It had been a little over a year since Glen Withers left me to marry a policeman. I’d heard they’d both been promoted and posted to Newcastle, which was nice for them. Glen was a Newcastle girl. I missed a lot of things about the relationship-the sex of course, the companionship, the laughs. On the material level I missed having Glen’s house at Dudley to go to when the only place to be was at the beach and, for a Maroubra boy, that’s just about all the time. I was still in Glebe with the mortgage almost paid off but I’d need a big loan to get the house back into decent condition. Years of neglect had taken their toll. It was worth doing, the place was an asset, but talk about the economic advantages of borrowing money has always confused me, so I just sit pat.
I drove home to Glebe, glad as always to be getting onto what I considered the right side of the harbour and trying not to think of the face I’d glimpsed in that brief blur of action. The only way to trigger memories like those is to think of something else and let it happen. I tried, but the only other thing I could think of was the face and body of Claudia Fleischman, her poise and control. It seemed unlikely that a bell would ring in my head while I was thinking along those lines. I turned on the radio, listened to Mike Carlton being nicer to a politician than I would have been, and ended up not thinking about anything.
My street has changed over the years. Harry Soames, with whom I had an amiable antagonism over music, car parking, drainage and almost everything else, moved out-or, as he put it, ‘up’, to Gladesville. I hope he enjoys the flight path. A few big houses that were divided up into flats occupied by students and dope-dealers have become family residences once again. Fewer motorbikes, more parking space, lots more Illawarra flame trees. My house has just about become the shabbiest in the street, with gaps in its fence, rust in the balcony iron and sagging guttering. A coat of paint would do wonders, they tell me. But if I painted the house the cracked path and lifting tiles in front would look even more daggy and the overgrown garden would lose what I think of as its charm. So I sit pat.
I eased the Falcon into a space between a Celica and a Commodore and cut Mike off in mid-sentence. The mail jutted from the letterbox and I grabbed it as I went past, stepping instinctively clear of the loosest of the tiles. Inside, the familiar smells and sounds told me who and what I was, as they always did. This was why I stayed. The bedroom held memories of my ex-wife Cyn, and Helen Broadway and Glen Withers; Annie Parker had slept in the spare room and the thought of her death from a hot-shot still gave me a pang. I’d killed Soldier Szabo by accident in the living room and O’Fear had played his last card out in the backyard. How could I sell all that to a business consultant?
After Glen left I went a few rounds with Johnnie Walker and Jim Beam until we decided to call it square. Nowadays I didn’t drink hard liquor until after six and I had a flexible limit-three to five drinks. I also didn’t rush it as in the old days, when the next thing my hand would touch after the front door was the cap on a bottle. I flicked through the mail which held no interest and checked the answering machine. The only calls were about a late video and a client explaining why his cheque was a little bit short of a full settlement.
The cat left not long after Glen and I could hardly blame it. It had to be able to do better than Vegemite toast and Weetbix. With the cat gone the mice asserted themselves. I kept hoping that another cat would adopt me the way the last one did. It had wandered in one day and treated the place as its own within minutes, pawing at the window it wanted left open and indicating where it would like the food put down. But so far no takers. The strays didn’t know what they were missing-I’d resolved to treat the lucky cat better, feed it regularly and give it a name.
I took the video out of the machine and restored it to its case. I put the borrowing card on top of the case and picked up a newspaper and a couple of books around the sitting room. I opened the back door and let some air in, also some leaves. Delaying tactics, feints, duckings and weavings. Effective. It was fully 6.30 when I made the drink-a Scotch and ice with a little water. I sat down in the kitchen, reached out to turn on the radio and the name of the driver flashed into my mind. The arrival of the information was so sudden and clear I almost dropped my glass-Harvey Henderson, better known to the police and his few friends as ‘Haitch’ Henderson because of the alliteration and because he spent some formative years in Pentridge Gaol’s notorious H Division.
Henderson didn’t look like a tough guy. He was short and stocky with a moon face and long soft brown hair. But the hair hid a half-bitten-off ear and other scars and I’d heard it said he didn’t have an original tooth in his head. He’d lost many of them in fights and bashings and ‘Corky’ Ryan had removed the rest with a pair of pliers when he was trying to get Haitch to tell him something Haitch didn’t know. Corky wasn’t around any more.
Henderson had served time for extortion, armed robbery and attempted murder in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales. I’d run up against him years before when I’d been hired by a man who operated a dealership specialising in high-price imported cars and who’d been receiving extortion demands and threats to damage his stock. Henderson was behind it and I’d sent one of his minions to hospital. As it happened, Henderson was put away for something else and my client was satisfied. It was a few years back now and I couldn’t believe Haitch had a personal vendetta against me. That matter had been just one of his many sidelines that didn’t pan out. I thought hard, drank some whisky and couldn’t come up with any other connections between me and Henderson. He did anything and everything, from bodyguarding to body-damaging and body-disposal, standover, blackmail, you name it. His presence had to have something to do with the Fleischman case.
I grabbed the phone, called Cy at home and got his fifteen-year-old daughter. Dad and Mum were at a Law Society dinner. Yes, she’d leave a message for Dad to ring me as soon as he got in, whatever the time. I made another drink, located Claudia’s card in the stuff I’d emptied from my pockets, and called her.
