by Peter Corris
‘No?’
‘No, and she was no stranger to drugs. She was a mile high on something when I picked her up.’
‘I suppose you’re going to say you saved her from drowning.’
‘No, but maybe from sunstroke and dehydration. She was stark naked on a thirty-five-degree day, drifting on an air mattress with no fucking idea of where she was or what she was doing.’
‘So you should have notified the authorities.’
He laughed. ‘Me? Authorities? That’s about the last thing I’d have done. I’d taken on a load of … never mind what, and I was heading off for the wild blue yonder. I had places to go, people to meet, money to make and I’ll tell you this—when she got a grip on herself she was happy to come along and she was bloody useful. Could she sail? I’ll say she could.’
‘But she knows the score now?’
He gave that smile again. ‘She knows the whole score.’
‘Going to be tough on her.’
‘She’s resilient, she’ll cope.’
I began to get a sense then of the dynamic that had evidently built up between the two, drug-fuelled no doubt, but also with aspects of admiration, perhaps mutual, sex and adventure. I thought back to what Foster had said about the straitjackets high expectation had laced them into and his method of escape.
‘Deep in thought, Hardy? That worries me. Share them.’
‘Did she really believe Foxy could handle a sizeable drug deal?’
He shrugged. ‘Hard to say. He talked big back when they … he’d been fucking her as soon as the school year ended. I got that straight among all the fantasies. And he gave her the stuff that sent her paddling off to Kirribilli.’
‘I know. He told me, but not about the sex.’
‘I don’t like to boast but I gather he wasn’t much good. Anyway, she didn’t hold a grudge. Wanted to help the creep, I reckon.’
I had my doubts about that. Harris obviously thought he was smart, playing a role, pretending to be obsessed by her, but what if Juliana was playing a role too?
‘Where is she?’
‘Not far away. Under restraint.’
‘Another serious crime.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m a good Samaritan, restoring a lost soul to her family.’
‘For a price.’
‘Of course.’
‘How much?’
‘Very reasonable—half a million. Don’t worry, I’ve cleaned her up chemically—she was getting a bit out of control. Anyway, can’t charge that amount for damaged goods, not that it’s much for the skin-cream king.’
‘He’s a bit more than that, you might find. If this goes through safely, he’ll send people to track you down wherever you go. He’s got the resources to do it.’
He almost sneered. ‘People like you?’
‘No, not like me. I’m too old to go traipsing off to third-world shitholes, which is where you’d have to go, given Fonteyn’s money, Interpol and all that.’
‘You’re making me think of raising the ante.’
‘Wouldn’t matter.’
‘What if I was to approach him directly?’
‘You could try, but I’d say that’d treble your risk, quadruple it maybe.’
The level in the bottle had gone down and he lowered it further. I had him a little off-balance now, not a lot, but perhaps enough.
‘You’re a good talker,’ he said, ‘but I haven’t seen you do much.’
‘Before I’d even mention it to Fonteyn I’d have to see and speak to the girl. You weren’t bluffing about the gun, but you could be bluffing about her. Who’s to say she hasn’t slipped away into the druggie twilight or had a … chemical accident? Courtesy of you.’
‘That’s not going to happen, but I take your point. Okay, you can see her.’
‘I assume you have someone guarding her?’
‘I have, a trusted confederate about the size of your muscle man, so you’d better behave yourself.’
It was the only way I could see to stay in the game so I agreed. At a pinch, given favourable circumstances, I could back myself against two men, always supposing neither was a true professional. Harris was big but running to fat and too sure of himself. As to the other man, big didn’t necessarily mean good, or smart.
We left the beer garden and walked to where Harris unlocked a road-weary SUV.
‘You drive,’ Harris said.
‘You’re letting me see where she’s being held?’
‘She’s a fucking pawn. She can be moved.’
