Peter Corris - The Marvellous Boy

I paused and chose the words carefully. ‘There’s a story in the Indonesian business. I suppose you’d be interested in that?’

‘Mm, I’d have to wait until you’ve cleared all this up, wouldn’t I?’

‘Probably, but you never know. A bit of press could be useful at some stage. That’s happened before.’

She nodded and finished her coffee. I made a cigarette and she pulled a face.

‘What?’

‘You shouldn’t smoke.’

‘I know.’ I lit the cigarette, drew hard on it and blew the smoke away from her. ’It’s a strange case this. It looks to be plain sailing except that there’s someone trying to get in on it. I have to assume they’re trying to stop me reaching the…’

‘Foundling?’

‘He’s hardly that. It sounds as if he had the best of everything.’

‘Aren’t you scared?’

‘No. I can’t see a lot of violence in this — Brain could have had a thin skull, and I only got a tap. It’s one of the things that puzzles me.’

‘If Warwick is the lost grandson, maybe someone knows that and has an interest in him not turning up.’

‘Yeah, but why not just put him out of the picture — why mess about with the bit players like me?’

‘Maybe the person doesn’t want Warwick to prosper but can’t bring himself to kill him, or can’t afford to.’

‘Keir you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe. I have to find out who benefits most from things staying just as they are. I’ve got someone working on that.’

She went quiet and I finished my cigarette and picked up the bill. She shifted in her seat, the broad, almost Tartar face was clouded and she spoke nervously, without her usual crispness:

‘D’you worry about the morality of this, Cliff?’

I went on guard. ‘What morality’s that?’

‘Don’t snarl, I mean about digging back like this, uncovering all these things, splitting people up.’

‘It doesn’t bother me,’ I said but I knew I was lying. It did bother me but I couldn’t help it. Shallow graves got uncovered, secrets were divulged, liars were found out — it happened all the time and I was just an agent, just a lever. Sometimes there were happy endings. Sometimes. She looked down and I thought Oh Christ, more trouble. But when she lifted her head all seemed well. She gave me the crooked smile and rooted in her bag for a pen and paper. Our hands touched when she handed the paper across and the contact was still good. We were both skirmishing I felt, both mistrustful, but hoping. It could have been worse.

‘Phone me at the paper in a couple of hours,’ she said. ‘No. In one hour, I should have something by then.’

‘Okay, what’re you doing tonight?’

‘Depends,’ she said and got to her feet. ‘Depends on a lot of things.’ She waved and walked breezily out of the place. I watched her go in the crumpled dress, slim back and long legs and the evening shoes that looked oddly pathetic in the daylight. I sat and thought and the Chatterton case and Kay got all tangled up in my mind until I didn’t know what I was asking questions about or what answers I wanted to find.

I rinsed my shirt again, shaved rough again and took a dip in the pool. The chlorine was fresh and sharp and the water was cold: I swam hard, lap after lap, and showered and put on the clean shirt and felt good. Then I called the number Kay had given me; her voice was brisk and efficient on the phone but there was warmth in it too. She sounded pleased with herself.

‘Warwick Baudin sounds like a real rat,’ she said.

‘What does he do — rape old ladies?’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised. He was in all sorts of trouble. He crashed a few cars that weren’t his.’

‘Yeah, I heard about that. High spirits maybe.’

‘No, there’s a nasty streak to him. There’s a story that he sold drugs here, not just grass, and made money at it. Then there was a bust and he got off. The word was that he informed on the others. He left Canberra soon after that. Oh yes, he assaulted his father in public once but it was hushed up.’

‘Choice. Anything on Keir?’

‘Not much. He sounds like the dullest man alive. He went to school and university here, undistinguished at both. Then he went to work for his Dad. He’s sort of never left home.’

‘He’s been overseas I bet.’

‘Yes, he used to travel with his Mum and Dad. It’s been a bit of a joke, his closeness to them.’

‘It’s a cynical world. You said “used to”.’

‘Right. He’s made a couple of trips to Indonesia in the last two years’.’

‘Aha. Anything on Warwick’s sporting triumphs?’

