by Peter Corris
‘Not at all. He came to see me in the shop at Double Bay. He told me about the new job he’d taken and, well, he spoke to me for some time.’
‘Could you tell me how he behaved, how he looked and sounded?’
‘I thought there was more to this than you admitted. What are you up to, Mr Hardy?’
‘I haven’t been entirely frank with you. His wife has hired me to investigate his death. I’m in the process of eliminating…’
‘I understand. I wish you luck. I saw Mr Galvani two nights before he died. I would say he was extremely tense and agitated.’
I wasn’t nearly as lucky with the Roberts file. The footballer’s private number didn’t answer and a club official told me that Mr Allan Thurgood, the secretary responsible for inserting the no-drinking clause in Roberts’ contract, was on leave. Brian Roberts, I was informed, would be training at the club’s practice ground in Marrickville later in the afternoon. I decided that I had to get out of the house. Driving the Falcon was out of the question but I thought I could probably manage the Pulsar’s automatic transmission. I collected my bits and pieces and Glen’s keys and went out to the car. After a bit of experimentation, I discovered I could engage drive and release the handbrake with my right hand. By keeping the left hand low on the wheel, steering wouldn’t be a problem and, even if it did hurt a bit, I’d been told that was therapeutic.
The car handled well and I complimented the man in charge at the Newtown service station where I left the cheque.
‘Good. How’s Glen?’ he said.
I used to play football myself in Marrickville when I was a member of schoolboy and junior district teams. Then it was a solidly WASP working-class area, always with a few more churches than I felt comfortable with. It’s changed enormously over the past decades with Greeks, Turks and Vietnamese moving in and giving it life and variety. I drove down Addison Road and took the turn at Livingstone Street just to see how the bizarre three-winged building on that corner was looking. My work rarely took me to this part of Sydney and I hadn’t seen the place in years. The building is like a cross between a Moorish palace and a redbrick university administration block. I’d been told that it was put up by a squatter with a large family and has served many functions since, like a Salvation Army training school. I was pleased to see that it was still standing. At a guess it had been converted into apartments.
The football ground was beside the Cooks River to the east of the municipal golf course. The Gregory’s told me that a strip of parkland ran alongside the river for several kilometres, with picnic spots and barbecues. The last time I was close to the Cooks River I would have thought twice about eating anything within a hundred metres of it. I parked near the entrance to the golf club, ducked under a fence and went through a clump of trees and across a stretch of grass to the oval. I seemed to be haunting sporting arenas lately, but this time I had a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 revolver in a holster that sat above my right buttock. It might have made me look a little lop-sided, but a one-armed private detective can’t afford to take any chances.
The afternoon was cool and a couple of players were already jogging around the oval, slinging a ball between them, getting ready for the time when their courage and collarbones would be on the line. I wandered across to the group of watchers, some in shorts and singlets, others in civvies. They were standing in several knots of two or three, watching the ones doing the sweating. A couple of the onlookers broke away and joined the doers. My arm was aching and I hooked my left thumb into my belt and let it hang there. An overweight man in white singlet and shorts and wearing a floppy hat jogged out onto the oval. Despite his size he ran well, an old athlete gone to seed but retaining the moves. He gesticulated and shouted and the players fell into a series of routines, doing his bidding.
I moved into the shade, close to four men, two white and two black, who were standing around a half-carton of beer cans. Resch’s Pilsener. Good beer.
I used to be a Rugby Union man and only got interested in League when I took up with Glen, who is a passionate Newcastle supporter. I’m still divided about the merits of the two codes, and was a little surprised to see that the players seemed to be concentrating on speed and ball-handling skills rather than the more physical stuff. One of the Aborigines, built more on the lines of a tennis player than a footballer, plucked a can from the box and came towards me.
‘Fancy a beer, mate?’
I accepted the can and opened it awkwardly, one-handed. ‘Thanks.’
‘Wouldn’t be from the press, would you?’
I drank some of the cold beer and shook my head. ‘No.’
