Lugarno (6 page)

LORD GEORGE INTRODUCTION AND
SOCIAL ESCORT AGENCY

I bought a packet of pain-killers in the chemist's and settled down with a flat white only a few paces from the security door. My stomach was tender and I washed down three of the pills with the coffee. Nothing happened for twenty minutes and that was as long as I could spin out the coffee, so I ordered another one I didn't want and waited some more. People on their afternoon coffee breaks came and went, mostly with take-outs but a few sit-downs. Another twenty minutes later a man came out. He was nearly as tall and just as blond and well dressed as the man I'd followed but it wasn't him. As the pain in my middle diminished, my curiosity rose. I went over to the door, flanked by two large windows, and peered in. The man sitting behind a reception desk was a clone of the other two. I copied down the telephone number on the door and left.

I'd been injured more than injuring and had more questions than answers. It was enough for one day. I drove home and took a hot shower. The bathroom could do with a refit and the last time Tess stayed with me she said I should put in a spa bath. I said I doubted the floor would take the weight and I didn't fancy sitting down below with a spa bath poised above my head. Still, a spa would've been handy after encounters like the one I'd had today.

I had nothing to report to Price but I could give Tess some good, if puzzling, news. I rang and got no answer. It was late in the afternoon but she said she was doing a full-time course and knowing Tess that meant full-time plus. The mail consisted of bills for my Bankcard and Mastercard, a postcard from my sister who was holidaying in Vanuatu and a tempting wine club offer. A dozen bottles of Chardonnay at a throw-out price plus three bottles of Merlot for free with every purchase. I'm fond of Merlot and don't mind Chardonnay either, but I looked at the Mastercard bill again and was strong. The wine club offer went into the bin.

Shortly after six p.m., having decided that I wasn't interested enough in the genetically modified food issue to listen to ‘Australia Talks Back', I phoned Tess again.

‘It's after six,' she said. ‘Have you got a drink?'

‘Glenfiddich straight.'

‘Bullshit. Johnny Red on the rocks more likely. How's it going, Cliff?'

I told her what had happened in Strathfield and at the university and how the secretary had seen her brother that morning.

Tess was sharp. ‘How would she know him? There must be scores of law students.'

‘I don't know. How did he pay his fees?'

‘Right. But still, he's okay.'

‘Apparently, but he's not where you thought he was. That is, if I can believe the woman at that address. I don't know why, but I'm not sure I
can
believe her. There was something in her manner—and that's apart from the hostility.'

‘You think she was lying?'

‘Being evasive at the very least. By the way, how did you get that address? Did he write and put it on the back of the envelope or what? Doesn't sound like Ramsay.'

Again I was letting my dislike of the man show through but Tess didn't pick up on it. ‘No. I meant to tell you but I scrawled the address down on the pad I keep by the phone for when I rang you and I forgot. I got this note on a sheet of notepaper with that address stamped on the top of it. The phone number had been blanked out. I thought it must be some sort of old guesthouse or something Ramsay and his greenie mates had taken over. But you say it's an up-market house?'

‘With an up-market owner or resident.'

‘It's weird. I can't see him studying law. He's a bloody greenie anarchist, for Christ's sake.'

‘Maybe you can do Anarchy IA out there. I've got a mate with some Lachlan Uni connections. I'll look into it and try to find him. Can't be too hard.'

‘Thanks, Cliff.'

‘I have to tell you. I've got another matter on the go.'

‘Good for you. Well, I've got an essay due. You'll ring me when you learn anything new.'

‘I will for sure. Might be a day or two. This other thing's tricky.'

‘Don't strain yourself on my account. See you.'

I'd intended to call it a day with the scotch and an omelette and
The Perfect Storm,
a book I was halfway through and that had confirmed me in my
belief that it was unsafe to go to sea in a vessel not big enough to contain a bar and a dance floor. But the day's questions started to work on me and I found I was reading pages of the book and taking nothing in. So I phoned Viv Garner and arranged to go around and see him in Lilyfield.

