The Undertow Read online

  ‘Mrs Heysen’s late husband was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Now she’s been shot. A private detective known to us as a troublemaking arsehole visits her. We want to know why.’

  ‘Did you ask her?’

  ‘She wasn’t cooperative. Seems to have a prejudice against the police service.’

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t think why anyone would feel like that.’

  ‘Let me put it this way. A serious crime has been committed and you’re withholding information.’

  ‘Let me put it another way,’ I said. ‘You’re suddenly interested enough in this to bring me down here. Why? You show me yours and I might show you mine, if I have anything to show.’

  The two exchanged nods. Carr stood and picked up his jacket.

  ‘Okay, Hardy,’ he said, ‘have it your way. But we’ve just about had enough of you and your cowboy games. You’ve done time for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and destroying evidence. You ought to see the file we have on you.’

  ‘I’d like to.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean. You love to take the piss, don’t you? I’ll tell you this—your old mate, former Deputy Commissioner Frank Parker, can’t protect you now. We’ll be keeping a close eye on you and the reality is that your fucking licence to operate in your crummy profession is hanging by a thread. One false step and you’re gone and good riddance.’

  I stood and lifted my jacket from the chair. Lombardi stood and we three big men faced off with the tension crackling between us. Again, in the old days it would have been dangerous and I would’ve expected to get hurt. Not now.

  Lombardi went to the door and swung it open so that it crashed back against the wall. A uniformed officer standing there jumped at the noise.

  ‘He’ll see you out,’ Lombardi said. ‘Piss off!’

  19

  Over the next week and a bit I tried to show that I was still on the case. I went to the hospital without actually seeing Catherine Heysen, but giving that impression. I took a good look at the rear end of every medium-sized red sedan I came across. Anyone watching me would have known what that meant. I went to a Target store and bought a baseball bat, which I left on the front passenger seat of the Falcon. I carried the .38 and I watched my back. Nothing happened.

  Frank, back from his flit to Brazil, phoned me at the office. He told me that he and Hilde had taken to Peter’s intended, Ramona, straight off. He said the feelings seemed to be mutual and that arrangements to get the pair of them home were proceeding smoothly. I made the right approving noises.

  ‘But that’s not what I want to talk to you about,’ Frank said. ‘The DNA test result’s come through. It’s positive in that it says there’s only one chance in a couple of hundred thousand that the boy’s not my son.’

  ‘How’s Hilde taking it?’

  ‘She’s okay with it. Not enraptured, but . . . interested and a bit more than that. Any luck locating him?’

  I told him more or less what I’d told Catherine Heysen, but in starker terms. He listened without interrupting, the way he does.

  ‘We’d better meet,’ he said when I’d finished.

  ‘Yeah. She’s also hired me to continue the investigation into the Heysen case and the attacks on us.’

  There was a pause before he spoke. ‘You said us. Has she got to you the way she got to me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. I told you I’d back you on that—looking for the kid and all the rest of it.’

  ‘I’d rather take her money than yours. You’re right, we should meet. Let’s make it as public a place as possible.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’

  Centennial Park seemed as good a bet as any other, and we met there mid-morning on a grey day. All the better for there being fewer people about and making it easier to spot anyone suspicious. But there are always walkers, joggers, rollerbladers and cyclists, so the park is never empty.

  We met at the Oxford Street gates and strolled in. Straightaway Frank’s trained eye spotted that I was carrying my pistol in a shoulder holster under my jacket.

  ‘Why the gun?’ he said.

  I explained about my Judas goat strategy.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ he said. ‘I just love wandering about to be sniped at.’

  ‘I’m going to take steps.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘The .38 for one, and hiring Hank Bachelor to watch my back. You remember him, the big Yank with the stun gun?’

  ‘He’s capable. Who else?’

  I mentioned two other PEAs I could call on and Frank nodded approvingly. ‘It’s going to cost.’

  ‘What d’you reckon her house in Earlwood’s worth? She’s selling it.’

