Matrimonial Causes (2 page)

What was called in the trade a ‘Brownie and bedsheets' job. I knew they were part of the deal even if I'd hoped to kick off with something more savoury—like bodyguarding Shirley Bassey or helping Frank Packer get his winnings home safely from Randwick. I took out a notebook and wrote down the details—description of Meadowbank, home and business addresses, make and model of car, club memberships. A phone call interrupted Menzies' flow and I took the opportunity to fish out the makings and roll a cigarette. His cigar, placed in a heavy cut glass ashtray, died. Menzies' pale blue eyes, somewhat buried in the flesh that comes from good living, watched my movements with distaste.

He hung up after grunting into the phone a few times, in a well-bred way. ‘That's nasty,' he said.

I exhaled a cloud of Drum. ‘Smoking? I agree. I plan to give it up when I turn thirty-five. I can't understand why you still do it at your age.'

Colour flooded his pale, indoors complexion. ‘I am beginning to regret acting on this recommendation.'

I stood up. I like to be on my feet when I'm being submissive. It doesn't feel quite as bad. ‘I can do the job,' I said. ‘Three assignations should be enough, wouldn't you say?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'll talk to your secretary about my cheque. See you in court.'

‘I trust not.'

I stopped short of the door. ‘So it's a bluff? She wants to lead him by the balls to your gentle negotiating table?'

The cigar, re-lit, was waved imperiously. ‘You have your instructions,
Mister
Hardy.'

All square. Two sets each. Fifty up and both on the black. I renewed my acquaintance with the queen of the outer office, a severe-suited dragon named Mrs Collins. I signed something I didn't read and got a cheque for $150—a retainer against my fees of $40 a day, expenses sheet to be submitted on conclusion of commission. Wealth! Prospects! I walked out into a sunny Martin Place and took off my tie. I loosened the top shirt button and opened the suit jacket. Lightweight suit, my one and only. I rolled up the tie and stuffed it in my pocket. I don't know why, but I've always associated neckties with nooses. Comes of watching too many matinee westerns at the Maroubra Odeon, maybe.

As I strolled among the lunchtime crowd, employed myself, a semi-professional like a lot of them, I reflected on the chain of events that had got me to this point. After a stint in the army I'd gone into insurance investigation. I met Cyn when I came to sniff around about a fire that had almost destroyed her Glebe studio. I reported that the fire was entirely accidental and that the claim should be paid in full. I'd have said the same if I'd found kerosene tins and wood shavings in every room. Cynthia Lee bowled me over and we went to bed on our second meeting and were married a few months later.

Cut to our first infidelities, both guilty, and within a year. Apologies, forgiveness, recommitment and more of the same. She was battling to
finish her architecture degree, having made a late start after flirting with the alternative lifestyle in a northern rainforest. I supported her. She qualified. I expected gratitude. She plunged into her highly paid, prestigious work. I tired of the office hours and routines and had made the break into private practice just a few weeks back. Cyn's political principles—or a version of them—suddenly resurfaced and I became a bourgeois individualist, propping up the authoritarian state.

I went into the first pub I found that offered a counter lunch. You can't pry into people's sex lives on an empty stomach. You need something to throw up.

Lunch started late and went on a bit long. I like to watch people in pubs, listen to them, and it's thirsty work. What with the need to lodge Menzies' cheque, buy film for the Asahi Pentax, get the Falcon fuelled up and one thing and another, I barely had time for a quick call to Cyn to tell her that I didn't know when I'd be home.

‘Where are you? The pub?'

‘At the garage buying petrol and oil. D'you realise they still give you the air and water for free? It can't last. I may have to drive around a bit tonight.'

‘I knew it,' she said.

‘Knew what?' I was genuinely puzzled. I often found Cyn's remarks cryptic.
What did she know?

‘That you went into this ridiculous business so you could spend more time away from me.'

I was flabbergasted. She started earlier and
worked longer than any union would ever allow. ‘You're wrong, love,' I said. ‘I'm doing it because it might be fun.'

