the police inquiry end and Dr Clyde was doing the face job. They’d been alarmed when I’d blundered into the clinic and seemed to have held some sort of conference the following night. But they hadn’t moved Costello yet and perhaps they couldn’t. It mightn’t be medically advisable. If they were going to move him it would almost certainly happen at night and I had plans to head that off. I wished I had a man to watch the clinic in the daytime but I didn’t and there was no use lamenting it.
All this planning was thirsty work and I left the office to repair the damage. Before I took off I put a handful of shells for the Smith amp; Wesson in my pocket and added a plastic wallet of easily assembled burglar’s tools. I had a licence for the gun but no one has a licence for skeleton keys and lock slides.
11
I drove to a pub near the University where you can sit in the shade, drink old beer and eat passable rissole sandwiches. I took my street directory into the pub and looked up the addresses of Haines, Pali and Chalmers while I worked on the food and drink. Students around the place were talking in their derivative argot and preparing themselves to fall asleep in the afternoon lectures. One hairy intellectual studied me for a while and then announced that I was obviously in real estate — so much for higher education.
The addresses were more or less on the same side of the city. Geography determined the order of my visits — Pali, Haines, Chalmers. I finished my drink and got up. The pub was emptying but the vocation spotter seemed to be putting off the evil hour. He was rolling a cigarette from makings he’d bludged from one of his fellow seekers after truth. I caught his eye as I stood up and pressed a finger to my lips. As I passed his table I dropped one of my cards, face up, into the beer puddles.
Naumeta Pali’s flat was in a six storey red brick building which was a wound in a wide street flanked by neat terrace houses. The flats were built over car parking space and there was a wide expanse of those smooth white stones that are supposed to replace grass around them. The whole set-up was modern, tasteless and medium expensive. The parking area was divided into bays of white lines; each bay had a flat number painted on it and there were a couple of signs around warning the public that this was private space. The space allotted for flat 6 was empty. I went into one of the lobbies in the building and located the flat. It was three floors up. In Glebe there’d have been milk bottles and cats on every landing and you’d have to fight a gang of kids for every inch of territory. Here there was nothing.
I knocked on the door of flat 6 and heard the sound echo about emptily inside. After a second try a woman put her head outside the door opposite.
“She ain’t in,” she said.
The voice jarred with everything around and I turned around to take a good look at its owner. She was fortyish, fat and a good advertisement for cosmetics — black circled eyes, rouged cheeks and fire engine red lips. She’d had a few drinks but not enough for her to forget that she had to hold herself together. She had some help from corsets and a bra that pushed her breasts up out of the tight floral dress towards her loose chin. She wore gold, high heeled sandals. I looked closely for a cigarette holder but she didn’t seem to have one just then.
“If you’re looking for the darkie she ain’t there.” Her voice was city slummy with a touch of country slowness.
“Do you happen to know when she’ll be back Mrs…?”
“Williams, Gladys Williams. Who’re you? Is she in trouble?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Well, you know them. She comes an’ goes, all hours like. Must be doin’ something shady.”
“I see. Do you mind if I ask what you do Mrs Williams?”
“Nothin’, not any more.”
I raised an eyebrow and she gave a lopsided grin. “Nah, not that either, not for years. Married now.”
I nodded. “Husband’s a bookie,” she went on, “in Lithgow. That’s where we live. He comes to the bloody city meetings once a week, bloody dumps me here.”
“Why don’t you go with him?”
She shook her head, the frizzy red tendrils danced about like the Gorgon’s snakes. “Sick of ‘em, rather stay here. Might go out tonight. Hey, why’re you askin’ all these questions, wanna drink?”
I’d only asked three that I was aware of, but she was ready to open up like a sardine can and her qualifications as an observer of her neighbours were impeccable. I produced a card from the insurance days.
“A drink would be very nice,” I said, moving towards her so she couldn’t renege on the offer. “I’m an insurance investigator. Miss Pali isn’t in trouble exactly, but any information you could give me might help to clear things up a little.”
She wanted it to be trouble. “Fiddlin’ a claim is she?” We moved through the door straight into the living room. It was over-furnished and over-cleaned, the blinds were drawn to enhance the television viewing — the real day closed off to allow the fantasy one fuller rein.
“I’d rather not say Mrs Williams. It’s rather unsavoury in some ways.”
That was better. She nodded conspiratorially and went off into the kitchen. She made noises out there and came back with two hefty gin-and-tonics. She handed me one, sat down in a quilted armchair and waved me into another. She tucked her legs up under her and took a long pull at her drink.
“I understand,” she said throatily, “how can I help youse?”
I sipped the drink. It was something to take in slowly over half an hour with a novel.
“What can you tell me about Miss Pali? I understand she drives a red Volkswagen, is that right?”
“Yeah, like I said she comes in at all hours of the day and night. Makes a bloody awful noise that thing.”
“What does she do for a living?” She wasn’t stupid, she gave me a suspicious look. “Don’t you know?” I cleared my throat and took another sip trying to look guarded. “Well, we’re not sure, that is…”
“Umm, well I dunno. Seems to have plenty of money to judge by her clothes, not my taste of course but they aren’t cheap — slack suits and that. Could be some sorta secretary, ‘cept not in an office. She’s home a lot an’ types for hours. A couple of blokes come and bring.. ” she made a vague gesture with her hand. “Files,” I suggested, “papers?”
“Yeah, somethin’ like that. Folders and that.”
“I see. How many men?”
“Couple.”
“Can you describe them?”
“One’s a big bloke, bigger ‘n you and younger. Other one’s dark, not a boong, more dagoey looking, sharp dresser.”
“All business is it?”
She looked sly, “No way, young man stays the night sometimes.”
I took out a notebook and pretended to write in it. “You keep your eyes open, Mrs Williams.”
“Bugger all else to do here. I stay down sometimes see, go to a show and go up to Lithgow at the weekend. Got a coupla relations in Sydney.”
I wrote some more gibberish. “Can you describe them more closely, her visitors?”
“Nah, never looked that close. Both wear good clothes, better ‘n Bert’s.”
“Bert?”
“Me husband. Bert wears old fashioned clothes, he reckons bettors don’t like trendy bookies. I reckon they don’t like bookies full stop, but you can’t tell Bert a thing.”
The gin was getting to her and she was wandering into the dreary deserts of her own life. I only wanted the spin-off from that — the fruits of her boozy, envious snooping.
“I see. What else can you tell me? Does she have other visitors?”
“Yeah, course she does, other darkies mostly, but they piss off when the white blokes arrive.”
It was time to wind it up. “When did you last see her, Mrs Williams?”
“Yestiddy mornin’, didn’t come home last night don’t think. No sign of her this mornin’.”
“Is that usual?”
“No, always comes home sometime, he comes there, see. I dunno, suppose it’s all right, black and white and
