Peter Corris - Wet Graves

One change we’ve had to endure is the installation of a lock on the street-level door. I keep my key to it wedged in a crevice of the church’s sandstone wall on the other side of the lane. I keep a spare key to the office door under the lino on the stairs-a bit like in Dial M for Murder. You won’t catch me locked out of building, office and drinks cabinet on a cold Tuesday night.

I got the key out of the wall and had to juggle the pizza and my manila envelope of volunteered information to use it. I ended by wedging the envelope between my knees, balancing the pizza box on my head and working the stiff key one-handed.

He came out of the shadows where there is a recess between my building and the next, and he was quiet and fast. I just caught a glimpse of him and swayed away a little from the thing in his hand that was swishing through the air. It struck hard but the pizza saved me; it took a lot of weight out of the blow, although I felt it down to my toes and the shutters almost came up. I yelled and sagged back against the door. I felt a hand grabbing at me as if the assault was sexual but I realised he was reaching for the envelope between my legs. I hunched over and attempted to butt him somewhere, anywhere. I connected and felt the wind rush out of him. It hurt me too, forcing me to shut my eyes and gasp. I tried to yell again, but my windpipe felt twisted and no sound came out.

I was going down, a perfect target for a boot, when a shout came from above and across the lane

“Hey! What’s going on there?” The voice was coming from the church. Could it be the Almighty? I tried another yell but managed only a choked growl. Shout and growl were enough for my attacker. He stopped groping at me and ran off down the lane, stumbling a bit but with a lot more get up and go in him than I had in me.

In Darlinghurst, if a shout saves you from injury and violation, you don’t complain if you never see who did the shouting. I sat with my bum on the cold cement, my back against the door, and peered up at the high wall opposite. But there was no further movement or sound from that quarter. The envelope had slid to between my knees and was ripped where the attacker had got a grip on it, but that was all. My head was aching, ringing. I guessed the blurry white thing lying in the lane, upside down with a large dent in it, was my pizza box.

When I was sure I had vision and movement, I levered myself upright and looked around for my key. I couldn’t see it on the ground. I picked up the pizza, squinted in the gloom and found the key in the lock. I opened the door and broke my fail-safe rule by putting the key in my pocket. The rule doesn’t apply when you’re semi-concussed and carrying a broken pizza. Then I went slowly up the stairs, pausing at each level, until I reached my own floor. I slid along the wall like a drunk needing the support until I reached my door. No need to dig for a key or, even worse, go back to the stairs for the one under the lino. The door was standing open.

I turned on the light, went inside and put my burdens on the desk. I knew I’d left papers on the desk; my mother’s attempts to make me tidy hadn’t ever taken, and where she’d failed how could the army hope to succeed? But I hadn’t left the desk as messy as this. I certainly hadn’t ripped my copy of the Commercial Agents and Private Enquiry Agents Act 1963 into pieces and scattered them around the room. I gave the door a push and heard it slap against the frame and fail to lock. The lock had been opened with a pick and had jammed in the latch position. That much detection was all I was up to for the moment. I went down the hall to the bathroom, ran water, washed my face and got a thick wad of wet handtowel paper to press against the bump on my head.

I sat in the client’s chair with my eyes closed for a while until the throbbing eased and other parts of my body made their needs known. I was hungry and thirsty. For no good reason I remembered something my ex-wife Cyn had said when I came home with a pizza one night. “Garbage in, garbage out,” she’d said. That was all she knew; if I’d been carrying a tabouli salad my brains might be lying in the lane. The filing cabinet had been opened-it didn’t take Raffles to do that-but the wine was still there. I pulled the cork out of the bottle and drank some of the rough red down in gulps. Aggressive stuff, confidence-building. I slid the pizza out of the crushed box and wolfed it-cold squashed anchovies and all. A few more gulps of wine and I felt ready to plug in the jug and make coffee. Cyn had despised instant coffee too, but even she couldn’t deny that it was quick. Two cups of it, black, with three red Codrals, and I was pain-free, almost floating, ready to think about what the hell was happening to me.

The office had been roughly but thoroughly searched-filing cabinet, desk drawers, under the carpet, behind the electric jug, coffee and sugar. For what? I did a quick paw through myself and couldn’t find anything missing, although I had a feeling that something was. The notes on my oldest case, the one involving the striptease dancer and her runaway son, and my latest, the disappearance of Brian Madden, were where they should have been. I prowled around the room trying to locate the gap. When things are too familiar, it’s easy to overlook something missing-memory and imagination supply the lack. I drank some more wine and gnawed on a pizza crust. What? What! Eventually it hit me: a framed photograph almost three decades old I had put in the office rather than the house because Cyn had hated it, wasn’t lying face down on top of the filing cabinet the way it had for years. A clean space, six centimetres by ten, stood out on the dusty surface like a cricket pitch on a bowling green.

I sat down behind the desk and thought about the picture. I’d looked at it a thousand times with mixed emotions, and every detail of it was clear in my mind. ‘Maroubra Police Boys’ Club boxing championships’ had been scratched across the bottom by the photographer. The picture showed the finalists in the divisions from heavyweight to flyweight — sixteen of us. I was there alongside Clem Carter, who’d knocked me out in the third round to win the welterweight title. Also in the picture were several policemen who’d trained and encouraged us and also acted as timekeepers and referees. I’d long forgotten most of their names but I remembered one of the referees. He’d tried to give me a fast count when I went down in the semifinal, and I’d had to scramble up early to beat it. You might think that a man who can’t even referee a kids’ boxing match honestly has a serious problem and in this case you’d be right. His name was Stewart ‘Rhino’ Jackson.

It didn’t make a lot of sense, but it did make some. One thing was certain-it was time to get professional help on my semi-professional problem. I poured a sipping-size measure of wine and called Cy Sackville. In an unguarded moment, Sackville had once told me that he liked to watch LA Law on TV on Tuesday nights, so I knew where to find him. I dialled his number and tried to imagine him sitting in a leather armchair in his Point Piper flat with the remote control in one hand and the Law Review Digest in the other, ready to do a bit of reading during the commercials.

“Sackville. Please leave your message after the tone.”

“I know you’re there, Cy. Put in a tape and press the record button. It’s your old friend and client, Cliff Hardy, in need of a talk.”

There was a pause, then the tone was cut off and Sackville’s voice came on the line. “Jesus Christ! Hang on.”

I grinned as I sipped the wine.

“Okay,” Sackville said.

“How’re Mickey and Grace? Are they married yet?”

“What d’you want, Cliff?”