Peter Corris - The Coast Road

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘There he is. And there.’

The first photo was of a player running with the ball under his arm and fending off an opponent. His face was a grimace of determination and aggression and it was hard to tell from the picture what he’d look like off the field. The group photo of the team sometime in the eighties showed him to be big, dark and handsome with a face still relatively undamaged. He had muscles everywhere they were needed but there was a look about his build that suggested he would put on weight when he stopped training. But then, don’t we all?

I drove to Balmain and found the pub, more or less on the border of Rozelle, a few blocks down from Darling Street towards the water. The Soldiers Arms was shut up tight with that sad look a pub gets when it goes out of business. But that wasn’t what interested me most. The place was for sale, and the people to contact were the Matilda S-T Farmer Agency.

I drove past the hotel and parked a hundred metres along the street. The Soldiers Arms occupied a corner and I circled around behind it and approached down the side street, keeping to the footpath furthest away. Tall trees blocked some of the view and the sun was in my eyes so I couldn’t get much of an idea whether there was anyone inside the place or not. Both streets were narrow and quiet with the usual gentrified terraces and semis that characterise Balmain. There might even be a glimpse of the water from the top level of the tallest houses. Money in the bank. There appeared to be a sizeable yard at the back of the pub, enclosed by a high fence with three strands of barbed wire on top.

I kept moving, trying to register everything without drawing attention to myself. A narrow lane ran behind the yard and there was a driveway beside the building leading out onto the front street. Three possible exits. Hard to imagine a better place to hide, especially if the beer was still on.

This needed thinking about. If I was right about the pub being the hideout, there was no way I was going to charge in there up against Lonsdale and his mate and possibly Wendy and others. I was in the information business, not the crime-busting one. I wanted to know what was planned for the Wombarra properties and who was behind it. That’s all Elizabeth Farmer could expect me to do. Anything else would be a bonus.

First thing would be to find out if they were there. Then to isolate someone and get him or her to talk. If Lonsdale had killed MacPherson then he was potentially in bigger trouble than his associates. Might be some leverage there. A patient and cautious person would see it as a watch and wait situation, something I’m not good at. I had to stir the possum somehow. I went back to the car and called Marisha on my mobile.

‘So soon,’ she said.

‘Can you do something for me?’

‘Of course.’

I asked her to phone Matilda’s agency and express an interest in buying the Soldiers Arms. She should be insistent to the point of rudeness. I told her she could expect to be put off. When that happened, she should say that she and her husband would drive by anyway and take a good look.

‘Acting,’ she said. ‘Fun.’

‘Yeah, but do it from a public phone, not from your place or a mobile. When you’ve done it, call me and let me know how it went.’

She called back in a few minutes. ‘I was put on to the boss, a Ms — ’

‘Hyphen, hyphen. What did she say?’

‘She was very discouraging, and the more insistent I became the more discouraging she got. In the end I did as you said.’

‘That’s great, Marisha. Thanks.’

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s a whole lot. I’ll tell you about it later.’

I positioned myself with a pair of quality field glasses at a high point back from the hotel. Under a tree, not too conspicuous, could almost have been birdwatching. After a few minutes the big gate to the yard slid open and a figure emerged. He wore a cap and shades and I couldn’t identify him. Not Lonsdale, I’d have expected him still to be limping. Maybe his mate, maybe not. He grabbed the handles of the wheelie bin standing a few metres from the gate and pulled it back inside. The gate stood open while he positioned the bin. Long enough for me to see a car parked in the yard. I made a quick adjustment of the focus and got a fix on the numberplate. BMWs look much the same as a lot of other makes, especially at a distance, but this car was fire engine red and bore the registration number De Witt had given me for Wendy’s new toy. The gate slid closed smoothly.

First point established. I put the glasses away and leaned back against the tree to ease my still slightly aching bones. I ran the personnel through my mind-Wendy, Lonsdale, the guy with the wheelie bin, Matilda, Buckingham-where was the weakest link? Only one answer to that. I drove to my place, stowed my bag, checked on the mail and sat down with a pot of coffee to think. I ran various scenarios through my head, speculating on their likely outcomes and rejected one after another. It was well on in the afternoon before I’d sorted it out to my satisfaction. I picked out a piece of equipment and headed for Newtown.

I parked as close as I could get to the agency and went up the steps and through the door. The front office was as busy as it had been the time I called wearing my best suit and almost polite manner. Different now.

‘Matilda in?’ I snapped at one of the women who lifted her head to look at me.

‘Yes, but — ’

I stepped around the desk and made for the stairs.

‘You can’t — ’

‘I can and she’ll tell you so in a couple of minutes.’

I went up the stairs and into Matilda S-T Farmer’s office without knocking. She looked up as I slammed the door behind me. In drill trousers, boots, army shirt and with my face chopped up she didn’t recognise me.

‘What do you think you’re — ’

I strode to her desk and slapped it hard with my hand centimetres away from hers. ‘Wendy Jones, Matthew Lonsdale, the Soldiers Arms, the murder of your husband, Larry Buckingham-we’ve got things to talk about, Matilda. Ring down and tell them no interruptions. Otherwise, it’s the police right here and now and they’ll be keen to hear what I have to tell them.’

Her perfect makeup and studied composure seemed to crumble at the same time. ‘I don’t — ’

I slammed the desk again. ‘Do it! Do it now or someone down there’ll get the cops and believe me, you’ll be deep in the shit.’

She sucked in air and touched a button on her desk with a perfectly manicured but trembling finger. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘It’s all right, Phoebe. It’s all right, really. No calls please, and no interruptions.’

No coffee on a silver tray this time, but issuing orders restored some measure of her authority, in her own eyes at least. She sat straight in her chair and looked at me. She wore a dark, high-necked blouse with a silver brooch at the throat. She passed a hand over her hair although it was immaculate. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘You don’t recognise me?’

‘Should I?’

‘Didn’t you wonder why Mr Gerard Lees, the security consultant, didn’t get back to you about renting office property?’

Her big blue eyes narrowed. ‘Jesus Christ. I thought there was something fishy.’

‘Doesn’t matter now. Shut up and listen.’

I told her who I was and who I was working for, why I’d come to see her initially, and most of what happened subsequently. She blinked a bit at the murder bits but otherwise took it without flinching. I told her that I knew a man wanted by the police for a shotgun killing was holed up in a property owned by Larry Buckingham that was in some sense under her care.

‘No, I — ’