Salt and Blood

PETER CORRIS is known as the ‘godfather' of Australian crime fiction through his Cliff Hardy detective stories. He has written in many other areas, including a co-authored autobiography of the late Professor Fred Hollows, a history of boxing in Australia, spy novels, historical novels and a collection of short stories about golf (see
www.petercorris.net
). In 2009, Peter Corris was awarded the Ned Kelly Award for Best Fiction by the Crime Writers Association of Australia. He is married to writer Jean Bedford and has lived in Sydney for most of his life. They have three daughters and six grandsons.

The Cliff Hardy collection

The Dying Trade
(1980)

White Meat
(1981)

The Marvellous Boy
(1982)

The Empty Beach
(1983)

Heroin Annie
(1984)

Make Me Rich
(1985)

The Big Drop
(1985)

Deal Me Out
(1986)

The Greenwich Apartments
(1986)

The January Zone
(1987)

Man in the Shadows
(1988)

O'Fear
(1990)

Wet Graves
(1991)

Aftershock
(1991)

Beware of the Dog
(1992)

Burn, and Other Stories
(1993)

Matrimonial Causes
(1993)

Casino
(1994)

The Washington Club
(1997)

Forget Me If You Can
(1997)

The Reward
(1997)

The Black Prince
(1998)

The Other Side of Sorrow
(1999)

Lugarno
(2001)

Salt and Blood
(2002)

Master's Mates
(2003)

The Coast Road
(2004)

Taking Care of Business
(2004)

Saving Billie
(2005)

The Undertow
(2006)

Appeal Denied
(2007)

The Big Score
(2007)

Open File
(2008)

Deep Water
(2009)

Torn Apart
(2010)

Follow the Money
(2011)

Comeback
(2012)

The Dunbar Case
(2013)

Silent Kill
(2014)

PETER

CORRIS

SALT AND BLOOD

This edition published by Allen & Unwin in 2014

First published by Bantam Books, a division of Transworld Publishers, in 2002

Copyright © Peter Corris 2002

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian
Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

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ISBN 978 1 76011 026 0 (pbk)

ISBN 978 1 74343 807 7 (ebook)

For James Hall, once again, who helped to get it all started.

Thanks to Michael Dilli for information about surfing, to Michael Brown for help with geography and to Jenny Coopes who made a comment about Elvis she may not recall. Thanks also to Jean Bedford and Carl Harrison-Ford.

PART 1

1

I met Glen Withers in a Paddington pub near the Victoria Barracks after she'd been to her second AA meeting for the week. She runs her own private enquiry agency in the eastern suburbs. We were lovers, never were enemies; now we're friends.

‘How was it?' I asked.

‘Loads of fun. Michael told us all about his recipe for making battery acid drinkable.'

‘I hope you scribbled it down. What'll you have?'

‘Soda and bitters, no lime.'

It was Thursday night and busy. I'd grabbed a table in the partitioned-off, no-smoking area, but I had to go into the battle zone to get the drinks. Scotch and ice for me. Two at the most. Glen could walk home from here but I wouldn't be going with her and I'd have to drive back to Glebe. It was after nine o'clock and the noise level was going up the way it does as the alcohol level rises. The crowd was youngish and mixed—men and women and a few indeterminates, gays and straights. Here and there I spotted a face old
enough to remember Bob Menzies and six o'clock closing. Not many; some wouldn't even remember Bob Hawke.

I pushed my way back to the table, keeping the drinks clear of shoulders and elbows and waving hands. Glen always insisted on our meetings taking place in full-on drinking situations, to keep her on her toes. We touched glasses.

‘Thanks, Cliff,' she said. ‘Still like that stuff, do you?'

I examined the contents of my glass. ‘I'm glad it exists,' I said.

‘Mr Enigmatic.'

‘That's me. How're you doing? D'you miss it?'

‘Less and less. It's nice to have the time and space for other things. I didn't for a while.'

We sipped our drinks and let the noise wash around us. Danger time. We'd get to feeling comfortable together. Close even. Consider the possibilities. Weigh up those feelings against the loneliness. I took a solid slug and broke the mood.

‘So,' I said. ‘Here you are looking ten years younger in your sobriety and as I'm ten years older than you that puts twenty years between us. What can I do for you, Glen?'

‘Stop being a clown for a start.'

Good punch,
I thought.
That gives her the points she needs.
‘What's this about?'

It was a familiar pattern. We lurched between affection and hostility and found ways to get along well professionally and adequately otherwise. We put work each other's way and what with the GST
and the intrusion of big international agencies into the field, the pie was shrinking for the smaller players. Glen smiled; a fine network of lines fanned out from her eyes and deep grooves appeared in her cheeks. Her fair hair, cut short, had silver streaks; she wore a black silk shirt, jeans and a grey leather jacket, no jewellery. If you were scouting for women perhaps you wouldn't notice her right off, but if you did look you'd look again.

