Matrimonial Causes (14 page)

‘Hardy.'

‘Don't say it like a battle cry. This is Joan. I've got a line on your man. Do I have your promise you'll contact that cop as soon as I've told you?'

‘Sorry, Joan. Yes, I'll do that.'

‘Right. Well, Teacher's around, that's the first thing. Wouldn't help you much if he'd been in New Zealand for the last six months, would it? He's a hard man to pin down though—lives mostly in hotels and “with friends”, if you get the idea. The last address I could get was 103 Botany Street, Randwick, but I'm told that he's not often there.'

I wrote the address in my notebook. ‘Where is he often?'

‘Your grammar's lousy. He works for a bookie named Max Wilton. The word is Max is into a few other things as well and needs someone like Chalky by his side. Wilton lives in Randwick, too.
Tonier address, Flat 8, 1 Glen Avenue. Said to be quite a pad.'

‘Is he often there?'

‘Better. Yes, and he's often at the track riding horses and picking up information for Wilton and also in Centennial Park, jogging, and at the Bondi baths, swimming.'

‘Where does he lift weights and practise his fencing? When does he get time to read?'

‘It's no joke, Cliff. A couple of the people I spoke to sounded very scared of him, and they aren't wimps themselves.'

‘Okay. That's great, Joanie. Just one thing—was there mention of an association between Teacher and any private detectives?'

‘I don't think so. No, I'm sure there wasn't, but something rings a bell in that connection.'

‘What?'

‘I can't place it. I'll let you know if it comes to me. Give me your office number.'

I did and she rang off after urging caution again. She didn't make a point of it, but I knew I was greatly in her debt. The sort of information she'd given me wasn't easily teased out. Some head-kickers, collectors, standover men strut around the town like they own it and can be found by anyone, any time, especially by journalists and cops. Characters like Teacher played it differently, preferring to keep their heads down and operate on the quiet. Joan must have called in some favours and given some undertakings to get the dope. I hoped I'd be able to keep my promises to her.

I showered and shaved. My nose had returned
almost to its normal crooked shape and my other aches and pains had eased. I made a pot of coffee, rolled my first Drum of the day and called Detective Ian Gallagher.

‘Gallagher here.'

‘It's Hardy. Can you talk?'

‘Christ, Hardy. Yeah, for a minute, but Pascoe could be back any tick. What the fuck have you been doing?'

‘Has Bob Loggins been on to you?'

‘Yeah. Supposed to be some big meeting with you tomorrow.'

‘I have to see you before that. Today. Where and when?'

‘Can't you give me some idea of what's going on?'

‘What has Loggins told you?'

‘Bugger all. I'm seeing him later today. Pascoe's shitting himself and I don't blame him. Loggins carries a lot of weight.'

‘Is he straight?'

‘Jesus, what a question. Yes, as far as I know. Where are you now?'

‘I'm in Glebe but I'm on my way to my office in St Peters Lane. Can you meet me there in an hour? You've got the address from the other night.'

‘An hour. Might be a bit more but I'll be there. I hope you know what you're doing.'

‘Me too.'

I parked out the back behind the building that houses the tattoo parlour and went in to strike a deal with Primo Tomasetti. He put down his
buzzing needle when I entered and told the client, a blonde American marine corporal in a freshly laundered uniform, to take a breather.

‘What's that mean?' the Yank said.

‘A spell, a break, take five.'

‘Sure. Okay.' The marine took out a packet of Chesterfields and lit up. He wasn't much over twenty, but he had the wary, old look jungle fighting gives a man He was having ‘Mary, Mom and Idaho' tattooed on his upper left arm inside a heart. Primo had the drawing on the table beside the needle and ink capsules. He'd got as far as Mary and Mom.

‘So, Cliff,' Primo said. ‘You gonna drip oil all over my cement slab?'

‘Five bucks a week,' I said.

‘Fifteen.'

‘Eight.'

‘Twelve.'

‘Ten.'

‘Okay, you've got a deal.'

‘And a key to this building.'

‘No worries.'

I put a ten-dollar note on the table and went past the client to a door giving on to a passage that led to a walkway running along the back of the row of buildings.

