Peter Corris - The Dying Trade

“You’re just saying that,” I told her, “because you think you have to, and you do. But I know it isn’t true. In the parking lot beside this building there’s a space reserved for a car. The space is full of Rolls Royce and the guy who hoses down the lot and watches over the cars tells me it’s Dr Pincus’ car. He’s in and my business is important.”

“He has a patient with him.”

“He hasn’t. There’s no talking going on in there,” I pointed to the heavy oak door, “and your appointment book shows he kicks off at 10 o’clock. Half an hour is all I need.”

Her eyebrows shot up and she bared her beautiful white teeth at me.

“Half an hour!”

“I know that’s probably a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of his time but I still need it. A quarter of an hour might do.”

Like most people connected with the medical profession, she took umbrage at the mention of money.

“It’s not that, he’s terribly busy today, he’s seeing patients all morning and going to the hospital this afternoon.”

“Yeah,” I said, “so am I.”

That seemed to hold her for a minute and I walked past the desk and knocked on the door. She half rose from her chair but I had the door open and was part of the way through before she could do anything about it.

The television hadn’t done him justice. He was of medium height and build and his smooth, olive-skinned face was alight with what you’d have to call piercing intelligence. His white coat was a thing of beauty and had certainly cost more than every stitch I had on. He was bald but he looked like he’d never given it a second’s worry. He frowned when I came into the room.

“I’m sorry to intrude doctor, I know you’re busy but this is important. My name’s Hardy, a patient of yours is a client of mine — Miss Gutteridge.”

That was stretching the facts but I wouldn’t get time for the niceties.

“Ah yes,” he said, “the detective. She mentioned you. She seems to trust you. Please sit down.”

I sat. He had everything the top Macquarie Street man should have — voice, looks and a fitness and vitality to him that gave you something to aim for.

“I’ll come straight to it, doctor,” I said. “I want to arrange a meeting between Miss Gutteridge and her father’s widow, a Miss Ailsa Sleeman. She is only a few years older than Susan Gutteridge.”

“Why?” he said as I drew breath.

“To discuss the circumstances surrounding Mark Gutteridge’s death four years ago. Both women have been threatened and assaulted, the reason why lies back at that point I believe. I think such a meeting would be productive and help me to pursue the case more effectively.”

“Can you give me some more details, briefly?”

He wasn’t fidgeting or looking at his watch. I had his whole attention and had to make the most of it.

“Not many. The police investigation of the death was less than exhaustive. Some facts are unclear, some things went missing, unexplained. There’s blackmail involved and intimidation. Susan Gutteridge’s insulin was tampered with for example.”

He leaned back in his chair without taking his eyes off my face.

“Yes, she told me that. I find it intriguing, I must say.”

“You’ll authorise the meeting?”

“Susan Gutteridge is an unstable person. I tell you this in professional confidence of course.”

I accepted the compliment.

“Her diabetes is in a mess from what she tells me, she needs a lot of rest and treatment. But a diabetic’s condition is affected by the emotions to a great extent. Susan Gutteridge is very worried and frightened. Have you considered the possibility that she is guilty of some crime?”

I said I had and expressed the opinion that it might help if it all came out. He stroked his chin and let his eyes stray off to his bookshelf.

“So they say,” he murmured, “so they say.”

“There’s an old enmity between Susan Gutteridge and Ailsa Sleeman, this meeting might resolve it. Ailsa is an intelligent woman and a strong one, she could become a friend to Susan.”

“That’s probably better psychology,” he said. “Very well Mr Hardy, I’ll authorise the meeting. Where and when? Susan Gutteridge is in hospital, you realise.”

“I do, so is Ailsa, same place.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What for?”

I told him and that seemed to clinch it. He said he was going to the hospital early in the afternoon and would leave messages supporting what I wanted to do. I had no doubt that those messages would be treated like the order of the day. I thanked him and asked if he’d like to be present at the session. He looked ruefully down at his desk calendar.

“I would like to be,” he said, “very much, but I simply haven’t the time. You must let me know how it works out.”

I said I would, we shook hands and I went out. A fat woman in a coat much too warm for the day that was shaping up was sitting in the waiting room. I gave her my hard-boiled look and she squirmed a bit. Mrs Steiner was looking flustered and she pressed the wrong button on the intercom when Pincus buzzed her. She got it right on the second try.

“Mrs Hamersley-Smith is here doctor.”

Pincus said something inaudible to me and Mrs Steiner repressed a smile. She raised a finger which boasted a long, blood red fingernail. Mrs Hamersley-Smith waddled past me and reached the door just as Pincus opened it. Beautiful timing. I smiled at Mrs Steiner.

“Can you tell me when Dr Pincus is due at the hospital and how long he’ll be there?”

The twenty minutes of the boss’s time had done me a power of good in her eyes. She flicked at her desk calendar and ran the crimson nail down a page of the appointments book.

“He’s there for an hour and a half,” she said, “from two o’clock until 3.30.”

I thanked her and left. I carried the image of her dark, bottomless eyes with me all the way back to the street.

I had a few hours to kill which isn’t supposed to happen to a private detective busy on a case but sometimes does. I could have killed it by doing some banking and writing cheques for people who could legitimately expect them, or I could have gone to my dentist for a check-up or I could have put the car in for a service. I didn’t. I walked across to the Public Library and ordered a batch of newspapers for the year 1972. They came on microfilm in fifteen minutes. I worked through the papers pretty fast looking at the business news mostly and checking the correspondence columns trying to get a feel for the shape of things as they were then.

Mark Gutteridge got a fair bit of coverage as a canny and successful land developer, but there was nothing out of the ordinary about it — no shady deals hinted at, no subsidiary companies collapsing and ruining shareholders. His death got a big spread and there were follow-up stories over the next few days. I read this stuff closely to brief myself for the meeting later in the day. The reporters were starved of facts from the start. The cops were close-mouthed about their investigations and the coverage soon tailed off into human interest material about Gutteridge and his family. There were a couple of good photos of Ailsa, an indifferent one of Bryn and one of Susan that was so poor that it took imagination to relate it to the person I knew. There was no mention of robbery, no details on the gun or the wound, and the coroner’s verdict came in as smooth as silk stockings on shaved legs — “Death by his own hand while of unsound mind”. I made a few notes, tucked them away in my pocket and told the attendant that I’d finished with the papers.

I left the library looking for somewhere to have lunch. I approached a cafe in a new chrome, concrete and glass building and a name on a directory board jumped out at me. Sleeman Enterprises’ office was on the fourth floor and I took the lift up just for the hell of it. The decor was all plastic, glass and middle-of-the-road wall to wall carpet. There were a few pot plants, not so many as to prevent the employees seeing each other, and a general air of work being done. A desk just outside the lift had a sign reading “Inquiries” hanging above it and a dark-haired girl looked up from her typing when she saw me peering keenly about. A good sign that, a receptionist who can type. She asked if she could help in a voice that suggested she was serious about the offer. I took out my wallet and extracted a card a little guy who’d come to my office a month ago had given me. He gave me the card but he knew I was a lost cause.