by Peter Corris
‘Five bucks a week,’ I said.
‘Fifteen.’
‘Eight.’
‘Twelve.’
‘Ten.’
‘OK, you’ve got a deal.’
‘And a key to this building.’
‘No worries.’
I put a ten-dollar note on the table and went past the client to a door giving on to a passage that led to a walkway running along the back of the row of buildings.
‘Private eye,’ I heard Primo say.
‘No kiddin’?’ the Yank said. Then the needle started buzzing again.
I walked through to my building, up two flights of stairs and along to my office. All quiet, as usual. No blondes, brunettes or redheads in seamed stockings leaning against the door. The only thing attached to the door was the filing card on which I’d printed ‘Cliff Hardy, Private Inquiries’ and fastened with a drawing pin. Not quite as required by the Commercial Agents and Etcetera Act, but doing the job. Monday’s mail had yet to arrive. I felt a slight sensation of achievement in having got Gallagher to agree to come here. After the last few days, I’d seen enough of the inside of police stations. Maybe you could communicate differently with policemen on civilian ground. I hoped so. It was a punt, talking to Gallagher, but I sensed, along with the ambition, a maverick spirit in him, an impatience with bureaucracy and procedure that might work to my advantage. Had to work.
I heard him on the stairs soon after I’d rolled a supply of three cigarettes. I didn’t want to press my luck, so I opened the door and waited for him. He came briskly along the corridor-no hat, jacket unbuttoned, tie slid down, at his ease. He was carrying two styrofoam cups with lids.
‘I’ll swear I saw a rat on the stairs,’ he said.
‘That’d be Jack,’ I said. ‘I heard him squeak. He lets me know when any coppers come around.’
He laughed and went past me into the office. He put the cups down on my desk and clicked his fingers. ‘Due cappuccini’, he said. ‘I live in Leichhardt.’
I closed the door. ‘Good for you, Ian. I’m glad you could make it.’
He lifted the lids from the cups, dropped them into the w.p.b. and took several packets of sugar and two plastic spoons from his pocket. ‘Somehow, Cliff,’ he said, ‘I got the feeling that there wouldn’t be a lot of amenities around here.’
‘I’ve got a flagon of red in the drawer. But it’s just a shade early for a Glebe boy. I dunno about Leichhardt.’
He put two packets of sugar into his coffee and stirred vigorously. I took mine without. We sipped and I lit a cigarette. He glanced around the room observing the decor, which you could have called shabby-functional.
‘You should have something on the wall,’ he said. ‘Your medals, army commission, PEA licence, something like that.’
‘I was thinking more of a dartboard.’
The coffee had lost a bit too much of its heat. I kept drinking slowly while I tried to think fast, but Gallagher drained his cup. He began chopping into the plastic with his fingernails. I’d almost have rather he’d bitten them. ‘OK, Cliff, tell me why I’m here.’
‘Loggins wants to use me as a bait to draw out whoever killed Meadowbank and the girl. His idea is to put it around that I know a lot and that I like to talk.’
‘Sounds like a good strategy.’
‘I don’t care for it so I’ve been doing some digging on my own. I’ve come up with a few things that I wanted to try on you.’
‘You want to waltz around with me, leaving Bob Loggins out of it? Loggins? I’ve already got my immediate superior hating my guts, I don’t need one of the top Homicide D’s joining the club. I don’t think I can help you.’
It was what I’d expected and hoped he’d say. To jump straight at what I was offering you’d have to be crazy, and a crazy ally is worse than none at all. Still, I hoped to work on his vanity and ambition.
‘I think you were on the right track,’ I said. ‘My information is that there’s a conspiracy behind the two killings. It involves divorces, reputations, careers, probably property settlements as well. I’ve only got a few chips off the tip of the iceberg, but they’re interesting.’
Gallagher’s young-old face set into lines of intense concentration. ‘Go on.’