He was edgy now. I thought about mentioning George D’Amico and Rafa Cantini to keep him that way, but decided to bide my time. He gave me the keys and I started the car. He gave me directions by pointing. He sat stiffly and belched a couple of time.
‘Crook innards?’ I said.
He didn’t reply but kept looking in the rear-vision mirror from time to time. But it takes an expert to spot an expert tail and I was sure Hank would be on the job in the Falcon, to which he and Megan had keys, and that Harris wouldn’t see him.
As Harris had said, it wasn’t far. We threaded through the fairly light traffic, made the turns Harris indicated, skirting Bondi Junction, and entered a quiet, tree-shaded street I guessed to be somewhere close to Centennial Park.
‘We’re here,’ he said.
He indicated a corner house with an overgrown garden and I turned the vehicle through open gates down a short, weed-infested gravel driveway.
We got out and I felt the small barrel of the pistol dig into my ribs, harder than was necessary.
‘You want to see the girl, right? You can do it with a .22 bullet in your shoulder and I’m thinking about doing it to show her dad how serious I am, and because I don’t like you, so move very carefully.’
The air was cool, smelling of decayed vegetation, accumulated rubbish and cat piss. Harris jabbed me again with the pistol but then took it away so that I didn’t know where it was. He’d obviously done something like this before. A paved path led from the driveway to steps up to the porch of a tall Federation house.
Harris said, ‘Up the steps and open the door. She’s in the front room to the right and don’t forget about my guy on guard.’
It was dark apart from a trendy fake coachman’s lantern with a dim bulb burning over the door. I turned the elaborately designed knob and pushed the door open. After that what happened was very quick, very loud and everything changed completely.
26
One step inside the house and I stumbled into something that had me lurching backwards and bumping into Harris, who fired a shot that was loud in the enclosed space and pinged off a wall. Then he blundered into the same obstacle. We were still only lit by the outside lamp but that was enough to see that a man lay spreadeagled and inert on the floor.
‘Jesus!’ Harris shouted and in his panic he pointed the gun at me. Next he was grunting as an arm circled his neck and yelping as Hank slammed his hand against the wall, causing him to drop the pistol.
‘You all right, Cliff?’
I was crouched by the body. ‘Yeah. But this guy’s dead. Hold on to Harris and hit him hard if you have to.’
But Harris had slumped down and offered no resistance as he was pushed to the floor into a sitting position with Hank standing over him.
‘Who is he?’ Hank said.
‘Harris had him minding the girl. She was supposed to be in this room here.’
‘Dead?’ Harris said. ‘How?’
‘Knife wound to the heart at a guess; there’s scarcely any blood at all. Close the door, Hank, and see if you can find a light switch. No prints.’
The door closed quietly and another low-wattage light came on. The door to the room Harris had indicated was ajar and I pushed it open with my elbow. There was just enough light now to see that the room held a narrow bed and a few pieces of basic furniture. There were a couple of empty juice containers and wrappers from chocolate bars. Several heavy, elasticised straps lay on the bed. They’d been sliced throu
gh and the cut ends were bloodstained.
‘She’s gone,’ I said to no one in particular. ‘What is this place?’
Hank had let Harris stand up and kept close beside him as they looked into the room.
‘One of my sainted brother’s properties,’ Harris said. ‘He buys them cheap, pretties them up and sells dear. He’s been hanging on to this one till the time was right. I was thinking of burning it down when I’d finished with it but the bugger’d have it insured to the hilt.’
‘Brotherly love,’ I said.
Hank looked at his watch. ‘What now, Cliff?’
Harris sneered. ‘Yeah, what now, Cliff?’
Before I could answer my mobile rang.
‘Hardy, this is George D’Amico. I’ve got the girl and I can tell you where Harris is, or where he was until very recently.’
‘I know where he is. I’ve got him right here.’
‘Oh, well, that makes things easier. We had to leave there pretty quickly after the wet work, as I’m sure you’ll understand.’
Hank and Harris were looking at me enquiringly but I shook my head. ‘I understand.’
