The Greenwich Apartments ch-8

by Peter Corris

  ‘Well?’ Mercer has no sense of humour, no babies either so far as I know. He’s a thin, dark, intense young man who tries to think and feel the way Parker does. He has at least one problem there-Parker likes me and Mercer doesn’t.

  ‘I need some information on the Carmel Wise shooting.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The father’s not happy.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Jesus, don’t you ever say anything else?’

  ‘Why isn’t the father happy?’

  I didn’t want to tell Mercer about the mystery of flat one, not yet. ‘The porno angle,’ I improvised. He doesn’t like it. Thinks you’re on the wrong track.’

  ‘That’s solid,’ Mercer said. ‘Rock solid.’

  I was surprised. ‘I didn’t read about it. There was nothing in the papers I saw.’

  ‘There was a bit in the Globe. One of those snoopy bastards got onto it before we could stop him.’

  ‘Stop him? Why?’

  ‘I haven’t got time to discuss it with you, Hardy. I’m up to my ears in work. We got another nurse this morning.’

  ‘That’s bad. Who’s handling Wise?’

  ‘Bill Drew, he’s here. You want a word?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, put him on.’

  ‘Before you go, how’d you know Frank and Hilde were… you know, showing the kid the cities?’

  ‘Postcard. Didn’t you get one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll put in a good word for you.’

  ‘Fuck you. Here’s Drew.’

  I didn’t know Drew so it was just as well he had a formal manner.

  ‘Detective Constable Drew.”

  ‘This is Cliff Hardy, Mr Drew. I assume Mercer’s okayed it for you to fill me in a bit on the Wise matter.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’ Cool, very cool.

  ‘Professional job, would you say?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Mercer says you like the porno angle.’

  ‘Looks like it. The movies in the shops are fairy-floss-the real stuff circulates in the dark. Big money. We think the girl was involved, probably at the production end. She must have offended someone.’

  ‘Why’re you keeping this line of inquiry quiet?’

  ‘Why d’you think?’ he said impatiently. ‘Look, we’ve got people out there, informers, people who hear things. But we’ll get bugger all if those sleazos know we’re interested.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, her father says there were no dirty movies in the flat. I took a peep myself last night. All looked straight to me.’

  There was a pause and the office noises became muffled. Drew must have put his hand across the mouthpiece. ‘Just checking with Mercer,’ he said. ‘The stuff in the flat and the car were all right, but you should see what was in her bag.’

  ‘Bad?’

  ‘How long ago was it she was killed? A week and a half?’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘I saw some of this stuff that night. I haven’t been able to fuck since. My wife’s complaining. I’m thinking of applying for compensation.’

  5

  I showered, shaved and dressed. I don’t know why but I didn’t believe it. Perhaps it was the comments about Carmel Wise’s flair as a filmmaker: I never knew a porno movie to have flair and as for artistic cutting, forget it. The ones I’d seen were mainly interesting from athletic and arithmetic points of view. I kept expecting someone to run on with a tape-measure but no-one ever did.

  Leo Wise’s conviction had something to do with it as well. He struck me as a shrewd man who’d assess his daughter as accurately as he would anyone else.

  We’d left things the day before with an understanding that I’d look at the flat, make some preliminary investigations and see if I thought there was anything he could gain from hiring me. Well, if the police were on the wrong track, there was. I decided that I was interested and I needed to know more about Ms Wise and the Greenwich Apartments and that I needed more of that shrewd assessment. I rang the number listed for Leo Wise Investments Ltd and made an appointment for 11 a.m.

  That would take me into the city where I could check with Air Pacific on Tania Bourke. Another call got me a 1 p.m. appointment with the Personnel Manager of the airline.

  All I needed to round things off was some line of attack on Mr Anonymous. I looked through his stuff and the photographs again, sifting carefully.

  The notebook was battered and creased as if it had been carried around a lot and jammed into pockets it didn’t really fit. The writing was large, squarish and upright. A military man? Bullshit! About 30 pages were written on-no names or addresses, just letters and numbers: Q 104; A 23; K 367; P 245: H 45; T 381 and so on.