‘I’ve got two names-Redding and Molesworth. I’m told there’s more from the same side of the street. Redding you’d have heard of, Molesworth’s a big-time surgeon. Meadowbank was in on it, too. As I hear it, a couple of lawyers and PEAs arranged for convenient co-respondents, permitting clean divorces. Andrew Perkins was in on it to some extent, but it looks as if Juliet Farquhar who worked in his office took her own run at it and became a nuisance. Meadowbank wanted to pull out. He’d got less interested in divorce. There’s a possibility that whoever killed him really meant to get Virginia Shaw, or perhaps both of them. I’m not sure about that.’
‘Where have you been getting this?’
‘Some from Virginia Shaw. I’m working for her now, in a way.’
Gallagher seemed about to react to that but he held off and continued demolishing his plastic cup. He had a lot of options to consider and I didn’t mind him taking his time.
‘I’ve got another source, too. Can’t tell you who it is, but he’s put the finger on the man who killed Meadowbank.’
Gallagher’s fair head with its carefully combed thick hair came up slowly. He dropped the cup and the bits he’d torn from it in the bin. ‘And who would that be?’
I shook my head. ‘I need some undertakings first.’
‘That’s an unfortunate choice of words,’ Gallagher said. ‘But how about this: I go to Loggins now and tell him what you’ve told me. It fleshes out some things I had an inkling about. Then we haul you in and squeeze you until you cough up the name of this source of yours and the alleged killer and anything else we choose to ask you about. Col Pascoe’s got a fucking truckload of charges he’d like to stick up you, don’t forget.’
‘Wouldn’t work.’
‘Why not?’
‘First, you’d have to explain to Loggins how you went to me without talking to him first. That’d be hard and Pascoe’d love it. Suppose you got past that somehow, I’d deny everything. Then you’d be in the possession of information with no way of accounting for it convincingly. It would have to occur to Loggins and Pascoe that you’d been talking to people you shouldn’t, and without keeping a record. I’d be in the shit, sure, but you’d be in it with me, Ian.’
He flashed the Redford grin. ‘Pretty smart. OK, why don’t you take the information to Loggins?’
‘I don’t trust him. I’ve got this nasty suspicion that what some Homicide detectives are best at is arranging homicides.’
‘That bespeaks a shocking want of confidence in the police force. Not that I’m saying the organisation’s perfect, mind. I’ve got a law degree from the University of New South Wales, did you know that?’
‘I had the feeling you didn’t go straight from your school certificate into the academy.’
‘Right. It’s held me back in the force, the LL fucking B. Isn’t that amazing? So, Cliff, you don’t trust Pascoe because he’s a nong, and you distrust Loggins because he’s a Homicide squad heavy, but you do trust me?’
‘No, I don’t, but you’re in the same boat as me, approximately. People are trying to use and manipulate you and you don’t like it. Same here. Our interests sort of intersect on this.’
Gallagher nodded. ‘You wanted undertakings. Like what?’
‘Not much. I want to know everything Loggins says when you see him today.’
Gallagher laughed. ‘Call that not much, do you? That’s my fucking job, right there. What do I get in return?’
‘The name of the killer and the chance to get hold of him and give him a shake while he’s not expecting anything. Tonight.’
‘Alleged killer.’
‘An awful lot of things about him fit. I saw him, remember.’
‘Such as?’
‘Uh huh,’ I sai
d. ‘All that comes later.’
Gallagher stood up. I noticed for the first time that his suit was an expensive piece of tailoring and fitted him very well. He didn’t fiddle with cuffs or creases though. ‘OK, Hardy,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back at five this afternoon. I see Bob Loggins at three. Just now, I’ve got a time sheet to falsify.’ He gave me a business-like nod and stalked towards the door. When he opened it I fancied I heard a noise outside, but it was probably only Jack the rat.
17
I rang the Cairns number Cyn had given me but the person who answered told me that Ms Lee was spending the whole day at the site. I left the message that Ms Lee’s husband had called and would call again. Cyn had kept her maiden name for professional use. She joked that if we had a son we should call him Lee Hardy. I suggested adding Proprietary Limited, but she didn’t seem to think that was funny. Having children wasn’t a subject that came up often and, when it did, my reaction was almost always to make a joke of it. The thought of a son chilled me. How can you teach someone to behave properly when you don’t know how to behave yourself?
