Salt and Blood (10 page)

‘Didn't that concern you?'

She twisted the glass in those long fingers. ‘I'll be frank. I'm writing a book about … certain mental disturbances. When this case was presented to me I saw it as an opportunity. I can't say any more than that.'

I leaned forward. ‘You can't say what the book's about?'

‘No.'

‘Okay. I'll try for more confirmation. I've been told that Rodney was involved in a violent incident back before he was committed. The other person involved, who Rodney beat incidentally and he's no cream puff, said Rodney later seemed to have no memory of it at all. I've seen something similar myself—a violent rage, an excessive use of force, and apparently no recollection of it later. Does this sound familiar?'

‘Yes.'

‘But you recommended that he be released.'

‘Mm.'

‘What's wrong with this man, Dr Weir?'

She cracked a bit then. She set her glass down on the table and let her head fall forward. The dark curtain of hair swung down over her face and she spoke as if through a veil of pain.

‘I can't tell you. If you find out some other way I can confirm it. It's dreadful, but I just can't tell you.'

‘I think you should. At least … tell me something useful.'

‘He's not going to overcome his problems locked away like that. Behaviourism won't work, that's for certain.'

‘You've lost me.'

‘I'm a Gestalt therapist, Mr Hardy. Do you know what that is?'

‘No.'

She gave me a short lecture on various therapies—Gestalt, behaviourist, Jungian and Freudian—only some of which I understood. What I got out of it was that she believed in treating the whole person in his or her social, professional, recreational, intellectual, whatever, context. No dream interpretation, no Oedipal stuff. ‘You've never been in therapy, Mr Hardy?'

‘No.'

‘No. You don't look like a man with uncertainties.'

‘I wouldn't say that. Does it work?'

‘Sometimes.'

‘In Rodney's case?'

‘I believe it would, but he resisted any suggestion that he go into therapy with me.'

‘Resisted how?'

‘Emphatically, defensively but emphatically.'

‘I wish you could tell me more, Dr Weir.'

She gave me a look I couldn't interpret. ‘So do I.' 

I wanted to voice the suspicion that her reticence was partly due to personal concerns as well as professional, but I thought better of it. ‘You're being enigmatic.'

She smiled, back in control again. ‘Wouldn't you say that's appropriate to the human condition? It's very painful for him, but I just can't tell you.'

12

Longish day. A strong wind had got up while I was with Dr Weir. The tops of the tallest trees in her garden were whipping fiercely and I had to brace myself against the wind as I made my way to the car. I worked my way west, crossing Lane Cove and Tarban Creek to pick up the Gladesville Bridge. I had it in mind to drive to my house in Glebe to check for mail and messages, pick up some clothes and see if the roof had blown off. Halfway across the Gladesville Bridge I was almost regretting the route I'd taken; the wind hit the car like a fist and I had to fight to keep it in the lane. Two solid glasses of wine on an empty stomach could give you breathalyser trouble. That, combined with keeping a weather eye out for anyone on my tail, made for a stressful drive.

My street had a good cover of leaves and windblown rubbish and there were plastic bags trapped in the uprights of my sagging wrought iron fence. The roof was still on and not noticeably flapping. I checked the phone messages, the fax and the email while I heated some tomato soup and toasted some dubious-looking bread.
I resisted the impulse to have a drink but packed the half full Scotch bottle into an overnight bag with a couple of shirts, some underwear and socks. I wolfed the food down and rang the Bondi flat. I got my own voice on the answering machine but no pick up.

I made some coffee and rang again with the same result.
Where
the hell are you?
I thought. As I drank the coffee I thought back over the events of the day. Doug Schirer was apparently out of the picture as an antagonist and certainly as a shooter. After my talk with the psychiatrist I felt I hardly knew Rodney St John Harkness at all. What was his deep, dark secret? For no good reason what he'd said after the shooting came back to me.
Haven't you got a gun?
I took my Smith & Wesson .38 in its holster out of the locked drawer and stuffed it into the overnight bag. The intrepid detective, completely in the dark but ready for anything.

