Lugarno (2 page)

I sat back and thought about it while he told me how my former client had said I was honest and resourceful and got quick results. I thought it'd look good on my card:
Cliff Hardy, Private
Investigations—honest, resourceful, quick
… Except that sometimes you had to be less than honest, and resourcefulness wasn't always enough and some things took time.

I stalled by asking Price what he did for a living.

‘In America they'd call me a lobbyist, here I'm a consultant. I advise people how to deal with government departments, get their projects approved, get them funds. That sort of thing. I used to work for a couple of ministers as an adviser.'

‘Which side of politics?'

That brought the first smile I'd seen from him. ‘Both,' he said. ‘Does it matter?'

‘Not really.' I'd had a reason for asking the question. For all I knew up to then Price might have been a politician himself or in the public eye in some way and desperate to keep his image clean. Hard to deal with those kinds of people because their number one priority is always themselves. But whether you called them lobbyists or consultants, people in Price's game didn't have to worry about their reputations. In fact a few rough edges probably stood them in good stead.

‘Does Jason know who the supplier is?' By asking the question I'd indicated my decision to help him and Price let out an audible sigh.

‘I'm not sure. Possibly. But if he doesn't know he's bound to know someone who does. From talking to him I've found out a bit about this drug culture, so-called. It's not all black and white the way the media has it. Some kids try it and don't like it. Some like it too much and don't do it again. Some take drugs when they feel like it and not
when they don't. The users have friends who don't use. Some of them share and won't sell.'

And some sell and won't share,
I thought, but I was encouraged by his attitude. I wasn't sure that his plan was feasible in all its details but it had a humanitarian and sincere ring to it that persuaded me.

I'd prepared for the meeting by bringing my standard contract form; he signed it and wrote a cheque giving me a retainer of two thousand five hundred dollars against a daily rate of three hundred and fifty plus expenses, to be reviewed when the retainer was expended. I reserved the right to vary the daily rate upwards to a maximum of two and half times if I had to hire help, but the retainer would only be defrayed by the standard daily rate. He signed almost without reading it and I did the same—he because he was worried and stressed, me because I was embarrassed. The complicated contract had been drawn up by my accountant who'd told me that post the GST everything was going to get tougher and I had to have an edge.
His
edge was his higher fee for preparing my tax return.

Price had read the books. He'd come equipped with passport photographs of his wife and daughter and one of Jason dressed for golf and holding a trophy of some kind. He gave me his card which proclaimed him to be Martin (Marty) S. Price, Executive Director of High Flier Consultants Pty Ltd. The card carried his business phone number, his mobile number and his email address. If he thought a man who arranged business meetings in
coffee bars probably didn't have a computerised office, he didn't comment.

Sammy appeared to have the cheekbones, mouth, eyes and hair for the job, and if her expression was a bit vacant-looking that probably didn't hurt any. It's never surprised me that models and racing car drivers seem to get together so often. Danni favoured her father; she was dark with strong features that missed prettiness but hit attractive dead centre—strong jaw, full mouth, straight nose.

Jason was what was once called willowy, when there were more willows about. Fair-haired, tall and slim, he had the sloping shoulders that seem to be good for golf as well as big hands clutched around his trophy. At about his age I'd won a couple of trophies for surfing, but they tended to be plastic dolphins mounted on plastic stands and there was no way I'd have been photographed with them.

It occurred to me that each of these people, my client included, looked exactly the way they should, given the little I knew of them. It worried me a bit. I was used to more off-centre kinds of characters, but maybe this case was just moving me up in the world.

The Prices lived in Lugarno, a suburb that was a sort of peninsula jutting out into the Georges River, and Jason was in Bankstown, not parts of Sydney I was very familiar with.

‘Lugarno,' I said as I wrote it down.

