Peter Corris - Wet Graves

“You mean, makes them run away, change their names?”

I shrugged and drank some more coffee. “That sort of thing. You haven’t tried your coffee. It’s okay.”

“I don’t want it. I want another cigarette.”

“Fight it.”

“Know all about it, do you?”

“Not about moderation, just quitting.”

She drank some of her coffee. “I couldn’t, not possibly. Well, I hadn’t ever thought about Brian in the way you say, about a random act or a reason for disappearing. I don’t know what to think.”

“You can’t recall anything he said, or anything you overheard, or half-heard, that suggested some problem in his life? Past or present. Some… disorder? What about his marriage? Any threads?”

“No. He spoke about his wife a few times, but there was nothing to suggest that it wasn’t just a sad event in the past. Normal, almost.”

I nodded. That was the word I had hit on when looking through the flat. “What about the daughter?”

Suspicion flared. She lowered her cup. “She hired you, you said.”

“It’s been known. You hire someone like me but you don’t give the real reasons.”

Dell Burton shook her head. “Nothing. He’s a nice, funny, warm man. Good in all sorts of ways. Good for me.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, Mrs Burton. This is where it gets personal, and I have to be blunt. If you walk out, I won’t try to stop you.”

“You’re softening me up in advance.”

“Maybe. I can see that you’re an intelligent, sophisticated woman. Perhaps a bit selfish.”

“That’s fair.”

I put the coffee cup between her and the question. “Why didn’t you leave your husband for Brian Madden?”

She lifted her cup. We were like two fencers, feinting. “He didn’t have any money.”

“Your husband does?”

“Lots.”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t think that’s the reason. Why?”

She put the coffee cup down and lit another cigarette. I didn’t say anything. Like the government that collects taxes on the stuff, I could see the benefit. “You’re right. There was something strange about Brian. Nothing sinister, like you’ve been suggesting.”

I wasn’t aware that I’d been suggesting anything sinister. Maybe that feeling I’d had in the flat was seeping through. “Tell me,” I said.

“Brian wasn’t completely grown up. I know he’d been widowed and raised a child and held a responsible job and so on, but there was something boyish about him. Attractive, you understand, but…”

“I see.”

“Not very helpful?”

“I don’t know. I’m all at sea when it comes to psychology. Have you any idea why he was like this?”

“Was?”

“Is.”

“Not really, unless it’s that he lived in the shadow of his father, who was one of the chief engineers for the harbour bridge. I gather that there was some pressure on Brian to become an engineer, but he wasn’t interested. His father was a strong personality, apparently. I suppose being a builder of the bridge was a pretty big deal back in the thirties and forties.”

“I suppose. I guess fathers have to do something.”

“Mmm. Mine made a lot of money. What did yours do, Mr Hardy?”

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” I said. “That’s all you can tell me, Mrs Burton?”

“That’s all. What d’you think can have happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to keep digging — try his colleagues, try to get at his bank accounts.”

“That’s… ugly.”

The rich tend to think that their money is beautiful but that it’s ugly for others to look too closely at it. I decided that there was something a bit hard about Mrs Burton. Perhaps I let that show. In any case, the rapport between us dissolved. I told her that I’d let her know if I found anything useful. She nodded and put her cigarettes away. We could have been dis-cussing a stolen car. She forced a smile and walked away, her firm, disciplined body steady on her high heels. I didn’t think Louise Madden would like her much. I didn’t myself, but Brian Madden had and that was what mattered. My trip to the north shore hadn’t worked out so well-I’d turned over some of the physical and personal residues of Brian Madden’s life, but I didn’t feel that I knew the man at all.

I’d made some notes while I was in Madden’s flat-I had the name of a travel agency he’d used when he’d taken a trip to New Caledonia a few years back, also the name of a Queensland resort he’d stayed at for a week during his summer vacation. The registration number of the Laser was in my pocket along with the names of a solicitor, a doctor and the high roller, Henry Bush. Threads to pull, and I pulled them through the rest of the afternoon. I called at the travel agency and phoned the resort and got what I expected-nothing. Brian Madden had done just the one bit of business with them. From the secretaries to the doctor and solicitor I got appointments. In return for a modest financial consideration, I extracted a promise from a contact in the Department of Motor Transport to make available all recent information on the Laser.

When I rang Henry Bush’s number I got his answering machine: “Hi there! This is Henry Bush. Sorry I can’t talk to you right now, but I will pronto if you’ll leave your name and number after the yodel.” A high, trembling Swiss yodel tickled my eardrums. I was so surprised I hung up without leaving a message. That must happen to a lot of people, I thought, maybe that’s why he does it. Anyway, he didn’t sound like the kind of man to commit murder for ten bucks.

All this took me through to six o’clock and left me in the Crown Hotel in Norton Street, Leichhardt, where you can get a glass of red or white wine for a dollar and the use of a public phone in the bar. I bought my first drink of the day at 6.01 and moved away from the phone. I felt I’d put in a reasonable sort of a day on the Brian Madden case and could now turn my attention to Rhino Jackson. The Crown is right across the straight from one of the gambling places Jackson was reputed to protect. And if he wasn’t there, I had a good chance of finding someone who knew where he was. But I was fairly confident of finding him; Jackson was a gambler as well as a protection-provider, and gamblers are addicted to the atmosphere of gambling. No other kind of air can sustain their life.

As I drank the glass of one-dollar red I reflected that everything I knew about Jackson would be known to the police. But in looking for a missing witness you’re not necessarily in competition with the police-it depends how hard they want to find him, or her. Sometimes they want to very badly and then it’s the SWOS force and the sledgehammers on the doors at dawn; sometimes they don’t and all that happens is that a few questions get asked and a few forms get filled in. Until I learned more from Parker and Sackville, I had no way of knowing how hard the police were trying. With me it’s different — I’m always trying hard, usually for the money and in this case for my skin.

I thought about another glass of wine but settled for a light beer and then went across the street to the Bar Napoli, where I had the wine and a lasagna to blot it up. It being Wednesday night, the place was pretty quiet. I go there often enough to consider myself almost a regular and I saw a few people I’d seen there before, which tells you you’re a regular. But it’s the kind of cafe you feel comfortable in whether you’re a regular or not. The people serving the food and coffee will talk to you if you want or leave you alone-your choice. You can read or look at the nicely framed paintings, drawings and photographs on the walls. These are by people known to the management and are for sale. I once saw a customer buy a painting.