by Peter Corris
The Undertow
( Cliff Hardy - 30 )
Peter Corris
Peter Corris
The Undertow
PART ONE
1
It's a long time ago, Frank,' I said.
Frank Parker stroked his grey stubble as if to indicate the passage of time. 'Twenty-three years. That's not so long. Seems like yesterday the way time flies now.'
I knew what he meant. When I was a kid the summer school holidays stretched forever, and in winter it seemed as if summer and surfing would never come. I couldn't afford a wetsuit and had to wait at least until late September to hit the water. Now the years dropped away like the calendar leaves in an old Warner Brothers movie. Still, twenty years was a long time to go back digging up an old murder case.
Frank, retired from the police force as a deputy commissioner, and a long time friend married to Hilde, my former tenant and nothing more than a close friend, had asked me to visit him to talk something over. I was surprised to find that Hilde was away for the day attending a social work conference in the Blue Mountains. Frank could have had me over anytime and it seemed that he'd deliberately picked a day when Hilde wasn't there.
'It's niggled at me every day since,' Frank said, working on his second stubbie since I arrived. Two in an hour was fast work for Frank. After some pleasantries and with the first of our beers in hand, he'd said he wanted me to take a look at the Gregory Heysen case. Heysen was a doctor who'd been convicted of hiring a hit man to kill his partner in their Darlinghurst practice.
'I remember the name, but I forget the details, if I ever knew them,' I said. 'You'd better tell me why it's got you so worried. And why do I get the feeling you didn't want Hilde around while we talked about this?'
Frank sighed and looked his age, which was just the other side of sixty. He played tennis, swam, didn't smoke, was a light drinker and both his parents had lived into their nineties. He'd always looked twenty years younger than his age but not now. 'Smart bastard, aren't you?' he said.
I shrugged, took a swig on the Stella. 'I can usually spot the obvious.'
'Okay. It's like this. I was one of the team investigating the murder of Peter Bellamy. It was one of the biggest hands-on jobs I'd had since getting out of uniform. I shouldn't have been anywhere near it.'
'Why?'
'I'd had an affair with Catherine. This was before I met Hilde.'
'Catherine?'
'Catherine Beddoes, Heysen's wife. It went on for a little while after she married Heysen. I didn't know that. She didn't tell me she was married. Then she did and I ended it.'
'Jesus, Frank.'
'I know, I know. I should've declared a conflict of interest and butted out.'
'Why didn't you?'
Frank drained his stubbie and looked almost angry and upset enough to throw it into the pool. We were sitting in the back yard of his Paddington terrace. He'd bought it when you could buy houses in Paddo without needing a six figure income. He still had some mortgage, he'd told me, but with lots of equity at current prices. He'd been able to renovate and put the pool in with part of his super.
'I was ambitious, wanted to make a step up. I didn't know that there'd be a clearing out of the corrupt bastards above me and that my promotion would be… accelerated anyway. The Heysen case was high profile and tricky. We got a break and cracked it. Kudos all around.'
'But?'
'I had some doubts. You mostly do except when it's open and shut. Which it usually is, you know-domestic, financial, sexual…'
I nodded.
'Bellamy and Heysen seemed to get on well. They'd graduated from Sydney uni at much the same time, done locums, knocked around, borrowed the dough to set up the practice and were doing okay. They bulk-billed, put in the hours, worked their arses off. Made house calls, would you believe?'
'Dinosaur stuff.'
'Right. They both lived more or less locally-Bellamy in Darlinghurst, Heysen in Earlwood.'
'That's not local.'
'Close enough. A big difference between them emerged-Bellamy was gay, Heysen was straight, very straight. Hadn't known about Bellamy's orientation. After a while, Bellamy started to actively attract HIV positives and AIDS cases to the practice and Heysen didn't like it.'
'Uh oh.'
