Peter Corris - Appeal Denied

Williams sipped his flat white and then finished it in a couple of gulps, as if he needed the fuel for what he had to do. He drew in a deep breath. ‘I’m going to have to get a statement from you about your relationship with Ms Truscott, about where you’ve been over the past twenty-four hours, and I have to take possession of the pistol registered to you as a private investigator but that you are no longer entitled to use or possess.’

‘Okay,’ I said.

It jolted him. ‘Just okay?’

I drank some coffee and found it bitter despite the sugar. ‘No, it’s not okay. As of now nothing in the fucking world is okay, but I’ll play along until you piss me off so much that I’ll do something everybody will regret-you, me, my lawyer, everybody except the media. Understand?’

He didn’t respond.

‘Enjoying this, are you?’ I said.

It was just a throwaway, letting-off-steam remark, but his reaction was strange, as if he’d been seriously challenged. He recovered quickly, though.

‘I was told you were difficult,’ he said.

The Glebe police station was only two blocks away. Williams used his mobile to get the loan of a room and recording equipment and we walked there. He lit a cigarette as soon as he closed the phone. I was glad he didn’t offer me one because I might have weakened. On the walk I scarcely heard the traffic or felt the pavement under my feet. I was numb, dead to sensation. Williams had to haul me back before I stepped out against a red light into the path of a bus.

The adrenalin rush from the near-miss got my brain working again. Two women I’d loved had died early-my ex-wife Cyn of cancer, and Glen Withers, who had virtually suicided. But I hadn’t been emotionally close to either of them at the time they died. This was emotionally different. I found myself calculating how long it had been since Lily and I had last made love.

Williams tugged at my arm. ‘First you nearly walk into a bus, then you go catatonic. Come on.’

We crossed the road and waited for the light to cross again. I was starting to take things in. Williams was older than he looked and not a bad guy. He shot me a couple of concerned looks. He didn’t swagger the way some cops do, and he didn’t expect people to step out of his way. He paused to stub his cigarette on the rim of a bin and drop it in.

‘You all right, Mr Hardy?’ he said. ‘You look cold. You should have put on a jacket.’

‘I’m all right. Let’s get this over with.’

I’ve been in the Glebe police station quite a few times, never for drinks and nibbles. It’s been tarted up more than once over the years, but something of its essence always comes back-a look, smell and feel that speak of long hours, tiredness, loss, anger, frustration and takeaway food. Williams spoke to the woman at the desk and we were shown up a set of stairs to an interview room.

‘Water?’ Williams said.

I nodded. He went out and came back with two plastic cups. He’d done this before and more times than me: he set up the video, adjusted the focus and the angle and we got down to it.

‘Detective Sergeant Colin Williams, Northern Crimes Unit, card number W781, interviewing Mr Cliff Hardy at Glebe police station.’ He glanced at his watch and announced the time and date.

I identified myself, said I’d waived the right to have a solicitor present, and that I’d known Lillian Truscott for a little over two years. I said that we didn’t live together but spent a lot of time in each other’s company. I said that we’d taken a couple of short holidays together-to Byron Bay and North Queensland-and that I’d last seen her three nights before when she’d stayed at my place. I said that I’d spent time in my Newtown office in the afternoon of the previous day, had then driven home and from there walked to the Toxteth Hotel where I’d had a few drinks and played pool with my regular pool partner, Daphne Rowley. I went home, heated up some leftovers, watched television, read a book and went to bed.

Williams was watching me and listening intently. He was confident that the equipment was working. I kept my head up and didn’t fidget.

I said, ‘This morning I read the paper, did the crossword, drank coffee and then Constable Farrow called me. Following that, I met DS Williams at the Glebe mortuary.’

I sipped some water and stopped talking.

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s my statement. Oh, the pistol’s at home under lock and key. You can come by and collect it.’

‘I will, but first I’d like to ask you some questions.’

‘Ask. I’ll consider whether to answer.’

‘You’ve said when you last saw Ms Truscott. When did you last contact her?’

‘The night before last. We spoke on the phone.’

‘Planning to meet when?’

‘No plan, we played it by ear.’

‘It seems a very loose relationship.’

‘Think what you like.’

‘Ms Truscott was a journalist. Do you know what she was working on?’

‘Financial stories.’

‘Specifically?’

‘I don’t know. You’ll have to check her computer, if it’s still there.’

‘Do you have any reason to think it’s not?’

My patience was running out. ‘Use your head.’

‘Speaking of finance, you’ve been barred as a private investigator. How are you making a living?’

I drank some more water and sucked in a sour breath. ‘I’m not. I’m living on savings and trying to call in some unpaid debts.’

‘Did you and Ms Truscott ever quarrel?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about?’

‘She thought Anthony Mundine had a future. I wasn’t so sure.’

I made a cutting motion and folded my arms. Williams turned off the video.

‘That doesn’t leave the best impression,’ he said.

‘I don’t give a shit. I’ll talk to you off the record if you’ll answer some questions for me.’

He shook his head. ‘No.’

I stood up. ‘That’s it then. Pop your cassette and we’ll get the gun. That’s if I can remember where it is.’

‘You’d better.’

I let him have the last word. He had the body language of a man preoccupied with something other than what he was doing. Two preoccupied men together.

Williams followed me in his red Camry. He didn’t look too impressed with my house. Most don’t, unless they’re thinking potential. I gave him the. 38 and he put it in a paper bag. Contrary to what people see on television, evidence bags are not made out of plastic. This isn’t environmentalism, just a matter of reducing the risk of contamination.

As he was leaving, Williams said, ‘Why did you waive the right to a lawyer?’

‘I’ve caused mine enough trouble lately and run up more than enough expense for myself. I’ll swim along solo until I get out of my depth.’

‘You’re not what I expected.’

‘What did you expect?’

With his hand on the front gate, he allowed himself a thin smile. ‘I said I wouldn’t answer any questions. I hope you’re not going to mount some sort of vigilante action on this, Mr Hardy.’

‘No chance of that, if you catch and convict the person responsible.’

‘We’ll do our best. We may need your… further help.’ He handed me his card.

‘Sergeant, that’s a two-way street.’

Later that day Tony Truscott, Lily’s boxing brother, who was a good deal younger than her, rang me.

‘Cliff, I just got back from Fiji and got the message on my phone. Jesus, how could this happen?’

‘I don’t know, Tony. They were on to me because she’d put my name in her passport as the one to contact, you being out of the country so often and all that.’

‘Yeah, yeah. Jesus, Lily

‘I identified her and I gave a statement to the cops. What’re they asking you to do?’