Peter Corris: The Marvellous Boy

I was genuinely surprised and nearly choked on the smoke. ‘You? I’m not investigating you.’

‘What then?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ I said weakly.

She stirred in her chair. ‘You’re a cheap liar. Snoop away, I’ve got nothing to hide.’

‘Why do you stay here?’

‘So that’s it,’ she snarled. ‘You’re going to harass me. It won’t work. I’m staying until I get what’s due to me.’ She was short-fused and fierce burning.

‘And what’s that?’ I asked quietly.

‘Money. What else? Bonuses and money promised. That old bugger.. ’ Her mouth clamped down and she drew in breath as if to recall the words. She glared at me. I put the cigarette out carefully in a glass ashtray.

‘I want you to tell me all you can about the man who called here about two years ago, the one who looked like a tramp.’

It was her turn to look surprised. ‘Why?’

‘Just tell me.’

She thought about it, calculating the odds like a street fighter. ‘I remember him,’ she said slowly. ‘Dreadful smell.’

‘Was he violent?’

‘A bit. Not too much. He was too drunk to be a danger to anyone except himself.’

‘What happened? Did he just walk in? What about this chauffeur — he didn’t try to stop him?’

‘I assume he was bribed. He was a miserable dishonest wretch. That’s why I sacked him.’

‘Over this incident?’

‘Not specifically. There were a lot of things. Expenses connected with the car, using it himself. He was a cheap crook.’ She looked me directly in the eye when she said it so we were back to square one. I grunted.

‘Back to this derelict. Can you describe him?’

She did, in terms very similar to the old woman’s, but their descriptions didn’t sound collusive. Brain had struck these two very different women in much the same way which probably meant that I had a pretty good picture of him.

Miss Reid’s dislike of me was bubbling up again; she was anxious to remove my cigarette butt and ashes, all traces of me. I asked for and got the daughter’s address, a request which made her look thoughtful again but not friendly. I told her I wanted to look around the grounds and she showed me out through a side door. She didn’t say goodbye. A thought niggled at me as I was leaving the house and I trapped it as I walked across a patch of dried-out lawn. If Lady C. had disinherited the daughter and her brood, who was in line for the estate as of now? It was something to check.

The sun had climbed while I’d been in the house and sweat jumped out on my body as I moved. I peeled off my jacket and slung it over my shoulder. The land behind the house was taken up by a tennis court, a swimming pool, plenty of lawn and a two car garage. The garage was empty except for oil stains and some rusted tools; the swimming pool was empty except for leaves, dirt and greenish slime. I looked back at the house and the full force of its elegant shabbiness hit me. There were broken tiles on the roof and discoloured bricks showing through peeling paint. The place looked as if it was waiting for a renovator or a demolition crew. I walked across to the tennis court, recalling my athletic youth and hoping for comfort but the tapes marking the lines were buckled and broken and wind and water had removed a lot of the surface from the court.

I trudged down past the house to my car; its dull paintwork and air of neglect fitted the scene but depressed me. I had a week’s money in my pocket and an interesting case on hand and I should have felt better as I turned the car on the gravel and drove off towards the highway.

It was midday, too early to go search out bums on skid row. They stand out better at night when the moonlight is shining on the port bottles and their throats are dry and a dollar will buy you everything they know. It was time to deal with the daylight people. I did a mental check on how much money I owed Cy Sackville my lawyer, decided it was a flea bite to him and put through a call.

We exchanged pleasantries and I told him I was on a case which should net me a few bucks. He congratulated me.

‘I need some information, Cy.’

‘The meter is ticking.’

‘Don’t be like that. You scratch my back and I scratch yours.’

‘When do I get scratched?’

‘Sometime. Have you ever heard of a man named Henry Brain, promising barrister in the forties, went on the skids?’

‘The forties! Are you kidding, who’s still alive from the forties?’

Cy was and is a boy wonder. He refused a chair of law at age twenty-five — no challenge. He despises everyone over thirty-five. It used to be everyone over thirty.

‘Could you ask around? There must be some old buffer who’d remember him. He married Judge Chatterton’s daughter.’

‘It so happens I’m going to a professional dinner tonight. There could be some octogenarian around who’d remember him.’

‘Thanks. Do you know who handles the late Judge’s estate, legal affairs and so on?’

‘Yeah, we’ve transacted — Booth and Booth. What’s your interest?’

‘The widow is my client, confidential enquiry.’

He coughed. ‘Of course.’

‘Thing is, I’d like to know who she’s going to leave the loot to. Any chance of finding out?’

‘That’s a tall order, confidential matter, very, very…’

‘Quite,’ I said, ‘but…?’

‘Possible. Young Booth’ll be at the dinner. He might get pissed and we could discuss the earthly rewards of judges. I’ll try.’

I thanked him, asked him to find out all he could about the Chattertons and said I’d call again soon.

‘Cross all cheques,’ he said.

I headed north to have a chat with Bettina. She went by the name of Selby, now having married one Richard Selby, company director. I stopped in the dry belt, where restaurants are many and pubs are few, and bought beer and sandwiches for lunch. It was hot in the car so I wound all the windows down and sat there eating, drinking and thinking.

A full frontal attack on Mrs Selby was out of the question. ‘Mrs Selby, did you have a child in 1948? And if so where is it?’ She’d throw me out or call the cops. I didn’t expect to get the unassailable truth which she alone knew but she’d be worth a look. If she turned out to be a sober, steady woman of straight eye and piercing honesty I’d have to drop the odds on finding baby. If, on the other hand… I screwed up the wrapping and took it and the beer cans to the bin. They’re hell on litterers in this part of the world.

The Selbys lived in one of the northern arcadias that developed over the last fifteen years. None of the houses would have sold for under a hundred and twenty thousand dollars but it was remarkable what different things that sort of money could get you. The place was a map of the building fads of the sixties and seventies — quintuple-fronted brick veneers, long ranch houses with flat roofs; grey brick and tinted glass creations hung off steep slopes like downhill skiers ready to let go. There were Spanish arches and Asian pagodas, even a tasteful townhouse or two among native trees.

Chez Selby was one of the worst — a monstrosity in liver-coloured brick with a purplish tiled roof. The whole thing reminded me of a slab of old meat. It was up to scratch in the neighbourhood though, with a half acre of lawn and shrubs. From the street I could see the glint of a pool out back. I pulled up outside another heavy mortgage down the street. I looked at my clothes and decided that I was a journalist. She’d never believe I was from Booth and Booth.

The street was quiet the way such streets are in the early afternoon; the kids are at school, the old man’s at work, the wife is playing golf or gardening. The butt of a Honda Accord stuck out of one of the two car ports — Mrs S wasn’t on the links. I had my jacket on and I was hot. Up the path past the shrubs to the front door. It was a heavy number with a security screen. The bell was in the navel of a foot-high plaster bas-relief mermaid attached to the bricks. Chinese opera gongs sounded inside the house.