by Peter Corris
‘Excuse me.’
He slowly lowered the paper but did not place it across his genitals. No false modesty here. He slid the shades down to the end of his beaky nose. The face he turned towards me was a mask of urbanity- clipped white moustache, fringe of hair the same colour around a bald, mahogany skull, and piercingly blue eyes, undimmed by his considerable age.
‘You are trespassing, sir.’
‘I’m here on business.’
‘Have your ever heard of Evelyn Waugh?’
‘The novelist? Yes.’
‘I’m told that on the gate outside his house he had a sign reading, “No admittance on business”. I’ve always admired Evelyn Waugh. I think you should leave.’
I moved closer and looked at him. It was impossible to guess his age. He could have been a sun-ravaged sixty or a sun-preserved eighty. The smooth face and clear blue eyes suggested sixty; the wrinkled, reptilian penis and scrotum suggested the octogenarian.
I said, ‘Maybe Waugh’s daughter or grand-daughter didn’t cause him a whole lot of trouble.’
He removed the sunglasses and flipped them onto the grass beside his lounge. ‘Oh God, not again.’
‘I’m afraid so, Mr Wilberforce.’
‘Sir Phillip.’
‘I’m a republican. Sorry.’
He laughed, revealing an almost full set of white, strong-looking teeth. ‘So was I as a young man. Well, what’s Paula been up to? She’s my daughter, by the way. I’m eighty. Her mother was half my age when Paula was born-twenty-five. I regard that as the proper ratio.’
‘You have to keep getting younger women to maintain it.’
‘Exactly. How much does Paula owe you?’
‘It’s not a matter of money. She has something of mine that I want returned.’
‘What?’
I was tired of standing to attention in front of this old stager. Near the end of the pool there was a cane chair over which a blue towelling bathrobe had been thrown. I moved across, slung the bathrobe onto the tiled edge of the pool, and brought the chair close to the lounge. I sat down, took out my PEA licence and showed it to Sir Phillip.
‘Phil,’ I said, ‘your little Paula’s been a very bad girl. She damaged my property and took something that belongs to me. I think she’s a very sick woman, but if you’re her father that’s your problem, not mine. All I want to do is get back what’s mine and give her a warning.’
He leaned forward to examine the licence folder, then sank back on the lounge. For the first time he sounded old. ‘She’s been receiving warnings for twenty-five years, Mr Hardy. None have been heeded.’
‘Where is she?’
‘She has a house in Lindfield. I bought it for her.’
‘I hope your name’s on the title deeds. It’s up for sale. She’s not there.’
Finally, he let go of the newspaper. It flopped down to cover his genitals and skinny thighs. ‘God, not again.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Paula attended eight primary and six secondary schools. She dropped out of university at least five times. She killed her mother.’
‘What?’
‘Figuratively speaking. She lived for six months with some poor unfortunate who thought he could mean something to her. I doubt he’s ever recovered from the experience. She is brilliant, seductive, a walking disaster. I hope you are not involved with her sexually. If you are, and she has dropped out of sight, I strongly advise you to leave well enough alone.’
There was a lot in that to chew on and I watched him closely as he spoke. He was evidently in the throes of powerful emotions, but it was impossible to tell in what directions they were pulling him.
‘It’s nothing like that. But it’s very important that I see her. I take it she’s not here?’
‘No. Why is it so important?’
‘I’d rather not say.’
He nodded. He understood. I wondered what that understanding said about him and his relationship with his daughter. I looked up at the big house which was starting to cast a shadow that would eventually fall across the solarium. It had a high-gabled slate roof and two attic rooms on the top level. A creeper covered most of the back wall.
‘Yes, I live here alone, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve had three wives and I’m never quite sure how many children. A few of doubtful paternity and the wives brought others with them, you see. I couldn’t get used to a small place, not at my age.’
‘Who drives the land Rover?’
‘I do. I drive it to places where there are no people. Then I go bushwalking.’
I believed him. He couldn’t have weighed more than sixty kilos and his thin legs looked strong. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘she followed me the other day. There’s a chance she could be doing it again today. Could I go up to the top there and take a look around? I promise not to lift the family silver.’
He sighed and picked up his paper. ‘Be my guest, but I must tell you that it’s fruitless to anticipate what Paula will do. Whatever you think of she has most likely done the opposite.’
I walked through the solarium and was grateful for the coolness of the air between it and the house. I stepped through a sliding door into a huge kitchen with a flagstone floor. The bottom storey was given over to a living-cum-dining room, library, television room and study. I climbed a cedar staircase wide enough to hold the whole Balmain pack. There were five bedrooms on the second floor. Sir Phil had the pick of the crop-a big, high-ceilinged chamber with double french windows letting onto a wide balcony. He had a big, high bed covered with a tapestry that seemed to depict some major military event. Maybe one of his wives had found herself with time on her hands.
The other rooms weren’t much. The smallest of them wasn’t more than about twice the size of my bedroom in Glebe. One of them had evidently been occupied by a woman.
