by Peter Corris
‘Coleman Carpeting. Can I help you?’ Carpeting? She sounded as if she’d stepped out of a Woody Allen movie.
‘Mr Rory Coleman, please.’
‘May I have your name, please?’
‘My name is Cliff Hardy. I want to speak to Mr Coleman about Werner Schmidt. Let me spell it for you, That’s W-e-r-n-e-r S-c-h-m-i-d-t.’
‘Thank you. Mr Hardy. I’m putting you on hold.’
A Christian-message radio station came on—unctuous announcer, a biblical text and then a band called U2 which seemed to make just as much noise and little sense as the rest of them. My accountant’s hold-music plays Mark Knopfler. I suddenly felt warm towards my accountant. I shook my head in disbelief. It was going on for 2 p.m. and I hadn’t had a drink. That must be the trouble. The music stopped and a smooth, salesman’s voice came over the line.
‘Rory Coleman.’
‘My name is Cliff Hardy, Mr Coleman. I’m a private investigator.’
‘Yes? You mentioned Schmidt?’
How to play it? If he’d killed Schmidt and he thought I knew, what would he respond to? And if he hadn’t killed him …? ‘I think we should have a talk, Mr Coleman.’
‘Do you now? I take it you’re from the Wilson agency?’
I was confused. Carl Wilson ran a detective agency, not a very good one. I’d have mended car tyres before working for Wilson. ‘No,’ I said. ‘No connection.’
‘I have an arrangement with Mr Wilson. He is to convey any information about Werner Schmidt that may arise to me. I was hoping you were calling to tell me that Schmidt had terminal cancer. I’m sorry, that’s not a Christian thought.’
‘No, but don’t feel bad. He’s dead, Mr Coleman. I think we should meet.’
This is dumb, I thought, he jumps in his Mercedes and off he goes.
Coleman threw me completely. ‘Lord,’ he said. ‘I thank you for the answer to this, my prayer. Let me feel compassion and something of your own mercy and not merely hate. Lord. I thank you.’
I said nothing.
‘Mr … Hardy. I want to hear what you have to say. Can you come to my house in Engadine? Say in two hours?’
What else could I say? ‘Yes.’
‘Bless you, Mr Hardy.’
Oppenheimer Street wound around the northern edge of Engadine. As in most streets in suburbs where the residents are proud of their native gardens, house numbers were hard to find. These people don’t want to paint numbers on the trunks of their Illawarra flame trees and the banksias and other stuff obscure the fences and gateposts. But I found it eventually by trial and error—a large, rambling, ranch-style house with a bit more of the flame trees and banksias and everything else than the houses nearby. It also had a high security fence and gates that looked as if you didn’t just lift the catch and walk in. I parked in the street, which left me a deep ditch and a wide nature-strip to cross before getting to the gate.
There was a squawk box on the gate. I pressed the button and stated my name and business the way the recorded message asked me to. A buzzer sounded, and a smaller gate beside the one that would have let in a coal truck slid open. I went through and up a bricked driveway. Beyond the house I could see deep green slopes that suggested forest and water. I recalled the map in the street directory and figured out that the Woronora river must be just across the way. That put Rory Coleman’s house about as physically close as it was possible for a private citizen to get to the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor. Suddenly, the timbered slopes didn’t look so inviting.
There was nothing special about the house—a million or so dollars buys pretty much the same thing anywhere—plenty of wood and glass, width and depth to all spaces, soft, springy stuff underfoot. A man met me at the door and would have taken my hat if I’d had one. As it was he simply led me down a number of corridors and ushered me into a room which was in the east or west wing of the house—I’d become disoriented. The room had a glass wall that looked directly out towards the Atomic Energy Commission establishment. A man was standing with his back to the door. He turned around as he heard his servant cough.
‘Mr Hardy. Good of you to come. What do you think of the view?’
I was too busy taking him in to spare much for the view. Since his placard-holding, street-fighting days, Rory Coleman had put on a lot of flesh. It would bulge if he gained any more, but for now it was packed pretty tightly on his tall, wide frame. He was an inch or so taller than me, about five years older and twenty times more prosperous. I walked across the white wool rug spread over the polished board floor and shook the hand he held out. He immediately placed his other hand on top of our joined fists and I equally immediately took a strong dislike to him. He was wearing a white shirt, dark tie, grey trousers and glistening black oxfords, none of which helped to correct my first impression.
‘Thank you for seeing me so promptly, Mr Coleman.’
‘The view, Mr Hardy. The view.’
I looked through the glass at the complex which was more or less visible through the trees. Roofs, windows, chimneys, antennae, wires, and the huge white concrete sail-shape dominating everything. I preferred the trees. ‘Impressive,’ I said.
He released my hand. ‘It is indeed. Nuclear power represents the future. I’m a great believer in the future. I built this house as close as possible to the reactor to demonstrate my faith in the future.’
I nodded. It wasn’t a promising start, given that I’d come to talk about the past.
‘Can I get you something—tea, coffee?’
‘Coffee would be good, thanks.’ The servant was still at the door. Coleman said, ‘Coffee for Mr Hardy please, Richard.’