Viv has a modest timber house in an elevated street that happens to command a view of the city. His wife, Ros, is a keen gardener and their two kids have embarked on professional lives, so they're left in leafy splendour in a house worth ten times what they paid for it. Viv, who'd recently got some sort of an appointment at Lachlan University, is a socialist and admits that property is theft. ‘Still, it's nice to have some,' he once said to me.

I arrived with a bottle of red and Ros laid out some biscuits and cheese, took a glass for herself, asked how I was and pleaded with me not to take Viv out that night.

‘His asthma,' she said.

‘Not to worry, Ros. We'll do our business right here.'

‘I'll leave you to it. Don't excite yourself, Vivian.'

Viv took a gulp of his red. ‘She thinks you equal excitement. She doesn't know it's mostly humdrum stuff.'

‘Don't disabuse her. You're something at the Lachlan Law School, right?'

He thumped himself on the chest. Viv is a little guy but trim and the broad chest of the lifesaver he once had was not turned to flab. Sandy hair,
half-glasses. ‘Adjunct Professor. As soon as I got the appointment I emailed all the arseholes who taught me and said I'd never make it through the degree.'

‘In victory, malice,' I said. ‘Right on. How far inside the system does that put you?'

‘I'm top dog in charge of one particular section.'

‘And that is?'

He drank some wine and nibbled on a biscuit. ‘I'd like to say civil liberties research or international covenants, but it's more humble—professional placement. I told you something about this once when you were thinking about getting a law degree.'

‘Yeah, and they told me I'd get credit for one and a half units for the stuff I'd done at New South Wales.'

‘Cliff, it was twenty years ago, and you didn't do all that well. And it was more than one and a half units as I recall. And now that you've been convicted of a serious felony and done time …

‘Yeah, yeah. Anyway, does this give you access to student records?'

‘I should've known. No way.'

I gave him the facts and he kept a sceptical face while I recited them, only showing some expression when I mentioned the secretary.

‘Ah,' he said, ‘Ms Gwen Carroll. No, she wouldn't fancy you at all.'

‘Why's that particularly?'

‘Never mind. Go on.'

I gave him the rest and he relented. He got up and gestured for me to follow him. I did, with my
glass topped up. We went into his study and he turned his computer on.

‘What's this?' I said.

‘I can access the student records from home by remote access. It's one of the perks.'

The screen glowed and images on it flickered into life. ‘What are the others?'

‘Room, computer, free email and Internet, photocopying, library.'

‘I could use all that.'

‘Yeah, but I don't get paid.' He seated himself in front of the computer and began tapping the keys. ‘OK, full name and student number.'

I gave them and he tapped the keys and clicked the mouse. ‘Here he is—Hewitt, Ramsay Stefan …'

‘Stefan?'

‘That's what it says. You want the address?'

‘Yeah. Hold on, does the file have his student ID photo?'

‘Sure does. The way things are at universities these days the teachers are lucky to know half their students by sight before the semester's over. Have a look—this's him.'

I craned over Viv's shoulder to look at the small photograph on the screen. It was Ramsay Hewitt all right. He had the long jaw and lean features and pale eyes, but the scruffy beard was gone and he wore a blue business shirt and a burgundy tie. His once dirty, stringy hair was cut and styled and fair, very fair.

‘Model citizen,' Viv said.

‘Can you print that page out?'

‘I shouldn't.'

‘I'll crop it down to the picture. No one will ever know.'

Viv did some more clicking and the page shuffled through the printer. I took it out and swore.

‘What?'

‘The address—it's a post office box in Strathfield.'

Viv clicked a couple of times and the screen went blank. ‘Are you going to stake it out, like in the movies?'

‘No, I'm going to send him a threatening letter made up of newspaper headlines.'

He got up and stretched. ‘Ask a silly question.'

Before I left I asked Viv again what he'd meant by the crack about the secretary not liking me. We were standing by the front door and he leaned back against the wall as if he was doing an isometric exercise. Maybe he was.

‘Our Gwen's a strange one. Word is she has money and doesn't need the job, but she's got a thing for lawyers, especially fair-haired ones.' He ran his hand over his own sandy crop. ‘Not like this, I mean thick and fair like, say, Greg Norman when he was young.'

