by Peter Corris
‘Who’re you trying to avoid?’ she said.
‘Hordes of people. How goes it?’
‘Okay for me,’ she said. ‘You?’
‘Yeah. You’re delaying my first drink till after six — kind of you. I’m fine. A few things on hand. A dollar or two in it. You coming down? The room’s there.’
That was an arrangement we’d agreed on — that Tess could stay at my place when she came to Sydney. It hadn’t happened yet.
‘No, not for a bit. At least I hope not.’
‘Come again?’
‘Well you know I’d been thinking about doing this naturopathy course at the uni up here? Well I’ve taken the plunge. I’m going full-time and they keep us at it with essays and everything. It’s got a lot of chemistry and biology in it — pretty tough course.’
‘And you’d be trying for first class honours,’ I said.
‘You’re behind the times. It’s called an HD now — High Distinction.’
‘Okay.’
In just that exchange we’d touched on two of the bones of contention — my drinking and Tess’s need to be the best at everything she did.
‘Cliff, I’m calling on account of Ramsay, and don’t you go all quiet on me.’
Ramsay was Tess’s younger brother. Their parents died in a car accident when he was a kid and she wasn’t much older, but she brought him up just the same. They’d got too close sexually at one time and it’d messed Ramsay up more than it had Tess, who was the stronger character. Ramsay was a conservationist almost to the point of not stepping on ants, but he lacked judgement in almost everything he did and thought. Hated me, for example.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘He’s missing. I haven’t heard from him for over a month and he usually rings just about every week.’
For money, I thought. ‘Well, he could be just off in some forest somewhere, up a tree.’
‘No. The last time I heard from him we talked about him studying. He was going back to finish his Agricultural Science degree. I paid his fees.’
I was glad she couldn’t see me. The way things were going she’d have to cough up to get Ramsay into an old people’s home. I tried to keep my voice neutral. ‘So that was the beginning of the term?’
‘Semester.’
‘When was that?’
‘It’s nearly two months, to be honest. I’m worried. But I swore I wouldn’t go around nurse-maiding him like I used to and I meant it. This course is important to me. I don’t want to fuck it up.’
‘Right. What was his last address? Did you phone?’
‘It was in Strathfield. No phone. I sent a card there a while back but there was no answer. Not that Ramsay was much of a one for letters. I know you’ve always got things to do but I…’
‘It’s okay. Give me the address and I’ll see who’s there and what they know. Where was he supposed to be studying?’
Tess was understandably touchy about her brother and I instantly regretted the ‘supposed to be’. After a pause she gave me the address and told me Ramsay was enrolled at Lachlan University.
‘I rang the faculty,’ she said. ‘They wouldn’t tell me anything except that he was enrolled — wouldn’t tell me the names of any teachers or whether he’d submitted work.’
‘All right, Tess. I’ll poke around and see what I can find out. He’s a big boy and something’s probably just sort of deflected him for a bit. Try not to worry. Get on with your massaging. I’ll call you as soon as I learn anything.’
‘Or if you don’t.’
‘Right. Do students have photo ID cards these days?’
‘We do.’
‘That could help. Look, I realise I don’t know him very well. Does
…’
‘Or like him.’
‘I’ve found lots of people I haven’t liked. Doesn’t affect the process that much. Does he have any medical problems, anything like that?’
‘He’s as healthy as a horse… physically. No vices either to speak of. An occasional joint.’
‘Girlfriend?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘What’s his enrolment number?’
She gave it to me. We repeated ourselves the way you do — her apologising for asking for my unpaid help and me reassuring her that it’d work out all right. Meaningless but apparently necessary. Hearing her voice made me miss her, and after I’d hung up I sat staring out through the dusty window wondering whether I should use this as an opportunity to see if we could start again. But I knew that the differences were still there. A little alcohol was in order.
