Torn Apart (8 page)

Sheila asked me if I knew anything about making a claim against an estate where there was no will. ‘I think the spouse automatically inherits.'

‘You said Paddy told you we were divorced.'

‘Right.'

‘He might've told other people the same. That could . . . complicate things.'

‘Would Harvey be up to sorting it out?'

She shook her head and I gave her the name and number of my solicitor, Viv Garner, who I thought could advise her.

We were downstairs, behaving slightly awkwardly. She'd told me she was sharing a flat in Balmain but didn't say who with. She gave me her mobile number but not the address. I gave her my number.

‘I've got a couple of auditions to go to over the next few days. I'll try to see Mr Garner and I'll give you a call if I learn anything useful.'

‘Call me anyway.'

We moved down the passage.

‘What will you be doing, Cliff?'

‘Still poking around to see if I can find out who killed him.'

We got to the door, reached for each other and kissed hard. She moved her head until her mouth was close to my ear. Her hair smelled just faintly of tobacco smoke.

‘Is that dangerous?'

‘I hope not.'

‘But you'll do it anyway.'

‘Don't you want . . . justice?'

She shook her head. ‘I've done a bit of Shakespeare in my time. He didn't believe in justice and neither do I . . . I only want for you not to be hurt.'

It was mid-afternoon and cool again as the shadows lengthened. She was driving a tired red Beetle. She revved it hard and took off slowly, smokily. I stood on the pavement and watched the car out of sight. I wanted to believe all she said, but I remembered how differently she'd appeared at first and that she was an actress. She hadn't told me her address; but then, I hadn't told her I was waiting for Patrick's package from the UK.

I rummaged through one of the cardboard boxes I keep old files in until I found the one involving Soldier Szabo. He was a career criminal, a standover man, hired by a developer who'd run into some trouble with people trying to protect old buildings. Szabo'd exceeded his brief and killed two people and would've killed me if I hadn't got lucky. I looked through the notes to see if there was any useful information about him. Not much, other than that he had a wife and a flat in Norton Street, Leichhardt. That was the best part of twenty years ago, but some people stay put. Like me.

My useful contacts in the RTA, the police and the parole services had gone along with my PEA licence. Those contacts had made locating people a lot easier than it would be now. There were too many Szabos in the telephone directory to make that useful, and none in Leichhardt. The only thing to do was ask around—risky because word could get back. Before I could do that I needed the gun.

The excitement Sheila Malloy had caused was ebbing, but I found it difficult to think of anything else or to concentrate on other matters. Too restless to read, didn't want to hang around Megan and Hank, a bit too early for serious eating and drinking. I realised that I hadn't checked the mail and when I did I found two cards advising of parcels to be collected at the post office—one for Patrick and one for me. I'd seen Patrick's signature on his passport and when he'd signed traveller's cheques and I forged it on his card, nominating myself as his agent. Remembering that my package of books was weighty and Patrick's had looked much the same, I drove rather than walked to the post office as usual. I presented the cards and my ID and collected the parcels.

I had no reason to think Patrick's parcel contained anything of particular interest but, unlike me, he'd paid hefty insurance on it and had sealed it more carefully and with heavier tape. But I'm slack about such things. I opened the long blade on my Swiss army knife and started on the job of cutting the tape on the postpack.

I freed the flap, lifted it and emptied the contents out onto the kitchen bench. There were a couple of books—guides to Irish sights and scenes and a hardback map, a book of instruction for fiddle players, and a boxed miniature chess set. Patrick had tried to teach me the game during a dull time waiting for a flight but I'd proved unteachable. There was a surprising amount of packing, in the form of sheets from the
London Times.
I put the box aside and noticed that it didn't rattle as it always had when he'd handled it. I undid the clasp. Inside, instead of the chess pieces, was a heavily taped package about the size of a couple of cigarette packets.

The doorbell rang and for a moment I thought it might be Sheila, abandoning her audition calls and coming back to carry on where we'd left off. But the peephole showed me that it was a man wearing a suit and a serious expression. I opened the door.

‘Cliff Hardy?'

‘That's right.'

He held up his warrant card and produced a document he unfolded and waved in front of me.

‘I have a warrant to search these premises on the grounds of suspicion of the importation of illicit items, as specified in the Customs Act.'

They read me my rights and then it was back to Surry Hills again. I knew I was in trouble. My standing with the police, never high, these days was positively poor. They had me red-handed for forging a name and opening a package not addressed to me. The fact that Patrick had been murdered in my house didn't help. Their behaviour would depend very much on what the illicit substance was, and I had no idea.