  There was no pattern to it: some pages just had a number like Q 455 at the head followed by C 34, others had more entries-K 478; P 34; M 16; B 780; F 12; L 78; D 56…

  If there were such a thing as private detective school and if I’d been to it, I might have learned something about code cracking. As it was, I knew nothing about such things. I can’t even do a cryptic crossword unless I train and practise at them for a month, building up slowly from the easy ones. I gave up on the notebook. I did find one thing I’d missed the night before. Tucked away in a crumpled tissue that had got into the stuff somehow was a piece of chalk. A school teacher? A billiards player? A pavement artist? I gave up on Mr Anonymous for the time being.

  Leo Wise’s office was in North Sydney. Smart man, there’s a great view of the real city from North Sydney. I took the Glebe Island Bridge and followed the freeway up through Ultimo towards North Sydney. My Falcon likes freeways. In common with most old cars, it doesn’t like to stop once it’s got going; it doesn’t even like to slow down too much. A few years ago, when we had a fuel crisis and everyone was driving around in fibreglass eggshells, the Falcon was a dinosaur, but not now.

  It was a warm autumn day, almost cloudless with a light breeze. It hadn’t rained for a while so the giant hole they’re scraping alongside Darling Harbour, to be filled up with places that will act as suction pumps for money, wasn’t a sea of mud the way it is in winter. From the freeway I could see the earth-moving machines creeping along on the scoured wasteland. Men in hard hats strolled around. Great to be in outdoors work on a day like this. Or in an air-conditioned car; I was sweating inside my cotton shirt and could feel my cotton trousers beginning to stick to the vinyl. I wound both windows down as I passed the patch of tall buildings Helen calls Little Manhattan. A breeze came up off the water as if it was specially for me and it cooled me down as I crossed the bridge.

  I parked near the station and walked a couple of blocks to Napier Street. Wise’s office was in one of those tall buildings that always seem to have good-looking women hurrying in and out of them. These places have pebbled areas in front of them with a few bushes struggling against the pollution, and a set of steps between the doors and the street which the women take without breaking stride. I’ll follow one of them one day to see where she’s going and why she needs the sunglasses on the top of her head.

  The reception area of the building was like a brown-out zone in World War II. I groped my way to the noticeboard and practically had to put my nose up against it to discover that Wise Investments lived on the tenth level. The lift took the rest of my body up there quicker than my stomach. When I was reassembled I pushed open the glass door that was covered from top to bottom with the names of Wise’s subsidiaries and associated companies. I wondered if he could recite them all without stumbling. A black woman with an American accent and French clothes told me that Mr Wise would see me now. A young man, groomed like a poodle and wearing a three-piece suit, led me through a vast open-plan office where about twenty people were sitting at desks picking up and replacing telephones. Their conversations appeared to be monosyllabic; they punched buttons on calculators and smiled or grimaced according to the results. My escort knocked on a big door and pushed it open. His wristwatch beeped as he pushed.

  ‘Thanks,’
I said. ‘Does that mean call Mother?’

  He shook his head. ‘New York calling in one minute.’

  ‘Better hurry, mustn’t keep New York waiting. They might sell you for dog food.’

  I walked into the office. It was the size you’d need to play ping-pong in comfortably-two tables, ot course. The carpet was thick and three of the windows were mostly glass. Two of them were covered with drapes, the other looked straight out down Lavender Bay. Wise was sitting behind a desk cluttered with files, computer printout sheets and newspapers. Above and behind him was a large painting of a beautiful dark woman with slightly gapped teeth. I looked at it as I made the trek to the desk.

  ‘Moira,’ Wise said. ‘Second wife. Carmel’s mother. Sit down, Hardy.’

  I sat in a leather chair that felt good to sit in-right height, right back inclination. ‘Any other kids, Mr Wise?’

  ‘Two from my first marriage. Grown up and gone. Lance is in New York, I don’t know what he does. Pauline drinks and gambles in… where is it, Nice? Monte Carlo? Somewhere like that.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, what’ve you got?’ Wise said.