I went over to where I have a big map of Sydney taped to the wall. It serves two functions — to help me move around the city in a more or less logical fashion, or at least as logical as the bridges, water, freeways and one-way traffic streets will allow, and to cover a crack in the wall. It should really be backed by a cork board so I could stick coloured pins in it like they did in such films as The Dam Busters: ‘Now, chaps, we’re coming in heah, heah and heah…’ But I just make marks on it in texta. I put black dots for Ramsay Hewitt’s last known address in Strathfield and Lachlan University before I realised I was putting the pro bono work first. I added red dots for the addresses in Lugarno and Bankstown and stepped back. A lot of territory to cover.
It was after seven p.m. but daylight saving was still in operation and the office was gloomy rather than dark. Still, I switched on a light and squatted on the edge of my desk staring at the map. The city had provided me with my living for a long time now but I occasionally thought of leaving it, never more than after one of my trips up north to stay with Tess. But on the drive back I’d started thinking about how I’d earn a living up there. That led logically to thoughts of selling the Glebe terrace for a bundle, investing the loot and moving in with Tess. By Coffs Harbour I’d convinced myself that this was the intelligent thing to do. By Port Macquarie I was having doubts and by Newcastle I was thinking with horror of sitting around doing nothing or taking up fishing and the impulse had well and truly passed. Tess hadn’t been pleased.
I hadn’t ever bothered to mark my Glebe address or the Darlinghurst location of my office on the map and I did it now with blue ticks. It made me feel anchored in the right place. I’d heard people say they no longer liked Sydney because it’d become so international as to be characterless — anywhere and nowhere. To my mind that depends on where you drink, and I was late getting there.
3
Contrary to popular belief, the best time to put awkward questions to people is not at night when they’re tired but first thing in the morning. If they’re in a rush to get somewhere they’re likely to answer the questions to get rid of you. If they’re not, well, you’ve got all the time in the world to work on them. It’s best, though, to have been up earlier yourself and have all your juices running.
I was at Wesley Scott’s Redgum Gymnasium and Fitness Centre in Norton Street, Leichhardt, shortly after its six a.m. opening time. I stripped, warmed up briefly and went into my routine on the machines. Nothing too strenuous. Lots of reps at low weights, trying for flexibility rather than strength. The gym has fans rather than air-conditioning as a good gym should, but it was pretty hot even that early on a March day which promised to be summery. I was displaying a light film of sweat after working on the seated bench press when Wesley walked up and eyed me critically.
‘You should be sweating more, Cliff.’
‘Sweat yourself, Wes. I’ve got a busy day ahead.’
Wes is West Indian and a former body-building champion. His body hasn’t deteriorated even though the tightly curled hair and clipped moustache are grey. I helped him out once and we became friends of a sort. He shook his head. ‘A true weight trainer doesn’t compromise his workout for other things.’
I stepped across to the pec deck and adjusted the pin so that the machine carried less weight. I’m trying for tone,’ I said. ‘Svelte, you know?’
‘Forget svelte. White men don’t get svelte
.’
Just then Detective Sergeant Peter Lo walked into the gym as I was hoping he would. Peter is Balinese, married to an Australian, and the name he goes by is only an approximation of his real name. He wouldn’t have made it into the New South Wales police force a few years back because he stands only about 155 centimetres. But, sign of the times, the cops dropped the height requirement in deference to the changed ethnic mix of the Australian population. In Lo they got a man as smart as a whip packed into a muscular body.
‘Now there’s a man who works out,’ Wes said.
I nodded and set about doing my insignificant thing on the pec deck. Wes wandered away and I completed my workout, ending with a longer warm down than usual. I kept an eye on Lo. As I finished stretching he was doing concentrated curls using a weight I would have had trouble getting off the floor with both hands. His brown bicep bulged and the veins stood out like blue ropes. He did fifteen, slowly, in a perfect rhythm with each hand, before fastidiously wiping the grip down and restoring the weight to the rack.