I was ushered into an interview room and left for the best part of an hour. Standard procedure, but I knew they'd be digging out bits of paper and talking to people like the cop in charge of the investigation into Patrick's death. I struggled to remember his name. In the past I'd have entered it in the notebook for the case I was working on. Not now. Trying to remember the name gave me something to do. I tried the usual tricks: visualising the person; running through the alphabet hoping a letter would trigger the memory. My mental image of him was too vague to be helpful. I got it on the third run-through—W for Welsh, Detective Inspector. First name forgotten, but that didn't matter. They'd be talking to him for sure, and he'd remember that I'd said nothing about parcels coming from the UK.

If I'd been expected to read the name on the arresting officer's warrant card, I hadn't: I'd been given no names since. When he came back into the room and turned on the recording equipment, I saw that he was looking nervous, fumbling the switches. I hadn't noticed it before in the surprise and the speed of the proceedings, but he was young.

He settled in a chair a metre away from mine with a small metal desk between us. He looked at me, swore and left the room, coming back a minute or two later with a file. He opened it and cleared ‘Interview with . . .'

‘You haven't turned on the recorder,' I said. ‘Light's not showing.'

He had the misfortune to have a fair complexion, which showed his blush. He switched on the recorder and cleared his throat. With his hand on the file, he began again.

‘Interview with Mr Cliff Hardy by Acting Detective Sergeant Kurt Reimas, Surry Hills . . . '

He stated the date and looked up.

‘I'm not saying a word without my lawyer being present.'

‘That can be arranged, of course,' he said. ‘But I'd encourage you to cooperate in this preliminary interview . . .'

I shook my head. ‘I've been through this many times,
Acting
Sergeant. Not another word.'

What I said seemed to encourage him. He closed the file and turned off the recorder. ‘I'm sure you have,' he said. ‘Served a sentence at Berrima, I see, stripped of an investigator's licence . . . but things have changed. You can be held for some time now without charge or access to legal advice.'

‘To do with terrorism.'

He smiled. ‘That's subject to wide interpretation. You've recently returned from overseas in the company of a person who has been murdered in a brutal manner, and you've been found in possession of an imported illicit substance. Do you want to reconsider?'

‘No.'

They took me to the lock-up and put me in an observation cubicle, one of a set, with a perspex wall and a heavy metal door. Nothing there but a cement bench to sit on and a metal toilet. I was the only resident. I knew this had to be temporary. If the intention was to keep me for days this wouldn't do. You couldn't sleep there. It was meant to scare me but it didn't; I'd been in worse places.

After a few hours I was moved to a cell with a washbasin, a toilet and a set of metal bunks. A man was lying on the top bunk. He sat up as I came in and his head almost hit the low roof.

‘Got a smoke, mate?' he said.

‘No. Sorry.'

‘Fuck.' He lay back down and those were the only words I ever heard him speak.

I sat on the bunk and prepared myself for a long wait. I doubted that Reimas would try to invoke the terrorism provisions against me. It'd be a thin case and, after recent failures, the police would be wary of taking that course. It might have been different if the substance was anthrax or something similar, but I couldn't see Patrick as a terrorist. Heroin or cocaine were more probable, I supposed, but the UK didn't seem a likely source. Also, the terrorism accusation meant involving the federal police, something state cops were always reluctant to do. Sooner or later they'd have to charge me and take me before a magistrate. Couldn't do that without allowing me legal representation.

It was a long night. My companion snored and coughed and climbed down three or four times to piss. Prostate trouble and emphysema. At 6 am a Corrective Services officer told him he was going to Parramatta. He groaned and took one last intermittent, trickling piss and was gone.

Ten minutes later I was given a cup of tea and two slices of toast, both cold. I ignored them. I'd missed my evening and morning meds. I didn't think that would do me any great harm, but I disliked the feeling of dependency. By ten o'clock the inactivity and lack of human interaction were eating at me. I felt dishevelled and dirty after sleeping in my clothes. I hadn't shaved for forty-eight hours and my face itched. I was thinking of asking for a razor when I was handed a mobile phone.

‘You look dreadful,' Viv Garner said.

We were in an interview room like the one I'd been in before except there was no recording equipment and we both had cups of reasonably acceptable coffee.

‘I'm not at my best,' I said, but in fact I felt all right, mostly due to relief at being, if not at liberty, not in a cell.

‘I thought when you were . . . forcibly retired, things would calm down. But here we are again.'

‘Keeps you on your toes.'

