It was raining steadily when I left the Prince Regent and I got soaked walking to the car. It was welcome after the dry spell but probably not enough to break it. Still, I kept my eyes open for any interested parties. No sign. Rain’s never mattered to Sydney’s Friday nightlife and the roads and streets were busy. Normally, I like that kind of bustle, but maybe Knopf’s misfortunes were working on me because I was disinclined to go back to an empty house. I hadn’t had a companion there for some time and there was no one on the horizon. I headed for the office where I could construct an encouraging email for my client with a few questions thrown in. At the office you don’t expect cheery company.
The building was empty the way it mostly is after six o’clock and I turned on the stairwell lights’ timer switches as I went up the two flights. I took off my wet jacket, dried my hair and face on a hand towel, made the obligatory cup of instant, settled down at the computer and tapped out my message with two fingers for the keys and my right thumb for the space bar. Works for me. I filled her in on the anomalies of the trial, told her when I was off to Noumea and that I’d received the authority for the money.
I sent the message and hit the ‘Get message’ button, not expecting anything. But there was a message: You are interfering in matters best left alone. Be advised.
My first threatening email. I printed it out and stored it. I imagined there were ways of tracking it to its source but I had no idea what they were and a strong suspicion that nothing would be learned anyway. I turned off the computer and the lights and left the office. Rain was spitting on the roof or I might have heard something. I didn’t. The timer switch didn’t work. They sometimes don’t. In the dark I tripped on an obstacle placed at the top of the stairs and fell the full length of the flight.
I know how to fall, the army taught me-protect your head, roll when you hit. It works more or less, but not as well on stairs as on grass. I tumbled a bit and my head bounced off the wall once. I managed not to grab at things, which can dislocate a shoulder or an elbow. I hit the landing on my back and felt the wind rush out. The fall had loosened the dust and I coughed and spluttered but didn’t black out so I heard the voice from below.
‘Get the message, Hardy?’
7
There was no reply to my email when I limped into the spare room to check the computer. Limped because as well as a bump on the head and a bruised back I’d slightly twisted my ankle coming down the stairs the night before. Nothing a big scotch and three paracetamols hadn’t coped with, but not the very best preparation for an international flight.
The questions that had sat in my sore head the night before were still there-who and why? And I still had no answers. It was hard to judge how serious the threat had been. A fall downstairs isn’t so much, compared to the bashing I could’ve got in that dark space. But then again, I might’ve broken my neck.
I showered and soaked the ankle first in hot water and then in cold and rubbed it with goanna oil until the bathroom smelt like a changing room after a hard League game on a warm afternoon. They say rubbing does nothing useful except perhaps stimulate a bit of blood flow, but it felt better and I could walk without the limp. At least for now.
The brief rain had gone and the morning was clear. I’m not usually worried about flying, but I prefer the sky to be blue so the pilot can see where he or she is going. I tested the ankle by walking up to the travel agency to collect my tickets. No problems.
‘Your flight’s at 12.30 this afternoon, Mr Hardy,’ the young woman who’d handled the matter said. ‘Are you sure you’ve got everything in order?’
‘Yep.’
‘Have you hurt yourself? I thought I saw you limping.’
Back home, I packed. Tricky when you’re not sure how long you’re going to be away, but I travel light anyway and I figured that in New Caledonia underpants and shirts would dry overnight. I couldn’t travel in my usual style because if I was meeting the white shoe brigade, which was what some of Stewie’s mates sounded like, I’d have to tog up a bit. On a visit to Brisbane with a woman I’d spent some time with until she decided her time could be better spent, I’d bought a linen suit. It was ‘unstructured,’ which meant it didn’t have shoulder pads and had a minimum of lining. Smart until it crumpled and still smart for a while after that. With old but classy Italian loafers and a black silk shirt, I reckoned I’d pass as someone who knew how to dress but only cared about it so far.
I hadn’t opened the guide to New Caledonia or the French phrase book. I packed them into the overnight bag I use for travelling however long I’m away and put the sections of the Saturday papers I’d want to read into the snazzy carry-on bag the airline had provided along with a volume of Somerset Maugham’s short stories. I was pretty sure there were some about New Caledonia. My only approach to a weapon, a Swiss army knife, went into the overnight bag.
Viv Garner, my long-suffering lawyer, had lost his wife six months earlier to a runaway cancer. They’d been very close and had no children so Viv was taking it hard, although he kept working and was as effective as ever. Saturday mornings, when he and Ros had done the shopping and played tennis, were bound to be desolate and he picked up the phone quickly when I rang.
‘It’s Cliff Hardy, Viv.’
‘Cliff, good to hear from you. What’s up?’ The note of cheerfulness in his voice was forced, but maybe in time it would become natural again.
‘Well, I want to pump you for information of course, but I thought I’d do you a favour and let you drive me out to the airport this arvo. I’m off to New Caledonia. Occurred to me you might like to share in the glamour and excitement, vicariously, like.’
He laughed. ‘You bastard. Okay, you’ll shout the drinks.’
‘My client will gladly pay. How’s an hour from now for you?’
I checked in and was told the plane would be leaving on time. Viv and I went to the bar and I ordered two double scotches. We hadn’t spoken much on the drive, mainly about Ros and how Viv was coping. He seemed to be stronger than the last time and a lot better than the time before that. He told a few stories about times they’d spent together and his smiles were genuine.
He added a measure of water to his scotch and we clinked glasses. ‘Okay,’ Viv said. ‘You’ve got about half an hour before you wing off to paradise. What gives?’
I filled him in, trying to give him a sense of the ways things had worked out at Master’s trial. Viv is a solicitor but he’s spent a good bit of time in the courts and he asked a few questions I could have answered better if I’d had the transcript, but he got my drift.
‘Sounds funny,’ he said. ‘But trials are funny things anyway. What did you want to ask me?’
‘What do you know about John L’Estrange?’
Viv drank some scotch and fiddled with a coaster. I noticed that his hands were shaking slightly and I wondered if he was on some medication. Maybe bringing him out here and putting scotch into him wasn’t a good idea. ‘John L’Estrange,’ he said. ‘Universally known as Jack the Odd. Successful barrister. Not in the top flight, as they say, but doing well. Said to have very strong political ambitions.’
‘Jesus, that’s all I need-state and federal police and politics thrown in.’
‘You live in interesting times. But then, you always did, Cliff…’
‘Yeah. Which party?’
‘Oh, I think that would all depend.’
‘Any rumours? Boys, girls, gerbils?’