We went left at the top of the staircase. Not with confidence. I’d come up a different staircase at the front of the house the first time I was here, and I struggled to get my bearings. We persisted, turned right at a hallway, at the end of which I was sure was the upstairs bathroom I had used after my morning jog a few weeks ago. We were in the wrong wing of the house.
We doubled back, walked past the staircase, walked down the hallway to its right, then turned left again. At the end of that corridor was Barry Hardcastle’s study. I was sure. No one was around. The only noise was still the distant buzz of the mower. I looked at Gabby, motioned to the end of the corridor, and headed for the door at the far end.
Hardcastle’s study was just as I’d left it. The stuffed animals hadn’t moved an inch. The bear winked at me when we walked in. I closed the door behind us.
‘Obviously a Greenpeace member,’ Gabby said, looking at the guns and the deer’s head on the wall.
‘World Wildlife Fund Chairman,’ I said.
‘Is that him and Wen Jiabao?’ I nodded. The Chinese premier obviously didn’t fit into the staircase theme.
‘Probably taken during his last visit. Barry’s trying to crack the Chinese insurance market, get SP’s foot under the door. I’m pretty sure all the policies offering personal injury cover have a run over by a tank in a political protest exclusion clause.’
‘That’s a joke like Dusty Springfield, right?’
‘Read your own Home Contents Insurance policy. Damage due to nuclear explosion is excluded. Underwriters have a great sense of irony.’
‘Shouldn’t we be hurrying?’
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘Last time I was in here the maid walked in. I think she did her dusting apprenticeship in Transylvania.’
I walked over to the desk. Gabby followed and turned the computer on. I tried the drawers to the desk, and to the antique bureau next to it. Locked. There was nothing of great interest on top of the desk, just personal papers. A note for school fees from an exclusive school, some American Express and Visa statements, a few other bills, and letters from The State Secretary of the Labor Party and President of the Liberal Party thanking Hardcastle for his most recent generous donations. Go tort reform.
‘I can’t get in,’ Gabby said.
‘What?’
‘It’s secure. You need a password.’
‘Try “Hardcastle”.’
‘You’re a genius,’ she said, typing. ‘What do you know? It doesn’t work. There’s a surprise.’
‘South Pacific.’
‘No. Want to try his birthday?’ I shook my head. ‘Wife’s name?’
‘Fiona. Try “echidna” too.’
‘Shut up. Any children?’
‘Don’t know their names. We could be here for a year.’
‘What are we looking for, anyway?’
‘Fuck knows.’
‘This is a really great idea. You’d last two minutes as the villain in a Bond movie. What now?’
I looked at the wall. This hadn’t exactly been one of my better thought out plans. Then again, I was desperate, trying to save lives. I kept looking at the wall. One of those soft yellow bulbs went on in my head again.
‘Try “Indemnity”.’
‘“Indemnity”?’
‘Yep.’
‘Why?’
‘Just try.’
She typed. ‘We’re in,’ she said. I pointed to the wall. Barry Hardcastle and his favourite racehorse in the Randwick mounting yard. Difficult to say who looked more pleased with themselves for having won race 5. Barry or Indemnity. ‘His nag,’ I said. ‘I’m not kidding.’
She shook her head and started clicking the mouse. ‘Where to?’
‘Everything.’
‘How long have we got?’
‘About five minutes before Bill starts hollering for us. If he isn’t already.’
She went into Word and we looked at the folders. There were at least fifty on SP. Mainly financials. ‘Go into claims,’ I said. She clicked in, but it just seemed to be a raft of documents about handling procedures. She went back to the main folders. She paused. ‘What are you doing?’ I said, leaning over her shoulder, looking at the plasma screen.
‘Looking for the folder on murders. Obviously.’
‘Try suicides.’
‘What about boating accidents? Or bumping off claims officers?’
‘Just click into something.’
She turned and looked at me. ‘This is a waste of time. We could have nothing after six months.’
I rubbed my chin and looked back at the screen. ‘Go into his e-mail.’
‘His e-mail?’
