The rain had eased to a drizzle and the light had improved by the time I dropped Hickie at a neat semi in a quiet Randwick street. When he opened the front door an Old English sheepdog broke free and bounded to the gate. It bounced there, barking and looking back at Hickie. It’s hard to have any negative feelings about a man who takes his dog for walks. Hickie was looking more solid and reliable by the minute. I mimed the action of telephoning and he nodded. I waved and drove off in the direction of Coogee.
It was a little after six o’clock, which is a difficult time to go calling on people. Some are settling down to the news or the soaps on TV, others are having a quiet drink or several. It’s not a companionable time, and I wasn’t feeling very companionable myself. As I made the turn into Coogee Bay Road I remembered that Helen Broadway had looked at a few places in Coogee before settling on her flat in Tamarama. I’d had good times with Helen, perhaps better than with any other woman, and then bad times. It was still hard to accept, but I hadn’t seen her in more than a year, and for all I knew she might be pregnant again or running Radio Kempsey.
Felicia Todd’s house was at the end of a street that led directly to the beach. It was on a corner, a long, low structure that faced north, but the eastern side had been opened out with french windows and a courtyard to give it an effective face to the water. You can almost feel the sand under the tar and grass in parts of Coogee. I’d heard of houses in this area which were sliding to the sea as the ancient dunes moved under them, but this place looked rock-solid: light-coloured bricks, sandstone foundations, slate roof, deep garden front and back-big money. It and the one next door were among the few houses in the street, which was dominated by middling-sized blocks of flats.
I parked opposite and looked the place over. It was set high up on the block with no space for a driveway or garage. So one of the few cars parked in the street was probably hers. So what? I was wasting time. I wished I’d stopped for a drink on the way. Hickie had said a keen mind was a necessity for dealing with Mrs Todd, and mine was often keener for a little oiling. Sitting there with the light grey sea spread out in front of me and the day dying in the west, I realised that I was out of practice. I’d talked to two lawyers today, and that was fine. That wasn’t so far from the work I’d been doing lately- bodyguarding nervous businessmen, minding money and even, God help me, serving summonses. But this was different. This was a call on a private citizen who had experienced grief. Maybe I’d be just one more little bit of grief to her. No help at all. A tough row to hoe. I like to think of myself as helpful.
I scuttled through the drizzle across the street, through the gate and up the flagstoned path and a steep set of wooden steps to the front of the house. Some tall shrubs in the garden dripped water on me. Before I could knock on the door, it opened.
‘Mr Hardy?’
She was just a shape in the half light. A narrow shape with a voice that was low and breathy, like a deep note on a flute. I wasn’t ready for the voice. The telephone had flattened out its extraordinary quality.
‘Yes, Mrs Todd?’ I had my licence ready for display in my hand, complete with water droplets, but she ignored it.
‘I saw you sitting in your car. What were you thinking?’
I gulped and felt stupid. ‘About the sand dunes of Coogee, or something like that. Among other things.’
‘A disordered mind,’ she said. ‘I should have expected it. You’d better come in.’
She pushed out the screen door and stepped back. I followed her down a hallway, with several rooms off to either side, to a galley kitchen and eating area that ran across the whole width of the back of the house. The floorboards were dark and polished; the furniture was old, well cared-for and functional. There was a sort of butcher’s block and bench dividing the kitchen from the eating and sitting space. A large dining table had six chairs drawn up to it, and room for a few more. A pale light that would only last a few minutes more leaked in from the french windows.
She pointed to a cane chair near the window and strode to a sideboard. ‘Do you drink?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Thank God. What?’
‘Almost anything that isn’t sweet.’
She poured hefty measures of a pale liquid into glass tumblers and held one out to me. ‘Sit down.’
I took the chair she had pointed to. Anyone in his right mind would. She dragged one of the chairs away from the table and sat a few feet from me. I sipped the very dry sherry. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘that’s a very civilised drink.’
‘Civilisation’s overvalued.’ She smiled as she spoke and took a swig from her glass. She had light brown hair, straight and shoulder length. She wore a plain blue dress with a few pleats above and below the waist. ‘That’s a bit pompous, don’t you think?’
‘A bit,’ I said.
