Wet Graves Read online

  “So he’s still the secretary of this Veterans of the Bridge thing?”

  “Course he is. All he thinks about. Him and a coupla others just as mad.”

  “Where in the gardens?”

  She shrugged, which in her case was more of a horizontal movement than a vertical one. “Anywhere he can get a good view. Could be Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, could be closer to the Opera House. Anywhere. Took me to see it once. Silly old bugger. Sun goin’ down behind the bloody bridge. So what?”

  I was moving towards the door, calculating time and distance. “How will I recognise him?”

  “Old Stan? Easy, only one of his kind in captivity. White beard down to here.” She bunched her cardigan together at the waist. The coins fell out on the floor. Well, she didn’t have far to go to pick them up. I hit the footpath running.

  Getting a cab in the Rocks at half-past four in the afternoon is no easy matter, especially when a cold wind has started to blow. That’s how it was as I ran along Pump Street towards the nearest corner. No luck; a bus and some private cars threw muddy water from the recently passed street sweeper over my feet. I ran in the direction of the nearest set of lights and moved from one corner of the intersection to the other, trying to second-guess the traffic stream. It took ten minutes, but I finally grabbed a Legion cab which was stopped at the lights. I overcame the driver’s reluctance with another twenty-dollar note—Louise Madden was spending some serious money now.

  As well as muggers and drunk vomiters, taxi drivers dislike passengers who don’t know where they’re going and passengers who do know and tell them street by street how to get there. I wanted the Botanic Gardens, and the only instruction I could give was, “The nearest gate”.

  He dropped me opposite the old State Library building, and I battled the wind past the fountain, which wasn’t spurting, and through the gate. A newish sign inside told me that this was the Morshead Fountain gate and that the gardens this month were closed to the public at 5 p.m. I took the first path that seemed to promise a view of the bridge, almost fell on the first long set of steps and dashed past another fountain and several statues of Greek gods doing godlike things.

  The sky was clear and rapidly turning pink and orange in the west as the sun sank—a good bridge-viewing sky. I had no idea of where the best vantage points would be, and the bridge itself kept disappearing behind trees as I hurried along the paths. A few people straggling up towards the south gate looked at me oddly as I bustled along. The light was fading fast, and the wind’s cutting edge seemed to get keener by the minute. I kept heading towards the higher ground, and some instinct or memory told me that keeping the duck pond and kiosk on my right was the proper thing to do.

  An avenue of thick, high-reaching palms blocked my view of everything and brought visibility down to murky. Ever since an eye accident a few years ago I’ve had trouble adapting quickly to changes in light level, and the sudden brightness of direct sunrays that hit the gardens as I emerged from the avenue almost blinded me. I stopped, shaded my eyes and scanned the lawns and flower beds. For a moment I thought that a rotunda up ahead might provide a good view but then I realised that a stand of trees was in the way. I moved to the left and got a clear view through a gap in the trees. A path a little further along led towards a rise in the land and a garden bench. From the bench there would be a clear view through the trees west to the bridge. There was no one on the bench, but a shape lay on the ground beside it. I hurdled a plot of native something-or-others and ran across the grass to the bench.

  He was lying on his back, very still, a thin, frail figure with a big overcoat spread out around him. The long white beard hung down below the V-neck of a torn and darned red sweater. The beard was red too, in the places where blood from the gash on his forehead had splashed onto it. His old, pale blue eyes were open and so was his mouth; a bottom denture had fallen out and the lower part of his face had a puckered, eroded look. I bent down and felt his thin wrist and put my watch face near his nose and mouth, but there was no pulse and no breath. People say things like “the body was still warm”; that doesn’t make much sense on a cold night. His hands and face were as cold as mine. I looked up and saw the bridge etched clearly against the sunset. It was the first time I’d ever seen it but Stan Livermore would never see it again.

  I had no doubt that the dead man was Livermore. In the fading light I could see a lot of blood on the grass, but no signs of a struggle or a weapon. There was more blood and a few hairs on the edge of the bench; a cloth cap lay on the grass a few feet from the body. A pair of spectacles was half-covered by the spread skirt of the overcoat. A fall, then? An old, near-sighted man lost his footing, fell and struck his head? Happens every day. I looked up as a uniformed man came running along the path in the direction opposite from the way I’d come. He was heavy, red-faced and breathless when he reached the spot.

