by Peter Corris
Comeback
( Cliff Hardy - 37 )
Peter Corris
Peter Corris
Comeback
PART ONE
1
‘You read the papers don’t you, Cliff?’ my lawyer, Viv Garner, said.
‘All depends,’ I said.
‘On what?’
‘Whether they’re going to make me angry or not, and a lot of things make me angry-politics, economics, religion, television. .’
‘That just about covers it. Bit sour though.’
‘Oh, a lot of things make me happy. Make me laugh. Sometimes the same things that make me angry. I’m not sour. You might say bittersweet.’
‘Okay, I gather you haven’t followed the High Court decision in the case of Wade versus the Commissioner of Police.’
We were drinking coffee in a place in Glebe Point Road that had been recommended to me by a coffee snob. ‘The best, mate,’ he’d said. It was okay, better than some, and they’d served it very hot, the way I like it. Viv had rung wanting to meet and offering to buy. He knew I was broke or very close to it. I’d ordered a croissant to go with the coffee. I’d been skipping meals a bit to save money. I thought I could probably tap Viv for a second cup. I shook my head in answer to his question.
‘Jack Wade was, and will be again possibly, a licensed commercial and private inquiry agent. Like you, the Commissioner banned him for life.’
That got my interest. ‘What did he do?’
‘He impersonated a police officer for financial gain. The thing is, a law firm took up the case and fought it all the way to the High Court. The court decided that life bans are unconstitutional. Violation of human rights.’
‘What’s the upshot?’
‘Jack wins the right to apply for a review of his case to the Security Industry Registry. If he gets the nod there it’s likely the Commission’ll have to settle for a suspension, say, three years.’
I forgot about coffee good or bad, hot or cold. ‘I’ve done more than that already.’
Viv’s smile was smug. ‘Exactly.’ He reached into his briefcase. ‘I downloaded the appropriate forms. Does that make you happy?’
‘I think it might. You want a kiss?’
‘No thanks. I just want to see you back at work.’
It happened and more easily than I’d imagined. I’d had a couple of suspensions even before I’d had the book thrown at me. I’d served a brief gaol term which, strictly speaking, should have cancelled me out for a long spell except that I had some high-profile help. There was no chance of getting help this time. The application was processed and the hearing was held and the matter was referred to a committee and a sub-committee and they must have built up a metre-high stack of paper. But in the end I was reinstated, given the plastic licence card and a folder of rules and regulations that would have taken a week to read.
Then it was a matter of getting liability insurance at a ruinous rate given my age and record, joining a gun club and putting in the hours to qualify for a pistol licence and renting an office and furniture. All costly. I’d had my house in Glebe free and clear of mortgage for years; now I took out a sizeable mortgage again at a high interest rate over the fairly short term the bank allowed me. Gratifying, though, to find out what the old place was worth. I felt I’d got away with something. I was back in business with a necessity to earn money to cover my overheads. Just like the old days and I got a lift from it.
At my daughter Megan’s insistence I bought some new clothes, and that gave me a buzz, too. But I drew the line at changing cars; Megan just wanted to get her hands on my noble old Falcon.
The office was in Pyrmont, squeezed between Miller Street and Bridge Road. The building had been a warehouse. It’d been gutted, honeycombed, painted and rewired but sometimes I could swear I still smelled wool or wheat or copra or whatever had been stored there. I threw a small office-warming party. Megan, her partner Hank and my ten-month-old grandson Ben, Frank and Hilde Parker, Viv Garner, Daphne Rowley, my doctor Ian Sangster and a few other Glebe types drank cask red and white, ate saladas and cheese slices and wished me luck.
‘Fresh start, Cliff,’ Frank Parker, who’d retired as a Deputy Commissioner of Police, said as he examined my secondhand Mac and phone and fax set-up. ‘Not common at your age. How’re you feeling?’
