by Peter Corris
Forget Me If You Can
( Cliff Hardy - 20 )
Peter Corris
Peter Corris
Forget Me If You Can
The Hearing
‘Would you care to introduce yourself to these ladies and gentlemen, Mr Hardy? As you know, they are charged with deciding whether or not you are a fit person to hold a private enquiry agent’s licence.’
‘And who are you?’
‘Dr Campbell. I’m the Chairperson. My speciality is the socio-psychological profile of applicants.’
‘Holder, in my case.’
‘Yes. Although suspended.’
‘Well, perhaps I could just give them my card, but that’d be assuming they’ve got time to read it. They’re busy people, I imagine.’
‘I can understand your resentment at these proceedings, but now you’re being insulting which won’t help your cause. I gather that you’re a rather aggressive individual.’
‘I don’t know. I was an amateur boxer as a kid, then I was in the army, then I was an insurance investigator. I’ve been a private detective for fifteen years. They’re pretty violent occupations at times, but whether I was aggressive to begin with or the jobs got me that way, I don’t know. Question of nature and nurture, I guess.’
‘An interesting observation. You’re an educated person?’
‘Not really. I did a year of Law at university, but I didn’t do well at it and dropped out.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought Law might be about law, which I was interested in. I found out it was about money.’
‘You’re not interested in money.’
‘My Irish gypsy grandmother told me I’d never have any.’
‘Irish gypsy. That’d account for your dark appearance and the beaky nose… I’m sorry to be personal… This is irrelevant.’
‘That’s okay. The nose has been broken a few times. I don’t recall my grandmother’s nose. She was five foot one and a hundred pounds, so I’ve got a bit more than a foot and sixty pounds on her.’
‘I notice you use the imperial measures rather than the metric. Isn’t that rather old-fashioned of you?’
‘Yes. I’m old-fashioned in some ways, but I wear a digital watch.’
‘So you do, and you’re looking at it. Are you an impatient man?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you an intelligent man, Mr Hardy?’
‘I don’t think there’s an intelligent answer to that question. My guess is that the thing you’re most likely to overestimate is your own intelligence.’
‘I see. I thought you were a little defensive about dropping out of university.’
‘Maybe. If I’ve got a reputation for anything it’s for seeing matters through. I like to finish things off, if I can. I feel bad if I can’t.’
‘That’s the first serious thing we’ve heard you say.’
‘You come to me with a serious problem and pay me serious money and you’ll see how serious I can get.’
‘Do you smoke and drink?’
‘Stopped smoking years ago. Sometimes I go a day without a drink if I’m too busy or I forget.’
‘Where do you do most of your work.’
‘In Sydney. All over the city. I’ll go to the bush if I have to, but I prefer pavements to paddocks.’
‘What sort of work do you prefer?’
‘I take what comes along. The client has to be at least as honest and ethical as me.’
‘How honest and ethical is that?’
‘Impossible to answer. As much as I can be while doing my job.’
‘What are you afraid of?’
‘Boredom, bureaucrats and bullshit.’
‘I was told by one of your referees that you were charming. We haven’t seen much of that in this interview.’
‘I’m sorry. You were right. I resent these proceedings and I’m a bit tense. The charm tends to drop away when I’m tense. When this is all over, I’ll be charming.’
‘How would you describe your relations with the police?’
‘I find it hard to be charming with the police.’
‘What about with other professionals you come in contact with?’
‘I try to avoid doctors and politicians. I deal with lawyers a lot. Some are okay. I don’t mind journalists. I like beekeepers.’
‘Really? Do you know many beekeepers?’
‘Not many.’
‘How do you feel about cars?’
‘They’re necessary.’
‘Guns?’
‘Useful-sometimes, rarely.’
‘What is the role of the private enquiry agent in the general scheme of law and order, in your opinion?’
‘Big question.’
‘You must have thought about it.’
‘Yeah. I’d say we’re at the end of a chain, a sort of last resort. People have been let down by ringing other numbers in the phone book.’
