The Undertow (2 page)

‘Well, it's an interesting story, Frank, but I can't see why you want it looked into now. I mean, all the parties are dead.'

‘Not quite.'

‘No?'

‘There's me and Catherine Heysen and her son, William. Catherine got in touch with me a week or so ago. She says her son's on the skids. She kept what had happened to her husband from him for most of his life but he found out not long back. She thought he was old enough to handle it, but he wasn't, apparently. It rocked him. He started to drink, use drugs, hang out with losers.'

‘That's tough on her, but what's it got to do with you?'

The lines and grooves in Frank's face, the marks of character, experience and physical fitness, took on an eroded, desiccated look. ‘Catherine took up with Heysen while she was still on with me and kept seeing me for a while, as I said. She says William is my son.'

2

I
t's not something that's easy to explain to those who haven't been through it. Frank knew that some time back I'd discovered that I had a daughter I hadn't known existed. My then wife, Cyn, had concealed her pregnancy from me at the time of our acrimonious breakup and had had the child adopted. After a lot of angst, it worked out okay between the daughter, Megan, and me and there was some sort of deathbed reconciliation between Cyn and Megan and Cyn's daughter by her second marriage. It doesn't always turn out so well.

‘It's bloody difficult,' Frank said. ‘I don't know whether Catherine's telling the truth and I can't let Hilde find out about it, one way or the other, just now.'

‘Why not? Hilde knows you weren't a virgin before you met her. How could you be? You were what, in your late thirties?'

‘She's menopausal, Cliff—very up and down. And Peter's away somewhere in fucking South America. We hear from him once in a blue moon. He makes noises about staying there. Hilde's learning Spanish and not liking it.

South America's where a lot of the Nazis went and you know what she thinks about them. I can't hit her with this now. Catherine's sort of . . . pressuring me.'

Peter was the Parkers' son—what we atheists called my anti-godson as a joke. After doing a science degree, he worked for Greenpeace in various parts of the world and was seldom in Australia. He was a risk-taker and Hilde worried about him constantly. A tough survivor herself, with aunts, uncles and cousins swept away in the Holocaust, she had a need to rebuild a family and Peter wasn't helping. But Frank's hesitation suggested another level of trouble.

‘Tell me about Catherine.'

‘She's convinced that Heysen wasn't guilty. She wants me to prove it. She thinks that if William learns that his father wasn't a convicted murderer but a respected doctor, he'll change his ways. Go back to being the good kid he was before he found out.'

‘That's not what I meant, Frank, and you know it.'

‘Yeah, yeah. She's a good deal younger than me. She's persuasive and very attractive. I can't see her again, can't have anything to do with her directly. That's why I'm asking you to help me.'

‘What about the boy?'

‘Christ, I don't know. She could be lying but she says a DNA test'd prove it. I can't go through that. This thing's like an undertow, Cliff. It's pulling me down.'

Of course I agreed to do what I could. Frank had sat at his computer sometime and written down everything he could remember about the Heysen case—names, places and dates. He gave me the printout amounting to over fifty pages. An almost eidetic memory had been one of his strengths as a detective, and when he quoted some of the people involved I was prepared to believe it was near to word-for-word accurate.

Frank looked at his watch and I took the hint. I folded the dossier and watched him take money from his wallet.

‘Frank.'

‘We've got a joint account. I can't give you a cheque.'

‘I'm not taking your money.'

‘You fucking are. I want you full-time on this and fair dinkum. It could get expensive. Some of these people have probably scattered. Here.'

He handed me ten one hundred dollar notes. ‘Won't Hilde notice you're down a bit?'

‘Let me worry about that. Cliff, I hate doing this without her knowing—' ‘Me, too.'

‘But I've got no choice. I can't really help you either. I guess you could ring me once or twice if you need to, and visit, but Hilde'd get suspicious if it was more often. Shit, I hate this.'

‘It's okay. I'll play it your way, but we have to agree on one thing—if for some reason it becomes necessary for Hilde to learn everything about it, that's the way it'll have to be.'

