The Other Side of Sorrow

by Peter Corris

  When I’d finished I tidied up the paperwork, made a few calls to keep other cases ticking over and declared my unavailability to two would-be clients I’d normally have gobbled up. I spread Cyn’s cheque out on the desk and debated whether to deposit it. What kind of a bastard would take money from a dying woman to locate and protect his own daughter? On the other hand, what professional would devote time and resources to chasing a fantasy? So far, the pursuit of Damien Talbot and Meg (aka Margaret? Megan?) French had cost time and petrol, lost me some business and the bills from the hackers would come in. Cyn’s cheque would cover it but there wouldn’t be a lot over.

  It was after five and the rain was washing the windows—the only way they ever got washed. I’d bought a bottle of Teacher’s on the way in. I opened it, poured a good measure into a paper cup and put my feet on the desk. The ankle I’d jarred making my famous jump twinged and I grimaced as I swallowed some medicinal Scotch. The most I’d ever cleared in the broad jump at school was a bit over sixteen feet which placed me third in the Sydney inter-school athletic carnival. That recollection brought back a memory of who’d won it—a pale, orange-haired, stocky kid named ‘Redda’ Phillips from Fort Street High. He’d also won the hop-step-and-jump, the high jump and the two sprints. It was a privilege to be beaten by him. I had another drink and wondered if kids still called redheads ‘Redda’ or ‘Bluey’. Somehow I doubted it.

  I knew what I was doing—putting off calling Cyn. I folded the cheque and put it into my wallet. Indecisive. That wasn’t me. I picked up the phone, dialled and got her answering machine. I left a message that I was making progress but had nothing solid yet. The easy way out. I took the bottle home with me.

  7

  At 9.30 the next morning I answered the phone to a solicitor named Hargreaves who told me that unless I presented at his office by 11 o’clock that morning for a conference with representatives of Millennium Security I could expect extremely unpleasant legal proceedings. Assault was mentioned, along with trespass and damage to property. I couldn’t afford to get involved in anything like that so I agreed.

  The office was in Macquarie Street in a section of the city that wasn’t being torn down. I wore a suit. Mr Hargreaves wore a suit. So did Mr Hargreaves’s female secretary and Smith from Millennium. The other person present wore the Millennium Security guard uniform. He wasn’t the one who’d fallen in the puddle. This guy was bigger and well-balanced, looked harder to trip.

  ‘Mr Hardy,’ Smith said. ‘I think you remember me. This is Mr Kamenka. Thank you for coming. A few minutes of your time could save a lot of wasted time for all of us.’

  ‘Time is money,’ I said.

  ‘Indeed it is.’ Hargreaves gestured for us all to sit down.

  Smith opened the slimline leather satchel he was carrying and extracted a manilla folder which he placed on the solicitor’s teak desk.

  ‘This is a complete rundown of all the steps that have been taken to protect the Homebush Bay environment,’ he said. ‘It includes details of detoxification, the rehabilitation of wetlands, the restitution of original watercourses, the isolation of noxious wastes, the retention of existing trees and the re-planting of appropriate species, the installation of solar-powered heating and lighting systems and …’

  ‘Fascinating reading I’m sure,’ I interrupted. ‘But what’s it got to do with me?’

  ‘Yesterday you made an enquiry at the site, following which you assaulted a member of our staff and later appeared to make common cause with the picketers at Tadpole Creek.’

  I looked at Kamenka. ‘It wasn’t much of an assault. More of a nudge.’

  ‘Certainly actionable if we chose to make it so.’

  ‘Ah, a threat.’

  ‘No. Just a piece of information to go along with this.’ He tapped the folder. ‘Read it, Mr Hardy. I don’t know what ratbag organisation you’re working for, but frustrating the work at the site is ill-advised and pointless.’

  ‘You call that whole thing the site, do you? Isn’t it a whole lot of sites?’

  Smith was struggling to keep his patience. ‘We’re trying to treat you decently. Don’t make it any harder.’