‘Oh Christ yes, tons. He went to half a dozen schools around here, he was always getting expelled, but he cleaned up at sport — running, swimming, throwing things, kicking things — the lot. It grieves me to say it, but he was bright as well; he got distinctions in his last year at school.’ She paused: ‘Yes, here it is — maths, economics, modern history, Italian. He only got a credit for English.’

‘Tough. Went on to uni did he?’

‘Yes, he did two years of Law. He won the iron man in his first year. Do you know what that is?’

‘No.’

‘It’s a race. They run about five miles I think and have to eat things and drink a lot of grog throughout. They get disqualified if they vomit. Warwick holds the record.’

‘Charming. How’d he go at Law?’

‘Tapering off a bit but he got through the first year well enough — the drug bust came in the middle of the second year.’

‘I see. Well that’s terrific work, love, anything else?’

‘Yes, you said you wanted photos, well I’m told there are two in The Canberra Times.’ She gave the dates. ‘I can’t get a look at the file copies on Sunday. You’ll have to go to the National Library. It’s open today. You know where it is?’

‘By the lake?’

‘Right.’

‘Tickets needed?’

‘No, it’s a public utility. You have full rights as a citizen.’

Then her voice changed and the brisk and businesslike tone took over completely. ‘Phone me when you’re finished,’ she said.

‘Look Kay, don’t stand back so far. I’ll come and get you at five. Okay?’

She said it was. I paid a bit on account at the motel; the money was running low but I had the receipts and Lady Catherine was getting value. I felt uppish; the tried and tested procedures were working. I had leads to follow.

Driving across the bridge in Canberra is a very low-key experience: the lake looks and is artificial, placid and blue with no debris. The bridge spans it easily. It all feels planned and controlled and easy, soft. The National Library is a cream and pink copy of the Acropolis on the sculptured shores of the lake. It’s surrounded on three sides by car parks; cars were bullocked up on footpaths and dividing strips and parking tickets flapped on their windshields like bunting. I squeezed into a semi-legal space, grabbed a pad and pen and headed for the portals.

A gaggle of tourists was gasping at the stained glass windows and bronze work; another batch was inspecting a pottery exhibition on the mezzanine floor. I got directions from a succession of attendants and finished up in an airless room in front of a microfilm reader. The PhD students were scratching on cards, scratching themselves, yawning and chewing gum. I stabbed at the automatic button; months of life, marriage, death and world events flashed in front of my eyes and the students frowned as they crept, inch by inch, frame by frame, through their papers.

The Canberra Times is a broadsheet which meant that I had to adjust the machine often to scan the whole page. I got distracted by the headlines and stories at the beginning of the seventies. The rot had set into the Government, the ministers’ speeches were getting sillier by the day and the Opposition was just sitting pat, trying to sound sensible and waiting for its finest hour. A tide was flowing — a three year tide. I found the first picture of Warwick Baudin in an issue for November 1968. He’d competed at the inter-school sports and won all three sprint races and the long jump; he was standing straight and tall in a track suit sucking on a can of soft drink. It was like an advertisement: he had a big, open face with a lot of curly dark hair. He looked sure of himself — so would I if I had a 48.4 440 to my credit. The best I could manage was 52 seconds. But Warwick, the boy wonder of the track, had slid a long way in two years. The next picture, in October 1971, was on the front of a Saturday paper. The crash had occurred on the Cotter Road — two sports cars. One driver was dead, a girl passenger was seriously injured and the other driver was standing unhurt in the photograph by the side of the road. A headlight had hit him full in the face, washing it stark white. They weren’t ideal conditions to be photographed in, but Warwick’s face looked much fuller, almost bloated, and his body was bulky inside the casual clothes. There was talk of charges — driving under the influence, manslaughter — it was a bad business. Staring at the frank, unstudied picture I tried to see a resemblance to the old man who’d handed down the savage sentences in court, or to the softened lines of the face that looked down from the wall in Rushcutters Bay. It was there all right, but oddly stronger in the younger face. Making all allowances for the circumstances, in the later pictures Baudin’s face showed traces of a hesitancy or self-doubt which had never troubled Sir Clive.