In Glebe, people write their diaries and novels in coffee bars, give interviews to journalists, write
notes for reviews of the food and service. No one took any notice of us doing business. Price seemed more relaxed now with business underway, cheques written, contracts signed. He was in his element concluding a deal, and it showed. He ordered two more coffees. He leaned back in his chair and unfastened the buttons on his stylish three-button single-breasted suit jacket. ‘Do you ski?' he asked.

I'd surf-skied but I knew that wasn't what he meant. ‘No.'

‘I do. When I was younger I skied all over Europe—Italy, Austria, Scandinavia, the lot. Switzerland. I had a wonderful time in Lugarno and when I found there was a Sydney suburb of that name, that's where I wanted to live. Silly, huh?'

I shrugged. ‘Not really. Romantic maybe.'

That brought him jolting back down to earth. He cleared his throat. ‘Yeah, well, what happens now?'

I thought,
I bank your cheque and make the rent on my office and pay the rego,
but I said, ‘I'll talk to Jason and see if I can find out what you want to know. How hostile is he likely to be?'

I got another smile, smaller this time. ‘How subtle can you be?'

‘Fairly.'

‘Do you know anything about golf?'

‘About as much as I know about skiing.'

Again, Price was in his territory, fencing. ‘Do I detect a note of class consciousness?'

‘Yes,' I said.

Price actually laughed. ‘Your reputation for directness seems to be well deserved. Jason'll be all right. If he's not at home he'll be at the Milperra Golf Club where he's got some sort of apprenticeship. He's really concerned about Danni. I doubt if he'll give you names but he could steer you in the right direction. I assume you've got useful contacts.'

‘Such as?'

‘Well, the police.'

I nodded. I was working on that. After Frank Parker retired and I served a short sentence for obstructing the course of justice, my effective police contacts faded away. I'd recently struck up an acquaintance at the gym with a detective in the forensic branch and was trying to cultivate him. Time would tell. I detached the carbon copy of the contract and handed it to Price who folded it neatly and put it in the inside pocket of his suit coat. The brief flashes of animation he'd shown were fading away now and he'd reassumed the haunted, stressed look that aged him. I could tell that he wanted to leave but couldn't bring himself to break the connection without some form of hope.

I helped him. ‘Lugarno's a long way from Cabramatta and the Cross,' I said. ‘Do you think Danielle gets her supplies locally?'

He shrugged. ‘I've no idea. She has a car. She comes and goes.'

I poised the pen. ‘And your wife has a car as well of course. Makes and registration numbers please.'

He told me and that was all there was to do. We
stood simultaneously and shook hands. His grip was firm but icy cold. ‘Thank you,' he said.

‘We'll see, Mr Price. We'll see.'

After he left I wandered along the street and banked his cheque. I had a number of small matters on hand, hanging really, needing winding up, and I determined to put in a day at the office to clear them. It'd be phone calls and faxes, invoicing and explaining; not my favourite activities. Price's problems had got under my skin, partly, I suppose, because my own recently acquired daughter had had similar problems, and partly because I was sure there was a lot more beneath the surface of the case than Price had told me, possibly more than he knew. That eighteen-year-old Danni had a passport interested me. I wondered when she'd travelled and where. And why would Price, who appeared to be pretty savvy, marry a woman who looked and sounded the reverse? The obvious answer was sex, but, looking the way he did and in the business he was in, Price wouldn't have been short of that.

It was after ten and the Toxteth Hotel was open but I walked resolutely past. I don't always keep to my pledge to stay off the grog until six p.m. but mostly I do. The backpackers were swarming on the footpath outside the hostels on the other side of the road—tiny Asian women with packs nearly the size of themselves, pale Poms with wide shorts and skinny legs and huge Scandinavians of both sexes who looked as if they could cross the road in four strides.

Putting off the clerical work, I sat on a bus bench and watched them as they piled into hired Kombi vans and four-wheel drives to take them to Darling Harbour, Bondi, the Blue Mountains, wherever. The Olympic wave, which had turned out to be less than a tsunami, had passed over us and we were into the new millennium for real. The city was back to what it had been—a mostly sun-bathed place where people came to see the sights, rather than for cheap drugs and underage sex. Still the lucky country, just, despite all the economists, wowsers and politicians trying to change it.

