Peter Corris - White Meat

The telephone woke me. I caught sight of the clock as I rolled over to grab the receiver – six-thirty a.m. I put my head back on the pillow and tried to unscramble reality and dreams. I grunted into the mouthpiece and it sputtered back at me like a firecracker. I sat up.

“Easy, easy. James?”

More sputtering and incoherence on the other side of the wire.

“Stop it,” I yelled. “Shut up, take a breath and give it to me clearly.”

A pause, a long one, then the actor’s voice came through, still with a note of panic but under control.

“Noni’s been kidnapped. I’ve just got a note.”

“At six-thirty?”

“I couldn’t sleep, I was up early and found the note taped to the door.”

“What does it say?”

I heard a rustle over the line and then James’ voice, shaky, reading.

“We have got the girl. Five thousand dollars gets her back.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

It didn’t figure. Ted Tarelton could raise twenty times that. Why hit James? My silence made him panicky again and he almost stammered, asking if I was still there. I said I was.

“What should I do?”

“Can you raise it?”

“The money? Yes, just.”

“Will you?”

“Yes of course, of course.”

“Stay put. I’ll be right over.”

I hung up on him, jumped up and took a quick shower. I was pulling on some clothes when the phone rang again. I made a bet with myself and won. Madeline Tarelton.

“Mr Hardy? Just a minute. My husband wants to speak to you.”

I heard a click, waited and then Ted’s rich voice came in.

“Hardy? My girl’s been snatched.”

“I know. You got a note?”

“Yes, how…?”

I told him how and asked him to read out the note. It was the same as James’ except that it asked for a hundred thousand dollars and said a contact would be made at five p.m. the following day. Ted’s voice vibrated a bit and the idea occurred to me that he’d be on the Courvoisier a bit earlier today. I promised him I’d be over as soon as I’d seen James. He wasn’t too happy about that, claiming an employer’s rights but I soothed him. He seemed impressed that James had said he’d raise the five thousand, as if it was a bride price. I suppose it was, in a way. My cool competence was dented a bit by having to ask Ted for James’ address. I’d forgotten that I didn’t have it, but he gave it to me without seeming to take it amiss.

My perfectly good car was sitting in the Newcastle airport parking lot and it was raining again. I got a taxi to James’ place in Darlinghurst. It was a terrace house with a door that let straight out unto the street. It was painted white and had some new iron on the roof but it hadn’t been made over into anybody’s dream. A yellow Mini with a cracked rear window, taped up, was parked outside. I knocked at the door and James opened it with a buzzing electric shaver in his hand. Half his face was shaven and half not. He looked terrible. He ushered me in and started to gabble. I reached out and clicked off the shaver. That shut him up.

“Let’s see the note,” I said.

He went out to the kitchen and I followed him. The house wore the same look all the way through, pleasant enough but as if no-one cared. He pointed to a piece of paper on the table and I picked it up. The words he’d read out were printed across a cheap piece of notepaper in capitals. A black ballpoint pen had done the writing and there were no idiosyncrasies in it that I could see. Across the back of the paper, which had been folded in three, was a strip of cellulose tape. James resumed his shaving, wandering about the little room stroking his jaw. He was wearing drill slacks and an orange-coloured thing I think is called a shaving coat. He would. I waited until he’d finished shaving and turned the motor off, then I told him about Tarelton’s note. He ran his hand over his smooth face and frowned where he found a missed spot. I pushed the shaver out of reach and leaned on him.

“How soon can you get the money?”

“Today. I’d have to see my family’s lawyer, but I’m sure it can be arranged.”

“Good. Do it. Don’t tell anyone else.” I started for the passage but he came after me and caught me by the arm.

“God, don’t just walk out. What do you think of it? What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” I growled. “I’ll talk to some people, then we’ll play it the best way we can.”

“It all seems so strange – I mean for this to happen so long after she disappeared. It seems – I don’t know – oddly managed.”

“You’re the theatre man,” I said.

I brushed him off and left the house saying I’d call him at the theatre when things had been decided. I caught a taxi to Armstrong Street and wondered why I’d replied the way I had to his last remark. I didn’t know. Maybe just to be rude.

Madeline Tarelton opened the door again. She was wearing a lime green trouser suit today and nothing about her had deteriorated since I’d seen her last. She seemed to be bearing up under the strain and her voice was edged with contempt when she spoke.

“Ted’s still in bed. He’ll see you there.”

“Where’s the room?”

“Upstairs, in front.”

I went up. The room was big with two glass-panelled doors letting out onto a balcony. The water was visible through them, shining dull and grey under the thick white sky. In bed Ted was not nearly as impressive as he was when up and around and properly togged up. The skin around his jaw sagged, his rumpled hair looked thin and his body under the bedclothes was lumpy and powerless. The room had pale candy striped wallpaper and a deep pile carpet; it was too fussy and frilled, with fringed lampshades and a brocade bedcover, for my taste and Ted looked uncomfortable in it. I sat on a bentwood chair cushioned with satin while Ted folded up the newspaper and pulled himself straighter in the bed.

“Bad business this, Hardy,” he said. “Fair knocked me. I took a bit of a turn. Crook heart.” He placed his hand over his chest. I nodded.

“Got the note?”

He produced it from the breast pocket of his puce pajamas and handed it over. Identical to James’ except for the extra information.

“I was up early. Meeting on today at Randwick. I went for the papers and there it was, stuck to the door. Madeline had to bloody nearly carry me back here.”

The experience had swept away his usual bluster; I couldn’t tell whether he was most upset by the kidnapping of his daughter or the reminder of his own mortality, but it was obviously the right time to pressure him a bit.

“You can raise the money?” I asked.

“Easy. Reckon I should?”

“Yes. But there’s something weird about this. It doesn’t smell right.”

“How do you mean?” he said listlessly.

“Could the girl be shaking you down?”

Colour flooded his face and he looked about to sound off at me which he undoubtedly would have done if he’d been feeling his usual, successful self. Now he flopped back against the pillows and fidgeted with the quilt.

“Possible, I suppose,” he said lamely. “Is that your theory?”

“I haven’t got a theory, just a feeling. It’s a strange one. I never heard of two ransoms being asked before. Complicates things. Not that they’re not messy enough already.”

“Madeline told me you’d rung the other night. By complicated you mean about the Abo? What’s happened since then?”

I gave him an outline leaving Coluzzi out and not going into details about Noni’s reputation in Newcastle. He couldn’t help on that score; he’d practically lost all touch with the girl from the time his wife had left to when Noni turned up motherless. Ted’s instincts, bred in the SP game and sly grogging, were to avoid the police, so he fell in with my suggestion that we keep the police out of it for the time. I had a feeling, which I was backing, that the girl wasn’t in danger. But the cops wanted to talk to her in connection with Simmonds’ death and if they started poking around and stirring things up it could all turn sour and Noni might suddenly become dispensable. I gave Ted the gist of this and he agreed to raise the money and wait for the contact.