Peter Corris - The Empty Beach

‘You’re a great talker, Hardy, but the obvious connection is with what you’re working on, and you’ve told me bugger all about that.’

‘All I know is that they talked, I don’t know what about. I’m in the dark, too.’ That wasn’t quite true; I had a few indications and the ashram to look into, but what I said next was the whole truth. ‘Look, Frank, I’ll tell you the lot in a day or so, as I promised. Shit, I’ll want you in the minute anything breaks, if it does. I don’t want to go up against the Bronte strangler all on my own-I’ll want dogs, horses, gas, the lot.’

‘All right.’ He unfolded his long legs from under the desk and stood up, ready for action. ‘I’ll put in a request for someone to work on that mess and I’ll get out on the street.’

For a minute I thought he was going to thank me, but that would’ve been asking a bit too much. Cops like being on the street, of course, the good ones because they feel they’re doing something useful out there and the bad ones because of their lubricity-for the free women with the drinks and food thrown in. But Frank Parker didn’t look about to slide from good to bad.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ I said.

‘No more bodies, Hardy. Please, no more bodies.’

The ashram in Salisbury Street was a converted car showroom or something similar. It was long and low and had a big window onto the street. This had been blanked out by yellow paint; the whole place was painted yellow, not the bright, buttercup version but a deeper colour shading down towards orange. There was no sign on the building to indicate its purpose, but on either side of the wide doors were posters. They were blowups of a photograph of a weird scene and I stared at it for a full minute without comprehension. It looked like a moonscape with a Hitler youth rally going on, except that the faithful wore loincloths. The poster had the word ‘GIVE’ in capitals above and below the picture.

The joint was painted yellow inside too; at least, as far as I got, which was only into a small, partitioned-off reception room. There was a picture on the wall of a scrawny little number, with no chin and rimless glasses. He looked to me a lot like Heinrich Himmler, but I could have been free-associating with the picture outside. An old woman wearing yellow robes reproached me for flippancy when I asked the name of the guru. I asked for Brother Gentle and she told me he wasn’t in. I asked for his second-in-command, and she said that there was no command structure in the ashram. I gathered that she was minding the fort while all the able-bodied devotees were out filling the money bins. I left a card and said I’d call back. Her wrinkled old face arranged itself in a smile and she said something in one of the many languages I don’t understand.

‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

‘May the sun fill your heart.’

‘And yours,’ I said.

I found some old shorts and a towel in the car, changed and went for a swim. It was cold but the surf was low and I ploughed along, telling myself that giving up cigarettes was the smartest thing I’d ever done. In sheer physical moments like that I almost believed it. After the swim I jogged gently along the beach in the sun; the sand was hard-packed and substantial and I stretched out trying to get some bounce into my forty-year-old style. Off to the west the buildings and the foreign-looking trees had a temporary, painted-on appearance, as if a big wind could get up in the centre of Australia and push the whole lot into the sea.

I went to sleep on the sand and woke up with a start. I’d been dreaming about a wave. It started as a little fellow just spanking the water’s edge, then it went back, rolled in again and got bigger each time. The last time it was really big, rolling over the sand towards the pavilion.

I went for another swim and then sat watching the movement of the tide. The beach emptied around me; where bodies had been, there were now just impressions in the sand casting low shadows. Soon the water would come up and smooth them out. The beach got a clean slate every day, unlike people.

Manny was polishing glasses when I got to the coffee bar. He held one up. ‘Drink?’

‘All right. Thanks.’

He poured two hefty tumblers of yellowish fluid. I took a swig. It was raw and fruity.

‘Make it myself,’ he said. ‘Very bad about Bruce.’

‘Very bad.’

‘Very dangerous place, Sydney.’

I grunted, wondering what other dangerous places he knew.

‘The police were here,’ he said.

I looked up at the shelf where the cassettes were stacked. He shook his head. ‘Didn’t tell them about that.’

‘Why not?’

He finished off his wine, if that’s what it was, in a gulp. ‘Where I come from we have a saying-don’t trust your mother or your sister or your brother, they might be sleeping with a policeman.’

I nodded and took a conservative sip. ‘How did you get involved with this? I mean, Ann and Bruce?’

‘Bruce came in for coffee and we got talking. I said there weren’t too many young men around like him, made strong. They’re all, what is it-weedy? Or fat. But Bruce, he was strong.’

‘Yeah, he was.’

‘We arm-wrestled a couple of times.’ He looked me over dubiously. ‘You wanna try it?’

‘No thanks.’ His biceps and neck muscles stretched the ribbing on his T-shirt. ‘Who won the wrestling?’

‘Bout a draw. I used to want to be a writer. Long time ago. Bruce talked about his writing and Ann, she’s a writer too isn’t she?’

‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘So you helped them?’

He shrugged and poured himself another slug. ‘Have another?’

‘No, thanks, I’ll go steady. I’m expecting Ann in soon.’

His moustache seemed to droop even more and his eyes and mouth pursed up tightly. ‘You going to work with Ann?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Should,’ he said. ‘Drug scene here is real bad.’

‘Not my line,’ I said and, saying it, remembered what my line was. I pulled out my photographs of Singer and handed them to him. ‘Ever see this bloke?’

He looked at the pictures carefully, first at one and then the other. He seemed to be analysing the images, judging them, but by what criteria I had no idea.

‘Sorry, Mr Hardy, never seen him. What’d he do?’

Before I could answer, Ann Winter came dodging between the tables. She was wearing the same clothes as she had the day before but her hair was shining with Point Piper shampoo.

“Lo Cliff, ‘lo Manny.’ She sat down near us and began to roll a smoke. Manny slid away towards his coffee machine and I moved across to sit opposite her. She looked up from the makings to smile at me as if she liked crows’ feet and broken noses. Maybe she did.

‘How were the cops?’ I asked.

‘Cop,’ she said. ‘Interesting.’ She ran her tongue along the edge of the paper and completed the cigarette. Manny put a coffee down in front of her and lit the cigarette in a series of nice fluid movements. There was something threatening about his combination of good manners, bulk and deft movement. Ann bobbed her head at him and went on talking through her smoke.

‘She’s young and she studied sociology. We had a good talk. It was a bit like a seminar, really.’

I finished the wine in a swallow. ‘Sociology?’ I said.

‘Yes. Majored in it, same department as me. She was very understanding.’

I was used to cops who majored in football with sub-majors in Holdens and snooker. It looked as if Frank Parker had some classy help in the field.

‘What did you tell her?’

‘Nothing much. What do I know? I didn’t mention you.’

‘Take your tapes?’

‘No, I explained that they were my research material and she said that was okay.’