Peter Corris - Comeback

So bang went one of my lines of inquiry. Without going into much detail I told Beaumont that my interest in Sterling had nothing to do with whatever the gang of three were plotting. He was equally reticent about what the plot involved and what measures he was going to take to stop them. We fenced for a while, batting cautious admissions back and forth, until he was satisfied.

We shook hands again.

‘I hope you can resolve your client’s problem,’ he said, pointing at the wastepaper basket. ‘I was on my own in the game for a while but I found it too tough. Needed a corporate structure.’

‘Now you’ve found that tough.’

‘In its way, yes. But more comfortable generally speaking.’

‘By the way, how did you know where I’d be just now?’

He grinned. ‘I’ve had someone following you since yesterday.’

‘Didn’t notice. I’m slipping.’

‘She’s very good.’

He left and I sat looking out the window Jane Devereaux had stared through. I was left with a problem. I was holding close to five thousand dollars of Ray Frost’s money and I was just about certain his suspicions were unfounded. End of job.

I rang Frost’s business number, spoke to his secretary and made an appointment to see him the following morning. I spent the rest of the day and the early part of the night on the computer researching Michael Tennyson. There was no way to read everything that came up on Google and if there’s a way to determine what’s important and what isn’t, I didn’t know it. I floundered around in the websites until I felt I was drowning in information.

I ended by printing out the best of the photographs and the basic biographical material. He was born in Sydney forty-two years ago. He was educated at private schools and Stanford University. He inherited a pile of money and a thriving real estate business from his father and he diversified quickly and adventurously, never putting a foot wrong until he’d assembled the interlocking companies that went under the name of Tennyson Enterprises. He was married to Samantha nee Miles-Wilson and had a son aged nine and a daughter aged seven. His Sydney residence was in Bellevue Hill but he maintained apartments in several capital cities in Australia and overseas and a country property on the central coast of New South Wales.

Jane Devereaux had said he was attractive in his way and I could see what she meant. He was tall and, at a guess, gym-toned, with dark hair and perfect teeth. His eyes were a little too close together and his nose a bit sharp, giving him a foxy look. He played golf and tennis, fished and collected vintage cars. A list of his involvement in boards relating to money, sport and the arts would fill a foolscap page. He was a big donor to the conservative parties at state and federal level.

There was nothing about Alexander Mountjoy. The web, and especially Google’s ‘Images’ site, picks up even very obscure people, but there wasn’t a trace of him.

Frost ran his operation from a huge yard, dotted with sheds and several sizeable demountables, in Alexandria. Like the Sterling set-up it was surrounded by a high cyclone fence but some effort at beautification-a few shrubs, a strip of grass, a bench seat under a shade tree-had been made. Unlike the Sterling compound there was no security at the gate. I drove in and parked among a number of utes, trucks and pieces of earth-moving equipment.

The area was surrounded by light-poles connected by loops of heavy cable. At night the place could be lit up like a football field. A hand-painted sign stuck to one of the poles pointed me to the office in the biggest of the demountables. A few men in overalls bustled around the yard and I could hear the hum of generators. The office building was set on stumps a metre high. I went up a set of steps and in through the open door. The walls of the office were mostly covered with noticeboards holding pinned sheets of paper that fluttered in the draft from a fan.

There were two desks. Frost got up from behind one and came towards me with his hand out. We shook. His hand was hard and callused. Ray Frost might tread a fine line from a legal perspective as Inspector Rockwell had said, but at some time he’d done his share of the hard yakka.

I sat in the chair he indicated and he gave me a searching look.

‘What’s wrong with the back?’

‘Kidney punch from one of the people at Sterling.’

‘You get even?’

‘Not yet.’

He grinned as he sat. His jacket was hung on his chair. His arms in the black T-shirt were tanned and meaty. ‘You’ve been on the job, then?’

I told him how I’d come to focus on Sterling as the only likely candidate for what worried him and about the Sterling associates driving white Commodores. I outlined my encounter with them at their HQ. Then I told him about Anton Beaumont coming to see me, and what he’d said about the trouble at the senior level of the firm.

‘Sounds as if Phil could have a fight on his hands. Good. I’m relieved that you don’t think I brought it about. That helps a bit. But who killed him? I just don’t understand it.’

‘I haven’t come anywhere near earning the money you’ve paid me.’

He waved it away. ‘Doesn’t matter. It’s only fuckin’ money. I’d give every cent to. .’

‘I want to keep working on it. I’ve spoken to Jane Devereaux. She’s got a theory about what happened.

He opened a drawer in the desk and took out an envelope. He handled it as if it was something precious. ‘She wrote to me. Explained why she wasn’t at the funeral. I could see exactly what she meant. It’s like they say-I could feel her pain. She can put things into words. Made me cry. It seems to me she would’ve been a terrific woman for Bobby. It’s fuckin’ unfair. They deserved better.’

I nodded. ‘And there’s something else I want to follow up.’

‘You keep going, Hardy. Keep at it, and if you need more money just ask.’

‘I don’t want you to feel manipulated.’

‘Nobody manipulates me, mate. Nobody.’

We shook hands again.

‘And not just money,’ he said. ‘Any other kind of help you might need.’

I drove back to Pyrmont, still undecided about how to proceed. Jane Devereaux had been convincing, but tackling Michael Tennyson was a tall order. I’d have to do a lot of preliminary skirmishing to get a feel for the texture of his life and he obviously spent a lot of time in places I couldn’t go. How to uncover his dark side, if he had one as Jane alleged?

I was in the office and about to phone Harry Tickener to see if he could help and also to get his take on Jane, when the phone rang.

‘This is Cliff Hardy?’ A light voice, accented, female.

‘Yes.’

‘I saw you on television. I have information about the death of Bobby Forrest.’

That’s the trouble with television, you’re exposed-it allows people to think they know you or can approach you. Just opening the conversation that way made me sceptical.

‘What sort of information?’

‘I am very frightened.’

‘You should go to the police if you have information about a serious crime like that, and if you’ve been threatened.’

‘I cannot go to the police.’

‘Why not?’

‘I am illegally in this country. Also I am a prostitute.’

That made me sit up. ‘Things can be worked out for an illegal person who can help the authorities. And prostitution isn’t a crime, I’m happy to say.’

She made a sound that could have been a laugh; hard to tell. ‘Have you ever heard of honour killing, Mr Hardy?’

‘I have.’

‘If my family knew what I do I would be killed. I need money to get a very long way away from here and from them.’