Peter Corris - Forget Me If You Can

‘Oh, thank God,’ she said, ‘but on earth what does he mean? Where is he?’

‘Who’s his best mate, Mrs Truscott?’

Joel Lawson was another tall, lean teenager. I talked to him on the putting green at the Chatswood golf club where he’d gone immediately after school. He was rolling them in and leaving them close, one after another. I interrupted him, introduced myself and showed him my ID.

‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘a private eye.’

‘Think of me as a social worker,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for James Truscott. His mother’s worried about him.’

He tapped his ball with the toe of his putter. ‘Why?’

‘She doesn’t know where he is. Do you?’

‘Didn’t Jim tell her?’

‘Son, if he’d told her she wouldn’t be paying me to find him. This is serious. Where is he?’

Tap, tap. I was about to grab the putter when he reversed it and flicked the ball up into his hand. Neat catch. ‘What’s her problem?’

‘He’s a diabetic. She worries.’

‘He can play thirty-six holes in a day. He’s fit. She’s an idiot.’

I was inclined to agree but she was writing the cheques. ‘She’s got the say, Joel. Where is he?’

‘It’s no big deal. He’s with Julie, Julie Massingham. She’s his girlfriend.’

It sounded as if he wished she was his but that wasn’t my problem. He gave me her address and phone number. ‘Tell him to come and have a game. I’ll lick the arse off him.’

I grinned. ‘What’s your handicap?’

He dropped the ball onto the green and lined up a putt. ‘Thirteen.’

‘Work on it.’

I called Julie’s number as I drove towards the address in Willoughby. A young female answered. I hung up.

The house was an old weatherboard, probably scheduled for demolition when the owner could get the right price. For now, a student share-rental joint if ever I saw one. I opened the rusty gate and walked up the overgrown path. The grass in the front yard had been half-cut fairly recently. At a guess, the Victa had run out of fuel and the mowing person had run out of money or energy or both.

My knock brought a pretty dark-haired teenager to the door. I tried as best I could to minimise the tough look my broken nose and generally battered appearance give me. ‘Julie Massingham?’

‘Yes.’

I showed her my PEA licence and kept the smile in place. ‘My name’s Hardy, Ms Massingham, as you see. I’ve been hired by a Mrs Truscott to find her son. Is he here?’

‘Yes, Jim’s here.’ She let out a sweet, tinkling laugh that made me feel better about everything. A great laugh, that. Lucky Jim, I thought.

The boy appeared, lanky and awkward, in the passage behind her. ‘Jule? Who’s that?’

I went in and gave him my spiel. No fists to fend off, no abuse, no running out the back door. Easy money.

It was pretty much the way I thought it would be. Jim had wanted to prove to his mother that he could look after himself for a while. He showed me the careful record he’d kept of his glucometer tests, his diet chart and daily weigh-ins. We drank Diet Coke in the untidy but clean kitchen. They were amused that I didn’t have a hipflask of Scotch to spike it with.

‘I knew she’d worry,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t dream that she wouldn’t get the phone message. A private detective. Jesus!’

Julie gave him a more-than-sisterly, less-than-totally-committed kiss. ‘Might be a good thing. Get the message across to her.’

I drank some Diet Coke. It’s a whole lot better when it’s not lukewarm and flat. ‘What message? That her Jamie can manage his diabetes, or that he’s got a girlfriend?’

‘She’s got a lot to learn,’ Jim said.

‘Hardy, you vile, low animal. I’m going to get you. I’m going to make you wish you’d been aborted. I’m going to… ‘

I snatched the phone up and shouted into the receiver even though I knew I was wasting my time. She had a tape playing. There was no-one listening to me. It made no difference. If I cut the call off she just rang again and played the tape. My answering machine tape at the office had been filled, night after night, with a stream of abuse and threats. It seemed she wanted to make me suffer for ruining her life, but how, when and why I’d done this was never made clear. She wept, she raged, she swore. If there was a theme to it, it was that there was no love in the world-due to me. She certainly knew something about me-the abuse contained names and mentioned places and events that were familiar, but there was no pattern to them, no clue to her identity.

I’d had to turn the fax off. She fed reams of newsprint through, eating up my fax paper. Tying up the phone and forcing me to kill the fax was costing me business. I’d changed the office number, which was a nuisance in itself, but now she’d got onto the home number and was doing the same thing.

I left the phone off the hook which meant that no-one could get in touch with me. What use is a private detective who can’t be phoned or faxed? What was I supposed to do-walk down George Street with a sandwich board advertising my services?

I was thinking these thoughts as I sat by the useless phone with a big Scotch in my hand at 4 o’clock in the afternoon-at least two hours before my big Scotch drinking time. I wanted to curse her, but how do you curse someone you don’t know, whom you’ve never met?

It started with a phone call. ‘Mr Hardy, my name is Maureen Hennessy and I’d like to meet you to discuss a very delicate matter.’

I could remember the voice, just. There was nothing distinctive about it. A normal voice. Like mine. ‘Yes, Ms Hennessy. Would you come to my office and we can

No, she couldn’t come to the office and she couldn’t explain why. Could we meet at the Archibald Fountain in an hour? I’d had some odd meetings at odd places in my time but that was a first. Why not? I thought. I had nothing immediately pressing to do and it was only a short walk down the way. I showed up and she didn’t. I walked around the fountain in the sunshine. Everybody looked impossibly young. I began to feel like a fool. I started peering at women, wondering. If this went on too long I’d be arrested as a public nuisance. Did I feel I was being watched? The thought occurred to me and as soon as it did I had the feeling. Big help.

I went back to the office via a William Street pub where I had a couple of drinks to wash away the feeling of foolishness. The first of the messages was on the tape.

‘Hardy, you prick. You cocksucker. I saw you there-six foot one of pure stupidity. How did it feel to be waiting for nobody? That’s what it’s like, arsehole. That’s what it’s fucking like!’

I was so shocked I didn’t do any of the things I should have-checked the time, taken the tape out and kept it. When I got over my surprise I shrugged, rewound the tape and got on with things. One of those days. But it turned out to be many days, running into the second week and a serious nuisance. After that first one, the messages were always recorded with the voice slightly distorted. The stuff coming through on the fax was simply sheets of the Sydney Morning Herald cut to fit.

After a few days of this I rooted back through all my files to see if I’d ever done anyone by the name of Hennessy an injury. The files only went back six or seven years. I was buggered if I was going to keep nearly twenty years worth of useless paper just to feed the silverfish. Also I’d lost some stuff when I’d moved office after a couple of shotgun blasts had rearranged the first one. I’m not a good record keeper; things tend to get scrambled, and I’m not patient when it comes to going through them, especially if I’m in an evil temper.