  ‘What puzzles me is why you’re so worried and why you’re taking this trouble. I don’t give a stuff about Tadpole Creek. I don’t care about the Olympics either, although if you could give me some tickets to the boxing I might be interested. Can Mr Kamenka speak, by the way? Or does he just do isometrics inside his uniform?’

  Smith sighed and Hargreaves looked exasperated. I didn’t blame him. I was exasperated too. The secretary entered with coffee and we all watched her pour it.

  I sipped the coffee. Too strong, bitter.

  Smith’s manners were his strong point. He backed down a little, talked about some of the hassles he had with security and implied that he was under some pressure to keep the lid on all difficult situations. His politeness seemed genuine and made me feel better about him. I decided to give a little.

  ‘I’m working on a missing persons case. That’s all I can tell you and more than I need to tell you. There’s nothing more to it than that.’

  ‘I’d like to believe you.’

  I put the undrunk coffee on the desk. ‘You can.’

  ‘If that’s the case I might have a proposition for you.’

  ‘I enter into contracts with clients, Mr Smith. Just like you. I don’t deal in propositions.’

  Smith considered this carefully before nodding. ‘I see. Well, just let me lay this out for you and get your reaction.’

  Pointedly, I checked my watch.

  ‘This won’t take long,’ he said. He explained that the Tadpole Creek protest was a puzzle to the Olympic organising authorities and particularly to Millennium Security. He described the creek as ‘a puddle’ of no environmental value, although he admitted that it was an oversight that it hadn’t been included in the original environmentally sensitive plan.

  ‘I won’t pretend this has been well-handled,’ he said. ‘When they saw that they’d slipped it up they tried to tidy things away sharpish. Crudely. This protest surfaced and we’re in the spot we’re in now. Somehow they got some mad judge to issue an injunction. It’s crazy.’

  ‘Look, I’m not really interested. I …’

  ‘There’s someone behind it,’ Smith continued. ‘Someone with money. That protest is being funded from somewhere. Food, equipment, vehicles, legal fees. Someone’s backing the whole thing and we don’t know who or why.’

  I shrugged. ‘You must have the resources to find out.’

  ‘The way to find out is to get someone inside the protest. It seems you made a big hit with them.’ He opened his satchel and took out a notebook. ‘I’m told you had a long conversation with the sister of one of the leaders. That’s Tess Hewitt, sister of Ramsay. This is after you jumped the creek.’

  For my own reasons, I was interested now. ‘Who’s the other leader?’

  Smith didn’t need to consult his notes. ‘Damien Talbot. He’s a sort of environmental terrorist—the kind who drives spikes into logging trees. That kind of thing. He’s also got convictions for drug offences and criminal assault.’

  Just for a minute I was tempted. I’d heard of Millennium. They were international, of course, wielded influence and paid top money. But I smelt several rats. The theory that I was well-placed to infiltrate the protesters was only half-convincing at best. Millennium should’ve been able to come up with better strategies that that. Then there was Tess Hewitt and the warmth I’d felt from her. Not to be discounted. Also, I’d begun to focus in on the Meg French matter with all its emotional complications and I work best when I’m single-minded. Double-minded maybe. Triple-minded, never.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ve got something serious in hand and the protest is very peripheral to it. If that. I’m not interested.’

  ‘If it’s a question of money?’

  ‘No.’

  Smith sighed and put his notebook away. ‘Then all I can
do is advise you to do as you say—leave those idiots to their fate.’

  I had to admire Hargreaves and Kamenka. Neither had said a word. Now both stood in mute and effective demonstration that the meeting was over. I stayed where I was.

  ‘A threat of legal action brought me here, Mr Smith.’

  Smith had half-left his seat. Now he stood and moved towards the door. ‘Hardly a threat and I think we’ve resolved the issue.’

  ‘I like a quiet life, too,’ I said.

  ‘Do you? I doubt it.’

  And that was that. On consideration, Smith impressed me as an honest functionary. Maybe there was a mystery about the backer of the protest. Maybe I could ask Tess Hewitt about it.

