He seemed about to say something but thought better of it. He signalled to the guard, got up and walked away without a backward glance. I sat stunned. Some pretty heavy discussions were going on in some of the other cubicles and I was tempted to listen to find out if these contacts were going as unsatisfactorily as mine. But the voices fused and I couldn’t make any sense of what was being said. The guard signalled for me to leave and I did, retracing my steps with another escort who had nothing to say. I was grateful for that.
I couldn’t say I liked Stewart Master but I was certainly interested in him. I was intrigued by his indifference, even hostility, to what I’d been hired to do. You’d have thought a man in his position would be clasping at straws. His relationship with his wife was unusual evidently, but marriage is an unusual institution. I recalled a remark a friend had made: golf is like marriage and marriage is like golf-they’re designed to make you unhappy. I was interested enough to have decided to take the job but I needed to see Lorraine Master again to clear a few things up; among them, Tony Spears.
I drove back to Darlinghurst and went up to the office. I pulled out a contract form and dialled LP Consultancys number. The phone was answered by a well-modulated female voice.
‘LP Consultancy. This is Fiona. How may I help you?’
‘My name’s Hardy. Is Mrs Master available?’
‘She’s very busy, Mr Hardy.’
Her first husband was an obsessed stalker, her third was behind bars and razor wire and she hadn’t seen him for weeks, I had questions and wasn’t in a mood to be put off by Fiona, well modulated or not. ‘Tell her I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
The office was in a tasteful commercial block in a tasteful street in a tasteful suburb. Something, probably in poor taste, had been knocked down to provide car parking space for the tenants. In Double Bay you can buy practically anything you want at approximately twice the price you pay anywhere else. As a guarantee of quality, that’s an unreliable measure but a lot of people go for it. I had no doubt it applied to business consulting in spades. Money likes to be around money.
She was in a black suit today. Lorraine Master, that is, not Fiona, who was so waif-like she scarcely made an impression. The office was nicely done out in Swedish wood, vases, flowers, pictures-all those things my office lacks. Her computer was state-of-the-art and it looked like she’d got as close to the paperless office as was possible. She held out her hand across the desk-two rings on the hand on the surface of the desk just where they should be.
‘Mr Hardy, I gather you’ve been to see Stewart.’
I shook her hand. ‘Word gets around. Hope I didn’t intimidate Fiona.’
‘Fiona’s a state high-diving champion. I doubt you intimidated her. Sit down.’
I sat. Her computer was emitting a soft buzz and lights were flashing on her telephone console but she ignored them. I had her full attention. ‘Your husband couldn’t give a toss about what you propose.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘He has faith in Bryce O’Connor.’
‘You don’t?’
She shrugged. ‘So far the track record’s not good.’
‘Why wasn’t there an appeal?’
‘No grounds.’
‘There’s always grounds.’
‘That’s what I said. They disagreed.’
‘They?’
‘Stewart and O’Connor.’
‘Don’t you find that odd?’
‘I do, yes. But so what? You can’t force a person to appeal if they don’t want to.’
The Samuel Goldwyn line sprang to my mind: ‘If the people won’t go you can’t stop them.’ What she was saying seemed to have something of the same logic. She was sitting perfectly still behind the desk with her dark eyes fixed unwaveringly on my face. There was something very unsettling about her, and attractive, very attractive. ‘I’m puzzled by your husband’s attitude to you,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘His refusal to see you.’
She sighed and the force field around her lessened a fraction. ‘He doesn’t want any distractions. He’s focused on legal manoeuvres and surviving inside the gaol, physically and… psychically.’
‘Psychically?’
‘Stewart’s got a very strong spiritual side. It’s giving him strength, but it takes strength to maintain it.’
Bullshit, I thought. I sat back in the chair and she read me accurately.
‘You think that’s nonsense, don’t you? So do I. But that’s what he says and I think he means it. Anything that helps him to stay… strong… is fine with me. Who are we to say different?’
She was manipulative. That’s okay, so am I, so are we all. She was good at it, too-enlisting me as it were. I almost pulled out the contract there and then, but not quite. ‘You seem to have a lot of pull with the lawyer. I’d like to meet him, but QCs are hard to get to see.’
‘I’ll arrange it.’ She tapped a few keys on the computer. ‘When?’
‘ASAP.’
‘This means you’ve accepted the commission?’
I nodded and took the contract from my blazer pocket and passed it over. She must have topped her speed reading course. She took in the contents rapidly, signed and took a cheque book from a drawer.
I spoke again before she wrote the cheque, timing it so as to rattle her. ‘There’s one more thing I’m not clear about.’
Gold pen poised, she said, ‘What’s that?’
‘Tony Spears.’
It didn’t rattle her. She carried on writing. ‘Already? I knew you’d run into him sooner or later, but not this soon.’ She flashed me a smile as she handed over the cheque. ‘I hope you didn’t hurt him.’
Boot on the other foot but I tried not to show it. I took the cheque, folded it and tucked it away along with the contract. ‘You’ll get a proper accounting.’
She leaned back in the chair. ‘Tell me about Tony’
I told her.
‘He’s a fool. I’ve taken out restraining orders against him time and time again. But he persists.’
‘Master…’
‘Beat him up. It didn’t stop him. When I broke up with Lance I may have offered Tony some encouragement-in his own mind at least. He’s a pest. I’m sorry he bothered you.’
‘Not really much bother. I just wondered. Is it possible he could have anything to do with setting your husband up?’
She let out a burst of laughter. The first reaction I’d seen from her that wasn’t under total control. ‘Tony? No, he’s harmless.’
And that, I guessed, was about the worst thing Lorraine Master could say about a man. I told her I’d leave for Noumea in a couple of days and she said she’d let me know about the money. We shook hands again. I walked out with some of her money but nothing else she hadn’t wanted me to have.
I took a longer look at Fiona in the outer office and I saw that she wasn’t quite as waif-like as I’d thought. Slender, but like a gymnast, which is what a diver is in my book. Behind hers there was another desk which had been empty when I came in. A man was sitting at it now operating a computer. He glanced at me without interest and went back to his screen. He was young, dark and good-looking.
I was in Broadway on the way back to Glebe when my mobile rang. I made the turn into Glebe Point Road, pulled over and answered. Fiona told me that an appointment had been made for me with Bryce O’Connor for 4 pm that afternoon. I thanked her, drove to the bank, deposited Lorraine’s cheque and bought a thousand dollars worth of Amex traveller’s cheques. I had a late lunch at the cafe beside the Valhalla theatre and made some notes from memory on my conversations with Master and his wife. I wondered why I hadn’t told Master I’d read his letters to his wife. Maybe I was worried about disturbing him spiritually.
The travel agency did me a deal on a return flight to Noumea with four days at the Sunrise Surf hotel thrown in. I booked the flight for two days ahead and put the charge on my American Express card. Lorraine was going to be facing a pretty hefty bill, but, from the look of the office, Fiona, the young screen jockey and herself, that wasn’t going to be much of a problem.