The Undertow ch-30

by Peter Corris

  'You're right. The news doesn't get any better, Mrs Heysen. Frank and I have put out feelers and there's a possibility that William is involved in something criminal and… big. So this attempt on your life could be a warning to him.'

  'Oh God, this is horrible.'

  'I'm concerned for your safety, and William's.'

  'Is Frank?'

  It wasn't the time to tell her that Frank was on the way to sorting out the personal problems which had been a part of his response to her initially. But his concern for the son was ongoing, so I said yes.

  'When I'm released from here I'm going to stay at my parents' place until I'm fully recovered. I have uncles and nephews. I'll be safe. Then I'm going to sell the Earlwood place and get a flat with state of the art security.'

  'That's good,' I said. 'You have my numbers. Please let me know where you are and I'll keep you in touch with our search for your son.'

  The session had tired her and she nodded wearily. I went away thinking that she'd originally said she'd hang on to the Earlwood place as a sort of homing device for

  William. Did selling it mean she had full confidence in my ability to find him? I didn't think so.

  I'd parked semi-legally in a Newtown back street, which was as close as I could get to the hospital. It was a Thursday and busy, with pensions being paid and shops staying open late. I contemplated leaving the car where it was and walking to the office but decided against it. A conscientious parking inspector would certainly book it and I didn't need the expense and the hassle.

  The afternoon was cloudy and cool, with the sun low in the sky. The street was shaded by plane trees and three-storey terraces. I hurried to keep warm. I squinted ahead twenty metres to see if there was an infringement notice on the windscreen. There wasn't. I felt for my keys and then I was hurled forward by a blow to the back of my neck. I hit the bonnet of the car and my knees buckled but I fought for balance and twisted around in time to see the baseball bat coming towards me. It seemed as big as a balloon and I knew I was too winded and off balance to avoid it. I just managed to tilt my head away, and the bat caught me a glancing blow above the ear. A shaft of pain shot through me and I went down with my head ringing and my eyes shut tight.

  I wasn't unconscious, but I was close to it. I sensed rather than saw a shape loom over me and I felt the bat press down hard at the top of my spine as if the attacker was setting up for the fatal whack.

  'Hey, hey you!'

  The voice seemed to come from miles away but I could hear heavy running feet. The pressure lifted and I sucked in air. The next thing I heard was the roar of an over-revved engine and the squeal of burning rubber. The smell washed back over me and I vomited into the gutter.

  The ringing in my ears dropped to an intermittent hum and stopped. I was bleeding above the ear and my hair was damp and matted. I'd split my lip on the gutter and blood and vomit had dripped down my chin and onto my shirt. I spluttered to get the bits of leaf and dirt and sick out of my mouth. My neck ached and my upper back throbbed as I moved. My thick hair had taken some of the force out of the knock to the head. I felt in my mouth with my tongue. No loose teeth. Could have been worse.

  I almost flinched as another shape appeared above me.

  'You all right, mate?'

  He was a giant, 195 centimetres plus, dressed in running gear. Shoulders like railway sleepers, thighs like tree trunks.

  'Shit, he could've killed you.' He pulled a mobile phone, looking like a matchbox in his huge paw, from his shorts. 'Want me to call the cops?'

  'No. It's a… private matter. I'll settle it. But thanks, you scared him off. Did you see what happened?'

  'Yeah, sort of. I was jogging along here and I saw you coming, 'bout fifty metres off. You see there?'

  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. 'That's a narrow little lane runs between these two terraces. I keep an eye open because kids come out on bikes and skateboards and that. I reckon he must've been in there because all of a sudden he's up and bashing you. You're lucky he didn't kill you.'

  The head wound had stopped bleeding. I sucked blood from my lip and spat into the gutter, careful to miss him. 'I dunno. Maybe not, but thanks again.'

  'Jeez.' He retreated a step. 'What kind of game are you in?'

  I reached into my jacket, got my wallet and showed him the PEA licence. It impresses people sometimes. It did him.

  'Can you describe the man?' I asked.

  'Not really. It was all so quick, like. Fair-sized bloke. Fattish. That's all I can say. I can tell you about his car though.'

