Peter Corris - Casino

Perhaps sensing my mood, the cat ate and left. I finished cleaning myself up and put on fresh clothes. I ate dry biscuits and cheese and drank white wine from a cask. The messages on my answering machine were routine-a man getting back to tell me that his wife had returned and that I needn’t bother looking for her, and one from the garage asking when I was going to pay the bill on the Pulsar. I’d never intended to look for the wife-the signs that she’d absented herself to throw a scare into him were as obvious as her motives. He was rich and she was poor; he was old and she was young. I hadn’t expected to make any money out of that one. The woman would probably do all right in the end. I took Glen’s cheque from between the leaves of the Macquarie Dictionary and looked at it sourly, telling myself that her signature was the bold flourish of someone who had money in the bank.

I was sinking into a torpor of self-pity and guilty rationalising. How was I to know who she was screwing when she was away on tour? What about those young constables she admired and those older officers who could be very useful to her career? What could I offer her except sex and some laughs and a slice of my seedy, underpaid, heavily mortgaged, over-regulated semi-professional life?

It was early afternoon; I had a slight buzz on from the wine and was beginning to think about another dose of pain-killers for the arm. Very positive stuff. Ian had told me about several exercises useful for frozen shoulders. I stood in a door frame and screamed as I tried to raise the left arm up to the lintel.

As I swore and raged there was a knock on the front door. I was just in the mood for a salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness. I tramped down the hall and jerked the door open ready to snarl.

A motorcycle courier stood on the step swinging his helmet from one hand. His machine was ticking in the street. ‘Mr Hardy?’

I nodded and he handed me a large envelope. ‘No signature needed. Have a nice day.’

I took the package and he was helmeted and astride his bike before I could think of a response. ‘I’ll try,’ I said as he gunned his motor and shot off down the street. I got Glen’s keys and the garage bill from the meter box and took the whole lot inside. The envelope was a big padded postbag, sealed by a strip of masking tape with my name and address printed in block capitals on the outside. No indication of where it had come from. I flexed it uninterestedly, thinking it was probably something from my accountant-some new superannuation plan or savings scheme I didn’t need. I dumped it on the kitchen bench and looked at the garage bill. Three hundred and fifty-two dollars and sixty-five cents for work on the electrical system and brakes.

‘Automobiles are the curse of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,’ I said aloud. I filled in the amount on Glen’s cheque and put it with the account.

My arm was hurting and I wondered if the effect of twenty-five years’ use of pain-killers was cumulative. I took a couple more with wine and used my Swiss army knife to slit open the envelope. I up-ended it. The files I’d found in Scott Galvani’s office and had taken from me a few hours later fell out.

Motorcycle couriers all look alike and there was nothing to distinguish the one who’d brought the package from a hundred others. The envelope was completely unmarked. I shook it thoroughly but no note saying ‘Sorry, taken in error’, fell out. I looked through the folders but could see no sign that anything had been removed or tampered with. The delivery of the files in pristine condition increased my already high level of anger. Here was I doing my Lord Nelson act, facing months of incapacity and all for nothing. It would almost have been better to have got them back ripped to shreds or soaked in blood. At least that might have meant something.

I read the files through carefully before phoning the business number for Angela Prudence Cornwall. Ms Cornwall was apparently a partner in a company controlling a number of up-market florist shops. I would have expected the recession to hit hard at the flower business-after all, you can go out and gather them for free if you try-but the addresses were prestigious and the phone operator who put me through to Ms Cornwall sounded very secure in her job.

‘Angela Cornwall.’

‘My name’s Hardy, Ms Cornwall. I’m a friend and former colleague of Scott Galvani who was engaged by you some time before he was killed. You were aware that he was dead, I take it?’

The voice was as cool as a lily. ‘Of course, yes. I was very sorry to hear about it. May I ask how you come to know about my dealings with Mr Galvani?’

I explained to her that I was tidying up loose ends in Scott’s business affairs, had no intention of prying into her circumstances and was bound by the PEA code of confidentiality, having thought the expression up on the spot.

‘I see. Well, what can I do for you?’

‘Did Mr Galvani conclude the enquiry?’

‘Did I pay him, do you mean?’

‘No, not at all. I’m uninterested in that side of things. I imagine his executor and accountant will concern themselves there. I’m talking about the professional aspect.’

‘Very well. Mr Galvani made me an entirely satisfactory verbal report and I sent him a cheque. He undertook to submit a written version and a full accounting, but it hasn’t arrived. I assumed that.. well, what happened to him, prevented that. I’m sorry, did you say that you were a friend of his?’

‘Yes, I was. Thank you for your cooperation, Ms Cornwall.’

‘I liked Mr Galvani. He was knowledgeable about flowers.’

‘Was he? I didn’t know that, but I’m not surprised. He was knowledgeable about a lot of things.’

‘Can you tell me, Mr Hardy, what happens to the records of private investigators in these circumstances? I take it you’ve read Mr Galvani’s file on me. I might say that I’m soon to be married.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you, but you will understand my concern.’

The question had never occurred to me. My own files, chaotic though they were and some of them no doubt eroded by time and insects, were full of secrets. Some cryptically concealed, others obvious. I wondered what had happened to the records of all our predecessors, stretching back into the ‘Brownie and bedsheets’ era and encompassing almost every known human foible. I had no answer-probably deposited on the various city dumps or burnt-but I decided to play Ms Cornwall straight, the way she’d played me. I told her I didn’t know the answer in general terms, but that I would personally forward her file to her, if that was what she wanted.

‘Thank you, Mr Hardy. That is very understanding of you.’

‘As a last question, how long was it before he was shot that you heard from him? I take it he telephoned?’

‘Not at all. He came to see me in the shop at Double Bay. He told me about the new job he’d taken and, well, he spoke to me for some time.’

‘Could you tell me how he behaved, how he looked and sounded?’

‘I thought there was more to this than you admitted. What are you up to, Mr Hardy?’

‘I haven’t been entirely frank with you. His wife has hired me to investigate his death. I’m in the process of eliminating…’

‘I understand. I wish you luck. I saw Mr Galvani two nights before he died. I would say he was extremely tense and agitated.’

I wasn’t nearly as lucky with the Roberts file. The footballer’s private number didn’t answer and a club official told me that Mr Allan Thurgood, the secretary responsible for inserting the no-drinking clause in Roberts’ contract, was on leave. Brian Roberts, I was informed, would be training at the club’s practice ground in Marrickville later in the afternoon. I decided that I had to get out of the house. Driving the Falcon was out of the question but I thought I could probably manage the Pulsar’s automatic transmission. I collected my bits and pieces and Glen’s keys and went out to the car. After a bit of experimentation, I discovered I could engage drive and release the handbrake with my right hand. By keeping the left hand low on the wheel, steering wouldn’t be a problem and, even if it did hurt a bit, I’d been told that was therapeutic.