‘Bit anxious but optimistic,’ I said. ‘Comebacks aren’t such a good idea, even if Ali made it.’
Frank nodded. ‘He stayed at it too long though.’
‘I’ll know pretty quickly whether I’ve still got it,’ I said. ‘In this game you’ve got the knack or you haven’t. Anyway, I have to give it a go. Trouble is, I’m out of touch with the usual conduits, the lawyers and such.’
Daphne Rowley, who runs a printing business and plays pool with me at the Toxteth Hotel, topped up her plastic glass with the red. ‘That’s why I got him to advertise, Frank,’ she said. ‘Ads in the local rags, cards up here and there and a website.’
Frank almost spilled his drink. ‘ You , a website?’
‘Megan set it up,’ I said. ‘Photo makes me look ten years younger.’
‘It’d need to,’ Frank said. ‘Well, good luck, mate, and try to stay out of trouble. They’ll be keeping an eye on you.’
I’d worried about the website and the photograph. In the past anonymity had been the PIA’s stock in trade but times had changed. If you’re not in cyberspace you’re nowhere. Anyway, the photo didn’t look all that much like me.
They drifted off and I shovelled the glasses and paper plates and uneaten food into a garbag. I sat at the desk and examined the room. It felt better for having had people and wine and talk in it. Less sterile. But the brightness and the clean surfaces made me uncomfortable. My two battered filing cabinets and the bar fridge from offices past stood against the wall like comfortable old friends. The hired desk and chairs weren’t new either and I noticed a couple of wine stains on the pale grey carpet. I’d soon knock the place into shape.
I sat there wondering if I’d made the right decision. The private inquiry business has changed radically over the past decade or so. Now it’s all search engines and databases and emails and very little knocking on doors. I’m told some people in the game charge by the hour, like lawyers. I was always one for getting out there, asking around, finding the pressure points and applying the force. Of course I did my share of bodyguarding and money minding, but there were security firms doing those jobs exclusively now. Process serving could provide a steady but minor income stream like credit checking. But credit checking in particular was completely computerised now. The question was, were there still human problems out there that needed the personal touch, the right question, the accumulated experience of more than twenty years? I was sure there must be.
The mortgage didn’t worry me too much. There it was, an extraction from a slender bank account every month with heavy penalties for failing to have enough money to cover it. I decided to see it as a stimulus. Until about eighteen months before, I’d enjoyed a period of affluence, courtesy of an inheritance from my partner, Lily Truscott. I hadn’t exactly enjoyed it; I felt guilty about it mostly, and it had all gone west in a financial scam of which I was the victim. It’d been a bad feeling and I’d done things about it. That had primed me for my new start. I was ready.
I kept busy renewing old contacts and trying to establish new ones. A few crackpots approached me-a psychic offering her services, a wannabe crime writer with twenty rejected manuscripts wanting me to read them and tell him where he went wrong, a defrocked minister wanting me to prove that the woman who had replaced him was an atheist. One matter I had to look at very seriously. It was a thinly veiled invitation to shoot a witness in a criminal trial. It had a peculiar smell to
it and I concluded that it was a set-up, either by the police or some old enemy, designed to put me deep in the shit. Big bait, but I didn’t bite.
The doubt was pretty much dispelled when Robert ‘Bobby’ Forrest turned up to keep the appointment he’d made by phone. Forrest was tall and lean, say 188 centimetres and 80 kilos. He was also remarkably handsome, with fair hair and regular features. Good teeth. His knock lacked authority though, and he was clearly nervous as he took a seat.
‘My father recommended you, Mr Hardy,’ he said.
I sighed. The generation gap with a vengeance. Forrest was in his mid-twenties at a guess. That probably put his dad in his fifties.
‘Who would that be?’
‘Ray Frost. I changed my name for professional reasons. Dad said you handled a delicate matter for him way back when. He said he thought you’d gone out of business, but I found your web page.’
