by Peter Corris
‘We’re not a suicidal lot, we Carters,’ she said.
I said that was good to know and left my card, telling her to contact me if there was anything I could help Cathy with.
Back in the car I rang Frank Parker to tell him that Colin Hawes was dead and that his information was no longer available. He swore and repeated his advice to be careful.
My next call was to Paul but I got an answer service telling me that the subscriber wasn’t available and that I could leave a brief message that would be transmitted as a text. I didn’t bother. I couldn’t anticipate his reaction and felt I had to speak to him, preferably person to person, to prevent a misunderstanding and to deal with his anger. How our association was going to play out from this point I had no idea.
I decided to go home and clean up before tackling Mrs Greenhall at the Four Winds. I needed some time to recover from the loss of Hawes, whom I’d liked, and my disappointment at the destruction of the disks. I also had to frame questions and possibly lies. And I had medication to take. The traffic had thickened and with part of the route unfamiliar because I’d simply been following the bikie, I had to concentrate on my driving and put everything else on hold.
Approaching home I kept an eye out for bikies or police but saw none. I felt sad about Hawes as I unlocked my door, as if the spirit of his unexpected presence there had lingered. Going inside I reflected that both Hawes and Cathy had been here and that I hadn’t done any good for either of them. With Hawes dead, assuming the people I was after had also killed Dusty Miller and Patrick Greenhall, that was three strikes against them and plenty of motivation for me.
The Four Winds had started out as a rival to the Novotel but had gone down a few notches. It still had the tinted glass, steel and marble and the plants in pots but the steel had a dull look and some of the plants had wilted. But the staff were clinging to their pretensions and I was glad I’d worn one of my two suits. The absence of a tie marked me as a free spirit. The male receptionist was in a smart, military-style uniform, perhaps part of the appeal of the place for Mrs Greenhall.
‘I believe you have a Mrs Timothy Greenhall staying here.’
He didn’t have to check. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Would you know whether she’s in?’
His expression was a Costello-style smirk. He inclined his head to the left. ‘I believe Mrs Greenhall is in the bar.’
He’d dropped the ‘sir’, which I knew meant something.
There were two people at the bar and a few at tables but the lone woman had to be her. She was sitting at a table in the dimmest light in the place. She had pewter-coloured hair nicely styled and in that light could have passed for forty although she had to be ten years older. Careful makeup, discreet jewellery, a low-necked silk dress showing cleavage between pushed-up breasts. The long cigarette she drew on glowed electronically and the vapour she blew out was odourless. A bottle of champagne stood in an ice bucket. Her glass was half full, the other glass on the table was empty.
‘Darling,’ she said. ‘You’re a little late. Jilly was getting a teensy bit worried. Sit down and have a sip while we get acquainted.’
It wasn’t a hard situation to grasp, given what I’d been told about her. I sat and topped up her glass and poured some for myself.
She leaned forward, squinted and then seemed to realise that, while leaning forward gave a better view of her cleavage, squinting produced lines and wrinkles she didn’t need. ‘Jeremy, isn’t it? My, you’re big. A little older than I expected but, hey, I mentioned maturity, didn’t I? And experience counts. Youth is wasted on the young. Am I right?’
‘Absolutely . . . Jilly. Happy days and nights.’
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, sweetie. Although . . .’ I felt her leg brush against mine under the table, ‘I must say I’m feeling quite excited already. There’s chemistry here; I can feel it, can’t you?’
‘I believe you’re right.’
The electronic cigarette sat neglected in the ashtray as she smoothed her dress with both hands.
‘You remind me of . . . Drink up and we’ll go to my room and play with our chemical . . . chemistry sets.’
She was quite drunk and the laugh that was meant to tinkle was brittle and a little wheezy. She dropped the electronic cigarette and the pack into her patent leather bag.
‘I hate those bloody things but what can a girl do? D’you smoke, darling? Of course you do. You all do. We can puff away on my balcony.’
