Peter Corris - Wet Graves

“You only meant that I’ve got enemies and should have as many policemen friends as possible. I get the message, inspector.”

The nurse beckoned us in and we arranged ourselves on chairs around the bed. Meredith was propped up on pillows. There were no tubes into his head, just one into his arm and one into the body. His colour was good.

“Hell, Lloyd,” Loomis said. “You look better than I feel.”

Meredith nodded. “Inspector, Ralph, Hardy. It’s good to see you.” He touched the newspaper on the bed. “I was right about the bridge being the link.”

“You were,” Loomis said. “It was good work.”

“And we still want your input,” Wren said.

Loomis filled Meredith in on details that hadn’t made it into the papers, mostly about my role. The news stories hadn’t mentioned me, which was fine: being a high-public-profile private detective would be like playing football in pink shorts.

“Fingerprints in Lithgow’s room?” Meredith asked.

Loomis nodded. “Plenty. But no match-ups.”

“The canvas and the plugs?”

“Undergoing analysis,” Wren said.

Meredith rubbed his face which was smooth-shaven. They’d washed and combed his hair too. He looked almost ready to go back to work. “He told Hardy he’d retired from the public service?”

“Which almost certainly means,” Loomis said, “that he was never in the bloody public service.”

“What then?” Wren said.

I shrugged. “Small business, maybe. To do with boats. Just a guess.”

“Great.” Loomis sat back in his chair, took out a thin cigar and ran it between his lingers. “This is one of the biggest harbour cities in the world. Any idea how many small businesses to do with boats there’d be?”

Meredith smiled. “The seafood restaurants alone.”

Loomis and I both laughed but Wren looked grim. “I don’t see what there is to be amused about. This man has killed seven people, maybe more. We don’t know who he is, where he lives or anything about him except that he talks politely and can row a boat. I’d call this a major problem case.”

“Easy, Ralph,” Loomis said. “No use blowing the boiler. Any bright ideas, Hardy?”

“What about the victims? If they were all oldest sons of bridge men, that could narrow the field of possible future targets. At least they could be located and protected.”

Wren shook his head. “Two of them weren’t oldest sons. There’s lots of them. Not as many as sons of men killed or injured on the bridge, but still too many to cover.”

“There has to be a reason why he just started this up recently,” Meredith said.

Wren checked his notes. “Fits with retirement. Time and money to track down and kill people.”

“That boat of his looked expensive. He didn’t seem like a man to whom time and money were a big problem,” I said. “I should’ve picked up on that at the time but I didn’t. There were other odd things about him, too.”

“Like what?” Wren snapped.

I shook my head, trying to locate the source of the disquiet, the feeling that something I’d seen had been wrong. I couldn’t do it. “I don’t know. Can’t put my finger on it.”

Meredith was suddenly looking tired. He blinked a few times and slid down on his pillows. “The other possibility is that he found something out recently. Some-thing that triggered all this. Have there been any out-of-the-usual stories about the bridge in the last six months?”

“Bloody toll and tunnel’s all I can think of,” Loomis grunted.

Wren made a note. “We can check it.” Loomis smoothed the wrapping on his cigar. “Any more bright ideas, Lloyd?” Meredith glanced at me. “Only one.” I looked at the man who had saved my life and had taken two bullets the shooter would have been happy to have put in me. He had two tubes running out of him and all the energy and enthusiasm he would usually be exerting with his body was concentrated in the challenging look in his eyes. Our ten minutes were almost up. “I thought you’d never ask,” I said.

Ralph Wren got busy and he had very receptive media to deal with. Harbour bridge stories, apparently, rate just below quins and bimbos for ratings and newspaper sales, and what Wren served up was swallowed whole: BRIDGE KILLER INSANE, SAYS EXPERT was one headline. An unnamed psychologist hypothesised that the person responsible for the deaths of the bridge builders’ sons was ‘motivated by an irrational hatred of the bridge, which was undoubtedly a symbol for a deep sexual uncertainty’. The article went on to compare the killer to assorted psychopaths distinguished by sexual confusion and clinically tested low intelligence.

A television report laid stress on the magnificent achievement of Bradfield, Ennis, Barclay, Glover and the others. It showed old, flickering black and white footage of the building and opening of the bridge and emphasised the safety and stability of the structure. “No one will ever sing ‘The harbour bridge is falling down’,” the voice-over commentary ran, “and no one has ever disputed that the bridge is worth every cent and every drop of sweat it cost.” The report concluded with the statement that “the serial killer is offering an insult to the memories of great men, and an affront to all Australians who care about their country’s history”.

This went on for two days. The killer was described as “probably impotent and mother-fixated” the bridge builders as “heroes” and their families as “devastated”. The artist’s drawing of Lithgow was circulated, but it had been modified to make him look brutish and humourless. The usual number of crank calls and letters were received by the police and the media, and several of the more inane and perverted of these received some publicity. The outstanding war records of some of the builders’ offspring, male and female, got a mention. This was at my suggestion. There was something about the photo-graph of Lithgow’s father, and his reaction when the topic of war came up, that worked in my mind like a stone in a shoe. But I still couldn’t make sense of it.

Ray Guthrie was interviewed by the police but not troubled further. Louise Madden was not required to identify her father. My recognition plus dental records and the presence of a scar from a minor operation on Madden’s right knee was sufficient. The autopsy revealed that he had died from a blow to the temple, which had caused a massive haemorrhage.

“That would have been quick and probably painless,” I told Louise. She was finishing off the job in Castlecrag and I’d driven out there to give her the news in person.

She used a mallet to knock a heavy stone into place in a rockery she’d constructed. “That’s good. When can I bury him?”

“Soon, I should think.”

“Will you come?”

“If you want me to.”

She nodded and swung the mallet again. The dull thwacks reminded me of the sounds Helen Broadway made when she staked vines on her husband’s land. I’d pleaded with her to leave him and she wouldn’t. I’d pulled up some of the vines and we’d shouted at each other. Louise Madden stopped working and stared at me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head to clear the images.

“This isn’t over for you, Cliff, is it?”

“Not really. Not until he’s caught.”

“And what’s happening on that front?” The police and I anticipated that Lithgow would have read my name in the press and put two and two together.

“We’re waiting,” I said.

Lithgow called on the third night. I was in my office.

“You know who this is?” he said.

“Yes.” I switched on the police-provided recording equipment. There was a similar hook-up at home.