Peter Corris - Matrimonial Causes

I did a careful visual survey of the park. I didn’t see any toey featherweights or heavies like Carl or Matthews. I realised how edgy I was and tried to force myself to calm down. Gallagher was sitting on a bench near the arch reading a newspaper. He did it well. It was his precinct; maybe he sat there and read the paper when he wasn’t conspiring against his fellow officers. There were another couple of hours of daylight left and I felt reasonably safe from direct attack. As I approached him, I watched the street for cruising cars. I walked straight past Gallagher and did another lap of the park, looking, checking, trying to register any change in the configuration of things. People came and went-old men, kids; a bus stopped, dropped some passengers and picked up others. I saw nothing to alarm me.

‘You’re careful, Hardy,’ Gallagher said. ‘That’s good. I like that.’

I sat on the bench beside him, fished out the makings and made a cigarette. ‘Your good opinion is all I crave.’

‘Don’t get smart. This was all your idea, remember.’

‘You approached me when I left the station, remember.’

‘What is this? Are you getting cold feet?’

I lit the cigarette and puffed smoke towards the memorial to the fallen. ‘No. Loggins rang me just before you did. He wants to see me tomorrow morning.’

‘Right.’

‘What’s on his mind?’

Gallagher rolled up his newspaper into the shape of a baton. He held it in his right hand and thumped it against his left palm. He gave it a solid whack, more the street copper’s thump than the demonstrative gesture of the LLB. ‘You don’t get a word out of me until you give me that name. Who killed Meadowbank, Hardy? According to your unnamed source?’

It was put-up time and I knew it. I took a deep drag on the cigarette and let the words out slowly with the smoke. ‘Lawrence “Chalky” Teacher,’ I said. ‘Ever heard of him?’

The noise Gallagher made was hard to interpret. It was something between a sigh and a grunt. ‘Chalky Teacher, yeah, I know him.’

‘My information is he’s the enforcer. The only other thing I know is that there might be another private investigator or two in on it. You see why I want to deal with the police?’

‘Yes. And what do you want to do about it?’

‘Get hold of Teacher and shake him. Maybe get some evidence-the gun, the stocking, something that ties him to Juliet Farquhar and this whole business. At worst, scare him, rattle him. See what happens.’

Gallagher looked pained. ‘I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I have to go through channels. Get a warrant. That means see a magistrate; that means clear it with Pascoe.’

‘You can’t be serious. D’you mean you never picked up a known crim on suspicion of something or other and gave him a hard time? Come on.’

‘And what would you be doing?’

‘I’ll back you up.’

‘If anything went wrong, anything, it’d mean my job. It’s not worth the risk.’

‘I’m disappointed in you, Ian. I thought you wanted to cut the red tape and get something done for a change.’

‘I need to think about it.’

‘Bugger that. The meeting with Loggins is tomorrow. I want to head that off.’

‘You’re out of your mind. You want to do this tonight?’

‘Why not?’

‘We’d have to locate him. Check his movements, vehicles, his mates…’

‘I know where he lives. He works for Max Wilton, the bookie, and I know where he lives, too. How hard can it be to find them?’

The park was emptying as the light began to fade and the people and their dogs went home to their dinners. I was feeling let down by my failure to galvanise Ian Gallagher. I hadn’t expected this degree of caution and concern for correct procedure. I was beginning to think I’d misjudged my man. Was he thinking about reporting straight to his bosses and, instead of putting the pressure on Teacher, putting it on me first? I thought I had a strategy for stopping that but now I wasn’t so sure. Gallagher got up suddenly and began to walk around. He went over to the memorial stone and squinted at the faded names. Then he tossed his rolled-up newspaper at a rubbish bin and scored a direct hit.

Eventually he stopped and put one foot up on the bench. He rubbed his hand over his face and I could hear the bristles of his beard rasping. ‘It can’t work like that, Hardy. No chance. For one thing, I’m too buggered to go cowboying around tonight. For another, whatever you might think, a thing like this needs a bit of groundwork. Where does Teacher live?’

‘Randwick.’

‘OK. I’ll have to have a word to someone out there. Not tell them anything, mind, just get us a bit of elbow room.’

That made sense. I’d been keyed up for action and was already feeling the let-down and maybe, just-maybe, a little relief. I rolled a cigarette and fiddled with it, not wanting it.

‘Look,’ Gallagher said. ‘Your information sounds good. Teacher fits the bill perfectly. He’s a little guy and he used to be a gymnast or some fucking thing.’

‘Boxer,’ I said.

‘OK. I agree we should brace him, but not tonight. Tomorrow, after the meeting with Loggins. Let’s find out exactly what he has in mind.’

‘Why?’

‘To protect ourselves. What he proposes could be of use to us. Who knows? We might get some sort of open warrant from him, I might. I’ll try for it. We’ll need all the fucking help we can get. I’m with you. I just don’t want to go bull-at-a-gate.’

‘Like Pascoe.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Shit!’

‘It’s better. Believe me. I can make a few calls tonight. I don’t suppose you want to tell me who your mystery informant is? That could help.’

I shook my head.

‘You don’t trust me?’

‘I don’t trust myself. I haven’t told anyone else as much as I’ve told you. A few people know little disconnected bits. And I’m keeping away from them, right away.’

‘That’s smart. Let’s get what we can out of the meeting with Bob Loggins. Then we can move on Teacher better prepared. I want this to work.’

What choices did I have? I wasn’t going to go rampaging round the eastern suburbs on my own. My promise to Joan Dare aside, that made no sense. Gallagher evidently had a cool head, something I had always lacked. I argued, but Gallagher had done his thinking and he had the wood on me. It was reasonable to suppose that Teacher and whoever he was working for thought they had contained the matter by killing Meadowbank and Farquhar. They might be on the alert, but they had no reason to suspect any immediate and present danger.

‘I’ve done some work on this,’ Gallagher said. ‘Divorces for Redding and Molesworth are in the works.’

Maybe that was the clincher, the awareness that he’d been down more of the tracks than me, maybe it was the buzz I was getting from the lower molar, but I agreed to Gallagher’s proposal-meet with Loggins, confer, act. We shook hands. He walked under the arch and up Norton Street towards the town hall. I went through the now quiet park where the tree shadows were long across the grass and paths and out to my car. I drove to the restaurant where Cyn and I had had our fight and I ate pasta and drank red wine. The food was good and the wine soothed my anxious spirit and my troublesome tooth.

Loggins put on a pair of half-moon glasses and looked at me over the top of them. Far from making him look academic, mild and inoffensive, they increased his menace. Gallagher, wearing a very smart suit, was sitting on Loggins’ right. We were in a small room in the College Street police building, grouped around a table with ashtrays, glasses and a water carafe. I was smoking. Gallagher had a packet of Marlboro and a lighter in front of him but he hadn’t touched them. Loggins had pushed his ashtray away which was just as well. Three men smoking in that small space would set up a hell of a fug, and the windows appeared to be sealed. An air conditioner was humming. The room was cool and we all had our jackets on. I’d surrendered my gun at the front desk.