Her smile broadened. Her eyes were brown and there was nothing special about her face. Her features were regular and pleasing enough but I had the feeling that she could look beautiful in certain moods, or ugly. ‘Well, Mr Hardy. Tell me why I should give you ten thousand dollars.’
‘Is that the way you see it, Mrs Todd?’
‘Give me another way to look at it.’
‘To fulfil your late husband’s wish.’
She grunted and sipped her sherry. ‘Barnes retained a lot of false ideas from his past. Macho fantasies about men standing alone against the odds. I imagine you run on that sort of fuel too.’
I realised I was still holding my licence folder. I shoved it into my pocket and drank some more sherry, which was warming and encouraging. If she wanted to spar over sherry, fine. ‘Not very much. I take jobs, try to see them through to a reasonable conclusion. I know when to stick and when to bail out. Do you think Barnes’ feeling that he might meet with an accident was a fantasy? He didn’t strike me as a fantasist.’
‘How well did you know him?’
Her interrogative style irritated me, like when a sparring partner presses too hard. I was tempted to tell her that I’d known him longer than she had, and had shared experiences with him that went pretty deep. But somehow I got the feeling that she’d have a quick comeback and that I’d lose more ground than I would win. And I was here to win ground. I told her about my acquaintanceship with Barnes.
She nodded; the shiny brown hair bounced on her shoulders. ‘From his boozy days. When his mind was clouded.’
I took a big gulp of the sherry and tried not to say anything too rude. She was a recent widow after all, even if she seemed to be handling it pretty well. ‘You’re right up to a point,’ I said. ‘I only ever saw him in public places or in his office. We weren’t close but he did me a very good turn and if I could have repaid it when he was alive I would have. He never asked me for anything. Not a thing. I’m flattered that he thought well enough of me to write that note to Michael Hickie.’
‘Michael’s a nice young man,’ she said.
‘I’m not as young and not as nice. But I’d still like to repay the favour.’
‘Would you do it without the money?’
I shook my head. ‘It’ll take a lot of work- a lot of checking and talking to people and getting the runaround. I couldn’t afford to do it for free.’
‘Honest and energetic. Good.’ She drained her glass and put it on the floor. I got the feeling there wasn’t going to be any more sherry so I nursed the inch I had left.
She pushed back her hair and stood. The light had faded almost to nothing and she suddenly looked dark and widowlike. Her low-heeled shoes were dark, like her stockings and dress. She was a bit below average height and slim, but there was a force in the way the dark shape moved towards the passageway. For a moment I thought she was giving me my marching orders and I stirred, but she flicked her fingers at me. ‘Stay there. I want to show you something.’
She walked away and I asserted myself by getting up and pouring another belt of the dry sherry. It was sitting warmly inside my empty stomach and, if it wasn’t sharpening my wits, it was making the rest of me feel comfortable. I turned on a light and the room filled with a soft glow that touched the polished wood and the clean glass and metal surfaces. Barnes Todd had left some pretty good animate and inanimate objects behind. I was suddenly aware of another tack to take with the widow.
She came back carrying a stack of enlarged photographs and two framed objects. When she arranged the stuff on the table I saw that one of the framed works was also a photograph. It was a picture of Barnes Todd looking as I had never seen him. His face was much thinner and tanned; his straggly, thinning hair had been clipped away almost to nothing, giving him a hard-edged, no-time-for-that-hair-nonsense look. He was wearing jeans and a loose, dirty sweater and his smile was surprised, spontaneous. He’d just turned away from something I couldn’t make out with the light on the glass. I moved my head and looked closer-an easel. And the smears on the sweater were paint.
‘He looks great,’ I said. ‘Happy inside and out.’
‘He was.’ She moved a photograph and the painting to where I could see them better. The photo was of Bondi Beach, but I’d never seen it looking like that. The photo had been taken at dawn; it was overcast, with the horizon and the sea blurred; there appeared to be a mist and an impression that the sea was rising up to envelop the land. The painting was a version of the same thing. It was mostly in blue and white, but it lacked the devastating, visionary quality of the photograph. I admired both, but the photograph said more to me and held my eye.
‘Christ. They’re good.’
‘Aren’t they?’ Her voice was full of pride. ‘He was an exceptionally talented man. Have a look at these.’