  Frank agreed and I was relieved to see that he’d apparently got over his obsession with Catherine Heysen. I’d told him she was going to stay with her family where there were willing men and he didn’t question me further.

  ‘So we’re still in a double-barrelled operation here,’ Frank said. ‘Trying to latch on to whoever’s worried about the old business and getting William on the straight and narrow.’

  We reached a bench near the pond where Sallie-Anne Huckstepp had been drowned. We sat and looked out over the murky water. If the predictions were right, it’d one day be a home to cane toads. Those thoughts didn’t help my mood.

  ‘There’s something else, Frank,’ I said. I told him about my encounter with the two detectives and my feeling that someone higher up was taking an active interest in matters concerning Catherine Heysen.

  ‘Jesus,’ Frank said, touching his nose. ‘It never goes away—the stink. I told you something was wrong about the way the Heysen thing played out.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘But for all that’s happened I don’t get a sense of having made much progress.’

  ‘Nothing new in that for you, is there, Cliff?’

  ‘No, I guess not. Things take time to come together and sometimes they just don’t.’

  We went quiet for a while, staring at the water and the grass and the trees as if the answers lay there. They didn’t, and a roar of snarled traffic at a distance cut through the quiet of the park.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘you’ve made some progress on life’s journey, Grandad.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ he said, but he smiled broadly.

  Twenty-four hours after meeting Frank I was in the office wondering whether it was time to hunt down William Heysen when I got a call from Hank Bachelor.

  ‘Bingo,’ Hank said. ‘That’s the expression, isn’t it? Some guy made several passes of your place. Then he made a sortie out to Lane Cove. I guess that’s where the lady’s holed up, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Went by your place again not long ago. Want me to brace him, Cliff?’

  ‘Shit, no. Just keep tabs on him. Tell me he’s driving a red Commodore with a dent in the back.’

  ‘You’re psychic.’

  ‘That’s right. Describe him, will you.’

  ‘He doesn’t get out of the car much. I’d say he’s about . . .’

  ‘You’re breaking up.’

  ‘. . . grey suit . . . porker . . . sonofabitch . . .’

  ‘What? What?’

  The line went dead. I swore and sat with scraps of information running through my head. It was half an hour before Hank came back on the line.

  ‘Sorry, Cliff. I lost him. I don’t think he spotted me but he turned off and I’ve gotta admit I lost concentration making the call and when you told me I was breaking up. I backtracked but I couldn’t find him.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Marrickville, around there.’

  Things clicked into place. Marrickville. An overweight man in a grey suit. I had a sudden recall of sensations I’d experienced before the baseball bat scrambled my perceptions— a shape, a smell as his foul breath washed over me. Rex Wain!

  ‘It’s okay, Hank. I think I know where to find him. Give me a min
ute to check it out and I’ll call you back.’

  I grabbed Frank’s notes and flicked through them, searching for Wain’s address—the place where his phone was about to be cut off, where he hadn’t paid the mortgage or probably the rent for months. I found it and called Hank to give him the address.

  ‘Meet me there in ten minutes. Got your tazer?’

  He said he did. I got to my car but the ten minutes stretched to twice that as I battled the late afternoon traffic.

  The flat was in a small, red brick block close to the railway line and near the border with Dulwich Hill. Hank’s 4WD was parked a little past it and on the other side of the street. He knew his business. You don’t park immediately outside a place where you expect trouble and you don’t let your car door slam. I pulled in a few car lengths further on and gestured for Hank to join me.

  He ambled back, all 190 centimetres and 100 kilos of him. I got out and joined him, making sure we couldn’t be seen from the flats.

  ‘Car’s there, Cliff. Saw it as I went by.’

  I nodded. ‘This guy’s an ex-cop very down on his luck. He took a shot at the woman I told you about and he used a Louisville slugger on me.’

  Hank shook his head. ‘Didn’t think they made ’em anymore. Still, I get your point. Dangerous guy.’

