Aftershock

by Peter Corris

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘Bloody right I’m not. I saw Oscar in the street outside that church a couple of minutes after the whole bloody place had stopped shaking. What’s more, he saw me.’

  ‘He waved or something?’

  ‘No, but I could tell he saw me. Then he moved towards the back of the church. That’s when I took off for home.’

  ‘The clipping says the church was in Hamilton.’

  ‘That’s right, Holy Cross in Beaumont Street. I own a little house near there, place May and me raised our family in. I rent it out to an old miner I worked with. Don’t charge him much, just enough so’s he can keep his pride, understand?’ I nodded, I was beginning to like Horrie Jacobs more and more, and not just for his cheque book.

  ‘Look, Mr Hardy, they’ve got it all stacked against me. I’m not young and my eyesight’s not a hundred per cent. Also it was a bloody madhouse in the street, like I said. Glass flying, bricks … I didn’t stand there with a pair of binoculars trained on Oscar’s face. But I saw him!’

  Horrie wasn’t the sort of man you’d call a fool or a liar. He obviously believed that what he was saying was true, which didn’t mean it was, but meant it’d take some kind of proof to make him think otherwise. An investigation, in other words. I was convincing myself that there was a job here, but Horrie had bowled up one formidable obstacle.

  ‘You say they’ve stacked the cards against you. Who’s they?’

  He seemed to be considering another cigarette. He rejected the idea and pushed the packet away. That was an interesting sign—refusing the props when the tough time came. ‘You name ’em,’ he said.

  ‘What does your wife think?’

  ‘She didn’t like Oscar. That buggers up her judgement. She doesn’t believe me. Thinks the concussion made me muddle up things that happened before the quake and after. I can’t talk to her about it anymore. It upsets us too much. Ralph’s even worse.’

  ‘Ralph?’

  ‘My son. Told you I had four kids—one son, three daughters. Ralph’s been more trouble than the three girls put together, but he’s all right. Doesn’t want to hear about me seeing Oscar, but.’

  ‘You talked to the police?’

  ‘Too right. Soon as I heard what they were saying about Oscar. They didn’t want to know. You hear anything about the stink over the emergency services and so on?’

  I tried to remember. ‘There was some criticism—the ambulance men against the police, or the police against the fire brigade. I didn’t really follow it. I remember the stuff about developers knocking down buildings that didn’t need to go.’

  Horrie nodded vigorously. ‘That’s another story. Don’t get me started on that. Yeah, there were some balls-ups in the rescue job. Seems the cops went in a bit heavy-handed. It’s hard to say. They probably did their best and it can’t have been much bloody fun poking around in those buildings not knowing if a wall was going to fall on you. The whisper was the police knocked down a wall a bit early and might have made it harder to get some people out. I don’t know. But anyway, the last thing they wanted was someone saying everything wasn’t on the up and up as far as the dead were concerned …’

  ‘I see. There was some looting, wasn’t there?’

  ‘Right. Would you believe it? Some bastard pinched a few cases of beer out of the club where people had lost their lives. Bloody terrible. My point is, the whole town got its wits back pretty quick and started to pull together—committees, funds set up, relief centres, all that. I kicked in a few dollars myself. But no one wanted to hear anything new or different. The whole thing was wrapped up, see?’

  ‘Yes. What would you want me to do, Mr Jacobs?’

  Horrie was agitated and suddenly looked his years. He took a cigarette now and lit it slowly, the way a tired person does. The first draw seemed to calm him. ‘Mrs Broadway said she wasn’t going to just drop it. Said she’d do some poking around, but she also told me how good you were at your job. She said you had a knack for talking to people and finding things out. I want you to find out about Oscar.’

  ‘You were his friend,’ I said. ‘You must …’

  He waved the cigarette dismissively. ‘I knew bugger all about him. What I can tell you’d take two minutes. But I know this—someone killed him and shoved him into that rubble. Did it bloody quick and smooth, too. He must’ve had an enemy. I want to know who it was.’