The photographs all had the same alarming originality. They were of buildings, the sea and the rocks, some with people and some without. The images seemed to blend so that the people became part of the physical world around them in a way I’d never seen. Some exhibited these qualities more strongly than others. I was reminded of photographs of Aborigines taken by the early missionaries; in them, the blacks stand and sit and the country around them seems to stand and sit in the same attitude. Barnes Todd’s photographs were urban versions of the same thing. I stared at them and shook my head. It seemed a fair bet that if he had been able to put these things on canvas the art world would have had to sit up straight.
‘What comes to your mind when you look at them?’ Felicia Todd said. ‘What words?’
I was bowled over, but I still had business to conduct. I drank some sherry and turned away from the art display to look at her. ‘I’m a mug when it comes to pictures. Words? Drysdale, visions and dreams. Also original, if that makes any sense.’
‘Yes, it does.’ She collected the photographs and laid them down with their white backs and pencilled inscriptions showing over the painting and the shot of Todd. She was like a magician manipulating the illusions-now you see them and admire, now you don’t. ‘I met Barnes at the State Gallery. I’d gone along to see the Archibald entrants. Didn’t know he was interested in art, did you?’
I shook my head.
‘And photography?’
‘No.’
‘He was. Always had been. But war and booze and women and business had diverted him from it. He had a vocation, but he’d lost his faith.’
‘And you were his redeemer.’
She snorted. ‘Sorry. That sounded very prissy. No, it was all secular. I was a good swimmer when I was young. Later, I was a good photographer and a fair painter. I had a gallery once but I was a lousy businesswoman and I lost it. Barnes was great at business, and you can see what he could do with a camera and a brush. I got him swimming three miles a day.’
She picked up her empty glass and for a minute I thought it was self-pity time, but she stalked across the room to the sink and filled the glass with water. When she got back, she was composed. For no good reason I thought of the kids’ game where you put your hands behind your back and produce scissors, rock or paper. My bet was that Felicia Todd would do rock nine times out of ten. ‘I see you got yourself another sherry. How’s your liver?’
‘Okay. I don’t drink as much as I used to. How was Barnes in that way?’
‘Getting more civilised. Oh, shit. I just said that was overvalued, didn’t I?’ She smiled and her whole face seemed to lift and catch the light.
She had good cheekbones. Some fine down along her jaw showed in the light giving her a softer, more strokable look. I wondered if Barnes had got around to painting her.
‘Did he ever paint you?’
She shook her head. ‘He said he wasn’t ready. God, I didn’t want to get into this. I thought you’d be some grasping thug who’d settle for a thousand and go away.’
‘I won’t. I want to know what happened to him.’
She looked at me and didn’t speak for a long time. When she did her voice seemed to be coming from a long way off. ‘He sold a few paintings. He was getting an exhibition together, but he wanted to stay in business for a bit longer to finance a real throw at being a painter.’
I nodded. ‘That makes sense. Did he talk to you much about his business?’
‘Not a lot. I got some idea of it. I know he had plans to expand but that there was some pretty tough competition. He used to say that trucking and flogging pictures weren’t all that different.’
‘What did he mean?’
‘He didn’t get on with the gallery owners. Some of them actually threatened him. He laughed about that. I suppose he made enemies. They must have seen what he could be worth.’
‘Are you saying someone in the art world could have killed him?’
‘A dead genius is worth more than a live one.’
‘Come on.’
‘Don’t sound so surprised. It’s a dirty world, believe me. The people who run it are greedy, snobbish crooks.’
I knew what she was talking about. ‘I had a bit to do with it once, but from the other end- forgeries. Did he do enough work for an exhibition?’
‘Certainly. I had a break-in a week or so ago. Someone tried to steal the lot. I’ve moved it since.’
‘You’ve got a good alarm system here. I noticed it before.’
She nodded. ‘It worked. You should say, “You owe it to him to find out what happened. You need help, Mrs Todd.’”
We were standing by the table; in her low shoes her head came to just above the level of my shoulder. I was behind her: the light threw our shadows forward onto the wall, long thin shadows, close together, almost the same length.
‘You owe it to him to find out what happened. You need help, Mrs Todd.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do.’