by Peter Corris
‘Have you ever had a phone call from someone who seems to know you but you’ve never heard of them?’ I said. ‘Just a quick call that leaves you puzzled about how the caller got on to you or even got your number?’
‘Mmm, I suppose.’
‘This is a bit like that. You have to sit down and build up a story that hangs together. Like—well, he must’ve known so-and-so and got my number that way.’
Greenway grunted, unimpressed. I finished my coffee and poured some more brandy into the cup. I added the few drops of coffee that were left. ‘That’s what we have to do,’ I said. ‘If we assume whoever hired you got to Annie somehow and killed her, or helped, how could that be? What circumstances make that possible?’
We both stared at the walls for a while. Greenway sighed; I drank my spiked coffee.
Greenway shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. Nothing comes.’
‘Try this: Mr X was watching you from the minute he made the approach. He saw you come to me, saw us go to the hospital and followed me back here. Then he saw Annie come here. He’d seen you and Annie in company before and figured she must …’
‘Must what?’
‘It gets harder here. Must … know something, or have seen something. So he waited until I left and made a move. He used the smack to talk his way in.’
‘Well, it fits,’ Greenway said slowly. ‘But where does it get us?’
‘If we knew what he wanted from Annie we’d be on our way. Assuming it’s about the hospital, did she tell you a lot about the place?’
‘Not much. She didn’t like talking about it. I just checked on the routines a bit, you know. That was all I wanted.’ Suddenly he straightened up from the slump he’d been sitting in. The look of tiredness and semi-shock left him.
‘What is it?’ I said.
‘Annie kept a diary! She said she could look in her diary when I asked her about something, some little thing. I said it didn’t matter.’
‘It matters now,’ I said.
Annie had arrived without bag or baggage and she certainly hadn’t had a diary on her. So she’d left it, presumably with what she called her ‘stuff’ with ‘those creeps’. All I knew was that she’d tried to score in ‘the flats’ and some hoods in a red Mazda had given her a bad time. I told this to Greenway who nodded. ‘There’s a source in those flats down by the water. What’s her name?’ He snapped his fingers in the first theatrical gesture I’d seen from him since our first meeting when he was doing nothing else but. ‘Barbara-Ann. She’s got a straight front as a caterer but she deals in a pretty big way.’
‘I wonder if she’s got a red Mazda,’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t know.’ Greenway adjusted his jacket. ‘Why don’t we go and find out?’
I had a vision of Greenway breaking in a door and waving his Nomad with the one shell in the chamber and the safety catch on. ‘I’ll go,’ I said. ‘You’ve got other things to do.’
‘Like what?’
‘You’re going home to wait for the phone call. You’re also going to keep a very close watch on your own back. If you’re still being observed you might be able to observe the observer. That’d be a help.’
One part of him didn’t like it, wanted to be in on the gung-ho stuff; the other part wanted to play it safe. I helped him out by saying that I didn’t expect any excitement, just a quiet talk. He knew which part of the big complex Barbara-Ann lived in but not the precise number of her apartment. I told him I could manage and sent him back to Bondi with a promise to call when I knew anything. I wanted to take the Nomad from him but I didn’t; he was confused and green, but he had some pride.
I went out into the street, collected the keys from the glove box of my car and locked it. I strolled around the neighbourhood; I got some looks from people who’d seen the ambulance and one enquiry. I didn’t tell the enquirer anything she didn’t know already. It was after five, the air was cooling and the TV sets were being switched on and the drinks were being poured. I walked to the open section before the road dips down into the blocks of flats and stood looking across the water towards Pyrmont. The water was still; the light faded. I moved quickly into the shelter of the trees that fringe the walkway around the water and scanned the landscape behind and above me. I saw no flashes of spectacles, no quick movements. I waited; no car engines started, no birds broke cover and wheeled about in the evening sky.
