The Undertow

by Peter Corris

  He was young, fit-looking and strong but inexperienced. By now he was almost helpless and he knew it so he began to swear. I whacked him a backhander across the face and he stopped swearing.

  ‘You tell Dr Lubitsch, or whoever he hired to hire you, that this sort of stuff is pretty much a full-time job with me.

  You weren’t up to it.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Grow up and learn your trade. If you’d held out your left hand you might’ve connected with your right and things could’ve gone your way, son. Give me your mobile.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give me your mobile or I’ll break your jaw and scatter your teeth.’

  He scrabbled in his jacket pocket for the phone and handed it to me.

  ‘Right. Now you stay exactly where you are for ten minutes. I’ll be able to see you, believe me. If you move, I’ll chuck your phone in the river. If you behave it’ll be waiting for you up at the exit to the park.’

  I left him and walked away. They value their phones above all else for work and play, and I knew he’d do as I said. I didn’t even have to look back. I put the phone on the sandstone gatepost and went on my way.

  Sending a heavy after me, incompetent though he turned out to be, confirmed that the names Lubitsch had given me concerned him enough not to want to leave any evidence that he’d done so. I figured I’d done all I needed to do in Brisbane and it was time to go. There was just a chance that the doctor had other, better, helpers. Best to pass on the jog around the park. I booked on a mid-afternoon flight back to Sydney, willingly paid for the second night I wasn’t going to spend in the motel and drove out to the airport. To judge by the windsocks, the wind was a southerly and should speed the flight home.

  I was back in Glebe by late afternoon. Lily wasn’t around and by agreement we hadn’t got into the domestic habit of leaving notes about where we were and what we were doing. I was having a drink when Catherine Heysen rang.

  ‘Mr Hardy, I suppose you’ve heard from Frank.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He wants the DNA test.’

  ‘I know. Are you going to have it done?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Have you made any progress?’

  ‘It’s hard to say. I have some people to see and then I might have a better idea and be able to give you a report. I don’t suppose you’ve heard from your son.’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘Frank intends to help him, whether he’s the father or not.’

  Her voice softened, lost its arrogant edge. ‘He’s a fine man.’

  Watch out, Frank, I thought, but I didn’t say anything.

  ‘If you need money, Mr Hardy . . .’

  ‘Not at the moment and perhaps not at all. I’ll be in touch, Mrs Heysen. Goodbye.’

  As I put the phone down Lily came in carrying a pile of photocopies. ‘Saw the car. That was quick.’

  I kissed her. ‘You know me—immediate results.’

  She dumped the copies on a chair and gave me a hug. ‘I’ve nearly finished this bastard. Hey, Hilde rang and wants us to come over for a bite. She knew you were in Brisbane, but now you’re back, d’you want to go over there tonight? I could do with a break.’

  ‘Sure. And I’ve got things to talk over with Frank. Did she tell you the news?’

  ‘Did she what. Couldn’t stop talking about it. I’ll give her a ring. I must meet that kid of yours sometime.’

  ‘Yeah. I’d like to see her again myself when she’s ever in the one place long enough.’

  ‘Who’s she like, you or her mother?’

  I thought of Megan’s close physical resemblance to my sister and her restlessness, and my former wife’s precise, planned approach to things. ‘Me,’ I said.

  ‘God help her.’

  After getting drunk out of relief and happiness the day before, Frank and Hilde had gone on a marathon bike ride and sweated out the toxins. From the way they were looking at each other I guessed they’d also had a good sexual workout or two. They were in fine form.

  Hilde knocked up a barramundi dinner with all the trimmings and we got solidly into the dry white. Peter had sent a photo of his girlfriend electronically and they’d printed it out. It showed a vibrant, dark-skinned, raven-haired young woman smiling happily with pearly white teeth.

  ‘Her name’s Ramona,’ Hilde said. ‘She’s Brazilian with Portuguese, African and Indian ancestry.’

