The January Zone ch-10

by Peter Corris

  The January Zone

  ( Cliff Hardy - 10 )

  Peter Corris

  The January Zone

  Peter Corris

  1

  I am not,’ I said, ‘a security consultant. I am a private detective. A private enquiry agent if you like, a private eye if you must. But the day I let myself be called a security consultant is the day I become a retired private detective.’

  ‘Cliff, Cliff.’ Peter January always repeated the name when he wanted something. ‘John, John,’ he’d say to his political opposite number or ‘Michael, Michael,’ to the TV journalist. Now he wanted me to work for him. ‘It’s only a name, comrade,’ he said. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘It matters to me,’ I said. ‘Fuehrer’s only a name but somehow I don’t like it.’

  January laughed. He laughed easily, probably lied easily too. He was a politician from the groomed, greying hair to the Bally shoes, but he also happened to have some ideas I agreed with-nuclear-free Australia, profit-sharing in the workplace and support for the Balmain Tigers. ‘I’m not really talking to you as a professional, Cliff,’ he said. ‘More as a friend. I’m bloody scared. I need help.’

  It was my turn to laugh. ‘Shit, you must be joking. You’re a Minister of the Crown. You’ve got everything laid on. You can get in a car to go to the pub if you like even though it’s only just across the road. You can hire all the muscle and brains you need. Look around you.’

  We were in January’s inner office. His electorate takes in more pubs and TAB agencies than any other in Australia. He once told me that it used to have more outdoor toilets per capita than anywhere else in the nation until the gentrification of inner Sydney happened. As befitted the holder of one of the safest seats in the Parliament, and his status as a junior Minister, January had space and staff to fill it. The outer office accommodated six or seven desks, plenty of telephones and a good number of degree-holding workers.

  January looked through the glass at the busy minions and shrugged. ‘Means nothing. I’m vulnerable.’ He had an actor’s knack of fitting his body to what he said. Right then, with his smallish trim figure and his lean, straight-featured face, he did look vulnerable. ‘My neck’s stretched out for every crazy in the country.’

  ‘What about a drink?’ I said. ‘You know the great thing about your neck, Peter, stretched or not? It’s clean. As far as I know you haven’t done any dirty deals you haven’t been able to get out of. That’s why I’m here in your comfy office asking you to open the cupboard and get us a bloody drink.’

  It was early September, one of the first warm days of the year, and January was in his shirt sleeves. The cuffs on the cream-coloured silk shirt were turned back and the tie was loose. The only old thing he wore was the belt around his pants and, as an old waistline watcher myself, I knew why he did that. January was in his mid-30s, the belt was at least ten years old and it had only ever been fastened at one hole.

  ‘Scotch?’ He opened the small bar fridge and pulled at an ice tray. That was a surprise. I’d never known him to drink anything but white wine and soda in the daytime. Beer was out altogether and spirits were for late at night and in moderation.

  I sighed. When people’s alcohol habits change you know there’s something serious going on. ‘You drink Scotch if you like,’ I said. ‘I’ll take a light beer. But I’ll listen to what you’ve got to say as well.’

  ‘Good.’ While he got the drinks I thought back over my short acquaintance with Peter January. It was barely a year old and its creator was Helen Broadway. At the beginning of her last six months’ stay with me in the city, Helen had met January at a meeting held to discuss the future of the Bondi foreshore. Their ideas matched and January had tried to match up other things as well. He hadn’t succeeded but Helen had needed to produce me to hold him off. We didn’t like each other so I was surprised that he’d rung me and invited me to take up some of his valuable time.

  ‘How’s Helen?’ January gave me the can of beer and sipped at a strongish-looking Scotch and soda. I was sitting at his desk with my back to the window-glare still bothered me a bit after an eye injury I’d sustained in the course of duty. January perched on the desk with his back to the glass door.

  ‘She’s okay,’ I said. I sipped the cold beer and seemed to taste the hollowness of the words. Helen was back with her husband and child in the bush for six months as per ‘the arrangement’. It was an arrangement that everyone, me, Helen, Michael her husband and her daughter were learning to hate, but no one had any better ideas.

