Peter Corris: The Undertow

'Well, it's an interesting story, Frank, but I can't see why you want it looked into now. I mean, all the parties are dead.'

'Not quite.'

'No?'

'There's me and Catherine Heysen and her son, William. Catherine got in touch with me a week or so ago. She says her son's on the skids. She kept what had happened to her husband from him for most of his life but he found out not long back. She thought he was old enough to handle it, but he wasn't, apparently. It rocked him. He started to drink, use drugs, hang out with losers.'

'That's tough on her, but what's it got to do with you?'

The lines and grooves in Frank's face, the marks of character, experience and physical fitness, took on an eroded, desiccated look. 'Catherine took up with Heysen while she was still on with me and kept seeing me for a while, as I said. She says William is my son.'

It's not something that's easy to explain to those who haven't been through it. Frank knew that some time back I'd discovered that I had a daughter I hadn't known existed. My then wife, Cyn, had concealed her pregnancy from me at the time of our acrimonious breakup and had had the child adopted. After a lot of angst, it worked out okay between the daughter, Megan, and me and there was some sort of deathbed reconciliation between Cyn and Megan and Cyn's daughter by her second marriage. It doesn't always turn out so well.

'It's bloody difficult,' Frank said. 'I don't know whether Catherine's telling the truth and I can't let Hilde find out about it, one way or the other, just now.'

'Why not? Hilde knows you weren't a virgin before you met her. How could you be? You were what, in your late thirties?'

'She's menopausal, Cliff-very up and down. And Peter's away somewhere in fucking South America. We hear from him once in a blue moon. He makes noises about staying there. Hilde's learning Spanish and not liking it. South America's where a lot of the Nazis went and you know what she thinks about them. I can't hit her with this now. Catherine's sort of… pressuring me.'

Peter was the Parkers' son-what we atheists called my anti-godson as a joke. After doing a science degree, he worked for Greenpeace in various parts of the world and was seldom in Australia. He was a risk-taker and Hilde worried about him constantly. A tough survivor herself, with aunts, uncles and cousins swept away in the Holocaust, she had a need to rebuild a family and Peter wasn't helping. But Frank's hesitation suggested another level of trouble.

'Tell me about Catherine.'

'She's convinced that Heysen wasn't guilty. She wants me to prove it. She thinks that if William learns that his father wasn't a convicted murderer but a respected doctor, he'll change his ways. Go back to being the good kid he was before he found out.'

'That's not what I meant, Frank, and you know it.'

'Yeah, yeah. She's a good deal younger than me. She's persuasive and very attractive. I can't see her again, can't have anything to do with her directly. That's why I'm asking you to help me.'

'What about the boy?'

'Christ, I don't know. She could be lying but she says a DNA test'd prove it. I can't go through that. This thing's like an undertow, Cliff. It's pulling me down.'

Of course I agreed to do what I could. Frank had sat at his computer sometime and written down everything he could remember about the Heysen case-names, places and dates. He gave me the printout amounting to over fifty pages. An almost eidetic memory had been one of his strengths as a detective, and when he quoted some of the people involved I was prepared to believe it was near to word-for-word accurate.

Frank looked at his watch and I took the hint. I folded the dossier and watched him take money from his wallet.

'Frank.'

'We've got a joint account. I can't give you a cheque.'

'I'm not taking your money.'

'You fucking are. I want you full-time on this and fair dinkum. It could get expensive. Some of these people have probably scattered. Here.'

He handed me ten one hundred dollar notes. 'Won't Hilde notice you're down a bit?'

'Let me worry about that. Cliff, I hate doing this without her knowing-'

'Me, too.'

'But I've got no choice. I can't really help you either. I guess you could ring me once or twice if you need to, and visit, but Hilde'd get suspicious if it was more often. Shit, I hate this.'

'It's okay. I'll play it your way, but we have to agree on one thing-if for some reason it becomes necessary for Hilde to learn everything about it, that's the way it'll have to be.'

'You're a cunning bastard, Cliff.'

'A survivor. Agreed?'

'Yes.'

We shook hands, something we never usually did. It marked how different this meeting had been from all the others and I hoped it didn't mean any kind of change for the worse.

Frank seemed to sense something similar, and he grinned and did a mock shape-up. 'I feel better now that I know you're helping, mate.'

I nodded. He collected the empties and stowed them carefully in the recycle bin. I wondered if Hilde knew how many beers had been on hand and would notice how many had been drunk. Or would Frank have that covered somehow? A long-time deceiver myself, the standard line came to my mind: Oh, what a tangled web we weave…

We walked past the pool to the gate. 'Any tips, Frank?'

'I thought you said you could spot the obvious.'

'Start with Catherine.'

'Right,' he said.

I felt very uneasy as I drove home. Frank Parker was one of the steadiest, most composed men I'd ever known and it shook me to see him so rattled. It was understandable. There'd recently been a case involving a high profile public person in a similar situation. It had turned out strangely and the letters page of the papers had been full of contradictory opinions on adoption, DNA testing, the rights of adults and children when paternity was in doubt or contested. No such strong media light would be shone on Frank's dilemma, but the pressures on all parties were the same. Except for Dr Gregory Heysen-dead while still in prison, possibly for a crime he didn't commit.

For the first time in years, I had a live-in partner, even if only temporarily. I'd been in a casual relationship with Lily Truscott for some time. We'd spend a night together now and then, sometimes at her place, sometimes at mine, and there'd be weeks when we didn't see each other at all. Lily had been editor of the Australian Financial Review, then a feature writer and now she was freelancing. Her house was in Greenwich and one of Sydney's wild storms brought a huge tree down on top of it. The house lost its roof and several exterior and interior walls. Driving rain and wind just about demolished it. Lily moved in with me while her place was being rebuilt. She was fully insured, but the company dragged out the process the way they do, and the rebuilding was slowed down by council obstructions and the usual problems with tradesmen, so that Lily's stay was stretching out.

It was working well, though. Lily was interstate often, chasing stories, and I never knew quite where I'd be from one day to the next. No expectations on either side. We were both fond of a drink, keen on exercise, undiscrimi-nating about food. Like me, Lily preferred Dylan to Dvorak and le Carre to Henry James, Spielberg to Bergman. We talked about our jobs when we were together; I learned a bit about insider trading and unions in the Pilbara, and she picked up stuff on surveillance and tracing missing persons.

Lily was coming down the stairs when I arrived home from the meeting with Frank. She has shoulder-length dark-blonde hair with a bit of grey and her face is smoother than it ought to be given some of the things she's been through. She was wearing a long white T-shirt and black pants and looked good, the way a woman who stands 180 centimetres and weighs about 70 kilos does.