by Peter Corris
‘Exactly. In this case, from what we can gather, they peddle a high-class line of pornography. You can get your portrait painted in any style you like, wearing whatever clothes you like or none at all and keeping company with whoever you fancy likewise.’
‘Sounds harmless enough.’
‘I understand some of the portraits are real life studies and that some of the subjects clients choose are very young and some of the posing sessions are . . . realistic.’
‘Oh, shit. Why hasn’t anything been done about it?’
Max shrugged. ‘No complaints laid, all very discreet. But I don’t think we have to be too gentle with the ladies.’ He took a newspaper clipping from his pocket and studied it. ‘We’re here to see an exhibition of the photography of Robyn McKenzie. I understand she’s very good. Are you interested in photography?’
‘No.’
‘Neither am I.’
We went back to the terrace and Max pressed the buzzer. ‘Is it ringing?’ he asked.
I got closer to the door. ‘No. Nothing.’
‘Strange. Place’s supposed to be open now.’
He gave the door a tentative push and it swung in. We walked immediately into a big airy space. The wall that usually forms the passage in a terrace had been taken out and the front room was open right back to the stairs. It was filled with light from the front and side windows; the board floor was polished and framed photographs hung around the walls. Through the archway was a second room in the same condition. We walked through to a couple of small rooms at the back which were evidently offices. The photographs were black-and-white studies of buildings, none of them familiar to me.
Max stood at the foot of the stairs and raised his voice. ‘Hello! Anybody about!’
I heard noises upstairs, feet shuttling, a nose being blown, a clink of glass and the snap of a cigarette lighter. A figure appeared on the upstairs landing where there wasn’t much light. A plume of smoke drifted down to us.
‘What the hell do you want?’
Max turned to me and I mouthed the words to him, adding ‘A woman’.
‘We want to see Andrea Craig,’ Max said.
A harsh, cigarette-tortured laugh sounded and she came slowly down the stairs. She was tall and thin with long, thick hair sprinkled with grey. She wore a silk dressing gown only loosely fastened so that most of her breasts were showing. Her pale face was lined and haggard, her eyes red-rimmed from weeping.
‘You and me both,’ she said. ‘She’s gone. She’s fucking left me.’
14
‘We’ve been together for eight years. Then she gets one phone call and she’s off. No explanation, nothing. She said she’d send for me but I know all about that. She must’ve been seeing someone else for ages and it finally all came good. Lying bitch.’
Eve Crown needed to talk and Max and I were as good as anyone else, maybe better than most. I told her I was a private detective and that Max was ‘with the police’. A glint came into her eyes and she took us upstairs to the flat she and Andrea Craig had shared and she showed us the clothes and other items strewn around in a super-hasty packing. Some of the clothes were torn and a couple of pictures had the glass in them broken. One was a photograph of a blonde woman with a narrow face, small mouth and enormous eyes. Then we sat around a table in the kitchen that had been remodelled in the fifties and hadn’t changed since—laminex and lino, cupboards with plastic ventilation insets.
‘We fought a bit, but she’s stronger than me and she knows about those things. She was a policewoman once.’
Max was having a lot of trouble following what she said. She smoked continuously, lighting one from the butt of the last. She mumbled, dropped her head and the hair fell across her face when she looked up. She didn’t need much prompting but it was up to me to keep her talking. She didn’t even ask what our business was; she was setting an agenda of her own.
‘I suppose you’re onto us about the pictures and all that?’ she said.
‘Among other things,’ I said. ‘But we’re mostly concerned to talk to her about something back in her police days.’
This time she butted the cigarette she was smoking and paused to wipe ash from the front of her dressing gown, modestly closed now, before lighting another one. ‘You’ll go looking for her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. I’ll give you enough to put her in gaol.’
Max was looking pained at being shut out of the conversation, as well as impatient, and I said, ‘Look, Miss Crown. Could you please tell us when this phone call came and exactly what she said and did.’
She flicked ash at the saucer serving as an ashtray and scored half a hit. Her fingernails were bitten down on her non-smoking hand. ‘Last night, late,’ she said. ‘About eleven I suppose. She was in bed and I was doing the books for the quarter. I do all the work around here. I answered the phone. It was for Andrea and I switched it through. Then all hell broke loose.’