'Yeah. Bad vibes. Bellamy accuses Heysen of homophobia, spreads the word. Heysen's client list starts to slip. The two can hardly bear to lay eyes on each other so they have to do something. Heysen offers to buy Bellamy out but Bellamy isn't interested. Turns out Heysen hasn't got the money anyway. In fact, having recently got married, bought a house and with a child and a demanding wife, he's asset-rich but cash-poor. All this talking's making my throat dry. I'm having another beer. You?'
'Sure.'
Frank went inside and I got up and dipped my hand in the pool. It was late March and the water was still at a comfortable temperature. Made me wish I had a pool, but everything in Frank's behaviour showed that he had problems that I was sure I didn't want.
Frank came back with the beers and started talking before he sat down. 'Then it gets sleazy. Bellamy's out cruising and he gets stabbed to death. We work it and it looks like a standard homosexual killing-wrong move made at the wrong time to the wrong person, you know. Bellamy seemed to be popular and he'd become a spokesman for the gays and we were anxious not to be branded as homophobic and all that, so we did the legwork. Talked to everyone, probed the backgrounds and foregrounds. All we came up with was the animosity between the two of them, but Heysen seemed to be above suspicion. He couldn't afford to buy his partner out, but he wasn't exactly on the breadline. Plus.. ' Frank took a long pull on his stubbie, 'his wife's family had some money.
'The pressure came on to crack it and we got a break. An informant of mine steered us to Rafael Padrone, a low-lifer who's got terminal cancer. Heysen was treating him. Under the sort of pressure we could apply back then, Padrone says Heysen hired him to kill Bellamy and paid him twenty grand. Padrone's got all the details right, including those little things we held back. He's also got fifteen thousand bucks stashed and Heysen can't account for twenty thousand that should have been in the practice's account and isn't. And Padrone hasn't had a bill for his treatments.'
'Pretty circumstantial.'
'Yeah, but compelling enough for the DPP. Heysen was an arrogant prick and made a terrible impression in interviews, not to mention his trial. Padrone had pleaded guilty and everything he'd said was on video. He was sentenced to fourteen years and was dead in six months. Heysen got fourteen as well, for conspiracy to commit murder. QED. You must remember this.'
I thought about it. One thing I knew for sure was that Frank had never mentioned it to me, and we'd discussed most of our more interesting cases over the years. Sydney throws up murders and conspiracies, trials and appeals, judgements and sentences every year and they tend to blend together. I had only the vaguest recollection of the name Heysen, and then probably because I quite liked some of Hans Heysen's paintings and had a print of one in my house. I shook my head. 'Barely a glimmer of it,' I said. 'What were your doubts about?'
'It was all a bit too neat. Virtually a dying confession. An obvious suspect. Pressure for closure. Everything.'
'But you went along.'
'It was out of my hands. I gave my evidence straight. Heysen's lawyer was competent-he's dead too, by the way-and he grilled me good, but I didn't get any opportunity to express doubts and they had no solid foundation anyway. Fuck it, Padrone was a waste of space and Heysen treated me like shit. He looked and sounded guilty.'
'The human element.'
'Exactly. Anyway, Heysen went to gaol. Had a hard time for a while, the way all educated people do, but he settled down and became a model prisoner
. He did medical work above and beyond the call of duty. Came up for parole after twelve years, made a bad impression on the board and got knocked back. Came up again two years later and was found dead in his cell before the hearing. Natural causes, brain haemorrhage brought on by stress. He had high blood pressure.'
'Well, it's an interesting story, Frank, but I can't see why you want it looked into now. I mean, all the parties are dead.'
'Not quite.'
'No?'
'There's me and Catherine Heysen and her son, William. Catherine got in touch with me a week or so ago. She says her son's on the skids. She kept what had happened to her husband from him for most of his life but he found out not long back. She thought he was old enough to handle it, but he wasn't, apparently. It rocked him. He started to drink, use drugs, hang out with losers.'
'That's tough on her, but what's it got to do with you?'
The lines and grooves in Frank's face, the marks of character, experience and physical fitness, took on an eroded, desiccated look. 'Catherine took up with Heysen while she was still on with me and kept seeing me for a while, as I said. She says William is my son.'