‘Private eye,' I heard Primo say.

‘No kiddin'?' the Yank said. Then the needle started buzzing again.

I walked through to my building, up two flights of stairs and along to my office. All quiet, as usual. No blondes, brunettes or redheads in seamed stockings leaning against the door. The only thing
attached to the door was the filing card on which I'd printed ‘Cliff Hardy, Private Enquiries' and fastened with a drawing pin. Not quite as required by the Commercial Agents and Etcetera Act, but doing the job. Monday's mail had yet to arrive. I felt a slight sensation of achievement in having got Gallagher to agree to come here. After the last few days, I'd seen enough of the inside of police stations. Maybe you could communicate differently with policemen on civilian ground. I hoped so. It was a punt, talking to Gallagher, but I sensed, along with the ambition, a maverick spirit in him, an impatience with bureaucracy and procedure that might work to my advantage. Had to work.

I heard him on the stairs soon after I'd rolled a supply of three cigarettes. I didn't want to press my luck, so I opened the door and waited for him. He came briskly along the corridor—no hat, jacket unbuttoned, tie slid down, at his ease. He was carrying two styrofoam cups with lids.

‘I'll swear I saw a rat on the stairs,' he said.

‘That'd be Jack,' I said. ‘I heard him squeak. He lets me know when any coppers come around.'

He laughed and went past me into the office. He put the cups down on my desk and clicked his fingers. ‘
Due cappuccini,
he said. ‘I live in Leichhardt.'

I closed the door. ‘Good for you, Ian. I'm glad you could make it.'

He lifted the lids from the cups, dropped them into the w.p.b. and took several packets of sugar and two plastic spoons from his pocket. ‘Somehow, Cliff,' he said, ‘I got the feeling that there wouldn't be a lot of amenities around here.'

‘I've got a flagon of red in the drawer. But it's just a shade early for a Glebe boy. I dunno about Leichhardt.'

He put two packets of sugar into his coffee and stirred vigorously. I took mine without. We sipped and I lit a cigarette. He glanced around the room observing the decor, which you could have called shabby-functional.

‘You should have something on the wall,' he said. ‘Your medals, army commission, PEA licence, something like that.'

‘I was thinking more of a dartboard.'

The coffee had lost a bit too much of its heat. I kept drinking slowly while I tried to think fast, but Gallagher drained his cup. He began chopping into the plastic with his fingernails. I'd almost have rather he'd bitten them. ‘Okay, Cliff, tell me why I'm here.'

‘Loggins wants to use me as a bait to draw out whoever killed Meadowbank and the girl. His idea is to put it around that I know a lot and that I like to talk.'

‘Sounds like a good strategy.'

‘I don't care for it so I've been doing some digging on my own. I've come up with a few things that I wanted to try on you.'

‘You want to waltz around with me, leaving Bob Loggins out of it? Loggins? I've already got my immediate superior hating my guts, I don't need one of the top Homicide D's joining the club. I don't think I can help you.'

It was what I'd expected and hoped he'd say. To jump straight at what I was offering you'd have to be crazy, and a crazy ally is worse than none
at all. Still, I hoped to work on his vanity and ambition.

‘I think you were on the right track,' I said. ‘My information is that there's a conspiracy behind the two killings. It involves divorces, reputations, careers, probably property settlements as well. I've only got a few chips off the tip of the iceberg, but they're interesting.'

Gallagher's young-old face set into lines of intense concentration. ‘Go on.'

‘I've got two names—Redding and Molesworth. I'm told there's more from the same side of the street. Redding you'd have heard of, Molesworth's a big-time surgeon. Meadowbank was in on it, too. As I hear it, a couple of lawyers and PEAs arranged for convenient co-respondents, permitting clean divorces. Andrew Perkins was in on it to some extent, but it looks as if Juliet Farquhar who worked in his office took her own run at it and became a nuisance. Meadowbank wanted to pull out. He'd got less interested in divorce. There's a possibility that whoever killed him really meant to get Virginia Shaw, or perhaps both of them. I'm not sure about that.'

‘Where have you been getting this?'

‘Some from Virginia Shaw. I'm working for her now, in a way.'