Richard sloped off and Coleman indicated that I should sit in one of the three leather armchairs. I took one facing away from the future, enabling him to sit opposite it and make sure it didn’t go away, if that’s what he wanted to do. It seemed so. He sat quietly looking out the window until Richard came back with a coffee pot and other things on a tray. He got a small table from somewhere in the room and put it by my chair. He left me to pour the coffee—a nice, manly touch.
‘It’s over sixteen years since my daughter was attacked,’ Coleman said abruptly.
‘Yes.’
‘I take it you’re familiar with the details of the case, Mr Hardy.’
‘Yes. And with your behaviour at the trial and subsequently.’
‘Ah, yes. All that. It seems to have happened in another life. In a way it did.’
I poured some coffee and took a sip. It was thin and weak. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Are you a Christian?’
‘No.’
‘I thought not. You have a hardness about you. An unforgiving quality.’
‘Did you forgive Werner Schmidt?’
‘In time, Mr Hardy, I did. I found Jesus and he helped me to forgive. You tell me Schmidt is dead?’
I put the cup down. Some of the coffee slopped into the saucer and onto the top of the stool. Another big job for Richard. ‘Yes. It looks as if he was murdered.’
‘Ah, I see. And you’ve come into my house to meet me and decide whether I murdered him.’
‘Or had it done.’
‘Yes. That happens, doesn’t it?’
‘In the best of circles. The person I’m working for doesn’t move in the best of circles but she wants to know who killed Schmidt. It’s important to her.’
‘Why?’
‘It’d take too long to explain. I doubt that there’s much I could do if you had paid for the murder.’ I waved my hand at the window and the furniture. ‘You seem to have the resources. Unless you were very careless you shouldn’t have any problems. Still, no harm in asking. Do you remember the Newcastle earthquake?’
‘Of course.’
‘Where were you when it happened?’
‘In my showroom. We felt it quite strongly. Some of the stock was displaced.’
‘Any witnesses?’
‘Certainly. About twenty or so of my staff. Are you tell
ing me Werner Schmidt was killed in the earthquake? That can’t be. I read the names in the newspaper …’
‘People change their names, Mr Coleman. Schmidt was going under another name and he died on the day of the quake. Whether it killed him or not is another question.’
‘Remarkable.’
I expected him to say something like God moves in strange ways, but he didn’t. He was an actor and poseur from way back. Now he sat with his chin resting in his plump, white hand. He wore a couple of gold rings, one with a large black stone in it. He was playing the thoughtful being, the philosopher. Could this softie, this born-again moneymaker, have ordered a hit? He was too armoured in righteousness and self-approval to judge. I took another sip of the lousy coffee and said, ‘How’s your daughter these days, Mr Coleman?’
It was a brutal, full-frontal thing to say, but I had to do something to shake that smug composure. His chin slid away from his hand as if he’d been left-hooked by Dempsey. His big, meaty shoulders convulsed; wrinkles bunched around his eyes, and from plump and rosy he changed to pale and flabby in a matter of seconds. The composure shook but did not break. I watched, feeling guilty but fascinated as he put the whole thing back together again. He drew in a gasping breath, touched one of his rings, smoothed his hair and let the hand drift down to tug at an earlobe. The smile came then, slowly but with close to full candlepower and the lines and wrinkles on his face were smoothed out. ‘She is in very good hands, Mr Hardy. She is not unhappy. How many people can say the same? Can you?’
Good question. I stared at him as he completed the transformation back from stricken parent to grateful believer. I decided he was genuine, in his own terms. He wouldn’t kill anyone, he didn’t need to. God and good accounting would provide. I muttered something about needing to be sure and he nodded sagely.
‘I remember what the vengeful impulses felt like,’ he said. ‘I wanted to kill Werner Schmidt and I would have, if I’d been given the chance. Thank the lord it didn’t come to that.’
‘I’ve seen the press photos,’ I said.
He smiled again, more genuinely still. ‘I almost went to gaol. I’ve had something to do with prisoners since and I wish I had had that experience. It would have helped my empathy, perhaps.’
This was getting too rich. ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘I’ve had a touch of gaol and all it gives you is constipation, indigestion and boredom.’
‘I suppose it depends how you spend the time. You must be wondering, Mr Hardy, why I asked you here when we could virtually have conducted our business on the phone.’
I shrugged. ‘I would have wanted to meet you anyway. But … what’s your point, Mr Coleman?’
‘You say you have a client for this enquiry of yours?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Can you accept two clients on the one matter?’
‘It’s unorthodox, but it’s been known to happen. Why?’
‘You’ve sized me up and you don’t like me. I can accept that. I’ve also sized you up and, while I have many reservations about you, I don’t think you are a mindless thug like many members of your profession.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Mr Hardy, there’s someone I think you should meet.’
16
Richard was waiting outside a side entrance to the house, putting the finishing touches to the polish on a white Mercedes. I wondered whether owning a Merc was another sign of faith in the future. Probably. Coleman and I got in the back and I settled into a leather seat that felt as if it had been hand-built, specially for me.
Coleman said, ‘Mr Fanfani’s place, please, Richard.’