She dragged on the cigarette while she spoke and Max was stymied. Speaking clearly, I said, ‘A male voice or female, local call or SID?’
‘Shit, I don’t know. Some of us dykes go in for deep voices, you know? Like the gays have that lilt? I couldn’t say.’
‘Accent?’
‘I can’t remember. It didn’t register. I don’t think I heard any beeps. No, don’t think so. Local call.’
Max leaned across the table and took the cigarette from her fingers. He placed it on the saucer and cupped his right hand under her chin. ‘I’m deaf, Miss Crown, but I can lip-read. However, you mumble. Plus you cover your mouth with your fucking cigarette and your face with your hair. I’m going to ask you a couple of questions and you’re going to forget about smoking, speak clearly and answer them truthfully. Otherwise, everything we know about this place will be loaded onto you. Understand?’
Both gesture and statement were very forceful and threatening and Eve Crown was in a vulnerable condition. Tears sprung into her eyes and she nodded. She reached for the cigarette, remembered, and let it lie smouldering. The smoke drifted up into her face and there was misery and despair in every line and wrinkle. She tried to suck in a deep breath but it caught and became a gasping wheeze. Her voice was a cracked ruin. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘Do you know where Andrea got her money from?’
‘She told people she inherited it, but she told me it was pay-off money for something that had happened when she was a cop. This . . . this was when we were in love and didn’t have secrets from each other.’
‘Okay,’ Max said. ‘Over the eight years you lived together, did she ever go anywhere regularly, get letters or phone calls from anywhere frequently? Some important place?’
This was as long as Eve Crown could bear to go without filling her lungs with tobacco smoke. She picked up the cigarette, took a deep drag and butted it. She lifted her head and expelled the smoke in a long plume over Max’s head. ‘What did that dickhead American President say? Read my lips? Well, read my fucking lips. She got letters and phone calls from the Gold Coast and she went up there a bit. And you can bet your two rotten, stinking dicks and your four rotten, stinking balls that’s where she’s gone now!’
‘I wonder,’ Max said as we left the gallery, ‘if the quit smoking people used a slogan like “It takes years off your life and puts years on your face”, women would give it up? She’d be good-looking if she hadn’t ruined herself by smoking.’
Max clearly had women on his mind. I hadn’t noticed the potential in Eve Crown, but then I had actual beauty to deal with in Claudia. ‘It’d sound better round the other way,’ I said. ‘But, no, I reckon people smoke because they want to or have to. Something has to change fundamentally to get them off it.’
‘Suppose you’re right. I never took it up. You?’
‘Stopped years ago.’
‘What changed fundamentally?’
‘I forget. Pretty obvious isn’t it, Max? Someone tipped Andrea off that we were coming.’
‘R
ight. Let’s talk about that.’ He headed towards the oval and we found seats that looked out over the greenery. ‘Nice spot this, quiet. It gets tiring coping with all the mishmash of noise. I take it you haven’t discussed the case with anyone, so the problem has to be at my end. Someone in the works is keeping an eye on me.’
I nodded. I’d told Claudia about the case in some detail but I certainly hadn’t mentioned Andrea Neville, aka Craig. ‘Keeping an eye on us,’ I said. ‘I got worked over after leaving the Beckett house yesterday.’
I told Max about the oddly restrained beating and its aftermath. He raised his eyebrows. ‘I never heard of anything like that before.’
‘It’s weird. Suppose someone’s trying to stop us finding out who killed Ramona. He bumps Barry White but he just warns me and Andrea Craig. It doesn’t make sense.’
Max plucked up a stalk of grass and started splitting it with his thumbnail. ‘Thank Christ I haven’t made any noises about Peggy Hawkins or Colin Sligo. It looks as if I’ll have to go to other sources to make inquiries about them.’
‘We’d better get up there,’ I said. ‘I’ve got some contacts. That’ll just about run out Barry’s retainer. This is going to cost me money.’
‘Any luck at the Connaught?’