She knocked back the champagne in two gulps and I did the same. She stood and, like any experienced drunk, made steadying herself with a hand on the table seem like a natural gesture. She was quite small but her extravagantly high heels brought her up to about average height. Her dress had a layered, slightly flared knee-length skirt. Her legs were good. She shepherded me out of the bar and across the lobby, talking animatedly about nothing at all and just occasionally leaning against me for orientation and support.
We reached the lifts and she stood, humming softly and adjusting the shoulder strap of her bag. The adjustment caused the neckline of her dress to dip a little further, revealing black lace. We stepped into the lift; she glanced at herself in the mirror and looked away quickly. Under the harsh light she aged but the foundations of what had once been real beauty were still there. She glanced up at my well-worn features and seemed to feel reassured as she squeezed my arm. Just for a second I wondered how the real Jeremy would cope down in the bar. I didn’t feel good about what was happening, but then, I hadn’t been able to come up with a promising way of approaching her, and luck’s a fortune, as they say.
We reached her floor and got out with her leaning heavily against me now. She dipped into her bag and came up with the card. She handed it to me.
‘Be a gentleman, darling. I love a gentleman.’
I got the door open and stood aside to let her in. She went by me in a waft of perfume and wine breath and made straight for the balcony. She bumped into a chair but stayed upright and got the glass door open. She had a cigarette in her mouth and the lighter clicking before I was halfway into the suite. It had all the high-dollar fittings—the carpet, the mirrors, the leather—but, like the hotel itself, it showed signs of wear and tear. Magazines in the rack looked a bit tattered and one of the curtains sagged where its ring had given way.
‘Scotch, darling,’ she said. ‘Let’s have some lovely scotch from the lovely little bottles. Doubles. While I find you your . . .’
She started to fish in her bag and swore as she dropped her cigarette. She let it burn out on the tiles and slumped into a chair as if the fresh air and tobacco combination had hit her like an anaesthetic. I went to the mini-bar, took out four miniature bottles of Dewar’s, cracked some ice cubes into a glass and put the lot on a tray with two glasses.
When I got to the balcony she had another cigarette going in a shaky hand and there was a scattering of banknotes on the table. Her dress had hoicked up above her knees, either by accident or design, but her eyes were half closed and I guessed the bottle of champagne in the bar hadn’t been her first while waiting for Jeremy.
‘You’re a darling, darling,’ she said as I put the tray down and sat opposite her.
I put ice in the two glasses and poured the scotch.
She giggled. ‘So deft. So masterful.’
I had a problem. If she drank the scotch she’d almost certainly pass out, but if I told her who I was and tried to question her there was no telling what her reaction would be. I watched apprehensively as she took a solid sip.
I shuffled the money into a neat pile. ‘You said I reminded you of someone, Jilly. Who was that?’
I couldn’t help thinking of the Stones’ song ‘Far Away Eyes’. Under the influence of alcohol and God knows what medications, she wasn’t really here. She was somewhere in her swirling, happy, hopeful, sad past.
‘Rooster,’ she said. ‘You look like my Rooster . . .’
She shocked me then by doing an imitation of a clucking hen.
&
nbsp; ‘I loved Rooster,’ she said. ‘I gave him everything he asked for.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes, yes, yes to everything he wanted. Every way to do it he wanted, every way . . .’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry, everybody’s sorry. He’ll be sorry. I know where he is, the bastard.’
I tried to keep my voice light and non-threatening, disinterested. ‘Where is he, Jilly? Where’s Rooster?’
She was deep into her disturbed memories now and scarcely aware of me at all as she took a shaky drag on a fresh cigarette and a slug of her drink. ‘Rooster’s a stud and he’s got a stud farm ’cos he’s a stud and a son of a gun.’
‘Oh, yes. Where?’
‘Camden. Ever been to Camden, Jerry, sweetie?’
‘I have.’
She giggled and tossed back the rest of her drink. ‘Jilly hasn’t been there, Jerry. Nobody’s been there, but Jilly knows . . .’
