Peter Corris - The Empty Beach

The photograph seemed to reproach me. Singer had a challenging, macho look: I could interpret it as catch-me-if-you-can or would-you-have-the-guts-to-do-what-I’ve-done or, instead, I could stare right back at him and think he wasn’t so tough after all. It was a funny case. I could spend a few days on the streets getting negative responses, and that could be construed as a positive result. It wasn’t the way I liked to work.

I shaved, showered, and made and ate a breakfast that was also lunch. The News contained no news; at home we had problems between the states and the Federal government, not over principles but over money. Overseas, oil was going up and gold was going down; what that meant was anybody’s guess. The people who had the oil probably had all the gold they wanted, anyway.

After eating, I felt more resourceful. I had Bruce Henneberry to follow up on, I could contact Singer’s doctor to find out if he could have had anything nasty on his mind and there was always the Punk Palace of Fun. The creepy manager and my friends in the laneway could have been connected and could relate to my enquiries.

I opened the previous day’s mail, but it was just as boring as it had looked the day before. Mrs Singer’s envelope had been hand delivered. I phoned her.

‘Did you get the picture?’ she asked. ‘I had someone run it over.’

Who said it’s hard to get help these days? ‘Yeah, I got it. Thanks. Can you give me the name of your husband’s doctor, please?’

‘Whatever for?’

‘People tell doctors things they don’t tell wives. Have you seen much of him lately?’

‘No, I’m never ill. I’m sure…’

‘Sure of what?’

‘I was going to say I’m sure the police would have checked on that, but now I come to think of it the police hardly checked on anything.’

‘They’re busy,’ I said. ‘The name, please.’

She gave it to me-a Dr Burgess in a clinic at Randwick that sounded like money.

‘Any progress?’

‘Not yet. Did anyone ever tell your husband that he looked like Michael Caine?’

‘Yes, often. Why?’

‘It makes it harder. Not as hard as if he looked like Robert Redford, but people get confused.’

‘Do you need more money?’ she asked quickly.

I was surprised. Offering more money is a serious step, the most serious step. She seemed to sense from my silence that she’d made a wrong move, and she covered up quickly. ‘I thought you might need extra people or something.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll manage. Thanks, Mrs Singer. I’ll be in touch.’

I got out the wine and ice and soda and made myself the first drink of the day while I thought things over. I had my second drink and thought some more. It felt wrong; the hand delivered envelope, the offer of money. I felt pushed and I didn’t like it.

I felt the tobacco craving creeping up on me, as it always did when I tried to think my way around corners. It was lucky I didn’t play chess because I’d have cracked. But I told myself it was the wine, the long-associated habits of drinking and smoking, and I had some more wine.

I rang Dr Burgess at the Money Inc Clinic and was told that he’d gone on holiday for a fortnight. That was nice; there’s nothing like a holiday to tone a doctor up. I then rang the number Henneberry had given me, but it didn’t answer. That left only the Punk Palace, and it was a good few hours too early for that. I killed the time the way a civilised man should; I did some exercises very carefully on account of my bruised stomach and read several chapters of The World According to Garp. The thought of my tennis shoes getting dusty in the cupboard reproved me and I resolved to get back to it when the Singer case was over.

I was still reading when the phone rang.

‘Cliff Hardy? This is Ann Winter.’

‘Yes?’ I didn’t mean to sound abrupt, but something in her voice told me that she hadn’t rung me up to invite me around for a drink.

‘Look, I’m worried about Bruce. He was supposed to meet me here and he hasn’t showed up. He should be here. I’ve rung his flat, but there’s no answer. I thought you might know where he is.’

‘No, Ann, I don’t. I rang his flat, too.’

‘He left a cassette and he sounds really weird on it. There’s some stuff about you.’

‘What sort of stuff?’

‘Well, some names and places. Manny says he rushed off after he left the cassette. This is touchy stuff we’re into here and we’re very careful. We leave these messages…’

‘I know; Bruce told me a bit about it. You stay at Manny’s. Tell me where Bruce lives and I’ll go there. Give me the number of Manny’s place and I’ll call you if I find anything.’

She gave me the information. I tossed down the rest of my drink and went out to the car.

Bronte is a notch or two further down the socio-economic scale than Bondi. The flats are smaller and less flash and there are weatherboard cottages that look as though they haven’t changed since the 1920s. I drove pretty fast, partly out of pleasure that the car would move like that, partly out of an instinct that there was some kind of trouble brewing. The streets got narrow towards Bronte and I had to be careful to avoid joggers and a few unhappy-looking guys working on old cars jacked up in front of blocks of flats.

Bruce’s flat was in a white, waterfall-style building up over the rise, well back from Bronte beach. The waterfall effect was achieved by two cylindrical towers that flanked a flat-roofed central section. If it had been up to me I’d have taken my rooms in the right-hand tower on the top floor-best view. It turned out that Bruce’s place was in the left hand tower. His door was at the back, away from the street and at the top of a set of exterior stairs like a fire escape. The backyard was concreted over and only six rotary clothes lines grew there.

I knocked on the door and was answered by silence. I beat heavily on it and got more silence. The stairs were placed centrally, too far away to get a look through the window.

I stood there, wondering why I knew something was wrong, why I knew I wasn’t just standing outside the door of someone who wasn’t home. Then I got it; there was a smell coming from around the edges of the door. I squatted and sniffed. There was a stench of shit.

The Falcon may present a more respectable front these days, but fundamentally it’s the same old car. I got my. 45 automatic from under the dashboard and a short jemmy from the boot. I splintered the door jamb and smashed the lock, then I kicked the door open and waited, flattened back against the wall. Nothing moved. Nothing happened, except that the smell grew stronger.

Bruce Henneberry lay on his back, about three feet from the door. He made one of the worst corpses I’d ever seen, including those the guerrillas had played about with before and after death in Malaya, and I had to lean against the broken door and mutter things and get a grip on myself. I looked out into the yard and beyond, but my break-and-enter had disturbed no-one.

I used the jemmy to ease the door shut and stepped into the room. There had been a hell of a lot of blood in Henneberry, and the carpet was thick and sticky with it. I skirted that and the body and looked around the flat, still trying to get control and make normal observations.

The flat was in character; there were a lot of books of the kind that people who love to talk, love to read-Joan Didion, Toffler, Galbraith. They were in the standard student bookcase; bricks and plain pine planking. That and a couple of chairs and a TV set with a telephone on top of it comprised the furniture of the room in which Henneberry had died. His bedroom was spartan; double mattress on the floor with tangled bedclothes, more books, some clothes thrown over a Chinese saucer chair and some put away roughly in a chest of drawers. There were marijuana cigarette butts in a saucer by the bed. The bathroom was a bit streaky but basically clean; the kitchen was neat and didn’t look as if much food preparation went on there. A cassette player was plugged into a wall point; Henneberry evidently did his writing on the kitchen table. The light was good there and I found filing cards, manilla folders with notes, news clippings and other stuff in a cardboard box under the table. There were also a portable typewriter, a small plastic bag containing marijuana and cigarette papers and a half-empty bottle of brandy.