  ‘Can’t see how you can let her go like that. If I had her…’

  ‘If you had her it’d get in the way of your ambition to screw every single woman on your electoral roll and half the married ones. Aren’t you worried about AIDS?’

  ‘Lowest rate in Australia on my patch. I’ve got the figures. Anyway, I’ve been too busy of late to do anything much in that line. And you’re wrong, I usually try to avoid shitting in the nest.’

  ‘Usually?’

  ‘Well, when you’re busy you haven’t got the time to scout around so you might work a little close to home sometimes. Did you see Trudi out there?’

  ‘I didn’t see anyone wearing the name proudly on a T-shirt.’

  ‘Dark woman, plump you might say…well, no soap so far. Anyway, I’ve got too much on my plate. But you, you’re not busy, so I hear.’

  I crumpled the beer can and set it on the desk in front of me. ‘I’ve been busier, I admit. And I need distraction. I was thinking of enrolling in a course on neo-Marxist political economy.’

  ‘Crap,’ January said. No one had ever accused him of being doctrinaire. ‘I’ve got a real job for you. I get letters, I get threats…’

  ‘Shows you’re doing your job. You should attract 51 per cent love, 48 per cent hate and one per cent don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t joke, it’s serious. I want to hire you to check on everything-all the mail, all the staff, do bodyguarding, the lot. The money’d be right.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure. I’d be like a quango. It’s not my sort of thing, Peter. I do specific jobs-find this, protect that for such and such a time, mind him and her and their money for the weekend. I’m a…what is it, empiricist? I’m no good at generalising.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve been doing the political theory bit already.’

  ‘Helen left a few books around. I’ve had the time to read them.’

  It was the wrong thing to say because it gave him an opening. ‘If you came to work for me for, say, six months, you could tuck a fair bit of money away, Cliff. Quite a bit one way and another. Could be enough to get you a place up the coast. Where is she?’

  I answered without thinking. ‘Kempsey.’

  ‘Nice up there. Place for you by the sea. Get away from all the dirt down here. More time with Helen. What d’you think?’ He tossed off the Scotch and sneaked a look towards the bottle. He was genuinely worried about something big but just for now he was savouring a possible small victory. I didn’t want him to have it.

  ‘I’ve never worked for a politician, not in 13 years. I’ve had a strict rule against it. And I don’t want to be a security consultant.’

  ‘That’s how I’d get it through the ledger shits. Pragmatism, Cliff. Come across that in your reading?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  And that’s when the bomb went off.

  2

  The blast rocked the old building to its foundations. The door between January and me and the outer office disintegrated and the glass flew back like shrapnel. January screamed and collapsed forward across the desk towards me. The crisp back and sleeves of his white shirt turned soggy red. I felt everything around me and inside me loosen and the roar seemed t
o block out all other sounds and all feeling.

  I got out of the chair and moved forward by instinct. Incredibly, January was ahead of me feeling for the hole in the wall. We went through a cloud of billowing, acrid smoke and I heard people coughing and swearing. Flames licked along at floor level and then shot up to envelop the far wall.

  ‘Everybody out!’ January bellowed. ‘Forget the stuff, just get out. Trudi, where…?’

  ‘She’s okay,’ a man said. ‘Peter, Christ, your back…’ He collapsed into a fit of coughing and January crouched to lift him and push him forward.

  I blundered around looking for people or bits of them. It seemed incredible that everyone could have survived the blast. The smoke was getting thicker and I realised I was holding my breath against it and the grit and dust. I couldn’t stay there much longer. January was coughing, trying to cover his mouth and doing the same as me, feeling with his hands and feet. I remembered that he’d served in Vietnam and had probably been in worse than this.

  ‘They’re all out,’ he gasped.

