‘What?’
I was tired of standing to attention in front of this old stager. Near the end of the pool there was a cane chair over which a blue towelling bathrobe had been thrown. I moved across, slung the bathrobe onto the tiled edge of the pool, and brought the chair close to the lounge. I sat down, took out my PEA licence and showed it to Sir Phillip.
‘Phil,’ I said, ‘your little Paula’s been a very bad girl. She damaged my property and took something that belongs to me. I think she’s a very sick woman, but if you’re her father that’s your problem, not mine. All I want to do is get back what’s mine and give her a warning.’
He leaned forward to examine the licence folder, then sank back on the lounge. For the first time he sounded old. ‘She’s been receiving warnings for twenty-five years, Mr Hardy. None have been heeded.’
‘Where is she?’
‘She has a house in Lindfield. I bought it for her.’
‘I hope your name’s on the title deeds. It’s up for sale. She’s not there.’
Finally, he let go of the newspaper. It flopped down to cover his genitals and skinny thighs. ‘God, not again.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Paula attended eight primary and six secondary schools. She dropped out of university at least five times. She killed her mother.’
‘What?’
‘Figuratively speaking. She lived for six months with some poor unfortunate who thought he could mean something to her. I doubt he’s ever recovered from the experience. She is brilliant, seductive, a walking disaster. I hope you are not involved with her sexually. If you are, and she has dropped out of sight, I strongly advise you to leave well enough alone.’
There was a lot in that to chew on and I watched him closely as he spoke. He was evidently in the throes of powerful emotions, but it was impossible to tell in what directions they were pulling him.
‘It’s nothing like that. But it’s very important that I see her. I take it she’s not here?’
‘No. Why is it so important?’
‘I’d rather not say.’
He nodded. He understood. I wondered what that understanding said about him and his relationship with his daughter. I looked up at the big house which was starting to cast a shadow that would eventually fall across the solarium. It had a high-gabled slate roof and two attic rooms on the top level. A creeper covered most of the back wall.
‘Yes, I live here alone, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve had three wives and I’m never quite sure how many children. A few of doubtful paternity and the wives brought others with them, you see. I couldn’t get used to a small place, not at my age.’
‘Who drives the land Rover?’
‘I do. I drive it to places where there are no people. Then I go bushwalking.’
I believed him. He couldn’t have weighed more than sixty kilos and his thin legs looked strong. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘she followed me the other day. There’s a chance she could be doing it again today. Could I go up to the top there and take a look around? I promise not to lift the family silver.’
He sighed and picked up his paper. ‘Be my guest, but I must tell you that it’s fruitless to anticipate what Paula will do. Whatever you think of she has most likely done the opposite.’
I walked through the solarium and was grateful for the coolness of the air between it and the house. I stepped through a sliding door into a huge kitchen with a flagstone floor. The bottom storey was given over to a living-cum-dining room, library, television room and study. I climbed a cedar staircase wide enough to hold the whole Balmain pack. There were five bedrooms on the second floor. Sir Phil had the pick of the crop-a big, high-ceilinged chamber with double french windows letting onto a wide balcony. He had a big, high bed covered with a tapestry that seemed to depict some major military event. Maybe one of his wives had found herself with time on her hands.
The other rooms weren’t much. The smallest of them wasn’t more than about twice the size of my bedroom in Glebe. One of them had evidently been occupied by a woman.
There was a soiled feminine silk dressing gown hanging on the back of the door and several items of make-up lay scattered on top of a chest standing beside a full-length mirror. Unlike the other rooms I’d seen in the house, this one was dusty and untidy- books on the floor beside the roughly made bed, a hairbrush and a coffee mug on the dresser. I made a thorough search but found nothing-no letters under loose floorboards, no photograph taped to the back of the mirror, no nightclub book matches. Very little scope for detecting. The hairbrush was almost the only thing worth looking at. It held several very long strands of very blonde hair. The room looked like a place to crash rather than to live in.
I went up a smaller staircase to the top level. The attic rooms were used for storage. Tea chests, cardboard boxes and old furniture lay around wearing an air of rejection. I pushed my way through to the window of the room on the right side of the house, rubbed dust from the pane and looked out. I could see all the way over the slate, tile and iron rooftops to Coogee. Under a clear sky, the water was a deep tourist-attracting blue and sunlight bounced off the buildings along the foreshore. Somehow it was natural to look at the distant seascape, an automatic response, but the foreground was just as pleasing. Most of the houses and streets boasted luxuriant trees and the recent rain had given the area a lush, pampered look. The elevation was ideal. I scanned the streets to the west and north, then moved to the other room and surveyed the scene in the other directions. No tall loose-limbed blondes hanging about, no white Honda Civic.
‘Find anything interesting?’ Sir Phillip Wilberforce said when I rejoined him in the solarium. This time I’d removed my leather jacket.
‘Yes and no. You’re very free with your house. I’m a total stranger.’
He smiled and removed a mobile telephone from underneath the cane lounge. ‘I checked on you while you were up there, Mr Hardy. If there had been any reason for concern I would have had help by the time you came down.’
‘I’m impressed,’ I said.
‘So am I. I was contemplating asking you what this exercise was going to cost me, but my information is that you are relatively honest.’
‘I could resent the “relatively”.’
He shrugged and replaced the phone. ‘You have to allow for the natural resentment of public officials. The more intelligent of them know that outside their institutions they’d starve in the midst of plenty.’
I might have agreed, partly, but he was starting to bore me. Rampant free-enterprisers have only one song to sing. ‘When did you last see Paula?’ I said.
He laughed. A million wrinkles broke out on his face and spread like ripples in a pool. ‘I’m not going to be questioned by you. Instead, answer this: how much would you accept to desist?’
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. The shadows had advanced but the solarium was still a hot box. ‘Sir Phillip,’ I said, ‘I want to desist. I’ve got other things to do. But I have to see her. Money doesn’t enter into it.’
‘I hoped you’d say that.’ He was wearing his shades again. Now he took them off and gave me a blast from the Wilberforce baby blues. ‘I haven’t seen my daughter for some weeks. She’s the only one of my children I care a damn about. I’ll pay you five thousand dollars, Mr Hardy, to find her.’
6
There’s nothing in the Commercial Agents and Private Enquiry Agents Act to say you can’t take on two important cases at the same time. It’s not usually a sensible thing for a one-man show to do, but this was different. I was going to be looking for Paula Wilberforce anyway, and she’d already cost me money. Besides, I was coming to like Sir Phil. There was something about his don’t-give-a-damn attitude that appealed to me, especially when it was combined with some genuine concern. That was showing now.
‘Poor little Paula. I don’t pretend to have been a good father, Mr Hardy. Do you have children yourself?’