Peter Corris - The Undertow

'Tall order.'

'Are you willing to let him go?'

Frank said, 'I'm not sure. Let's see how it shapes up. Got any ideas about getting close?'

'One.'

I turned into the street and saw Hank's 4WD parked on the other side of the road and a little back from the red Commodore. I pulled in even further back and waved to Hank to join us. He trotted up looking pleased with himself.

'Where's Cassidy?' I said.

'He's in the trunk of his car. Says he has to check in with the guy in the house every forty-five minutes.' Hank looked at his watch. 'You've got about thirty.'

'What about weapons?'

'He didn't have anything. Guy in the house has a sawed-off and a handgun.'

'Okay,' I said. 'I've met the man in the house two up from the Heysen house. If he's there I think he'll let us go through his place. Then we can go over the fences and get in at the side. It's a corner block, as you see. I'm betting that if Sawtell's watching anywhere it'll be the other side and the back.'

Frank was wearing a suit. He stripped off the jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He put the. 45 I'd given him in his pocket. Hank and I were in jeans, boots and T-shirts. I had a leather jacket and Hank a down-padded vest. He had his tazer on his belt and the capsicum spray in an inside pocket of the vest.

We went through the gate and up to the front of Professor Lowenstein's house. I hesitated for a second. He was an old man. How would he feel about this invasion? There was no time to spare. I rang the bell.

He came to the door and recognised me. 'Mr Hardy.'

I explained why we were there and he said he'd noticed some activity at the Heysen house but assumed it was to do with the impending sale.

'We want to go through your back yard and the next one and see if we can resolve this with the element of surprise on our side.'

'Shouldn't the police-?'

'There isn't time, Professor,' I said.

Lowenstein wasn't a man to dither but he had his scruples. 'If it's a matter of time I'll allow you to do what you want but I'll call the police now. They'll take a while to get here. That's the best I can do.'

'Fair enough. What about your neighbour?'

'You're in luck there. An elderly couple, staying with their children for a time.'

We trooped through the house out to the back yard, which was showing signs of some neglect-overgrown flowerbeds and weeds breaking through the gravel paths. The fence to the next house was in poor repair and Hank had no trouble pulling a couple of palings free. We went through the yard and I didn't register a thing about it because I was concentrating on the next fence and what I could see of the Heysen house. It was a Colorbond job, newish and high. The shrubs in the Heysen property grew close to the fence along its length.

We moved up to the building line and Hank boosted first me and then Frank over the fence. Years younger than us, bigger and fitter, Hank easily hauled himself over it. We were crouched in a cluster of shrubs, three metres from the building line, ten from the door to the sunroom at the back. I gestured to Hank to move up beside the house. There were windows to the rooms along that side; the ground sloped but he was tall enough to be able to look in.

He came back crouching, and whispered, 'Kid's in the kitchen. Tied to a chair. Gagged with tape. No sign of the guy.'

A lot of our thirty minutes had elapsed. Sawtell would be expecting a call from his helper soon.

'Wish I had a flak jacket,' Hank said.

Frank said, 'Shut up!' He took the. 45 from his pocket and dashed to the back door. He jerked at it, couldn't get it open, and kicked it three times so that the glass shattered. He reached in and released the lock.

'Sawtell!' Frank almost screamed.

I was close behind, swearing, sweating, and trying to get a good grip on my. 38. I could hear Hank close behind me releasing the velcro on his hardware.

I lurched through the sunroom and stopped short, almost knocking Frank over. We were in the kitchen now and could see a thin, bald man sitting on the table, half turned towards us. His face was blotched and badly scarred and he held a pistol inches from William Heysen's right ear.

Hello, Parker.' ^i'Sawtell.'

'I know Hardy. Who's the incredible hulk?'

'He's the one who put your little helper out of action,' I said.

'Not surprising. His father was pretty gutless if you remember, Parker.'

Frank went straight into hostage-with-armed-aggressor mode. Talk to them was the rule.

'How did you get the son to help you?' Frank said.

'Told him that if I revealed what I knew about his father that'd be the end of the mother's pension. Probably not true, but then he's not very bright.'

Buying time and following suit, I said, 'What about Wain?'

'Rex always came cheap.'

'Why'd you kill him?'

'Lost my temper. Simple as that.'

'Why here?' I said.

'I wanted to see where the bastard had lived-her too.'

'What's this all about, Sawtell?' Frank said. 'What d'you hope to gain?'

Sawtell shrugged and smiled. His face was truly horrible and the smile made it look worse. 'I guess you could say to make Catherine Beddoes suffer.'

'Why, because she dumped you?'

'No, no. Is that what she says? Bullshit. I gave her the flick in the end. Fish in the sea. You got to be deputy commissioner. Must be pretty smart or was it just arse-licking got you there? Can't you work it out?'

It was a bizarre situation, talking about old love affairs with a killer who held a couple of lives here and now in the palm of his hand. But talking was all there was to do.

'I'll have a guess,' I said. 'She knew her husband did plastic surgery. She steered you to him after your escape, but she told him you were her lover out of revenge for you dumping her. Heysen was insanely jealous and he botched the job on your face deliberately.'

'Pretty close. I got even with him through Padrone. Not with her though.'

William was in a bad way, pale, unshaven with his hair in a mess. His eyes were darting around and he was trembling. Sawtell held the pistol very steadily and there was no way for us to get closer. I wondered how far away the police were and how they'd react to what the professor told them. Would they come with sirens screaming?

'But you got clean away,' Frank said. 'You must have got your hands on the money you'd scammed when you were riding high.'

'Easy in those days. Yeah, and you can do all right in Singapore if you grease the right wheels. Squeaky clean on the outside, but you know how it is. Same the world over.'

'Why now, after all this time?'

Sawtell sighed and at that moment he looked old and ill. 'I'd put it behind me. Got even with Heysen, like I said. Had good things going in Singapore. Then a couple of things happened. One, I got cancer, terminal. Two, I got sick of the place-wall to wall fucking slappies. I didn't want to die there. Pity that fucking tidal wave didn't come south and wash the place away. Shit, I represented this country in the Olympics. I had a right… Well, fuck that. Three, this little snotnose turned up-living image of her, making noises about getting into the immigration racket. Would you believe he carried a picture of her in a bikini in his wallet? Sick little bastard. I sucked him in and now I'm going to spit him out, unless you get fucking Catherine here so she can see what she did to me.'

'That's not going to happen,' Frank said.

'Then she's a childless widow, the poxy bitch. And I'll get a couple of you as well.'

Frank and I both had guns in our hands and Hank had unhooked his tazer.

'Not all,' Hank said. Brave, but his voice was shaky.

Sawtell's mutilated face lost expression and his pale eyes seemed to go blank. 'You think I care?'