Gallagher seemed about to react to that but he held off and continued demolishing his plastic cup. He had a lot of options to consider and I didn't mind him taking his time.

‘I've got another source, too. Can't tell you who it is, but he's put the finger on the man who killed Meadowbank.'

Gallagher's fair head with its carefully combed thick hair came up slowly. He dropped the cup and the bits he'd torn from it in the bin. ‘And who would that be?'

I shook my head. ‘I need some undertakings first.'

‘That's an unfortunate choice of words,' Gallagher said. ‘But how about this: I go to Loggins now and tell him what you've told me. It fleshes out some things I had an inkling about. Then we haul you in and squeeze you until you cough up the name of this source of yours and the alleged killer and anything else we choose to ask you about. Col Pascoe's got a fucking truckload of charges he'd like to stick up you, don't forget.'

‘Wouldn't work.'

‘Why not?'

‘First, you'd have to explain to Loggins how you went to me without talking to him first. That'd be hard and Pascoe'd love it. Suppose you got past that somehow, I'd deny everything. Then you'd be in the possession of information with no way of accounting for it convincingly. It would have to occur to Loggins and Pascoe that you'd been talking to people you shouldn't, and without keeping a record. I'd be in the shit, sure, but you'd be in it with me, Ian.'

He flashed the Redford grin. ‘Pretty smart. Okay, why don't you take the information to Loggins?'

‘I don't trust him. I've got this nasty suspicion that what some Homicide detectives are best at is arranging homicides.'

‘That bespeaks a shocking want of confidence in the police force. Not that I'm saying the
organisation's perfect, mind. I've got a law degree from the University of New South Wales, did you know that?'

‘I had the feeling you didn't go straight from your school certificate into the academy.'

‘Right. It's held me back in the force, the I.L. fucking B. Isn't that amazing? So, Cliff, you don't
trust
Pascoe because he's a nong, and you distrust Loggins because he's a Homicide squad heavy, but you do trust me?'

‘No, I don't, but you're in the same boat as me, approximately. People are trying to use and manipulate you and you don't like it. Same here. Our interests sort of intersect on this.'

Gallagher nodded. ‘You wanted undertakings. Like what?'

‘Not much. I want to know everything Loggins says when you see him today.'

Gallagher laughed. ‘Call that not much, do you? That's my fucking job, right there. What do I get in return?'

‘The name of the killer and the chance to get hold of him and give him a shake while he's not expecting anything. Tonight.'

‘Alleged killer.'

‘An awful lot of things about him fit. I saw him, remember.'

‘Such as?'

‘Uh huh,' I said. ‘All that comes later.'

Gallagher stood up. I noticed for the first time that his suit was an expensive piece of tailoring and fitted him very well. He didn't fiddle with cuffs or creases though. ‘Okay, Hardy,' he said. ‘I'll be back at five this afternoon. I see Bob Loggins
at three. Just now, I've got a time sheet to falsify.'

He gave me a business-like nod and stalked towards the door. When he opened it I fancied I heard a noise outside, but it was probably only Jack the rat.

I rang the Cairns number Cyn had given me but the person who answered told me that Ms Lee was spending the whole day at the site. I left the message that Ms Lee's husband had called and would call again. Cyn had kept her maiden name for professional use. She joked that if we had a son we should call him Lee Hardy. I suggested adding Proprietary Limited, but she didn't seem to think that was funny. Having children wasn't a subject that came up often and, when it did, my reaction was almost always to make a joke of it. The thought of a son chilled me. How can you teach someone to behave properly when you don't know how to behave yourself?

I answered the phone a few times through the day. Work was coming in. I lined up interviews for later in the week, explaining that I had a job on hand that was taking all my time but I would be free soon. The prospective clients were promising—a missing person case, not a child, thank God, and a Double Bay restaurateur who doubted the honesty of his partner. Sounded as if there could be a free meal or two in that one,
but first, I had to stay alive and in business. I went out and had a slice of pizza and a coffee for lunch, in keeping with my resolve to make it a dry day. The Falcon was sitting nicely on Primo's slab and only dripping a tiny amount of oil.