  The information began to come in soon after I reached my office. Damien Talbot was twenty-six years of age. Born in Petersham, he had suffered a childhood accident that had left his right leg slightly shorter than his left. He wore a built-up boot but walked with a limp. He was 185 centimetres and 75 kilos with fair hair, blue eyes and pierced ears. He had attended state schools in inner Sydney and done one year of an acting course at NIDA then dropped out. Some time later he’d enrolled in a TAFE Environmental Studies course which he’d pursued for two years without completing the required written work. Addresses in Ultimo, Chippendale, Newtown, Marrickville and of course Homebush. He had two convictions for possession of marijuana and one for trafficking in cocaine. He’d served three years on that count, concurrent with a two-year sentence for assault occasioning bodily harm. That was all to do with drugs too.

  His driver’s licence had expired a year ago and, as I’d already learned, he was being proceeded against for failure to pay parking fines and for driving an unroadworthy vehicle. He had drawn unemployment benefits periodically but was not currently doing so. I obtained an address for his surviving parent, his mother, in Petersham and details of three bank accounts, all overdrawn. It was difficult to find much on the credit side of Damien’s ledger.

  Megan Sarah French had been born in Bathurst at St Margaret’s Hospital twenty-three years ago. Her birth date was given as one day after the date Cyn claimed to have had her child. Her adoptive parents were Rex and Dora French of Katoomba. Megan Sarah French had attended the St Josephine Convent in Katoomba. She was a prefect, leader of the debating team and captain of the netball squad that won the country division championship in her final year. She scored 90.5 in the HSC and matriculated at the University of New South Wales. She’d dropped out of a degree course in industrial relations after two years.

  I jotted the information down from the phone calls and arranged the faxes in order as they came in. I drank the whole of a pot of strong coffee and made another as things began to sink in. The confirmation of Cyn’s story seemed to be staring me in the face and I found it hard to adjust to. I’d been hoping, or at least half-hoping, for something to blow the whole idea out of the water, but all I was getting were blocks building towards the same conclusion.

  The data continued to flow. Megan Sarah had enrolled in the same TAFE Environmental Studies course as Talbot and had dropped out at the same time. Connection. She’d drawn unemployment benefits at various times and signed on for several re-training programs without completing them. Not good. A couple of credit cards had been withdrawn for failure to meet payments. No prosecutions. She held a driver’s licence but no vehicle was registered in her name. She had never lost any points on her licence, and there was nothing outstanding. No criminal convictions.

  It was ambiguous stuff to convey to Cyn and I resolved to edit it. I got the suit wet walking in the rain to the Post Office to consult the Blue Mountains telephone directory. There were three entries for French and one with the initial R. Back in the office, with the suit jacket on a hanger, I rang the most likely number and drew a blank—R was for Robert and he had no knowledge of a Rex. Ditto with the next. The third French was Rex’s brother, Frank, and he was happy to talk to me when I told him I was a private detective.

  ‘Is the prick in trouble?’ he said.

  ‘No, I want to talk to him about his daughter, Megan. She’s … ah, missing.’

  ‘That poor kid.’

  This was the second time that expression had been used. ‘Why d’you say that, Mr French?’

  ‘Rex and Dora are religious fanatics. First it was Catholicism, strict as buggery. Megan was supposed to be a nun. They tried to beat God into her, made her life a misery and she was a super kid. When she kicked over the traces, wanted to go to university and that, they went nuts.’

  ‘What did they do to her?’

  ‘Kicked her out. Then they sold everything they had and joined a bloody cult up here. They get around praying and scratching in the dirt.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to them.’

  ‘You’ll have to come up then. There’s no phone out there.’

  He gave me directions to a five-hectare property near Mount Wilson operated by the Society for Harmony and Tranquility.

  I thanked him. ‘Do you think they’d be in touch with Megan?’

  ‘Rex? No way. Dora might be. She’s under his thumb but she not quite as crazy as he is. Tell him Frank sent you. That’ll really get up his nose.’