‘You're a cunning bastard, Cliff.'

‘A survivor. Agreed?'

‘Yes.'

We shook hands, something we never usually did. It marked how different this meeting had been from all the others and I hoped it didn't mean any kind of change for the worse.

Frank seemed to sense something similar, and he grinned and did a mock shape-up. ‘I feel better now that I know you're helping, mate.'

I nodded. He collected the empties and stowed them carefully in the recycle bin. I wondered if Hilde knew how many beers had been on hand and would notice how many had been drunk. Or would Frank have that covered somehow? A long-time deceiver myself, the standard line came to my mind:
Oh, what a tangled web we weave . . .

We walked past the pool to the gate. ‘Any tips, Frank?'

‘I thought you said you could spot the obvious.'

‘Start with Catherine.'

‘Right,' he said.

I felt very uneasy as I drove home. Frank Parker was one of the steadiest, most composed men I'd ever known and it shook me to see him so rattled. It was understandable. There'd recently been a case involving a high profile public person in a similar situation. It had turned out strangely and the letters page of the papers had been full of contradictory opinions on adoption, DNA testing, the rights of adults and children when paternity was in doubt or contested. No such strong media light would be shone on Frank's dilemma, but the pressures on all parties were the same. Except for Dr Gregory Heysen—dead while still in prison, possibly for a crime he didn't commit.

3

F
or the first time in years, I had a live-in partner, even if only temporarily. I'd been in a casual relationship with Lily Truscott for some time. We'd spend a night together now and then, sometimes at her place, sometimes at mine, and there'd be weeks when we didn't see each other at all. Lily had been editor of the
Australian Financial Review
, then a feature writer and now she was freelancing. Her house was in Greenwich and one of Sydney's wild storms brought a huge tree down on top of it. The house lost its roof and several exterior and interior walls. Driving rain and wind just about demolished it. Lily moved in with me while her place was being rebuilt. She was fully insured, but the company dragged out the process the way they do, and the rebuilding was slowed down by council obstructions and the usual problems with tradesmen, so that Lily's stay was stretching out.

It was working well, though. Lily was interstate often, chasing stories, and I never knew quite where I'd be from one day to the next. No expectations on either side. We were both fond of a drink, keen on exercise, undiscriminating about food. Like me, Lily preferred Dylan to Dvorak and le Carré to Henry James, Spielberg to Bergman. We talked about our jobs when we were together; I learned a bit about insider trading and unions in the Pilbara, and she picked up stuff on surveillance and tracing missing persons.

Lily was coming down the stairs when I arrived home from the meeting with Frank. She has shoulder-length dark-blonde hair with a bit of grey and her face is smoother than it ought to be given some of the things she's been through. She was wearing a long white T-shirt and black pants and looked good, the way a woman who stands 180 centimetres and weighs about 70 kilos does.

‘I need broadband,' she said. ‘That fucking dial-up's too slow.'

‘It's fast enough for me.'

Lily leased a state-of-the-art laptop after she lost everything in her house, but my basic dial-up arrangement for the Web didn't suit her. She worked in the spare room where my clunking old Mac now sat shamefacedly apart from her gleaming model.

‘Yeah, your computer skills are definitely twentieth century—at best. When my place is up and running, I'm going to have wall-to-wall 2010 everything. Is that a bottle you've got there?'

She came down the stairs and gave me a hug and we opened the bottle of red and sat out the back where the autumn sun had just about retreated. The bricks I'd laid— very inexpertly, after chopping up ancient concrete back when Cyn and I bought the place—were still warm. Leaves were falling from the shrubs and drifting in from outside and I made a mental note to sweep them up. Sometime.

‘What's on your plate, Lil?'

‘The multifunction polis. Remember that?'

‘Vaguely.'

‘Right, you and everyone else. I'm off to Adelaide tomorrow to look into how it's going. You?'

Lily had met Frank and Hilde a few times, liked them, and knew how close we were. I told her about Frank's problem as we worked through the Merlot.