I was putting the finishing touches to a report on a small-time insurance fraud I'd investigated and casually watching the clock hands crawl towards six p.m. when the phone rang. I let the answering machine pick up the call, thinking that tomorrow would probably do for whoever or whatever it was. When I heard Tess Hewitt's voice on the line I sighed and picked it up. Our affair of a little over a year had ended a couple of months back. It just ran out of steam and on my last visit to Byron Bay we'd quarrelled over small things and agreed to call it a day. She'd wavered a few times since; I hadn't.

‘Who're you trying to avoid?' she said.

‘Hordes of people. How goes it?'

‘Okay for me,' she said. ‘You?'

‘Yeah. You're delaying my first drink till after six—kind of you. I'm fine. A few things on hand. A dollar or two in it. You coming down? The room's there.'

That was an arrangement we'd agreed on—that Tess could stay at my place when she came to Sydney. It hadn't happened yet.

‘No, not for a bit. At least I hope not.'

‘Come again?'

‘Well you know I'd been thinking about doing this naturopathy course at the uni up here? Well I've taken the plunge. I'm going full-time and they keep us at it with essays and everything. It's got a lot of chemistry and biology in it—pretty tough course.'

‘And you'd be trying for first class honours,' I said.

‘You're behind the times. It's called an HD now—High Distinction.'

‘Okay.'

In just that exchange we'd touched on two of the bones of contention—my drinking and Tess's need to be the best at everything she did.

‘Cliff, I'm calling on account of Ramsay, and don't you go all quiet on me.'

Ramsay was Tess's younger brother. Their parents died in a car accident when he was a kid and she wasn't much older, but she brought him up just the same. They'd got too close sexually at one time and it'd messed Ramsay up more than it had Tess, who was the stronger character. Ramsay was a conservationist almost to the point of not stepping on ants, but he lacked judgement in almost everything he did and thought. Hated me, for example.

‘What's the problem?'

‘He's missing. I haven't heard from him for over a month and he usually rings just about every week.'

For money,
I thought. ‘Well, he could be just off in some forest somewhere, up a tree.'

‘No. The last time I heard from him we talked about him studying. He was going back to finish his Agricultural Science degree. I paid his fees.'

I was glad she couldn't see me. The way things were going she'd have to cough up to get Ramsay into an old people's home. I tried to keep my voice neutral. ‘So that was the beginning of the term?'

‘Semester.'

‘When was that?'

‘It's nearly two months, to be honest. I'm worried. But I swore I wouldn't go around nurse-maiding him like I used to and I meant it. This course is important to me. I don't want to fuck it up.'

‘Right. What was his last address? Did you phone?'

‘It was in Strathfield. No phone. I sent a card there a while back but there was no answer. Not that Ramsay was much of a one for letters. I know you've always got things to do but I … '

‘It's okay. Give me the address and I'll see who's there and what they know. Where was he supposed to be studying?'

Tess was understandably touchy about her brother and I instantly regretted the ‘supposed to be'. After a pause she gave me the address and told me Ramsay was enrolled at Lachlan University.

‘I rang the faculty,' she said. ‘They wouldn't tell me anything except that he was enrolled—wouldn't tell me the names of any teachers or whether he'd submitted work.'

‘All right, Tess. I'll poke around and see what I can find out. He's a big boy and something's probably just sort of deflected him for a bit. Try not to worry. Get on with your massaging. I'll call you as soon as I learn anything.'

‘Or if you don't.'

‘Right. Do students have photo ID cards these days?'

‘We do.'

‘That could help. Look, I realise I don't know him very well. Does …'

‘Or like him.'

‘I've found lots of people I haven't liked. Doesn't affect the process that much. Does he have any medical problems, anything like that?'

‘He's as healthy as a horse … physically. No vices either to speak of. An occasional joint.'