Deep Water (19 page)

‘I'm listening.'

‘I don't like you any more than you like me, but I've got a proposition for you, Phil.'

‘He's coming down tomorrow morning,' Hank said to Ross Crimond. ‘We're going to put him up in Cliff's place.'

‘Why?'

‘He's got the room.'

‘I've got space. From what you said, he might be more comfortable in a Christian home—no offence, Mr Hardy.'

I wanted to hit him, but I said, ‘He's more concerned about security than anything else. He knows what he's doing is dangerous. Hank and I can take shifts.'

Crimond was in a difficult spot. He didn't want to seem to be too aware of the dangers, but he wanted to get things arranged in his, or Lachlan's, favour. I could see his mind working.

‘Danger?' he said. ‘I don't quite follow.'

‘Don't go there,' Hank said. ‘But we'd like you to be present when we grill … talk to him. We need a rock solid statement of interview to take to … wherever we take it.'

Crimond nodded. ‘Understood. So it's a meeting at Mr Hardy's place tomorrow at …?'

‘Keep your mobile charged,' Hank said. ‘Time to be
advised. And thanks, Ross, I reckon you'll be able to help us gain his confidence.'

Crimond gave a thin smile. ‘Because I'm a sobersides?'

‘Haven't heard that expression in years,' I said.

We started juggling the balls the following morning. Hank rang Dimarco and told him that if he presented at a time to be advised at my house the following night, he'd learn something to his advantage. Hank also said it'd be a good idea to bring a couple of his security people along.

The phone was on broadcast for my benefit.

‘This involves Dr McKinley?'

‘Sure does, and that's all I can tell you.'

‘I'll think about it,' Dimarco said.

‘Bet your ass you will,' Hank said after the call finished.

Then we got a surprise. About an hour after the call to Dimarco, the door buzzer sounded. Megan, research assistant-cum-receptionist, was away coaching Patrick Fox-James. I opened the door and stepped back in surprise.

‘Hello, Mr Hardy,' the woman said, holding up her warrant card. ‘Remember me? DS Roberts?'

‘I do. Come in.'

She moved past me, put her card away in her bag and spun around. ‘I'm here under instruction from Chief Super Dickersen whom I'm sure you also remember.'

Hank came out of his office. ‘We remember him,' he said.

‘I'm here to talk, and if the talk isn't satisfactory, to arrest you both for obstructing the course of justice, and conspiracy to commit a crime of violence.'

‘Why didn't the chief super come himself?' I said.

‘He was too busy and too angry. Just not sure you were worth his time. Can we get down to it?'

The wires or the satellite or both had been doing their thing. As we expected, Dimarco had contacted Wells. There was so much competitiveness within the police service that I'd expected Wells to take a personal interest and make the running himself. He'd have had the rationalisation that the Double Bay shooting was his case. But I'd been mistaken. Wells had contacted Chief Superintendent Dickersen who was overseeing the McKinley investigation—hence the presence of DS Roberts.

We had no choice. We gave her the outline of our plan—minus the time and place of the crucial meeting—to flush out the people responsible for Henry McKinley's death. She listened with scepticism and impatience written all over her. The impatience was understandable—she'd have got most of this from Wells. The scepticism made sense, too. As we laid it out for the fourth time (counting the versions to Megan, Crimond and Dimarco), it began to sound less and less feasible. That's the way it is with plans. The best chance for their success is to state them once and carry them out.

DS Angela Roberts, crisp and comfortable in her lightweight suit, now wore an expression you'd have to call amused. ‘That would be the dopiest idea I've heard in a long time,' she said. ‘How could you hope to pull it off?'

‘There's a lot of dopiness about this case, Detective,' I said. ‘We've got three big companies all angling for this information that they'll probably never get. All with a mind to screw the public for profit. Two of them prepared to
resort to violence, and one looks to have gone too far with it.'

She nodded. Didn't speak.

I went on, ‘You know what it's like, with their lawyers and commercial confidentialities shields. They're hard to penetrate by conventional methods. Our client wants to know who's accountable. We can't see any other approach than the direct one.'

