Peter Corris: The Black Prince

‘Mr Hardy is it?’

I’d wandered off to watch a squash game from above the court. I’ve never enjoyed squash but I admire the stamina of the players. I spun around to see a tall, dark woman in a blue tracksuit examining me. She had a clipboard in her hand and gave the impression that she was going to give me marks for cleanliness and posture.

‘Ms Martyn. Yes, I’m Hardy. I wonder if I can have a few words with you. Has Kathy told you about my enquiry?’

She drew nearer and dropped the clipboard onto a chair. She had short hair, fine features and a light film of sweat on her face. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But you’ve got things screwed up.’

‘How’s that?’

‘I’m sitting down. I’m beat.’

We sat in the chairs with our backs to where the pair below where beating hell out of the little black ball.

‘I suppose you look like a private eye. Big enough. Tough. Could I see some ID and something to prove you’re doing what you say you are?’

I showed her my licence and hesitated, then I remembered Wesley Scott’s note. I hadn’t had to show it to Noel Kidman. I showed it to Tanya Martyn.

She took a slim glasses case out of her pants pocket, put on the half-glasses and read the note. She was in her thirties, I guessed, young to need reading glasses, but you can never tell when things are going to break down. She took the glasses off and put them away. ‘Okay. Looks kosher.’

‘You’re careful.’

‘Have to be.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Think about it. I’m working with young people. Hands-on stuff, as it were. Think about the harassment and abuse possibilities.’

‘Come on.’

‘It’s true, same with giving out information. Tricky. Anyway, what’s happened to Clint Scott?’

‘Hold on. I’m supposed to be asking the questions.’

The thwack of the squash ball seemed to underline her clipped delivery. ‘Me first.’

‘He hasn’t been seen by friends or family for going on a month. I haven’t checked with his academic and sports people here yet, but I think it’ll be the same story with them. His family’s worried. The police are doing what they do.’

She nodded. ‘Black-therefore, unpredictable. Not important.’

I shrugged. ‘You could say that. I’m a friend of the father. I work out at his gym. Clinton taught me the ropes. I… ‘

‘No need to be defensive, Mr Hardy. I’ll tell you what I know.’

It was getting on for six o’clock. I was tired and in need of a drink. It’s easy to get testy under those circumstances and blow an interview, especially with someone who clearly had her own agenda like Ms Martyn. I ignored the reproach and tried to look obliging.

‘I know Clinton Scott, of course. Good athlete, very good. Bit predatory with the women they tell me. He and Angela Cousins had a thing going for a while, but she’s not dead. Better if she was, probably.’

‘Could you explain that?’

I’m not sure that I should.’

‘Why not?’

‘Private detectives. They’re always in the media, talking on television

‘Not me. I take the private part seriously. And I’m a friend of this kid’s father. I’m not interested in anything but finding him. Believe me.’

She sighed. ‘You’re convincing. Angela played guard for the team here. Tall kid, 180 plus. Bloody good, but lightly built. Aboriginal ancestry.’

‘Yes.’

‘Not so’s you’d notice. White as me, whiter, but she was proud of it and why not? Anyway, she took a wrong turning.’

‘Meaning?’

She moved closer to me, so close I could feel the warmth of her. She must’ve felt my warmth, too, and she didn’t move away. Her voice went low, conspiratorial. ‘She got on the steroids somehow and was given some bad stuff or had a bad reaction. Look, this has all been kept very quiet after the stuff about the League players. I shouldn’t be telling you…’

‘It’s all right. It goes no further.’

‘It was kept quiet partly on account of her family, partly because it’s the last thing the university needs. Funding and that. I don’t pretend it’s altruistic. I only know about it because… well, I knew the signs.’

‘So how is she?’

‘She’s in a coma. Has been for a couple of weeks. Hopeless. It’s only a matter of time till they pull the plug.’

Tanya Martyn gave me the address of Angela Cousins’ parents in Parramatta. Angela herself was on life support in the Parramatta District Hospital and Ms Martyn’s understanding was that her case came up for review by the medical authorities very soon. I made notes and she jiggled her car keys indicating that I didn’t have much longer.

‘Thank you, Ms Martyn, you’ve been very helpful.’

Somehow we’d drawn closer so that we were almost touching. Now she drew away a bit as if she’d just noticed. ‘Can’t see how.’

‘One last thing-is there anyone who might know something about what was going on in Clinton’s head? The kid he shares a house with doesn’t know anything and he’s been out of touch with his family.’

She stood up and flexed her shoulders, picked up the clipboard. We moved towards the door. It was raining hard outside and the sight of it seemed to affect her. ‘I hate the rain,’ she said. ‘Silly but I do. I should live in San Diego where it doesn’t happen. Sorry, what was that you said?’

‘Someone who knew Clinton intimately.’

She laughed harshly. ‘Yeah, well, you could try Ted Kinnear. Coaches the men’s basketball team. Coach is supposed to know what the players are up to. Hah. Look at me-at first I thought Angela was bulking up from the weights. Still, worth a try. You’d get him here tomorrow morning.’

‘Thanks.’

She turned away and then turned quickly back, shaking her head. ‘Hold on. Ted Kinnear handed over to his assistant recently. Leo Carey’s the man you want.’

I thanked her yet again. She nodded and strode out into the rain as if daring it to trouble her. I felt oddly lonely after she’d gone. That’s been happening to me lately. I get a feeling with someone that a connection’s possible here, and then it falls away.

I sat damply in my car thinking about what I’d got. It seemed like quite a haul of information for comparatively little investment of time, but which way did it point? I was going to have to stay in the district to talk to the basketball coach the next day so I decided to put in one more house call. In any case, Parramatta would be a better place to stay in than Campbelltown-better chance of a decent meal at least.

I caught the tail end of ‘PM’ as I drove to Parramatta. Pauline Hanson’s popularity was rising rapidly according to the polls, as people saw in One Nation a way to show how pissed off they were with the others. Bad news. But the rain eased. I found the Cousins’ address in the northern section of the town, across the street from the Pentecostal church. As always when confronting Aborigines, I had to prepare myself. Don’t patronise; don’t be too matey; don’t… I’d soldiered with Aborigines, boxed with them, drunk with them, joked with them for more than twenty years and still I never felt comfortable at first meetings. My English, Irish gypsy and French ancestors had arrived in the late nineteenth century and lived in cities. I had no reason to feel personally guilty about the dispossession of the Aborigines but I did.

I exchanged my damp parka for my dry leather jacket, smoothed my hair and straightened my shirt collar after doing up two more buttons. There were lights on in the house, an unremarkable double-fronted brick-veneer job with a neat front garden and a cement path. I pushed open the wrought-iron gate and stopped dead still. The dog occupying the middle of the path was low-slung, black and emitting a barely suppressed fury. It barked three times and I didn’t move a muscle. It looked like a Staffordshire terrier, normally a congenial breed, but all terriers can bite and hold ferociously and you never can tell.