by Peter Corris
‘I’m a private detective, not a marriage guidance counsellor.’
‘You’re also my friend.’
‘And hers. Don’t forget that.’
‘Jesus! You know what it’s been like with us, Cliff. We love each other and all that but it’s impossible. She’s done this before, used stuff I’ve shown her against me but . . . ’
‘Why d’you show her?’
‘I don’t know. Rage, I guess. But this is bigger. There’s some very heavy people behind this development and it’s going through for better or worse.’
‘Where?’
‘Albion Reef, up north. Lovely spot. Was. This’ll fuck it but there’s jobs and money at stake. It just squeaked through an environmental impact study—took some modifications and some palm greasing. You know how it is.’
I grunted. ‘What was in Parsons’ letter?’
‘Enough dirt on the developers and the graft to sink it. The silly bastard really let himself go. If it gets out the development’s gone, Parsons is gone and I’m gone. The government’ll probably survive.’
‘Does Pauline know all the ramifications?’
‘Probably not. She certainly wouldn’t know exactly who’s putting up the real money.’
‘You’re sure she’s got the letter?’
‘Has to be. She’s got a key to the flat I moved into.’
‘Why’s that?’
Byron pushed his thick brown hair back and looked boyish although he’s in his thirties and has knocked around. ‘I didn’t want anything to look too final.’
‘You want her back?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s fantastic with her when it’s good. Unbelievable. Then these things come up and it’s hell. I don’t know.’
‘Have you tried to talk to her about the letter?’
‘She hangs up. I tried to catch her in at the News. She went into the women’s dunny. I waited, then I went in. She’d left by another door. Look, I’m not only worried about the flak. That letter’s dangerous. The big noise is . . . ’
I held up my hand. ‘Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Let me think.’
I’d known Byron and Pauline Kelly for eight years. For most of that time they’d been married, that is, all except a few months at the beginning and the last few weeks since they separated. They fought. At the beginning they were known as Rocky II; that was before the movie came out. Since then they’ve been Rocky III, IV, as the movies caught up with them. They’d called it off several times but the current separation looked final. Rocky V, at least their version, seemed unlikely.
Byron was Michael Parsons’ political adviser cum press secretary cum bodyguard cum drinking companion. Parsons was rising fast in the state political zoo. He was currently a Minister but I wasn’t quite certain what for.
Pauline was a journalist, an in-demand freelance who appeared in print, on radio and on television. Byron was a pragmatist, Pauline an idealist; they agreed on almost nothing but the superiority of red wine over white. Pauline had once told me why they stayed together.
‘Because of King Arthur.’
‘What?’ I said.
‘We come a lot.’
Pauline was a small woman, blonde, untidy and energetic. I liked her. Byron was a foot taller, more careful of his appearance but somehow always in her shadow. I liked him too so it pained me to see him looking strained and underslept. ‘How come you kept this letter?’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you get rid of it when your boss was sober?’
‘You don’t understand what it’s like working for these blokes. Pauline didn’t understand either. They’re like . . . shit, I don’t know. Have you ever been to a really even fight, where the fighters slugged it out all night and finished up square?’
‘Sure. Rose and Famechon.’
Kelly scratched his head. ‘They never fought.’
‘That’s what it would’ve been like if they had.’
‘Okay. Well, these politicians get off a lot of shots; they torpedo people and humiliate them but they’re sitting ducks themselves. Real targets. If they make the wrong move at the wrong time, they’re history.’
‘My heart bleeds all over their superannuation cheques.’
‘You sound like Pauline. I find it sort of exciting. Parsons’s not a bad bloke. Compared to the guy on the other side he’s a genius and a saint rolled into one, but he’s got his faults. He gets pissed at a certain pressure level. I kept the letter to scare him, to show him what political suicide looks like. I didn’t get around to doing that. I showed it to Pauline when we were having one of our blues and that’s it.’
‘Does Parsons know the letter’s floating around?’
‘Christ no!’
‘Why me, Byron?’