  ‘No.’ I felt something soft and still down by a desk near the shattered air conditioner. Blood from January’s back fell on me as he bent over and helped me to pick the body up. I got a solid grip and we staggered out of the room into the smoke-filled corridor. I was sobbing for breath, trying not to breathe the smoke in and wanting to cough my lungs up. January pulled at my sleeve to guide me to the stairs and the door to the street.

  We burst out into the fresh air and I sucked it down in great gusts. Someone tried to take my burden from me and I fought them off, twisting my body and screaming. I couldn’t see anything through my tear-flooded eyes and all I could hear were shouts and breaking glass and then the wail of sirens.

  January’s voice was close beside me, thin and harsh but still commanding. ‘Put her down, Cliff. Put her down.’

  ****

  ‘She was doing her work experience stint,’ January said. ‘She was 15 years old.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Lay off, I told you I’ll take the job.’ We were back in the office a week later. The bomb had been mostly noise with not much stopping power. It had stopped Alison Marshall, however, and it had put Peter January in the headlines.

  ‘That’s good, Cliff. Just tell me why you’re taking it and we can get down to business.’ January was in jeans and T-shirt helping with the clean-up. He’d moved back in as soon as the place was safe and made sure the photographers got some shots of him pitching in. But now he was working at it for real, with no photographers in sight. I didn’t understand him.

  ‘It’s specific now.’ I scooped a pile of ashes together and crushed them into a fine dark dust before they could float off again. ‘It’s murder, terrorism, and someone did it. Maybe I can help find out who.’

  ‘Hmm.’ January levered at the drawer of a warped filing cabinet. The papers had begun their coverage of the bombing with some shots of January supervising the care of the casualties-blood-drenched shirt and all. He looked brave and purposeful, which he was. ‘I still want you to sniff all around me. And I want you on hand. I have to go to America and…’

  ‘America!’

  Trudi Bell, who was working at the other end of the office with a couple of other helpers, looked up at the sharp sound of my voice. She smiled at me and January waved at her.

  ‘That’s right. You’ve been there, haven’t you? You’re not banned or anything?’

  ‘I’ve been. I was hoping to take Helen the next time I went.’

  ‘Make it the time after next.’ He shoved some chairs around a desk and pushed back a couple of cardboard boxes filled with charred papers. ‘Let’s get a working space here. C’mon up, Trudi, you gorgeous thing, and we’ll have a talk.’

  January seemed to realise that he was putting the death of Alison Marshall behind him a little too quickly. He sighed and flopped down into a chair as Trudi joined us. ‘That poor kid.’ He winced as his lacerated back came into contact with the chair. ‘You saw the parents, didn’t you, Trude?’

  Trudi nodded and sat. I was too edgy to sit so I leaned against the smoke-stained wall. ‘I saw her mother. Made me glad not to be one.’

  ‘Bastards,’ January said.

  ‘Does that mean anything?’ I asked. ‘That plural?’

  ‘No. Judging from the kind of garbage I get in the mail it could’ve been anyone.’

  ‘That’s not quite true, Peter,’ Trudi said. ‘You can rule out some of the obviously harmless ones-the rues that want to organise petitions and such.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ January scratched at his back over his left shoulder. ‘Look, Trudi, Cliff’s coming in on this and he’s going to be around for a while. Security consultant.’ I could’ve sworn he enjoyed the sound of the words. ‘Could you fill him in? Take him through what you’ve got? I have to rush off.’

  ‘Sure.’ She reached into a big canvas and leather shoulder bag and extracted a thick manilla folder. ‘Hate mail,’ she said.

  ‘I thought it would’ve been destroyed by the bomb.’

  January patted my shoulder as he swung off to leave. ‘Trudi took it home. Loves her work. See you both.’ He strode across the cracked and buckled floor nodding and grinning soberly to the workers. Trudi Bell’s eyes followed him to the door.

  ‘In his element,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t like him?’