‘That sounds rather… negative.’
‘I don’t think so. It means the private detective can turn people away, exploit them or help them. His choice.’
‘And which do you do?’
‘Apparently, it’s not for me to say. It’s for your committee to decide.’
‘Mmm. You’re not married, Mr Hardy?’
‘Divorced.’
‘Children?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I think that’s all I need, Mr Hardy. Thank you. I’ll hand you over to the other members of the committee.’
‘Thank you, Dr Campbell and… uh, I like your dress.’
Copper
Senior Detective Sergeant Martin Oldcastle said, ‘I can’t tell you how much I hate doing this, Hardy.’
I looked at him-fifty-four and beginning to show it in face and body, hair retreating and almost completely grey, thick-lensed glasses. ‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘Really encourages me to take the job and give it my best.’
‘You know what I mean. Jesus. I’ve been in the force for nearly forty years. Loved it. Now I feel that every bloody copper in Australia’s out to get me, ‘cept Mickey, of course.’
Oldcastle had blown the whistle on a clutch of policemen, a few senior, most junior, to himself. These officers were involved in extortion, covering up of crimes from murder on down, witness intimidation and the organising of armed robberies. Oldcastle’s story was that he’d stumbled across the skullduggery when he happened to be present at the death of ‘Irish’ Jack Murphy. Murphy was a long-time prison escapee, hit man and standover merchant who was shot by police in Coogee three years back. Oldcastle was only marginally involved with the task force that cornered Murphy, who had fired several shots but taken a great many more himself.
Oldcastle was concerned that the force had been excessive and, with no-one else close by, he bent over the supposedly dead body to examine the wounds. Murphy told him with his dying breath the names of the corrupt police (several of whom had been in on the shooting) and some details of their activities.
‘I was shocked, I admit it,’ Oldcastle had told me at our first meeting a few weeks back. ‘I’d seen crims shot before. Our blokes, too. I wasn’t a cherry or anything like that. I’d wounded men myself. But there was something about this- Irish was practically blown to bits and still he was talking. That was what got to me. If he’d been stone dead, as he should’ve been… Okay, end of story. Or if he’d just been pinged and was talking. Right, I could’ve understood that. But the way it was, shit, I had to believe him. I had to! Didn’t want to, didn’t want to fuckin’ be there. But I was, and my life’s never been the same since.’
It was Oldcastle’s mate, Mick Gordon, who’d suggested that he come and see me. This was after Oldcastle had poked around, working on h
is own time, taking considerable risks, to accumulate evidence that indicated a number of police officers were far worse criminals than any they had put away or were ever likely to put away. I’d got to know Mick when he worked at the Kings Cross station. He was one of those men, and they’re not unknown in the police force, who you instinctively like. He told a good yarn and listened well; he smiled easily but took serious things seriously. He effaced himself in a curious way but remained a strong personality in your memory. We’d got on as well as a copper and a private investigator can. The time came when Martin Oldcastle felt ready to present his evidence and confided in Gordon, whom he’d known since school days in Darlinghurst.
‘I don’t mind telling you, Cliff,’ Gordon had said to me, ‘I advised Marty to forget the whole thing. To go for early retirement, take his package and get to buggery out with all his friendships intact and no bloody trouble.’
It was typical of Gordon that he would be frank in that way, both to Oldcastle at the time and to me later. But Oldcastle hadn’t taken Gordon’s advice. When, inevitably, yet another enquiry into police corruption was announced, Oldcastle submitted a sample of his material anonymously, was encouraged to supply more and eventually offered himself as a witness. His safeguard, supposedly, was that only the enquiring commissioners knew the areas and names his evidence covered, but it wasn’t long before that vessel leaked and Oldcastle got his first death threat. The first of many. The commissioners offered him protection, of course, but how safe does the fox feel when the huntsmen are offering him protection against the hounds? Mick Gordon had sent him to me after the death threats and here we were, discussing round-the-clock seclusion and protection for six days before his first appearance and for as long as he was singing.