11
I WENT home, fed the cat and myself and waited until dark. I wore sneakers, pants that were a bit big so that I needed a belt to keep them up, and a loose sweater. The .38 went inside the waist of the trousers, under the belt. I walked down to the flats where lights were burning in most of the windows. I moved through the parking areas on to the concrete path that wound between the different blocks. Some of the windows on to the balconies were open; rock music and television made a confusing mixture of conflicting sound.
The phone book had supplied the lacking information. In the sections for caterers there was a small ad: ‘Barbara-Ann, Home Catering, small functions, Apartment 5, Block 3, Harbourside, Ludwig Street, Glebe.’ The place was in one of the better locations, high enough to command a good look at the water and with its fair share of waving trees to shut out the less salubrious views. The parking bay allotted to Apartment 5 held a red Mazda coupe.
There was no point in being subtle about it. No reason to throw pebbles at windows or climb up the ivy on to the balcony. There was no ivy anyway, and the balcony to Apartment 5 was ten metres up. I went through the glass door into the lobby and climbed the stairs. I knocked at Number 2. A middle-aged man in a cummerbund and dress shirt came to the door and said his name wasn’t Williams and that he didn’t know any Williamses in the block. I thanked him after getting a good look at the security chain: not much good—a heavy shoulder, properly delivered, would tear it from the frame. I hoped my stiff neck wouldn’t hold me back. Up another flight to Number 5; I listened at the door—music and talk. I smelled marijuana smoke. Hardy, with all senses on the alert.
I took out the gun and held it low and out of sight. I knocked and pressed my ear to the door. The occupants didn’t fall silent or start cocking machine guns. The door opened ten centimetres and I saw a small woman with a mass of curling, red-gold hair.
‘Barbara-Ann?’ I said.
Her pupils were dilated and her eyes were red the way some pot smokers’ get. ‘Mmm,’ she said.
I hit the door with everything I had. The chain tore out and the door flew open whacking her in the knee and hip. She staggered back and I bullocked through the opening. I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her down the short passage to a living room with a white carpet, white leather and chrome fittings and air like at a NORML smoke-in. There were two men in the room, stoned and slow-reacting. One wore his shirt collar turned up. He was the pale-faced driver of the Mazda.
‘Hey, what’s this?’ he said.
I shoved the woman into one of the white chairs and stood behind her. She swivelled around to look at me. That made three pairs of eyes focusing on the .38. Paleface was half out of his seat; I waved him back down. The other, a flabby-faced kid, dropped the fat, smoking joint on the carpet.
‘You’d better pick that up or you’ll have a nasty burn there,’ I said. He bent slowly and recovered the cigarette.
‘We don’t want any trouble,’ the woman said.
‘Neither do I.’ I moved around and stood to one side from where I could have shot any one of them except that none was moving a muscle.
‘I know you,’ Paleface said.
‘You’ve seen me. I wouldn’t call it a relationship.’
‘Who is he?’ The woman was recovering fast; she was slim and lean, like a gymnast, about thirty and with small, hard eyes behind which a lot of fast thinking was going on.
‘My name’s Hardy, Barbara-Ann. I was a friend of Annie Parker. I’m here to invite you all to her funeral.’
‘We don’t know anything about that,’ Paleface said.
‘Shut up, Vi
c,’ Barbara-Ann said.
‘No, I want to hear about it. I want to hear about how you took her some smack and she OD’d on it. I want to know why.’
‘We didn’t … we didn’t!’ The kid’s voice was shrill. ‘You saw us drive off. We didn’t come back. We just …’
‘That’ll do then,’ I said. ‘You just what?’
‘Watched your joint.’
‘And what did you see?’
Barbara-Ann and Paleface Vic both looked at the kid. He found some courage among the fear somewhere and clamped his jaw. Barbara-Ann stirred in her chair.
‘You can just fuck off, whoever you are,’ she said. ‘You’ve got no business here.’
‘I’m a Federal policeman, Barbara-Ann. I’ve got business everywhere.’
‘See!’ The kid yelped as the burning joint singed his fingers. He dropped it on the glass-topped table. ‘She was with the narcs. We told you!’
