Peter Corris - The Coast Road

My mobile rang in the pocket of my jacket, lying on a chair under her smock. As I bent to find it I realised that I hadn’t been aware of my head hurting for hours.

‘Hardy.’

‘Mr Hardy, this is Detective Sergeant Aronson at Glebe. I believe we’ve met.’

Aronson. I tried to place him, put him in context. A case about a year ago when my investigation of an attempted murder and suicide had crossed with that of the police. We’d remained mutually civil, just. ‘Yes, Sergeant.’

‘I’d like you to come to the station as soon as possible, please.’

Marisha was looking enquiringly at me by this time. I tried to mime business, but probably didn’t succeed. She shrugged and went away.

‘About what?’

‘I’d rather tell you when you get here.’

‘And I’d rather you told me now or at least gave me a hint. Otherwise, I’m on to my lawyer and we talk about it.’

‘Feeling threatened, Hardy?’

I noted the dropped mister and wasn’t surprised. Police courtesy to people in my trade is always skin deep.

‘It’s to do with one Adam Ian MacPherson.’

It seemed a long time ago and a lot had happened since, so my confused response was genuine. ‘I’m not sure-’

‘Come on, Hardy. You were asking about him in a Wollongong pub last night. He was found shot dead in Fairy Meadow today. The locals want to talk to you. They’ve been on to me. I said you were more or less civilised for a bloke in your game and that you’d come in. I’ve got one

of them on his way now.’

‘That wouldn’t be Barton of Bellambi, would it?’

‘Hardy…’

‘I’ll play. Just give me that much.’

‘I remember what a tricky bastard you were, always fucking around to get an edge.’

‘You’d do the same in my place.’

‘I hope to Christ I’m never there. Okay, this isn’t Barton. How long?’

‘An hour.’

‘Pull your finger out-half an hour.’

He hung up-last-word Aronson.

I found Marisha in her work room fiddling with a tape. I put my arms around her from behind and felt the resistance.

‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘That was the police. Something else I’m working on.’

The stiffness went out of her like wine from a bottle. She somehow managed to twist in my arms, turn and get free of the chair. She leaned into me, her small, firm breasts pressing against my stomach. ‘I thought it might be a woman.’

Despite what I’d said earlier, I felt myself responding to the warmth and tautness of her body. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t have a woman.’

I got there forty-five minutes later on the dot. The detectives’ room at Glebe is upstairs, open plan with a couple of interview rooms off to one side. Nothing fancy. Aronson, in his trademark black leather jacket, was sitting in a corner drinking coffee with a man in a suit. Nice suit, too. He stood as I approached but Aronson didn’t.

‘Hardy, this is Detective Inspector Ian Farrow up from the ’Gong. Sir, this is Cliff Hardy, licensed private nuisance. I’ll leave you to it.’

Farrow and I shook hands and he sat down in the chair Aronson had vacated. I took the other one. Farrow was youngish for his rank with fair hair and a fresh complexion. He looked fit, as if he took exercise and ate the right foods. Social drinker at most. He took out a notebook and looked down at it for a second. When he looked up I was blinking at a stab of pain in the back of my head.

‘Something wrong?’

‘Took a knock to the head last night. Hurts a bit. What’d you want from me, Inspector?’

‘You were in Wollongong yesterday and in the Keira Hotel last night enquiring about Adam Ian MacPherson. You left your card with, ah…Margaret Fenton, asking her to give it to him when he came in. She did.’

‘That all sounds correct.’

‘MacPherson’s been murdered.’

I jerked my thumb at Aronson, who was on the phone a few metres away. ‘So he told me.’

‘You don’t seem concerned.’

‘I am. I wanted to talk to him, but I never met the man.’

Farrow looked me in the eye and suddenly he didn’t seem young and fresh-faced anymore. There were lines of experience around his eyes and mouth and a sceptical frown mark between his eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you?’ he said.

I had to smile. ‘Are you new at this?’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘The hard stare and the threatening tone. If you really thought I’d killed him you’d hardly invite me here so politely. And if I had killed him would I be likely to leave him with my card, or be hanging about, having chatted to the barmaid like that?’

‘Good point. No, I think we can say we’re asking you to help us with our enquiries.’

‘That’s usually code for being a suspect. You mean in the true sense of the words?’

‘Exactly.’

I had no real reason to be concerned. My client wasn’t compromised in any way. I gave him a selective version of my investigation for Elizabeth Farmer. Farrow took notes but didn’t seem very interested. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t mention Matilda’s interest in buying the Wombarra block, nor Lucas’s hint about why insurance claims are sometimes settled quickly. If there was a connection between MacPherson’s death and the Farmer matter, I wanted to see it for myself before I let the police in on it. Unfortunately, Farrow was a good actor and he’d been faking.

‘You’re full of shit, Hardy. I’ve spoken to a detective at Bellambi.’

‘Barton,’ I said.

‘Right. He says your client thinks her dad was murdered. You go down and sniff around and the guy who sold the insurance on that particular house gets shot after you shout his name about.’

‘Not exactly.’

‘I doubt that anything’s ever exact with you. You’re slippery. But we’ll try-what did you want to talk to him about?’

‘Look, I was just going by the book. My client hired me to investigate the circumstances of her father’s death. The death was by fire. The house was insured. So you talk to the insurers. Routine.’

He consulted his notes. ‘You talked to the investi-gator-Lucas. What did he tell you?’

‘Nothing much. He signed off on the claim. Couldn’t find anything dodgy. One thing he told me was how to find MacPherson, which was to hang around in that same pub.’

‘Sounds to me as if you were just going through the motions.’

There was contempt in every syllable and I struggled to keep my response under control. I studied Farrow closely and decided that he knew he wasn’t on firm ground. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Aronson watching us. This wasn’t a confrontation I wanted to lose.

‘I’m guessing MacPherson was a drunk,’ I said as I got to my feet. ‘I’m guessing he was sacked by the insurance company and probably had very dirty fingers in lots of pies. You need to find out who killed him. I don’t. So unless there’s something else, I’m out of here.’

‘Intending to go back to Wollongong?’

‘Are you offering me a lift?’

‘Don’t press your luck, Hardy. Obstructing a police investigation is a crime.’

So it is, I thought, but there’s nothing to say I had to help it along. I left, nodding to Aronson as I went. I had things of interest to report to Dr Farmer but not all of them reflected well on me-to get both the Bellambi cops, who’d played a part in the fire investigation, and a senior Wollongong policeman offside wasn’t good going.

Glebe doesn’t quite have the variety of ethnic food Newtown boasts, but it’s not too bad. After my emotionally stirring time with Marisha Karatsky and a three-round no-decision bout with canny Inspector Farrow, I needed some fuel. I bought a can of Guinness at the bottle shop a block from the police station and took it into the Italian joint across the road where I ordered veal parmigiana. It was the sort of meal I bought to impress women in my brief student days-with chianti and Peter Stuyvesant, the height of chic.