  “Oh, gawd,” he said, “it’s old Stan.”

  I straightened up. “You know him?”

  “Yeah.” He pulled down the waistband of his uniform jacket, which had ridden up as he ran. The jacket had flashes bearing the word ‘Ranger’ sewn onto the sleeves and the breast pocket. “I know him. Well, we just call him old Stan. Don’t know his full name. Comes in every night to watch the sun going down behind the bridge. Done it for years. Poor old bugger must’ve taken a tumble.”

  He peered at the bench and saw the blood. Then he unhooked a walkie-talkie from his belt and put in a call for an ambulance.

  “He’s dead,” I said.

  “Just following procedure, sir. Could I have your name, please?”

  It was the walkie-talkie that did for me. If he’d had to go off somewhere to sound the alert I might have faded into the distance, but what could I do with him standing there, all ‘Ranger’ flashes, notebook and self-importance? I gave him my name and he lit a cigarette and we waited in the gathering dark. I looked west and the bridge changed from a dark, abstract outline to a big, simple piece of machinery as the lights came on.

  9

  There was just enough room on the path for the ambulance. The paramedics agreed with me and the ranger that the poor old bugger was dead. Then the cops arrived—plenty of space for them. They parked so that their headlights played over the scene, and after a fairly brief look around and collections of items such as the glasses and cap, they told the paramedics to take the corpse away. It all seemed a bit perfunctory to me, but it turned out that the senior constable knew old Stan too, and he was satisfied with the “fell and hit head” explanation.

  “And what were you doing in the gardens, Mr Hardy?” he asked.

  “Just taking a walk,” I said.

  “Funny time of day for a walk.”

  “I had things to think about, constable.”

  Satisfied was the senior constable’s middle name. He nodded, copied down the name and address from my driver’s licence and told me that I should accompany them to the Woolloomooloo police station to sign my statement.

  “I haven’t made a statement.”

  The senior looked at his colleague, who read from his notebook, using his torch to read his notes. “I can take shorthand, Mr Hardy. Your name is Cliff Hardy, I have your address as it appears on your driver’s licence. You were taking a walk in the Botanic Gardens at approximately 4.45 pm, and you discovered the body of a man identified as Stan Livermore.”

  “That’s right. I’m impressed.”

  “Just accompany us to the station, sir,” the senior said. He turned to the ranger. “And you too, sir, if you don’t mind.”

  The ranger seemed to enjoy the ceremony; he spoke briefly into his walkie-talkie, and then we climbed into the back of the police car and drove slowly along the paths to the Victoria Lodge gate.

  “I’m going to be late home,” the ranger said.

  I was playing the role of a solid, minding-my-own-business citizen. “Me, too,” I said.

  The constable was doing the driving, the senior was doing the investigating. “Did
Stan have a family, d’you bow?” he asked.

  If it was a trap for me it was too obvious. I said nothing and let the long, pale grey shape of a warship docked opposite the Boy Charlton pool take my attention.

  “Doubt it,” the ranger said. “How long’s this going to take?”

  The senior shifted in his seat to let the pistol on his hip settle more comfortably. “Step on it, Charlie,” he said. “The gentlemen want to get home for their tea.”

  The ’Loo police station is new and reasonably high-tech, but rather undermanned. I noticed that the graffiti, a feature of the area, were starting to creep along nearby walls in its direction. They wouldn’t have the manpower to spare to scrub it off, so that station will probably took pretty much like the rest of the neighbourhood soon. The shorthand expert typed up the ranger’s statement and he signed it and left. The constable then sat down at a computer terminal and put the microchips through their paces. I expected him to turn his professional attention to me after that, but the sergeant distracted him with some questions about something else. Then he couldn’t find the right form; then he had to answer the phone a few times.