  She turned down the corners of her mouth. It was a wide, generous mouth set in an oval face. She had straight dark hair chopped off just below the ears. She was wearing a white overall with soft boots and a red neck scarf. I’d have called her well-covered rather than plump. ‘Don’t have to like him. I don’t even think about it. Compared to the other animals who could’ve got this seat he’s Bertrand Russell.’

  I laughed. ‘Bit like Russell where the women are concerned too.’

  ‘Yes, well, you just have to keep saying no. My guess is he quits after a hundred.’

  ‘I’ll tell Helen.’

  I noticed the thinly plucked eyebrows then which were oddly nice in her full face. She lifted them and opened her lazy dark eyes wide. ‘Is that your wife?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Tell me about the fan mail.’

  A sound like a soft cheer went up from the workers. Trudi swung around in her chair. ‘What?’

  A young man wearing overalls over his shirt and suit pants gave her a thumbs-up sign. ‘American stuff’s okay.’

  ‘I thought they’d found the booze,’ I said.

  The young man came over and showed Trudi a file box that looked as if a few drops of water might have been spilled on it. ‘You know, it must’ve been rigged so as not really to do that much damage at all,’ he said. Then he remembered and blushed. Trudi took the box.

  ‘Thanks, Gary. When do the carpenters and painters get here?’

  ‘They’re late already.’

  ‘Okay. Take a break.’

  I turned my head to look at the file box and wondered if I was cleared to open it. Trudi moved it away. ‘You seem to be in charge here,’ I said.

  ‘Sort of. Secretary, adviser, hand-holder…’

  I looked around the damaged room. The bomb had been placed behind the portable air conditioner which was tucked away in a corner of the office. Alison Marshall had been using the top of it to collate some papers because she didn’t have enough desk space. I’d seen a lot of fires in my insurance investigator days; I guessed this one was electrical and probably an accident.

  ‘It doesn’t look as if it was meant to take you all out,’ I said.

  ‘The police have got stuff on that-charges and timers and so on. I heard Peter talking to them. I suppose you’d better too.’

  ‘They’re likely to tell me to go and do something rude to myself, unless it’s someone I know. D’you happen to know who Peter spoke to?’

  She opened a notebook and I thought it was about time. I did the same. I poised a pen over a blank page‘.

  ‘Inspector Tobin,’ she said.

  I dre
w a cross on the page. ‘One of the worst.’

  ‘One of the things I’ve been trying to do is match the mad letters to the issues Peter’s been most vocal on. I’ve also been singling out references to bombs and death.’

  ‘God, this must be heavy stuff. How long has January been getting poison pen letters?’

  She laughed. ‘All his life probably. D’you know much about him?’

  ‘No, not much. Sydney law degree…’

  ‘Like me.’

  ‘Ah, you go back a way?’

  ‘I told you I thought it’d take a hundred no’s.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, he went to war when he probably didn’t have to…’

  ‘Like you.’

  I realised two things then. One, that Trudi Bell was a very sharp woman who did her homework and remembered what she’d studied; two, that Peter January and I had more in common than I liked to admit. As Trudi told me more about him I felt the familiarity of it: working class background by a surf beach, public schools and an uneasy balance between sports and the books. We’d both studied law at university and then studied death-me in Malaya, January in Vietnam. But he’d gone on with the law and had risen meteorically while I’d…I tried to remember the term for it in one of the books Helen had left…plateaued, that was it, I’d plateaued early.

  ‘Are you listening?’ she said sharply.

  ‘Yeah, sure. Issues.’

  ‘He’s anti-nuclear, of course; anti-US bases…’

  ‘How’s he feel about smoking pot on the monorail?’

  She grinned. ‘He’s against the monorail.’

  The monorail was the big local issue-whether an above ground ‘people mover’ should run through the city to the Darling Harbour development. Most movers liked it, most people didn’t. I leaned forward and attempted my January imitation. “Trudi, Trudi, you’re avoiding the question.’

  She laughed. ‘That came out more like Cary Grant.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ I said. ‘Okay, I’ve got what he’s against. I suppose we can throw in crime and corruption too. What about weekend trading?’