by Peter Corris
‘So he’s not in Hamilton anymore?’
‘No, he came to Sydney. Tried to get into promotion. Hang on.’
He found his mobile under a CD and punched in some numbers. ‘Calling my agent. Hello, Gordon, James. Yeah, look, d’you know how to get in touch with Reg Geary? What? Of course I’m not wanting to work for him. Mate of mine wants to see him about something. Yeah, yeah, that right? Okay. Thanks, Gordie. See you Saturday.’
He rang off, drained his can and scribbled on the back of a magazine. ‘Gordie says Geary’s in a psychiatric unit in Marrickville. The cops booked him in yesterday after he assaulted a woman at some event he’d tried to promote. Here’s the address.’
He tore off the corner he’d written on and handed it to me. ‘A nutter. Could be your guy.’
You don’t just wander up to a psychiatric facility, ring the bell, and ask to speak to an inmate. In the old days, when I was on passable terms with some of the police, I could’ve found out who arrested Geary and possibly got access to him that way. Not anymore. My doctor, Ian Sangster, wears a number of hats. I made an appointment to see him in the morning.
‘Hammond Psychiatric Unit in Marrickville, Ian,’ I said. ‘Know it?’
‘I know of it. I don’t think you’re a candidate for it quite yet.’
‘Very funny. I want to talk to someone there.’
‘In connection with what?’
‘What else? Patrick’s murder.’
‘Let me make some phone calls.’
Ian got back to me a few hours later saying that he’d spoken to a doctor at the unit who was willing to allow me a short interview with Geary that afternoon, with an emphasis on the short.
‘Dr Galena Vronsky,’ Ian said. ‘A very good clinician. Could be your type, come to think of it.’
‘What did she say about Geary?’
‘Nothing much, just that he’s a violent paranoid schizophrenic resistant to medication. Have fun.’
Dr Vronsky was a slim, dark woman in her thirties. She was classically beautiful with violet eyes and sculptured features. She wore the standard white coat over a crisp blue blouse and a dark skirt, medium-heeled shoes. She sat me down in her office and I told her why I wanted to see Geary. I left out certain details, although there was something compelling about her and it felt almost shameful not to tell her the whole truth.
‘How would you propose to go about questioning him, Mr Hardy?’
‘I don’t think I’ll have to do much. Patrick Malloy and I were almost identical physically. If he killed Patrick and sees me he’s bound to show some kind of reaction.’
‘Possibly, but he’s a very disturbed individual, so much so that it could be very difficult to read his reaction.’
‘Do you think what I’m suggesting could do him any harm?’
She smiled and the temperature in the cold room seemed to lift. ‘I’m glad you asked that. Ian Sangster vouched for you and your stocks just went up with me. No, I don’t think so. He needs detoxing and medicating, and even then . . .’
She got up. ‘Come on, and don’t forget I’m in control of this.’
I followed her through a series of passages with rooms on both sides. Some were open and looked more like motel rooms than cells. The place was no bedlam, closer to a sedate rest home. We passed a recreation area where a couple of men were playing table tennis while others were bent over hands of cards. Dr Vronsky opened the door to a warm, glassed-in sunroom. Three men were sitting in armchairs staring out at an expanse of grass. An orderly in a tracksuit sat in a corner working on a crossword puzzle.
Two of the men turned to look at us as we entered and one nodded a sort of greeting. The third man continued to look straight ahead. Like the others, he wore street clothes.
‘This is Mr Geary,’ the doctor said. ‘You have a visitor, Mr Geary.’
He turned slowly and slid his chair around on the polished floor to face me. His face was deeply lined, grey-skinned and slack. His sunken eyes were blank and uninterested. ‘Fuck off, shithead,’ he said. ‘You too, cunt.’
His hands on the arms of the chair were trembling, but as soon as he’d spoken he swivelled around and resumed his former position. I followed Dr Vronsky from the room.