‘I took a break. I’m sorry, I don’t remember the name Ray Frost. Did he tell you what it was about?’
He shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t say. He was a bit of a wild man back then, I gather.’
‘Probably best to leave it then. Anyway, I’m glad I gave satisfaction. What can I do for you?’
I have misgivings about grown men using a diminutive like Bobby, but it happens and probably more in show business than anywhere else. He was wearing sneakers, jeans, a T-shirt and a leather jacket. All good quality and expensive-looking. He fiddled with the zip on the jacket. ‘It’s like, kind of embarrassing.’
I nodded the way the psychiatrists do, trying to look comforting as well as professionally concerned.
‘I’m being stalked.’ He blurted it out.
Another nod. ‘By whom?’
‘I. . sort of. . don’t know.’
He had my attention. A changed name and a mysterious stalker will do that every time. I must have got the comforting look right because he stopped fidgeting, sat up straight and told me the story.
Bobby Forrest was an actor. He’d changed his name because Frost had connotations of cold and discomfort, and Forrest suggested something natural and, in these greening days, valuable. He said he’d dropped out of NIDA and hadn’t regretted it. A good part had come along and he’d grabbed it and been in regular work ever since, in television, films and commercials. He wasn’t surprised when I admitted I’d never heard of him.
‘No offence,’ he said, ‘but I’m geared towards a younger market.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Very wise.’
‘I’m pretty well known. I’ve done a lot of TV and some movies. I’ve been on the cover of a few magazines and stuff like that. But I know I’m not that smart,’ he said.
I made the sort of gesture you make but he was serious. He said he’d been good at a variety of sports at school. He could sing and dance a bit and play a couple of musical instruments, but he’d never been interested in studying and his talent for acting was just a knack. He’d always liked to show off. He planned to start reading books and developing his mind.
‘I’ve got a girlfriend who’s helping me with that. Her name’s Jane. I’ve got a photo. .’ He started to reach for the inside pocket of his jacket but stopped. ‘I’m getting ahead of myself. I haven’t been much of a success with girls-shy, really. So I tried the online dating thing and that’s how I met Jane. But before I met her I got into a sort of online relationship with this other woman.’
He took two photos from his jacket and studied them. ‘I don’t know if you know how online dating works, Mr Hardy.’
‘Call me Cliff. I’ve got a rough idea. You exchange information and photos and if you tick enough boxes with each other you arrange to meet.’
‘That’s right. With no obligation on either side. If you don’t get along, all bets are off with no harm done.’
Just stating it so matter-of-factly made me see a whole minefield. No obligation, the bet’s off, no harm done, can mean very different things to different people.
He selected one of the photos and put it on my desk as if he was glad to be rid of it. It was a full-length shot of an extremely attractive woman. She was slim and dark, provocatively posed in a tight dress that showed an impressive length of shapely leg.
Forrest held the other photo as though it was fragile or so light it might float away. He pointed to the photo on the desk.
‘I met her once. You don’t have to use your real names. I didn’t use mine. She said her name was Miranda but it probably wasn’t. She said she was an actress.’
‘It didn’t take?’
‘She was awful. Very conceited and aggressive. Tried to. . run everything. It was a disaster and I couldn’t get away quick enough.’
It was mid-October and getting warm outside. He was dressed a bit too heavily in the leather jacket but it was the memory of his meeting with Miranda that was making him sweat. He transferred the photo to his left hand and rubbed his fist across his damp forehead.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Like I say, it was awful. . in every way. I thought that was it and I went back online, looking, and I found Jane. We met and hit it off right away. She’s terrific. She’s very smart, much smarter than me, but she somehow makes me feel smarter than I am, better than I am, if you can understand that.’
I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could. ‘A good feeling.’
‘The best. But this other one, she won’t leave me alone. She bombards me with text messages and emails. She’s turned up a few times at places where I’ve been. I’ve no idea how she finds out my movements. I get the feeling that I’m being followed sometimes, but that might just be paranoia-isn’t that what they call it?’