  ‘With Frank’s English and your German background that should make for hybrid vigour. Are they going to live here?’

  ‘Who knows with Peter?’ Frank said. ‘But they’re getting married in Rio and coming here to have the babies.’

  ‘I’ll have to learn to cook Brazilian,’ Hilde said.

  ‘What does she do?’ Lily asked.

  Hilde laughed. ‘Would you believe? She’s a journalist.’

  Hilde and Lily settled down to watch something on the History channel and Frank and I went to his study.

  I handed him Lubitsch’s list.

  ‘Let’s see,’ Frank said. ‘Jesus Christ!’

  The name that had struck me hit him just as hard: Matthew Henry Sawtell, known as ‘Mad Matt’. He’d risen to the rank of detective inspector in the New South Wales police force and was tipped to go even higher when his world collapsed. An undercover sting operation showed him to be guilty of giving the green light to criminals, to sanctioning at least two murders and conspiring with a corrupt politician to fake a kidnapping with an outcome that would advantage them both.

  ‘Mad Matt,’ Frank said, almost whispering. ‘Now he’s a definite possibility. He escaped from Goulburn. Severely wounded a guard and killed an inmate. He was very high profile and nailing him was a big feather in the anti-corruption cap. Highly embarrassing for all concerned when he escaped. His file’s still very much open although a lot of people would like it to be closed.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘What d’you think? He had protection at a pretty high level until they just couldn’t shield him anymore.’

  ‘Did he put them in? I remember him going down but I forget the details.’

  ‘No, he kept mum, but it doesn’t take much to work out that he used those tickets when he needed to get out of gaol and away.’

  ‘Nice town, Sawtell, up near Coffs. I surfed there when I was young. You knew him?’

  Frank nodded. ‘I knew him. He was called “Mad” because he was the reverse. Unemotional—cold, calculating, ruthless bastard.’

  ‘With those friends in high places.’

  ‘Right. He had money, too. The gaol break must have cost him a bit. Yeah, he could’ve gone for plastic surgery.’ Frank touched the side of his face. ‘He had a knife scar here. Very distinctive. And he could’ve set Heysen up for a fall to get him out of circulation and warn him to keep his mouth shut.’

  I thought that over and didn’t like it. ‘I can’t see it, Frank. Why wouldn’t Heysen use what he knew about Sawtell as a bargaining chip to get out of the charge against him?’

  Frank shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but the thing just has a whiff of Sawtell about it. Devious was his middle name, if it wasn’t vicious. Trouble was, he had charm and a sense of humour and people liked him. Especially women.’

  ‘What about the scar?’

  ‘Distinctive, but didn’t disfigure him. Badge of honour. Didn’t put the women off. Let’s have a look at these others. James Ashley Whitmont, that’d be Jimmy White if my memory serves. Rapist, skipped bail and vanished. Had money but no brains. Not his sort of thing. Alexander Cart-wright. I remember him vaguely. Whistleblower, I think. He went into the witness protection program. Hard work to find him. Anyway, he was old, probably dead now.’

  ‘How old was Sawtell?’

  ‘Forties.’

  ‘So very likely still alive.’

  ‘Yeah, he was a fitness freak. Didn’t smoke, exercised. He’d been a good athlete—in the pentathlon at the Rome Olympics, just missed a bronze. But he could be anywhere, not likely to
be hanging around Sydney.’

  ‘What would he be doing then?’

  ‘Anybody’s guess. Something perfectly legitimate somewhere or highly illegal and profitable somewhere else. Or both.’

  ‘That resourceful?’

  ‘Easily, but it hardly matters, Cliff. He’s long gone. Probably not in Australia. One of the reasons to change your appearance in a case like his would be to get a passport.’

  ‘I don’t agree. Rex Wain was shit scared, as if what he knew could still hurt him. If all this speculation about him’s on the money, it could mean Sawtell’s still around.’