Her head fell forward and she slumped in the chair. The cigarette fell from her fingers into her lap. I snatched it up but not before it had left a scorch mark on her dress. She tried to lift her head but couldn’t. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Sorry, Jerry.’
A breeze sprang up just as she started to snore. It didn’t move a hair of her lacquered head but it disturbed the notes on the table so that they fluttered down onto the tiles. I waited until her breathing became regular and lifted her from the chair. She was feather-light, thin everywhere, and her small, elegant shoes fell off and looked sad down there with the burned-out cigarette and the money.
I carried her to the bedroom and laid her on the bed. I filled a glass with water and put it on the table beside her and drew the curtain to dim the room. Then I left.
21
Not my finest hour, but you play the hand you’re dealt and I now had a sort of fix on Fowler. How many stud farms were there in the Camden area? Could be a few, but I had acquaintances, from the times I used to try landing daily doubles, who’d probably know all about them. It was one of those moments you work for in any investigation—when pieces of information intersect and you get a point to focus on.
The questions were: who would I share this with—Frank, Paul, Greenhall? And how useful would it be knowing where Fowler was without evidence of his role in the deaths of Patrick Greenhall, Dusty Miller and Colin Hawes? I’d read a fair bit of military history in my time, particularly about the medieval Hundred Years War. In those days, unlike now, the kings or the leaders of the country turned up on the battlefield to direct operations. They took a chance and some were killed, like Richard III, but they were surrounded by supporting knights ready to escort them to safety if things went wrong. Mostly, when kings were captured or killed, they were betrayed by a supporter changing sides at the crucial moment.
As I drove back to the office my mind kept flicking to my recollection of Hawes’s phone tap. Assuming ‘Chas’ was Charlie Henderson, the one named by Greenhall, there was no way to tell who he was talking to without the disk and someone able to identify the voice. Was it Fowler? Possibly. In any case it was someone who had killed and planned to kill again, but there was no time frame. No way to tell when Hawes had made the recording. The unknown voice had said ‘Chas’ had loved meetings and Frank had said that Henderson had been a desk man. He’d sounded nervous, a possible weak link. But how to find him? It was a common enough name and nothing had come up on the web about him. Frank was the obvious person to ask but I didn’t want to put any more pressure on him at this stage.
What did retired senior police officers do? If they didn’t go north for the sun and the Fourex they sailed or joined flash golf clubs. I needed a hacker and I knew a good one but he’d cost a lot of money. I still had a fair bit of the cash I’d drawn to bribe Miller but it was shrinking and I’d need more. I phoned Greenhall and told him I needed five thousand dollars.
‘You’re still buying me time to get this new thing off the ground and I’m grateful. What do you need the money for?’
‘To track Charlie Henderson.’
‘Did he kill my son?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I agree with you. Not the type.’
‘But I think he knows who did.’
‘It’s on its way to your account.’
Nils Olquist was a Finn who’d worked for Nokia and Apple and had pursued an Australian girl to Sydney where he’d married her and decided to stay. He’d worked as an IT consultant for the police, ICAC and various media organisations. I’d found his fourteen-year-old daughter after she’d done a flit with her boyfriend. She’d regretted it and the boyfriend had become violent and possessive. I’d persuaded him to let the girl go and shown him the error of his ways without too much trouble for me and minimal damage to him. Nils had been pleased and we’d stayed in touch, having a drink now and then and sharing an interest in boxing.
I rang him and agreed to meet him at what he called his bunker in Erskineville. Nils had made money and invested well and he’d bought a disused warehouse and turned it into a spacious high-tech living and working area. It had state-of-the-art security, which took a few minutes to penetrate. Then I was met by Nils at the top of the stairs that led to his workspace.
No weedy IT geek, Nils stood about 190 centimetres and would’ve weighed a hundred kilos. Ethnically, he was a mixture of Swedish and Finnish and claimed a family connection to Ingemar Johansson, briefly the heavyweight boxing champion of the world.