Barbara-Ann and Paleface looked at me trying to make up their minds. I didn’t want them to do too much thinking. ‘It’s the girl I’m interested in,’ I said. ‘Not you lot. I’ll settle for two things—what she left behind her here and what you saw when you were watching my house.’
Barbara-Ann drew in a deep breath and tossed back her cascade of phony-coloured hair. ‘Then you’ll go?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What the fuck do I care? Lyle, get the bag she left.’
The kid got up and scurried out of the room. He came back quickly with a canvas bag. I kept my eyes on Paleface and gestured with the gun for Lyle to open the bag. ‘Let’s see what’s in it.’
Barbara-Ann reached for the bag of grass on the table. ‘We haven’t touched it.’
Lyle pulled out a shirt and some underpants. He stuffed them back and produced two paperbacks and a thick exercise book. Paleface was bracing himself. I told Lyle to put the books back and do up the straps. He did it and I reached for the bag, looped it over my shoulder. I was getting tired of standing up and watching people who didn’t like me. Barbara-Ann rolled a joint.
‘Okay, make it quick,’ I said. ‘What did you see? Hold off on lighting that, Babs, until we’re finished.’ I lifted the gun a fraction, aware that its effect was wearing off.
Lyle was the only one still scared. ‘We saw a guy arrive and go to the door. She let him in.’
‘What sort of a guy?’
‘Just a guy. You know.’
‘I don’t know. Young, old, tall, short, thin, fat? What sort of car did he drive?’
Paleface didn’t like being left out of things. He took the joint from Barbara-Ann, lit it and expelled smoke slowly. ‘A white Volvo. Middle-aged man, like you. Medium everything except for his hair.’ He ran his hand through his own lank, straggly locks, took another drag and handed the joint to the woman. ‘A baldy, with a thick moustache instead. The way baldies do.’
‘Okay.’ The bag was slipping from my shoulder and I shrugged it back up. Paleface must’ve thought this was the time to move. He came up from his chair bent low and ready to club my gun hand down. He was much too slow; I had time to step back and watch him lose balance as his move misfired. I hit him with the back of my hand along the side of his narrow, bony jaw. I felt the shock around the grip of the gun but he felt it more. He groaned and crumpled. A spurt of blood from his nose sprayed and smeared over the white carpet.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ I said. ‘That’ll cost a lot to clean.’
Paleface rolled over on to his back. His eyes were fierce but wet; he sniffed back a nose full of blood. I stepped around him and stood beside Barbara-Ann.
‘Just for that,’ I said, ‘I get another question. Annie was here to score. Did she say anything interesting? Share any thoughts with you?’
‘She was hanging out.’ Barbara-Ann drew on the joint. ‘She had no bread and she tried to con us. That’s it.’
‘You’re a lovely person.’ I put the gun in my belt and walked out. I could smell the marijuana smoke all the way down the stairs and I heard two high-pitched yells and a slap before I was out in the fresh air.
12
I HAD a white Volvo, a bald man with a thick moustache and an exercise book diary. Not a bad night’s work. All I needed was a drink and a feeling that I could make some sense of Greenway’s crazy, mixed-up case.
I went home and took the drink out on to the balcony for a while. I sat and watched the street. No red Mazda, no skulking figures or firebombers. I wasn’t surprised; they’d probably moved up to something heavier than the grass and were on the way to feeling that they were clever and brave and everything was all right.
I cleared a space on the bench beside the phone, switched on the reading lamp and opened Annie Parker’s diary. Someone said that historians are people who read other people’s letters. I’ve never done any historical research but I’ve read a few private letters and I understand the attraction. A sort of fly-on-the-wall feeling with a touch of taboo. Reading a private diary was much the same. Annie made half page entries, never missing a day. The diary began in the early part of the previous year and stopped two days before she died.