‘Tricky,' she said.

I sneezed; the drifting leaves activated a mild allergy of some kind. I pulled a tissue from my pocket and Frank's money came out with it.

‘Nice,' she said.

I blew my nose. ‘Yeah—hidden from Hilde. Frank's cut up about it.'

‘D'you think he's . . . in love with this Catherine?'

‘No, but you know what men're like.'

‘Don't I just? Would you go off me, Cliff? If I went into mood swings and hot flushes?'

‘Mood swings you've already got. I don't know if hot flushes'd bother me.'

‘We'll have to wait and see, won't we?'

I said, ‘I read somewhere about DNA tests. Apparently one in four shows that your poppa ain't your poppa. Remember the song?'

‘No, you're older than me, remember.'

‘That's right. Any tips on handling this, Lil? I read the other day that males are better at asking how things work and females are better at human relationships.'

‘Yeah—watch yourself with Catherine thingo. If she's got to old Frankie, she could get to you.'

I phoned the late Dr Heysen's widow in the morning while Lily was waiting for her cab to the airport. I told Catherine Heysen that Frank Parker had enlisted my help and she agreed to meet me at her place in Earlwood at 11 am. Her voice was the kind they classify as educated Australian. Tells you nothing, because there are various ways of acquiring it.

‘You old charmer, you,' Lily said as I put the phone down.

‘Less of the old. What's that supposed to mean?'

‘I often wonder, after people hear you on the phone, all mild-mannered and persuasive, what they think when they get a look at you.'

‘You mean the busted nose and the scar tissue?'

‘And other things.'

‘I'll tell you—they think, that bloke's been through a bit and maybe he'll go through a bit more for me. Also, they notice the good teeth.'

‘Capped.'

‘A touch of vanity for reassurance.'

The taxi horn sounded in the street and I carried Lily's bag out. A brief hug and kiss and then she was off. I didn't ask when she'd be back, as she never asked me—that wasn't the deal. She looked very good in her suit and heels and I knew that I'd soon be missing her taking the mickey out of me and making love with energy and humour.

I spent the next hour or so working through Frank's file and putting names, addresses and phone numbers in my notebook. The case had a formidable cast of characters, including detectives still serving and no longer serving, witnesses to disagreements between Heysen and Bellamy, associates of Rafael Padrone and experts of various kinds. Heysen's barrister was dead, as Frank had said, and so was the trial judge, but Heysen's solicitor and the prosecutor were still alive. Their details went into the notebook, although Frank cautioned that the addresses and phone numbers might be out of date.

There was a detailed description of the crime scene; reconstructions, as best Frank could remember them, of interviews with Heysen and others; and his recollection of how the Heysen finances stood. There'd been a substantial mortgage on the Earlwood house but Catherine Heysen was still there now, despite the couple's income dropping to zero. Interesting. The son, William, had been an infant at the time of the trial and he barely rated a mention. Heysen had been struck off the medical register after his conviction and his appeal had been refused. Not surprising. A number of Bellamy's patients and lovers had been interviewed. Frank had some of the names but no further details and, given the AIDS epidemic at the time, it was problematic how many would still be around.

Apart from it involving a close friend, it was the kind of case that interested me. Also the kind you had to work hard at to get a result. A money-spinner, but I didn't want to bleed Frank.

The Heysen house was a big, sprawling affair on a corner block overlooking the Cooks River and a stretch of green beyond that. The water view wouldn't have been an asset in days gone by when the Cooks River was more or less a sewer cum toxic waste dump, but it'll become more acceptable as the river gets rehabilitated. Long way to go. The government is said to have promised the money, but nothing much seems to be happening. With half a million people living along the river's banks, I suppose cleaning it is a big ask. There were more apartment blocks in the locality than freestanding houses.

I parked in the street and looked the place over more closely. It was far too big for a woman and a child as things must have stood when Dr Heysen went inside. Probably they'd planned a large family. Still, I wondered why she hadn't traded it in on something more manageable.