Peter Corris - Man In The Shadows

‘Come in and sit down,’ I said. ‘I’m glad of the company.’ I peered at her through the gloom which had settled over the city and seeped into all rooms not floodlit.

‘The building did seem very quiet,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t sure it was inhabited.’

‘It is and it isn’t,’ I said. ‘What can I do for you?’

Adjusting to the murk, I could see that she was in early middle age, middle sized and middle class. She wore a wide brimmed hat and a coat of the same shiny black material that shed water. She had on a long dark skirt and black boots-a trifle funereal but functional. She took off the hat and shook out a head of blonde-streaked, mid-brown hair.

‘Roberta Landy-Drake gave me your name, Mr Hardy. She said you could handle… celebrities.’

‘Did you know she was joking?’

She frowned. Her handsome face creased up and I got the idea that she’d been doing a good deal of frowning lately. ‘I don’t follow you.’

‘I’ve been the chucker-out at some of her parties. I’ve handled celebrities, literally.’

‘Oh, I see. It doesn’t matter. The point is, Roberta says you don’t go off selling gossip to the papers or blackmail people.’

I nodded. ‘You’ll have to forgive me. If you’re a celebrity I’m afraid I don’t know you. Maybe it’s a bore but you’ll have to tell me your name.’

‘My name is Barbara Winslow. I’m not a celebrity but my husband is.’

‘Oh, god,’ I said.

Ian Winslow was the flavour of the month politician. He’d been to the right schools, had the right degree and looked good on television. What he thought was anybody’s guess, what he said reflected his deep concern. He was deeply concerned about everything, particularly about ethnic affairs which was his current portfolio, but also about health and police and any other headline worthy subject you chose. To me, he seemed to care deeply for his teeth and brushing his hair boyishly.

‘You don’t approve of him?’ Barbara Winslow said. ‘I’d be surprised if you supported the other side.’

She was looking at my sneakers. Fair enough; politics is class-based or should be. My credentials were all around me-on my feet, on the pitted surface of my desk, on the windows which looked dirtier inside now that the outside had been washed and rinsed by God.

‘It’s not that. I just don’t like having anything to do with politics… ‘

‘This is a man in trouble.’

‘Politicians aren’t men, they’re networks of obligations and enmities.’

‘They have families.’

So do axe murderers, I thought. I said nothing; she stood and walked over to the window. There was so much water pounding the glass and moving on its surface that the window itself looked liquid and insubstantial. When she turned around her eyes were wet.

‘You have to help me. Roberta said you would.’

I nodded, took a note pad from my desk and offered her a cigarette from the office packet. She refused which was wise because they were stale. But she was comforted by the gesture; she left the window and sat down again. She was eager to talk, eager to see me write, eager to pay me money.

‘Ian Winslow,’ I said and wrote the name in block capitals. ‘By this time next year he’ll probably be in charge of the department that licenses me. Self interest suggests I should help you.’

‘The year after that and he could be in charge of the state.’

‘Well…?’

‘He’s behaving strangely, going out at odd times, not accounting for his movements. He’s nervy and…’

‘Off his food?’

‘Roberta said you’d joke and not to mind. But this isn’t a joke.’

‘Okay. Politicians have a million worries; people ring them up at all hours; they have to breathe other people’s air a lot.’

‘I know. This is different. I want you to follow him when he goes out at night and find out what he does.’

‘I could just ask one of his security boys.’

‘He’s called them off. He goes out alone.’

That was strange; politicians like a huddle-it helps absorb the egg or lead and makes them feel important. You almost never see one silhouetted against the sky like Clint Eastwood. As she put it the job didn’t sound so hard. At least I wouldn’t be craning to look over the heads of a lot of guys with thick waists and short haircuts. But if she wanted an early start I’d have to wear goggles and a snorkel. She began taking hundred dollar notes out of an envelope.

‘I suppose you want me to start when the weather clears up.’

‘I want you to start tonight.’

At 10 pm I was sitting in my car watching the exit, to the car park of The Belvedere which is one of the new, tall apartment blocks they’ve built overlooking Darling Harbour. Eventually, when a few hundred million dollars of taxpayers’ money has been spent on beautifying everything around there, the people who’ve spent big bucks on their apartments will have a lovely view instead of scraped earth and stained concrete. The rain hadn’t let up so that for now they had acres of pale mud to look at. Tough.

I’d left Helen at home with a stack of video recordings of movies she’d missed because she lived half the year in the bush. She’d promised to keep me some wine and to hold off on ‘Night Moves’ until I got back. She’d keep the promise but I knew I didn’t have to worry about her waiting censoriously up for me. If I got home by midnight or thereabouts, fine; if not, I could find her in the bed.

I was listening to a smart-arse radio hack being rude to his callers. The things the people who called wanted to talk about got sillier and sillier so I couldn’t blame him. No one wants to do silly things-like sit in a leaking car in a rainstorm watching a hole in the ground when there’s a woman and a cask and ‘North by Northwest’ waiting at home.

At 11 pm a white Commodore carrying the number plate Barbara Winslow had given me roared up the ramp. It barely paused at the footpath and swung right past me with indicator lights blinking brightly through the steady rain. I started the

Falcon, indicated right as I pulled away from the kerb, and kept the indicators flashing as I followed the Commodore. We drove east, past the dark, silent department stores and the bottomless mine shafts they’re sinking as part of the renovation of the Queen Victoria Building.

The rubbers on the Falcon’s windscreen wipers weren’t new and they didn’t do a good job on the clean water falling from the sky or the dirty stuff being splashed up from the road. I had to squint, rub the glass and drive closer to the Commodore than I would have liked. I’d caught a glimpse of the driver when the car first appeared and I could see the line of his head and shoulders as we sloshed through the city. It was Winslow all right, fair hair, chin up and no slouching.

We went up through Taylor Square, skirted Paddington and swished into those streets near Trumper Park where the kids would be odds on not to know who the park commemorated. The Commodore turned into a street lined with Moreton Bay fig trees. The rain had stripped a lot of the leaves and left them as mush in the gutters and on the road but there was enough foliage left to hood the street lights already dimmed by rain. Nothing wrong with the Commodore’s stop lights though; they flashed at me bright and early enough to allow me to drop back and pull in to the kerb well before Winslow parked.

Ignoring the rain, I wound down the window to get a clearer view as Winslow flicked the car door closed and scooted through a gate to a deep verandah running the width of a well-kept, double-fronted terrace house. Winslow shook water from his light rain coat by flapping it and jerking his shoulders. He looked nervous as he knocked. A light came on over his head and a woman appeared in the doorway. Winslow grabbed her as if his life depended on trapping her where she stood. Her slender bare arms wrapped around him and I could see her face before she buried it in his shoulder: black hair gleamed under the porch light; teeth and eyes shone against a skin the colour of a ripe plum.