by Peter Corris
The address Louise Madden had given me was a corner block in in one of the widest, quietest streets. There was a tennis court on the property and almost certainly a swimming pool behind the high brush fence. An archery range was a possibility.
I pushed a button at the set of wrought-iron gates mounted on brick pillars. I hoped I had the right address—it would be a fair hike to the front of the house next door. After a moderately long wait, I saw Louise Madden begin the trek down the bricked driveway. She was wearing a denim overall and high laced boots and carrying some kind of hooked implement which I never did identify. Her hair was tied up in a bright scarf and the work gloves on her hands were yellow. She opened the gates, shucked off one glove and shook my hand.
“Mr Hardy,” she said, “you look like you’ve been clearing privet.”
I touched the scrapes and scratches last night’s fun and games had left on my face. “Dealing with pests, certainly.”
She waved me through the heavy gate and let it swing back. “We’ll have to talk as I work. The woman here’s a real bitch—wants it finished yesterday, and I’ll get bawled out if I bend a blade of her precious grass.”
“Fun to work for,” I said. I had to hurry to keep up with her as she strode down the path, which gave way to a series of gravel tracks that wound through the gardens. I was right about the swimming pool and, given the stands of tall native trees, I still considered the archery range an option.
“Some are, some aren’t. She isn’t. I take it you haven’t found my dad?”
“No.”
“And from the look of you, no good news.”
“I don’t think you can expect good news, Ms Madden.”
“He’s dead?”
“Probably.”
“Shit.” She stopped and slashed at a bush with her hook. “How? Why?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s why I have to talk to you. Where are you working?”
“Over here.” She led me across to a steep bank where she was setting railway sleepers into the earth. “Look good, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
She wiped a yellow glove across her face. Tears had cut through a thin film of dust, leaving pale streaks on her skin. She banged her hands together and sat down on a sleeper. ‘You’d better tell me about it.”
“First, what d’you know about your grandfather?”
“Which one?”
“The who that built the bridge.”
“Oh, Grandpa Madden. Yes.” Through her distress over her father, memories of her grandfather caused her to smile. “He was great. But what’s it got to do with …?”
“Do the names Glover, Barclay and . . I struggled to remember the names Meredith had mumbled and had to resort to my notebook. “… Samuels and Booth mean anything to you?”
She shook her head. The sun went behind a cloud, and suddenly it was cold in the big garden. The light dropped and the elegantly and strategically arranged plants looked grim and lifeless. Louise Madden unhooked a heavy cardigan from where it had been hanging on an embedded sleeper and shrugged into it. “Tell me what you’re driving at.”
“Several men, sons of engineers and others involved in the construction of the bridge, have vanished or died. There seems to be a connection.”
She stood, picked up a mattock and began hacking at the hard earth around a deeply implanted stump. “Got to move this if I’m going to get the layout right for Madam. I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Neither do I.”
“What were those names again?”
I gave them to her. She kept hacking, stopped, gave the stump a tug. It wobbled, just a little. “Dad knew a man named Samuels, I think. Yes. And he disappeared. That’s right. I remember Dad talking about it.”
“Was this Samuels somehow connected with the bridge?”
She put down the mattock and took off her cardigan. “I think he might have been. There was always a lot of talk about the bridge when we saw Grandpa. He was terribly proud of it.”
“That’s understandable,” I said. “I’m proud of it, and all my dad ever did was drive over and help to pay for it.”
“Mm. Yes, now that you get me thinking about it, I believe Dad and Mr Samuels did talk about the bridge. But they played golf together mostly. I don’t think there was a Sons of the Bridge Builders Society or anything like that.”
“No?” I watched her continue her attack on the stump. “I don’t suppose your grandfather ever mentioned any enemies? Men with grudges against him?”
“Grandpa? He was just a sweet old man when I knew him. You’d think he’d have trouble climbing a ladder. But he told me he’d walked across the top of the arch after the bridge was finished, and I believed him. D’you think that could be true?”
I grinned. “Don’t ask. Is there anything else you can tell me about your father, the bridge, friends connected with it. Anything like that?”
“No. Nothing. Did you find the woman? The woman Dad played golf with? You haven’t asked me to …”
“I found her and talked to her. She couldn’t help.”
“What was she like?”
The mattock hung from her hand, forgotten. She was looking for something positive, some shred of comfort in a fatherless world. “Attractive and intelligent. She really cared for your father and I think she misses him badly. But she …”
“Has a husband and property to protect. Kids.” She swung the mattock viciously so that the blade stabbed three inches into the stump. “Fucking heteros!”
It was getting cold sitting there motionless in the shade. I stood and shivered. “I’m sorry to upset you, but these things don’t usually work out too well.”
“You warned me. You’re doing your job. I understand. Give us a hand here.”
I helped her to pull the mattock out of the stump and the moment of friction passed. She gave off a nice smell—of earth and wood and leaves, and I wanted to touch her, to make contact with those good, healing things. She might have sensed this, might have misinterpreted. In any case, she wasn’t going to let it happen. She stepped back. “Do you need any more money, Mr Hardy?”