  Frank shrugged, surprising me.

  ‘What does that mean, mate?’

  ‘You could give that to Catherine as a strong suspicion. Might satisfy her.’ Frank leaned back in his chair and stretched. ‘I have to admit my thinking was all screwed up when Catherine contacted me. Hilde was worried sick about Peter and I didn’t know what her mood was going to be from one day to the next. I’m not proud of it, but when Catherine approached me it seemed like . . . something to do, some kind of escape.’

  ‘But not now?’

  ‘No, not now.’

  ‘I hate loose ends, Frank.’

  ‘So do I, but now they don’t seem to matter too much—some of them.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Let me get you another drink. Who’s driving?’

  ‘We tossed. Lily lost. She’s on a limit of three.’

  He went away and came back with a solid scotch with a fair bit of ice. Same for him. Frank had turned his chair around from his desk and I was sitting in the rocker where their cat Bluey, which always hid when guests arrived, usually sat while Frank was working. Frank had small photos of Hilde and Peter on his desk. Space for more.

  I sipped the drink. ‘Frank? It’d still be a feather in your cap, finding Sawtell.’

  ‘I don’t wear the cap anymore and don’t need feathers. Come to that, it’d do you more good. I imagine the reward that was up for him’s still available. But I want to turn our attention to William Heysen. Let’s forget about the old farts. See if something can be salvaged from all this for the young people.’

  part two

  14

  Acouple of days later I went to see Catherine Heysen and told her the results of my investigation.

  ‘It’s just possible an aggrieved client for illicit plastic surgery arranged to frame your husband, but the only credible candidate is either dead, overseas or totally hidden.’

  She was her usual super-composed self. ‘I see.’

  ‘Even if that was true, your husband doesn’t emerge as an innocent victim and your son’s not likely to change his evaluation of him or himself on that account.’

  ‘What if he learned that his father was actually a senior and highly respected policeman?’

  ‘That’s another matter. Have you decided whether to go ahead with the DNA test?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘May I ask why not?’

  ‘I don’t choose to tell you.’

  There was no coffee this time and an even cooler atmosphere. I got up out of my chair. ‘Your privilege. That’s all I have to say.’

  The composure shattered then like a fragile glass ornament dashed to the floor. She buried her face in her hands and sobs racked her body. I stood there, feeling useless. She wasn’t the kind of woman you patted on the shoulder and said, ‘There, there,’ to. When she lifted her head, the carefully arranged hair was a mess and the perfect makeup was smeared and clown-like. Years of keeping up a façade had taken a toll and when the façade collapsed, it collapsed completely. She looked every day of her age, and tired.

  Through her sobs she said something in Italian. Then she collected herself and I assume she translated: ‘I want my son, I need him.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can see that you do.’

  ‘I’ve been a vain and foolish woman, Mr Hardy. I’ve done nothing useful with the advantages I’ve had. If I could just save my boy from the awful life he is in, that would be something.’

  ‘Is he Frank Parker’s son?’

  She moved her hands around her head to smooth her hair and dry her tears. ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter to Frank, as you know. Might matter a bit to me.’

  She said again: ‘I don’t know. Will you try to find him for me?’

  It wasn’t the time to tell her the little I’d teased out about William Heysen so far, but I liked her more at that moment than previously. Her distress was genuine and I’m a sucker for it. But not a soft touch. It’d be a paying job and I could count on Frank’s help. I told her I’d try to find him, no matter whose son he was. I said I’d mail her a contract form.

  I got the usual stuff together and opened a file with a recent photograph, the names of friends, contacts at SBS—his last place of work—car registration, details of credit cards he used and as close a physical description as his mother could provide. It didn’t go much beyond ‘tall, slim and handsome with dark hair’. She guessed his height at about six feet and his weight at eleven stone, call it 180 plus centimetres and 70 plus kilos. According to her, he had all his own teeth and no scars. He didn’t wear glasses and he’d scarcely ever been ill in his life. He was clean-shaven and short-haired when she last saw him, which didn’t mean he was now. She knew of no girlfriends in recent times. I didn’t ask about boyfriends.

