by Peter Corris
How deaf are you? I asked.
Very, but not totally. I get a fair bit in on some frequencies and next to nothing on others. In a quiet setting like this I can hear your voice more or less. You speak very clearly. Of course, I dont really need to hear it.
Hows that?
Im a very good lip-reader. You open your mouth when you speak and you havent got any facial hair so I can pick up what youre saying pretty exactly. Then theres the body language.
I was interested. Body language?
Yep. People express themselves in the way they move as much as in what they say. A lot of whats said is superfluous anywayrepetitive, retracted, ambiguous. I can tell if someones speaking positively, negatively or speculatively from the way they move their bodies and their facial expressions. Then, with the bit of hearing and the lip-reading I dont miss much.
Must be fun in a bus.
It can be. Ive picked up things thatd make your hair curl
OK. But this is all a bit previous. Im still scratching around with this thing and
Lets scratch together. Ive learned a thing or two that could be useful
I glanced across at the faxes and he raised an eyebrow. It was then I noticed a mark on the side of his face, like a birthmark but somehow different. It was slightly shiny and I suspected that he had applied some kind of make-up to it. His face was lean and firm, his dark eyes were deep-set and steady. No spectacles, faint frown lines suggesting contacts had replaced them.
Newspaper cuttings on the Beckett matter, I said. From a friend.
Savage nodded. Harry Tickener. Parker speaks well of him. Id like to see them.
It amused me to think about what my client would say if he could see me now, chatting away and perhaps about to share confidences with this grey-hair. One thing I knew, I put more trust in Max Savage than in Barry White. But I was at a disadvantage; Frank Parker had evidently told Savage something about me, whereas I knew nothing about him. I leaned back in the chair. Tell me a bit about yourself, Mr Savage. How did you lose your hearing?
Savage smiled, showing strong, even teeth that helped to give his face structure. I was a cop, what else? I was on the South Australian force for more than twenty years. Made acting Inspector. Didnt like it much, all bloody paperwork. I went out with the detectives one night to pull in one of these ram-raid bastards. To make a long story short, I wound up at close quarters with him and a sawn-off shottie up against a wall. Gun went off and killed him. He raised a hand to his face. I got burns and a bit of blast, but the worst thing was it buggered up my hearing.
Bad luck, I said. So you got invalided out?
He smiled again. Not right away. The hearing loss was sort of gradual but I could tell it was going. I got a doctor to pass me for a year or two and I took the promotion. I learned to lip-read and I got these miniature hearing aids, but they spotted me in the end and saw me off.
So how did you get this job?
Partly contacts. I worked with New South boys on quite a few occasions, but mostly because no-one else wanted it. What did Frank tell you?
Next to nothing.
Its all bullshit on the face of it. The titles just window-dressing. The empire-builders dont actually want me to do anything, but they can point to me if they get asked whats being done about these open cases. A few people, like Frank, think I can really be useful. I think so, too. I intend to be useful and I expect Ill have to be a nuisance to do it.
I liked that. Nuisance value is a good expression in my book, and I had a feeling that Mr Savage was going to display plenty of it. The opposition would be formidable, though. Youre going to be unpopular, I said. Have you got a family or…
It was apparent that he was picking up every word I said, and I was deliberately speaking quietly. He shook his head and leaned forward intently. His fists, resting on his knees, clenched hard. Hed been speaking in a normal tone but now the volume went up a bit. No. My wife died a few years back. No kids. Im on good, indexed super from the South Australian department. Look, Mr Hardy
I grinned at him. Cliff, Max.
He cleared his throat, eased back in the chair and his hands relaxed. Good. Cliff. Right. I know youve got a living to make and people to protect
Call it keep sweet, at least for a while.
I dont want to get in the way of any of that and I wont if I can help it. But this Ramona Beckett case is bloody interesting and anyone with any kind of a feel for detective work would like to sort it out.
True. And from the angle Im coming at theres a hell of a lot of money involved.
But you wouldnt frame anyone or misrepresent things to get it?
No.