He finished off his own can and crushed it expertly in his hand. ‘Club supporter, eh?’
‘No.’
Our conversation attracted the attention of another member of the drinking group, who joined us. He wore a blue shirt with white collar and cuffs, striped tie and red braces. He had a can in each hand and offered one to the Aborigine who declined with a shake of his head. This man was red-headed with a fair and freckled skin. He was about my size or a fraction taller, around the 185 centimetre mark. He was ten years younger than me and carried a good deal more flab. Vita would not have approved.
‘Who’s this, then?’ he said.
The Aborigine glanced at the players and winced. ‘Jesus, Brian,’ he said.
I took a long sip of the beer that was warming up fast but still tasting good the way properly brewed beer should. ‘Is Brian Roberts out there?’
‘Who wants to know?’ the redhead said.
‘Told you, I’ve got some business with him.’ I turned to the Aborigine. ‘Could you point him out to me, please?’
‘In the red singlet. Mad bastard.’
‘What’s it to you?’ The redhead again, and the can he was drinking wasn’t his first in recent memory, maybe his fifth or sixth.
‘Told you, I’ve got some business with him.’
I watched the big, dark man in the red singlet and white shorts weave and twist his way down the field, avoiding two men detailed by the coach to stop him, and intimidating another into stepping aside. He seemed to moving from side to side excessively. “Why’s he doing all that fancy side-stepping?’
‘Had a knee problem,’ the Aborigine said. ‘Had surgery on it at the end of the season and now he’s testing it out. Going too hard, like always. He’s my brother. He’s been like that since he could fucking walk, probably before.’
I laughed, put the can down on the grass and stuck out my hand. ‘Cliff Hardy.’
‘Lenny Roberts. What’s wrong with your left hand?’
‘I buggered the shoulder. Frozen shoulder they call it.’
The blow that came almost from behind staggered me. I’d turned slightly to talk to Roberts, and the redhead had thumped me somewhere around the left shoulder-blade. I left the can on the ground and turned back towards him.
‘I’m Bob Grady-Brian’s manager.’
‘Bullshit you are,’ Roberts said. ‘Brian sacked you a couple of weeks ago. Fuck-all good you ever did him.’
This seemed to infuriate Grady and to decide him to take out his anger on me. He raised a meaty, freckled fist and waved it in my face. ‘Some kind of sports agent are you, shithead?’ he roared. ‘Turds like youse are fuckin’ everything up.’
He swung a punch at me from close range, but he was so badly balanced and poorly coordinated it was child’s play to avoid it. The anger that had been building in me since the incident in Eastern Park reached flashpoint. I swayed back from the inept punch and hit Grady three times-all with my right-in the ribs, nose and throat and he went down like a kite when the wind drops.
‘Hey, man,’ Roberts shouted in my ear. ‘Hey, take it easy!’
I realised that Grady had sagged to his knees and that I was setting up to finish him off the way it had happened to me the day before. I pulled the punch and bent down for my can. ‘You’re right. Sorry. I didn’t mean for anything like this to happen.’
1
0
Grady wasn’t badly hurt. Lenny Roberts helped him up and told him to piss off if he couldn’t behave himself. Grady thought briefly about having another go but decided against it. He walked over to the other group, took a can and sat down on the grass. I sucked the skinned knuckles that were stinging again now and drank the rest of my beer. Roberts looked at me warily.
‘Not a cop, are you?’
‘No. Private investigator. I just want a quick talk with your brother. Nothing heavy.’ I explained the circumstances and Roberts listened, dividing his attention between me and the action on the oval. I saw Brian Roberts go down hard and bounce straight back up. His brother let out a snort of relief.
‘I think that all got sorted,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you can ask Brian when he has a spell. Should be soon. Shit, you can whack. Done some boxing?’
‘A long time ago.’ I unhooked my thumb and moved the stiffening-up arm. ‘Bit early for all this training, isn’t it?’
‘Sevens comp coming up. Brian missed the last part of the season. He needs the match practice. Shit, there he goes again.’