  I watched him as he puffed on his cigarette and resumed looking at my dirty window. I thought I knew what was going through his head. Sure, he wanted to know who had killed his friend as any normal person would. But there was more to it than that. An old, proud man had had his reliability, physical and mental, challenged and he wanted to meet the challenge. I judged that it had taken a lot of soul-searching for him to ask for my kind of help. I was in. I took the standard client form from the top drawer in the desk and scribbled in Horrie’s details while he continued to smoke and look north. In the space for NATURE OF INVESTIGATION I wrote: ‘O. Bach—circumstances of death of.’ I slid the form across the desk and he signed it. He wrote me a cheque for eight hundred and forty dollars and I agreed to meet him in Beaumont Street, Hamilton, tomorrow, at midday. He collected his paper from the floor, his hat from the desk and put away his wallet and cheque book. We shook hands and he left.

  Down by the filing cabinet I had a case of Lindeman’s claret a satisfied client had given me three months back. That is to say, I had what was left of the case—three bottles. I uncorked one of them and poured the wine into one of the number of mis-matched glasses I keep around the office. This was a pub middy glass and I half-filled it. I sipped the drink as I sat at my desk with the evidence of a job in front of me—a story, questions that needed answering, conflicts, a signature and a cheque. Intriguing. Your lucky day, Cliff. And remember that you like Newcastle. I drank some wine but I wasn’t thinking about earthquakes and falling bricks, I was thinking about Helen Broadway.

  It had been three years since the last angry words, the last door slamming and terse telephone conversation. Since then, nothing. As far as I knew she was still with her husband, the gentleman vintner, still a part-time producer at Radio Kempsey, still a mother. Now it sounded as if she’d made a switch and was on the air herself. I could see it—she was well-read, insatiably curious and had a knack of making people feel good. I could imagine her getting some redneck National Party politician talking until he wished he hadn’t. I wondered if she’d made any other changes. Knowing that she’d recommended me to Horrie Jacobs gave me the best feeling I’d had in a long time. It frightened me, too. The pain of our break-up was still with me. Like the Malayan War and my stint in Long Bay, it wasn’t something I wanted to go through again. Then, I found myself thinking about the distance between Newcastle and Kempsey. Five hundred kilometres? Less?

  I finished the wine and pushed the cork firmly into the bottle. I tidied up the few bits of paperwork I had lying about and took Horrie’s cheque to the bank. His eight hundred and forty dollars didn’t have much company in my operating account, but my credit cards were paid up and I’d met the mortgage for that month. The Falcon was newly registered and I hadn’t been really drunk for a month. Things could’ve been worse. I strolled along Crown Street and down into Surry Hills to the office of the Challenger, an independent monthly started by Harry Tickener after he left the corporate clutches of the News organisation. Harry runs the tabloid with a skeleton staff from an office in Kippax Street, not far from where the big boys of the media game play. He’d recruited some of the best people he’d worked with in the palmy days of radical journalism and the Challenger looked fresh and exciting every month. So far. The paper was in its crucial second year, with a rising circulation, good advertising support but battling against the economic tides like everything else.

  I took the lift to the third floor and stuck my head inside the always open door. Everybody, that is the whole four of them, was on the phone. Harry beckoned me in and pointed me towards a stack
of the latest issue of the broadsheet due out in a few days. The artwork was stark and dramatic—a map of Australia was being eaten away at the edges by some poisonous, corrosive substance. Cape York was half gone; the Great Australian Bight was gobbling the Nullarbor. The headline was THE DIRTY DOZEN—THE COMPANIES THAT ARE GIVING AUSTRALIA CANCER. I took a seat, nodded to the other workers and flicked through the paper. Harry’s own passions were to the fore: conservation, freedom of the individual, social and political satire, readable books, drinkable wine.

  He put the phone down and took a Nicorette from a packet on his desk. Harry cold-turkeyed from sixty Camels a day when he started the Challenger. He reckoned one form of suicidal insanity was enough. He sucked unenthusiastically and pointed to the paper. ‘What would you say?’

  ‘Four bucks’ worth,’ I said. It cost five.