One of my difficulties was that Oldcastle wasn’t very likeable. He appeared to lack a sense of humour, although stress might have blunted it-give him that. He was a driven type, by reputation a workaholic as a policeman. He had no family, a plus from my angle-no way to reach him through dependants; but he was a cold customer-not self-obsessed, which is uncongenial but human, but rather not concerned with other people, almost oblivious of them except as tokens in some bureaucratic, institutional game. Mick Gordon appeared to be his only close friend. That was understandable, Gordon had the touch to bring out the human characteristics, even in an automaton like Oldcastle.
He got up from his chair and stared out the window, adjusting his glasses, no doubt thinking about cleaning them, although any blurriness was certainly on my panes rather than on his lenses. ‘After the shooting,’ he said slowly, ‘they offered us all sorts of counselling-psychologists, trauma and guilt experts, hypnotists, relaxation advisers. All bullshit. No limit to the medical backup-leave, tranquillisers, sleeping pills. Union all over them. Some of the blokes took some of it on board as a bludge, you know? Even though they’d actually enjoyed blowing Murphy away. I understand that. I can’t say I ever felt upset about the couple I shot, and one of them wasn’t ever much good after that.’
‘What’s the point?’ I said.
‘The point is there’s bugger-all of that now, is there? I need tranquillisers, I need leave and counselling and how much d’you reckon I’d get if I was to explain what I’m doing and ask for it? You think the union rep’d be on the blower offering me support?’
I still hadn’t decided to take the job and the element of self-pity in this outburst didn’t make him any more appealing. But at least he was feeling something.
‘Just exactly what are you doing?’ I asked.
He left the window and sat down. He adjusted his glasses and squared his shoulders. He was clean-shaven, wore a neat blue suit, white shirt and dark tie; no rings, no lapel pins. His watch was stainless steel on a leather strap. He was a plain man who apparently had no need for the accessories a lot of cops these days trick themselves out with-moustaches, bracelets, signet rings. ‘I’m trying to put a bunch of murdering, thieving, lying bastards in gaol where they belong,’ he said.
Of course there was a lot more to my question than that. I meant, among other things: Why are you going against the traditions of the institution you’ve spent your life in? But Martin Oldcastle wasn’t the sort of man to serve up easy answers to questions like that. Too honest. That honesty tipped the balance in his favour, but I had one more question.
‘If I take this on, it’s going to cost money. You’re looking at seven or eight thousand dollars.’
‘Not a problem.’ Flatly, like that.
‘Well…’
He leaned forward across the desk. ‘I’ve been a senior police officer for twenty years. I’ve got no family. I don’t drink much and I don’t gamble. I bought my flat back when a decent place to live in didn’t cost the bloody earth. I drive a 1988 Falcon. I play bowls at the weekend and I go on bus tours around Australia in my holidays. It’s my life we’re talking about and I can afford to pay you if you’ve got the guts to take it on.’
Maybe the choice of car swung it, maybe the bus tours. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’ll need two signatures-one on a contract and one on a cheque.’
What I was signing up for was personal protection of Oldcastle for every hour of every day I could manage. That’s somewhere well short of twenty-four. I had to sleep and I had to deal with other things from time to time. Luckily, if that’s the word, I wasn’t in any kind of relationship just then that required any attention. Still, thinking you can protect someone just by becoming their Siamese twin is a mistake. You lose perspective and flexibility. For example, it’s useful to walk around a subject’s neighbourhood a few times to get the feel of the place. You don’t want the subject there with you. You need to call on a few of the neighbours, lying your head off about why you’re ringing their bells, and you need to be alone when you do it. You need to drive the subject’s car to the supermarket and buy a frozen pizza and a bottle of wine and see if anyone takes an interest. Stuff like that, and you need trustworthy backup while you’re away and that costs money and makes you anxious. It isn’t my favourite kind of work…
Surprisingly, Oldcastle turned out to be an easy guy to spend time with. He was quiet and knew how to occupy himself, probably from long practice. He read, mostly travel books and biographies, watched television and videos and did cryptic crosswords. His collection of LPs, cassettes and CDs surprised me. He listened to everything from Beethoven to the Black Sorrows. He told me that Joe Camilleri was the equal of any American or British modern musician and I listened and had to agree. The classical stuff tended to make me sleepy. He noticed me nodding off somewhat during something by Brahms or Bach or Haydn, one of them, and he turned the music off.
