Peter Corris - The Big Drop

She grunted and slammed down the shutters.

I did the rounds the next day; Castlecrag isn’t known for its low-life hang-outs, but I checked such places as seemed likely to be trysting points. No result. A check of the cab companies that do most of the area’s business drew the same blank. I thought I should wait for Stevenson’s letter of authority before tackling the school, but I phoned the homes of the kids on the list of Portia’s friends and found one of them home with the flu. Her mother permitted me ten minutes with the kid after checking with Jessie.

The house was a sterile barn, too big for the woman and her two daughters who lived there. I gathered that Dad lived somewhere else. Tammy Martin’s bedroom was pretty much like Portia’s, except that she had more posters of younger guys-Michael Jackson, Christopher Atkins and the like. She sat up in bed with a glow of fever in her young cheeks and asked to see my gun.

‘I don’t carry a gun when I’m looking for a seventeen-year-old girl,’ I said.

‘You never know.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Nothin’. Just dialogue.’

She was bright and wanted to be helpful; she missed Portia and she phoo-phooed the idea that she had a boyfriend.

‘I’d have known,’ she said. ‘We were like that.’ She placed her index and second finger together, but she was wrong. I thanked her, said I hoped she’d get well soon, and left.

It was late afternoon when I got back to the trucking yard. The woman at the fast food bar looked tired already; she nodded sceptically at me when I waved to her. The yard was a big, flat expanse flanked by sheds like small aircraft hangars; a few prime movers and loaded semitrailers stood casting ungainly shadows across the asphalt. A group of drivers leaned on a stack of wooden pallets; they yarned and smoked and looked incuriously at me as I walked across to the office, wedged between two high, wide loading bays. Before I reached the building, one of the drivers detached himself and strolled towards me.

‘Help you, mate?’

I stopped. ‘Well, I wanted to see the boss, foreman or whatever.’ I could see a bespectacled man looking at us through a window in the office.

‘Why?’

‘I wanted to talk to the drivers.’

‘You don’t need to ask permission for that, mate. We’re independents here. You want to talk, come on over and talk.’ He jerked his head at the office. ‘He’s nobody.’

I followed him across to the pallets; there were four men there, all built big and wearing the dusty, greasy uniform of their calling. The man who had approached me simply joined the group and left me to sink or swim.

‘G’day,’ I said. ‘Wondering if one of you blokes could help me.’ I reached into my pocket and took out the most recent photograph of Portia-the one that showed her poised and confident in designer jeans, blouse and stylish jacket, standing in front of the Stevensons’ house. I held up the picture. ‘Seen her?’

One of the men, not the biggest but not the smallest, made a sound like a blocked drain clearing. He spat and reached for the front of my coat. I dropped the photograph.

‘I’ve been waitin’ for youse to turn up.’ He pulled me close and swung a short, clubbing punch at my chin. I pulled free and back and made the punch miss. He swore and came at me again.

‘Easy,’ I said.

‘Go on, Kenny,’ one of the men urged, ‘have a go!’

Kenny bustled forward and swung again. I took it on the shoulder and gave him a quick tap back. He ducked into it and was hit harder on the nose than I’d intended.

‘Fuck you!’ he roared. He came in again, swinging and lunging, and I gave ground until we were clear of the other men and I was sure of my footing. He squared up clumsily and I went under his lead and hammered his left side ribs. He almost overbalanced and I helped him down with a left hook under the ear. He sprawled on the dusty bitumen. The others moved threateningly but I pulled out my licence card and held it up.

‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘This is a misunderstanding. Don’t get excited.’

They hesitated and I crouched down beside Kenny who’d twisted his leg on his descent. I showed him the card.

‘This is a legitimate investigation. What did you mean-about waiting for me?’

Kenny did some swearing then looked across al, the office. ‘That four-eyed nong in there tried to I tribe me to say I’d seen the sheilah. Said someone’d be around askin’. I told him to get fucked and said I’d drop youse. You were a bit good, but.’

I took twenty dollars out of my wallet and put it on his chest. ‘A misunderstanding, mate. What’s his name?’

‘Polly Adams-there ‘e goes!’

A small man wearing a dust coat that flapped behind him, ran from the office between the loading bays. I took off like a sprinter from the blocks after him. He had a lead but he was no runner. I gained with every stride and the flapping coat caught on the wire that straggled from the cyclone fence where he had to make a turn. The coat ripped, he slowed down and I got my hand on his shoulder and ran him into the fence, he bounced off it and I pinned him back and held him there. We panted in each other other’s face and I realised that I was crouching and holding him up on tip toe. I felt ashamed; he was about five foot three and weighed around eight stone. I let him down and took two fistfuls of the front of his dust coat.

‘Just one question,’ I said. ‘Who told you to get a driver to lie to me?’ I shook him and his head wobbled on his thin neck. His breath smelled of cigarettes-no wind.

‘Silly bugger,’ he gasped. ‘He just hadda say it might’ve been her. He’s off to the West in a coupla days. There was fifty bucks in it for him.’

‘Who was he?’

‘I dunno his name. Met him in the pub this morning. Well, I seen him there before once.’

‘Description.’

‘Big bloke, tall as you ‘n heavier. Lot heavier. Red face, flash suit. Looked like a cop. I reckon he could be a cop.’

‘Bullshit!’ I let him go and he stayed there with his back against the wire; with his eyes and mouth open in fright and his torn coat flapping he looked like a scarecrow. I walked back to the yard. Kenny was leaning against the pallets with a cigarette in his mouth.

‘You all right?’ I said.

He nodded. I picked up the photograph and walked towards my car.

Five hours later I was in the car and parked fifty yards from the Stevenson’s house in Cammeray. Jeff Stevenson came out, got into a light-blue Holden Statesman and drove away. I followed him. He drove fast but not very well and I had to cope with some ill-tempered drivers he created around him. He ploughed through to Lane Cove West and took a turn off the Epping Road down towards the river. The street was dark and quiet and the Statesman plunged down into a car park under a block of flats that hid behind high poplar trees discreetly illuminated from ground level.

I parked in the street, got a torch from the glove box and went down into the bunker. Each resident had two parking bays-one for a visitor. The Statesman was parked next to a new Honda Civic in Bay 36A. I prowled around the block of flats until I located the right entrance. The white stones crunched under my feet; my legs were brushed by ferns. The rents would be high. Flat 36A was occupied by Ann Stevens. I went back to my car, drove to the nearest liquor store for a half bottle of whisky and took up a position opposite the flats with the radio on softly and the bottle on my lap. The Statesman roared up the ramp at a little past 2 a.m. I watched it out of sight, took one more swig on the bottle and drove carefully home.

I kept up a surveillance of the Stevensons for four days. Jeff Stevenson went to work in the mornings; Jessie slept late, moved like an automaton and went to her analyst. She drank gin in the afternoon. On the second night they went out to a restaurant; both drank a lot and Jessie almost raped him while they danced. The next night Stevenson arrived at Lane Cove West at midnight and Portia came out wearing a wig and a light coat with the collar turned up. They walked the streets, tightly locked together. She was tall and slim and her movements were graceful. She looked up at Jeff adoringly. I photographed them. I went through the rubbish bin for 36A and found a letter signed ‘Jeff’ and the foil from contraceptive pills.