  ‘Bastard,’ Harry said. ‘That’s the best issue yet. I confidently expect six writs.’

  ‘Can you afford that?’

  Harry ran his hand over the thinning thatch of fair hair that always made him look like a country boy although he wasn’t. ‘We’ve got back-up. If we can get a couple of those fuckers into court we’ll make them look very silly.’

  ‘Good luck,’ I said. ‘I’ll renew my subscription if you think you’ll last.’

  ‘Do it. And with the pleasantries over, what do you want, Cliff?’

  ‘I want to look at the cuts on the Newcastle earthquake.’

  Harry’s laugh bounced off the far wall. Since he gave up smoking he’s got a lot more wind to laugh with. ‘What cuts? You think we can afford to clip papers and file them? Forget it. The cuts, mate, are over there.’

  He was pointing at several metre-high stacks of newspapers on a bench running the length of a wall. I glanced around the room—Pauline, the secretary and organiser was hammering at a keyboard; Jack Singer, the sub-editor, was reading a stack of faint faxes by holding them up to the light; Beth Lewis, the lay-out person, was sticking captions under photographs on a proof sheet.

  ‘No help there, Cliff,’ Harry said. ‘It’s all do-it-yourself around this place. December 28 and on. What’s the problem?’

  ‘I’m interested in the inquest, too.’

  ‘July and August. Go to it.’

  I groaned and got out of my chair to walk over to the bench. I heard a rustle of broadsheet and turned to see Harry smiling at me and holding out several sheets of typescript.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I said. ‘You look as if you’ve just won Editor of the Year.’

  ‘All in good time. I just thought you’d want to have a look at this. It was submitted for the Miscellany page which, being a devoted reader of the publication, you’d be well up on. Can’t run it this month and it’ll need legalling. Writer says she’ll have to check with her sources but it’s an interesting piece.’

  I took the sheets and looked at the top page. The article was headed: EARTHQUAKE VICTIM? The writer was Helen Broadway.

  3

  Helen had written three pages setting out Horrie Jacobs’ story pretty much as he’d told it to me without the embellishments. A few quotes were included: ‘If that wasn’t Oscar then it was someone who looked like him and moved like him and wore the same sort of cap. And that cap was the only one of its kind in captivity.’ I’d have to ask about the cap. Some of the piece was in point form—questions, assumptions. Helen had attached a note to Harry stressing that it was a rough draft which needed a lot more work. She wondered if he was interested.

  When I looked up from the pages Harry was staring at me as if I was growing wings. ‘Are you?’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Interested. Apart from the prurient curiosity, I mean.’

  ‘Dunno,’ Harry said. ‘Reckon there’s anything in it?’

  ‘Could be. This guy Jacobs has hired me to look into it.’

  ‘On Helen’s recommendation?’

  I nodded. ‘Don’t make anything of it, Harry. She’s just doing her job. Tell you one thing she hasn’t mentioned though.’ I was suddenly reminded of Harry’s ruthless methods when he was a news hound. ‘Off the record.’

  ‘I’m hurt.’

  ‘Horrie Jacobs won the Lotto a few years back. He’s loaded.’

  Harry put his Nikes up on the desk. Since he quit wearing a suit he never wears anything else on his feet but sneakers. I think he’d wear them with a suit if he ever had to go formal again. ‘Now that is interesting,’ he said. ‘D’you think it’s some kind of scam to get at his loot?’

  ‘I hope you don’t let your writers use language like that.’

  He grinned. ‘Can’t help it—private eye on a big case, big money and a woman …’

  He let the last word hang in the air. Harry had liked Helen enormously and told me I was a fool to let her go. I told him it wasn’t exactly like that—more a matter of being wrenched apart, but he’d seen me stumbling around emotionally ever since and was too good a friend not to hope for something better for me. I said I’d keep him posted. Pauline yelled from across the room that she couldn’t keep holding off Harry’s calls any longer. Harry hit a button on his handset and picked up the phone.