We can work together, dont you reckon?
Mm. Im a bit worried about you and the cop culture, I must admit. I was expecting you to be an academic or a computer genius or something. As things stand now, a former policeman involved looks pretty dirty.
Johnno Hawkins? Thats not a problem. Ive got no time for blokes like him. Never did.
Why dyou mention Hawkins?
Ive been reading the files, Cliff. If Hawkins was fair dinkum about that investigation Ill shout you drinks for a month.
There didnt seem to be any point in pussyfooting around. I told Max pretty well everything I knew. He made notes while I talked and only asked the odd question, mostly about White and Grogan. When I finished I scissored the fax, ran the sheets through the photocopier and handed the copies to him. He thanked me, folded them and put them away in his briefcase. Make interesting reading. OK, what do you want to ask me?
Id like to see all the investigation reports.
Max held his hand a metre above the floor. The files about this thick.
Shit. Hawkins notebook, then.
Notebooks. He filled half a dozen at least. Mostly bullshit, wool to pull over eyes. What would you be looking for specifically?
Obviously, trying to get a line on who wouldve paid him to run dead.
Right, well he interviewed everyone of course. Some of them a couple of times. You think youd be able to smell the phoney one?
Or ones. Who knows how many of them were in on it, if it happened.
Ill dig out the notebooks and we can go through them together. Theres one thing that worries me. Say it all happened the way your informant suggests, the likelihood is someone else was in on it, someone higher up, giving Hawkins protection. That person might still be around and might have a lot to lose.
I hadnt thought of that. Dealing with disgraced and retired cops is one thing, dealing with cops still in place and powerful is quite another. After my recent de-licensing and reinstatement I was vulnerable in a way I hadnt been before. And, as a good number of people found out in the seventies and eighties, a disgruntled policeman is a danger to life and limb.
How sealed-off can you keep your inquiries? I asked.
Not very. Ive already done the obvious thingcalled for all sorts of files to provide a haystack for the needle. But if anyone gets really interested… He opened his hands expressively.
Yeah, I said. But that cuts both ways. If you get to hear of anyone taking an interest, that could be a bird flushed.
Max smiled. I like your devious mind. How do you see it from here? Oh, shit, Im assuming
You can, I said. I think itll be intriguing, as you say.
Yes, yes, for sure. OK, the notebooks, then…
Itd be good if you could pull Barry Whites file and see if theres any hint on who his benefactor might be.
Max made a note. Right, and see if Hawkins had any particularly useful mates. What are you going to do?
Talk to the lawyer if I can. See if the reward storys kosher. If it is, Ill need to talk to the widow up on the Gold Coast. The trouble with this thing is, even if we get a line on who paid off Hawkins to suppress the note, it doesnt tell us anything about who killed Ramona Beckett. Not necessarily.
I see what you mean, Max said. Against that, theres a chance the guilty party went all the way with the kidnappers.
Maybe.
I might come to Queensland with you, if thats OK. Im on expenses. I wouldnt mind meeting a widow.
Weve got two widows here. Dont forget Mrs Beckett.
Oned be enough, Max said.
6
After an exchange of phone numbers we agreed to a meeting, same time, same place, in two days. I read through the newspaper cuttings that carried headlines like HEIRESS DISAPPEARS, MILLIONAIRES DAUGHTER VANISHES and SOCIETY BEAUTY FEARED DEAD. The photographs brought back sharp memories. Ramona Beckett had not exactly been beautifulall her edges and lines were too sharp and defined for that. There was nothing comfortable and soothing about her the way there is with truly beautiful women, but she had something extra that more than compensated for this deficiency. Sexy wasnt quite the word for her either. You wanted to touch and you wanted her to touch you is the best way of putting it, and when those dark eyes swung your way, you had the feeling that it might be possible.
