Peter Corris - Matrimonial Causes

‘Just doing my job,’ he said. He moved back. All the force had gone out of him. We both knew he could do things quickly but not quicker than a finger can pull a trigger.

‘Your job’s changed. You’re going to have to show a bit of initiative.’

‘How… how do you mean?’

I kept the. 38 nestled inside his nose and reached back for my credentials. ‘I’m a private investigator. My name’s Hardy. I want to talk to Dick Maxwell. Just talk. Let your eyes wander over this.’

I showed him the licence inside its perspex cover. Apparently he could read, but he didn’t say anything.

‘You can remember your routines, can’t you? Press this, snatch that, repetitions, all that shit?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK I want you to remember a few things. Tell Maxwell I found out where he was through Ernie Glass. Got that, Ernie Glass?’

‘Ernie Glass.’

‘Good. I don’t have any aggro with him that I know of. My client is Virginia Shaw. Who?’

‘Virginia Shaw.’

‘Right.’ I took the gun away and Matthews started to relax. I moved back a step, released the breech, and spilled the shells slowly into my hand. Matthews stared at me as if I was mad. I handed him the bullets and put the gun on the bonnet of the car. I flicked the breech closed and had a solid weapon in my hand, not a deadly one, but Matthews knew what it could do to his classic profile. He looked down at the bullets clustered in his big, callused paw.

‘Tell Maxwell I want to talk. That’s all. You’ve got the shells. I can’t harm him. I’ll wait here for ten minutes. If he doesn’t show I’ll leave, but tell him this, if I go away without seeing him the news of where he is travels all over Sydney, starting from when I get to a phone. Have you got that?’

Matthews nodded. He turned and walked towards the clinic. I knew he wanted to get things back on the old basis between us, with him grabbing and twisting things, but he was bright enough to understand that this wasn’t a matter of pecs and lats and half-nelsons.

I leaned back against the car, keeping well clear of the revolver, and rolled a cigarette. Everything felt wrong about the King A. Hartwell Clinic. Summoning the muscle when I’d done nothing more than be a bit insistent was an over-reaction. And Matthews wasn’t there to lift drunks in and out of bed. I studied the place as I smoked, keeping an eye out for flanking movements. The people walking in the gardens could well have been dipsomaniacs drying out. They walked slowly as if they had a lot of time, too much time, which is a feeling that oppresses alcoholics when they’re not drinking. So I’ve been told. The couple of women could have been visiting wives, except that there were no cars in the visitors’ space except mine.

Through a tall stand of trees I caught a glint that could have been a swimming pool. Nothing inappropriate about that. Hydrotherapy. The place looked perfect. It just felt wrong. I finished the cigarette and was beginning to think my tactic hadn’t worked, when I saw a man coming down the steps from the south wing. He wore a cream suit and, as soon as he reached ground level and stepped out into the sun, he carefully placed a Panama hat on his head. Then he put on sunglasses. Then he took out a gold cigarette case and lit up. I waited for him to wipe his face with a silk handkerchief and shoot his cuffs, but he didn’t. He strolled towards me, one hand holding his cigarette, the other in his jacket pocket.

Not that there was much doubt about it, but the ginger bristle on his top lip confirmed his identity. He stopped about twenty feet away and took a small automatic from his pocket. His big pink hand, with a large signet ring on one finger, concealed most of the gun which he pointed at my middle shirt button.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Tall, dark and not very handsome. What the fuck do you want?’

‘You can put the gun away, Dick. I just want to talk.’

He smiled. His teeth were tobacco stained and uneven. He had a blotchy damp-looking complexion. ‘I dislike the word “dick” except as an affectionate term for the male organ.’

His accent was BBC English grown a little lazy. He lifted his cigarette and puffed stagily. His gun hand was fairly steady but he was beginning to find the pose, or standing in the sun, a strain. I was under strain myself. I’ve had too much to do with guns to like them, and I particularly don’t care to have them pointed at me. I eased away slowly from the car and looked around. There was a bench under a tree twenty yards away.

I pointed ‘We could go over there and sit in the shade. This sun can’t be good for a man in your condition.’

He licked his thin lips. He had a cold sore, cracked and angry looking, just below the moustache on the left side. ‘You’re absolutely right, dear boy. You toddle over first and don’t you dare go near that pistol.’

‘It’s empty.’

‘So you say.’

We walked into the patch of shade. I sat down at one end of the bench and put the briefcase on the grass beside me. Maxwell undid his double-breasted jacket and fanned himself with his hat before he sat at the other end. He was almost completely bald and, with the jacket open, I could see his belly straining at the band of his trousers. He wore a tailored shirt with a long peaked collar and a paisley cravat. He’d finished his cigarette. He still had the gun. ‘Show me your miserable credentials.’

I passed them across. He glanced down, sniffed and threw the folder back. ‘A licence to starve or prosper, depending on how you use it.’

‘I haven’t been at it long.’

‘You say you know Ernest Glass?’

‘I know him well. He told me you were here. He said he stumbled on the information by accident. I gather you don’t want people to know. That’s why you’re talking to me now.’

‘Very acute.’ He probed with his tongue at the cold sore. Suddenly, he put the gun away and took off his sunglasses. His eyes were red and he rubbed them redder. Then he lit another cigarette and drew on it deeply. He coughed.

‘Is this really a drying-out tank?’ I asked.

‘It performs other functions. A bolt-hole, you might call it. But yes, goddamnit. I’m taking the cure. Tea, fruit juice and coffee. Coffee, fruit juice and tea. It’s making me ill. My body chemistry’s all awry.’

‘Why’re you really here, Maxwell? What are you afraid of? What’s your involvement with Virginia Shaw?’

He threw back his head and laughed. It was a rich, melodious sound but practised rather than genuine. I was beginning to doubt Ernie’s assessment of Maxwell’s intelligence-he seemed like a set of poses and mannerisms with nothing behind them. ‘You do like to ask the right questions, don’t you, Hardy?’

‘Saves time,’ I said. ‘You know about Charles Meadowbank getting shot, I assume. Did you know a woman who worked for Andrew Perkins was killed, too? Someone also took a shot at me. I’m thought to know things I don’t know.’

‘Better you shouldn’t.’

‘Wrong. Better I should. The police are looking to use me as a bait, or a beater or whatever the hell you pheasant-shooters want to call it.’

Maxwell laughed again, but this time with a less stagey note. That’s all an act, dear boy. I’m from South London. Pick any gutter you like. I’ve lived on this accent and my wits for forty years.’

‘Ernie Glass said you were smart. I must say I can’t see much sign of it-holing up in a drunk tank, dry as a day-old dog turd and jumping at shadows.’

‘Glass is all right. I’m alarmed that he knows I’m here, though.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I improvised. ‘I’ll hear from him if anyone else inquires. And I’ve asked him to keep quiet about where you are.’