‘Good, now we can arrange a straight swap, Harris for the girl.’
‘That’s interesting, I …’
Hank was gesturing frantically at me and pointing to Harris, who had slumped sideways. In seconds his shirt was sodden, he was sweating so profusely.
D’Amico’s voice was almost shrill. ‘Hardy?’
‘I’ve got an emergency here. Call again later.’
I cut the call and crouched beside Harris. I immediately recognised the symptoms. I double-checked by looking at his fingertips, which were calloused from testing his blood sugar level.
‘He’s a diabetic having a hypo from stress and not watching his sugar level. He should have something on him to help.’
We dug into the pockets of his jacket and came up with an opened packet of jelly beans held together with an elastic band. I crammed some into his mouth.
‘Chew and swallow, chew and swallow. Suck it down!’
He did and I kept feeding him until he stopped trembling and the sweat stopped breaking out on him.
‘We have to get out of here,’ I said. ‘Where’s the Falcon?’
‘In the street. Can he walk?’
‘Better carry him, he’ll be weak for a while.’
Hank lifted Harris without difficulty and we left the room. I picked up Harris’s pistol from the passage and looked around to make sure we hadn’t left any traces, turned out the light using the butt of the gun and opened the door, wiping the knob with my sleeve. The spent bullet would be someone else’s problem. We waited on the porch to make sure all was quiet and then went quickly to the car. With Harris still unresisting, Hank got in the back with him and I drove sedately through the gates and down the silent street.
Hank half carried, half walked Harris into my house and eased him down onto the living-room couch. He was sweating again and I fed him more jelly beans. He gulped them down and leaned back, letting out a low groan. His eyes were closing and I slapped him lightly.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Fuck you. Gotta sleep.’
He stretched out to his full length and wriggled twice, then appeared to fall asleep.
‘He going to be all right?’ Hank said.
‘I think so. Have to watch him. If he’s hard to wake in half an hour I’ll get my doctor to give him a glucose shot.’
‘How do you know all this diabetes stuff?’
‘My mother was a diabetic. She’d get on the piss and forget to eat or take too much insulin and go into a hypo. My sister and I pulled her out of them plenty of times.’
‘Do they do any damage?’
‘Brain damage if you have them often and severely enough.’
‘How about your mom?’
‘Sharp as a tack until the day she died at eighty-one, despite the booze, the fags and the sugar.’
‘Augurs well for you.’
‘Maybe. Come out to the kitchen and have a drink. I need to fill you in on what’s happening. I don’t want him to hear. He might just be faking.’
‘Is that likely?’
‘People with chronic diseases learn to be cunning. I’ll take his shoes and socks off in case he tries to do a runner. He wouldn’t get far on that busted-up path of mine.’
I shoved a cushion under Harris’s head and we went to the kitchen and I poured us solid slugs of Black Douglas over ice. I told Hank what D’Amico had proposed.
Hank shook his head. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘I know. I have to figure out a way of getting the girl without putting Harris’s head in a noose, and …’
‘And what?’
‘At least giving him a chance. Thanks for tonight. You’d better be getting home.’
Hank finished his drink and fished out his mobile to call a cab. We moved back to the living room where Harris was snoring.
Hank said, ‘A couple of things—how did D’Amico find where Harris was holding the girl?’
‘He didn’t say. Maybe Harris was indiscreet about hiring muscle and D’Amico got word somehow.’
‘What about the dead guy?’
‘I’ll call it in anonymously from a public phone.’
He pointed at Harris. ’What’re you going to do about him?’
Before I could answer there was a crash and a splintering sound and another crash and the room was full of people—two men with guns shouting for us not to move and George D’Amico holding a tall girl in front of him like a shield.
The two men covered Hank and me. D’Amico let go of the girl, took a pistol from the pocket of his overcoat, took two steps, put the gun to Harris’s head and fired. The man covering Hank flinched at the explosion and Hank threw his mobile phone at his head. It hit him; he screamed and his hand swept up to his face.
