Alistair Menzies, I was told, claimed some sort of kinship with the former Prime Minister, and there was a physical resemblance to back the claim. He had the same height and ponderous build and he wore the same kind of double-breasted suits. But his hair wasn’t as white and thick as old Bob’s nor his eyebrows as dark and dramatic, even though he apparently did all he could to get them that way. He was fiftyish and smoked thick cigars. He was a solicitor and he gave me my first job because someone told him I was fairly bright and inclined to be honest.
‘This will require some tact, Hardy,’ he said.
Which you prefer to hire rather than exercise yourself I thought. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’m going to have to call you something other than “Mr Menzies”. You understand why, don’t you?’
The bushy eyebrows moved but not with much dramatic effect-framing more of a puzzled frown than an imperious stare. ‘No, but I was warned you were impudent. I suggest you avoid calling me anything. Take care to avoid “mate”- I detest false egalitarianism.’
As an opening spar, that made us about equal. I was sitting in one of his leather chairs in his Martin Place office. He had the work to hand out and I welcomed it. I’d been ‘in business’ for a few weeks now but there hadn’t yet been a cent to deposit in the Cliff Hardy business account. I assumed a neutral expression while he took a puff on his cigar. ‘As I say, tact needed. You are familiar with the provisions of the Commonwealth Matrimonial Causes Act of 1959?’
‘As amended in 1965,’ I said.
‘Quite. This is a divorce case. Our client, Mrs Beatrice Meadowbank, is suing her husband, Charles. She requires evidence of adultery.’
‘If memory serves,’ I said, ‘she requires a fair bit of evidence-multiple occasions, consistent indulgence, frequent occurrence.’
‘Are you married, Hardy?’
‘Yes.’ Tenuously, I could have added. Cyn and I disagreed about almost everything and fought all the time. We were incompatible but, in our many separations, inconsolable. Neither of us knew what to do about it. My main stratagem was to drink too much; Cyn’s was to work too hard as a junior member of a very forward-looking Balmain architecture firm.
‘Good, you’ll be aware of some of the pressures. Mrs Meadowbank has reached breaking point. Her husband is carrying on an affair with a younger woman. Not the first such indiscretion on his part, we might say. We want Charles Meadowbank followed and photographed. You will make a sworn affidavit logging his movements and stand ready to give evidence in court.’
What was called in the trade a ‘Brownie and bedsheets’ job. I knew they were part of the deal even if I’d hoped to kick off with something more savoury-like bodyguarding Shirley Bassey or helping Frank Packer get his winnings home safely from Randwick. I took out a notebook and wrote down the details-description of Meadowbank, home and business addresses, make and model of car, club memberships. A phone call interrupted Menzies’ flow and I took the opportunity to fish out the makings and roll a cigarette. His cigar, placed in a heavy cut glass ashtray, died. Menzies’ pale blue eyes, somewhat buried in the flesh that comes from good living, watched my movements with distaste.
He hung up after grunting into the phone a few times, in a well-bred way. ‘That’s nasty,’ he said.
I exhaled a cloud of Drum. ‘Smoking? I agree. I plan to give it up when I turn thirty-five. I can’t understand why you still do it at your age.’
Colour flooded his pale, indoors complexion. ‘I am beginning to regret acting on this recommendation.’
I stood up. I like to be on my feet when I’m being submissive. It doesn’t feel quite as bad. ‘I can do the job,’ I said. ‘Three assignations should be enough, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll talk to your secretary about my cheque. See you in court.’
‘I trust not.’
I stopped short of the door. ‘So it’s a bluff? She wants to lead him by the balls to your gentle negotiating table?’
The cigar, re-lit, was waved imperiously. ‘You have your instructions, Mister Hardy.’
All square. Two sets each. Fifty up and both on the black. I renewed my acquaintance with the queen of the outer office, a severe-suited dragon named Mrs Collins. I signed something I didn’t read and got a cheque for $150-a retainer against my fees of $40 a day expenses sheet to be submitted on conclusion of commission. Wealth! Prospects! I walked out into a sunny Martin Place and took off my tie. I loosened the top shirt button and opened the suit jacket. Lightweight suit, my one and only. I rolled up the tie and stuffed it in my pocket. I don’t know why, but I’ve always associated neckties with nooses. Comes of watching too many matinee Westerns at the Maroubra Odeon, maybe.