There was a soiled feminine silk dressing gown hanging on the back of the door and several items of make-up lay scattered on top of a chest standing beside a full-length mirror. Unlike the other rooms I’d seen in the house, this one was dusty and untidy- books on the floor beside the roughly made bed, a hairbrush and a coffee mug on the dresser. I made a thorough search but found nothing-no letters under loose floorboards, no photograph taped to the back of the mirror, no nightclub book matches. Very little scope for detecting. The hairbrush was almost the only thing worth looking at. It held several very long strands of very blonde hair. The room looked like a place to crash rather than to live in.
I went up a smaller staircase to the top level. The attic rooms were used for storage. Tea chests, cardboard boxes and old furniture lay around wearing an air of rejection. I pushed my way through to the window of the room on the right side of the house, rubbed dust from the pane and looked out. I could see all the way over the slate, tile and iron rooftops to Coogee. Under a clear sky, the water was a deep tourist-attracting blue and sunlight bounced off the buildings along the foreshore. Somehow it was natural to look at the distant seascape, an automatic response, but the foreground was just as pleasing. Most of the houses and streets boasted luxuriant trees and the recent rain had given the area a lush, pampered look. The elevation was ideal. I scanned the streets to the west and north, then moved to the other room and surveyed the scene in the other directions. No tall loose-limbed blondes hanging about, no white Honda Civic.
‘Find anything interesting?’ Sir Phillip Wilberforce said when I rejoined him in the solarium. This time I’d removed my leather jacket.
‘Yes and no. You’re very free with your house. I’m a total stranger.’
He smiled and removed a mobile telephone from underneath the cane lounge. ‘I checked on you while you were up there, Mr Hardy. If there had been any reason for concern I would have had help by the time you came down.’
‘I’m impressed,’ I said.
‘So am I. I was contemplating asking you what this exercise was going to cost me, but my information is that you are relatively honest.’
‘I could resen
t the “relatively”.’
He shrugged and replaced the phone. ‘You have to allow for the natural resentment of public officials. The more intelligent of them know that outside their institutions they’d starve in the midst of plenty.’
I might have agreed, partly, but he was starting to bore me. Rampant free-enterprisers have only one song to sing. ‘When did you last see Paula?’ I said.
He laughed. A million wrinkles broke out on his face and spread like ripples in a pool. ‘I’m not going to be questioned by you. Instead, answer this: how much would you accept to desist?’
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. The shadows had advanced but the solarium was still a hot box. ‘Sir Phillip,’ I said, ‘I want to desist. I’ve got other things to do. But I have to see her. Money doesn’t enter into it.’
‘I hoped you’d say that.’ He was wearing his shades again. Now he took them off and gave me a blast from the Wilberforce baby blues. ‘I haven’t seen my daughter for some weeks. She’s the only one of my children I care a damn about. I’ll pay you five thousand dollars, Mr Hardy, to find her.’
6
There’s nothing in the Commercial Agents and Private Enquiry Agents Act to say you can’t take on two important cases at the same time. It’s not usually a sensible thing for a one-man show to do, but this was different. I was going to be looking for Paula Wilberforce anyway, and she’d already cost me money. Besides, I was coming to like Sir Phil. There was something about his don’t-give-a-damn attitude that appealed to me, especially when it was combined with some genuine concern. That was showing now.
‘Poor little Paula. I don’t pretend to have been a good father, Mr Hardy. Do you have children yourself?’
‘No.’
‘You need a lot of luck to bring it off. I had the devil’s own luck in business but none at all in my personal life.’
I sat down again. It was still hot in the solarium. Sweat was rolling off me. A little had collected in the thin folds of fat around the old man’s waist, otherwise he was bone dry.
'You might say I worked harder at the one than the other and that might be true. Who knows? When the pulse of life is throbbing you don’t step back to consider such things.’
‘I suppose not. Tell me, has she ever been suicidal?’
‘Not to my knowledge. Why?’
Peter Corris
CH15 — Beware of the Dog
I considered telling him then what his daughter had of mine. I rejected the idea. Why worry him further? I covered up by saying that it was impossible to stop a genuine suicide and quoting the statistic on the estimated number of missing people who had killed themselves. They’re the ones who do it for themselves, not to make a show, and they don’t care if their bodies are never found.
He listened, then shook his head. ‘Destructive, yes, but not self-destructive. She has an enormous ego. When she was young it sometimes seemed as if there weren’t enough books for her to read, words to learn, places to go.’
‘Maybe you should take your own advice. Just leave her alone.’
‘No. I can’t do that. You seem a capable sort of fellow. Perhaps you could talk some sense into her. Paula never believed that I cared for her. Giving her things obviously didn’t change her opinion. Perhaps hiring your services might.’
Tricky country, that. But I could use the fee and I needed to find her quickly. To have her father’s help and authority was a luxury. I said I’d accept his offer.
‘Good. In the study desk you’ll find a cheque book. Bring it out here please, and we’ll get things on a business footing.’
I got the cheque book. The stubs suggested that the account was in the black to the tune of ten grand. He lowered it by one. He was showing signs of fatigue but he gave me a quick run-down on Paula which didn’t add much to what I already knew. She wasn’t close to any of her half or step siblings. She had had a succession of boyfriends when she was younger but no-one important in recent times.