  I told him about what I’d found in the flat and about the telephone call. He gave me his full attention, ignored the papers on the desk and the telephone when it rang sharply a couple of times but was picked up somewhere else.

  ‘Tania Bourke,’ I said. ‘Air hostess at one time. The name mean anything to you?’

  He shook his head. I told him about the police belief in the pornographic connection and about the films in Carmel’s bags. I edited out Drew’s commentary.

  ‘That’s bullshit,’ Wise said angrily. ‘Carmel wasn’t like that. The reverse, if anything.’

  ‘I have to know a bit more about her, Mr Wise. What does that remark mean, for example? She wasn’t interested in sex?’

  He opened his hands like a card player showing he has nothing up his sleeves. His jacket hung on a stand by the door; his shirt cuffs were turned back and his tie was loose. He looked as if he’d worked hard at something every day of his life and was puzzled by people who didn’t. ‘That’s what her mother told me. That’s what it looked like.’

  ‘No boyfriends?’

  ‘A couple. Nothing serious. And no girlfriends either, if that’s your next question. Shit, I wish there had been. I wish there had been something except films, films, and more bloody films…’

  It sounds stagey but it wasn’t. He was a distressed man not used to showing his distress. I suppose investment consultants don’t as a rule. He clapped his hands to his head and ran them back over his hair. ‘Something to do with that flat is behind this. I was sure of it before and I’m even more sure of it now. Clothes just left there, mystery photographs… That’s your job. Find out what it was.’

  ‘Okay, but it might not be as simple as that. Carmel might have known…’

  ‘Look, Hardy. Let me try to make it clear to you. I believe my kid was a good kid who met with an accident. I want the murdering bastard who caused the accident to pay for what he did. I want that. But… an accident, you understand? I want my wife to be able to see it that way. Rule a line under it. Live with it and get on with living. Hell, she could have another kid. She’s not old.’

  Jesus, now I’ve got unborn life on my hands, I thought. The things a semi-pro is called on to do. ‘Okay, Mr Wise. I hope it turns out the way you want. But I’ll still have to know more about Carmel to do a proper job. Can I take a look at her place?’

  ‘Sure. Get the address from the front desk outside. I forget the exact flat number. She shared with another girl. I’ll have someone ring and tell her you’re coming.’

  ‘Right. I need the name of the agent who handles the Greenwich rentals.’

  ‘Bushell and Kotch, Newtown. I’ll advise them too.’

  I stood and we shook hands across his untidy desk. He hadn’t once said he was a busy man although he obviously was. Leo Wise was all right in my book. I really did hope it turned out to be a sort of hit and run.

  I drove back across the bridge, picked up the Cahill Expressway and parked in Woolloomooloo. I had some time to kill before the Air Pacific appointment and I spent it walking beside the water and up through the Domain. A big Japanese ship was tied up, taking on cargo. I wondered if Helen and I should go on a cruise. Make love with the motion of the boat, drink cold wine on deck at night, read Somerset Maugham, eat pawpaw in Suva. Then I thought of the Bermuda shorts and the cameras and the flowers around the neck. Running away wasn’t going to help; Helen was getting a place of her own and I was going to have to give a little, think of her first sometimes and myself second. It was going to be painful but worth it. Maybe.

  I skipped lunch which meant that I was showing up for my second appointment of the day fuelled by two cups of coffee and fresh air. How does he do it?

  The Air Pacific office decor confirmed my feelings about the cruise. They way to see the islands was from a sailing boat with two or three other like-minded people. The giant posters of 747’s landing on coral beaches against backdrops of fire-walking and water-skiing failed to excite me.

  Mr Percy was a well-brushed character in horn-rims and a short-sleeved shirt. He didn’t look like a grounded pilot, more like a computer salesman. I opened by showing him my operator’s licence and my serious manner.

  He looked at the folder and then at the bank of filing cabinets behind him. His desk was bare apart from a telephone. ‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss our personnel with you, Mr… ‘he glanced down at the licence, ‘Hardy.’