In Bondi I drove around the block a few times for security reasons and on the lookout for Glen's Pajero. No sign. The wind was roaring and the night had an uncertain, dangerous feel as if unexpected things might happen. It was an unusual atmosphere for Bondi, a place that has always seemed to me to give off an aura of optimism. I went up to the flat and knocked before I let myself in. No response.

I prowled through the rooms, noting the signs of a great deal of coffee being drunk and time spent at the computer. There were Post-its stuck to the monitor as reminders of functions to perform. I'd straightened the bed I'd slept in before I left. So far I hadn't seen Rod do anything to his bed but get in and out of it. Now it was neatly made. I went into the room I was using and dropped my bag. A Post-it was on the bed, dead centre.

Cliff
—
Glen and I have taken some time out. We'll be in touch. Rod.

I took out the Scotch, went to the kitchen and poured a hefty slug. Not much water. I sat down with the drink, thinking harsh thoughts of both of them.
Bloody alcoholics. You can't expect them to behave properly.
I worked on the drink and other ideas began to seep in. There was something worrying about two recovering alcoholics being on the loose together. Would they reinforce each other's sobriety or fall off the wagon together? If so, how hard? Did whoever was out to get Rod have a line on Glen? Probably not, but you never knew. He knew when Rod was getting out and that knowledge wasn't supposed to be shared by any except the Harknesses, Glen and me, and some people at Rutherford House. The security didn't feel watertight.

The Scotch soothed me and I began to feel less angry and more worried. Rodney Harkness was an unknown quantity harbouring some dark, painful secret. I'd seen his violent outbursts and apparent lack of remorse or responsibility afterwards. Glen was tough and resourceful but Rod had got under her guard very quickly and she was vulnerable. Was she safe with him?

I had a refill and went out onto the balcony to
drink it and see how the weather was shaping. The wind was howling now; antennas and satellite dishes were wobbling and tall trees were thrashing. I finished the drink and realised that the amount of Scotch I'd taken in had hit me hard and I was half-drunk.
Where the fuck are you?
I felt like shouting it into the wind. Tomorrow I'd have to think more clearly about it—consider Glen's favourite places—the Blue Mountains, the Southern Highlands—find out if Rod had any in his former life. Surfing spots most likely. Byron Bay for its point break?

I went back inside and rang Glen's mobile number. I got the recorded message that the phone was out of range or had been switched off. Wandering from room to room, something about the ultra modern, pastel-shaded computer drew me to it. I read the blizzard of Post-its. Glen had set him up with a server for email and the internet. I put the dregs of my drink down on the desk, settled into the chair and turned the computer on. It took me a while with the unfamiliar functions but I remembered how to get onto my server's mail centre and access my own email. I tapped out a message for Glen. I knew she took a notebook with her everywhere and checked for messages frequently. I deleted the first angry sentence and the next that I mistyped badly because I was half-drunk as well as angry. I ended up with:

Glen
—
This is unwise. There's a lot you don't know and need to know. Get in touch as soon as you see this and tell me where you are.

No sign of jealousy there, surely. No alarmism. Just professional concern with a touch of superior knowledge to engage her curiosity. I looked at the message for a long time, knowing that it was nothing like what I really wanted to say. How could this dysfunctional loser of an actor, this overgrown private schoolboy with his perfect teeth and tight abdominals, turn intelligent women to mush? I clicked on Send harder than I needed to, waited for the message to vanish, and turned the computer off. I realised at that moment that I wasn't thinking about Rodney or Glen but about Dr Jerry Weir with her curtain of dark hair and her dancer's grace.

I poured some more whisky, rang Glen's home number and left the same message on her answering machine, word for word. I felt lonely and self-pitying in the flat and turned on the radio for company. It was tuned to a country music station. Glen again. Her favourite music. Not mine. With Rod, who knew what he liked apart from Elvis? I drowned the Scotch in water and hunted around for the painkillers I'd need sometime between now and the morning. No luck. I heard:

There's a pain in my heart

Like a lightning bolt,

I'm a little bit lonesome

It's all your fault.