He saw me watching and walked over. Lo was broad across the shoulders and chest and thick through. He wasn’t strictly speaking a bodybuilder, but his arms couldn’t hang straight by his sides because of his muscularity and the development made him look shorter than he was.
He flashed a whiter-than-white smile and pushed back his damp hair. ‘Hey, Cliff, done enough?’
‘Not according to Wes, but all I can manage. Can I have a word with you when you’ve finished your Schwarzenegger act?’
‘Sure. I’ll just do a bit of pressing and warm down. We’ll have a coffee down the street.’
‘Does Arnold drink coffee?’
‘He smokes cigars so I bet he does.’
I didn’t want to see him bench pressing. He practically needed to put every weight in the place on the bar. I showered and waited for him in the Bar Napoli a few doors from the gym. The pace of gentrification seems to have stepped up in Leichhardt over the past few years as if it’s in competition with somewhere else and afraid of being left behind. The Italian flavour is still there but it’s being added to by other cultures. The package is wrapped up nicely in bricked footpaths and newly planted trees and fancy civic signs. You can buy just about anything you fancy eating or drinking or wearing, but you’ll pay for it.
The kind of workout I do isn’t very tiring, but it gives me a hell of an appetite and I have to remind myself not to undo all the good work. Lo rolled in and sat down and we ordered black coffee and raisin toast, no butter. We talked gym talk until the food came and then we concentrated on that.
‘So,’ Lo said. ‘What can public law enforcement do for the private sector?’
I finished my coffee and signalled to Paolo for a refill. “That’s funny. I’ve never thought of myself as being in law enforcement. More like… problem solving.’
Lo laughed. ‘Me, too.’
‘I’m interested in finding out about the drug scene in a certain part of Sydney.’
‘What part?’
‘Down along the Georges River — Peakhurst, Lugarno, down there.’
‘At a guess, zilch, but it sounds like you know something I don’t.’
I gave him a heavily edited version of the story. He listened while sipping his second cup of coffee. Mine was getting cold while I talked. Lo nodded several times, which only meant that he was attending, not that he believed me. I finished and drank the lukewarm coffee. ‘If your client had information about illegal activity he’d be in breach of the law in using it for his own purposes. So would you.’
‘Come on, Peter.’
‘It sounds more like law manipulation than law enforcement.’
‘Right, such as a barrister or a solicitor might do.’
He laughed again. ‘Point taken. Is the person your client is trying to protect worth protecting?’
‘I can’t afford such fine ethical distinctions. I just don’t know. It’s early days.’
‘You haven’t met her?’
‘Did I say her?’
‘Balinese intuition plus observation of your body language.’
‘I’m just sitting here.’
“That’s what you think.’
This hadn’t gone as I’d hoped. Of course I hadn’t expected to learn anything about a Mr Big supplying drugs in the area. What I was really fishing for was the police take on dealers there and specifically Danni Price. But Lo’s acuteness had put him closer to my intention than was comfortable. I shrugged, meaning for me — not important… God knows what it meant to Peter Lo.
‘Wes thinks a lot of you. He was giving me one of his bloody excruciating deep tissue massages and he told me how you’d saved his son from big trouble. I like that. I’ll talk to the drugs boys and see what I can find out. When’ll you be here again?’
‘Day after tomorrow.’
‘Bludger. If I help, you can buy me a drink.’
‘Sure. What d’you drink?’
‘Dom Perignon.’
The address Tess had given me for her brother was near the border between Strathfield and Enfield. Like all of the inner city the property values have skyrocketed here and I was surprised that there was a house neglected enough to have become a squat. But there are always deceased estate houses or places with some fatal flaw even in the high-price districts. I expected one of the sorts of places Ramsay had always lived in so far as I knew — a semi with a rusty roof, blotched bricks and a gap-toothed fence with the railway line running a stone’s throw away. Instead I pulled up in a quiet street outside a smart Federation number with a brick and iron fence in good repair, a neat front garden and all the trimmings — tiled path, deep verandah running across half the front and around the side and fresh colonial green paint on the guttering.