She leaned against the wall, distress showing in her face. ‘He’s waiting to hear his voice. He was mildly irritated that we interrupted him.’
‘He was trembling,’ I said. ‘This assault, what did he do?’
‘He kicked a woman. Kicked her until she fell and then kicked her repeatedly. How was your cousin killed, Mr Hardy?’
‘By a shotgun.’
She shook her head. ‘Not possible. He has advanced Parkinson’s disease. He would be quite incapable of using a firearm.’
A dead end.
‘This is a damn fine instrument,’ Hank said, holding up Patrick’s mobile. ‘It’s a BlackBerry, the latest.’
‘Why do they call it a blackberry? It’s a noxious weed.’
‘Not in the US it isn’t, at least, not everywhere. Anyway, it’s one word, spelled with two capital Bs.’
‘What will they think of next?’
‘It has a speaker phone, wireless broadband, email, huge memory, you name it.’
‘So you could get up his phone numbers, his emails, photos, all that?’
‘With ingenuity, yeah, in theory.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He uploaded almost everything to . . .’
‘Where?’
Hank shrugged. ‘No way to tell. A server, most likely.’
‘You said almost.’
‘Do you remember someone taking a picture of the two of you outside some pub or other?’
‘Yeah, the Travellers Arms in Dublin. A Japanese tourist took it.’
Hank fiddled with the phone and handed it to me. ‘He kept that picture, nothing else.’
I looked at the photograph. Its quality was vastly superior to any of mine. It showed us standing outside the pub; Patrick with his fiddle case under his arm and me with a rolled-up newspaper held in much the same way. For once we were wearing similar clothes dictated by the weather—jeans, sweaters and light slickers. I had a few days’ stubble because my shaver had conked out, and we looked like twins again—same height, same build, same pose. I remembered that the obliging Japanese photographer had smiled and said, ‘Twin brothers,’ as he returned the mobile, and then, ‘Brackberry,’ and we’d nodded and thanked him.
I took a deep breath and put the mobile on the desk.
‘If I’d been there . . .’
‘You’d likely be dead,’ Hank said. ‘Automatic shotgun, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s a serious killing. He wasn’t about to leave any witnesses. It was a Perry and Dick situation.’
Hank had just finished reading the copy of In Cold Blood I’d lent him. He’d said it was one of the best books he’d ever read. I agreed.
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to work on this.’
‘Sure. I remember when you were showing me the ropes in this business and you told me to stop at every piece of information and ask yourself what conclusions to draw.’
‘Okay.’
‘In this case just two—the guy had something to hide and he was fond of you.’
It looked like another dead end but that often happens and you just have to scratch away until you draw blood somewhere else. I knew someone at Consolidated Securities, the firm Patrick said he was selling out to. The company was a big, international outfit, handling investigation as well as conventional security matters, and one of its policies was to mop up as many smaller operations as it could to increase market share. One technique was to recruit one-man PEAs like me. I’d been approached several times but wasn’t interested. Eventually
they’d get around to Hank. I phoned Bruce Carstairs, the executive who’d made the offer to me.
‘Cliff Hardy,’ he said and cleared his throat.
‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ I said. ‘I’m not after a job.’
As a practitioner scrubbed permanently off the books by the licensing authorities, my market value was nil. I told him I wanted some information about their acquisition of Patrick Malloy’s share in Pavee Security. Acquisition of that sort was Carstairs’ area of expertise.
‘Not sure I can tell you anything—commercial confidentiality and all that.’
‘He was my cousin and a friend and he was shot to death in my house. I’m helping the police in their investigation and I just need to know a few things—nothing about the money.’
A pause and then he said, ‘I’ll help as far as I can.’
‘Who was his lawyer?’
‘He didn’t have one. He was legally trained and did all that side of the work himself.’
‘What about his bank? He must have paid the money in somewhere.’
