Peter Corris - The Dying Trade

“What was it about?”

She drew on the cigarette and looked at me, her head nodding slightly.

“You know men aren’t all that attractive in the morning,” she said. “Bristly, stinking a bit of tobacco and bad teeth. You’re no major exception Cliff Hardy. You’ll have to warm up a bit to get anything more out of me. Would you admit to being jealous?”

“Under pentothal.”

She finished her cigarette and coffee, dropped the butt in the dregs and slung herself down on the bed beside me. She put her hands behind her head and drew her knees up until she was sitting in a sort of yoga posture.

“OK, the full story, for your files. Ross came to me a few months after Mark’s death. He had some references, pretty impressive ones. I was just getting around to thinking I’d have to do something with the money Mark left me. Ross had ideas.”

“Like what?”

“He knew about setting up companies and minimising taxes and quite a bit about the share market. He made some nice killings for me there, early on. I’ve got a fashion business, manufacturing and retail, I’ve even gone international with it in a small way. I’ve got a vineyard — that’d interest you — and some outlets for the wine. I’ve got a company to co-ordinate things and Ross is second in charge.”

“Who’s in charge, you?”

“No, only nominally. The real boss is a man called Chalmers. He’s a chartered accountant and the dullest man in the world. He’s ultra-cautious and he’s never lost me a penny. That’s why he’s in charge.”

“Ross has lost you pennies?”

“A few. A couple of times, that’s why he hasn’t got the job. I work on old Sophie Tucker’s dictum, ‘I been rich and I been poor…,’ you know it?”

“Yes.”

“Most people just take it on faith. I know it’s true. But I’m not a maniac about it. I just like being rich and I don’t intend to get poor by going into wildcat schemes.”

“That’s Ross’ style?”

“Yes, it is now. He wants to be in charge of everything or failing that to play a few hands without Chalmers’ interference. I don’t feel like staking him.”

“And that’s what the fight was about?”

“Yes. He’s been getting very pushy lately. He was pressing me to go into a mining deal and I’m not interested. He got nasty and started putting me down. I’m a lot older than him and he pointed it out. You saw how it went.”

“You were doing pretty well, you might have won it on your own. How’s it going to be, business-wise, if you break with him?”

“He’ll just have to accept it or move out. He hasn’t got a contract and I know he’s not short of women. He gets a good salary and the usual perks. He’s useful, he knows people. I think he’ll stay.”

“The silver spoon?”

“I don’t think so. I’m not sure. He’s never told me anything much about his background.”

We’d got over the hump and she relaxed letting her long legs slide down the bed. We kissed for the sheer pleasure of it. She rubbed her hand over my face.

“Bristly, black-bearded bastard.”

“Virility,” I said. “Tell me about Chalmers.”

“Christ, you like your work don’t you. What do you want to know?”

“Just one thing, was he connected in any way with Mark Gutteridge?”

“Yes,” she spoke slowly, beating her hand in time to the words on the bed. “He was Mark’s chief accountant for many years.”

I did the same. “And how did he come to work for you?”

“He approached me. I don’t know exactly why he picked on me. I do know that he couldn’t get on with Bryn.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know. Ross once said something about Walter being a repressed homosexual, that could have something to do with it. But Ross isn’t reliable on the subject of Chalmers.”

I thought about it. There were more connections back to the Gutteridge trouble for Ailsa than I’d realised. I still felt that the car bombing related back to the harassment of Susan Gutteridge, but I didn’t know how. Ailsa had given me some more people with possible motives, but Brave was still out in front and my main concern as well as hers. He was Harry Tickener’s concern too.

“I’m going to be very busy on your behalf today love,” I said, planting a firm kiss on her shoulder.

“And your own. Your rates are moderate verging on extortionate. Do you make a lot of money?”

“No. Overheads are high and I have long slack periods. Most of what I makes goes on booze and books anyway.”

“I can imagine. And on women?”

I disengaged myself and rolled off the bed. “Very little on women. Use your shower?” she nodded. “Are you married Hardy?” she said. “Was. Tell you about it sometime.” I started for the shower and turned back. She was sitting up again and lighting a cigarette. With the cream coloured fabric draped around her she looked like a young, scared Christian about to go to the lions. I walked back and put my fingers in the hair at the nape of her neck. I massaged her neck gently.

“We’ll have lots of time to talk,” I said. “Today I’ve got ten men to see and six houses to break into. Can you write me down the addresses of Chalmers and Ross… what’s his other name?”

She rotated her head cat-like under my fingers. “That’s nice. All right. Ross’ other name is Haines.” She got up, crossed to the wardrobe and got out a thick towel. She tossed it to me and I caught it and went into the bathroom. When I came back into the room she handed me a page torn from a notebook. The names and addresses were written in neat capitals. She made a grab at the towel around my waist and I backed off. She looked amused and got out another cigarette. I pulled on my clothes, bent down over the bed and kissed her on the head.

“You could have typed it out,” I said.

“Can’t type, never learned.”

I nodded. “What are you going to do today?” She blew smoke at the mirror. “Since I evidently can’t stay here with you,” she said, “I’ll go into the office and check a few things. I might go to the library. Where’s my protection by the way?”

“You should be safe enough if you stick to doing what you say. Take taxis and stay with other people. You can do it all the time if you try.”

“Taxis, OK. That reminds me, what about the police and my car? Will I have to talk to them again do you think?”

“I don’t think so, I’ve squared it for the time being.”

“Fully insured, I’ll get someone in the office onto it today. Good car, I think I’ll get another one the same.”

“You do that,” I said.

She flared. “Don’t be supercilious with me. I employ a lot of people, I spend my money. I do the best I can and I’m not hypocritical about it.”

“Like Susan Gutteridge?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got a point. I’ll call you about six, maybe we could have dinner, then I’ll have some things to do.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah, it could be all over tonight if things go right.”

“You’re being mysterious.”

“Not really, if I told you all about it you’d think it was so simple you wouldn’t feel like paying me.”

She laughed and came up to me. I pulled her in and we kissed and rubbed together for a minute or two. I promised to call her at six, come what may, and left the house.

I took the first drink of the day in an early opening pub at the Quay. My companions in sin ranged from a tattooed youth, who was playing at looking tough and doing pretty well at it, to a grizzled wreck who was mumbling about the Burns-Johnson fight at Rushcutters Bay in 1908. He claimed to have been the timekeeper and maybe he was. I bought him a schooner and he switched to Sullivan-Corbett which was a bit unlikely. A scotch would probably have got me Sayers and Heenan. I had a middy of old and tried to anticipate the results of Tickener’s inquiries. The smell of toasted sandwiches interrupted this train of thought and I put the matter aside in their favour. I ate two cheese sandwiches and had a second beer. The rain had cleared and the day was going to be warm. Students and the unemployed would be on the beaches, accountants would be at their desks, private detectives would be peeling secrets off people like layers of sunburnt skin.