  I went over to the bench and began to work through the Sydney Morning Herald’s account of the earthquake and its various aftermaths. The Newcastle broadsheet would have been better but the Challenger didn’t run to holdings of provincial papers. The pages seemed to grow heavy after a while: my mind wasn’t completely on the job. The thought that Horrie Jacobs was the target for some kind of confidence operation had occurred to me. It happens. People who get rich quick get blackmailed, kidnapped, threatened, tricked. For years after they have their stroke of luck they are besieged by begging letters and the creators of sure-fire schemes to double the winners’ money, who just need a little seed capital. It was something to consider along with the question of Horrie’s eyesight and mental state, the possibility of aftershocks and delayed wall-collapses. Also whether the body over which the inquest was held really was that of Oscar Bach. And who was he, anyway? Then there was the question of the involvement of Helen Broadway and whether we might be in what the sportscasters called a team situation, here.

  After an hour with the papers and photocopier I had a solid press record on the earthquake, the disputes between the rescue services, the conflicts between the conservationists and developers, the fund raising and the inquests on the dead. I put five dollars on Pauline’s desk. She shook her head and tried to give it back to me.

  ‘I’m on expenses,’ I said.

  Harry moved his mouth away from the phone. ‘Take it,’ he said.

  I gave them all a general wave goodbye and left the office. The ones that noticed smiled and waved back. A happy bunch. As I got into the lift I realised that I was feeling pretty happy myself.

  Back in Darlinghurst I collected the Falcon from the all-day car park that charges me more than I can afford. In the old days I parked my car on a cement slab made available to me by a tattooist in exchange for letting him share vicariously in the thrills of my profession. There never were many thrills, but now there’s no slab and no tattooist. The area’s changing—a one-time wine bar is now a fantasy lingerie shop, yesterday’s crumbling student slum is today’s smart financial consultant’s office. Depressing, especially if you’ve got no need for either service. I drove home to Glebe thinking about the time I bought Cyn, my ex-wife, a black silk nightgown in David Jones and how she’d exchanged it for something else.

  My work lately, before the present extremely dry spell, had consisted mainly of bodyguarding, interviewing witnesses to motor accidents and locating defaulters on maintenance payments. It was nice to have a case on hand with some corners and blind alleys. By the time I reached Glebe I’d succeeded in putting the past out of my mind and focusing on the future. I had a drink in the Toxteth and agreed that Balmain weren’t travelling too well. My drinking companion was Carl, who used to be called the Prince of the Anarchists before his heart attack. He was fifty-five a
nd looked seventy.

  ‘Light beer’s tasting stronger and old sheilas are looking younger,’ Carl said.

  Even that couldn’t depress me. I shopped for the usual things and let myself into the house prepared for the brief, supercilious company of the cat. I’d feed it and myself out of tins and virtuously read over the photocopies and review the Jacobs case. The phone was ringing insistently when I entered the house. I hadn’t switched on the answering machine. That piece of carelessness threatened my good temper. I dumped the plastic bags on the floor and grabbed the phone.

  ‘Cliff Hardy.’

  ‘Mr Hardy. My name is Ralph Jacobs. I’m Horace Jacobs’ son and I’d very much like to have a talk with you.’

  The voice was smooth and calm, well used to phrases such as ‘very much like’. He didn’t sound a bit like his old man. ‘I’m not sure, Mr Jacobs,’ I said. ‘What would you like to talk about?’

  ‘I think you know that.’

  ‘I’m certainly not going to discuss a client’s business over the phone.’

  A note of impatience crept in. ‘Fair enough. I understand you’re meeting Dad in Hamilton tomorrow?’

  I didn’t say anything, but I liked ‘Dad’ better than ‘my father’.

  ‘I rang him this afternoon and he told me, you see. He’s not a well man, Mr Hardy. I really think we should have a talk before you take this any further.’

  If Horrie Jacobs had told his son about our meeting, that let me off the hook. Maybe Ralph could give me something useful. I told him I was driving up to Newcastle in the morning but that I could let him have half an hour beforehand.

  ‘When?’ he said.

  ‘Nine o’clock, in Darlinghurst.’ I gave him the address.