‘I see what you’re getting at. No harm in telling you this, it’s on the public record. There was no money involved. It was a straight share transfer—his in Pavee, and it was a substantial but not an outright majority holding, for a number of ours.’
‘Can you tell me when it all went through?’
I could hear the keys clicking and remembered what Patrick had said: . . . all computers and bullshit. Carstairs came back on the line and gave me several dates. The last few coincided with the time of our trip.
‘Emails and phone conversations to tie it up?’ I said.
‘Of course.’
‘What about signatures?’
‘All provided earlier. Look, I’m sorry . . . for your loss, but everything was perfectly straightforward. Agreement was reached easily with both parties perfectly happy.’
‘Isn’t that a bit unusual?’
‘It’s not unique. Was there anything else?’
I thanked him and rang off. He hadn’t remarked on the physical similarity between Patrick and myself because we’d never met. Our dealings had been solely by phone and email.
Two days later I got a call from Dan Munro at Pavee Security. He reminded me that he’d been at the funeral and asked if I was willing for my phone number to be given to a woman named Sheila Malloy.
‘Who is she?’
‘She says she’s Patrick’s wife.’
‘His wife?’
‘That’s what she says. I’ve got her on the other line, Mr Hardy, and she’s very insistent.’
‘Tell her I’ll meet her anywhere she chooses at whatever time.’
I’d read that some lawyers feeling the pinch and unable to afford presentable offices were meeting their clients in Macquarie Street coffee shops, so I wasn’t surprised that she proposed a cafe opposite Parliament House. Probably meant she’d have a cut-rate lawyer along. She took me at my word and set the meeting for the mid-afternoon of the same day. All this came through Munro, so I didn’t even get to hear her voice and he hung up as soon as the meeting was set.
I arrived early as usual but they weren’t far behind. Maybe a sign of anxiety or nervousness, maybe not. Sydney traffic being what it is, precise timing is difficult. I watched as they approached—a tall, slender woman in a dark suit and a shorter chunky man, also in a suit which, as they got closer, I could see was a three-piece pinstripe. She was smoking but dropped the butt and put her high-heeled shoe on it before reaching the outdoor table area. I stood and when she saw me she stopped in her long striding tracks and her bag fell from her shoulder.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she said. ‘This is amazing.’
She bent to pick up her bag and her shoulder-length hair fell across her face. She swept it back and moved forward with her hand out. I took it; her nails were long and painted bright red.
‘Sheila Malloy.’
‘Cliff Hardy.’
‘This is Harvey Spiegelman.’
‘Solicitor,’ he said.
I shook his hand and we sat down at the table. It was partly sheltered by a flapping canvas wall anchored to some uprights. The day was really too cool for sitting outside in comfort, but there were others at the tables for the usual reason—to smoke. Sheila Malloy took a packet of fifty from her bag and lit up. She put the packet and her lighter on the table.
A waiter came out and we ordered.
‘Mrs Malloy . . .’ I began.
She smiled and lines appeared on her face. She was probably on the right side of fifty, but not by much. She was good-looking in a rather narrow, thin-lipped way. Her hair was auburn; her makeup was expert. She was very vaguely familiar, but that might have been just that she looked a bit like Sigourney Weaver.
‘Call me Sheila. The people at Parvee had heard from Paddy that you looked like him but they didn’t tell me you were twins.’
‘A genetic thing,’ I said. ‘We’re . . . were second cousins.’
She glanced around for an ashtray and, not finding one, flicked ash on the footpath. ‘Fancy that. He told me he didn’t have a relative in the world.’
‘He told me he was divorced.’
The coffee arrived and she used her spoon to stir the chocolate into her cappuccino. ‘Well, looks like he was wrong about no relatives and I know for a fact he was lying about the divorce.’
Spiegelman leaned forward to sip at his latte, taking care to keep his silk tie out of the way. ‘Sheila understands that her husband died intestate,’ he said. ‘Under the law, she inherits his assets.’