‘You don’t need to repeat everything I say.’ The break and enter business had me a little on edge. She was an ice queen.
‘Why don’t you go back downstairs and cover for us,’ she said. ‘I can do this without your head on my shoulder.’
‘Other way around. You go down.’
‘I can look for nothing just as well as you can.’
‘You might get caught. What if someone comes up? I wasn’t kidding about the maid.’
‘I’m a big girl, Chris. I’ll think of something. There’s your name.’
‘Where?’
‘Jarrett to Hardcastle. Blake doc.’ She opened the e-mail. It said: ‘04150 & 061247?’
‘Is there a reply?’
She scanned back down. ‘Not that I can see. Did you notice the time? Jarrett’s e-mail was only sent late last night. What’s it mean?’
‘Go back to the first one.’
She did. ‘Chris – what’s it mean?’
I wrote the numbers down. ‘Chris?’
‘They’re either policy or claims numbers.’
‘Meaning?’
I turned and looked at her. ‘It could mean absolutely nothing,’ I said. ‘Or it could mean that the plaintiffs in claims 04150 and 061247 have a life expectancy considerably less than the Australian Bureau of Statistics would give them. Even if they’re both eighty.’
‘What’s Blake doc? That thing they asked you to draft?’
‘It must be,’ I said. I took the mouse and shut the computer down. ‘Let’s go. I need to make a quick recovery and risk going back to work.’
Gabby slipped the leather chair back in under the desk and we hurried to the door. No one would know we’d been in there except the bear and the deer. The bear winked again. I opened the door.
No one was about. Silence now, not even the buzz of the mower.
‘We’d better hurry,’ I said. We got two-thirds of the way down the hallway when I put out my arm and stopped Gabby. I could hear the rustle of a pair of jeans coming towards us down the other hallway. Maybe two pairs of jeans.
‘Shit,’ I whispered. ‘In here.’
Thirty
I opened the nearest door. I pushed it back but didn’t shut it, to keep down the noise. When I turned there was a square, cream-carpeted room in front of me, maybe half the size of the Sydney Cricket Ground. At the far end of the room was a four-poster bed that the Yugoslav basketball team could have slept in without a single size 16 sticking out. The marital HQ. ‘Fuck,’ I said.
I grabbed Gabby by the hand and dragged her further into the room and then into the en suite on the right, just as I sensed the bedroom door swinging open, then heard it slamming behind us. More rustling, no talking. I pulled the bathroom door nearly flush, but didn’t close it, again to avoid noise. I needn’t have worried. There was a slurping sound outside. Passionate kissing or someone was eating four Mars Bars at once. If it was kissing, it was prodigious. An emptying bath gurgled less.
I looked at Gabby, who held up her hands. I shook my head. I looked around. We were in a black and white tiled bathroom that would have accommodated the ablution needs of the Roman Senate at the height of the Empire in a heatwave. Flipper could have amused himself for days in the spa. Every surface sparkled like an Ajax commercial. The price of the taps fluctuated by the ounce daily. The su
n shone down from a skylight about twenty feet above us. It looked retractable. You could launch a ballistic through it. I motioned with my index finger to my lips for Gabby to keep quiet. The slightest pin drop would echo to the Swiss Alps and back.
Meanwhile, things were getting noisier outside. The smart thing to do would have been to hold tight, maybe hide inside the toilet cistern until the coast was clear. So I stepped forward and opened the door just a fraction.
I could see why the kid fell in the pool.
I turned and looked at Gabby. Her mouth and eyes were wandering somewhere between amusement and deep distress. They couldn’t make up their minds. ‘What the hell is going on out there?’ she whispered.
I figured it for a rhetorical question. I’m sure things with the Female Dr Carter got a little raucous from time to time. They sure as hell did when I thought about them. Even if the FDC’s idea of a romantic gift was hiking boots. I leant over to her ear. ‘She’s with the kid who was cleaning the pool,’ I said. ‘We’re in the middle of a porn video.’
It could have been worse, I thought. At least it wasn’t my de facto this time. It was getting late in the third act outside. Gabby still wavered between amusement and distress, with maybe a touch of disgust thrown in. Frankly, I was getting a little excited. I’ve got my excuses.
