It was over the next couple of days that Helen started to call me what Whitlam had called McMahon, ‘the Tiberius of the telephone’. I made use of the sorts of contacts you build up in this business, to check on Williamson and Rolf. Establishing that they were Federal cops took a while, and finding that, within the usual limits of narcotics law enforcement, they were honest, took even longer.
Carmel Wise’s flatmate, Judy Syme, remembered me and listened while I described Williamson, Rolf and the other man I’d seen at Shetland Island. My question was, could they have been the men who came to Studio Eight in Randwick before Carmel Wise died.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Positively not. They didn’t look at all like that, none of them.’
‘Have you thought of anything else that might be useful, since we talked?’
‘No. Oh, one thing. They took a couple of copies of the movie.’
‘Carmel’s movie?’
‘Yes. That one I lent you. It was put away somewhere. They took the ones that were lying around.’
‘Did they say anything about it?’
‘I don’t think so. ‘Course, I was so frightened I mightn’t have noticed.’
‘Did Carmel ever say anything to you about targets? About having people as targets?’
‘N… no, I did hear her use the word on the phone one time.’
‘Who was she talking to?’
‘Jan de Vries.’
But there I hit a wall. I phoned the Film amp; Television School and was told that Dr de Vries had not been in for a couple of days and no, that wasn’t unusual. They wouldn’t give me his address or private phone number. I left a message for him-my name and number, my line of work and that it had to do with Carmel Wise. I then got de Vries’ number from Judy Syme. He lived in Lane Cove, close to his work but a long way from the GPO. There I was again, thinking the Inner West was the only place to live. I called the number and got a woman, impatient, upset or crazy.
‘Yes? Yes? What do you want?’
‘I’d like to speak to Dr de Vries, please.’
‘Not here!’ She hung up vigorously, or miserably or madly.
My next call was to the producer of the documentary Carmel Wise had worked on. Tim Edwards was one of the principals of Paladin Pictures Inc. He sounded young and keen, eager to talk in a rapid-fire style about filmmaking, and a bit green. In my limited experience old hands in that business don’t say that someone has ‘too much flair’; old hands don’t really say anything that has any meaning.
‘Leo Wise? Sure I know him. I got Carmel to introduce us once. Thought he might back a project, him being a rich business man and all.’
‘Did he?’
‘Wasn’t long before Carmel died. Seemed interested at the time. He might have. Nice guy. How can I help you, Mr Hardy?’
‘You’re quoted as saying that Carmel might have too much flair for the project. What did that mean?’
‘It means, oops.’
‘Come again.’
‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘You did say it though and it could be important to me. What’s the documentary about, exactly.’
‘I’ve still got funding hassles with it and distribution problems. I can’t…’
‘I’m not in the business. I won’t tell a soul. It could be important. Did she overstep the mark somehow?’
‘Yeah. It wasn’t meant to be a revolutionary number, you understand? Not pap but not barricades stuff. We got the permission of these ten… well eight actually, that’s one of the hassles I’ve got… of these rich people to film them and do a few interviews.’
‘Sounds like something between Sixty Minutes and that thing about the movie stars…’
‘Life Styles of the Rich and Famous, well, yeah, maybe. Carmel, she wouldn’t leave it alone. Kept trying to get footage they didn’t want taken. She tried to change the scripts, even stuck herself into one interview. Terrific filmmaker, brilliant editor, but lousy judgement. She really hurt me, although she did a wonderful job on editing the footage I can use.’
‘I don’t quite follow. Did two of the subjects pull out?’
‘You got it.’
‘Sort of as a reaction to what Carmel did?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Why?’
‘Come on, the girl’s dead, and no-one knows why.’
‘I thought she got caught up in the porno rackets.’
‘Do you really believe that?’
‘I’d like to see a porn movie made by Carmel. I’td sizzle.’
‘Forget it. She didn’t make any. Who pulled out?’
‘Bastards, why should I care? Marjorie Legge and Phillip Broadhead.’
‘Do you have any of the stuff you shot on them?’
‘No. I had to give it up. Broadhead threatened to contact the others and get the plug pulled on the whole thing if I didn’t surrender the film. I’m in debt over it. I had no choice.’