‘I've got a client,' she said. ‘Or rather I'm trying to land one.'

‘I know the feeling. “I just want your advice, Mr Hardy. I'm not sure that I actually need a private detective but …” Trying for free service.'

Glen shook her head. The fair hair bounced and I wanted to stroke it, smell it. ‘No,' she said. ‘It's not like that. Money's not a problem.'

‘I love that phrase—“money's not a problem”. It's just that my lips have difficulty forming the sounds.'

‘I told you to stop clowning.'

Her telling me to do things had broken us up in the first place. Water under the bridge. I nodded and finished my drink. One to go.

‘This guy came to see me. Warren Harkness, a lawyer. I rate pretty well with lawyers these days, Cliff. Better than you, I bet. They think they can keep the lady investigator under control, which is what they want. Naturally. Warren's got a brother named Rodney who's due to be released from a mental institution. A private facility. Rutherford House. Ever heard of it?'

‘No.'

‘Up Bilgola Way. Very exclusive and expensive.'

‘Money's no object.'

‘Right.'

‘The Harkness family got Rodney … installed there seven years ago. He cracked up after his wife left him, taking their kid. He got on the grog, went through a lot of money, did some damage to the family business, became psychotic, so they …'

‘Who's they?'

‘Right. Ah … his mother and this brother—Lady Rachel Harkness and Mr Warren, middle name St John.' She pronounced it
Sinjin.

I didn't. ‘St John?'

‘Don't start with your anti-establishment rap. Okay, they're very rich. Property.'

‘That's the best kind of rich I always think. Harder to steal. And what's your involvement and where do I come in?'

‘Get yourself another drink and I'll tell you. Your tongue's hanging out.'

‘That's just in expectation of hearing you saying Sinjin like that again.'

Glen had only drunk half of what was in her glass so it was just another Scotch for me. Cheap date. I made it a double. There's something about people going to AA meetings that makes me drink more. When I got back to the table Glen had her notebook out and was flicking over the pages. Her fingers were long with closely trimmed nails. No rings. She glanced up and saw me looking.

‘What?'

‘You've got nice hands.'

‘Good line but I don't put them around men's
dicks anymore. I'll shake with you when we finish if you like. This is how it is—the Harknesses want me to try to find Rodney Harkness's wife and kid. They've got ideas of reuniting them.'

‘What does Rodney think about that?'

‘He doesn't know about it. He doesn't get out for a couple of days.'

‘Cured, is he?'

Glen shrugged. ‘They hope so but they're not sure. They're not the ones behind getting him out. Apparently some civil liberties lawyers got involved. Took his case on as a natural justice issue and filed papers and got reports and a court order. The Harknesses want me to find out about that as well.'

‘Here's to civil liberties and two jobs,' I toasted her. ‘Nice going.'

‘Three,' Glen said. ‘They also want someone to keep an eye on Rodney for a while to make sure he doesn't start drinking, or to help if he goes nuts again. I thought you might take it on.'

‘Do you get the other jobs if I don't?'

‘I don't get them unless I provide someone for the minding job. I don't want just anyone, I want you.'

That was Glen. She had a way of getting me on the back foot. After all the rows we'd had I was always looking for an edge with her, like trying to get her to admit she needed me now. And she usually outmanoeuvred me just like this.

We talked it over for a while but I knew I was going to agree. I had nothing else substantial on hand and this could be a few weeks of steady work at my standard rates, subcontracted by Glen.
It beat process serving and escorting suits to meetings with other suits and I'd always wanted to meet someone with St John in their name.

‘Tell me Rodney's a St John, too.'

‘I don't know. You'll have to find out. Are you in?'

I said I was interested and Glen said she'd get the paperwork to me tomorrow. In an effort to stay in the race, I'd recently invested a decent cheque in home and office PCs and signed up for the web and email but this was just about the first occasion to use it properly.

We said our goodbyes with kisses on the cheeks outside the pub with the bright young things still sparking inside. I watched her walk away in her designer jeans, low heels and sporty leather jacket and felt a chill through my body although it was September and a mild enough night, with slightly chilly wind gusts. I wanted to run after her and say, Fuck all this. Let's sell up and go to the Central Coast and open an agency together and make enough to live on and catch fish and stay brown all the year round. I took one step or maybe I just thought I did. Then she was out of sight and I was turning around as if in response to her disappearance and I could see the faded blue of my Falcon parked a hundred metres away.