  'That could help.'

  'Red Commodore with a bloody great ding in the back. He was parked just down there. Ran to it when I yelled, got in and went like hell. Nearly lost control on the corner there. You can still smell the rubber.'

  'Yeah, the smell made me chuck. Well-'

  'Now I come to think of it, he was in a grey suit. That struck me as funny, but I didn't remember first off. I'm sorry I didn't get the number.'

  'I'd be worried about you if you had. What game d'you play, as if I need to ask?'

  'The game they play in heaven, mate.'

  I reached out and up and we shook hands. 'Thanks for the help. Take care of yourself.'

  He jogged on the spot a few times and gave a short laugh. 'I reckon it's you who should be doing that, mate.'

  I drove home with difficulty. My neck was stiff and I was still sucking blood from my lip. I was glad Lily wasn't there to see me in that state. Not that it would have worried her too much. Her father had been a professional boxer and her brother still was-a good one. She'd seen plenty of split skin and blood.

  I hauled myself inside, shucked off the blood- and vomit-stained clothes and stood under the shower for fifteen minutes. I parted the hair around the head gash and decided it didn't need stitching. A caustic stick stopped the lip bleeding and the hot spray had eased the aches in my back. Nothing eased the anger and humiliation. My attacker must have been trailing me and I hadn't noticed. And I hadn't registered the narrow lane right by the car. Getting careless, even though I'd had it in mind that I could be a target.

  As therapy, I tried a solid scotch and ice, which seemed to work well enough to give it a second try. The head began to throb again and I took some Panadeine Forte. It kept hurting and I took some more and another drink. The combination closed me down. I went up the stairs with a buzz that was more pleasurable than painful. I fell into bed thinking that I'd like to meet up again with the guy with the baseball bat. Preferably, with him minus the bat, and me with one of my own.

  I don't know why it is, and I've never asked anyone else if it's true of them-I suspect it might be-that the lyrics of Bob Dylan songs often run through my head. That day I'd been doing the bit about St Augustine being as alive as you or me, and it triggered a dream in my drugged state. I dreamed my ex-wife Cyn, who'd died of cancer a few years back, and a girlfriend of more recent time, Glen Withers, who was shot dead, were both still alive. I was torn between them, guilty as hell as I lied to first one and then the other. It was one of those impossible to resolve situations that, in the dream, just gets worse and worse.

  I woke up sweating although I only had a light cover on the bed. As the dream faded I was aware of feeling sad that both women were dead and relieved that I didn't have to deal with the dream problem. I got up, had a piss, drank some water, considered more pills but decided against them. There was a chance they'd plunge me into another Dylan dream and with Dylan you could go to some pretty dark places, like the tombstone blues. I've stood by enough tombstones to provoke nightmares.

  Stasiland was by the bed but it wasn't likely to improve my mood. I turned on the radio and listened to 'Australia Talks Back' on low volume until the voices lulled me to sleep. Speculation about the likely retirement date of John Howard wasn't going to keep me awake for long.

  16

  I slept late and didn't feel too bad when I got up. It wasn't like those times when I couldn't get out of bed after a
belting. I wouldn't be going to the gym for a bit, but I was well able to do the things I had to do. Both wounds had scabbed but only one was visible. My bottom lip was puffed like a collagen injection had gone wrong. Eating was going to be tricky, but as I try not to eat until evening I didn't have to worry about that for a while. Hot coffee was also tricky but essential and I drank most of a pot using the side of my mouth. Anyone watching me would have thought I'd had a stroke. I took a few more pre-emptive painkillers. I was still troubled by the dream around the edge of my consciousness, but none of Bob's lyrics were buzzing in my brain so far.

  I drove to Earlwood and pulled up outside number twelve. Like the Heysen house, and the one in between them, it had survived the invasion of the developers. The other two didn't have the same grandeur as the Heysen house, but they were solid California bungalows set on blocks almost as big. The three houses had a defiant look.