I could remember our social meetings and our one and only sexual encounter quite vividly, although a lot of alcohol was consumed each time. She was well read and very bright, also funny in a caustic way. On the night that I put the screws on her, we went to her flat in Potts Point after dinner at the Bourbon and Beefsteak, her favourite hangout. We were clawing at each other on the stairs. If she was acting I didnt care. I wanted to touch every inch of her and enter her wherever shed let me. She was wearing a black dress, cut low in the front and back, with thin straps and a short, floating skirt. A black ribbon choker with a pearl set in it emphasised the slenderness of her long neck. Her dark hair fell to her square shoulders and smelled of flowers and tobacco. We were both smokers and our breaths must have been foul with alcohol and Chesterfields, but in those days no-one cared. I could almost span her waist with my hands and her long, thin legs, dark stockings and high heels were sexual signals all saying Go!
I got an erection, sitting there at the desk thinking about it, and got up to break the spell. I tried to remember how Id felt when the story about her disappearance broke in the papers. All the information, such as it was, was there in front of me in the faxes: she was seen in a restaurant in Manly on a quiet Monday night, dining alone. Her car, a white Celica coupe, was found garaged under her apartment block. How she got to Manly, why she hadnt driven, hadnt been determined. She left the restaurant alone and was seen walking towards the ferry and that was about it. The reports that followed were mostly about the lack of progress in the police investigation. There were speculative stories about Ramonas political ambitions and very veiled hints about her methods. Her friendships with prominent political figures were mentioned, but nothing specific, no names.
As I flicked through the sheets the initial reactions came back to me. I had been deeply puzzled that a person with so much intelligence and energy had taken such a bad turning. I had wondered what had made her the driven, ruthless creature she was and had no idea of the reason. We had mostly talked money and politics. Another reaction came back as well, something that had surprised me at the timeI remember laughing hard at some of the things shed said, admiring the shrewdness of other observation. Then there was the intensity of the brief sexual transport: I thought then and still didwhat a waste of an exceptional human being!
The cuttings reminded me that Joshua Beckett had made his initial millions from digging up bits of Australia and selling it overseas. Then he invested in fast food outlets, shopping malls, medical centres and pharmaceutical companies. It sounded as if he had the knack of turning one dollar into a hundred, a hundred into a thousand and so on. His first wife had divorced him early in his career but the custody of their son and daughter was shared. The son, Sean, was thirty-six at the time of Ramonas disappearance and held an executive job in one of Dads businesses. The daughter, Estelle, was said to be developing her own fashion label.
There was nothing much on record about the first Mrs Beckett and the reason wasnt hard to see. Ramonas beautiful mother, Gabriella, nee Vargas, had supplied the genes that shaped Ramona. She was a tall, slender woman with hawklike features and a wide slash of a mouth. At forty-plus when her daughter disappeared, she was twenty years younger than her husband. All news reports described her as distraught, although in the photos I saw I would call her composed. She was the daughter of Tomas Luis Vargas who had been the Spanish Ambassador to Australia in the 1950s, so maybe she had learned a bit about composure.
The story made a big splash in the Sydney papers, especially the tabloids, and even ran for a while in the national press, but it faded when nothing new turned up. It got new legs when the reward was announced but, again, no results, no staying power. Other bad news crowded Ramona off the front and inside pagesPrince Charles visited for the funeral of Pig Iron Bob, three Amanda Marga members were arrested for the Hilton bombing and an aircraft hit a house in Melbourne, killing six members of a family.
I read the cuttings through a couple of times, taking note of the names and trying to build up a picture of the players and their actions. The Beckett family hardly figured, other than photographically. No statement of any interest was reported from any one of them. Detective Sergeant John Hawkins was prominent early. He had the looks for the jobdark, cropped hair, hollow cheeks, immaculate three-piece suit. I have an instinctive distrust of any man whod wear a three-piece suit in Sydney, especially in January and February. Early on, Johnno made all the right noises about our investigations are proceeding satisfactorily and we have several promising leads to follow, then there was a slide to we are calling on members of the public to assist and down to information is being sifted. In the end it looked as if he bored the journalists to death, but that impression may have been prejudiced by the line I was following.