‘You're involving people who aren't accountable—your stand-in witness and your employee, Mr Bachelor, who you've more or less entrapped.'

‘It's messy,' Hank said.

‘It just got more messy. You were counting on back-up from Global and Inspector Wells. Where are you now on that?'

Hank put his hands on the desk. They were big, powerful hands, but the way he placed them indicated his professional impotence. ‘I guess we'll have to do some rethinking,' he said.

I hadn't mentioned Phil Fitzwilliam's second coming to Hank or Megan, out of a long habit of keeping tricky things to myself. That made it loom as even more tricky. To reveal it at this point would surely increase DS Roberts's doubts. She'd been taking notes as we spoke. Now she tapped her pen against her big white teeth.

‘And where and when is this bloody gunfight at the OK corral going to take place?'

Hank and I exchanged glances before Hank shook his head. ‘I'm afraid we're not at liberty to reveal that.'

‘I said I could arrest you.'

‘The meeting'd still go ahead,' I said. ‘Just that our side would be undermanned.'

‘You're bluffing.'

I shrugged. ‘If you say so. Why don't you put it to Ian Dickersen that he's got a chance to close out a high profile murder case and drop some corporate creeps in the shit.'

‘Ian's not a big noter.'

‘You don't get to his level without making a name for yourself,' I said. ‘And there're always more steps to take.'

She chewed that over, and she wouldn't have been human if she hadn't been thinking about her own part in the scheme of things. She closed her notebook and tucked it into a smart black leather bag that had a discreet Aboriginal flag medallion attached.

‘I'll report to him and we'll be in touch.'

‘Make it soon,' I said.

‘You know what your great talent is, Mr Hardy?'

‘
I'd
like to know,' Hank said.

She stood, ready to go. ‘Almost, but not quite, pissing people off.'

Good exit line and she took it.

Hank was grinning and I gave him the bird. ‘What she means is, my style leaves space for charm.'

So it was a waiting game—us waiting for Dickersen; Crimond waiting for us; Lachlan waiting for Crimond; Patrick Fox-James waiting for Megan; Phil Fitzwilliam waiting for me. In all this I'd almost forgotten about Margaret and I wasn't ready for her call at home that night.

‘Cliff, this is Margaret. Please pick up if you're there.'

I hesitated and I wasn't sure why. I didn't know anymore whether the relationship was professional or personal or a mixture of both. Confusing. While I hesitated, I had a flash
of us making love in the motel. Over the years, so many motels, and a few of them, with similar scenes playing out. Mostly signifying nothing. I grabbed the phone.

‘Margaret.'

‘Cliff.'

There was a pause and then she laughed. ‘What is this, a scene from Noël Coward?'

I laughed, too. ‘I was deep in thought.'

‘About me?'

‘And other matters.'

‘You know that old joke about the girl who falls in love with the gorilla, but he doesn't call, he doesn't write. These days you could add—he doesn't email, he doesn't text.'

‘I'm sorry. A lot has been happening, some of it good, some not so good. I was holding off until we had a result.'

‘Are you close to that?'

‘We could be, but it might all still go wrong.'

‘Well, I'll leave that to you and Hank and Megan, but I was really calling about … us. I miss you.'

A statement like that should warm the heart, but it caught me on the hop. With a string of failed relationships behind me I was never confident the next time at bat. My wife Cyn had provided the diagnosis long ago. ‘You live in your head, Cliff,' she said, ‘with your clients and victims and perps. Everyone else just flits in and out.' It hadn't been a problem with Lily, possibly because we both did the same thing, but it had brought things unstuck in the past. It was time to snap out of it, if I could.

‘Margaret,' I said, ‘don't give up on me.'

‘Give me something not to give up on.'

I tried. I talked. I gave her a version of where things stood with the investigation, but I could tell that wasn't
what she was asking. I knew I was deliberately misinterpreting what she said. I suspect she knew it as well. I had a sense that she was involved in some kind of decision process, involving me, perhaps, but without telling me the terms. It all made for a very unsatisfactory phone conversation.