  At a guess, the native garden mostly took care of itself, and there were big areas of gravel rather than grass. Way to go. Mr Lowenstein didn't have automated gates to his driveway, just the ordinary kind. They were closed and I could see a white Volvo stationed halfway up the drive.

  I went through the gate in the middle of the fence and up a path to the tiled verandah. Cane furniture with cushions. Good sitting area. The solid door featured a stained glass panel but was covered with a heavy security screen. A buzzer was located off to one side of the screen. I buzzed.

  The man who answered was elderly, white-haired but bearing up well. He stood confidently behind his screen door, holding the heavy door like a man not expecting trouble but prepared to cope with it by slamming the solid wood.

  'Can I help you?' he said.

  I held up my licence and the card on which Mrs Heysen had written in a copperplate hand: 'Mr Lowenstein, my deepest thanks for your brave intervention. I would be most grateful if you would talk to Mr Hardy who is working for me. Sincerest thanks.' Her signature, Catherine Heysen, was fluent and legible.

  'I saw Mrs Heysen in the hospital yesterday,' I said. 'She assured me she hadn't given your name to anyone but the police and me, and won't in the future. She respects your wish to remain anonymous. I'm trying to find out why she was shot at and-'

  Lowenstein waved his hand to silence me. He'd lifted the spectacles suspended around his neck up to operational to study the documents. Apparently satisfied, he nodded, dropped the glasses back to their original position, and unlatched the screen door. 'Papers and notes can be forged,' he said, 'but I've seen you arrive at Mrs Heysen's house before, so I'm inclined to trust you. Please come in. How is the poor woman?'

  I went into a dim hallway with a carpet runner. The walls were lined with paintings or framed photographs, I couldn't tell which. Lowenstein carefully relatched the screen door and let the other door swing closed. He moved well, considering his age, which I'd have put at closer to eighty than seventy. He glided past me, heading for some light at the end of the passage.

  'She's recovering,' I said. 'Very grateful to you.'

  'It was nothing, but I certainly don't want those television reporters who can't pronounce words correctly or speak a grammatical sentence swarming around.'

  I'd recently heard an ABC newsreader pronounce the French name Georges as 'Jorgez', so I knew what he meant.

  'That won't happen,' I said.

  'Good.'

  He opened a door leading to a kitchen stocked with scrubbed pine furniture and fittings and with light flooding in through large windows.

  'I was having coffee. Would you like some? I must say you look a bit the worse for wear. Interesting how we seem unable to talk without drinking something. Have you noticed that?'

  'I have. Yes, thank you.'

  He poured the coffee and we sat at the table with the milk and sugar within reach. I took both; my system would be jumping with this much caffeine in me and I needed to dilute it and give the metabolism something to work on.

  'Now, what do you want to ask?'

  'I know the police will have put this to you already, but did you get a good look at the man who shot Mrs Heysen?'

  'No.'

  'Did you get an impression of size?'

  'Good question. Put that way, yes. It was a biggish car and I could see head and shoulders well up, so I'd say-a big person, larger than average.'

  'What kind of car was it?'

  He smiled. 'There you have me. I can't identify cars at all, apart from Volvos and VW Beetles. Sorry. This was a large red sedan.'

  'That helps,' I said. 'Would you mind telling me how long you've lived here, Mr Lowenstein?'

  'Let me see. I bought it when I got my chair. That must be nearly forty years ago. I've been retired for fifteen years.'

  'I'm sorry, I should be calling you Professor. What was your field?'

  'Psychology. I had a chair at Sydney University.'

  'So you knew Dr Heysen and everything that happened back then?'

  'Yes and no. Are you having difficulty drinking with that damaged lip?'

  'A little, but I'll manage. It's good coffee. What d'you mean by yes and no?'

  'I took a sabbatical just before the matter broke, and then I took leave and worked in America for three years. I heard about it when I came back, but it had all more or less blown over by then. The Heysen house was rented. Mrs Heysen didn't return for some years after that.'

  'What were your impressions of Heysen?'

  'A detestable man-arrogant, conceited and an anti-Semite.'

  'What makes you say that?'

  'One can tell, Mr Hardy. One can tell.'

