Peter Corris: Wet Graves

“Doesn’t look good in the state statistics. Bad for business, bad for tourism.”

“Christ. The hypocrisy,” she said.

The real feelings were starting to seep out now under the layer of toughness. She wasn’t about to pull out tissues and weep but the emotions were working inside her.

At this point in an interview, there’s two ways to go-operate on the emotions, get yourself a case and most likely a lot of confusion and trouble or try to steady things down and see if there’s really a job of work to be done. I’ve gone both ways in my time, but I’m a little too old now for confusion, so I went the other way. “I’ve had a lot of dealings with the police over missing person reports. Their procedures can be puzzling to lay people, Ms Madden,” I said. “Efficiency can look like indifference. If there’s anything I can clarify for you, I’ll…”

“Don’t patronise me, Mr Hardy. I don’t need anything clarified, thank you very much. My father did not commit suicide. Will you help me find out where he is or what’s happened to him?”

“Have you got anything to support your opinion that he didn’t kill himself?”

She nodded vigorously. “I knew the man. He was a happy, easy-going man, in good health, with no problems of any kind. He wasn’t bored. He loved life.”

“Maybe the police mentioned misadventure? Misadventure strictly means accident.”

“Some accident. Have you walked across the bridge lately?”

I hadn’t, but from driving across it more times than I cared to remember, given the toll, I had an impression of a high fence beside the footway. I found myself drawing a rough sketch of the coathanger, complete with crosshatching and the water underneath.

Louise Madden drew a deep breath. “I don’t expect miracles. Roberta said you have friends in the police force. Can you talk to them, find out what they did and see if there’s any more to be done? They must have been left with questions.”

“I don’t want to sound reluctant to work for you, Ms Madden, but I like to have everything understood upfront. Private enquiries can be expensive and inconclusive. They’ve passed a freedom of information act in this state against all my expectations. You could apply for all documents and material considered by the police. That might be all I get, anyway.”

“No! It’d take months or years. This thing is eating me up. I’m trying not to let it obsess me, trying to keep a sane perspective on things.”

“I’d say you were doing fine.”

“Thank you. But I want something done-now!”

“Okay. I’ll get the details from you- names dates and so on, and I’ll need a retainer of a thousand dollars. Any un-expended part of that’s refundable.”

“Good.” She got a cheque book from a pocket in her overall and I started asking questions and writing down answers. Louise Madden was thirty-five, single, no children, self-employed. She had a degree in agricultural science from the Hawkesbury College and she lived at Leura in the Blue Mountains. Her landscape gardening business employed three people beside herself and was prospering. Her father, Brian Madden, fifty-six, schoolteacher, of Flat 3, 27 Loch Street, Milson’s Point, had been reported missing early on the morning of 5 May. A man answering his description had been seen walking towards the bridge footway from the north shortly after dawn. I got the names of the police officers Ms Madden had spoken to in person and on the telephone. She’d kept notes of the conversations and was prepared to let me see them.

“Have you got a key to his flat?”

“No. There was no need. Dad always leaves a key under a flowerpot at the back.”

“Trusting,” I said.

She passed her cheque across the desk. “He’s a lovely man, Mr Hardy. He’s gentle and kind. My mother died when I was twelve. Lots of fathers couldn’t have coped, but my Dad did. I never felt that I lacked for anything, not really.”

“No money worries?” I said.

“My mother had had a long and expensive illness and I think Dad was still paying off hospitals and doctors for years after she died. He loved the school he was at and wouldn’t go for promotions that’d take him away. So there wasn’t much money, but it never seemed to matter. I went to James Ruse High and on from there. It must have been tough for him at times, but he never complained.”

“You say his health was good?”

She tucked the chequebook away, clicked off her pen and gave me her level look. “You mean, what about his sex life? You’d probably also like to know about mine. Mm?”

“Natural curiosity, nothing more.”

She grinned. “Dad played golf at Chatswood. I understand there was a woman there he spent some time with. I don’t know her name but I could find out. We saw each other most weeks, Dad and me, but we didn’t live in each other’s pockets.”

“The name could be useful.”

“You’re being diplomatic, I see. I’m bi-sexual and I’m between partners at the moment. I believe in being upfront too, Mr Hardy, and I want you to understand that I owe my Dad more than he’s got from the bloody police so far.”

“I understand. I’ll do everything I can. Have you got a recent photograph of your father?”

“Not very recent. The one I had I gave to the police, and they haven’t returned it yet.”

“I should be able to get hold of it.”

She stood up and straightened her over-all. “I must say I’m a bit disappointed.”

“How’s that?”

“Roberta said you were… charming and quite funny.”

I was standing too by this time and I waved my hand at the papers on the desk. “I’ve got a few problems that’re cutting down on the charm and the laughs. Tell you what, though, I could show you something that’d give you a laugh.”

“What’s that?”

“My garden. The only way to landscape it’d be with a jackhammer.”

So at least I sent her off smiling.

I took a fresh manila folder, wrote “Madden” on the outside, tore off the three sheets of notepad and put them inside. Begin as you mean to go on-neat and tidy. Then I leafed through the forty-five printed pages of the Act. As I read, the lines from the Paul Simon song came into my head-”There must be fifty ways to leave your lover”. There were nearly that number of ways to lose your licence, temporarily or permanently: to commit an indictable offence was a pretty good way, also to be cited adversely in evidence given in court; to employ as a sub-agent an unqualified person could get you in trouble and “unduly harassing any person” was pretty bad. A bit further down in section 17, subsection 1, I found it: “Every licensed private inquiry agent shall paint or affix and keep painted or affixed on his place of business in a conspicuous position a notice showing in legible characters his name and description as a licensed private inquiry agent.”

The damning evidence was right there on the desk in front of me-the card with the hole through it. I didn’t even have the pin. I was in total breach of 17(1). But how could they know? The card had been on my door when I came in an hour before, hadn’t it? Well, had it? I couldn’t be sure.

All good clean fun, but it wasn’t funny, really. The licence was my meal ticket. Without it, I couldn’t earn Ms Madden’s thousand bucks or anyone else’s. I had a mortgage to pay and a Ford Falcon to support. I had bills on the noticeboard at home and I needed about 2000 calories a day to keep going. I folded the letter and put it in the pocket of my sports jacket which hung on the back of the chair I sat on. No doubt about it, I was neat and tidy today. I could drop in on my mate, Detective Inspector Frank Parker, and get a look at the missing persons file on Brian Madden and talk over the Hardy licence lifting case at the same time. Maybe I’d meet a nice, friendly woman at police headquarters and bump into someone at the bottle shop who was looking for a clean, light room in Glebe-$80 a week, share the bills and feed the cat.