  8

  It wasn’t a day for the mountains. Sydney was cool and wet, the mountains were likely to be cooler and possibly wetter. I grabbed a parka I keep in the office and headed west. Mentally, I picked through the information I’d acquired about Megan and Talbot. It could be structured not to sound too bad—a ‘crazy mixed-up kids’ gloss could be put on it. But it could be a lot worse in reality, with the drugs and Talbot’s violence factored in. I tried to treat it like any missing persons case—concerned parent, worrying features, bad associations—but the personal aspect kept cutting in, confusing me and making me unsure of my assessments.

  The country around Mount Wilson looked bleak in the pale winter light. After a long, hot summer there hadn’t been much rain until recently and the land was parched-looking and damply yellow. Frank French’s directions were good and I located the property easily. It was at the end of a long dirt road and the word that sprang to mind to describe it was neglect. The fences were in poor repair, broken down in spots by the press of branches, sagging elsewhere from wood rot. The driveway to the main building had once been covered with gravel but now the rocky ground was showing through. The rambling main building, constructed from what looked like rough, pit-sawn local timber, immediately struck me as odd. It was huddled down amid trees and shrubs in a hollow as if deliberately trying to avoid the view to the west. If it had been located just a few metres in that direction on higher ground it would have commanded a magnificent outlook over paddocks to forest and far ranges.

  The garden beds and lawn flanking the driveway were scruffy. An old Land Rover was parked on a patch of remaining gravel to the left near a rusting pre-fab shed. I stopped dead in front of the building, got out and looked around. No telephone lines, no electricity cables, no TV antenna. Isolation. The right context for dogma and obedience. The place depressed me already.

  I suppose I expected white robes and sandals, but the man who met me at the top of the front steps wore a business suit and a business-like expression.

  ‘Welcome to Harmony and Tranquility,’ he said. ‘How may I help you?’

  He was middle-aged, plump, balding, normal-looking, so I behaved normally by showing him my PEA licence and telling him that I wanted to talk to Rex and Dora French on a family matter. I’d put the parka on in the car to keep myself dry on the dash to the building. I took it off and revealed myself in suit and tie. No gun bulge. No knuckle-duster.

  ‘I believe they’re both meditating. Nothing distressing I hope?’’

  I made a non-committal gesture which he didn’t like and he liked it still less when I asked him who he was.

  ‘Pastor John,’ he said. ‘The leader of this community. I’ll make enquiries about Brother Rex and Sister Dora. If you’ll just wait inside?’

  He ushered me up th
e steps and through the door into a room on the left. I had time to glimpse a faded carpet in the hallway, a lack of light, and to smell a musty odour that confirmed my impression of neglect. The room I stood in was bare apart from an old set of church pews arranged around three sides. The window was small and the panes were dusty, inside and out.

  After a few minutes a woman came into the room. She was fiftyish, small and tired-looking. Her grey hair was wispy and the cardigan she wore over a woollen dress was ill-buttoned. No make-up, thick stockings, flat-heeled shoes. She stopped one step into the room and looked at me as if I was going to bite her.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mrs French?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I went into a quick explanation, fearing that Rex couldn’t be far away. At the mention of Megan’s name she sparked up.

  ‘Oh, oh,’ she said. ‘It’s been so long. How is she?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs French. I’m trying to find her. You love her?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Megan is wonderful. The best thing in my life. But Rex …’

  ‘Her natural mother is dying and wants to see her.’

  Her thin, blue-veined hands flew up to her face, almost hiding it. This was too much hard-edged information for her to process. She dropped the hands and looked up at me. ‘The poor woman.’

  ‘Yes. Do you know where Megan might be, Mrs French? People seem to think she might have a place to go to.’

  ‘People?’

  ‘People who care for her. People who want to help her. She’s keeping bad company, Mrs French.’

  I could hear some sort of movement inside the house. Rex? I whipped out a card and extended it. She didn’t move and I had to grab one of her hands and wrap it around the card. She clutched it like a child with a toy. I asked her again where Megan might go but she’d heard the sounds herself by now and didn’t reply.