“No.”
She pointed to my head wounds. ‘You say they don’t have anything to do with this case. Are you working on a couple of things at once? Not a good idea in my game.” She waved a hand at the sleepers and mounds of earth.
“Nor in mine,” I said. “The other thing’s all cleared up now. I can concentrate on finding out what happened to your father.”
“Good,” Louise Madden said.
I drove around for a while looking for a place to buy a beer and a sandwich. On the way I passed a lot of houses that reminded me of the ones you see in Hollywood on the ‘homes of the rich and famous’ tour. Here, they were the homes of the rich and unknown who preferred to stay that way. I ate the sandwich and drank the beer sitting in the car. From where I’d parked, I had a magnificent view of Middle Harbour. I speculated about why the rich always live in elevated positions and the less rich further down the hill. My scratchy historical knowledge suggested it had been so since mediaeval times. That was an interesting thought Was the position taken for reasons of safety, the last point to be attacked by an enemy, rather than domination? Were there exceptions in South America? It was the kind of half-baked question Helen and I used to have fun with. The people up here certainly looked safe. Or at least their houses did. There still weren’t many actual people about I flicked through my notebook again, underlining the names—Madden, Glover, Barclay, Samuels, Booth. Maybe some of them had lived in Castlecrag or similar places. Bellevue Hill was the same sort of location after all. But a lot of those, high, mediaeval forts were stormed and taken, if memory served me right. Safety is an illusion.
I still wasn’t fully recovered from my hectic night I took a couple of aspirin with the last swallows of beer for my aching head, and the sun came out again and heated up the car and I dozed off.
I woke up with that panicky feeling of not
knowing where I was, or even who. Comprehension came back in a rush as I stared down at the water and the, from this distance, fragile-looking boats: men were dead, men had vanished, and I was investigating how and why. Maybe other men were under threat and here I was, sleeping in the afternoon. On the client’s time. It occurred to me that the Glovers, Barclays and others could probably afford the investigation better than Louise Madden. But they probably wouldn’t want to pay me to sleep. The way things were going, billing Ms Madden was going to be tricky. That led to thoughts of Cy Sackville and my court appearance. Maybe I should call him off and save some money. But Cy would be disappointed. Maybe we could sue the state for public mischief?
“And kiss your arse goodbye,” I said aloud. I started the car and drove to Northbridge.
14
It had been some years since I’d been to Paul and Pat Guthrie’s house, but I found it without difficulty. The big peppercorn tree in front was unmistakable. Guthrie’s block was wide and long with a deep water frontage. Pretty flash, but after the place Louise Madden had been landscaping it looked modest. There were the usual couple of cars parked in the driveway, and the untidiness of the garden, giving the place a sort of weekender feel, was another thing I remembered and liked. A couple of dogs ran out and barked at me as I approached the house. Paul Guthrie wandered out onto the high deck that ran around three sides of the house to see what the dogs were barking at When he saw me he raised a hand in a vaguely naval salute and beckoned me forward.
I skirted the barbecue pit and the swimming pool, which had a heavy plastic cover over it. Guthrie came down a set of wooden steps from the deck. He must have been close to seventy but he moved like a man twenty years younger. His handshake was firm without being competitive. When you’ve pulled oars for as long and as hard as he had, you don’t need to show off your strength. Guthrie had been an Olympic sculler, and the strength and springiness needed for that tough event were still in him.
“Cliff,” he said, “it’s great to see you.”
“Same here, Paul.”
“What happened to your head?”
“The usual. How’s life?”
Another man might have taken a quick look around his possessions before answering; not Guthrie. “Pat’s in the pink,” he said. “The boys are fine. Two grandchildren, like I told you, and I can still row a boat. How would it be?”
“You’re a lucky man, Paul.”
“I know. Come inside and have a drink and tell me what you’re up to.”
We went into the house at ground level and down the wide passage to Guthrie’s den, which housed his sporting trophies and family mementos—more of the latter than the former. He saw me settled in an armchair, went out whistling and came back with two cans of light beer.
“Cheers,” he said. “I suppose you got those head wounds on that gambling boat, the Pavarotti?”
“Right. Ray was a big help there.”
“Looks like you should’ve taken him along with you.”
“Maybe. I hope he can help me some more.” I touched the scratches. “But no rough stuff involved.”
Guthrie nodded and waited. He was a discreet, experienced, level-headed man, and there seemed no reason not to tell him about the Madden case. It sometimes helps to talk to an objective onlooker, anyway. I gave it to him chapter and verse, and he listened in silence, sipping on his beer.
“Interesting,” he said when I’d finished. “And you want to go and have a look in the water under the bridge?”
“Not me. Someone who knows how to handle himself in that situation. I thought Ray might know someone, be able to help with a boat and so on.”
“He will. And he’ll do the dive himself. He’s an expert, and he’s always felt that he owes you a big favour.”
I waved that away, or tried to. “I don’t want him to feel like that. I just want to hire him to do a job. Perhaps you can help me to get it on that sort of footing, Paul?”
“I’ll try. When would you want to do this?”
“Tonight.”