‘Staff or students?'

‘Well, she'd taken notice of your guy, hadn't she?'

That gave me something to think about on my careful drive home. People can change but they mostly don't, at least not very much. Not as much as Ramsay Hewitt appeared to have done—from hippie greenie activist to would-be lawyer. A semester of university fees wasn't cheap nor was the sort of grooming he appeared to be going in for. As the politicians say: ‘Where was the money coming from?' With the Scotch before my light
dinner, a glass or two with it and a couple with Viv, I was probably somewhere near the limit. But the roads are quiet on a Tuesday night. The Falcon protested in second gear a couple of times, otherwise, no trouble.

The Perfect Storm
got me off to sleep in the sense that I had to finish it and by then it was late and I was tired. I made a mental note to catch the movie—it was hard to see how they could fuck it up, but interesting to see if they managed it. There must have been a cool change during the night because I woke up cold under the sheet, pulled up a blanket and slept deeply after that. Too deeply. The ringing of the door bell dragged me up from well down and I was surprised to see that it was close to nine o'clock when I surfaced.

I hauled the pants of the tracksuit I sleep in when it's cold up from the pile of clothing detritus that lives in the corner of the bedroom between clean-ups, pulled them on, and went down the stairs to the front door. Pulling on the pants hurt my bruised mid-section and so did going down the stairs.

‘Mr Hardy?'

A new-breed cop, no question—lean face, blue business shirt, white linen jacket, no tie. I didn't need the open ID folder to confirm it and didn't even look at it.

‘Come in.'

‘Just like that?'

‘I've had more cops through this door than good-looking women. I don't like it much, but
that's the way it is. I'm just up and need coffee. You?'

I retreated and he came in and closed the door quietly behind him. Nice manners. New breed. ‘Thank you. Hard night?'

‘Up late reading.'

He took that with a grin and followed me down to the kitchen where I put the coffee on to perk before going upstairs to put on some clothes. The physique these days isn't so impressive that I can stand around half naked with well-dressed cops and feel in charge. He was sitting relaxed at the breakfast bench when I returned. If he was thirty that was all but he had a knowing look to him that they get after attending traffic accidents and domestics and telling lies in court. The coffee came through and I poured two mugs full. I got milk from the fridge and pushed the bowl of raw sugar towards him.

‘Sorry,' I said. ‘I missed the name. And what's this about?'

He wrapped his hands around the mug the way I do myself, whether the morning is cold or not. This morning wasn't particularly, but it's a comforting thing to do.

‘Stankowski, Detective Constable. Major Crimes, southern area.'

I raised my mug in a salute. ‘And …?'

‘Do you know a person named Jason Jorgensen?'

‘Well, I've met him. It was just yesterday, so I wouldn't claim to know him.'

‘What was your business with him?'

I tried the coffee—too hot for a good slurp but okay for a judicious sip. ‘Come on, Constable. You obviously know the game I'm in. You can't expect an answer.'

‘I do though. Mr Jorgensen is dead. He was murdered. Your business card was found on his body. So yes, Mr Hardy, I do expect an answer.'

It hit me harder than I'd have expected. I was still feeling some guilt about hurting the kid and I'd sort of liked him. I'd thought he had promise with his athletic good looks and his mostly polite behaviour. He'd had enough aggression in him to make him a good competitor, and that's something I admire. Against that, I'd had my doubts about his honesty and had made a mental note to talk to him again. All snuffed out.

‘How?' I said. ‘And when?'

‘You haven't answered me.'

‘Tell me a bit about it and we'll see how far I can do that.'

‘You think you have a choice? You're not a lawyer or a priest.'

‘I've still got a choice. The thumbscrew went out a few years ago.'

I could tell he'd been considering not drinking the coffee to give himself the edge of austerity and self denial, but he changed his mind and went the whole hog, adding milk and sugar and taking a fair gulp. ‘OK, we'll play it your way for a bit. Mr Jorgensen's body was taken out of the Georges River late last night, strangled and battered.'