DS Roberts rang the next morning to say that Dickersen had agreed to go along with our plan with several non-negotiable provisos: Roberts herself and another officer were to be given several hours' notice of the venue and time of the meeting. They were empowered to inspect the meeting place and to cancel the event if they thought it unsatisfactory. They were empowered to intervene at any point they chose.

‘What if we don't agree?' Hank said.

‘Then you and Mr Hardy will be proceeded against on various charges relating to violation of the Private Enquiry Agents Act and withholding information from the police in respect of several serious crimes.'

‘Several?' Hank said.

‘The shooting at Double Bay and the death of Henry McKinley.'

‘We don't have any hard evidence on the shooting.'

‘Hard or soft, you haven't told us everything you know.'

‘The same might go for you.'

‘We're the authorities, you're not.'

‘You win,' Hank said. ‘We should know where and when by early afternoon. Who do we contact?'

‘Who d'you think?' she said.

We waited a few hours and then started phoning. I told DS Roberts the meeting was set for seven thirty and that I'd meet her and her colleague at my house at five. Hank phoned Ross Crimond and told him the time and place—giving him a few hours to contact the Lachlan people. I phoned Megan with the information and arranged for her and Fox-James to meet us in the office for a briefing.

That left me with the problem of Phil Fitzwilliam and nobody to consult with on the matter. Well, that wasn't unusual. I went for a walk to Australia Park, sat under a tree and thought, but nothing inspirational came. Trees and grass and fresh air are overrated. No other course but the standard Hardy one—the direct approach. I phoned him.

‘About fuckin' time,' he said.

‘Don't be like that, Phil. I'm trying to do you a favour.'

‘Trying to save your arse, more like.'

‘That, too. Sorry, but there've been developments.'

I told him about Roberts and Dickersen and the way things stood.

‘Jesus, Hardy, you're a lying, sneaky cunt.'

‘Takes one to know one. You can still get something out of this. All you have to do is be there, behave like a policeman, and share in the glory.'

‘With Ian fuckin' Dickersen and everyone's pet boong?'

‘He's going up. Play your part and you might get him onside for your upcoming trouble.'

‘I'll tell you this. If it doesn't work out in my fuckin' favour you and everyone connected with you is going to wish they'd never been born. That's a promise.'

So now I had threats from the police in two directions—not a record, but up there with some of my better efforts. I told him where to go and when.

I got back to the office just as Megan and Fox-James arrived. He was a slim, fair individual, something like the old movie actor Leslie Howard in appearance. When Megan had suggested him she'd told me in private why the affair hadn't lasted long.

‘Too tortured,' she said.

Whatever that meant. I reflected that it was good news for Hank. No way could anyone brand Hank Bachelor as tortured.

‘Gidday, Cliff,' Fox-James said. ‘I hear you had heart trouble.'

‘Thing of the past, Paddy. Ready to go into your act? I see you've dressed for the part.'

He was wearing brown polyester slacks, black shoes and a fawn polo shirt buttoned up to the neck. He looked like a grown-up little boy dressed by his mother.

‘Great threads, eh? What does the good book say? “Let not thy raiment speak too loud”.'

‘Don't overdo it,' I said.

‘You made that up,' Megan hissed. ‘This is serious.'

‘You were always telling me I was
too
serious.'

‘There's a time and a place, Patrick. We have to talk to Hank.'

Our meeting was anything but easy. Hank was jealous of Fox-James, Fox-James resented Hank, Megan hated being the meat in the sandwich, and I was still worrying about Phil Fitzwilliam. But then, they say Clay was almost hysterical with anxiety before the first Liston fight and look what happened there.

I got to my place at four thirty and found Roberts and her colleague parked in the street more or less as I expected, and Fitz parked a few cars back. All three police officers, Roberts's colleague as dark as herself, followed me into the house. Roberts was fuming.

‘What's he doing here?' she said, barely acknowledging Fitz.

‘We have a history,' I said. ‘As I explained to DS Fitz-william, this is a complicated matter. He has a piece of it, as the sports managers say.'