Peter Corris - Heroin Annie

‘Yes, and this helped you to decide that the painting was genuine?’

He scratched at the squared-off beard, disturbing its symmetry. ‘It played a part in my judgement, yes.’

‘I see. Tell me, Dr Ernst, once you’ve inspected and okayed a painting is there any way for anyone to know that you’ve given it the thumbs up?’

‘Bruno. I’m sorry, I do not understand.’

‘Do you mark the painting in any way, Bruno?’

‘Yes, indeed, with a stamp which can only be seen under ultra-violet light. The stamp carried my initials inside an octagon-I marked the Castleton with it.’

I thanked him, and he insisted I have a glass of sherry with him while he showed me his paintings, books and the view. Too many paintings at once numb me, most of the books were in German, but I liked the view. The sherry was okay. As I moved towards the door, he gently suggested that he was due a consultation fee. I wrote him a cheque for fifty bucks and he waved me goodbye with it from his doorway.

I’d left my car in Darling Street, near the police station for safety, but I took a long walk through the Balmain streets trying to order the facts I had. The Woods woman’s story to Ernst sounded phoney, but could possibly be the truth. The only trouble was that there was a third painting in the works. ‘Stockyards at Jerilderie’ would have fitted the picture I’d seen in the Paddington house and I had to assume that Leo Porter’s lost painting was of the same scene. But which one carried Ernst’s mark? That seemed like the vital question, but was it? I worked up a sweat on the uphill stretch from the water and reached into my pocket for something to wipe my face with. I came up with the bit of paint-stained shirt. I looked at it and remembered what Porter had said about his former ladyfriend knocking around with artists. I also remembered the face of the man who’d hit me in the stomach. I hoofed it back to the car and drove through the ill-tempered traffic to the Cross.

Three years’ friendship with Primo Tomasetti seems like a lifetime; I park my car out behind his tattooing parlour for a modest fee and he bombards me with his ideas on the good life- they involve considerable strain on the liver and prostate. Besides tattooing and mural painting, both of which he has brought to a high and erotic pitch, Primo is a bloody good man with a pencil. I stuck the Falcon on the little concrete patch at the back and came up the rear steps into the dark den where Primo plies his trade.

He was tattooing a Kiss-type design on the face of a young girl and he winked at me as I came in.

‘What’s her mother going to think of that?’ I said.

‘She never hadda mudder; she was too poor, right sweetheart?’

The girl didn’t move a muscle. I watched it for as long as I could bear and then I went through to the kitchen and made coffee. Primo keeps an interesting collection of magazines back there, and I browsed through them while waiting for the coffee to perk. I made two long, strong blacks and took them back into the workshop. The girl was gone and Primo was holding his hands in front of his face and staring at them.

‘I hate what I do, Cliff, he said. ‘It’s a crime.’

‘Rubbish, you love it. And I know you, you put in that stuff you can wash out in six months. She was free, white and seventeen anyway.’

‘I suppose you’re right. Thanks.’ He took the coffee and I arranged some cartridge paper and pencils on his work desk while we sipped.

‘You want a new name-plate designed?’ he said. ‘A black falcon, maybe?’

‘I haven’t got a name plate. When I need the name freshly written on an envelope to pin to my door I’ll let you know.’

He blew steam off the surface of the drink. ‘You got no class, Cliff.’

‘True. How d’you reckon you’d go at one of those identikit jobs? I describe the face, you do the drawing?’

‘Sensational! It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’

‘Drink your coffee and let’s have a go at it.’

The floor was half-covered with crumpled paper when we finished a bit over an hour later. We got it right in the end-Primo prompted me and I abused him, and between us we caught the essence of the man I’d seen in Susannah Woods’ house-his thin, peaked face, cupid bow mouth and dark, low-growing hair. I’d have known him from the drawing and I had to hope others would too. I thanked Primo and paid him a week in advance for the parking spot. He looked hurt.

After that I tramped the art galleries of the inner city for a couple of hours getting hostile headshakes, propositions and indifferent shrugs. I couldn’t tell whether or not they were lying, and by the end of the day I felt like a visitor from Mars. They were a strange lot; most of them expressed indifference to Susannah Woods and I began to wonder what they did care about but they gave me no clues.

I decided that I did care who’d killed the woman and why; I wanted a drink badly and a lead nearly as badly, and gave it one last try by calling Harry Tickener. Harry is a reporter on The News and ten years of snooping around Sydney haven’t dimmed his enthusiasm for his job. He sees a hell of a lot, hears a lot more and remembers almost all of it. I asked him to bring along the paper’s art critic and promised to pay for the drinks. That made it a must for Harry, who is just a bit on the short-armed side.

We met at a pub on Broadway just across from the newspaper office. I fended off a few journos who wanted to talk about boxing-of which there isn’t any anymore. Harry came in half an hour late with a paperweight sort of woman who he introduced as Renee Beale. Harry had a double Scotch of course and Renee had a Campari and ginger ale. We talked about nothing much over the drinks while Harry and the woman smoked and pushed back their hair and gave good impressions of tired workers; maybe they were. Harry lit his third Camel and squinted at me through the smoke.

‘Renee’s got an opening to go to, Cliff, he said.

She held up her glass. ‘I’ll have to write it up tonight. I’ll have two glasses of flagon plonk at the show and work till midnight.’

‘Okay’, I said. ‘I’d like to know if you recognise this man.’ I pulled out Primo’s drawing and handed it across to her.

She put on gold-rimmed glasses and peered at the paper. ‘Hey, this is good!’

‘You know him?’

‘Sure, this is Paul Steele, him to the life.’

‘What does he do?’

‘Well, he…’ She stalled by putting her glasses back in their case and sipping her drink. Then she looked across to Tickener.

‘It’s okay, Renee’, Tickener said. ‘Cliffs a gentleman-he won’t throw him down any stairs or anything.’

I had reservations about that, but tried not to let them show in my face. Renee looked at her watch, drew smoke into her lungs, blew it out and sipped Campari.

‘Paul’s a painter, or was’, she said. ‘He had a bit of a following for a while, did some very nice things. But the money and the junk got to him, and he hasn’t done anything good for a long time.’

‘Has he done anything?’ I asked.

‘Well, he does some restoring…’

‘And copying?’ I said.

‘A bit.’

‘Right, can you tell me where to find him?’

She gave me three possible addresses in Surry Hills and Darlinghurst, finished her drink and went off to her opening. I had another drink with Tickener and told him about the case while he blew Camel smoke around, looked at the women who came and went and scratched at his thinning fair hair.

‘You reckon this Steel character killed her to get the genuine painting, Cliff?’

‘That’s the way it looks.’

‘Why did she want the original copied?’

‘This Castleton’s a bit dodgy I gather, hard to prove if something’s his or not. My guess is she wanted the copy to impress Ernst, help to confirm that she had the real thing- it worked too.’