Peter Corris - Man In The Shadows

I made instant coffee in the kitchenette and prowled around the small flat. Greenway had spent some of his sleepless night cleaning up and the place didn’t look too bad. There was a slight smell in the bedroom and I located the source-a thick gauze pad which had been soaked in ether. Greenway had put it in a plastic bag the way he’d seen it done in the movies. I also located a large manilla envelope which had been sealed with masking tape and torn open. I had exhibits one and two on the table with the coffee when he came out, showered and shaved and in a clean T-shirt. He nodded and put three spoonsful of sugar in his coffee.

‘He was waiting for me.’

‘You put up much of a fight?’

‘Not much. God, he was strong and I was a bit pissed. I had a few on the way home. The photos were made into the bed, at the bottom. I thought it was pretty smart but he must’ve found them in no time.’

‘How long were you out to it?’

‘Not long. Half an hour, bit less.’

‘Nothing else taken or disturbed?’

He shook his head and drank some of his coffee syrup. ‘Have you got the diary with you?’

‘Let’s stay with this for a minute. You didn’t get a look at him, sense anything, smell anything?’

‘No. All I smelled was the ether. All I can tell you about him was that he must be heavy and strong. I’ve seldom… ‘

‘What?’

He waved his hand in one of his rare theatrical gestures. ‘Well, I’ve been in close contact with a few men, if you see what I mean. Not many as strong as this guy.’

‘Okay. Did you notice anything when you got home?’

‘Like what?’

‘Lights on, doors open, cars parked?’

He drank some more coffee and made an effort to remember. ‘N… no. There was a car across the road I don’t remember seeing before. I noticed because it was so clean.’

‘What kind?’

‘I don’t know about cars. No idea.’

‘What colour?’

‘White.’

I grunted. ‘Anything else?’

‘Don’t think so. Oh, hold on.’ He lifted his hand and brushed it against his ear. ‘I felt something before I went under. Something against my ear. Hair. I’d say he had a moustache. There’s something else too… but I can’t quite get it.’

‘That’s good enough.’

‘How is it good?’

I told him about the man with the heavy moustache and the white Volvo who’d been let into my house by Annie. He opened his eyes in surprise and then winced as too much Bondi sunlight hit them. I handed him the diary. ‘Did those initials mean anything to you?’

‘I heard Annie talk about someone she called Obie, could’ve been this O’B., but I don’t know.’

‘First name?’

‘No idea. Sorry. She said he was very smart, smarter than me. Something bad happened to him but I don’t know what.’

‘Read the entries for the time she was in hospital.

You’d better not look at what she wrote after you dropped her. You might think less well of yourself.’

While he read I phoned Frank Parker in Homicide for information on Annie Parker. He got a summary of the medical examiner’s report and proceeded to be cautious.

‘What d’you want to know?’

‘Cause of death.’

‘Narcotics overdose. Death through respiratory and cardiac failure.’

‘Heroin?’

‘No, morphine. How would you classify this death, Cliff?’

‘Probably an accident.’

‘I don’t think we have a category “accident- probably”; what about something more definite?’

‘Accident then.’

‘Nothing in it for me?’

‘Don’t think so.’ Frank said something about Hilde and his baby son which I didn’t hear because I wasn’t listening. My mind was running somewhere else. Morphine and ether. A white Volvo. Sounded like a doctor to me. ‘Hold on, Frank. Maybe you might be interested in this. I can’t tell you much now… ‘

‘But you want me to tell you something.’

‘Right. The Southwood Hospital in Sutherland. Might you have something on it?’

‘We might. I might have time to look. You might call me, eh?’

‘Thanks, Frank. Good about Hilde and the kid.’

‘I told you they had measles, you prick.’

I squeezed out of that somehow. When I put the phone down Greenway was closing the diary. He got a crumpled, much-used tissue out of his pocket and wiped his eyes. ‘Shit,’ he said.

‘Are you talking about yourself?’

‘You didn’t do such a great job either.’

‘Right. I feel like making some kind of amends, what about you?’

‘What can we do?’

‘We can break about five laws and take a look at the records of Southwood Hospital’

Greenway made more coffee and we drank that and then started on beer. I gave him my doctor theory and we looked through Annie’s diary for medicos. We came upon ‘Dr Charley’, the druggies’ friend, whom Greenway knew.

‘Not him,’ he said. ‘He’s out of his brain himself most of the time.’

We got ‘Dr S.’ and ‘Dr K.’ from the diary. S. would be Smith whom I’d met. K. meant nothing to either of us. Greenway began prowling the room restlessly. ‘How about checking the registration records to see if a doctor at the hospital has a white Volvo?’ he said.

‘That’d be harder than you think. Most doctors are incorporated these days, their cars are registered to their companies. Or they lease them. It’d be easier to go and look in the car park.’

‘Well?’

‘Yeah, maybe, but would you go to work in a car you’d used the way that Volvo was used yesterday? I wouldn’t.’

‘Hey!’ He dug around in a pile of newspapers on a chair, bent and looked on the floor. ‘Shit!’

‘What?’

‘He took my gun!’

‘Great! Well, it could be worse. It only had one shell in it.’

‘No. I loaded the full clip at home yesterday.’

I shook my head. ‘Well, it’s not so bad. We’re looking for a strong, bald doctor with a white Volvo, a fully loaded Browning Nomad and a thick moustache.’

Greenway shook his head slowly. I looked at him enquiringly. ‘I dunno about the moustache. I’ve remembered what I was trying to recall before. From acting-I smelled that spirit gum you use to stick on false beards and moustaches.’

I gave him a small round of applause. ‘Terrific recall. And I’ve just thought of something else.’

‘What?’

‘It could’ve been used to stick down a bald wig.’

We both laughed.

Greenway was exhausted from his long day and sleepless night. He sank lower in his chair and his eyes kept closing and I had to tell him to go to bed.

‘What’re you going to do?’

‘Make telephone calls. Really run up a bill. We’re still using this bastard’s money, aren’t we?’

He yawned. ‘Suppose so. Okay, I’ll snatch an hour.’

Within ten minutes he was sleeping deeply, looked like he’d be out for six hours at least. I left a note in case I was wrong and drove to my office in St Peter’s Lane. That was a waste of petrol and effort. Nothing there needing attention. No lonely clients with Rita Hayworth legs. Even Primo Tomasetti the tattooist, with whom I could usually waste some time, was on holidays and his establishment was closed. I knew why I was there of course-to check the mail and the answering machine for messages from Helen. I didn’t know whether I wanted a message or not, but there was nothing.

Back in Bondi, I bought a late lunch-two big salad sandwiches-and a six pack in Campbell Parade and ate one sandwich and drank one can sitting on the grass and looking out to sea. It was fine and warm with a clear sky and a pollution-clearing breeze. When I was young I’d come here to surf. Now they came to score-and surf, probably. It was confusing. I examined the big painting on a signboard which showed what the redevelopment of the foreshore would look like-park, playground, pavilion. It didn’t look any different which was fine by me; I like Bondi the way it is.