I was moving while the sound of the shots was still reverberating. I shouted and ran forward as the gunman emerged from his hiding place. Time blurred and images shimmered and sound distorted. I threw the camera like a fielder trying to throw the wicket down on the run. The shout froze him; the camera hit his shoulder and jerked him out of his murderous concentration. He was small, wearing dark clothes and a stocking mask- I registered this in an eye-blink of time-and incredibly quick. I was rushing across the road, six-foot-one and twelve stone of frightened, bellowing, missile-throwing force and he seemed to have all the time in the world to turn and assess his situation. He took off like a top athlete exploding out of the blocks.
I took a few steps in pursuit but I’d done enough schoolboy sprinting to know when I was outclassed. He was all jet-propelled survival instinct and I was puzzled and already running out of fuel. Lights were going on in windows, voices were being raised and I could hear the twittering, muttering sounds of fear for life and property.
I was operating on adrenalin at that point, but it was time to switch to something else. Things had gone seriously wrong on my very first assignment as a private inquiry agent
People shrank away from me as I went back to the front of ‘Lapstone’. I ignored them. The tall woman was sitting on the steps. There was blood and brain matter all over her dress and her face was a ghastly white under the harsh lights. Meadowbank lay like a broken toy on the bottom couple of steps. His face was only slightly disfigured-a collapsed eye socket and a wound near his jaw-but the back of his head was a mess.
An elderly woman with more presence of mind than most, weighed up the situation. ‘I’ve called an ambulance and the police,’ she said to me. ‘I saw what happened.’
‘Good,’ I said. The police will need to talk to you.’
‘I saw you throw something. What were you doing there on the other side of the road?’
I didn’t answer. The woman on the steps was sitting rigidly, clutching her handbag and staring straight in front of her.
‘Could someone get her a blanket or a coat or something,’ I said. ‘She’s in shock.’
There was a murmuring in the growing crowd. A few people broke away and someone came back quickly with a big knitted shawl which was placed over a pair of beautifully shaped, utterly immobile shoulders. I looked around for my camera and saw it lying in a garden bed not far from the poplars. A man was wandering around in that area and he stooped to pick it up.
‘Don’t touch it,’ I said. ‘The police will want things to stay the way they are.’
The man looked up belligerently. He was middle-aged, solidly built and self-important. ‘Just who the hell are you?’
I pulled out my PEA licence and waved it. I didn’t expect it to carry much authority but it was the best I could do. The elderly woman was offering words of comfort.
‘The ambulance will be here soon, Miss Shaw,’ she said.
Miss Shaw didn’t respond.
I saw a metallic glint in the grass-probably a casing from one of the bullets that had killed Charles Meadowbank. The crowd was milling and rumbling, moving restlessly. The glint vanished as someone trod the object into the lawn. The cicadas suddenly burst into their concentrated racket and then we heard the sirens. There was a collective sigh of relief. I looked at Miss Shaw. Our eyes met for an instant but what hers were seeing I couldn’t tell.
The client of a private investigator has no right of confidentiality, and the detective himself has no protection from the ordinary processes of the law. The uniformed men who came to the Rose Bay crime scene treated me about as roughly as I expected. The elderly woman, who gave her name as Mrs James Calvert, tried to tell the cops that I was a sort of a hero who’d tried to intercept the gunman. Trouble was, she was old and confused and more concerned about Miss Shaw than anything or anybody else so that she made me sound more like an accomplice. I said as little as I could, waiting for the plain-clothes boys to arrive.
The Senior Constable didn’t like that, either, and we were close to going it toe-to-toe when the D’s from Darlinghurst station turned up.
Detective Sergeant Colin Pascoe was a big-gutted man with a boozer’s nose and late-night eyes. He was a long time out of uniform himself, and he knew all the right moves. He’d brought a photographer with him, and, after the scene was captured on film from every necessary angle, he allowed the ambulance men to take Mr Charles Meadowbank, provisionally identified by yours truly, confirmed by an examination of the contents of his fat wallet, away. He introduced himself and took my ID folder; then Pascoe delegated the uniformed men to get names, addresses and brief statements from the audience, whose enthusiasm was rapidly waning as Pascoe’s quiet efficiency undercut the drama. He sent his younger, slimmer assistant off to get Mrs Calvert’s eye-witness account down pat.
Another car with a blue flashing light pulled up and a uniformed policewoman stepped out. She gave Pascoe a nod and went straight to Miss Shaw, adjusting the knitted shawl, taking the young woman immediately under her wing. They went up the steps and back into the block of flats. I was left standing on the path with Pascoe who was swinging a plastic bag containing my camera.
I pointed to the patch of grass. ‘There’s a shell casing trodden in there,’ I said.
‘We got it,’ Pascoe said. ‘Must have dug it out while you were eyeing off the sheila with the big tits.’ He flipped open his notebook. ‘Miss… ah, Virginia Shaw of this address.’