For all his height and bulk, Nils was a gentle, almost childish soul who delighted in hacking for fun. When we met over a beer he’d often open with his latest prank penetration and interference with an IT system he disapproved of—a right-to-life mob or an anti-asylum seeker group. He was a committed left-winger.
We shook hands and I followed him into a world I had no understanding of: at least six computers were arrayed beside a similar number of screens and charging decks for multiple mobile phones. Lights blinked and machines hummed and Nils, seeing my confusion, mimed an orchestral conduction.
‘It all makes sense, Cliff,’ he said.
‘To you. I’m glad.’
‘It freaks you, I can tell. To my office for a talk and a drink, yes?’
Bloody aquavit, I thought. Have to watch myself.
The office was partitioned off, small and comfortable. Nothing serious happened here. Nils opened the bar fridge and poured two small glasses full of clear liquid. The ritual was that the first one went down immediately and it was social after that.
‘So, Cliff,’ Nils said. ‘I owe you.’
He did. I’d done the work for him pro bono before he’d started making money and he was always asking how he could repay me. This was the first time I’d asked to see him at his place of work. His time had come and he knew it.
‘We’ll get to it,’ I said. ‘How’s Trudie?’
‘In school and doing well. Thanks to you.’
‘Only partly. I need a favour, Nils—a hacking job.’
‘Yes?’
‘The police pension plan. Can you get into it?’
He studied what was left in his glass as if it wasn’t nearly enough. ‘Jesus, Cliff.’
‘Not to steal from it. Just to look at one individual and see how he’s fixed financially and get an address and phone numbers. Email, too, if you can.’
Nils relaxed. ‘Well, I suppose . . .’
‘Five grand, Nils. Cash, fun money.’
I knew that Nils was meticulous about his finances; working for a diverse range of employers and earning a lot of money he had to keep a careful watch on his tax obligations. He ran his hands through his thick white-blond hair and then stared at them as if imagining them clicking the keys.
‘How urgent?’ he said.
‘Very.’
‘Give me the name.’
I reached for my notebook and he shook his head.
‘Nothing on paper.’
‘Charles Henderson. Resigned as something like superintendent . . . say,
ten years ago.’
‘Okay. That’s all you want? Finances, an address, phones and email? You don’t want me to hack the phones?’
‘Don’t tempt me. No.’
‘I could. Why not?’
‘This is heavy stuff, mate. I want you in and out and no trace.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll send you an encrypted email. Let’s call the password Ingemar. Okay?’
I lifted my glass and spoke the only word of Finnish I knew, thanks to Nils. ‘Kippis.’
As I half expected, Paul was waiting for me when I got back to the office. He got out of a VW Golf and I did a double-take. He was wearing a well-cut dark suit over a black skivvy and looked like an executive in a go-ahead commercial organisation of some kind. The bushy hair was tightly bunched and he was clean-shaven with the sideburns trimmed back. He came across the road to me with a smile spreading across his face.
‘What’s wrong, Hardy? Never seen a suit before?’
‘Who’s dead?’ I said.
He laughed. ‘No one. I’ve been to see Uncle Arthur. I like to show him my serious side. You’ve been very busy, I’m told. Time we had a talk.’
We went up to the office. It clearly failed to impress him as he settled in the chair, taking care of the crease in his trousers. He raised two fingers to tick items off. ‘A visit to the Four Winds hotel in Darling Harbour and one to Erskineville to an IT expert. Don’t tell me you didn’t learn anything from all this gadding about.’
‘You’ve got a great network. How are you going at keeping it all together?’
‘As Ringo said, it don’t come easy, but I’m relying on you to help. Let’s cut to the chase. Who killed Dusty?’
‘I have to think about this. D’you want some coffee?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘I do. I’ve just had two shots of aquavit and need to clear my head.’
‘And you drove? That was stupid.’
‘It was and I don’t want to compound the mistake.’
He unbuttoned his jacket and relaxed in the chair as if he hadn’t a worry in the world. ‘Take your time.’