‘That sounds right,’ I said, ‘if she can prove they were still married and that there’s no will. That could be legally tricky, wouldn’t you say?’
Sheila and Spiegelman exchanged glances. She appeared to be about to speak but he lifted his hands in a soothing gesture.
‘What exactly is your interest in the matter, Mr Hardy?’
I almost laughed. I drank off the short black and waved away wisps of Sheila’s smoke. ‘First off, tell me why you wanted to contact me, because that’s the order of things.’
Spiegelman stirred his cup. ‘Well . . .’
‘Don’t play games with him, Harvey. When I heard Paddy was dead—’
‘How did you hear?’
‘From the police, of course. I don’t use the name anymore but they knew how to find me. They’ve got us all pegged.’
I nodded. ‘Right.’
‘And I’ll tell you something—television and crime fiction’s got it all wrong. They didn’t treat me as a suspect. Anyway, I got straight on to that company of his and asked a few questions. They told me nothing really, but your name came up and I remembered that you were mentioned in the paper. I wanted to know if you thought you were in line for some of his money. Is that plain enough for you?’
‘That’s very plain,’ I said. ‘And I can give you a plain answer. I don’t give a stuff about his money. I’m only interested in finding out who killed him. Plain enough?’
She surprised me then with a smile that seemed to have genuine warmth in it. She put her hand on my arm, almost stroking the sleeve of my jacket. ‘We’re getting off on the wrong foot here, Cliff. I admit I thought you were going to turn out to be one of his rough mates from his army and drinking days. They used to show up and leech on him. But I can see that you’re not like that.’
She was a chameleon. The brittle, hard-boiled manner dropped away and was replaced by something altogether more sympathetic, almost likeable.
‘Of course I want to know who did such a terrible thing,’ she said, ‘but I won’t lie to you. Paddy treated me very badly, and he virtually robbed me. We had a house and other assets in common and when he left he managed to take them all out from under me. He was clever in the way he set everything up in
his favour, under his control. He owed me and I want . . . compensation. You have to believe me.’
‘I don’t have to,’ I said. ‘None of that sounds like the Patrick I knew.’
‘How long did you know him?’
She had me there. ‘A matter of weeks.’
‘Enough said. He had that Irish charm, a way with him, as they say.’
She had her own charm and was turning it on now, full bore. Spiegelman appeared to be taking no more than a polite interest at this point and I had to wonder what his role really was. He clicked his own lighter for Sheila as she produced another cigarette and there was no doubt; the gesture was intimate and devoted, almost embarrassing to watch.
‘You weren’t at the funeral,’ I said.
‘I didn’t know about it.’
‘However you look at it,’ I said, ‘it comes down to legalities. Is there a will? Were you divorced? Comes down to sets of papers. Have you got any?’
‘I have a marriage certificate. Have you got anything?’
I couldn’t help thinking of the package Patrick had posted from London. Surely not. I shrugged. ‘This is of almost no interest to me. Can you throw any light on who might have wanted to kill Patrick? Kill him in that . . . emphatic way?’
‘Just a minute, Hardy,’ Spiegelman said. ‘What are you implying?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can be of any use to each other. I’ll pay for the coffee and be on my way. In time there’ll be a niche for Patrick’s ashes at Rookwood if you’re interested, Sheila. I believe they keep them for a certain number of years and then dispose of them if no one claims them.’
She killed her cigarette in her coffee cup and stood. She was almost as tall as me. She blew smoke past my shoulder.
‘Fuck you,’ she said.
It was all getting a bit strange, out of shape. I caught a bus back to Glebe as the afternoon light died. All very well what I’d told Hank about drawing conclusions from information gained, but what if the information was highly suspect to begin with? It was Friday night with the traffic heavy and the bus losing and taking on passengers at every stop. Something was nagging at me and by the time we made the turn into Glebe Point Road I had it. The name Harvey Spiegelman rang a bell. Only faintly, but it was there. Something to follow up.