‘My eye! He got my fucking eye.’
The distraction was enough for me to aim a kick at the knee of the other man. It barely connected but threw him off-balance and he lurched against D’Amico, who shoved him away.
A siren wailed, stopped and wailed again, getting closer. D’Amico looked wildly around him but the girl had disappeared. The three men rushed for the door. Hank and I stared at Harris, whose head was tilted crazily into the blood and brain matter that had welled out onto the cushion.
27
The flak that followed took time and money to sort out and involved Viv Garner, my lawyer, Hank’s lawyer, Gerard Fonteyn and his legal team and phone calls, texts and emails too numerous to count.
Technically, I could have been considered guilty of various offences: concealing evidence of a crime—the death of the man (a watchman in Philip Harris’s employ who’d apparently been bribed by Lance) at the Centennial Park house; restraint of liberty in respect of Harris; possession of an unlicensed firearm (Harris’s pistol). But being able to identify who had committed two murders more or less negated the first offence. With Harris dead there was no way to prove I’d taken him against his will and my claim that I was dealing with a medical emergency had evidence to support it after the autopsy. Tests showed that Harris had fired the pistol and sustained my claim that it was his gun.
My statement accused Harris of killing Paul D’Amico, which got that case off the books for the Queensland police. I claimed to have no knowledge of who killed Desiree; I wasn’t going to open that can of worms. The upshot was a black mark against Hank for his association with me (his first) and another one for me—one of many.
Investigation revealed that George D’Amico had left Australia within hours of killing Harris and his whereabouts were unknown.
After affirming that I’d been working for him and had kept him informed of my investigation almost up to the fatal events of that night, Fonteyn was understandably chilly. While I could argue that I had confirmed that his daughter was alive I couldn’t claim that I’d offered her any protection. His daughter and his son were loose somewhere and
both obviously in danger in different ways.
Fonteyn cancelled my line of credit. Megan was annoyed with me for involving Hank in the schemozzle, and Colin Cameron was furious about losing his shot at the big time. The story had made the news services and I even had an angry phone call from Philip Harris who, for all his antipathy towards him, hadn’t wanted his brother’s brains blown out and for his property to bear the stain of being a murder site.
That’s how uncomfortably and humiliatingly matters stood for a week or so before I got a phone call from Fonteyn.
‘Mr Hardy, I’m calling to apologise.’
‘That’s not necessary.’
‘It is. I was hasty. You’re the only one who made any progress in this matter. You established that Juliana was still alive. When I cooled down I appreciated that.’
‘Alive, but …’
‘Somewhere and I want to recommission you to find her and Foster. Are you willing to try?’
What could I say? The man had played straight with me from the first. It was a tall order, perhaps impossible to carry out, but I felt an obligation and hadn’t given the thing up in my head. I’d briefly had control of Foster and had lost him. He was an adult, just, but I should have taken precautions and hadn’t. I’d had no control over Juliana but she was a child and failing to find and protect her sat very uneasily with me.
‘I’ll try,’ I said.
‘Thank you. I’m grateful to you for keeping Foster more or less out of things. Do you have any idea …?’
‘He’s back in the drug world, Mr Fonteyn.’
‘He had a part in Juliana’s disappearance, didn’t he?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
I didn’t tell him how big a part and how much things in his family had got off-track; he could wait for those blows if I managed to find either one of his children.
‘As to money …’ Fonteyn said.
‘Later, Mr Fonteyn, later.’
I got busy. I put out feelers to a drug counsellor I knew who worked in the eastern suburbs to see if she knew anything about a pusher named Jake. She didn’t. I talked to a couple of people I’d seen in the initial part of my first investigation, in case Juliana had been in touch, with no result. I left a photograph of Foxy at the Double Bay café and one of Juliana at the Waverley hotel with the promise of a reward for information. I got no response.