‘Don't joke, Cliff. This could be serious.'

‘What was in the chess box?'

‘Steroids. Powerful steroids with built-in masking agents. State of the art or better. Highly illegal. Worth a fortune.'

‘What about this terrorism stuff?'

‘Bluff, to scare you.'

‘They can't think I had anything to do with steroids.'

‘You're a gym goer and you've had a bypass. You could be looking to regain your former fitness.'

‘Bullshit.'

‘Cliff, they've got you forging a signature and opening another person's mail. And they're talking about a withholding evidence charge—your old bugbear.'

I knew what he meant, the failure to tell Welsh about the packages posted from London, and a charge I'd once been convicted on.

‘That's thin though, isn't it? I could say I didn't know about them, or I forgot.'

Viv shook his head. ‘For some reason, God knows why, they must've tracked the parcels. I'm betting they know the stuff was posted from the same place at the same time. You didn't know much about this cousin of yours, did you?'

‘That's putting it mildly. Has Sheila Malloy, his wife, been in touch?'

‘She has, and it's another thing that doesn't look good if it became known. I only spoke with her on the phone, but from the way she sounded, I'm guessing—'

‘All right, all right. What are they more interested in—nailing me on these Mickey Mouse charges or finding out who killed Patrick?'

As soon as I said that I saw the connection. If Patrick was involved in a lucrative steroid racket and hadn't given satisfaction, he could have been a target. But you'd expect a bashing or a wounding, not a brutal killing. But then, there was always 'roid rage to consider.

‘Both,' Viv said.

‘So what's likely to happen now?'

Viv checked his watch. ‘We're due for a magistrate hearing in twenty minutes. You'll be charged with illegal importation and possession, with other charges pending. I'll reserve the right not to enter a plea until a full charge with evidence is forthcoming.'

I'd been through it before and had lost, but that time I was guilty as sin. ‘Then what?'

‘I'll apply for bail. The police won't oppose it because they want you on the loose, but on a chain to see if you lead them somewhere more important. My guess is—surrender of passport and fifty thousand surety.'

‘I can make that,' I said, ‘thanks to Lily. And I wasn't planning on going anywhere.'

We went up before the beak in Liverpool Street and it worked out pretty much as Viv said. I agreed to hand my passport in at the Glebe station and to report there each week. I signed a document pledging my security and that was it. The police prosecutor appeared to be just going through the motions.

‘What about Sheila?' I asked Viv when we were outside the court.

‘She has no problem, unlike you. All she has to do is apply to the Probate Office for Letters of Administration. Once granted, that ensures her right to the estate.'

‘Did she tell you that Patrick said they were divorced?'

‘She did. Again, that's pretty simple. Divorce proceedings are a matter of public record. She initiates a search to support her contention. She probably doesn't even have to do that if no other claims are made. If another claim is made what Patrick told you becomes relevant, but I don't suppose you'd want to bring that up. Am I right?'

‘I'm not sure.'

We were in George Street, heading for a bus stop. Like me, Viv saw public transport as the only sensible way to get around in the city. Unlike me, he had a Seniors card. When we reached the bus stop he gave me a searching look.

‘You don't believe her?'

‘I don't know. I
want
to believe her.'

He shook his head. ‘You have a knack for trouble on several fronts.'

A Leichhardt bus that'd get us both close to where we wanted to go arrived and we caught it. At that time of day it was only half full and we were able to talk without annoying anyone or being overheard.

‘Can Sheila jump through those legal hoops herself?'

‘She could, but it'd be better to get a solicitor—quicker, easier.'

‘And more expensive.'

‘Not very. Look at me, I'm travelling by bus.'

‘You've got a Beemer at home. Did she ask you to act for her?'

‘An old one. Yes, she did, but I declined. I'm not taking on new clients, Cliff. My wife won't let me, and I've got all the hassles I need with the few I've got. I'll send you an invoice.'

I got off in Glebe Point Road. The pub beckoned but a shower and a change of clothes beckoned more. There's something about Corrective Services sleeping quarters, and I've been in a few, that seems to taint your clothes, your hair, your skin. I went home, stripped off, showered and shaved and dressed in clothes that were moderately fresh. I've always liked Nick Nolte's line in
Forty-Eight Hours
, when his girlfriend hands him his shirt after she's been wearing it and he puts it on to go to work. She says, ‘If you'd let me sleep over at your place you could at least go to work in a clean shirt.' Nolte says, ‘What makes you think there's any clean shirts at my place?'

I had clean shirts but what was making me think of movies, actors? Sheila.