Peter Corris - Open File

Gunnarson rang while I was mulling it over. He told me he’d arranged for me to see Pierre Fontaine the day after next.

‘He can see anyone he wants to.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘He’s in a hospice in Woolloomooloo. He’s dying of AIDS, they reckon.’

I went up Glebe Point Road to my favourite Italian and had lasagne and a salad and a couple of belts of the house chianti and a long black. It was raining when I left and I got soaked on the way back. I didn’t care-it seemed like a fitting sealer to a strange day that had started out well with Kathy and taken some strange twists and turns after that. Not that unusual. I dumped almost everything I’d been wearing for the past two days in the washing machine and set it running. I went to bed to read about the convicts and their masters, who’d probably built some of the houses at Rose Bay.

I was showered but not shaved, wearing a threadbare terry towelling dressing gown I was fond of, buttering my toast, coffee in the mug, when a hammering came on the door and the bell rang. Toast in hand, I went to answer it. About the only people I know of who wear ties with business shirts and black leather jackets are cops.

‘Mr Hardy?’

I nodded. He showed his warrant card. ‘Detective Sergeant Ian Watson, Northern Command. I have to ask you some questions.’

‘I hope I have the answers. Come on in.’ I said this quickly and turned away so that he had a choice-follow me in or call me back. His response would give me an idea of the seriousness of whatever was going on. I assumed it was to do with my shielding of Paul Hampshire. Serious, but not too serious.

‘Please come back, Mr Hardy. I don’t want to enter your home.’

Uh-oh, serious then. I came back-but Hardy’s rule is never give an inch.

‘House, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘Around here we have houses. Homes are on the North Shore and in the eastern suburbs.’

He was about my size and age and holding together pretty well except that, like me, he showed signs of facial damage and some professional hard yards. He put his card away and gave me a look that told me my jibe hadn’t touched him.

‘I was told you were difficult. Right. I’ll see you in the detectives’ room at the Glebe station in half an hour. If you’re not there I’ll show you how difficult I can be.’

‘What’s it about?’

But he’d turned away and was already at the gate. He hadn’t stumbled over the lifting tiles on the porch or the sagging cement blocks on the path. He left the gate open. I judged he’d won the first round on points.

I ate the toast, drank some coffee, shaved and turned on Radio National to get the weather. It was going to be warm and stay that way until a late cool change. I put on drill trousers, battered Italian loafers and a denim shirt worn to a comfortable thinness. Clothes maketh the man-relaxed, innocent. But I phoned Viv Gainer, my solicitor, who lived in Lilyfield and spent very little time in his office, and asked him to stand by in case I needed him.

‘What now?’ Viv said.

‘I don’t know, I honestly don’t know.’

I’ve been in the Glebe police station more times than I can count and much more often than I wanted to. I can only remember one time when it did me any good-when my car was stolen and the police got it back. Otherwise, it was an exercise in mutual distrust and antagonism. I walked there, presented myself more or less on time, and was taken upstairs to the detectives’ room. It smelled of cigarette smoke, hamburgers and take-out coffee. The Glebe boys had cleared a desk for Watson in a corner, giving him something like semi-privacy.

I sat down while he flicked through a notepad. Then he shook a card out of a paper evidence bag and let it fall right-side-up on the desk between us.

‘This is yours,’ he said.

I had to turn my head a little. ‘Yes.’

He used a pen to slide it across the surface and back into the bag. ‘When did you last see Angela Pettigrew?’

I shook my head. ‘No, Sergeant, I’m not going to come at that. You tell me why I’m here, why you have my card in an evidence bag, or I walk out and phone my solicitor.’

‘Worth a try,’ he said, and nodded to one of the Glebe detectives who’d been watching with some amusement. ‘Angela Pettigrew was murdered some time yesterday.’

No matter how or when or how often it happens, learning that someone you know has died makes an impact. I leaned back in the chair and took in a deep breath of the smelly air.

‘How?’

‘I don’t think we’ll go into that. You left your card for her. We need to know when you saw her and why.’

‘I actually left the card for her daughter. But I saw her the day before yesterday. I was hired to locate her son, who’s been missing for over two years.’

‘Hired by her?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t piss me off, Hardy. Hired by who?’

‘Whom.’

He let that go by. ‘What was her state of mind when you saw her?’

‘She had a failed marriage, a missing son and a difficult daughter. She wasn’t a happy woman. And if you want to see my notes on the interview you can forget it.’

For all his tough exterior and aggressive style, Watson wasn’t going to make life harder for himself than it needed to be.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You don’t like me and I don’t like you. Neither of us likes being here or talking about a woman being killed. Can we cut the shit and try to do something useful?’

So I told him about the Hampshire-Pettigrew problem and about my confrontation with Ronny and the later conversation and my meeting with Sarah. In line with him not revealing anything about how Angela was killed, I was selective. Watson scribbled notes in shorthand. Useful talent.

‘Ronny who?’

‘I don’t know. Wasn’t told.’

‘He hit Ms Pettigrew?’

I peered at his notes. ‘I hope you’ve got the squiggle right. I said he pushed her. I did the hitting.’

‘Of a juvenile.’

‘As big as me or you, and faster if he got a chance, I’d reckon. Now, let’s have a bit from you. How was Ms Pettigrew killed?’

He paused, but I’d said enough to convince him I wasn’t at Church Point the day before. He wanted more from me though, so he decided to play along: ‘She was beaten to death with a ceramic ornament.’

‘No chance of an accident-a blow and a fall?’

‘None. Where’s the ex-husband?’

I gave him the address in Rose Bay, hoping that Hampshire had moved as I’d advised. I didn’t think it likely that he’d killed Angela. All the indications were that he’d spent the time drinking and smoking while trying to get his financial affairs in order, as he’d said. Still, you never know. In any case, it’d be better for him if he contacted the police rather than have them hunt him down. I figured it was my turn for a question.

‘Where’s the daughter, Sarah?’

‘She’s there. Distressed. She found the body. A policewoman’s with her and a neighbour.’ He consulted his notes, ‘You haven’t really said anything about the missing son. D’you reckon he’ll turn up?’

I shrugged. I’d been about as cooperative as he could have expected, but he still didn’t like me and he decided to let it show.

‘Oh, maybe I haven’t asked the right question. Do you think you can find him? Or have you found him?’

‘All that’s between me and my client.’

‘I suppose this is the fiftieth fucking time you’ve been told you have no privilege.’

‘Being a shitkicking private nuisance? Yeah, about that often.’

He closed the notebook. ‘I think that’s all for now, but if we need to talk again, and we probably will, you’ll make yourself available, won’t you?’

‘Under the right conditions, yes.’