‘Show you something,’ he said.
He switched the light off in the room, slid the glass door open and went out onto the balcony. I followed him-a body that knows something about bodyguarding is that much easier to guard. He drew my attention to a smashed and twisted section of the aluminium door frame and some deep pitting of the bricks nearby. ‘You’d know what this is, wouldn’t you, Hardy?’
‘Sure. How close were you?’
‘Too bloody close.’
The damage was on a level with my nose. Oldcastle was about five foot ten, say, two and a half inches shorter than me. Forehead or temple, depending. Fatal either way.
Oldcastle stepped back inside, turned on the light and went across to a drinks tray that he kept near the fridge. Old-fashioned set-up but nothing wrong with it. He lifted a bottle of Cutty Sark and looked at me enquiringly. I nodded and he poured two solid ones over ice. We sat down well away from the still-open door.
‘Cheers,’ Oldcastle lifted his glass, drank and pointed at the balcony. ‘Trouble is, I couldn’t tell if they were meant to miss and just scare me, or if the shooter wasn’t quite up to it. The light would’ve been tricky at the time.’
I drank. I hadn’t had any Cutty Sark for a long time and it tasted good. The way we were going we’d be Cliff and Marty in no time. ‘Did you report the shooting?�
�
He shook his head. ‘Didn’t even tell Mick.’
‘Why not?’
He shrugged and knocked back some more whisky. ‘No bloody point. He’d only worry all the more. I was still in my anonymous phase then, anyway, and couldn’t tip my hand.’
‘Any guesses as to who it was?’
I regretted the question as soon as I’d asked it. I didn’t want to know who Oldcastle was naming or anything about them. Not my problem. I wanted to walk right away from this when he’d sung his song and let everything go through official channels after that. If his evidence was as good as he made out, there’d be warrants sworn against his enemies as soon as he stopped talking. So far, Oldcastle had recognised that as my unspoken position, but the memory of the bullets fired at him and the loosening effect of the good Scotch caused him to drop his guard.
‘I bloody know who it was. Lance Christenson. He put four bullets into Murphy and his was the first name Murphy said to me. He was a champion rifle and pistol shot but I’ve heard his eyesight’s not what it was. Had to be him. Another drink?’
He’d loosened his tie, tossed his Scotch off and was clearly inclined towards another. Why not? I thought. Later, I wished I’d gone for a long walk instead. Oldcastle had told the truth when he’d said he didn’t drink much. Two more Cutty Sarks and he was well away. I got names and dates and places and amounts. Trouble was, I was complicit. I suppose I could have stopped the flow, but I was interested-professionally, and like any tabloid paper reader. I knew some of the cops, some of the lawyers and some of the crims and a couple of the women. One of them, Lettie Morrow, I’d known very well indeed, and that presented a serious problem.
Lettie was a beautiful woman with a light brown skin, black hair and slanted eyes. Her ancestry could have been Aboriginal, Polynesian, African or Asian or a mixture of any or all. Lettie didn’t know or care. She’d been abandoned in a taxi hours after being born and had been raised in institutions and foster homes. She was intelligent and athletic, did well at school and stayed out of trouble until she was twenty and had almost finished her nursing course. She met Royce Brown and that was the end of the straight life for Lettie. Brown had been dead for five years when I met Lettie but she had photographs of him and you could see what he had on offer-incredible goods looks, a fine physique and a smile to make their knees knock. He was also a heroin addict and a sociopath.