I answered the phone a few times through the day. Work was coming in. I lined up interviews for later in the week, explaining that I had a job on hand that was taking all my time but I would be free soon. The prospective clients were promising-a missing person case, not a child, thank God, and a Double Bay restaurateur who doubted the honesty of his partner. Sounded as if there could be a free meal or two in that one, but first, I had to stay alive and in business. I went out and had a slice of pizza and a coffee for lunch, in keeping with my resolve to make it a dry day. The Falcon was sitting nicely on Primo’s slab and only dripping a tiny amount of oil.
I bought a paper which occupied a very small part of the afternoon. I knew that up-coming divorces had to be listed somewhere, possibly for public consumption. But I didn’t know where. I was acutely conscious of being new at the game. Ernie Glass had told me that a private investigator needed a ‘tame’ cop-it seemed to me that a tame lawyer, motor mechanic and dentist would come in handy, too. I was trying not to admit it, but a tooth in the vicinity of where Coleman’s backhander had landed was sending out signals. I puzzled about the keeping of notes. It didn’t seem wise to make a record of conversations with Maxwell and Joan Dare, and exactly where would I file them, anyway? They didn’t really belong under Meadowbank or Shaw and I hadn’t got so desperate as to open a file called ‘Survival’. I blew dust from the office Gregory’s and looked up the addresses for Teacher and his boss, Max Wilton. Joan said something about the name nagged at her and I had the same feeling, as if there was a connection between various bits of information to be made. It eluded me, though.
I smoked too much and was thinking seriously about a drop of red to ease the rough throat when the phone rang at about 4.30. Temptation put aside, I answered it.
‘Hardy? This is Bob Loggins. I want to see you at College Street at ten sharp tomorrow morning. OK?’
‘How did the ballistics work out?’
‘Ten o’clock. On the dot.’ He hung up. He was short on charm, long on confidence that I’d do what he wanted.
The phone rang again soon after. It was Gallagher this time, sounding tense and worried. He told me to meet him in a park in Norton Street, Leichhardt in half an hour.
‘I thought you were coming here?’
‘I changed my mind. You be there, Hardy. I’ve gone out on limb for you. You better have something good for me.’
It was my day for being ordered around by coppers. I said I’d be there. I took the. 38 out of its drawer, checked it over and strapped it on. Before I left I took a quick one from the cask. They call Leichhardt Little Italy, and when in Rome…
It took me longer than half an hour to get to the park but I didn’t mind keeping Gallagher waiting-no sense letting him have things all his own way. The traffic crawled along Parramatta Road and I had to wait three cycles of the lights before getting around at Norton Street. The Italian flavour was struggling to get through the Australian ingredients, but a few of the restaurants had tables placed outside and many of the businesses had signs up in both local languages. The post office and town hall are solid pieces of Victoriana, like the pubs, but there was no such thing as a pasticceria in grandma’s day. Cyn and I occasionally ate in Leichhardt, always at my bidding. She said once she thought I’d be happy with a dish consisting of pasta in red wine. Cyn’s preference was for the kind of French cuisine which left me wondering if the tablecloth might be edible.
I like suburban parks and the Pioneer Memorial in Leichhardt was a beauty. It had all the essential features-a militaristic arch and a memorial stone listing the names of the fallen residents of the municipality in two world wars, an acre or so of grass with cement paths through it and a few battling flower beds. The trees and shrubs either weren’t really trying or didn’t get enough water, and the white smudges on the grass indicated where dogs had shat. The backyards of Leichhardt were, typically, small and cemented over. The dog-owners had to have somewhere for nature to take its course. My familiarity with the park stems from a few hours I spent in it after a fight with Cyn in a nearby restaurant. She walked out. I took the remainder of the Moyston claret to the park and absorbed alcohol, tobacco and the atmosphere.