  ‘Could be. Likely to be slow though. He’s screwed up twice. Said he didn’t have a car. Now he’s got one. Means someone’s financing him but if he’s got money he’s drinking. What was his driving like?’

  ‘Lousy. Shit reactions.’

  ‘He’s in flat two. Looks like there’s only four so two’s bound to be ground floor back. If it’s okay with you we go in and you knock. He doesn’t know you so he’ll probably open up. Maybe have the door on a chain. Got anything handy?’

  ‘You want bolt cutters or a tyre iron?’

  Hank is nothing if not well equipped. ‘Up to you.’

  The short street was quiet. No dogs, no skateboarders, no strollers. A train roared past as Hank opened the rear of the 4WD and extracted a solid pair of bolt cutters which he held down by his leg. We crossed the road and went along the cement drive past the line of four skimpy carports to the back of the flats. A faded red Commodore, showing signs of repaired rust and with a deep dint in the back bumper and rear end, was parked a little skewed to one side, cutting down the space for the neighbouring car to get out.

  ‘That’ll make him popular,’ Hank said.

  ‘His name’s Rex Wain, and I don’t think he’s ever been popular.’

  Flat two featured a cheap screw-on number hanging by one screw. Three steps led to the door and parked beside them was a wheelie bin with a cracked top. Beside it a cardboard box overflowed with newspapers and empty stubbies.

  Hank knocked and there was no response. We waited, knocked again, same result. I tore off a section of newspaper and tried the handle. The door opened and I stepped inside, straight into the kitchen, with the .38 out and ready.

  No need. Rex Wain, in his stained grey suit with the missing buttons, lay face up on the greasy lino floor. He was directly under a bright fluorescent light but the brightness didn’t worry him even though his eyes were open. He had a dark hole directly between them and a centimetre or two above. The bench and cupboards behind where he’d been standing were spattered like something from Jackson Pollock, but with blood and pink and grey tissue instead of paint.

  20

  It was the second time I’d walked Hank Bachelor into a murder scene.

  ‘How do we play it?’ he said.

  I backed up and ushered him with me. ‘We walk away softly,’ I said, ‘unless you want to spend the next three days with cops in your face.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  The other flats were quiet and the street showed no activity. We went back to our cars and drove off with me leading. A few blocks away I stopped and Hank pulled in behind me. He got out and came up to the Falcon, looking casual but probably not feeling it. He got in behind me.

  ‘Wish I smoked,’ he said.

  ‘No you don’t. What happens is this: I’ll call it in anonymously from a payphone. You were never here.’

  ‘What about you? What’s the connection between the dead guy and you?’

  I considered. ‘Almost none. No paper. One call to his answering machine. Good chance he wiped it.’

  ‘What if he didn’t?’

  ‘Then they’ll contact me, but you’re still in the clear.’

  ‘What’s going on, Cliff?’

  I was wound tight and hadn’t realised it. My head was throbbing where Wain had hit me and the scab on my lip felt like a tumour. I let out a slow breath. ‘I’m tempted to say the less you know the better, but I have a feeling you wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘Damn right.’

  I filled him in as fully as I could. The talking did my nerves some good and helped to order my thoughts. Hank is a quick study.

  ‘You figure this guy Sawtell got wind of you and Mrs Heysen looking into the doc’s history and thought he had to do something about it.’

  ‘Right. My guess is that Cassidy and Wain covered for him way back. He probably paid them pretty well. Wain was on the skids and when I told him what I was doing he saw a chance to get some more money out of Sawtell. But by all accounts Sawtell is as smart as they come. He played Wain along, sort of offered him a contract on Catherine Heysen and me. But Wain wasn’t up to it.’

  ‘So Sawtell eliminated him.’

  ‘It’s a lot of guesswork but it fits.’

  Hank took a packet of chewing gum from his pocket and offered it to me. I refused. He started chewing. ‘Helps me to think,’ he said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About how you and the woman are still targets. Maybe more than ever. What about the son, this William? He in it?’

  ‘I don’t see how. He’s a side issue.’