Roberts had the ball and was side-stepping again, fending off tacklers and swivelling on the full run, shaping to pass.
‘He looks good.’
‘He’s bloody good. Question of whether that fucking knee’s as good as the rest of him.’
‘Who’s the coach?’
‘Paddy Parkin. One of the greats.’
The training session wound down with some of the players being sent off to jog a few laps and others to do stretching exercises. Parkin walked off the field deep in conversation with Roberts who was sweating profusely but looking happy. Lenny Roberts tossed the two empty beer cans into a bin and called his brother over. Brian was a couple of years older and built along entirely different lines-wide where Lenny was narrow and a couple of inches shorter. Someone threw him a can of Diet Coke and he caught it deftly.
‘Any trouble?’ Lenny said.
Brian popped the can and guzzled half of it. ‘Naw. Sweet as a nut. She’ll be right. I was a bit slow off the mark, but. Haveta work on that.’ He glanced across to where Grady was sitting on the grass. ‘What’s the matter with Bob?’
Lenny said, ‘What was your name again, mate?’
‘Cliff. Cliff Hardy.’
‘Cliff here dropped him. Bob started throwing his weight around and he copped a few.’
Brian Roberts grinned. ‘That’s overdue. I would’ve done it meself except the cunt’d sue me if I did.’ He finished the can and crushed it in one hand, not showing off. It looked like a habit.
‘Cliff wants a word with you. I’m your new manager and I reckon he’s all right.’
Lenny sauntered off to talk to other players and Brian eyed me suspiciously as I rubbed my stiff arm. I was conscious of the bleeding knuckles and the condition of my face. ‘You look a bit of a mess, like me after a tough game. What can I do for you?’
I explained. He did a few knee bends and arm swings as he listened. I envied him the free movement. He lifted his singlet to wipe sweat from his face and I saw the thick slabs of muscle on his body. Meeting him on the run would be like being hit by a five metre wave. He rotated his head, freeing the neck muscles and making mine feel all the more stiff.
‘Yeah, that was a worry for a while but it got sorted out.’ He looked around to make sure no one was in earshot. ‘You’re not going to talk to the papers about this, right? Nothing like that. I’m up to fucking here with the papers.’
‘Nothing like that.’
‘Well, your mate found out that Allan Thurgood was trying to get me not to sign a contract. He done a deal with another club to get me for less money. Those cunts would’ve filled me full of pain-killers and let me cripple meself. He was a good bloke, Scott. I was real sorry to hear what happened to him.’
‘But it had nothing to do with your business?’
‘Can’t see how it would. He got the stuff on Thurgood and the club lawyer took it from there. I paid him.’
‘Thurgood’s supposed to be on leave.’
‘Like fucking hell he’s on leave. He’s out looking for another job. They’re just giving him a bit of time.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thanks. Look, when did you last see Scott? Was it close to when he got killed?’
‘Brian! Keep moving! Two minutes!’ Coach Parkin shouted.
Roberts signalled with a clenched fist and did a little jog on the spot. ‘Yeah, I saw him at the gym. Musta been only a coupla nights before. He told me what he’d told the lawyer and that everything’d be sweet.’
‘How did he seem?’
‘Funny thing, that. He had a work-out, a real hard one. He was a pretty fit bloke but he really pushed himself. Did a lot of that karate shit, you know? I reckon he was expecting to have to fight someone. Jesus, I never thought about that till now.’
I stuck out my hand. ‘Thanks.’
We shook, with him using about five per cent of his strength. ‘Look, if I can help in any way, just ask. I owe that bloke me peace of mind and probably this good knee as well.’
‘I’ll let you know.’
‘What’s wrong with your arm?’
‘It’s called a frozen shoulder. Ever had that?’
He laughed as he went into another series of knee bends. ‘No, but I’ve had just about every other fucking thing. You want to come down to the club. We’ve got a real good physio. I could fix it for you.’
