Peter Corris - Wet Graves

“Looks like they’re about to launch you into outer space,” I said.

Meredith’s face twitched. A smile, maybe. “G’day, Hardy.”

“Sorry about all this. What’re they telling you?”

“Bugger all, but I reckon I’ll be all right. Felt worse after some hockey games.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

“Are you talking about the bullet or the hockey?”

“Never played ice hockey. I got a bullet in the leg once. Hurt like hell and still twinges sometimes. Well, I just wanted to look in. Didn’t think you’d be in real trouble. What calibre was Tobin’s gun? Nothing you couldn’t handle?”

Again the twitch, the possible smile. A couple of sentences had tired him.

“That Moody did all right,” he whispered.

“Bloody tremendous. Well, I don’t want to keep you here any longer than necessary, so I’ll…”

“Hardy.”

“Don’t talk, Meredith. You’re tough, but don’t push your luck. It’ll keep.”

“Bridge… foundry… Samuels an’… Booth… missing. I think…”

I could hear the nurse’s footsteps coming down the hall and I was looking for somewhere to pat him without touching a piece of medical intervention. I touched his broad, meaty shoulder. “Take it easy, sergeant. I know what you’re talking about. Just concentrate on getting better.”

“Don’t…”

“Don’t worry. Is there anything you want?”

Meredith’s hard grey eyes were clouding over with fatigue. A slight movement might have been a shake of the head. I patted his shoulder again and retreated to the door which opened as I got there.

“I was just coming to ask you to leave, Mr Hardy,” the sister said.

“That’s OK, sister,” I said, “in a hospital being asked to leave is OK. Ask me to stay and I’d worry.”

Castlecrag looks good. The streets are wide, the gardens are big and the Council picks up the rubbish. But, at least on weekdays, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of life in the place. Maybe the kids are at boarding school and the wives are playing golf while the husbands take meetings. Maybe the wives are taking meetings too. It’s one of those suburbs where the groceries are delivered. Two-car, two-salary, two-dog territory.

The address Louise Madden had given me was a corner block in one of the widest, quietest streets. There was a tennis court on the property and almost certainly a swimming pool behind the high brush fence. An archery range was a possibility.

I pushed a button at the set of wrought-iron gates mounted on brick pillars. I hoped I had the right address-it would be a fair hike to the front of the house next door. After a moderately long wait, I saw Louise Madden begin the trek down the bricked driveway. She was wearing a denim overall and high laced boots and carrying some kind of hooked implement which I never did identify. Her hair was tied up in a bright scarf and the work gloves on her hands were yellow. She opened the gates, shucked off one glove and shook my hand.

“Mr Hardy,” she said, “you look like you’ve been clearing privet.”

I touched the scrapes and scratches last night’s fun and games had left on my face. “Dealing with pests, certainly.”

She waved me through the heavy gate and let it swing back. “We’ll have to talk as I work. The woman here’s a real bitch-wants it finished yesterday, and I’ll get bawled out if I bend a blade of her precious grass.”

“Fun to work for,” I said. I had to hurry to keep up with her as she strode down the path, which gave way to a series of gravel tracks that wound through the gardens. I was right about the swimming pool and, given the stands of tall native trees, I still considered the archery range an option.

“Some are, some aren’t. She isn’t. I take it you haven’t found my dad?”

“No.”

“And from the look of you, no good news.”

“I don’t think you can expect good news, Ms Madden.”

“He’s dead?”

“Probably.”

“Shit.” She stopped and slashed at a bush with her hook. “How? Why?”

“I don’t know yet. That’s why I have to talk to you. Where are you working?”

“Over here.” She led me across to a steep bank where she was setting railway sleepers into the earth. “Look good, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

She wiped a yellow glove across her face. Tears had cut through a thin film of dust, leaving pale streaks on her skin. She banged her hands together and sat down on a sleeper. “You’d better tell me about it.”

“First, what d’you know about your grandfather?”

“Which one?”

“The who that built the bridge.”

“Oh, Grandpa Madden. Yes.” Through her distress over her father, memories of her grandfather caused her to smile. “He was great. But what’s it got to do with…?”

“Do the names Glover, Barclay and…” I struggled to remember the names Meredith had mumbled and had to resort to my notebook. “… Samuels and Booth mean anything to you?”

She shook her head. The sun went behind a cloud, and suddenly it was cold in the big garden. The light dropped and the elegantly and strategically arranged plants looked grim and lifeless. Louise Madden unhooked a heavy cardigan from where it had been hanging on an embedded sleeper and shrugged into it. “Tell me what you’re driving at.”

“Several men, sons of engineers and others involved in the construction of the bridge, have vanished or died. There seems to be a connection.”

She stood, picked up a mattock and began hacking at the hard earth around a deeply implanted stump. “Got to move this if I’m going to get the layout right for Madam. I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Neither do I.”

“What were those names again?”

I gave them to her. She kept hacking, stopped, gave the stump a tug. It wobbled, just a little. “Dad knew a man named Samuels, I think. Yes. And he disappeared. That’s right. I remember Dad talking about it.”

“Was this Samuels somehow connected with the bridge?”

She put down the mattock and took off her cardigan. “I think he might have been. There was always a lot of talk about the bridge when we saw Grandpa. He was terribly proud of it.”

“That’s understandable,” I said. “ I’m proud of it, and all my dad ever did was drive over and help to pay for it.”

“Mm. Yes, now that you get me thinking about it, I believe Dad and Mr Samuels did talk about the bridge. But they played golf together mostly. I don’t think there was a Sons of the Bridge Builders Society or anything like that.”

“No?” I watched her continue her attack on the stump. “I don’t suppose your grandfather ever mentioned any enemies? Men with grudges against him?”

“Grandpa? He was just a sweet old man when I knew him. You’d think he’d have trouble climbing a ladder. But he told me he’d walked across the top of the arch after the bridge was finished, and I believed him. D’you think that could be true?”

I grinned. “Don’t ask. Is there anything else you can tell me about your father, the bridge, friends connected with it. Anything like that?”

“No. Nothing. Did you find the woman? The woman Dad played golf with? You haven’t asked me to…”

“I found her and talked to her. She couldn’t help.”

“What was she like?”

The mattock hung from her hand, forgotten. She was looking for something positive, some shred of comfort in a fatherless world. “Attractive and intelligent. She really cared for your father and I think she misses him badly. But she…”

“Has a husband and property to protect. Kids.” She swung the mattock viciously so that the blade stabbed three inches into the stump. “Fucking heteros!”

It was getting cold sitting there motionless in the shade. I stood and shivered. “I’m sorry to upset you, but these things don’t usually work out too well.”