‘You like Pauline. Not everybody does. She likes you and . . . ’
‘Not everybody does,’ I said.
Byron grinned. ‘You’d know. Look, Cliff, I have to play this close to the chest. Almost everybody I know has a word processor. They write everything down. They’re all keeping diaries, for Christ’s sake. It needs . . . discretion.’
‘She’ll know I’ve talked to you. She might be hard to catch up with.’
‘Right.’
‘A hundred and fifty a day and expenses.’
‘Jesus!’
‘Discretion guaranteed.’
Kelly grimaced and put on his very good American accent, a legacy of his time at UCLA. ‘You got it.’
After he left I spent a few minutes thinking about how unwise it was to get involved in a separated couple tangle. Certain disaster, bound to lose one friend if not two. But business was business, angry men exaggerate and Pauline might have calmed down. I gave myself enough reasons to pick up the phone and ring the house in Willoughby where I assumed Pauline was still living.
The voice in the answering machine was breathy and cigarette-choked: ‘This is Pauline Lyons. I’m out at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep and I’ll get back to you. If it’s Byron Kelly calling or anyone connected with him . . . don’t bother!’
A challenge. I said: ‘Pauline, it’s Cliff Hardy. I want to talk to you. Please ring me—you know the numbers.’
I hung up and waited. The call came through in about as long as it must have taken her to ring my home number before the office one.
‘What do you want?’ she said.
‘Aha, you leave your machine on broadcast and listen to the messages.’
‘Who doesn’t? What’s on your mind, Cliff? If you want a fuck I might be interested. In fact that’s the only reason I’m talking to you.’
‘At least you’re talking.’
‘Make it quick, I’m on my way out.’
‘I want Michael Parsons’ letter.’
‘Shit, that again. I don’t know anything about it. I barely glanced at it. I was too pissed to take any notice. I told Byron a hundred times.’
‘He’s worried about you, he . . . ’
‘Bullshit!’
‘How about the fuck then?’
‘I think I’ll wait for someone keener.’ She hung up hard.
It isn’t that Pauline tells lies exactly, it’s just that she regards journalism as one of the highest callings and the freedom of the press as a sacred human right. She’d say Joh Bjelke-Petersen made sense if she had to in defence of her trade. I’ve met people like her before—stiff-necked lilywhites. There’s only two ways to go—front up and convince them that what you want is really best for them, or sneak behind their backs and steal it.
I used a credit card to buy a tank of petrol because I don’t like to carry that much cash and drove out to Willoughby. The house was a medium-sized, middle-aged timber and glass job that was usually as messy as a garden shed. Byron and Pauline used to say that the dullness of Willoughby was just what they needed after the excitements of politics and journalism.
I was there within half an hour of the phone call. For a top flight journalist Pauline was incredibly disorganised. I judged that ‘now’ me
ant in ten minutes, ‘soon’ meant half an hour and ‘on my way’ could mean almost anything. I parked down the street, listened to a news broadcast. Another body had turned up, naked, dead for some time and as yet unidentified. The report linked the two deaths through the police statement that the men were ‘well nourished’. To be thin was getting healthier all the time.
Pauline’s Gemini backed out of the drive and roared off in the direction of the city.
In a two-income belt nothing stirs in the early afternoon. The Kellys have a German Shepherd named Gough who looks as if he’d tear your throat out but is as gentle as a lamb if you know him. I opened the front gate and walked towards the house on an overgrown pebble path; Gough loped up to greet me.
I patted his head. ‘Hello, Gough,’ I said. ‘Nothing will save the Governor-General.’ He growled amiably and watched me squint in the gloom of the heavily tree-shaded porch as I picked the lock of the front door.
Byron’s departure had brought changes in the house—some books and pictures were missing, the furniture was extensively rearranged and the small room that had served as his study was empty. Pauline had worked in the room that also served as a spare bedroom. It was chaotic as usual, with books and papers spilling everywhere, brimming ashtrays, sticky glasses and coffee cups, half-eaten sandwiches, forgotten biscuits.