I parked alongside the adjacent high school and entered the park from the eastern side, near the bus depot. People were strolling and sitting; the dog-lovers were indulgently watching their charges sniffing at tree trunks and rubbish bin support posts. I was comforted by the sight of every one of them, the long and the short and the tall. The Hardys, Pettigrews, Flanagans and Fanous-my antecedents-have been in Sydney for a long time. A Fanou, or a Le Fanou as my sister Tess prefers it, was shot dead by the constabulary in The Rocks in the early 1860s. He was a publican, although Tess insists he was also a police undercover agent. Whatever the truth of that, I had no wish to emulate him, and the best protection against a police shooting, accidental or otherwise, is the presence of solid citizens.
I did a careful visual survey of the park. I didn’t see any toey featherweights or heavies like Carl or Matthews. I realised how edgy I was and tried to force myself to calm down. Gallagher was sitting on a bench near the arch reading a newspaper. He did it well. It was his precinct; maybe he sat there and read the paper when he wasn’t conspiring against his fellow officers. There were another couple of hours of daylight left and I felt reasonably safe from direct attack. As I approached him, I watched the street for cruising cars. I walked straight past Gallagher and did another lap of the park, looking, checking, trying to register any change in the configuration of things. People came and went-old men, kids; a bus stopped, dropped some passengers and picked up others. I saw nothing to alarm me.
‘You’re careful, Hardy,’ Gallagher said. ‘That’s good. I like that.’
I sat on the bench beside him, fished out the makings and made a cigarette. ‘Your good opinion is all I crave.’
‘Don’t get smart. This was all your idea, remember.’
‘You approached me when I left the station, remember.’
‘What is this? Are you getting cold feet?’
I lit the cigarette and puffed smoke towards the memorial to the fallen. ‘No. Loggins rang me just before you did. He wants to see me tomorrow morning.’
‘Right.’
‘What’s on his mind?’
Gallagher rolled up his newspaper into the shape of a baton. He held it in his right hand and thumped it against his left palm. He gave it a solid whack, more the street copper’s thump than the demonstrative gesture of the LLB. ‘You don’t get a word out of me until you give me that name. Who killed Meadowbank, Hardy? According to your unnamed source?’
It was put-up time and I knew it. I took a deep drag on the cigarette and let the words out slowly with the smoke. ‘Lawrence “Chalky” Teacher,’ I said. ‘Ever heard of him?’
The noise Gallagher made was hard to interpret. It was something between a sigh and a grunt. ‘Chalky
Teacher, yeah, I know him.’
‘My information is he’s the enforcer. The only other thing I know is that there might be another private investigator or two in on it. You see why I want to deal with the police?’
‘Yes. And what do you want to do about it?’
‘Get hold of Teacher and shake him. Maybe get some evidence-the gun, the stocking, something that ties him to Juliet Farquhar and this whole business. At worst, scare him, rattle him. See what happens.’
Gallagher looked pained. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have to go through channels. Get a warrant. That means see a magistrate; that means clear it with Pascoe.’
‘You can’t be serious. D’you mean you never picked up a known crim on suspicion of something or other and gave him a hard time? Come on.’
‘And what would you be doing?’
‘I’ll back you up.’
‘If anything went wrong, anything, it’d mean my job. It’s not worth the risk.’
‘I’m disappointed in you, Ian. I thought you wanted to cut the red tape and get something done for a change.’
‘I need to think about it.’
‘Bugger that. The meeting with Loggins is tomorrow. I want to head that off.’
‘You’re out of your mind. You want to do this tonight?’
‘Why not?’
‘We’d have to locate him. Check his movements, vehicles, his mates…’
‘I know where he lives. He works for Max Wilton, the bookie, and I know where he lives, too. How hard can it be to find them?’
The park was emptying as the light began to fade and the people and their dogs went home to their dinners. I was feeling let down by my failure to galvanise Ian Gallagher. I hadn’t expected this degree of caution and concern for correct procedure. I was beginning to think I’d misjudged my man. Was he thinking about reporting straight to his bosses and, instead of putting the pressure on Teacher, putting it on me first? I thought I had a strategy for stopping that but now I wasn’t so sure. Gallagher got up suddenly and began to walk around. He went over to the memorial stone and squinted at the faded names. Then he tossed his rolled-up newspaper at a rubbish bin and scored a direct hit.