  I sat in a too-bright room which had too few things to look at. I soon got bored by the community policing notices. There weren’t any of the ‘Wanted’ posters—the ones with pictures of neanderthal-faced men—that used to decorate police stations. The coffee from the automatic machine tasted like cocoa. I hate cocoa. I was impatient and restless, but I didn’t want to occasion any suspicion. Wouldn’t an ordinary citizen be impatient and restless? I thought. Yes. Would he demand to see his lawyer or try to sneak out when the cop wasn’t looking? No. I sat and waited until the form was found and put in the typewriter and the sergeant went away and the phone stopped ringing. The magic fingers went to work again and I was typed up, signed and countersigned before you could say police commissioner. I said that I was a real estate agent—but that was almost the only lie I told.

  It was after eight o’clock when I left the police station, and as soon as I got out in the wind I realised how cold and hungry I was. Also dry. It had been a good day for non-alcoholic resolutions, if not for much else. I had a light beer and a steak with salad and a half carafe of wine in a cafe in William Street.

  The wine relaxed me and helped me to shift my attention from the disappeared and the dead to the living. Myself. I walked up to St Peter’s Lane and took a careful look around to see if anyone was lying in wait for me. I was in the mood. But not tonight, not yet at least I checked my notebook for the address Ray Guthrie had given me and located it in the Gregory’s. The Falcon had been sitting all day and was slow to start in the cold air. I let the motor run and turned on the heater. Darling Point. Maybe I should have gone home to change and shave. But if the good people of Darling Point could put up with Rhino Jackson, who’d been known to spit on the pavement and worse, I couldn’t see how they could object to me.

  I drove down Darling Point Road, which bisects the peninsula. In some places structured like that, the rich people live off to the right and the poor to the left, or vice versa. In Darling Point the rich live off to the right and left. Ray had given me the name Nash; the address was a cul-de-sac that curled around from the main road and ended just short of the water. High fence, wide gate, bricked driveway; the front garden was so deep I couldn’t see the house. There seemed to be a secondary driveway branching off the main one and I guessed this was where the boating types backed their Mercs with catamarans attached down to the water. I gave it the once-over from the car, drove back a hundred metres and parked outside a big house from which cars had overflowed the three-car garage. There were no signs of a party inside—just too many cars per head. I put the .38 in my pocket and was all set to go when the rain started. I swore and dug the old oilskin slicker Cyn had given me as a birthday present out of the boot. Cyn had thought I might take up yachting as a civilising pursuit. Another disappointment.

  I pulled up the hood and walked back along the road, squinting through the rain. The gates were open, but there was no activity. It was about three hours too early for the high-rollers to show up; probably the hired muscle and the croupiers and the girls hadn’t even arrived yet The whole scene was tree-framed, shrub-bordered and hedged. I slunk along under overhanging branches from the neighbour’s garden to a point just a few feet from the Nash gate. A quick duck and dive and I was through the gate and under cover again. I worked my way through ti-tree and other foliage until I’d reached the point where the boat ramp branched off. I could see the house now—a two-storeyed, twenty-five-room splendido with too many pillars and steps. The big rooms had balconies, the smaller ones had window boxes.

  The rain stopped and I wiped my face with a piece of cloth I found in the pocket of the slicker. When I stuffed the rag back I felt the hard metal of the gun, which was still in my jacket. I debated whether to transfer it to the slicker, but decided against: my policy is to make a gun as unavailable as possible. The fact that I’m still alive and haven’t been shot more than a couple of times convinces me it’s a good procedure.

  I stayed close to the brick fence that separated Nash from his or her neighbour. I began to smell the sea before I’d got past the house. The ramp was bricked for some of the way, then made of tarred planks in the best nautical fashion. It was ten metres wide, sloping easily down to a jetty on the left and straight into the water on the right. As well as a lane for boat trailers, there were metal rails for moving heavier craft on wagons and a space for vehicles to back and turn in. A cluster of lights mounted high up over the ramp showed a number of small yachts tied up, and the long, wide shape of the houseboat moored directly at the end of the jetty. It had a bulky superstructure, which housed what they probably called staterooms. All very nice, Cyn would have loved it. Very civilised. But the lights were making the ramp and jetty look like the pitch at a night cricket match. No place for an interloper. Away to the right was a large, open-fronted boatshed wrapped in shadow. I kept clear of the intersecting circles of light and picked my way past a barbecue pit and some garden furniture to the shed.