‘What do we do?’ she whispered.
I shrugged. ‘No idea,’ I said. ‘These things never have much plot.’
I looked through the gap in the door again. The pool kid had worked up a sweat along with Fiona Hardcastle. That made three of us. Then he started to groan. I saw her eyes roll to the back of her head like that doll in Child’s Play. I turned to Gabby.
‘They’ll be in here in three minutes,’ I said. ‘Five if she’s a smoker.’
She went from disgust back to distress. ‘What do we do?’
A cold shower would be good. I tried to think. I thought. It was a bad thought. I tried again. I’m a naughty boy. ‘Pull down your overalls,’ I whispered. I’d been wanting to say that all morning.
‘What?’
‘Trust me. Unclip them. Quick. Get ’em down. Over here.’ I dragged her to the vanity unit and picked her up and placed her on the edge of the sink, slipping myself between her legs. My back creaked like Dracula’s coffin lid. I was out of practice. I dropped my overalls.
‘Kiss me,’ I said.
‘Chris.’
‘Make some noise.’ She got it. She raised an eyebrow at me. I’d already done better.
She smiled. Things were quiet outside. She damn well smiled and I damn well near swooned. She planted her mouth on mine. Then she put Meg Ryan and Fiona Hardcastle to shame. Giddy up. My heart pumped like Phar Lap’s in the Melbourne Cup. If he hadn’t been a gelding.
Fiona Hardcastle burst into the bathroom between one second and five days after that. I’m not sure. She let out a scream that would have felled a dragon.
‘What the FUCKING hell are you doing in here? What the fuck is this?’ She had a voice like all three of Macbeth’s witches speaking at once. I turned to face her. She took a step back and looked down.
Laurie Egan would have been proud.
Fiona Hardcastle didn’t look quite impressed enough for my liking. The pool kid was impressed, though. He fell off the bed this time.
‘How fucking dare you,’ Fiona Hardcastle screamed. ‘Get out! Get out! I’m going to have you both sacked!’
I looked at the kid on the floor. ‘What about him?’
‘Get out!’
I noticed Mrs H’s hands. I didn’t want to trifle with them. She could gut a humpback in a minute flat. Gabby and I hitched ourselves up, and got out of there fast.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ Bill Doyle was pissed. It was about to get worse.
‘There’s been a bit of an incident inside,’ I said.
‘What incident?’
‘It’s not easy to explain. And it’s a long story.’
He adopted his King of Siam pose. At six foot six, this is quite a pose. ‘Try me,’ he barked.
I didn’t have to try him. Fiona Hardcastle came storming out the back door and onto the terrace, jeans and T-shirt on, long brown hair still a tad post-coital. ‘Bill,’ she shrieked,’ do you know what I just caught these two doing? And in my fucking bathroom!’
‘With all due respect, Mrs Hardcastle,’ I began.
‘Shut up,’ she hissed. ‘Shut the fuck up, or you’ll be in more trouble than you already are. What’s your name?’
‘What the hell is going on here?’ Bill yelled, looking at me. I told him. I left Fiona and the kid out of it. Just Gabby and me making whoopee in the Hardcastles’ bathroom.
‘You were doing what?’
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘Sorry! This is why you wanted to work today? What kind of kinky bastard . . .’
‘We were going to the toilet at the same time,’ I said. ‘It’s a lovely day. The birds and the bees. We got carried away.’
‘The birds and the fucking bees,’ he screamed. He looked at the ground like he was going to take a chunk out of it with his teeth. Then he looked back up at me. ‘The toilet?’ he said, incredulous. ‘Shit.’
By now all work had stopped and Gabby and I were the centre of horticultural attention. ‘I thought you said she was gay,’ Bill said. All eyes on me, then her. I looked at Gabby. She was still smiling, which I took as a good sign.
‘What can I say, Bill? My luck just changed.’