She laughed, and Cyn's laugh was a better sound than the cork coming out of a bottle or the rustle of money or a wave on a beach. ‘Okay, Cliff. Have fun. See you when you get back. Is what you're doing dangerous?'

‘Naw.'

‘Take care just the same. 'Bye.'

And that's the way it was with us. Right hooks and kisses. I wanted to go straight to her office, rush her home and undress her and declare my undying love. Instead, I drove to my office to pick up the camera and make some notes on the Menzies/Meadowbank assignment, the way the Commercial Agents and Private Enquiry Agents Act of 1963 requires you to do.

The office was in a building in St Peters Lane, Darlinghurst, a bit back from William Street, a bit down from Kings Cross. I'd taken out a six-month lease a week before. I was two floors up with a desk, a phone, a chair, a filing cabinet and one dirty window. Other than that, there's nothing more to say about the place except that it was cheap. No, there is more to say. I figured it was good territory—anyone street-wise and tough entering there wouldn't turn a hair. Anyone
pretending
to be those things would turn plenty of hairs. And I wasn't expecting too many blondes in Dior dresses. I anticipated that most of my business would come to me over the telephone. So far, I'd been one hundred per cent right.

Mrs M was away for the week and Mr M was
expected to play up. I collected him in Surry Hills. He ran a finance company named Meadowbank Credit and he wasn't hard to spot coming out of the car park—big grey Mercedes, arrogant tilt to the head as he waited for the traffic, brusque, impatient driving style. I followed him to his flat in Bellevue Hill—Birriga Road, as you'd expect, overlooking Bellevue Park. Medium-sized block in a garden setting with terrific views, ample car parking and tight security. The Merc sailed into harbour and I settled down to roll a supply of cigarettes and perfect the most essential part of the private detective's trade—waiting and not falling asleep.

Meadowbank emerged at 7.30 on the dot. He'd had time to shower, slap on the cologne, change his shirt and socks, and check the wallet. I followed the Mercedes to a block of flats in Rose Bay. Not up to the Birriga Road standard, but not bad. Old-style, red brick, spacious balconies and a good view of the boats. Meadowbank jockeyed the big car into a tight space with a fair bit of wheel-turning and tyre-torturing. He looked flustered when he got out and wiped his face with a handkerchief. He was a stocky, fleshy type with horn-rimmed glasses and iron grey hair. His suit matched his car for colour and cost. The finance business must be doing all right. Mrs Meadowbank was looking at a nice slice.

I registered this as I drove past looking for a spot for my more modest vehicle. I found one further down the street, unshipped the camera and came back to take up a position behind a plane tree across from the flats which carried the
name ‘Lapstone'. The house Cyn and I bought in Glebe was called ‘Waterloo'. Cyn took the name plate down, saying that it was twee. I'd quite liked it and, as things were shaping, it was appropriate. I took a sighting on ‘Lapstone'. Despite daylight saving, which had just been introduced that month, the light was starting to fade under an overcast sky. The light in the street was poor but there were bright coachman's lanterns mounted over the door to the flats. I had a fast film and a fast lens; the developer would have to push a bit to get good definition, but I felt pretty confident I could get a reasonable shot of Charles and his companion as they came through the door and a series as they made their way to the car.

If
they came. I suddenly realised that I was making an assumption. It was a mild night, late spring with an evening breeze. The wife was away. Surely they'd go out to eat, get a slight buzz on before coming back to commit the offence of adultery. Charles looked like a man who didn't stint on his pleasures. But what if I was wrong? What if his girlfriend had everything set up for fun and games inside? Candles and champagne and silk sheets. I took another look at the block of flats. A bastard to breach. I didn't even know which flat he was in. Unless they came out onto a balcony and canoodled in the open air, I was stymied.

I wanted a cigarette the way I always did when faced with a problem. I fought the feeling down and considered my options. Even a contortionist couldn't have got a shot taking in the number plate of the Mercedes and the front of the flats.
And what was that worth anyway? I anticipated Alistair Menzies' contemptuous smirk. I could scout the block, maybe get a line on who lived there. I wasn't looking for Brigadier and Mrs Top-Drawer after all. But it felt scrappy, not semi-professional. There were at least six flats in the block. I tried to tell myself that I'd achieved something—found an assignation point, a field for further investigation. I wasn't convinced.