2
It's not something that's easy to explain to those who haven't been through it. Frank knew that some time back I'd discovered that I had a daughter I hadn't known existed. My then wife, Cyn, had concealed her pregnancy from me at the time of our acrimonious breakup and had had the child adopted. After a lot of angst, it worked out okay between the daughter, Megan, and me and there was some sort of deathbed reconciliation between Cyn and Megan and Cyn's daughter by her second marriage. It doesn't always turn out so well.
'It's bloody difficult,' Frank said. 'I don't know whether Catherine's telling the truth and I can't let Hilde find out about it, one way or the other, just now.'
'Why not? Hilde knows you weren't a virgin before you met her. How could you be? You were what, in your late thirties?'
'She's menopausal, Cliff-very up and down. And Peter's away somewhere in fucking South America. We hear from him once in a blue moon. He makes noises about staying there. Hilde's learning Spanish and not liking it. South America's where a lot of the Nazis went and you know what she thinks about them. I can't hit her with this now. Catherine's sort of… pressuring me.'
Peter was the Parkers' son-what we atheists called my anti-godson as a joke. After doing a science degree, he worked for Greenpeace in various parts of the world and was seldom in Australia. He was a risk-taker and Hilde worried about him constantly. A tough survivor herself, with aunts, uncles and cousins swept away in the Holocaust, she had a need to rebuild a family and Peter wasn't helping. But Frank's hesitation suggested another level of trouble.
'Tell me about Catherine.'
'She's convinced that Heysen wasn't guilty. She wants me to prove it. She thinks that if William learns that his father wasn't a convicted murderer but a respected doctor, he'll change his ways. Go back to being the good kid he was before he found out.'
'That's not what I meant, Frank, and you know it.'
'Yeah, yeah. She's a good deal younger than me. She's persuasive and very attractive. I can't see her again, can't have anything to do with her directly. That's why I'm asking you to help me.'
'What about the boy?'
'Christ, I don't know. She could be lying but she says a DNA test'd prove it. I can't go through that. This thing's like an undertow, Cliff. It's pulling me down.'
Of course I agreed to do what I could. Frank had sat at his computer sometime and written down everything he could remember about the Heysen case-names, places and dates. He gave me the printout amounting to over fifty pages. An almost eidetic memory had been one of his strengths as a detective, and when he quoted some of the people involved I was prepared to believe it was near to word-for-word accurate.
Frank looked at his watch and I took the hint. I folded the dossier and watched him take money from his wallet.
'Frank.'
'We've got a joint account. I can't give you a cheque.'
'I'm not taking your money.'
'You fucking are. I want you full-time on this and fair dinkum. It could get expensive. Some of these people have probably scattered. Here.'
He handed me ten one hundred dollar notes. 'Won't Hilde notice you're down a bit?'
'Let me worry about that. Cliff, I hate doing this without her knowing-'
'Me, too.'
'But I've got no choice. I can't really help you either. I guess you could ring me once or twice if you need to, and visit, but Hilde'd get suspicious if it was more often. Shit, I hate this.'
'It's okay. I'll play it your way, but we have to agree on one thing-if for some reason it becomes necessary for Hilde to learn everything about it, that's the way it'll have to be.'
'You're a cunning bastard, Cliff.'
'A survivor. Agreed?'
'Yes.'
We shook hands, something we never usually did. It marked how different this meeting had been from all the others and I hoped it didn't mean any kind of change for the worse.
Frank seemed to sense something similar, and he grinned and did a mock shape-up. 'I feel better now that I know you're helping, mate.'
I nodded. He collected the empties and stowed them carefully in the recycle bin. I wondered if Hilde knew how many beers had been on hand and would notice how many had been drunk. Or would Frank have that covered somehow? A long-time deceiver myself, the standard line came to my mind: Oh, what a tangled web we weave…
We walked past the pool to the gate. 'Any tips, Frank?'
