Peter Corris - Open File

A man and a woman came down the path from the street and stopped when they saw me.

‘Call an ambulance,’ I said. ‘Bit late for the vet.’

I drove to the office and, as I’d half expected, Hampshire was waiting for me in the street.

‘Got anything to drink up there, Hardy?’ he said. ‘I need something after that.’

‘Wine,’ I said.

‘That’ll do.’

We went up and I poured us each a decent slug of the rough red. Hampshire socked it straight down and held out the paper cup.

‘Take it easy,’ I said as I topped him up.

He drank only two-thirds this time. ‘Did you ever see anything like that in your life?’

‘Not exactly, but I’ve seen worse-substitute a woman for the dog.’

‘My God.’

‘You’re playing with rough people, Paul. What was the idea?’

‘I felt I needed protection.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were so… capable.’

‘Where did you get the dog?’

‘The same place I got the car, from a friend. One of the few I’ve got left. I guess I won’t have him anymore.’

I drank some wine and felt it soothe me. ‘You didn’t really intend to negotiate a deal with Stafford, did you?’

‘No. I just wanted to size him up, see how serious he was. I didn’t get the chance.’

‘He’ll come after you, mate. He’ll turn the town upside down.’

‘I know. I’ll have to leave. I’m not safe here.’

‘You’re not safe anywhere. Does anyone else know where you’re staying? I don’t even know.’

‘Just the police.’

I groaned. ‘Stafford’s got a few of them in his pocket. There’s a place in Glebe I’ve put people in, a motel. They know the score. It’s the best I can come up with for the moment. Where’s your car?’

‘Down in St Peters Lane-illegally parked.’

‘No time to lose. I’ll get you to the motel and then we’ll think it through.’

‘I have to piss.’

I showed him where and told him to be quick about it. He wasn’t. When he came back he gulped down the rest of his drink. ‘Sorry, I guess I know why they say shit-scared.’

I took the ancient sawn-off out of the cupboard and we went down the stairs, me leading. I could almost feel the way his feet faltered on the steps. A very frightened man and I wasn’t sympathetic.

St Peters Lane is a narrow one-way street with a sharp bend halfway along, and it’s bordered on one side by a high stone wall surrounding a church property. There’s no parking, no footpath, and it doesn’t take you anywhere you can’t get to more comfortably by another route. That day there were a few cars jammed up against the wall. Not unusual. Joy-riders stole cars in the suburbs to get into the Cross and then dumped them; bombs out of registration, stripped of their plates, found a temporary home there.

Hampshire was struggling to regain his composure and confidence.

‘Where are you?’ he said.

‘Forbes Street.’

‘I’ll follow you.’ He jiggled his keys, pointed to an iridescent blue Holden ute fifty metres away, and headed towards it.

Just then a big 4WD came screaming around the bend, going the wrong way, accelerating. Hampshire didn’t have a chance. The bulky vehicle hit him full square, lifted him up and threw him against the high church wall like a bull tossing a toreador.

The shottie was useless and, when I reviewed the scene in my mind later, I got no solid impressions of the vehicle or the driver. A dun-coloured Land Cruiser, maybe. Baseball cap, sunglasses, maybe. I went across to where Hampshire lay in a spreading pool of blood. There was no pulse. His body was broken almost everywhere it could have been broken and his head was pulped, with the face nearly obliterated. The church wall was smeared with blood and the pink-grey of brain tissue.

I went back to my office, stowed the shotgun and called the police.

I had to tell the police practically everything about my dealings with Hampshire and Wilson Stafford. I described the meeting as an attempt at reconciliation between the two that had gone badly wrong on both sides.

A few witnesses identified me as the person who hit Billy Finn, but each of them said it was in self-defence after Finn’s attack on the dog and threat against Hampshire. The talk of charging me with assault fell away. Finn didn’t want to press charges, and he was busy battling public nuisance, affray and similar accusations himself, as well as undergoing surgery and rehabilitation for his knee.

I heard later that a police board suggested my licence be suspended, but when it was revealed that Sharkey had been carrying a loaded, unregistered pistol, the suggestion wasn’t acted on. The police had no time for Sharkey.

At the pub I ran into one of the Glebe detectives who’d got the story on the grapevine. I prepared myself for a serve but he insisted on buying me a drink. He was drunk.

‘Fuckin’ good work, Cliffo,’ he said, ‘wish you’d busted his other fuckin’ knee while you were at it.’

‘The trouble is, he’ll mend,’ I said.

‘Yeah. Tell you what, though-I wouldn’t like to be you at the fuckin’ inquest.’

After what I told the police about their dealings, Wilson Stafford was under suspicion of organising Hampshire’s killing, but he denied it and there was no evidence to go on. My identification of the vehicle and driver amounted to almost nothing, and no sign of either had so far been found.

Meanwhile, through all this, when I was in and out of police stations and on the phone every other day to Viv Garner, Wayne Ireland was charged with the manslaughter of Angela Pettigrew. Michael O’Connor, Ireland’s driver, admitted driving him to the Church Point house at the time in question and to falsifying his log in return for a consideration. Ireland accused O’Connor of lying and of blackmailing him. Ireland presented medical evidence of his alcoholism and depression and was released on bail with his passport confiscated.

‘Never get him for murder,’ Frank Parker told me. ‘Too many big guns on his side and too much medical flak. At best he’ll do three or four years somewhere soft-get off the grog and work on his golf. Do himself a world of good.’

‘It’s the end of his political career and his marriage, though,’ I said. ‘And Sarah’ll have to give evidence. Do you think she’s still in danger?’

‘I doubt it. Ireland knows he’ll slip through the cracks. How about you, Cliff? You haven’t got a client anymore.’

That was true and uncomfortable. I couldn’t afford to work pro bono for very long, and Paul Hampshire’s death had received considerable newspaper and television coverage. If Justin was still around there was a better than even chance he’d have got wind of it and made contact. It wasn’t looking good for the kid who’d had his past and future taken away from him. But it left the question of what had happened to him-a serious loose end with emotional attachments.

I visited Sarah in Paddington and found her calm.

‘I’m sorry he died like that, but he wasn’t ever like a father,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t around much and he didn’t seem to care about me. I don’t think I’m his daughter.’

Hampshire had thought the same but it wasn’t the moment to tell her that.

‘You know who I think my father is, don’t you?’

‘I can guess.’

She showed me a newspaper photo of Ireland as a young man.

‘Him,’ she said. ‘The guy who killed my mother. Well, he didn’t want to know me either, so I don’t care about him.’

‘This is all very hard for you,’ I said.

She shrugged. ‘Not really. It sort of clears the air. I’m on my own now and I can make a fresh start without all the lying and bullshit they went on with. I’ll be all right.’