  It rained some more while I waited. The tin roof of the shed amplified the sound but, true to the general standard of the place, didn’t leak. I didn’t explore the inner recesses of the shed more than I needed to. Boat gear is boat gear—oars, ropes, sails, tins of paint and glue. When the rain stopped, other water noise took over—the slap of the sea against the piles of the jetty and the sides of the boats. There was also the creaking of timbers and a thrumming and slapping of the wind against ropes and furled sails. Another sound, which I couldn’t identify at first, underlay all the others. It wasn’t close enough to be disconcerting, but it was puzzling. A growling, scratching, rattling sound. I poked my head out of the shed and tried to see beyond the pools of light. Eventually I located the noise and its source—somewhere on the other side of the boat ramp two dogs were chained up. Poor security; tying up the dogs when you were expecting strangers as guests was the right thing to do, but it had been done way too early.

  The action started around midnight. Three cars came down the ramp, turned and unloaded their passengers. I saw white shirts, fur coats and heard the click of high heels. A motor launch cruised up to the dock and there was more movement and sound—motors chugged, feet scraped on wood and metal. A few guys in red jackets appeared from nowhere and got busy. They turned on more lights over the jetty and on the houseboat itself. It was hard to judge the actual size of it from where I was, but it was big, long, wide and high. The redcoats started escorting people to the gangplank with elaborate courtesy. More arrivals by land and sea. I could hear music coming from the houseboat now and see people in clusters on the deck The wind blew the rain clouds away, leaving a clear, starry sky beneath which the fun people got ready to play.

  I counted forty-one people arriving but I might have missed a few when my attention wandered. The redcoats tied up and cast off for the launches, supported the tentative, valet-parked some cars and generally
kept things moving. One of them did less work than the others. His main job seemed to be OK-ing a member of each party. After forty minutes he rubbed his hands together and went on board, leaving the other two to stand on the jetty, smoke cigarettes, stamp their feet against the cold and repel all borders. There was no way to get aboard legitimately. Maybe I should have arrived in one of Ray’s boats wearing a tux and with a woman on my arm. But I didn’t have a tux or a woman.

  Say what you like, army training can be useful. I fell back on it now instinctively. In a situation like this, training said, attack head-on, or approach with stealth, or create a diversion. On the whole I prefer stealth, but not if it means getting wet on a cold winter night. Failing stealth, diversion is best, partly because it presents an intellectual challenge, but mostly because it cuts down the chances of getting shot through the head.

  There are all sorts of handy things lying about in boatsheds. Rooting around in the semi-dark, I found a rescue kit, which included a flare pistol, plenty of motor spirit, a battery-powered loud hailer, several spearguns—almost too many diversionary items. But I didn’t want to start any fires or impale any redcoats. I just wanted to see a man, no need for World War III. On the other hand, I’d been assaulted and had my name taken in vain in a court of law. And I was present at a highly illegal gaming operation; everyone around here was breaking the law. I looked the scene over again—yachts, houseboat, jetty, able-bodied guards, motor cars parked along the upper reaches of the ramp—and the solution hit me.

  I gathered up a long length of nylon cord and a couple of pulleys attached to screw clamps and left the boathouse, bent low and keeping to the shadows. I worked my way back to the ramp and along it behind the cars. There were seven of them: Volvos, BMWs, Saabs and the like. The first six were parked pretty close together, but a red Porsche was a bit further up the slope, as if it deserved a better view and a space of its own. Some of the cars were locked, but others had the keys hanging in the lock of the driver’s door so the redcoats could unpark them quickly and not keep the ladies and gentlemen waiting in the cold. The Porsche was open. I prised a brick out of the edge of the ramp, tied the end of the cord firmly around it and set it carefully under the nearside front wheel of the Porsche. Then I opened the car and put the gearshift in neutral. I felt it roll an inch and come to rest on the two inches of brick that chocked the wheel.