Peter Corris - The January Zone

‘Where’s Tobin’s office? Is he in College Street with the working coppers or has he got an assault-proof bunker somewhere?’

‘You won’t see him in his office, you’ll buy him lunch at the Bourbon Brasserie in the Cross. I told you he was fat.’

I picked up the file and got out of my chair. ‘Give me a ring when you’ve got it fixed, Sammy. Sorry about your shirt.’

‘What’s wrong with it?’ It was an expensive shirt and it had a big green smear all over the back of it where I’d hammered him into the ivy. He turned his head trying to look back over his shoulder and swore when he saw the mark. ‘What about talking to Tickener?’

‘If everything works out really well and you play very, very straight and honest. Cripple yourself with honesty. Think you can do it?’

Weiss wasn’t a fool. He’d lived long enough in the dirty, tempting parts of the world to know his limitations.

‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you.’

My old Falcon has developed a quirk; it won’t start in neutral but kicks over beautifully with hardly a lurch when I start it in first. I tell myself it’s a good security device but in my heart I know it’s something serious in the vitals. I drove back to Glebe where the cat would or would not be waiting and where, sooner or later, I’d find an emery board inside a book or something else that would bring on the pangs of missing Helen so much I’d have to go out. I hardly spent any time in the house when she wasn’t in the city and not much when she was. We lived mostly in her flat at Tamarama.

No cat, some mail, nothing of interest. I had a couple of glasses of wine and looked through the file again. Alcohol sometimes sharpens the senses, makes you see things you’d otherwise miss. Not this time; I had no new thoughts about the file, just some not-so-new thoughts about Trudi Bell. ‘Luscious’ was what Sammy Weiss had called her and it wasn’t too far wrong. Like Jimmy Carter said, men are faithless in their minds a dozen times a day. I wondered if Trudi had an attachment that helped her to say no to Peter January. I wondered if she had a child. I wondered where she lived…

It was a question of more wine, TV and a book and bed, or the puritan ethic. I put the flagon away, made coffee and sandwiches and sat down to make some notes on the case as it stood. January had originally mentioned a contract but we hadn’t talked about that again. I wrote ‘Terms?’ at the top of the page. Reflecting on it, I realised that this was the first time I’d ever been involved in investigating a death in which the victim had been chosen at random. Usually, killer knows victim and that helps the investigator.

I’d kept the newspapers that had covered the bombing and I looked through them, mostly for the background on January’s career to see if there was anything important I’d missed but also to do a bit of free associating. I’d read about a case in America where the killer always got himself into the press scene-of-the-crime photographs. That’s how they got him in the end. I scanned the pictures of the chaos outside January’s office on the day of the bombing; I saw myself as a blurred image leaning against a car and January, as if he’d known how the light was falling, standing straight and distraught, blood-covered but determined, with a profile like a Roman centurion.

The cat scratched at the door. I fed it and it went straight out again. ‘Nice to see you,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you stay a while and shit on the rug?’ I was feeling depressed by the comings and goings in my life. I wanted some continuity.

The crashing of the door knocker disturbed my reverie. Helen had brought the knocker home one day and screwed it on herself. She said she could never hear a knock at the door, especially when we were upstairs in bed. I’d told her that was the idea but she’d gone ahead and done it anyway. I got out of my chair and walked down the passage feeling unsociable.

‘Who is it?’

There was no answer and my instincts, which had been dulled by self pity, started to work. I thought about the gun in the holster under my jacket hanging over the chair in the kitchen. I started back for it. We could be dealing with terrorists here, knee-cappers, Libyans eager for Islam heaven. The banging came again, harder.

‘Open up, Hardy. It’s Peter January.’

January was drunk but the woman with him was steely sober. She was taller than him, a few years younger and, right then, she seemed to be supplying the qualities January lacked. For one thing, she was in control of her speech.

‘Cliff, lissen, gotta talk…shit!’ He’d lurched in the doorway and hit his head against the jamb.

‘Mr Hardy,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Karen Weiner. Peter says he wants to talk to you. He’s in no condition to do it but he was going to make a scene in the restaurant unless he came here. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay. Come in. I can sober him up and see what’s on his mind. Are you…ah…?’

‘Don’ worry, Cliff. Karen’s m’ right arm. Tell her anything.’

Karen Weiner and I supported January along the passage and through the sitting room to the kitchen.

‘Anything to drink comrade?’ he said.

‘Not for you.’ The woman took his weight easily all by herself. ‘Where’s the bathroom?’

I pointed and she steered him, stripping off his suit jacket as she went. She wore a blouse and loose jacket, trousers with lots of belts and pockets, and high-heeled shoes. I heard a few protests from January as they went down the steps to the bathroom at the back of the house but there were chuckles in the sounds as if he was having fun protesting. I made coffee in the kitchen, kept an ear out for breaking glass and tried to tell myself that Peter January wouldn’t be the first drunken client

I’d had-wouldn’t be the 20th even and wouldn’t be the last.

When he reappeared January was still a mess but he looked steadier. The woman was carrying the jacket and waistcoat of his light grey suit; he’d slipped down his tie and had the shirt cuffs back in the way politicians like to do when they’re pretending to be one of the people. His thick hair was damp and his face was shiny but the slackness was gone from it and the artificial glitter that had been in his eyes was dimmed.

‘What did you do?’ I said. ‘Tell him to pretend he was going on “60 Minutes”?’

January dropped into a chair. ‘Don’t like me, do you, Hardy?’

‘I liked the way you handled yourself when the bomb went off. I like the way you want to stop us all from glowing in the dark. That’s enough.’

‘Yeah, I suppose it is. Did you say something about coffee?’

‘I’ll get it.’ Karen Weiner went out to the kitchen and I could hear her opening cupboards and clinking mugs as January and I looked at each other.

‘I’m scared,’ he said.

‘You must’ve been scared before. What about when you met Prince Charles?’

He ignored me. ‘I was scared in ‘Nam. I was scared the first time I stood up in court to speak and again when I got up in the House. But this is different. All of a sudden I feel outnumbered. I can feel the knives pointing at my back.’

‘Caesar complex,’ I said.

He drew his hand across his face as if he could rearrange his features to be the way he wanted. He wanted patience. ‘I knew you’d bullshit around for a while, but I’m serious.’

The woman came back with the coffee balanced on a breadboard that she’d wiped clean. She presented us with the mugs and put the milk and sugar where we could reach it. Then she sat down next to January-not too close, not too far away. He smiled at her as he sipped his coffee.

All I can say is that you’re bloody impatient,’ I said. ‘I’m setting up a meeting with the copper who…’