Minutes ticked on, but fewer of them, I found later, than I thought. Truth to tell, I was nervous and that distorts the sense of time. I was anxious not to screw up my first job.

‘Patience, Cliff,' I muttered. ‘Turn your weaknesses into strengths.'

That's when I became aware of the movement in front of me. It wasn't much, just the half-caught motion of a branch, a lightening or deepening of shade. I'd fought the Chinese guerrillas in Malaya and learned to take notice of things like that because my life depended on it. There was someone else watching the flats, someone positioned closer than me. I squinted in the failing light, trying to isolate the spot. Not near the tree opposite mine on the other side of the street, not in the narrow garden fronting the flats, but somewhere. Two tall trees flanked the entrance to the driveway marked Residents Only. Poplars with bushy trunks. Maybe there.

I wasn't really alarmed. When I'd worked as an insurance investigator it wasn't so unusual to find more than one guy operating on different sides of the same street. You suspect a workers compensation claimant of faking and set out to
prove it. He suspects his insurance company's bad faith and you have competition and confrontation. It happens all the time. I'd got the range and was pretty sure the movement was in the poplars, when Charles Meadowbank and his companion came out of the flats. She was a tall brunette wearing a blue silk dress that shimmered as the overhead lights caught it. High cheekbones, sculptured features, up-swept hair. I got the camera into position.

The woman stumbled as she reached the first step. Meadowbank, immediately behind her, stepped quickly forward and around her to help. Then he crumpled and fell down the steps as two bullets blew his head apart.

I was moving while the sound of the shots was still reverberating. I shouted and ran forward as the gunman emerged from his hiding place. Time blurred and images shimmered and sound distorted. I threw the camera like a fielder trying to throw the wicket down on the run. The shout froze him; the camera hit his shoulder and jerked him out of his murderous concentration. He was small, wearing dark clothes and a stocking mask—I registered this in an eye-blink of time—and incredibly quick. I was rushing across the road, six-foot-one and twelve stone of frightened, bellowing, missile-throwing force and he seemed to have all the time in the world to turn and assess his situation. He took off like a top athlete exploding out of the blocks.

I took a few steps in pursuit but I'd done enough schoolboy sprinting to know when I was outclassed. He was all jet-propelled survival instinct and I was puzzled and already running out of fuel. Lights were going on in windows, voices were being raised and I could hear the twittering, muttering sounds of fear for life and property.
I was operating on adrenalin at that point, but it was time to switch to something else. Things had gone seriously wrong on my very first assignment as a private enquiry agent.

People shrank away from me as I went back to the front of ‘Lapstone'. I ignored them. The tall woman was sitting on the steps. There was blood and brain matter all over her dress and her face was a ghastly white under the harsh lights. Meadowbank lay like a broken toy on the bottom couple of steps. His face was only slightly disfigured—a collapsed eye socket and a wound near his jaw—but the back of his head was a mess.

An elderly woman with more presence of mind than most, weighed up the situation. ‘I've called an ambulance and the police,' she said to me. ‘I saw what happened.'

‘Good,' I said. ‘The police will need to talk to you.'

‘I saw you throw something. What were you doing there on the other side of the road?'

I didn't answer. The woman on the steps was sitting rigidly, clutching her handbag and staring straight in front of her.

‘Could someone get her a blanket or a coat or something,' I said. ‘She's in shock.'

There was a murmuring in the growing crowd. A few people broke away and someone came back quickly with a big knitted shawl which was placed over a pair of beautifully shaped, utterly immobile shoulders. I looked around for my camera and saw it lying in a garden bed not far from the poplars. A man was wandering around in that area and he stooped to pick it up.

‘Don't touch it,' I said. ‘The police will want things to stay the way they are.'

The man looked up belligerently. He was middle-aged, solidly built and self-important. ‘Just who the hell are you?'

I pulled out my PEA licence and waved it. I didn't expect it to carry much authority but it was the best I could do. The elderly woman was offering words of comfort.