I reached for my ID folder which he held, half-extended towards me, in his other hand. ‘If you say so, Sergeant.’
He retracted my property with a smile and a cardsharp’s snap. ‘In the car, Hardy. Now!’
Although a private investigator has no clout himself, it helps if his client is a lawyer. That’s when the grease can start to oil the wheels. Pascoe sat me down in an interrogation room in the Darlinghurst station. We sat on opposite sides of a rickety table and he looked amused when I pulled out a couple of bedraggled rollies.
‘Planning a bit of sitting and waiting, eh?’
I lit one of the smokes. ‘More like standing.’
‘Even worse. Want to tell me what you were doing there?’
I’d taken the precaution of picking up one of Alistair Menzies’ cards in his office. For an answer I simply put a card on the desk.
‘I might have known. And I expect you’re good mates with an Assistant Commissioner or two?’
I puffed smoke and considered. ‘I know a D named Grant Evans.’
‘He’s Armed Hold-up. This is Homicide. Unless you happened to hear the shooter ask Meadowbank to stand and deliver?’
‘I’d rather not say anything more until I clear it with Mr Menzies.’
Pascoe went away and left me in the empty, cream-painted room with my cigarettes, a gas lighter Cyn had given me, and my thoughts. Pascoe had left my licence folder on the desk and I put it back in my pocket. After that, there wasn’t much to do except smoke and think those thoughts. I quickly tired of that. I looked at my watch and was surprised to see that it was less than two hours since Charles Meadowbank had set off for Rose Bay. Long trip. Another hour went by before Pascoe returned with a man whose face I recognised but couldn’t place.
‘I’m Vern Morris, Mr Hardy,’ he said. ‘From Mr Menzies’ chambers.’
I nodded. One of the outer office minions.
‘Mr Menzies has authorised you to make a full statement to the police.’
‘Big of him,’ Pascoe said. ‘Thanks, Mr Morris.’
Morris departed and Pascoe plonked a battery-powered cassette tape recorder on the desk. He turned it on and propped the little microphone up on its fold-out stand in front of me.
‘All mod cons,’ I said.
Pascoe squinted at a needle quivering in a small dial. ‘You’re on.’
I told it as briefly and accurately as I could. Pascoe interrupted me to ask whether I had a file on the case in my office. I said I did and he raised an eyebrow. He stopped me again after I’d described the shooting.
‘Description of the assailant. Take your time.’
‘Small, five-six or seven with a light build.’
‘Pity you didn’t get to grips with him. Big bloke like you could probably have cleaned him up.’
‘He ran like the wind.’
Pascoe grunted. ‘And he had a gun, of course. Did you see the gun?’
‘No.’
‘OK Description, continued.’
I paused. ‘Dark clothes, jeans I think and runners.’
‘Features?’
I shook my head. ‘Stocking mask. You know what that does to a face.’
‘Yeah. One fish looks much the same as another. So, a very professional hit.’
‘I guess so.’
Pascoe added some identification remarks to the tape and then stopped it. He took a packet of filters from his pocket and lit up. He offered me the packet but I refused. I’d smoked too much already and smoking filter cigarettes is like drinking decaffeinated coffee-what’s the point?
‘Any thoughts?’ Pascoe said.
‘About what?’
‘Come on, Hardy. When I said it was a professional job you sounded doubtful’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen one before.’
He butted his cigarette. ‘OK, we’ll type this up and you can go after you sign it.’
That happened. I caught a taxi back to Rose Bay. A television crew was packing up after filming outside ‘Lapstone’. A few people were standing around talking and a lot of lights were burning in the blocks of flats on both sides of the street. It had been the most excitement they’d seen there in years. I kept well away from the action. I was feeling tired and flat. My face was bristly and my mouth was sour after the smoking and talking. I was hungry and I needed a drink. I looked up at the flats and wondered how Mrs Calvert and Miss Shaw were doing. None of my business. I got in the Falcon and felt around for the flask of Johnny Walker I kept in the glove compartment for cuts and abrasions. After a few pulls I felt better, well enough to go home to the loving arms of my wife.
‘You’re drunk,’ Cyn said.
‘No. Just a little lubricated on an empty stomach after a very tough night.’
The house was a standard end terrace-two rooms and a kitchen on the ground floor, three bedrooms above, lean-to laundry and bathroom. It needed work, but the architect member of the team never seemed to get around to thinking about it. We went through to the living room and I flopped into a saucer chair.
‘You look terrible. What happened?’
I told her. Give Cyn her due, she had a vivid imagination. I could see her visualising the scene.
‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘You could have been shot.’
‘He wasn’t after me.’
She stood behind my chair and massaged my neck. ‘Have a shave and a shower. I’ll make you an omelette.’
A shave and shower at that time of night meant I’d be doing more than eating an omelette before Thursday was done.