As I strolled among the lunchtime crowd, employed myself, a semi-professional like a lot of them, I reflected on the chain of events that had got me to this point. After a stint in the army I’d gone into insurance investigation. I met Cyn when I came to sniff around about a fire that had almost destroyed her Glebe studio. I reported that the fire was entirely accidental and that the claim should be paid in full. I’d have said the same if I’d found kerosene tins and wood shavings in every room. Cynthia Lee bowled me over and we went to bed on our second meeting and were married a few months later.
Cut to our first infidelities, both guilty, and within a year. Apologies, forgiveness, recommitment and more of the same. She was battling to finish her architecture degree, having made a late start after flirting with the alternative life-style in a northern rainforest. I supported her. She qualified. I expected gratitude. She plunged into her highly-paid, prestigious work. I tired of the office hours and routines and had made the break into private practice just a few weeks back. Cyn’s political principles-or a version of them-suddenly resurfaced and I became a bourgeois individualist, propping up the authoritarian state.
I went into the first pub I found that offered a counter lunch. You can’t pry into people’s sex lives on an empty stomach. You need something to throw up.
Lunch started late and went on a bit long. I like to watch people in pubs, listen to them, and it’s thirsty work. ‘What with the need to lodge Menzies’ cheque, buy film for the Asahi Pentax, get the Falcon fuelled up and one thing and another, I barely had time for a quick call to Cyn to tell her that I didn’t know when I’d be home.
‘Where are you? The pub?’
‘At the garage buying petrol and oil. D’you realise they still give you the air and water for free? It can’t last. I may have to drive around a bit tonight.’
‘I knew it,’ she said.
‘Knew what?’ I was genuinely puzzled. I often found Cyn’s remarks cryptic. What did she know?
‘That you went into this ridiculous business so you could spend more time away from me.’
I was flabbergasted. She started earlier and worked longer than any union would ever allow. ‘You’re wrong, love,’ I said. ‘I’m doing it because it might be run.’
She laughed, and Cyn’s laugh was a better sound than the cork coming out of a bottle or the rustle of money or a wave on a beach. ‘OK, Cliff. Have fun. See you when you get back. Is what you’re doing dangerous?’
‘Naw.’
‘Take care just the same. ‘Bye.’
And that’s the way it was with us. Right hooks and kisses. I wanted to go straight to her office, rush her home and undress her and declare my undying love. Instead, I drove to my office to pick up the camera and make some notes on the Menzies/Meadowbank assignment, the way the Commercial Agents and Private Enquiry Agents Act of 1963 requires you to do.
The office was in a building in St Peters Lane, Darlinghurst, a bit back from William Street, a bit down from Kings Cross. I’d taken out a six-month lease a week before. I was two floors up with a desk, a phone, a chair, a filing cabinet and one dirty window. Other than that, there’s nothing more to say about the place except that it was cheap. No, there is more to say. I figured it was good territory-anyone street-wise and tough entering there wouldn’t turn a hair. Anyone pretending to be those things would turn plenty of hairs. And I wasn’t expecting too many blondes in Dior dresses. I anticipated that most of my business would come to me over the telephone. So far, I’d been one hundred per cent right.
Mrs M was away for the week and Mr M was expected to play up. I collected him in Surry Hills. He ran a finance company named Meadowbank Credit and he wasn’t hard to spot coming out of the car park-big grey Mercedes, arrogant tilt to the head as he waited for the traffic, brusque, impatient driving style. I followed him to his flat in Bellevue Hill-Birriga Road, as you’d expect, overlooking Bellevue Park. Medium-sized block in a garden setting with terrific views, ample car parking and tight security. The Merc sailed into harbour and I settled down to roll a supply of cigarettes and perfect the most essential part of the private detective’s trade-waiting and not falling asleep.