‘Sir.’ Richard put the Merc into drive and we slid forward without feeling anything so vulgar as the turning of wheels. Richard used a remote control device to open the gates and we cruised out onto Oppenheimer Street with scarcely a pause.
The car wasn’t quite a limousine—there was no bar, TV or stereo—but it was opulent enough. Coleman gazed out of the window at the houses where, in all likelihood, some of his carpets were laid. I was still feeling some contrition about the way I’d hit Coleman with the question about Greta. The feeling had made me compliant, up to a point, but now I was getting impatient. ‘This is impressive. I like the feel of a good car. But would you mind telling me where we’re going?’
‘To see a man named Antonio Fanfani. He lives in Loftus, not far away.’
‘I didn’t think anyone lived in Loftus.’
‘I sometimes think that people like yourself, who work and live in places like Darlinghurst and Glebe, are a different species from us suburbanites. What do you think?’
‘I think you’ve done some checking up on me.’
‘Yes. And I telephoned Mr Fanfani as soon as I finished talking to you.’
‘Who is he? What’s he got to do with this?’
‘I believe in letting people speak for themselves. You had your say and I had mine. We should let Antonio do the same. I will tell you this—he was a member of that organisation I formed.’
‘The fathers of rape victims thing?’
‘Yes. That was very ill-advised. It bred distress rather than comfort.’
We were going north-east, on the Princes Highway, with the National Park to our right. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘sounds pretty natural to me. If I had a daughter and she got raped I’d want to do some damage to the rapist.’
Coleman nodded. ‘Of course. That’s a phase of the reaction. But you can’t do that damage without damaging yourself and others who depend on you. You have to find some other way of coping with those feelings.’
‘God?’
‘For me and my wife, yes. Not for Antonio Fanfani, unhappily.’
Nothing more was said on the drive. The Mercedes pulled up outside a big house with a three-car garage, white pillars and lots of white plaster work around the top floor balcony. It looked like the sort of house put up by people who’ve spent most of their time living in two rooms. The concrete drive was wider than it needed to be, the lawn smoother, the front gate higher. There was a fountain in the centre of the front lawn with a small religious shrine built into it.
‘Mr Fanfani’s a building contractor,’ Coleman said. ‘That’s how we became acquainted. He was a very good customer of mine, still is.’
We got out of the car. Coleman gave Richard a few errands to perform and the Mercedes purred away. We went through the open gates. There was a small car and a boat in the garage, plenty of room left for a Merc. ‘I thought builders were feeling the pinch,’ I said.
We walked on a series of concrete circles set in a meandering pattern in the smooth lawn towards the tiled, colonnaded porch. ‘It’s a matter of strategy,’ Coleman said. ‘If your business is dependent on the vulnerable part of the system you’ll feel the pinch, as you put it. If not, not.’
‘How’re you fixed?’
He smiled as he pushed the bell. ‘Most of my business is with the government and its agencies. Also with banks and insurance companies and big contractors who deal similarly.’
Chimes sounded inside the house and a stout, middle-aged woman answered the door. She beamed when she saw Coleman and the two exchanged a quick hug.
‘Rory, so good to see you.’ Her English was heavily Italian-accented.
‘Hello, Anna. God bless you. How are you?’
‘Not bad. Is this the man?’
Coleman stood aside. I felt I should bow, but I contented myself with getting through the door onto the white shagpile carpet and doing a little head-bobbing. ‘Mrs Fanfani.’
‘This is Mr Clifford Hardy. He’s a private investigator,’ Coleman said.
Her heavily ringed hands flew up towards her face. She was a handsome woman in a fleshy, conventional way. ‘Oh, Tony wants to see him so much, I know. He’s in … that room, Rory. You know the way. I’ll bring coffee into the den, or perhaps Mr Hardy would like something else?’
Coleman had arranged his face in what I took to be teetotal lines; I was tire
d of playing by his rules. ‘I’d like some beer, Mrs Fanfani, if you have it.’
‘Foster’s or Reschs?’
Someone in the family didn’t spend all their time praying and being polite. ‘Reschs, thank you.’
Coleman led me through glass doors that opened onto a vast living room and down a passage to a part of the house where everything seemed to be on a smaller scale. He knocked on a plain door and a voice behind it said, ‘Si.’
We went into a cell. The room was tiny—grey painted walls, small window set high up, cement slab floor, camp bed along one wall and three wooden chairs opposite. A man was sitting on one of the chairs. He was cadaverous—dark, folded in on himself. Not old, not young. His skin was olive but unhealthy looking as if it had been deprived of the sunlight it needed. His white hair was thin. He didn’t get up. His hand, a claw coming out of a white cuff under a dark suit jacket indicated that we should sit on the chairs.
‘Antonio,’ Coleman said. ‘This is Mr Hardy’
Fanfani nodded at me. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’ He had only a slight accent, more a hesitation before certain sounds.
‘Thank you.’ I didn’t sit down. I wasn’t going to stay in that room one second longer than I had to.
‘Anna’s bringing coffee to the den,’ Coleman said.
Fanfani nodded. ‘I just wanted you to see this place, Mr Hardy. Before we spoke. This is where I do penance for causing my daughter’s death.’