He broke into harsh, deep-chested laughter. “Jesus, Hardy, you’re the limit. I should’ve known. Pat did. I said something about having you stay over for a night and go out on the harbour and she said, ‘He’ll be off chasing someone.’”
I was saved from having to reply by the simultaneous arrival of Ray Guthrie and his mother. There was just enough light outside for me to see the little Honda and the Holden Jackaroo pulling up side by side in the driveway.
Pat Guthrie was a small, dark woman with a trim figure and a worried look which gave way very attractively to merriment. She came across the grass and into the den, kissed her husband and pointed a mock finger-pistol at me. “Hullo, Cliff. You haven’t changed much. A bit thinner, are you? Good to see you.”
“You too, Pat. You look well.”
She nodded in Guthrie’s direction. “We are. Has he shown you the snaps of the grandchildren yet?”
“Pat,” Guthrie protested, “I’m not that doting, am I?”
“Just doting enough. Want another beer? Dinner’ll be a while.”
Guthrie patted his taut waistline and refused. I accepted; Pat smiled and left, and it was Ray Guthrie who brought in the can. I hadn’t seen Ray since he and his girlfriend, Jess Polansky, had left Helen Broadway’s flat in Elizabeth Bay. This was after I’d helped to send Ray’s real father to gaol and shown him that his stepfather was the best friend he had in the world. Ray had broadened a bit, but the bulk looked to be due to hard work more than self-indulgence. He was weatherbeaten but not careworn. He looked happy. He shoved the beer at me, and we shook hands.
“How’s Jess?” I said.
“Just great. Sends her best. She couldn’t come, one of the kids is crook …”
“What?” Paul Guthrie almost jumped from his chair.
“Take it easy, Paul,” Ray said. “It’s nothing. She just needs her mum tonight.”
“All right, but keep an eye on her.”
Ray drank some beer and looked at his stepfather with affection. “You know, Cliff, he’d send to New York for the best fingernail man if one of them had something wrong with a fingernail.”
Too much fond family feeling embarrasses me after a while. I hid the discomfort behind my can and an interest in the view from the window. The last of the daylight flickered out over the water. The lights on the moored boats in Middle Harbour and the glow in the sky across the water above Seaforth began to provide the sort of nightscape that justifies the mortgages. Paul Guthrie and his stepson were on such good terms that their casual talk was easy to drop in and out of. Pat came in and sat with a dry sherry for a while, and then she and Paul went off to put the finishing touches on the dinner.
“So,” Ray said, “I told you how to get to the Pavarotti and you got bashed up?”
“Finished the job, though. It was useful information.” I looked at Ray’s solid, jeans-and-windbreaker-covered figure. “I could’ve used you along at a couple of points, I admit.”
“Try me now. What’re you after?”
“Did Paul give you a hint?”
Ray shook his head. “Mister Discretion, Paul. I’ve come to realise that a good stepfather is better than a real father in a way. He can move aside, let you grow up. Both Chris and me have benefited.”
I nodded. Chris was Ray’s brother, who’d also struck trouble a few years back Now he was a graduate in something or other and employed in New Guinea. Their real father, who knew too many things, had been killed in what had been called an accident in the industrial section of Long Bay prison.
“Done any scuba diving, Ray?”
“Plenty. Love it.”
“What’s the depth of the water under the harbour bridge?”
Ray fiddled with his empty can, crushing its sides. Unlike his brother, he was a practical man who liked to have something to see and handle in front of him. Theoretical questions, or those requiring information to be transferred from one track to another, made him uncomfortab
le. “I’ve got a Maritime Services Board chart on the boat that’d tell me,” he said. “At a guess, twenty metres. Certainly not more. That’s average—high and low tide.”
“Is that a deep dive?”
“Are you kidding? Piece of piss. ‘Course, it’d be murky down there. Lot of crap in the harbour.”
“What about at night?”
He leaned forward in his chair. “Very murky. But you can take down a light that makes it okay.”
“What about a camera?”
“Christ, Cliff.” He leaned back and crushed the can vertically. When he’d reduced it to the size of a doughnut he looked at me and grinned. “Why not?”
“This isn’t Mission Impossible, Ray. If it’s too bloody hard to handle, I’ll come at it another way.”
“I can dive around the bridge at night and take photos,” Ray said. “When d’you want it done?”
“Tonight,” I said.
That’s when Paul Guthrie called us in to dinner.
Fish, naturally, in that company. All I know about fish is that when it’s fresh and well cooked I like it, and when it’s not I don’t. This was great. The Guthries treated each other as a group of special friends might—quick to understand and sympathise, happy to chide and be chided. But I didn’t feel excluded. I enjoyed the talk and the meal and the dry white. Ray, I noticed, drank mineral water and talked less than the rest of us. Ate less, too.
Almost as soon as he decently could, he wiped his mouth on the paper towel provided, collected his couple of plates and stood. “Excuse me. Great dinner …”
“You hardly touched it,” Pat Guthrie said. “Are you sure you’re not sick too?”
“I’m fine. I just have to make a few phone calls.” His nod was more for me than his parents as he left the room.