For a moment I didn’t get his meaning, then I did. All the luck in the world, I thought, but it wasn’t the time for explanations so I shook my head. Then another thought hit me. ‘Leo Grogan,’ I said. ‘I wonder if Leo’s all right.’
I found Grogan’s number in my notebook. We went back to the car and I rang it and asked for him. The woman who answered the phone told me that Mr Grogan was in hospital. He’d had a very bad fall down some steep steps. His skull was fractured and he had internal injuries. She didn’t sound as if she was too keen on Leo, and there was something very like satisfaction in her voice when she added, ‘He’s not expected to live.’
I relayed this to Max. ‘I’m worried about Penny,’ he said. ‘Ring her, will you?’
I rang, got her on the line and handed the phone to Max. ‘Penny, I want you to drop anything you might be working on for me and seal it up tight. Don’t do another thing. Okay?’
This time I was the relayer. ‘She says it’s not okay, that you shouldn’t patronise her and she asks what’s up.’
Max took the phone. ‘Take some of that leave you’re due. Go to your sister’s place and stay there until you hear from me.’
I regained the phone and listened. ‘She says get stuffed,’ I said. ‘She says she’ll work on what she pleases and she knows how to keep it secure. She says she’s got a gun and she knows how to use it.’
‘Shit,’ Max said.
‘He says “shit”,’ I said to Penny.
‘I heard him,’ Penny said. ‘Tell him to take care of himself and not to worry about me. Goodbye.’
‘She hung up on us, Max. She says you should take care of yourself and not worry about her.’ Turning to face him every time I had to speak was giving me a crick in the neck. I probably looked pained.
Max noticed of course and he grinned at me. ‘It’s a bastard working with the disabled, isn’t it? They’re so fucking stubborn and it takes just that much more effort. I sometimes get that way with Penny and she gets the same with me. It’s lots of fun.’
It was late in the morning and the interior of the car was hot. My torn ear was throbbing and my battered ribs were aching. I wanted to be between Claudia’s silk sheets and feel her cool hands on my body. Max was right. I felt irritated by his deafness and guilty about feeling like that. ‘I need a drink and some pain-killers,’ I said. ‘I suggest we find a pub and make a plan.’
‘You don’t think it’s worthwhile looking in on Leo Grogan?’
I was thinking ahead, selfishly. Thinking about an afternoon with Claudia before a flight to the Gold Coast. Everything heals up faster in a warm climate. ‘I don’t, and the chances are that whoever tried to kill him would be looking out for us. Why make it easy?’
Max nodded. ‘A beer and a ploughman’s lunch’d go down well.’
Half an hour later we were sitting in an Oxford Street pub with two middies and plates of cheese, bread and pickled onions. I had three Panadols inside me and was feeling less pain. I’d rung Qantas and booked us on a 6.30 p.m. flight to Coolangatta, loading up the American Express card. Max waited until the video clip on the giant TV at the end of the bar finished blasting and he’d swallowed a lump of bread and cheese before speaking.
‘My guess is that it’s Sligo. He’s got someone down here checking on things that might jump up and grab him. When I got appointed he’d have heard of it and taken steps. He was as crooked as they come, and the Beckett thing was probably only one of his earners.’
I drank some beer and nibbled on the cheese. Opening my mouth wide enough to get my teeth into the bread hurt. ‘Could be. Trouble is, if he’s monitoring the whole thing he might’ve done something about Peggy Hawkins.’
Max crunched a pickled onion enthusiastically. Presumably he didn’t have to worry about the state of his breath through the afternoon. ‘From what I’ve heard of Peggy,’ he said, ‘she’d make dirty old Colin look like a boy scout.’
We agreed to meet at the Qantas terminal at five-thirty.
I phoned Claudia and got her answering machine. Somehow I’d expected her to be there but there was no reason she should be. It looked as if my chances of a soothing afternoon were slim. Disappointed, I drove back to Glebe. I decided that Bob Lowenstein was the man to help me on the Gold Coast, but my mind kept flicking back to Claudia. I turned into my street and saw the green Laser parked outside the house. I could feel the smile forming on my face as I pulled up behind it. She was at the front door, just straightening up. There’s something very pleasing about the shape of a woman’s behind in that position, especially when it’s enclosed in a tight skirt.