Over the years that followed there had been several follow-up stories and the Beckett case had even made its way into the historical section of one Sunday tabloid, like the Burns-Johnson fight, the Japanese mini-submarines in Sydney Harbour and the disappearance of the Beaumont children. No new data emerged and, reading between the lines, it was clear that Gabriella Beckett had turned away any reporters who had approached her.
I smoothed out the faxes and folded them so that Ramona Beckett, in the classic picturethe one that all the papers ran and was featured over the following years when the story was dusted off and dragged out againlooked up at me. Her forehead was high, but not too high, her nose was hooked but nicely so, her mouth was like her mothersa wide, thin-lipped gash, promising sin. The heavy, hooded eyes seemed to stare and probe into me and I had the strange feeling that she would try to get even with me from beyond the grave. Bullshit, I thought. I put the faxes in a folder and closed the cover on the staring eyes.
When a will is probated, the mechanism is an application to the state Supreme Court from the executor for the go-ahead to put the deceaseds wishes into practice. The document and some supporting affidavits have to be lodged and, after the court grants the request, the whole lot is available for scrutiny by beneficiaries and other interested parties. Strictly speaking, I shouldnt be allowed to look at the documents, but like most PEAs I had an understanding with a deputy registrar who was willing to stretch the definition of interested party as long as it didnt get him in trouble. I rang him and got the reference number which would enable me to avoid the long wait to look at the microfiche register on Level 5 of the Supreme Court building. Hed give me a pass to Level 6 where the wills are filed.
Next I had to locate Harry Tickeners Post-it. I found it stuck to a leaf of my notebook and telephoned the Martin Place office of Wallace Cavendish, solicitor to the Beckett family. I stated my business in guarded, almost cryptic terms to a secretary with an extraordinarily appealing voice, and was told that the man himself was away interstate.
Due back when? I asked.
Tonight.
Id like to see him tomorrow.
That may not be possible, said honey-voice. If I may have your number Ill advise you when Mr Cavendish will be free.
And that was
the best I could do. I drove down William Street and parked in College Street at one of the meters that had become free as the earliest of the commuters on flexi-time started to move out. I walked through Hyde Park and St James Park to the Supreme Court. Level 5 is always busy with bonds, bail and other matters being settled. It was a relief to get the nod from my contact and bypass the people clutching their tickets and waiting for their numbers to show up in big red figures. Things are quieter on Level 6. I paid over the ten dollars necessary to get a copy of a will probated between 1850 and 1986. The public can get a look at any will but only an executor can see the full list of assets and their disposal. For the purpose of this exercise, and for a price, I was an executor. After a fairly short wait the documents were produced. A probated will can be a file as slim as a magazine insert or a hefty document. Joshua Becketts was somewhere in between. I flicked through it as I rode down in the lift.
The bulk of the estate, which was valued at 6.8 million dollars, went to Becketts wife. There was a bequest of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Sean Ian Beckett and sizeable shares in several companies. Estelle Lucy Beckett got half a million dollars and some smaller stock packages. A few charities came in for a whack and a couple of people who sounded like long-term domestic servants also did OK. No mention of the first Mrs B. The sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was invested in a portfolio to be jointly administered by James Hills of Hills and Associates, accountants, and Wallace Cavendish, solicitor. The funds were at all times to be available at call, and Cavendish and Mrs Beckett jointly were authorised to dispense them to any person or persons whose information leads to the conviction of those responsible for the death of my dear daughter, Ramona Louise Beckett. Good on you, Josh.
7
Mrs Horsfield, Wallace Cavendishs secretary, was a dumpy, homely woman with a beautiful voice. Shed phoned me at 8 a.m. to say that her lord and master could see me at ten. Meaning shed communicated with Cavendish some time late yesterday and hed agreed to a meeting virtually as early as it could be set up. That was interesting. I wore my best, that is to say my only suita dark blue lightweight double-breaster that hadnt gone out of fashion, although the lapels were possibly not quite exactly the right shape for this year. Mrs Horsfield seemed to approve of my appearance. Shed probably been expecting a leather-jacketed thug, which I would have easily provided in a different context.