‘Would she have many possessions-books, furniture, clothes?’
‘Heaps, in each category.’
‘Too much to carry around if she’s staying with friends or living in motels?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Where would it all be?’
‘In the Lindfield house, I imagine. To answer your earlier question, Paula has no right to sell it, but I suppose I would agree if it came to the point. I have a set of keys.’
The keys were in the same desk drawer. Very orderly man, Sir Phil. I got his phone number, promised to stay in touch and we shook hands. His dry hand was almost cold in my hot moist one. I wondered what that meant.
Crisscrossing Sydney again by car. Not my favourite occupation but it comes with the job. There was a long delay on the bridge approach due to roadworks and the traffic remained slow and sticky for most of the way through Willoughby. At least I had a client to charge the petrol to. Lindfield looked as self-assured and well paid-up as ever. I parked directly outside the house and marched straight up the path to the front door, jiggling the keys in my hand. The garden was definitely overgrown, with weeds sprouting and several shrubs growing ragged. The neighbours would soon be getting up a committee to complain.
The house had a solid, respectable feel from the heavy front door through to the glassed-in back sun porch. There were three bedrooms. The largest, in the front to the right of the hall, was dark and furnished with the kind of stuff that is old, expensive and depressing. The one opposite it was brighter and had been used as a kind of studio. It had drop cloths covering the carpet and there were framed canvases, pencil and charcoal sketches on heavy paper and enlarged photographs scattered about. The third bedroom, off the kitchen, was empty with a door that stuck on the frayed carpet.
I gave most of the house a quick once-over-the kitchen was old-style, but functional, the bathroom and toilet likewise. The dining room featured more of the heavy, Victorian furniture but was enlivened by a few paintings on the walls. They were landscapes and sea studies, full of light and life. All unsigned.
The occupied bedroom had been cleaned of all signs of use. The drawers in the dresser and bedside table were empty, with fresh paper liners; the wardrobe was the same with only a few wire hangers taking up the space. I looked under the bed and under the mattress. Nothing. There was a film of dust over the surfaces but no-one had written any messages in it. An elaborately carved chair with a straight high back sat in a corner of the room and seemed to reproach me.
I went back to the studio. Here at least, something had gone on. It was past midday and the light was fading in the room but it must have been glorious earlier on. The bleached look of the drop cloths confirmed this. A tall easel had been laid on its side along one wall. I examined it and found that one of its legs was a splintered, fractured ruin. I found a mark on the wall where the easel had probably struck when it was hit or kicked. There were also paint smears, suggesting that a painting had flown off the easel and hit the wall. Which painting? A frame lying face-down was a mess; the wood was broken on two sides and there were signs that a canvas had been cut and ripped out of it. The other framed pictures, more landscapes, showed no signs of disturbance.
They and the sketches were all unmistakably in the style of those on the dining room walls. Some of the drawings were barely begun, others had been left half-finished. I’m no art critic but these looked accomplished. I turned the heavy sheets of paper over, hoping to learn something. The only thing that struck me was the absence of human faces and figures. That seemed odd, but what do I know? A couple of studies of dogs, stretched out at a full run, had the kind of life-like quality and vigour that someone like me who can’t draw can only gape at.
Two things caught my eye simultaneously. A photograph, blown up to poster size, which looked to have been attacked by a paint brush, and movement in front of the house. I picked up the creased and crumpled photograph and moved to the window. I could see clearly through the greenery to the street. A police car had pulled up behi
nd mine. Two officers approached the Falcon. One carried a clipboard. He consulted it and checked my registration number. He nodded to his mate who went back to their car. I couldn’t see what he was doing and I didn’t want to wait around to find out. I had no outstanding traffic infringements so my rego number was on their list for another reason. After a second or two they advanced on Number 12. One made as if to draw his pistol. The other stopped him, but one trigger-prone cop is more than enough.
I shot through the house, checked that I had the keys and that I hadn’t left anything lying around. I bounded down the back steps and flipped the door shut behind me. The back yard was short. I was at the fence in a couple of strides and over it with an agility that surprised me. I found myself in a large garden with a sprinkler system playing. I dodged the sprays and made it across to the fence on the right. Over that without damage. Still no dogs. I skulked through shrubberies and climbed fences in an easterly direction for a couple of hundred metres. Eventually, more by luck than good management, I dropped into a lane that led to a street. I emerged from my multiple trespasses without the faintest idea where I was.
I was panting as I turned into Tryon Road which gave me some idea of my whereabouts. I straightened my clothes and tried to look as if I belonged there. To my surprise, I still had the photograph clutched in my right hand. I folded it and put it in my pocket. Then it was a matter of making my way to a main road and hailing a cab. I tramped for a kilometre or so of more leafy streets before I reached the Pacific Highway. It was getting close to three o’clock, when the taxi drivers change shifts and want to head for home or base. I walked along the road for twenty minutes before I got a driver to stop. I said ‘Glebe’, automatically and only began to think as we approached the Gladesville bridge.
