Peter Corris - Open File

‘And you’re not overloaded with religious symbolism.’

She gave me a smile. ‘Unlike what you no doubt expected. There’s a chapel of course, and a cross mounted in each room, but no bleeding Jesus or saintly Madonnas.’

‘It must be hard with most of them so young.’

‘All,’ she said. ‘Yes, it is.’

We passed a couple of rooms with the doors standing open. I could see people in some of the beds, apparently sleeping. Two young men were playing cards and smoking in a sitting area. They nodded to the nun as we went past but showed not a flicker of interest in me.

‘Many visitors?’ I asked.

‘Not enough. There’s terrible ignorance about the illness. Fear of it, and a lot of shame as well. Some people are afraid to visit in case some sort of stigma attaches to them. Pierre’s along here. I think you’re his first visitor since the corrective services people brought him in, poor boy’

‘He was at an expensive school not so long ago. Someone must have paid. What about his family?’

‘You don’t know? His father was a fairly important person in the French embassy. When Pierre was expelled from the school he refused to support him. When he learned of his conviction he did nothing. When he found out about his son’s illness he applied for another posting and left the country. Pierre would have been deported on the expiry of his sentence, but that’s not going to happen.’

‘His mother? Surely…?’

The nun shook her head. ‘A member of the order met her. “Hard as iron”, was her judgement.’

The room bore out what she’d said. It was painted in light colours, the prints on the walls looked optimistic and the cross set up above the door was unobtrusive. The room held three beds-one was empty, someone was sleeping in another and in the third, closest to the window, a bearded man was sitting, propped up by pillows.

‘Your visitor, Pierre,’ the nun said.

‘ En franfais,’ he said. ‘You must practise, sister.’

‘He’s teaching me,’ she said, ‘but I’m a bad pupil. I’ll leave you to it. Ring if you get tired, Pierre.’

I approached the bed and held out my hand. He took it and the bones in his hand almost crackled, although I’d put no strength in the grip. His face was skeletal, whittled down to a shell and only given any substance by the beard. He looked at the scrap of notepaper in his other hand.

‘Cliff Hardy, private detective.’ His accent wasn’t heavy but it managed to give the words a flavour.

‘That’s right, Mr Fontaine.’

‘Pierre, please. Take a chair. I am pleased to meet you but you should not be flattered. I would be pleased to meet anyone. The gaolers did not tell me why you wanted to see me. They think the dying have no more interest in life. They are quite wrong. We have more interest than ever before. You would be surprised. We read the newspapers from cover to cover and through again. We watch the television news on all the channels.’

I pulled up a chair, being careful not to let it scrape and disturb the sleeper.

‘Don’t be concerned,’ Fontaine said. ‘He’s dying fast.’

He pointed to the other bed; his arm inside the pyjama jacket was stick-thin. ‘Sebastian went last night. The prettiest boy he had been. He spent the last hours looking at pictures of himself taken one year ago.’

For someone who looked so frail his voice was strong and for someone nearing death he spoke with an edge of humour I couldn’t help admiring. I told him about being hired to find Justin Hampshire and that I’d learned of their association at the school.

‘Find Justin? Pourquoi? Why?’

‘He went missing. He hasn’t been seen for two years.’

‘Ah.’

‘You spent some time with him just before you ran into trouble, right?’

He nodded and the action hurt him. The look that passed over his face was like a cloud across the moon. He coughed and that hurt as well. I poured water from the jug on the bedside cabinet and handed it to him. He sipped and nodded his thanks.

‘Not afraid a cough’ll pass the virus?’

I shook my head.

‘Some think this. Merde. Yes, Justin and I were friends for a little time. Not lovers, you understand. He wasn’t gay.’

‘Was he taking drugs?’

‘Mr Hardy, I would laugh except that it would hurt me too much. No.’

‘Look, Pierre, I’ve been told that Justin was a loner. Apart from the people he skied and surfed and snow-boarded with, he didn’t have any real friends. I don’t see you as the sporting type.’

He smiled; he was already tiring, and this time the smile seemed to stretch the skin on his face to splitting point and force his dark eyes deeper into his skull.

‘You want to know why he… what is the expression? Took me up?’

‘Yes.’

‘He was clever, you know that of course. He was paying me to teach him French. I did. He learned some quite quickly’

‘Why?’

There was a long pause and I could almost see his brain working, going back to a time when there were possibilities, a future. Then the sad shadow returned.

‘He said he wanted to join the Foreign Legion.’

I thanked him, asked if there was anything he wanted that I could help with, but he was exhausted and didn’t reply. We shook hands again.

Before leaving I put most of whatever I had in my wallet in the donation box.

S

o Justin wasn’t gay, wasn’t into drugs and had tried to learn French in order to join the Foreign Legion. That sounded like a fantasy, and the police had established with a reasonable degree of certainty that he hadn’t left the country. He’d found out that neither his great-grandfather, grandfather or father were war heroes. Was that enough to turn him away from school, Duntroon and his family? Had he found out that his father was a crook?

All these interlocking questions occupied my mind along with plenty of other related ones-like, who killed Angela Pettigrew and why? And what were Paul Hampshire’s chances out and about in Sydney with Wilson Stafford after him, ably and viciously assisted by Sharkey Finn? And where did I stand if my client, obviously ‘a person of interest’ to the police, became of more interest?

I’d walked to the hospice after driving to Darlinghurst where I had an arrangement with the owner of a house in Forbes Street. His terrace house had a side recess that I could just fit the Falcon into and he let me park there for a modest fee. After the confrontation with Stafford and his henchman, I’d taken to keeping my licensed. 38 Smith amp; Wesson to hand. I took it from the car and went up to the office. These old buildings have many pitfalls-poor lighting, dodgy stairs, places to hide. I observed all the precautions, feeling, when I reached the office safely, a mixture of relief and guilt at being paranoid.

For all the civility and humanity of the nun and the courage of Pierre Fontaine, the hospice experience had shaken me and I poured a solid slug of cask wine before I sat down to look at the mail and the faxes. There was nothing that couldn't wait or simply be ignored. I dug Watson's card out of my wallet and rang him. I identified myself and the indifference in his voice was packed into one word.

'Yes?'

'I wondered whether you were making any progress on the Pettigrew case?'

‘What makes you think I’d talk to you about that?’

‘Did you get to talk to Hampshire? I’d be interested to hear what he had to say.’

‘I’m hanging up, Hardy.’

‘Before you do, does the name Wilson Stafford mean anything to you?’

He didn’t hang up and I enjoyed the moment and the change in his tone.

‘Why should it?’

‘Well, I had a meeting with him yesterday. Not a pleasant one, but one way or another things came up that might interest you.’