He jogged back onto the oval and caught the first ball thrown at him. Then he kicked it out of sight.
There was a message from Glen on the machine when I got back to Glebe-a time to ring and a number. I had an hour to fill in and I did it by having a hot shower, putting an ice pack on the shoulder, drinking whisky and thinking. The two live cases Scott had had on his books seemed unlikely to be connected to his death, but there was still the puzzle of what had happened to his notebook. He’d done some leg and phone work evidently, and he must have made records of the conversations and of his expenses. My interest was in what else he might have written down- say about the passenger in his car when he made the late call to his office or who he thought he might be coming up against that made it necessary for him to brush up his karate.
I phoned Glen and discovered that she was in an Ulladulla motel.
‘You sound funny,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’
Glen’s antennae for moods, resentments, misunderstandings are supernaturally sensitive. I had the counter this time though. ‘I’ve got a frozen shoulder.’
She laughed. ‘I’ve heard of the cold shoulder. What’s the frozen shoulder?’
I told her about the injury, not making it clear how it happened. She sounded unimpressed. If you’ve taken a bullet in the arm and come close to losing the use of it a frozen shoulder probably doesn’t sound like much. I mentioned football and physiotherapists.
‘Bloody physios,’ she said. ‘They all vote Liberal. How are you otherwise?’
‘OK. Got your car back. Three hundred odd bucks. I’ve been driving it because the automatic’s easier on the arm. It’s going well.’
‘Good.’
It wasn’t like her to be indifferent to the condition of the Pulsar. ‘Now it’s you who sounds funny. What’s up?’
‘Nothing. I’ll be here for a couple of days. They’ve got a few rookies in the station who don’t know breakfast from dinner. Then I’ve got a bit of time in Nowra. I’d say I’ll be back in a week. OK?’
‘Sure. Of course.’
‘What’re you working on?’
For the first time in our relationship, I didn’t want to tell her. And I didn’t know why. ‘Just the usual stuff. Bits and pieces.’
She didn’t believe me. I could tell from the pause and the tone of her voice when she spoke again. And I didn’t believe that she was just dealing with dumb rookies in Ulladulla and would need an indeterminate amount of time in Nowra. Glen was normally super-organised; she knew exactly how long she needed to spend do
ing what, where and with whom.
‘Well, take care,’ she said. ‘See you next week. Love you.’
‘Same here.’
‘Cliff…’
Concern in her voice. A confession coming up? An ultimatum?
‘Don’t forget to feed the cat. There’s some food in the cupboard.’
We rang off more or less simultaneously and I realised that we’d made no arrangement to speak again before she got back. She must have been aware of it too. Bad sign.
11
Ian Sangster had been right about the sleeping. A few pain-killers and a couple of glasses of wine got me under, but I’m a restless sleeper at the best of times and when I rolled onto the shoulder I woke up yelling. I slept in snatches, waking often. If I managed to keep pressure off the shoulder, the arm stiffened up on me. It was a bad night. When I was in the army in Malaya, the brass told us that sleep-deprivation and disruption was one of the ways the Chinese would torture us if we were captured. The other ways involved bamboo splinters and water. Losing sleep sounded like the softest option then, but after this night I wasn’t so sure.
I was glad to see the sky lightening and to hear the cat mewing for food. I found the cans Glen had bought and opened one awkwardly. I didn’t have a lot of gripping power in my left hand. First time I’d ever felt the lack of an electric can-opener. I read the paper, ate breakfast and had a shower as hot as I could bear. The heat seemed to ease the shoulder and allow me a little movement. I stretched it until the pain made me sweat and need another shower. I decided to ignore the injury, use the arm as normal and put up with the pain. I drove the Pulsar into my office, determined to be purposeful and productive, the way all the politicians kept urging us to be.
I put the high-powered Ms Cornwall’s file in an envelope and addressed it. Then I attended to some untidy small matters, putting off the moment when I’d have to decide my next step in the service of Gina Galvani. The phone rang, a further welcome delay.