Chaos is harder to search through than order; I spent more than an hour there, patiently sifting and probing. As far as I could tell Pauline was working on three different stories and a novel. The stories were about police corruption, religious sects in Queensland gaols and a profile of a newly appointed judge. The novel was about a terrorist who was laying mines in Sydney Harbour.
Pauline was famous for the depth of her research, even on small stories. There wasn’t a scrap of evidence to suggest that she had any interest in a land development on the central coast.
I picked up one of the sandwiches and a couple of the biscuits and fed them to Gough on the way out.
When I got back to Glebe there were three frantic messages from Kelly on my answering machine. I phoned him and had to tell him to calm down and take a breath and stop gabbling.
‘Okay, okay,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to see Pauline. She’s in danger.’
‘I saw her an hour ago. She was a danger to others the way she was driving.’
‘Stop fucking joking! You heard about the second body?’ His voice was thick with worry and fear.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Unidentified.’
‘Not any more. Not if you know who to talk to. That means two of the characters associated with this development I was telling you about are dead.’
‘What sort of characters?’
‘Operators, you know the kind. I didn’t make anything of it when the first one turned up. The cops sat on it but I got a whisper on who he was. Name of Morrison. He was a go-between, handled the graft, or some of it. Michael mentioned him in the letter. Well, those blokes—they’re into all sorts of things. They have enemies. But this new one, Brent Fuller. Shit!’
‘He in the letter too?’
‘Yeah. He was more . . . central and more . . . exposed. Am I making sense?’
‘Only just.’
‘In a thing like this there’s always a couple of unreliable people. Michael’s letter pointed out a few weak links. Pauline must’ve showed the letter to someone who’s in with them, or talked about it.’
‘You’re sure you didn’t talk to anyone? There aren’t any copies?’
‘No. Copies? Don’t be crazy. It looks to me as if they’re getting rid of a few of the expendable people. Look, in effect, they’ve taken out number one and two among the small fry if you regard Michael’s letter as a sort of list.’
‘How well do you know these people?’
‘Parsons knows . . . knew Fuller pretty well. I knew him too.’
‘You should be talking to number three.’
‘I have. They almost got him this morning. They killed his guard dog but they tripped an alarm. He’s on a plane right now.’
‘Where would Pauline have been going? I saw her leave your house.’
‘The News most likely. I called but she’s set up some kind of interference system. I can’t get through to her. I’m worried, Cliff.’
‘Yeah. Where’re you now?’
‘Balmain. At my flat.’
‘It’s time for the cops, Byron. Whatever the consequences.’
‘Jesus. Yeah, I suppose so.’
‘I’ll take Pauline somewhere safe and I’ll call you. You’ve got a bit of time to think about it but . . . ’
‘I’ll do it. Don’t worry. Just get her!’
I drove in to the newspaper building, parked illegally and took a lift to the features office where Pauline did her talking and filing. The editor told me that she’d gone off to the pub, the Colonial nearby, with some fellow workers. I reached the pub in record time and spotted Pauline drinking in a corner of the saloon bar. I went across and grabbed her arm.
‘Pauline, I’ve got to talk to you.’
‘Piss off.’ She jerked her arm free and some of her drink spilled on the trousers of the heavy-set man on the opposite stool. Pauline giggled; it wasn’t her first drink. ‘Sorry, Stan. I’ll get your pants dry-cleaned if you’ll take them off.’
Stan smiled and lifted his glass. I jolted his arm trying to get another grip on Pauline and his drink spilled down his shirt.
‘Shit! What the fuck d’you think you’re doing?’
Pauline laughed. ‘Stan, defend my honour.’
Stan came off his stool faster than I expected. He was big and thick and moved like a footballer rather than a boxer but he connected on my shoulder with a solid swinging right. I had to let go of Pauline to keep my balance.
‘Keep out of this, you,’ I snarled. ‘Pauline, this isn’t a joke, Byron . . . ’
‘Bugger Byron! And bugger you, too.’