  ‘I figure I’ve still got the job of watching your back.’

  ‘Not immediately, mate. I’m going to lay low. See if the cops come after me. If they do I’ll tell them what I’ve told you and they can make of it what they will. They won’t like me walking away, but they can’t tag me for it. I haven’t fired a gun in months. Anyway, it wasn’t a .38 that made that splatter.’

  Hank chewed rhythmically and was silent for a few long minutes. ‘I guess he was no great loss, Wain.’

  ‘Not much. He was in a bad slide. In a way, Sawtell, if that’s who it was, did him a favour.’

  That’s how we left it. I told Hank I’d contact him when I needed him. I phoned in the news of the dead body from somewhere in Chippendale and went home.

  Wain’s death barely made the newspapers. Nothing on TV. I phoned Frank to put him in the picture. I gave him an outline.

  ‘Better thrash it out in person,’ he said.

  He invited me to the get-together to welcome Peter and his wife, as she now was, home. I’m Peter’s anti-godfather, but about all I’ve ever done for him, apart from birthday presents when he was younger, was teach him to surf. I reckon that was a gift for life.

  I kept a close lookout on the drive to Paddington and I was sure I wasn’t followed. I went into the house where Hilde was waiting nervously, fiddling with a flower arrangement. ‘Frank’s collecting them from the airport. What if she doesn’t like us?’ she said.

  ‘You’ve already met her. You said she did.’

  ‘I thought she did.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You’re quite likeable.’

  ‘Here they are.’

  Then it was all handshakes, kisses and champagne. I’d got Peter and Ramona a five hundred dollar David Jones voucher as a wedding present. Not inspired, but useful.

  Peter was a carbon copy of his father, a bit taller and with a full head of dark hair that would probably turn grey like Frank’s. He was bearded and very tanned from his time in South America. He had an easy, poised manner, a bit self-deprecating. Ramona was a relaxed, confident young woman, not exactly beautiful but all the more attrac
tive for that. Peter clearly adored her and it wasn’t hard to see why.

  Hilde had laid on a spread and we all hopped into it.

  ‘Where’s this Lily I’ve heard about?’ Peter asked me.

  ‘Working. You’ll meet her sooner or later.’

  ‘Good. This is all a bit weird, Cliff. Coming back to the totally familiar surroundings with a wife and twins on the way and hearing of this brother. Dad told me about it. It’s a lot for Mum to cope with.’

  ‘She’ll manage. Life is immense, as Manning Clark said. I think it was Manning Clark.’

  ‘Sounds like him. Dad says you’re not too keen on him, this William.’

  ‘I think he’s a prick and he could be headed for big trouble. I just don’t want it to rub off on Frank.’

  ‘You look pretty beat up. That’s nothing new but you seem stressed as well. What else is going on?’

  ‘Not your problem, mate. You’ve got enough on your plate.’

  Hilde had downed a few glasses and was getting expansive. She shoved Peter aside and put her arm around me.

  ‘You were right,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have worried. She’s great, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yep. Lucky boy. Reckon they’ll settle here?’

  Hilde laughed. ‘Peter, settle? No chance. He’ll probably be off to help the tsunami generation and she’ll go too, with the babies on her back. They’re two of a kind.’

  Frank grabbed a half-full bottle and gestured at me to come into his study. We sat down. He poured.

  ‘Tell me the rest of it,’ he said.

  I did, leaving nothing out. It was a second run-through on the theories and connections and it made it all more solid. For me.

  ‘It’s thin,’ Frank said. ‘Pity you didn’t get to Wain first.’

  ‘I imagine he’d agree with you.’

  ‘He was a bit of a shit but you know how it is. You don’t like to hear about a cop’s past catching up with him. We’ve all got skeletons—look at me.’

  ‘You haven’t connived at helping a murdering corrupt police officer get away with everything he did. Think of the harm Cassidy and Wain must’ve done over the years. The Sawtell cover-up wouldn’t be the only thing.’