I flicked over the pages, just getting impressions at first. Adults who write a lot or take notes acquire bad habits—personal shorthands and squiggles that mean zero to anyone else. Or they take to typewriters and word processors and almost forget how to write by hand. Annie’s writing was neat and clear, a regular script without quirks, like that of a mature child. I remembered that she’d had a good school record before she went wild.
She kept a simple record of what she’d done, who she’d seen and how she felt. The entries were brief with the identities of people concealed: Saw C.A. and scored. Went to Bondi. Heavily hassled by L. who’s splitting (he says) for Bali. Wanted me to go with him. No thanks. Feeling better about F. She was concerned about her weight: 48 k. Not bad. And her health: Saw Dr Charley and got a prescription for antibiotic. No drinking for three days.
Greenway was ‘G.’. The entries confirmed what she’d told me—that they’d met at a drug clinic and clicked. She knew he was bisexual. For the time they were together the entries were brief and mostly positive: G. is a fantastic fucker and talker and I’m not real bad myself when I get going. Trouble started between them over the AIDS test. She couldn’t understand ‘G.’s reluctance to have it. Then he disappeared. The entries after the breakup were black: Slept all day. Hanging out. Methadone is murder.
I turned back to her record of her period in Southwood Hospital. Have to hide this, she wrote. No diary keeping allowed. Fuck them! Things didn’t improve. She had nothing good to say for the staff or the treatment but she liked some of her fellow patients: M.Mc. is a sweetie and he’s brilliant! Nothing wrong with him. What about A.P.? The writing became crabbed and hasty: Long, creepy interview with Dr S. today. No programme. No way! One entry was tear-stained: M.Mc. was done to-day. He’s finished. No-one home. A few days later the letters ‘E.F.’, ‘J. O’B.’ and ‘R.R.’ were encircled. Then, the day before she left the hospital she recorded: M.Mc., E.F., J. O’B. & R.R. have been transferred (they say).
The process by which Annie got out of the hospital was a little hard to follow through the maze of initials and other abbreviations. It happened a few weeks after ‘J. O’B.’ and the others were ‘transferred’. It seemed that a new member of the staff, a ‘Dr K.’, had helped her to secure a certificate of detoxification. A solicitor had done the rest. While in the hospital Annie had read a lot: The Brothers K., W & P., The I. of Dreams. She had come out resolved to find ‘M.Mc.’ but there was no sign that she’d done anything about it. She was ‘maintaining’ and working at the clinic when she met ‘G.’.
It wasn’t hard to make a certain amount of sense out of it. Something was happening at the hospital that Annie was afraid of, wanted no part of. There appeared to be victims. It half-fitted with Greenway’s story of being hired by someone who was concerned about one of the patients. But that story had been an invention; he now said th
at he had knowledge of the motives of his hirer who was taking his time in collecting what he’d paid so much money for. It all got back to that—who hired Greenway and why?
I phoned him and got the answering machine. I read some more of the diary without gaining further enlightenment except into the character of Annie. She had lived day to day, without plans until she’d met Greenway. They’d discussed the future, something Annie had refused to do for years. That made it all the harder for her when, suddenly, there was no future anymore. She went back to recording and living her life in small, safe units. Except they weren’t safe. Police and pushers cropped up through the entries and they were sometimes one and the same.
She’d started the diary the day after her mother died as some sort of comfort for the loss. She talked to her sister and brother at the funeral and spoke lovingly of them. I didn’t recall the siblings but I had a clear recollection of the mother—a stout, strong-minded Cockney who’d never understood why Annie had got on to drugs but had never stopped caring about her, even though she’d suffered the usual thefts and let-downs.
In the pages that covered the time with Greenway Annie had made small sketches, post stamp size. There was a reasonable likeness of Greenway, some flowers, a few other faces. The sketches were happy. Her spelling wasn’t perfect but neither is mine. I felt I was getting closer to her and I felt a mounting anger at her death and the manner of it. There were more than a hundred pages blank in the exercise book. She was someone who’d taken bad knocks and had tried not to go under. She should have had those days and a hell of a lot more besides.