‘How did Carmel react?’
‘Angrily. Look, if that’s all, I’ve got work to do.’
I thanked him, hung up and looked at the two names I had on my pad. Marjorie Legge had a chain of high fashion boutiques. She appeared on television shows and ghost-written articles signed by her were published in the papers. She had been profitably married several times and her views were extremely right wing. A story was told about her that on a talk-back radio show she had advised an old-age pensioner, calling in to complain of boredom and financial hardship, to take up French cooking.
She was a scourge of the feminists and one of their chief targets. Targets! Well, well, I thought, there was an interesting word. Maybe I should take up free associating as an analytical technique.
Marjorie Legge was currently married to a man whose name I couldn’t recall but who was reputed to be a very heavy number. With those connections, Marjorie Legge could be a very dangerous person to offend.
Phillip Broadhead was known as ‘Mr Racing’. He gave his occupation to the various committees of inquiry that investigated him over the years as ‘commission agent’. No-one knew what that was. but everyone knew what Phil did, which was more or less what Phil had always done. He was the finance behind several leading on-course bookmakers, and also the money and the muscle and whatever else was required, behind Sydney’s major SP operation. Phil had gone to one of the pricier Sydney private schools (where he had probably run the book on the GPS Head of the River). He knew policemen and politicians and trade union bosses and media magnates and everyone else it was useful to know. He had one conviction, back in the forties, for assaulting his then wife.
Phillip Broadhead had been investigated and written up in the tabloids so many times that all this was on the public record. There were many entries on him in the indexes to the recent spate of books about organised crime in Sydney. The sorts of books journalists write when they get hold of one hard piece of information, and embellish it with a lot of speculation and off-the-record stuff. Phil was good embellishment but his police record was the best pointer to the amount of protection he had. The mind boggled at the thought of fearless, freelance Carmel Wise sniffing around him.
All this phoning and cross-referencing took a couple of days. It was interspersed with pill-taking, eyedrops and long sleeps. The house brick effect hadn’t developed, but the right eye was sore all the time and the other got tired from over-use. It was hard to read, hard to watch television, hard to sit still. It was also hard to follow developments regarding Helen’s flat. The more I thought about Phil Broadhead’s mansion at Huntley Point and Jan de Vries’ unhappy-sounding home at Lane Cove, the more I wanted to stay in Glebe.
‘The loan looks okay,’ Helen told me on my third night home.
‘Oh, good. Can you apply that to any place you find, or is it tied to…?’
‘Go on, say it. I know you’ll have some smart name for the place.’
‘The cancer ward.’
She laughed. ‘Shit, Cliff. No, it’s good for a couple of months. Any place that passes inspection.’
‘And how’s that going?’
‘Still waiting.’
‘Still looking?’
‘No. I know I should be.’ She poured some coffee and held up the pills inquiringly. When I shook my head she went on. ‘How many houses have you owned?’
‘Just this one. Me and the bank.’
‘I’ve had a couple. It’s always the same. Once you get interested in a place you start imagining yourself there-shopping, parking, making changes, you know.’
‘Mm.’
‘I shouldn’t be doing it with this joint. Not if it’s going to fall through.’
‘Fall through,’ I said. ‘Interesting choice of phrase.’
‘Stop it, Cliff.’
‘Sorry. When will you hear?’
‘Tomorrow, I hope.’
‘Shouldn’t there be lots of places going. I mean, with the tax changes? Aren’t people getting out of property as an investment? I read something about it. They’ve got to sell before a certain time to avoid the taxes. It should be a buyer’s market.’
‘I like this place.’
‘Yeah. Well, tomorrow.’
‘What’re you going to do? More phoning?’
‘No, I’m finished phoning.’ I told her about Marjorie Legge and ‘Mr Racing’ and the other new threads I had to pull.
‘So, what next?’
‘Action.’
‘Cliff, you can’t..
‘Gentle action. I’m going to the police.
‘You’re what?’
‘I need them.’
‘You always say you don’t need them, apart from Frank Parker. You don’t need the leaks and the paperwork and the lack of imagination.’
‘I just need them for tomorrow.’