Peter Corris - Open File

‘I hadn’t even heard the name until this morning at the school. Should I talk to Ronny about him?’

She shook her head and the ponytail swung. ‘I wouldn’t.’

‘Who is he? Why were you so surprised to hear the name?’

‘I was surprised that anyone would say that Just knew him. That guy, Pierre, was done for drugs. He’s the one that supplied Ronny with some hash that got him kicked out of Bryce. Justin hated drugs, he was a real pain in the arse about it.’ She tapped her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray and held it up. ‘He hated smoking and he didn’t drink, ever. I can’t believe he had anything to do with Pierre.’

‘Did you have anything to do with him, Sarah?’

She stood up and went to the louvre windows to check on her mother. ‘Sure, I scored some grass off him a couple of times.’

‘I have to talk to him to find out what went on between him and Justin. It might help me to trace your brother, although it’s worrying. D’you know where I can find him?’

She sat down. ‘Of course I do. He got caught supplying heroin to some kids. He’s in gaol.’

I sat back and let that sink in while Sarah smoked and looked less cooperative.

‘I can understand why Pierre Fontaine’s name didn’t come up when you and Justin’s friends talked to the police,’ I said.

She brushed that off with a wave of the cigarette hand. ‘Look, Just didn’t really have any friends. And I told you, the cops asked dumb questions. They didn’t have a fucking clue what was going on.’

‘How long after Justin went missing did Fontaine get caught?’

Sarah finished her cigarette and gave some thought to her answer. ‘If you go to see Pierre you won’t tell him I talked about him, will you? I mean, he won’t be in gaol forever and he’s a bad dude.’

‘Did I tell you who told me about Fontaine? No. The same goes for you. Like I won’t tell your mother you smoke grass.’

She laughed. ‘She knows, she just doesn’t want to know she knows. All right, let me think. The police got him about a year ago, so it was about a year after Just…’

‘Went missing.’

She nodded.

I stood. ‘Thanks, Sarah. You’ve been a big help.’

She stood as well and looked surprised to find herself on her feet, being polite. ‘Have I? I haven’t heard that said before by anyone around here.’

‘Give your mother a break. She’s holding in a lot of grief and anger. People like her, conventional people, find all this sort of stuff very confusing.’

‘You’re not conventional, are you, Mr Hardy?’

‘I can’t afford to be.’

Peter Corris

CH33 – Open File

‘And I don’t want to be.’

‘One more thing-Justin went on a school excursion to Bangara near the end of the year and something there seemed to affect him. Does Bangara mean anything to you?’

‘Bangara? Yeah, that’s where some fucking Hampshire hero came from. Great-grandfather or something. He got killed in the First World War.’

I thanked her again and asked her to thank her mother. She said she would and I believed her. She didn’t exactly escort me out, but she made more or less polite gestures along those lines. I gave her a goodbye nod in the passage and she smiled and raised a hand almost shyly, like a schoolgirl.

I didn’t take any notes while talking to Sarah, not wanting to put her off, but I scribbled a few things down back in the car. Things to be done, and in this kind of investigation the more the better. I’d had enough of Pittwater and environs and was glad to be heading back to the city. I played some more Joni Mitchell but I was almost at the Spit Bridge before I realised that thinking about the Hampshire case had blotted out every word and note.

I drove to Rose Bay, parked as close as I could to the apartments where Hampshire was staying and asked for him at the service desk. He was out, but at least he was still staying there. I left a message for him to ring me. Back in my office, I phoned Gunnarson.

‘You’ll be pleased to hear that the dragon lady regards you as competent.’

‘I’m thrilled. Did you get anywhere?’

‘I might have, but I’m going to need some help.’

He sighed. ‘Why is there never any end to what you blokes want?’

‘We never sleep.’

I told him in outline about Pierre Fontaine and his possible place in the scheme of things. He swore and condemned all people who held back information from the police. I sympathised.

‘He’s in gaol somewhere. I don’t know where and I don’t know for how long. Be a big help if you could get me in to see him.’

‘Is that all? Shit, Hardy, haven’t you heard of lawyers, prisoners’ rights, civil liberties…?’

‘Yeah, and I’ve heard of missing person case files closed.’ He wasn’t going to give in too easily. ‘How about Hampshire, the skinflint dad? Are you still in touch?’

I didn’t exactly lie. ‘Yes, but only by phone. He’s cagey.’

‘He fucking should be. All right, Hardy, leave it with me and I’ll get back to you. It could take a while to set up. If I can do it, and I’m not saying I can, you’ll owe me a big favour. Some serious cooperation with any useful developments might help to square it.’

My next stop was the Fisher Library at the university. Sure enough, it held a copy of the Brigadier-General’s Monumental Art of Australia. They tell me some self-publishers scatter their books like confetti. This one was a professionally produced effort, though, in a nice typeface with a ton of photos. The text was what you’d call reverent. No index, so I had to leaf through. I found the Bangara memorial arch on page 145. A big, ugly structure, it had been unveiled by the mothers of dead soldiers on Empire Day, 24 May 1924. The arch bore the names of 58 dead and 299 returned AIF members.

Things were coming together. Justin Hampshire knew about the arch and that his great-grandfather’s name should be on it. He got his chance to look at it and his behaviour changed after that. Then he went to Canberra to look at the war memorial there. ‘Fuck the army’, he’d said subsequently. It wasn’t too hard to figure out, but I needed confirmation. I felt sure I could find out from some official about the names on the Canberra memorial, but I didn’t know a soul in Bangara. Gunnarson had said it’d take time to set up a meeting with the Frenchman. Hampshire had said he had investments; I’d find out tomorrow whether his cheque had cleared. If it had, I’d go to Bangara where Justin Hampshire had learned something that had changed him. I needed to know what it was. Perhaps it had drawn him back there. If the cheque hadn’t cleared I still wanted to know, but I’d give serious thought to dobbing Hampshire in for his child support arrears.

What you like about your crappy so-called profession W is being able to piss off whenever it suits you.’

That was my ex-wife Cyn’s assessment of my attraction to my job and I couldn’t say that she was entirely wrong. There were other things-the interesting characters, the edginess, the satisfaction of bringing something to a conclusion-but they wouldn’t have cut any ice with Cyn even if I’d spoken about them. A lot of the time we weren’t on speaking terms. An architect, she’d blotted me out with cigarette smoke and scale drawings. Well, she had her North Shore stay-at-home advertising executive now, and her two kids, and I could still piss off.

In the morning I pulled out one of my collection of tattered road maps and plotted the route. Hadn’t been down that way in years. It was a long run but what the hell. With luck I’d get in a swim and a bodysurf. I filled the Falcon’s tank, checked the oil and water and cleaned the windscreen and the back window that had gathered dust on the way back from Pittwater. I also put air in the tyres and the spare. Never let it be said that Hardy went unprepared. But the Smith amp; Wesson. 38 stayed in the house. It wasn’t that kind of a trip, or at least I hoped not.