'I thought you said you could spot the obvious.'
'Start with Catherine.'
'Right,' he said.
I felt very uneasy as I drove home. Frank Parker was one of the steadiest, most composed men I'd ever known and it shook me to see him so rattled. It was understandable. There'd recently been a case involving a high profile public person in a similar situation. It had turned out strangely and the letters page of the papers had been full of contradictory opinions on adoption, DNA testing, the rights of adults and children when paternity was in doubt or contested. No such strong media light would be shone on Frank's dilemma, but the pressures on all parties were the same. Except for Dr Gregory Heysen-dead while still in prison, possibly for a crime he didn't commit.
3
For the first time in years, I had a live-in partner, even if only temporarily. I'd been in a casual relationship with Lily Truscott for some time. We'd spend a night together now and then, sometimes at her place, sometimes at mine, and there'd be weeks when we didn't see each other at all. Lily had been editor of the Australian Financial Review, then a feature writer and now she was freelancing. Her house was in Greenwich and one of Sydney's wild storms brought a huge tree down on top of it. The house lost its roof and several exterior and interior walls. Driving rain and wind just about demolished it. Lily moved in with me while her place was being rebuilt. She was fully insured, but the company dragged out the process the way they do, and the rebuilding was slowed down by council obstructions and the usual problems with tradesmen, so that Lily's stay was stretching out.
It was working well, though. Lily was interstate often, chasing stories, and I never knew quite where I'd be from one day to the next. No expectations on either side. We were both fond of a drink, keen on exercise, undiscrimi-nating about food. Like me, Lily preferred Dylan to Dvorak and le Carre to Henry James, Spielberg to Bergman. We talked about our jobs when we were together; I learned a bit about insider trading and unions in the Pilbara, and she picked up stuff on surveillance and tracing missing persons.
Lily was coming down the stairs when I arrived home from the meeting with Frank. She has shoulder-length dark-blonde hair with a bit of grey and her face is smoother than it ought to be given some of the things she's been through. She was wearing a long white T-shirt and black pants and looked good, the way a woman who stands 180 centimetres and weighs about 70 kilos does.
'I need broadband,' she said.
'That fucking dial-up's too slow.'
'It's fast enough for me.'
Lily leased a state-of-the-art laptop after she lost everything in her house, but my basic dial-up arrangement for the Web didn't suit her. She worked in the spare room where my clunking old Mac now sat shamefacedly apart from her gleaming model.
'Yeah, your computer skills are definitely twentieth century-at best. When my place is up and running, I'm going to have wall-to-wall 2010 everything. Is that a bottle you've got there?'
She came down the stairs and gave me a hug and we opened the bottle of red and sat out the back where the autumn sun had just about retreated. The bricks I'd laid- very inexpertly, after chopping up ancient concrete back when Cyn and I bought the place-were still warm. Leaves were falling from the shrubs and drifting in from outside and I made a mental note to sweep them up. Sometime.
'What's on your plate, Lil?'
'The multifunction polis. Remember that?'
'Vaguely.'
'Right, you and everyone else. I'm off to Adelaide tomorrow to look into how it's going. You?'
Lily had met Frank and Hilde a few times, liked them, and knew how close we were. I told her about Frank's problem as we worked through the Merlot.
'Tricky,' she said.
I sneezed; the drifting leaves activated a mild allergy of some kind. I pulled a tissue from my pocket and Frank's money came out with it.
'Nice,' she said.
I blew my nose. 'Yeah-hidden from Hilde. Frank's cut up about it.'
'D'you think he's… in love with this Catherine?'
'No, but you know what men're like.'
'Don't I just? Would you go off me, Cliff? If I went into mood swings and hot flushes?'
'Mood swings you've already got. I don't know if hot flushes'd bother me.'
'We'll have to wait and see, won't we?'
I said, 'I read somewhere about DNA tests. Apparently one in four shows that your poppa ain't your poppa. Remember the song?'