The block was wide enough to permit a later modification — a driveway leading to a garage, tastefully blended in to the side of the house.
Squat my arse, I thought, and my dislike for Ramsay Hewitt went up a notch. If there wasn’t a phone inside that house, and more likely a couple of them, I’d take up macrame. Thinking about how Ramsay had lied to Tess made me angry at first and then forced me to reassess my strategy. I’d been expecting to deal with young people scraping along in the social shallows, possibly drug-affected, possibly ideologically driven, possibly hostile. This was a different proposition. I was wearing drill trousers and a faded denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up; I felt I should have been in my best blazer and pleated slacks.
I walked up the pathway, admiring the fancy tiles along the edges, to the mock marble steps leading to the tiled verandah. I was spared the house name on the brass plaque but not the coachman’s lantern. The windows featured elegantly curved steel bars and you’d have needed an oxyacetylene torch to get through the screen door. I pressed the buzzer and waited… and waited some more. If there was anyone home they weren’t answering the front door. I’m not proud; the back door’ll do me any day. I retraced my steps and walked past neat garden beds along a cement path, this time running along the side of the house. But only so far. About two-thirds of the way down I encountered a fence that I hadn’t seen on account of some shrubs branching over in front of it. Some fence. It was thick wire mesh, three metres high with a stout-looking gate, and met the neighbouring house fence which was exactly the same. Job lot. All this place needed was a dragon-filled moat.
I retreated to the front garden in some confusion. It was a little after eight a.m.; the well-heeled residents of this neighbourhood had gone off to work in their BMWs or were hunkered over their computers dealing stocks. I stood beside the carefully tended flower beds wondering what to do next when the front door opened and a woman stepped out onto the verandah.
‘Just what do you think you’re doing prowling around like that?’
She was tall and striking looking, like a ten-years-younger Germaine Greer. Her hair was a deep brown mane falling around her handsome face to her wide shoulders. She wore a loose red blouse of some material that shimmered
, wide-legged white beach pants and sandals with medium heels. I took this in as I walked towards the porch, getting my credentials from my pants pocket. It never does to be defensive first off. ‘I rang the bell,’ I said, being economical with the truth, ‘several times.’
‘That doesn’t give you the right to march about my property.’
I was on the steps now and extending the natty leather folder Tess had given me. ‘I’m making enquires about…’
‘You’re not a policeman.’
She was good, very good. No explanation like — I was in the shower or out the back, just straight into the attack.
‘I’m a private detective,’ I said. ‘And you are…?’
‘Not someone likely to have any business with you.’
I stepped up to the porch. In her heels she almost reached my 184 centimetres. She stood still and balanced, unafraid. She was expertly made up and wore a gold chain around her neck, no wedding ring. ‘I’m looking for Ramsay Hewitt.’
‘Look elsewhere. There’s no one of that name here.’
I don’t mind an occasional points loss, but I don’t fancy being KO’d. I moved a bit closer. ‘He wrote a letter giving this as his address.’
I thought I saw a flicker in the dark amber eyes but I might’ve been wrong. She wasn’t on the ropes. ‘Whoever he may be, he must have been mistaken.’
Good jab. She swivelled nicely, stepped back through the doorway and closed the door behind her. She didn’t even slam it. A definite win on points.
My original intention had been to head for the Georges River area after picking up Ramsay Hewitt’s trail in Strathfield but after the encounter with the woman there I changed my mind. Despite myself, I’d got really interested in finding Ramsay. Lachlan University was once a Johnny-come-lately, but since they started turning teachers colleges and colleges of advanced education and technical institutes into universities it had acquired status. And with the unstoppable sprawl of Sydney proceeding apace, North Ryde doesn’t seem so far out.
