Peter Corris - Matrimonial Causes

‘Gallagher here.’

‘It’s Hardy. Can you talk?’

‘Christ, Hardy. Yeah, for a minute, but Pascoe could be back any tick. What the fuck have you been doing?’

‘Has Bob Loggins been on to you?’

‘Yeah. Supposed to be some big meeting with you tomorrow.’

‘I have to see you before that. Today. Where and when?’

‘Can’t you give me some idea of what’s going on?’

‘What has Loggins told you?’

‘Bugger all. I’m seeing him later today. Pascoe’s shitting himself and I don’t blame him. Loggins carries a lot of weight.’

‘Is he straight?’

‘Jesus, what a question. Yes, as far as I know. Where are you now?’

‘I’m in Glebe but I’m on my way to my office in St Peters Lane. Can you meet me there in an hour? You’ve got the address from the other night.’

‘An hour. Might be a bit more but I’ll be there. I hope you know what you’re doing.’

‘Me too.’

I parked out the back behind the building that houses the tattoo parlour and went in to strike a deal with Primo Tomasetti. He put down his buzzing needle when I entered and told the client, a blonde American marine corporal in a freshly laundered uniform, to take a breather.

‘What’s that mean?’ the Yank said.

‘A spell, a break, take five.’

‘Sure. OK.’ The marine took out a packet of Chesterfields and lit up. He wasn’t much over twenty, but he had the wary, old look jungle fighting gives a man. He was having ‘Mary, Mom and Idaho’ tattooed on his upper left arm inside a heart. Primo had the drawing on the table beside the needle and ink capsules. He’d got as far as Mary and Mom.

‘So, Cliff,’ Primo said. ‘You gonna drip oil all over my cement slab?’

‘Five bucks a week,’ I said.

‘Fifteen.’

‘Eight.’

‘Twelve.’

‘Ten.’

‘OK, you’ve got a deal.’

‘And a key to this building.’

‘No worries.’

I put a ten-dollar note on the table and went past the client to a door giving on to a passage that led to a walkway running along the back of the row of buildings.

‘Private eye,’ I heard Primo say.

‘No kiddin’?’ the Yank said. Then the needle started buzzing again.

I walked through to my building, up two flights of stairs and along to my office. All quiet, as usual. No blondes, brunettes or redheads in seamed stockings leaning against the door. The only thing attached to the door was the filing card on which I’d printed ‘Cliff Hardy, Private Inquiries’ and fastened with a drawing pin. Not quite as required by the Commercial Agents and Etcetera Act, but doing the job. Monday’s mail had yet to arrive. I felt a slight sensation of achievement in having got Gallagher to agree to come here. After the last few days, I’d seen enough of the inside of police stations. Maybe you could communicate differently with policemen on civilian ground. I hoped so. It was a punt, talking to Gallagher, but I sensed, along with the ambition, a maverick spirit in him, an impatience with bureaucracy and procedure that might work to my advantage. Had to work.

I heard him on the stairs soon after I’d rolled a supply of three cigarettes. I didn’t want to press my luck, so I opened the door and waited for him. He came briskly along the corridor-no hat, jacket unbuttoned, tie slid down, at his ease. He was carrying two styrofoam cups with lids.

‘I’ll swear I saw a rat on the stairs,’ he said.

‘That’d be Jack,’ I said. ‘I heard him squeak. He lets me know when any coppers come around.’

He laughed and went past me into the office. He put the cups down on my desk and clicked his fingers. ‘Due cappuccini’, he said. ‘I live in Leichhardt.’

I closed the door. ‘Good for you, Ian. I’m glad you could make it.’

He lifted the lids from the cups, dropped them into the w.p.b. and took several packets of sugar and two plastic spoons from his pocket. ‘Somehow, Cliff,’ he said, ‘I got the feeling that there wouldn’t be a lot of amenities around here.’

‘I’ve got a flagon of red in the drawer. But it’s just a shade early for a Glebe boy. I dunno about Leichhardt.’

He put two packets of sugar into his coffee and stirred vigorously. I took mine without. We sipped and I lit a cigarette. He glanced around the room observing the decor, which you could have called shabby-functional.

‘You should have something on the wall,’ he said. ‘Your medals, army commission, PEA licence, something like that.’

‘I was thinking more of a dartboard.’

The coffee had lost a bit too much of its heat. I kept drinking slowly while I tried to think fast, but Gallagher drained his cup. He began chopping into the plastic with his fingernails. I’d almost have rather he’d bitten them. ‘OK, Cliff, tell me why I’m here.’

‘Loggins wants to use me as a bait to draw out whoever killed Meadowbank and the girl. His idea is to put it around that I know a lot and that I like to talk.’

‘Sounds like a good strategy.’

‘I don’t care for it so I’ve been doing some digging on my own. I’ve come up with a few things that I wanted to try on you.’

‘You want to waltz around with me, leaving Bob Loggins out of it? Loggins? I’ve already got my immediate superior hating my guts, I don’t need one of the top Homicide D’s joining the club. I don’t think I can help you.’

It was what I’d expected and hoped he’d say. To jump straight at what I was offering you’d have to be crazy, and a crazy ally is worse than none at all. Still, I hoped to work on his vanity and ambition.

‘I think you were on the right track,’ I said. ‘My information is that there’s a conspiracy behind the two killings. It involves divorces, reputations, careers, probably property settlements as well. I’ve only got a few chips off the tip of the iceberg, but they’re interesting.’

Gallagher’s young-old face set into lines of intense concentration. ‘Go on.’

‘I’ve got two names-Redding and Molesworth. I’m told there’s more from the same side of the street. Redding you’d have heard of, Molesworth’s a big-time surgeon. Meadowbank was in on it, too. As I hear it, a couple of lawyers and PEAs arranged for convenient co-respondents, permitting clean divorces. Andrew Perkins was in on it to some extent, but it looks as if Juliet Farquhar who worked in his office took her own run at it and became a nuisance. Meadowbank wanted to pull out. He’d got less interested in divorce. There’s a possibility that whoever killed him really meant to get Virginia Shaw, or perhaps both of them. I’m not sure about that.’

‘Where have you been getting this?’

‘Some from Virginia Shaw. I’m working for her now, in a way.’

Gallagher seemed about to react to that but he held off and continued demolishing his plastic cup. He had a lot of options to consider and I didn’t mind him taking his time.

‘I’ve got another source, too. Can’t tell you who it is, but he’s put the finger on the man who killed Meadowbank.’

Gallagher’s fair head with its carefully combed thick hair came up slowly. He dropped the cup and the bits he’d torn from it in the bin. ‘And who would that be?’

I shook my head. ‘I need some undertakings first.’

‘That’s an unfortunate choice of words,’ Gallagher said. ‘But how about this: I go to Loggins now and tell him what you’ve told me. It fleshes out some things I had an inkling about. Then we haul you in and squeeze you until you cough up the name of this source of yours and the alleged killer and anything else we choose to ask you about. Col Pascoe’s got a fucking truckload of charges he’d like to stick up you, don’t forget.’

‘Wouldn’t work.’