‘Right,' I said to the print of a watercolour of nowhere in particular on the wall, and raised my glass. ‘That's right.' But I knew in
my
heart that it was never true.

13

I slept long and deeply, undisturbed by dreams or by the wild night. I was reasonably clear-headed and after a couple of cups of coffee and a shower I was alert enough to take note of a few things like Rod's missing toilet articles, clothes and overnight bag. The surfboard was gone as well and I could imagine it riding high on the roof rack of Glen's Pajero. My first thought was,
To hell with them,
but I wasn't comfortable with it and out of professional pride I began to think about ways of finding them. The surfboard was a lead. Maybe Rod had favourite beaches. The snag with that was the only person I had to ask was his brother and I didn't want to let him know that his private eye had flown the coop with the client.

Still mulling it over I punched in the code to check my phone messages at the office. There were three, two of which didn't matter but the third did. The voice was unfamiliar: ‘Mr Hardy, this is Brett Hughes. Frank Parker spoke to you about me to do with Rodney Harkness. I'm keen to talk to you. I believe you have my number. Give me a ring.'

I'd barely given the ex-policeman a thought since Frank had told me about him but it had been at the back of my mind to contact him to see if he could give me anything I could take to Dr Weir. I didn't like shelving the question of the runaway love birds, but Hughes' message had a certain urgency. I dug out my notebook, looked up the scribbled note and rang him. He lived in Lakemba and we arranged to meet at a coffee shop in Haldon Street in an hour.

I shaved, put on a clean shirt and went out to the car. Then I cursed myself and went back into the flat to check whether Glen had sent a reply to my email. Nothing. The wind had died down, leaving a clear sky and clean air that quickly became a memory as I went west and battled against heavy traffic going in several directions. Lakemba, with its concentration of Muslim and Asian migrants, has been an unquiet place for some time and more so since the attack on New York and Washington. According to newspaper reports, the initial unthinking racist reaction has died down but it simmers.

Early as always, I parked a couple of blocks from the number on the street Hughes had given me to kill some time and look the place over. I hadn't been there in quite a while and in this business it pays to stay abreast of the changes. There were plenty—Arabic and Korean contended for dominance on the shopfronts and hoardings and beards and veils were prominent on the street. I couldn't help liking it—the change from the blandness of the eastern suburbs in my youth and
the uniformity that still prevails in the privileged parts of Sydney. But I could feel the pressure: some of the bearded men were unfashionably fat but prosperous-looking, and a good many of the Anglo-Celtic youths were thin and poor and with many of the thin, light-boned Asians it was hard to tell.

The coffee shop had an outside pavement area with tables and shade umbrellas. I told them inside that I was waiting for a friend and that I'd order when he arrived.

The woman behind the counter wore an abbreviated version of the female Arab costume but she said ‘No problem' like a true Aussie. I took a seat and watched the passing parade. I was considering trying to phone Glen's house and the Bondi flat when a wheelchair rolled up beside me. The occupant was a man a good deal younger than me with wide shoulders and a deep chest. His face was lean and hard. He looked as if he could throw a discus or put the shot out of sight, but he was anchored to the chair. He stuck out a big hand.

‘Mr Hardy? Frank described you. I'm Brett Hughes.' We shook hands and he wheeled himself in close to the table. I ordered two coffees and, remembering that I hadn't eaten anything that morning, a toasted sandwich. He didn't want to eat.

‘Strict diet,' he said. ‘Big danger of this kind of life is getting fat. I swim and work out but nothing beats normal movement.'

I nodded. ‘Frank said you took a bullet.'

‘Two actually. Zapped my spine. Did he tell you I got the guy who shot me?'

‘No.'

‘He's dead. I'm not. I win.' His grin took the bitterness out of it and I admired him. The coffee and the sandwich arrived and we went through the ritual of drinking before talking. I started eating because I figured he wanted to have first say.

‘I was interested when Frank Parker phoned me. I'd always been curious about that Harkness business. I arrested him, you knew that.'