‘No, it fucking hasn’t,’ Fiona Hardcastle screeched. ‘I want them sacked, Bill. This is outrageous. I want their names and addresses.’ Her nails sliced together in steely rasps like Edward Scissorhands’.
‘We’re leaving,’ I said. The crew in the garden looked disappointed. They wanted more. A guy with my lawn clipper nearly cut off his foot. And they only had half the story. I walked over close to Bill Doyle. ‘Don’t give our real names,’ I said firmly. ‘Just don’t.’ I gripped his forearm.
‘What in Christ’s name are you doing?’ he said. ‘These are big clients of mine.’
‘I’ll explain later,’ I whispered. ‘It’s not what you think.’
Gabby and I walked over to the electronic gate. The bloody thing opened again. How the hell does it work? I turned back to the others. ‘Bill,’ I yelled, ‘the kid doing the pool. How much are you charging him out at?’
‘Shut up,’ Fiona Hardcastle screeched again.
‘What?’
‘How much per hour?’
‘Twenty-five. What are you –’
‘You might want to up that,’ I said. ‘I’m sure Mrs Hardcastle agrees.’
Fiona Hardcastle went off at me like all of Macbeth’s witches again. Like every self-respecting socialite would who had just lost a bargain.
Thirty-One
I arrived at South Pacific just before twelve. I was going to print off the bordereau, clear out my kennel, have a sudden relapse after my sudden recovery, then get out to the RSLC to meet Gabby.
Gibbs nearly jumped on me as soon as I walked out of the lift. His lips had now completely disappeared. There was a slit like a cut in squid where his mouth used to be. I stopped, looked at him blankly. ‘How did you do it?’ He hissed the words so hard at me he nearly shot a front tooth out. There was a spasm of rage in his chin, and a weak colouring in his cheeks like faintly blooming red algae.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You know damn well.’ He sucked in air and then spat it back at me. ‘From claims officer to National Head of Claims in less than three months. You! With your history!’
‘Oh, that,’ I said, brushing past him. ‘So they told you?’
‘Just so you know,’ he said, walking after me, ‘I’ve lodged a formal complaint. It’s outrageous. Many others agree.’
I stopped. I looked at him. I didn’t like what I saw. I never had or would. ‘Who?’ I asked.
‘Never mind who. And don’t think I won’t now be telling Angelo about your stunt in
his office.’
Gibbs telling De Luca that I’d been snooping around his cabinet could prove deadly. I had to shut that down. I fell back on years of experience as a trial advocate. If your case is weak, get aggressive. ‘Listen, Gibbo,’ I commenced. ‘One – you may want this to be a sheltered workshop, but it’s still private enterprise. They’ll wipe their arses with your complaint. Two – if I’m Head of Claims now, get back to fucking work. Three – Hardcastle told me to go into De Luca’s room and check up on his files. Tell anyone that and he’ll personally kick you out the fucking door. Four – piss off, I’m busy.’
He turned more claret with that, but I didn’t stay for a detailed examination.
I switched my computer on, called up the bordereau, hit ‘Print’. I checked 04150 and 061247 while I waited. Both huge injury claims as expected. One in Perth, one in Brisbane. Just the sort of risks that SP specialised in making disappear. Clare met me at the printer while I was collecting the document.
‘I suppose congratulations are in order,’ she said dryly.
‘No,’ I said. ‘They’re not.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m not feeling well again. I’m going home.’
‘Chris.’
‘How do you know about the Head of Claims thing?’
‘We all got an e-mail this morning,’ she said. ‘From Hardcastle. Congratulating you on your performance so far and announcing the appointment.’
‘Did it say anything about De Luca?’
‘Mutual congratulations to him on his “promotion” also. Some new management position dealing exclusively with certain claims. Sounded like rubbish.’
‘I have to go,’ I said.
‘What’s going on, Chris?’
‘I’ll call you. I promise.’
I turned and headed for the lift.
I put down on paper the final touches to my plan. I was on a near empty bus heading out to Randwick South. That was the good thing about catching public transport now that I no longer had a car. It was not only cheaper, I had time to get my own criminal scheme in order.
The Ambulance Chaser Page 26
