My Private Enquiry Agent licence was cancelled, my appeal having been rejected with a clear indication that the ban was for life. I’d reached a crossroad. That sounded better than a dead end. With money inherited from my murdered part-time partner Lily Truscott I was ready to take off overseas for a while. See her brother fight in an elimination bout for a shot at the WBA welterweight title, travel around the States and Europe, drink with friends. Bringing down the people who’d killed Lily had helped with the grief and guilt, but I still had some things to come to terms with.
I’d found a handyman friend to sit my Glebe house while I was away and continue making some much-needed repairs.
Hank Bachelor, who’d helped me out more than once, was due to take over the Newtown office now that he’d got back his enthusiasm for the PEA business. A few hours before I was due to fly out business class, I went to the office to clean it up a bit. At least leave Hank some space in the filing cabinets.
A lot of the stuff could be hurled, some I’d take back home and stack away in a cupboard. I was sorting through it when I came across a thick folder that I hadn’t touched in over twenty years. It was in a box of case files I’d moved from Darlinghurst to Newtown when St Peters Lane was targeted for renovation and rent rise.
The file with the words ‘Hampshire Open and the date ‘1988’ scrawled across it was an inch – call it three centimetres – thick, unusual for me. My case files mostly didn’t run much beyond a copy of the contract, my expense sheets, bank deposits and pages of scribbled notes, mostly illegible, from interviews. Photographs sometimes, photocopies, and microfilm and microfiche printouts in the old days. No internet downloads back then. Sometimes I included a few pages of the notes, diagrams and squiggles that I used to try to make sense of what was happening as things went along.
Reluctantly, I took the folder out of the box, slapped it on the desk and looked at it. It was dusty and musty and the blue folder was yellowed and crisp. Why was I punishing myself? I had money in the bank, was about to take a long overdue break. I’d been good at what I did until being good wasn’t enough, and in this time of spin and protect your arse at all costs, I’d slipped up.
Back then I hadn’t slipped up but I hadn’t succeeded either. I opened the folder…