‘Yes. Does Jane know about her?’
‘No, and that’s one of my worries. Jane is sort of insecure about me.’
‘How’s that?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s hard to explain and it’s bound up with one of my other problems. The whole fucking thing’s all bound up together and with my. . I’m sorry, Mr. . Cliff, I’m not sure I can go on with this.’
It was 4 pm, late enough under the circumstances. I had a bottle of Black Douglas in the bottom drawer of the desk. I got it out, opened the bar fridge and put a couple of ice cubes in two plastic glasses left over from the party. I added solid slugs of the scotch and pushed the drink across to him.
‘Have a drink, Bobby, and collect your thoughts. Nothing you say to me gets said to anyone else without your permission.’
He took the glass and had a sip, then a longer pull. ‘Okay, thanks. This is the really embarrassing bit. . bits. Being stalked by a woman and not being able to handle it, that’s bad enough, but. . I went home with Miranda. I don’t know why. I suppose I thought I should. I couldn’t get it up for her. She was beautiful and all that, but I just couldn’t. I’ve had some trouble in that department over the years. .’
‘You’re not Robinson Crusoe.’
‘What? Oh, yeah, but nothing like this. It was miserable.’
‘Do I have to ask the obvious question?’
‘No. With Jane everything is wonderful. Amazing, really. But Miranda, or whoever she is, has threatened to harm Jane. To physically hurt her. And she says she’ll tell her I’m really gay and that I’m just using her as a. .’
‘Beard, the Americans call it.’
‘Do they? Okay. She says she knows I’m not and that she can fix my problem, but she says she’s so hurt that’s what she’d do.’
‘Unless?’
‘Unless I agree to see her, respond to her messages and emails, go on a holiday with her, all that.’
‘These threats come how?’
‘Emails, letters, cards, phone calls.’
He handed me the other photograph. It showed a young woman sitting in a chair smiling shyly at the camera. She had curly, cropped hair, a pug nose and slightly droopy eyes. She wore a blouse and a skirt that covered her knees. Forrest cleared his throat.
‘Jane isn’t beautiful, as you can see, but that doesn’t matter to me. She’s
wonderful and I love her, but because I look the way I do. . shit, I hate saying this.’
‘She feels she’s not good enough for you while you feel you’re not good enough for her.’
He had large, expressive blue eyes like Mel Gibson and he opened them wide. ‘That’s it exactly. I can’t bear the thought of losing her or of any harm coming to her because of me.’
‘Tell me about the threats to Jane.’
‘They’re kind of veiled, I suppose you’d call it. Nothing like “I’ll throw acid in her face” or like that. But she says how people can have accidents, how they can contract diseases by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She says she knows people who can arrange things and how Sydney is such a dangerous city.’
‘Nothing direct?’
‘No.’
‘And you believe she’s capable of carrying out these threats?’
‘That’s the trouble, I don’t know. But I can’t afford to take the risk. I’m embarrassed about all this. The only person I’ve been able to talk to about it was my dad. Can you help me?’
2
It didn’t feel like such a big deal. It was a reversal of the usual stalker scenario, but what could I expect? It was the twenty-first century and we had climate change, an unwinnable war supported by both sides of politics, a minority government and a female prime minister. Change was everywhere.
Bobby said he’d been back to Miranda’s flat but she wasn’t there. He felt too angry to reply to her emails or phone calls because he was worried she might record him saying something he shouldn’t. He mentioned his bad temper. He wanted me to find Miranda and talk to her. Persuade her that the course she was following would only get her into serious trouble.
‘Would you take legal action?’
He finished his drink as he thought about it. ‘I’d be reluctant. It’d be embarrassing and Jane would find out all about it. But Dad says you’re good at getting through to people. If you thought she was serious about the threats and wouldn’t listen, then yes, I’d take legal action.’