Meadowbank emerged at 7.30 on the dot. He’d had time to shower, slap on the cologne, change his shirt and socks, and check the wallet. I followed the Mercedes to a block of flats in Rose Bay. Not up to the Birriga Road standard, but not bad. Old-style, red brick, spacious balconies and a good view of the boats. Meadowbank jockeyed the big car into a tight space with a fair bit of wheel-turning and tyre-torturing. He looked flustered when he got out and wiped his face with a handkerchief. He was a stocky, fleshy type with horn-rim glasses and iron grey hair. His suit matched his car for colour and cost. The finance business must be doing all right. Mrs Meadowbank was looking at a nice slice.
I registered this as I drove past looking for a spot for my more modest vehicle. I found one further down the street, unshipped the camera and came back to take up a position behind a plane tree across from the flats which carried the name ‘Lapstone’. The house Cyn and I bought in Glebe was called ‘Waterloo’. Cyn took the name plate down, saying that it was twee. I’d quite liked it and as things were shaping, it was appropriate. I took a sighting on ‘Lapstone’. Despite daylight saving, which had just been introduced that month, the light was starting to fade under an overcast sky. The light in the street was poor but there were bright coachman’s lanterns mounted over the door to the flats. I had a fast film and a fast lens; the developer would have to push a bit to get good definition, but I felt pretty confident I could get a reasonable shot of Charles and his companion as they came through the door and a series as they made their way to the car.
If they came. I suddenly realised that I was making an assumption. It was a mild night, late spring with an evening breeze. The wife was away. Surely they’d go out to eat, get a slight buzz on before coming back to commit the offence of adultery. Charles looked like a man who didn’t stint on his pleasures. But what if I was wrong? What if his girlfriend had everything set up for fun and games inside? Candles and champagne and silk sheets. I took another look at the block of flats. A bastard to breach. I didn’t even know which flat he was in. Unless they came out onto a balcony and canoodled in the open air, I was stymied.
I wanted a cigarette the way I always did when faced with a problem. I fought the feeling down and considered my options. Even a contortionist couldn’t have got a shot taking in the number plate of the Mercedes and the front of the flats.
And what was that worth anyway? I anticipated Alistair Menzies’ contemptuous smirk. I could scout the block, maybe get a line on who lived there. I wasn’t looking for Brigadier and Mrs Top-Drawer after all. But it felt scrappy, not semi-professional. There were at least six flats in the block. I tried to tell myself that I’d achieved something-found an assignation point, a field for further investigation. I wasn’t convinced.
Minutes ticked on, but fewer of them, I found later, than I thought. Truth to tell, I was nervous and that distorts the sense of time. I was anxious not to screw up my first job.
‘Patience, Cliff,’ I muttered. ‘Turn your weaknesses into strengths.’
That’s when I became aware of the movement in front of me. It wasn’t much, just the half-caught motion of a branch, a lightening or deepening of shade. I’d fought the Chinese guerrillas in Malaya and learned to take notice of things like that because my life depended on it. There was someone else watching the flats, someone positioned closer than me. I squinted in the failing light, trying to isolate the spot. Not near the tree opposite mine on the other side of the street, not in the narrow garden fronting the flats, but somewhere. Two tall trees flanked the entrance to the driveway marked Residents Only. Poplars with bushy trunks. Maybe there.
I wasn’t really alarmed. When I’d worked as an insurance investigator it wasn’t so unusual to find more than one guy operating on different sides of the same street. You suspect a workers compensation claimant of faking and set out to prove it. He suspects his insurance company’s bad faith and you have competition and confrontation. It happens all the time. I’d got the range and was pretty sure the movement was in the poplars, when Charles Meadowbank and his companion came out of the flats. She was a tall brunette wearing a blue silk dress that shimmered as the overhead lights caught it. High cheekbones, sculptured features, up-swept hair. I got the camera into position.
The woman stumbled as she reached the first step. Meadowbank, immediately behind her, stepped quickly forward and around her to help. Then he crumpled and fell down the steps as two bullets blew his head apart.