  I spent a couple of days tracking down the friends and former flatmates and workmates. Some I found and some I didn’t, but none had seen William Heysen for months. When I questioned them about his character, they all agreed that he was very bright and very unusual. A girl who’d had a brief affair with him said, ‘I never knew whether he cared about me or not and in the end it didn’t matter because he just stopped seeing me. No explanation, no reason. It was as if I’d never existed. Weird.’

  I pressed her, asking about William’s personal habits— drink and drugs and the like. She shook her head.

  ‘Didn’t drink much, but I remember this one time when I’d taken an eccy and he really sounded off on me. Told me how dangerous they were and how contaminated. He bloody lectured me about how they made them in Indonesia and how everybody got ripped off along the way. Sounded like he knew a bit about it.’ That was worrying. I’ve never had much to do with the drug community, and the few users I knew—a doctor who’d injected heroin for thirty years without ill effect, an ex-boxer who dealt with the boredom of retirement through the judicious use of cocaine, and a musician who took just about everything for a period, stopped cold turkey for a while to allow himself to recover, and then plunged back in—were of no help. The musician’s ecstasy supplier was a biker who only dealt in local stuff because the higher quality imported product was too expensive.

  I thumbed through my address book and found the number for Jon Van Hart who, last I heard, worked as a consultant for the drug squad. During my period of suspension, for something to do, I went to as many improving lectures and seminars around town as I could. Van Hart had given a lecture on the manufacture of speed and ecstasy and we’d exchanged a few words and our cards afterwards.

  ‘I remember you,’ he said when I got through to his mobile. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Well, I’m back on the job. Looking for a bit of info on ecstasy. I know bugger-all about it or about drugs in general, apart from alcohol, caffeine, aspirin, paracetamol, codeine, pseudo-ephedrine . . .’

  He laughed. ‘I’ll help if I can.’

  Stretching my information to the limit, I said, ‘I’m hearing noises about someone I’m interested in importing the stuff from South-East Asia.’

  ‘Indonesia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s happening all right. There’s been some interceptions and the police make a big noise about it, but I know and they know that the ratio of found to undetected is up around one to ten, maybe more.’

  ‘How does it work?’

  ‘I take it you don’t want the chemic
al details?’

  ‘No, the organisational.’

  He told me that the stuff came in branded as legitimate pharmaceuticals with all the appropriate documentation, except that it was forged. The traffic relied on a certain level of official corruption at both ends and constant liaison between suppliers, shippers and distributors.

  ‘Lots of comings and goings on entirely legal tourist visas. Tell me about the guy you’re interested in.’

  ‘He’s young, very bright, studied chemistry, speaks Indonesian and a few other languages.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘Where would I find him?’

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ Van Hart said.

  ‘Where would I look?’

  ‘In transit.’

  I was out of my depth and phoned Frank with the news. He got busy tapping his sources—serving and ex-cops, federal policemen and people in Customs. We met for a drink in a pub in Darlinghurst near the police HQ to compare notes.

  I’d tried to give the balance of Frank’s money back to him but he’d refused to take it. Catherine Heysen had signed and returned the contract and given me a solid retainer so I was on a good earner, which only made it worse that I’d come up empty.

  ‘Me, too,’ Frank said. ‘Absolutely bugger-all. Some people agree there’s a supply coming in from South-East Asia pretty much the way Jon Van Hart laid it out for you. But Customs are in denial, and the intelligence types who used to take an interest are so devoted to finding nonexistent terrorists that they’ve got no time for anything else.’

  ‘D’you reckon the asking around will have got through to William? Ripple effect, sort of?’

  ‘Hard to say. Possibly.’