like that. See you soon.
ADeW
I stared at the message and a sick feeling came over me that no amount of sunshine or whisky would cure.
Elizabeth phoned later in the day. She’d read my report and got my message. She said she’d moved into a room in the Women’s College and wanted to know why. I told her about De Witt.
‘That’s terrible. Poor man.’
‘Yes. I don’t know that you’re in danger but best to make sure. I’ll find out how things stand with Buckingham and the police and let you know.’
She said she didn’t mind living in the college for a while; it’d be good for her work and Tania was away in Melbourne.
‘Did Tania do that research we spoke about?’
‘I think she did a bit. She emailed me. I’ll forward it to you.’
It occurred to me that Matilda might need a warning as well and I phoned the office and got Phoebe.
‘Ms Farmer has gone to the United States on business.’
‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘Think I might do the same.’
‘Sir?’
‘Never mind. When she gets back tell her Cliff Hardy sent his best wishes.’
29
My relations with Farrow, damaged after I gave so much of the story to De Witt, mended over time because of his need to get my input on certain things, like where Buckingham’s equipment was stored and the location of the abandoned mines he’d been interested in. Farrow was able to put pressure on Lonsdale by saying that I’d give evidence against him on charges of abduction and attempted murder. Lonsdale gave up Buckingham as the issuer of the order to kill MacPherson and named the policeman who’d killed Purcell. Larry Buckingham was neatly parcelled and stamped ‘to be kept out of circulation for a very long time’. The murder of Aaron De Witt was never sheeted home to anyone but the police and journalists had their suspicions and press treatment of Buckingham was not kind.
Elizabeth Farmer was able to get her life back to normal and to pay me generously for the work I’d done. There was no prosecution for the murder of her father but she had what she called ‘closure’. Ever the academic, Elizabeth. Tania had established some corporate connections between Matilda and Buckingham but there was no point in pressing those buttons.
At first I thought that Sue Holland was going to be a sort of casualty of the affair because, as Buckingham’s business interests were targeted, there were no funds to complete the sale. But it didn’t turn out like that. The contract enabled her to keep the deposit, a handy amount, and she rang me to tell me about it.
‘I didn’t really want to leave,’ she said. ‘And now I’ve got some cash to splash about on improving the place.’
‘Good for you,’ I said. ‘Did you know your mine shaft goes right under the scarp?’
‘Who cares?’
Wendy Jones had disappeared, but not too long later I got an envelope in the mail. It had a Queensland postmark and no return address. There was a crude drawing of a motorcycle on the back of the packet. And a computer disk inside. With some difficulty I got it to open on my computer. The disc contained about thirty images of Buckingham and another man engaged in sexual activity with underage females. The other man was big and blond. Scandinavian. Mostly, the victim was Wendy herself, but there were half a dozen images of a girl tricked out in school uniform. The kid with the blonde plaits and the garish makeup was Kristina Karatsky. I’d never laid eyes on him, but the suspicion leapt into my mind that the other performer was Stefan Parnevik.
A note, smudged and greasy, was attached: ‘It’s all on his hard disk’. Wendy was well and truly pulling the plug on Larry.
I closed the file and sat looking at the screen, pretty much as I had after reading Aaron De Witt’s email that had come to me like a message from the other side. Should I turn the disk over to the cops and put one more nail in Buckingham’s coffin? Was it necessary? Would a police investigation turn up Kristina’s identity? What consequences could that have? But most of all I wondered about Marisha Karatsky and Kristina and Stefan Parnevik and Buckingham. And everything that Karen Bach had told me about the Karatsky women. All the old suspicions were back in full strength.
Over the next couple of days I phoned Marisha and listened to her answering machine message until I could recite it in my sleep. After about a week she answered.
‘Yes, who is this?’
‘It’s Cliff Hardy, Marisha.’
‘Ah, the leaver of no message. A no-show.’
‘That’s right. Well, I’m showing now. I’ve been wondering how you were.’
‘Now that your case is over and all the loose ends . . . tied off?’
‘Yes. Sort of.’
‘You don’t sound very sure. Well, I’m fine. I’ve been to New Zealand, you see. It’s a beautiful country with a very good government.’
‘So they tell me.’
‘You’ve never been there?’
‘No.’
‘That’s strange. In Europe, you visit the neighbouring
countries if you can. Why don’t Australians visit New Zealand very much?’
You’re playing with me, I thought. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You should.’
‘Okay.’
‘Well, I met with Kristina and she’s fine. She’s finished with Stefan who has gone somewhere else, and she is studying and working as a ski instructor in Auckland.’
‘Is there snow now in Auckland?’
‘Of course not. This is an indoor training facility. In the season she’ll work at the ski resorts.’
‘That sounds good.’
‘Yes. So how are you?’
The distance between us was ten times greater than between Sydney and Auckland. I told her I was okay and doing routine stuff.
‘I’m moving there. To New Zealand. Perhaps you could visit.’
‘Perhaps.’
The conversation ended there and left me more doubtful than ever. It just sounded too pat. You don’t get rid of a character like Parnevik so easily—that’s if you want to get rid of him. I sent Marisha an invoice but it came back marked ‘not known at this address’. She wasn’t having her mail forwarded to New Zealand, if that’s where she’d gone. I wiped the disk, deciding that I’d never really understood Marisha Karatsky.
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Peter Corris’s world weary but always charismatic hero Cliff Hardy has long been established as Australia’s favourite investigator. Often bloodied but never bowed in this latest gripping novel, Hardy’s legions of fans will relish another pacy adventure, branching further afield than his traditional mean streets territory to the steamy island paradise of French New Caledonia.
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