Maybe that was what Stan had been waiting to hear. Stan was certainly eager. He slammed me in the chest and got set to take my head off with another swing. I stepped back, drew him forward and belted him with a quick left hook to the ear. The three or four other drinkers around craned forward interestedly. Pauline shouted something that might have been ‘Stop!’ or might have been ‘Go!’ I didn’t pay proper attention because Stan was in again, swinging. I fended two shots off with my forearms and stepped closer bringing my heel hard down on his toe. He yelped and I uppercut him so that his teeth clicked. He stumbled back and went down.
I gripped Pauline’s arm and pulled her off the stool. ‘Don’t talk. Just come!’
‘You are keen, after all,’ she said.
I hauled her to the car and drove to Glebe. When she was settled with a drink I called Kelly’s flat and got no answer.
‘That’s odd.’
Pauline raised her glass. ‘He’s odd. Did you know he’s kinky? Likes to dress up.’
I stared at her. ‘I don’t believe it.’
She giggled. ‘You’re right. He doesn’t. I do. Wanna play, Cliff?’
‘I want you to stay here while I go and find out what’s happened.’
‘Happened? Whaddya mean happened? Nothing happens to Byron, nothing happens anywhere near Byron, he . . . ’
‘Shut up, Pauline. This is serious. Two people Parsons wrote about in that letter are dead. Byron’s scared you could be next.’
‘I’m sick of hearing about that fucking letter! I hardly looked at it.’ She stopped as if her own words had made an impact on her. She stared at me, trying to focus. ‘Two people dead? You mean some of the shit might actually be rubbing off on Parsons?’
‘Maybe, but Byron . . . ’
‘Hold on. I’m going to freshen up. This sounds interesting.’
She went to the bathroom and came back dabbing at her face with a towel. ‘It sounds like a story. I suppose Byron’s told you I’ve used confidential stuff?’
I nodded.
‘I haven’t. He’s paranoid. You said s
omething’s happened. What?’
‘I’m going to Balmain to find out.’
‘Me too.’
‘You’re pissed.’
‘I sober up fast. I’m coming.’
There was no point in arguing. We got back in the car. Pauline lit a cigarette, took deep drags and seemed to be trying to will herself sober. When she finished the cigarette she wound the window down and breathed deeply. She coughed and looked red and sore-eyed but her voice was steadier.
‘Two dead, you said. You mean the bodies, last night and this morning?’
‘Yeah.’ I made the turn into Darling Street. ‘Morrison, I think it was, and . . . Fuller. Byron knew them.’
‘Jesus. Fuller got Byron his flat. He’s into real estate around here and Byron wanted a place in Balmain. You know how it works.’
I did. I knew that the politicians and their associates were involved in a network of favours and obligations, given and granted, that to some extent governed what they did. Some of them were ‘covered’, as the smart operators put it, by girls, gambling debts, shonky deals. There were a hundred ways.
Byron’s flat was in Duke Place where town-houses are going up as fast as they can pull the old warehouses and chandlers’ sheds down. I parked and twisted the steering wheel so the car wouldn’t roll into Mort Bay. Old habit. The handbrake on my newish Falcon is rock solid. Pauline got slowly and stiffly from the car and stumbled in her high heels as she crossed the road.
‘You all right?’ I said. ‘I understand you’ve got a key to this place. You can show me the way. I was only here once at night.’
‘I’ve never been here. I never used his stupid key.’
‘Got it with you?’
We walked along a pebbled path and skirted some freshly planted silver birch trees. I had a vague idea of the block Byron was in. Pauline produced a key from her bag. ‘A8,’ she read from the tag. ‘He said it’s got a nice view. I swore I’d never come here.’
I looked for the block numbers. ‘Why?’
‘It’s a mistake. We’re finished!’
‘I doubt it.’
I got my bearings and we went up a steep set of concrete steps that took us to a sloping walkway leading to the upper level of the block. Kelly’s flat was at the end, the most elevated and with the best view of the water, the ships and the container dock. I gave it a glance while Pauline handed me the key. I had my Smith & Wesson .38 under my arm and I got it out before I opened the door.