‘Claudia, it’s Cliff Hardy. I have to ask you a question. Does the name Harvey Henderson mean anything to you?’
It would have been better done in person, but I’d got the lead-in about right. Time for her to tense up if that’s what was to happen. I tried to imagine her standing against the big picture window with a couple of million dollars worth of harbour and city view behind her. I had her in the same clothes. All crazy- she could be in the kitchen in an apron cooking spaghetti. I held the receiver close, listened hard. Was there a pause, an intake of breath? I thought so, then I wasn’t sure. The voice, was it a tone or two higher, or was it the phone connection or my imagination?
‘No. I don’t believe I know the name. Who is he?’
I thought fast. She wasn’t the kind of woman you thought about protecting. She’d stood up to a lot so far and could probably stand some more.
‘He’s a criminal. A hard case. He was watching your flat this afternoon. He drove off when he saw me.’
‘My god. Why?’
‘I don’t know. When you go out, what’s the procedure?’
‘How do you mean, the procedure?’
‘Do you walk down to the ferry or catch a cab in the street? Do you ring for cabs? Is there someone who picks you up?’
‘All those things. Why? What are you saying?’
‘I’m worried about Henderson being involved in this. I’ll arrange for someone to keep an eye on you, but it’s too hard to do round the clock. I want you to ring for a cab when you go out, get the number, direct it to the main gate and wait until you’re sure the cab that pulls up is the right one. Will you do that, please?’
‘They’ll think I’m mad.’
‘No, not in Kirribilli. They’ll just think you’re rich.’
I regretted the words as soon as they were out. I got the deep freeze.
‘This is ridiculous. No, I won’t do that. I don’t believe you. You’re dramatising.’
‘Claudia, I…’
The line went dead. Brilliantly handled, Hardy, I thought. Telephone diplomacy at its best. I hit redial. The phone rang for a long time but she didn’t answer. The ice had melted in my drink; the Scotch was just a pale tint in the water and making it darker wouldn’t change anything. I tossed it off and set about cooking a bachelor dinner-salad with French dressing, pasta with pesto and grated cheese- living with those women had taught me something.
I had a glass of wine with the food and poured another when I sat down with a foolscap pad to try to make some sense of the day’s information and events. With any luck I’d get through the night one drink under my limit. My no doubt simple-minded procedure is to list the names of the people involved, all the relevant information on them and to draw arrows between them all pointing in all directions, noting on the shafts the things that connected them.
Sometimes this can be time-consuming and cover many sheets. Sometimes laying it all out like this triggered brainwaves and stimulated me to leaps of imagination. This time it took a few minutes and yielded virtually no results. I knew almost nothing beyond superficialities about Julius and. Claudia Fleischman. I knew still less about Robert Van Kep, Wilson Katz and Judith Daniels. The only person I knew anything solid about was the new participant, Haitch Henderson. I had another entry on the pad-’other man’, signifying the alleged accomplice of Van Kep. I drew an arrow between this entry and Henderson, but I didn’t think it was going to be anywhere near that simple.
I finished the wine and no other thoughts came other than the obvious one-dig for details on all parties still alive and available. Being kind to my liver and waistline, I resisted the fifth drink and made coffee instead. The dishes went into a newly-acquired dishwashing machine, a factory second with a scratch on the cabinet, bought cheap. I only ran it once a week and didn’t feel too bad about its environmental impact. As I waited for the coffee to perk I made a list of the things to do the next day. Top of the list was to fax Cy a contract and try to get a solid retainer out of him, despite being in the red. I’d have to try to get that past Janine and the odds were evens at best.
I drank coffee, had a shower and slopped around in a sulu someone had brought back to me from Vanuatu. I put on a cassette of the soundtrack from Local Hero and spent some time cleaning, oiling and checking the action of my Smith amp; Wesson. 38. The gun was very dusty and dry from disuse and it felt heavy and awkward in my hand, but with Haitch Henderson in the picture, it seemed like a good idea to get familiar with it again. I handled it, picking it up, aiming it, lowering, swinging it around, gripping and re-gripping until it felt like something I might be able to use, if I had to. I rewound the tape and listened to ‘Going Home’ three times.
Cy rang just before midnight.
‘Good eats?’ I said.
‘I forget already. What’s up?’
I told him about Henderson and how badly I’d handled Claudia over the phone.
He groaned. ‘What’s the good news?’
‘There isn’t any. I’ll need to slot someone in to keep an eye on her, at least for a few days until I can do something about Henderson. That’s going to cost.’
‘Do it. Tell Janine what you need up-front and I’ll OK it.’
Well, that was good news for me at least. I gave Cy a run-down on what I’d be doing next and he told me he had a meeting scheduled with the prosecutor. We agreed to keep each other fully informed.
‘I suppose you’ve got one of those fucking foolscap pads all covered with doodles?’
‘Right.’
‘And an arrow linking up Henderson and the supposed other man?’
‘Right again. But I don’t think it’s going to be that simple.’
‘Christ, I hope not,’ Cy said.