Peter Corris - The Washington Club

I shoved him off and the others fell back as he reeled away. I backed off a metre, put the gear in neutral and revved the motor. A man jumped into the Tarago and swung it away from the kerb. I slid into the space, got out of the car and locked it before turning to the reporters. The cameras were running, the mikes were thrusting forward and several held their mini-recorders out in front of them like divining rods. I picked out one of these, a tall, spindly guy in a white denim jacket and wearing shoulder-length hair, and beckoned him forward. When he was within reach I grabbed his arm and used him as a battering ram through the mob. The element of surprise got me passage to the gate.

I’d been in these situations before and knew how threatening I could look if I got the body language and facial expressions wrong. I tried to stay loose and to keep something like a tolerant grin on my dial.

‘What’s your name?’ I said over the babble.

‘Todd.’

I opened the gate and went through, shoving Todd away, keeping him outside. I grabbed his hair and brought his ear closer to my mouth. ‘Tell them I said no comment, Todd. And anyone who touches this fucking gate is gone for trespass.’

I let him go, banged the gate shut and went up the path which is so overgrown all the cameras would be getting was branches and shadows. Hardy handles the media and scores his first win of the day. But in fact it was the next day and the day that had just slipped away had taken a lot with it. I felt physically and mentally sore as I slammed the door behind me and faced the old familiar smells and sounds.

I was dog-tired but somehow I didn’t want to go upstairs and climb into my bed with the sheets and pillow covers overdue for a wash and the mattress settling into a one-person-only shape. When Glen was around the bedroom had a kind of symmetry-two clothes racks, books and magazines on both sides, coffee mugs, massage oil swapping from one side to the other, stains on the surfaces. Now one clothes rack was empty; the globe in the reading light on one side had been dead for months and the dusty massage oil bottle was in the chest of drawers.

For the first time I noticed that there was blood on my shirt and trousers. I had a shower and dropped the clothes into an old topless Esky where I put things destined for the dry-cleaners. I had a shower and wandered about with a towel around my waist, rejecting the idea of wine, Scotch or coffee. I thought about taking my unlicensed Colt. 45 out from its hiding place in the cupboard under the stairs and rejected that idea too. If I’d known who to shoot maybe I’d have done it, but I hadn’t a clue.

That led me to thinking about Cy and the times we’d called each other and left affectionate, abusive messages on the answering machines. I noticed that the light was blinking on my machine and I pressed the PLAY button, expecting to hear nothing but routine communications.

‘Cliff this is Claudia. The policewoman was OK. She’s gone now. It’s two o’clock. I got your note. That’s terrible about Cyrus. I’m so sorry. And I know he was your friend. It couldn’t have anything to do with me, could it? There were a whole lot of reporters at the gate but the security people got rid of them. I know you’ll be busy so I’m going to knock myself out with a Mogadon until the afternoon. I’ll be here. Please call me. Again, I’m terribly sorry about Cyrus. If there’s anything I can do you must tell me… In fact, I think I need you to tell me what to do next, anyway… I’ll wait to hear from you.’

‘We never sleep,’ I’d told Cy, but I did-until late in the morning. I came up from the deep sleep more fresh and eager than I’d felt in many weeks and I knew the reason why. I surveyed my body as I dressed-not too bad, love handles but not out of control, more grey hairs on the chest than on the head and overall muscle tone reasonable. Not finished yet. I did a few perfunctory exercises-stretches, knee bends, nothing serious-and then I was reminded of Cy and his extensive exercise sessions before our squash games. They’d exasperated me slightly and made me anxious to have a whack, probably a piece of smart strategising by Cy.

I shaved carefully, something I’d neglected lately, and ate breakfast which I rarely do-an almost-past-it orange, toast and two boiled eggs. After two cups of coffee I was ready to face the paper, but Cy’s death had just made the Stop Press and the details were minimal. There was nothing about me, and if the TV boys and girls had got some meaningless footage, dressed it up somehow, and run it early I didn’t want to know. I brushed my teeth several times, regretting the chips and discolourations-talismans of fights, poor dentistry and bad habits-and got out my notes and diagrams to review the state of the matter.

Nothing had changed. There were no new names to add to the equations, only one to subtract. Perhaps Cy’s death had nothing to do with the Fleischman case. For all I knew he could have been representing someone with some connection to Neddy Smith, in which case anything was possible from any angle. But I didn’t think so. Why hit him just there and just then? Why not as he got into the car or got out of it? My gut feeling was that this was directly related to either Fleischman’s death or Claudia’s future. Was it a warning? If so, from whom and with what intent? It pained me to reach the conclusion, but I decided that my courses of action remained the same-protect Claudia, find Haitch Henderson, identify white-sleeve of Watsons Bay and, if possible, communicate with Anton Van Kep.

Hardest things first, always. I phoned the office of Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Parker and after exchanging wisecracks with his secretary, Abigail, secured an appointment with him for early that afternoon. I didn’t kid myself about my persuasive powers, the police bureaucracy is as impervious to plea and reason as any other; Frank had no doubt monitored the conversation and intervened himself. He’d know that I knew. He might even know what I wanted. It was impossible to wrong-foot Frank. Just to be evenly balanced with him was good going.

Frank Parker had secured his promotion after the last ICAC enquiry had cleaned out most of the dead wood and rotten apples above him. Frank believed in the cop culture and had done his share of verballing and corner-cutting in the old days, but he had managed to keep himself clean while not stepping on too many toes of the dirty. I owed him more favours than he owed me when you added them up but in Frank’s eyes he’d incurred a debt to me he could never repay- I’d introduced him to the woman who became his wife.

Hilde Stoner had been a lodger in my house, a dental nurse and an all-round terrific person. Some bad business in Bondi had brought me into contact with Parker and through me he met Hilde. His marriage had collapsed; she was looking for more in life than crowns and root canals and they never took a backward step. They’d been married for going on ten years and had a son, name of Clifford, poor little bugger. Frank knew and I knew that it was Hilde and the boy that had got him off the bottle and kept him back from all the rancid deals that come the way of cops, whether they’re straight or bent. It was good to have someone of influence feel that grateful to me, even if I’d done nothing to deserve it, except put in the odd good word-and stand aside myself, of course.

The phone had been ringing pretty steadily-journalists seeking interviews. I ignored the messages and wiped them as soon as they’d finished talking. Three faxes came through in similar vein and I tore them into strips to use as scrap paper by the phone. I knew it’d be the same at the office and I didn’t want to go there. I phoned Pete Marinos and made sure the watch was being kept on the Fleischman apartment. Then I took out the Colt, cleaned and loaded it and put it in a plastic shopping bag which I carried out to the car. There was some evidence of the events of yesterday-fragments of the busted Commodore tail light, oil spill from something that had been fractured in my Falcon, two cigarette packets, a rash of butts and some soft-drink cans from the last night’s visitors. No blood or tissue, making the Glebe asphalt a hell of a lot better than the trendy paving outside Claudia’s front gate.