I got out of the car quietly and stood at the front gate. She straightened up, turned around and saw me.
‘Wanna buy a house, lady?’ I said.
‘Oh god, I’ve just written you a note.’
I flipped open the letterbox. ‘Good, there’s nothing here worth reading.’
She came down the path. ‘You’ll think I’m pushy.’
‘Push all you like. I phoned, you went one better.’
I opened the gate and reached for her. She put her arms around me and the pain made me gasp, drop my keys and clutch at the fence.
‘Cliff, what’s the matter? What’s happened to you?’
‘Tell you inside. Will you pick up the keys, please. I can’t bend.’
She pampered me, made me coffee, gave me a sponge bath and packed my overnight bag for me. I told her where I was going and, in a general way, why. She said I should be careful and that she wished she could go with me and I said next time for sure. Ian Sangster was right, the missionary position wasn’t on, but there are other ways.
15
Bob Lowenstein runs a private detective agency in Broadbeach, close to Surfers Paradise. He used to work in Sydney until an arthritic hip got so bad he had to move to a warmer climate. I advised him to have a hip replacement and stay in civilisation, but he was a Christian Scientist of sorts and didn’t believe in arthritis or surgery. He went north, tried natural remedies and hydrotherapy and the hip got a bit better, thus proving, to him, that modern medicine was all gimcrackery and that Mary Baker Eddy had it right all along. Despite this, he was an intelligent and amusing guy who had taken to the computer like a plumber to PVC. He made a good living running credit checks on people for the hotels and the casino, locating missing kids courtesy of the CES computer and checking insurance claims. Lots of dodgy insurance claims on the Gold Coast. Bob was one of the very few people I corresponded with. His letters came to me immaculately from the word processor and I scrawled a few lines on postcards in reply. He’d bought a small apartment block and had often invited me to come and stay. I rang him from the airport while Max arranged the car hire.
&n
bsp; ‘Bob, Cliff Hardy, how’s the other hip?’
‘Both hips doing fine, no thanks to you. Where are you?’
‘Almost on your doorstep. Can you put me and a mate up for a few days? We sort of don’t need to sign hotel registers or use credit cards. Might need a bit of help from your computer as well. You can bill me.’
‘Sure, got a flat vacant. Be glad to see you, Cliff. Bill your client, don’t you mean?’
‘Thereby hangs a tale. We’ll be along soon, Bob. And thanks.’
The air carried just a touch of that tropical tang as we walked through the car park to pick up the Laser Max had hired while I was talking to Bob. Good choice, I thought. I wore my old linen jacket, a denim shirt and newish jeans. Max was in the mood with cotton slacks and a Hawaiian shirt.
‘It’s a funny thing,’ he said as we got into the car. ‘But the traffic authority doesn’t seem to think hearing is relevant to driving. No endorsement on the licence. I nearly had a half a dozen prangs before I got used to looking hard and really reading the traffic.’
‘I’m glad of that,’ I said. ‘Because this is a manual with a floor shift and driving it would be tricky for me with these ribs. You’re in charge, mate. We’re going to the Florida Apartments in Broadbeach.’
Max reached into the glove compartment, consulted the local street directory briefly and started the car. Normally, I’m a nervous passenger, but he drove extremely well, decisively with good judgement. I relaxed and told him a bit about Bob Lowenstein as I looked out on the sun-faded strip development of used-car lots and fast-food joints with the Surfers Paradise high-rise in the distance.
‘Sounds like a good man. A Christian Scientist, eh? They must be a dying breed. What’re you, Cliff?’
‘A pagan.’
Max overtook a Kombi van with a roof-rack that held at least three surfboards and cruised up behind a white BMW. He shot a quick glance sideways to get my reply. ‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘Me, too.’
The Florida Apartments was a white stucco block comprising four self-contained flats just back from the highway. No view of the water, good view of the casino. Bob Lowenstein had lost hair and gained weight since shifting to Queensland, but I have to admit that he was moving better. He shook our hands, admired Max’s shirt, settled us into the vacant flat, phoned for a pizza and opened two bottles of red wine.