  'So you can tell that I'm not?'

  'Yes.'

  'Good. What about the boy, William?'

  'I'm tempted to trot out the clinical cliches-only child, precocious, a mother's boy without a valid male role model. All true, I think, to a greater or lesser degree. He was nothing like his father in manner, nothing at all. He'd sky a ball over the fence now and then and come and ask for it. Very polite.'

  'You aren't next door and they're wide blocks.'

  'He told me he had his mother throw tennis balls to him in their yard for him to practise his defensive strokes. It's hard to imagine such an elegant creature doing that, but I suppose she did. Sometimes he caught one on the rise in the meat of the bat. I played grade cricket myself when I was young. I knew what he meant.'

  I remembered playing backyard cricket in Maroubra with my mates. Over the fence was out for six. I don't think any of us ever put it over more than one fence, let alone two. But then, we were more interested in surfing.

  'A big hit,' I said.

  'He was an athletic young man. Mother-fixated, I should say, with all that that implies.'

  'You mean that he loved and hated her at the same time?'

  'Exactly. My wife thought very highly of him. She was Italian and she said he spoke the language fluently and well. The only child we had died as an infant and she liked to take young people under her wing. She thought William had an exceptional linguistic gift.'

  It was one of those moments when you respect a person's emotional space and I was glad I had the coffee cup to fiddle with. The pause was brief.

  'She's been dead for ten years,' he said. 'I should sell this place. I've had offers enough, God knows, but I can't seem to get around to it. Something about the sums they mention and the way they talk puts me off. And I must confess I take an interest in the rehabilitation of the river, slow as it is. It's never been clean in my time, but I believe it once was, with sandy banks. People swam and fished in it, I'm told.'

  'Hard to believe,' I said.

  'Yes. Would you mind telling me what you're actually doing for Mrs Heysen?'

  'Several things.'

  'Now you're being secretive. I thought frankness was your style.'

  'You're right, Professor. As I said, I'm concerned about the attempt on Mrs Heysen's life and I don't know its source.' I touched my scabby lip. 'The shooting was a professional job gone wrong, and I've had a narrow m
iss as well. Apart from that, I'm trying to locate William Heysen. His mother hasn't had any contact with him for some months and there's a strong possibility he's in serious trouble.'

  'I'm sorry to hear that. Are you saying he's… missing?'

  'Effectively, yes. I've contacted people he lived with and worked with and none of them have-'

  'Seen him, you're about to say. But I have. He was here, at the house. Just a few days ago.'

  17

  I almost dropped the coffee cup. 'You saw him? When was this?'

  Professor of Psychology or not, he looked as pleased by my reaction to his statement as anyone would have been. 'Happily, I'm not afflicted by short-term memory loss like so many people my age. This was three days ago.'

  'What happened?'

  'I was sitting on the front verandah, reading. It catches the afternoon sun. I saw a car pull up outside the Heysen house. Cars, again. All I can say is that it wasn't the car William used to drive when he lived here. This was a big car, a four-wheel drive model-' he waved his hands to illustrate the style-'and black. As I say, not his old car, but definitely him.'

  'Did you speak to him?'

  'No, no. I'm sure he didn't even see me. I suppose I assumed he'd been to see his mother and was fetching something from the house for her. I didn't know anything about him being missing. He went in.'

  'How long did he stay?'

  'I'm afraid I don't know. I went inside to make some notes on what I'd been reading. I still do some research and writing, you see. I didn't go to the front again at all that day. The car had gone by the next day but he could have been there five minutes or five hours.'

  'How did he look? Confident? Furtive?'

  'Really, Mr Hardy, you ask the most extraordinary questions. I only glimpsed the boy for a few seconds.'

  'Your impression?'

  He thought. I suppose psychologists think a lot and don't need any props to do it. His cup stayed on the table and he didn't scratch himself or tent his fingers. He just sat. 'Preoccupied,' he said at last. 'As you'd expect.'

  I nodded. Preoccupied perhaps, but not about his mother, who he hadn't contacted. It was unlikely that he hadn't heard about the shooting. I thanked him for giving me his time.