  ‘She’s not current. I’d say she left Air Pacific two or three years ago.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘If anything comes of this would you prefer the papers to say Air Pacific hostess Tania Bourke, or former air hostess Tania Bourke?’

  ‘What could come of it? What is it?’

  I shrugged. ‘Who knows? You ‘re information-rich.’ I gestured at the filing cabinets. ‘I’m information-poor.’ I put the licence folder away. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  He got up, walked over to the cabinets and laid his hand directly on the right drawer. Out it came, riffle, riffle, and he pulled up a file. Back to the chair and the desk. I sat back in my chair to let him read and feel his power.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘When did she leave Air Pacific?’

  He ran his finger down a page. ‘March 1983.’

  ‘Did she jump or was she pushed?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Tell me whether she resigned or was she sacked?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Come on, Mr Percy. Let’s play cards. You tell me whether and I won’t ask you why.’

  A small smile escaped his tight, thin mouth. ‘I suppose your job is something like mine-weighing people up, judging their capabilities.’

  ‘Something like that. Some of it’s sitting around doing nothing.’

  He didn’t like that which suggested to me that that was what he did some of the time. ‘Yes, well, Miss Bourke joined the airline in 1977 and she left in 1983.’

  I wrote 1977 in my notebook just to show willing. ‘She held what position?’

  That took him off-guard. ‘Senior cabin… cabin attendant.’

  ‘She was demoted?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘No. Well, resignation or dismissal?’

  ‘Dismissal.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You said you wouldn’t ask that.’

  ‘I lied to you.’

  He closed the file and pushed his chair back from the desk, ‘I think we’ve finished.’

  I watched him while he found the place for the file. ‘Just a minute!’ I said.

  He held the file poised above the drawer. ‘What?’

  ‘You can give me her address. That can’t be classified information, surely.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ He opened the folder and glanced at the top sheet. ‘Flat one…’

/>   ‘Greenwich Apartments, at the Cross.’

  He closed the folder, rammed it into the drawer and slammed the drawer home. I stood and let the wrinkles find comfortable places in my shirt and pants. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Percy,’ I said. ‘You’ll make it.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Percy of Personnel doesn’t sound so good. Percy of Flight Operations sounds a lot better. You’ll make it.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr… Hardy.’

  6

  Carmel Wise’s flat in Randwick was near the Prince of Wales Hospital in one of those streets that took their names from the Crimean War. That was a pretty safe war to take a name from-nobody remembers who won or lost what. I parked outside the block, set back from the road with a nice stand of silver birch trees in front of it, and wondered what I was going to run into next. Another video freak? A landscape gardener? A lesbian builder? The middle class was getting more complicated all the time.

  The day had turned cool suddenly. Clouds across the sun and an edge to the breeze. I took my jacket off the back seat and shrugged into it while I waited to cross the street. I thought a contemplative walk in Centennial Park might be in order after this call. Something to sharpen the already sharp appetite and stimulate the powers of observation. I didn’t expect much from this call. In this block of flats I had a name and a number. The next visit would be harder-to the flats flanking the Greenwich Apartments, where I had nothing to go on but the sound of a voice on the telephone.

  I ducked across between a truck and a motor cycle and searched for a break in the silver birches. It took the form of a narrow brick path, artistically overgrown and lightly layered with dog shit. Small dog shit-there was nothing crude or obvious around here. I walked up the path, through smoked glass doors and up carpeted steps. No dog shit. Carmel Wise’s name was still on the tenants’ board, under glass, bracketed with that of Judy Syme-Studio Eight, Stage Three. Studio? Stage? Of course.

  I ignored the lift and took the stairs. What, pass up a chance to ascend by foot to Stage Three? Not Hardy. As I was bounding up, almost bouncing off the walls, I was aware of someone coming up behind me. A young man, long fair hair, jeans and T-shirt. An artist, no doubt. I got to Stage Three and knocked on the door of Studio Eight. Before I’d regained my breath, I felt his hand on my shoulder. He pulled and I came around with the pressure.