dust. The track was steep and I had to stop for breath twice. I stumbled once, jarred my leg, and sent waves of pain curling and dumping inside my skull. The morning was warm, I sweated and the handgrip of the. 38 became wet and slippery. Each time the track took a turn I went into the rough at the side and worked through so as to get a look at the road ahead, but each time it was quiet and still except for the noise and movement of the forest birds. After about ten minutes walking the trees thinned out and the ground levelled. I used the cover of the trees to approach a clearing extending over an acre or so on a stretch of flat ground.
In the middle of the clearing, spaced about forty feet apart, were two crumbling brick pillars that would once have been chimneys. Some blackened timber was piled off to one side. I watched from behind a tree as Osborn came into the clearing carrying a pile of branches. He threw them down near the old chimney closest to me, squatted, and began working on the bricks of the old fireplace. He pulled them out and piled them up beside him. Then he reached into the cavity and hauled out a box about the size of a beer carton. He stood up and slapped his pockets. I stepped out and levelled the pistol at him.
‘Keep your hands still, doctor. Move towards me slowly.’
He started and stopped the slapping movement. Then he looked down at the box and bent over.
‘Don’t!’
He was on his knees now by the box. ‘It would be hard for you to explain, Mr Hardy, killing an old man. And not a bad solution for me. I think I’ll keep on.’
I was almost close enough to kick him. ‘I wouldn’t kill you doctor, just hurt you a bit. It’d solve nothing. Now get away from that bloody box!’
He straightened up and stood there rock still. I looked over the blackened earth. A couple of the building’s stumps still stuck up stubbornly through the weeds. I glanced about for the shotgun but couldn’t see it. The branches by the bricks were light with feathery leaves, tinder dry. I nudged the box with my toe.
‘Your records doctor?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m surprised. Was it discreet to keep them?’
His old face turned up and he looked affectionately around at the ruin and the overgrown land.
‘It was my life’s work,’ he said softly. ‘I thought that someday I could write it up, publish it. Opinion has changed, it could be done soon.’
‘Maybe so,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to stop you. I just need some information from those records myself. You can do what you like with it after that.’
‘You don’t understand.’ His voice was thin and strained. Pleading was foreign to him and he was having trouble getting the sound right. ‘That would be a violation of my trust. I can’t allow it.’
‘You can’t stop me. I’m the one with the gun now. Move aside doctor, I don’t want to hurt you.’ I bent down and examined the box; it was metal, heavy, but unlocked. The lid came up stiffly and revealed rows of file cards, neatly packed.
‘This was the place? The clinic?’ I tried to let a little kindness into my voice and I let the pistol drop a bit, not too far.
‘Yes, this is it. This is where I did my life’s work. Later the vandals had their fun. All my memories are here… Gertrude… my daughter…’ He pointed. ‘You can see the ocean from over there. I’ll show you.’
He set off for the far edge of the clearing and I followed. We pushed through some undergrowth and went up a steep track which led to a broad, flat rock washed pale and pitted by the weather. I lost sight of him for a second as I moved forward to step up onto the rock. I stopped, peering ahead, and that saved me — a branch of the tree beside the rock came slashing towards my face like a stockwhip. I ducked under it, side-stepped up and moved along the edge of the rock away from the tree. He saw me and threw something. It missed and he stumbled towards the edge of the rock like a sleepwalker. I dropped the box and went after him fast; he was tensed for the jump when I locked my hand around his upper arm and jerked him back and down hard.
I was off balance and fell and he came down half on top of me. I rolled away and he flopped on the rock winded and gasping like a landed fish. I lifted him and carried him across to the tree where I propped him up. Then I recovered the metal box and sat down on it. We looked east: the water was a fair way off but that made it more impressive. The tree tops flowed out towards the band of blue; a light wind was coming off the water and it moved the upper branches about and reached us with a tang of salt water and eucalyptus. He gazed out over the scene possessively — I felt like an intruder at a shrine.
‘My daughter’s ashes are scattered out there. She loved this place dearly.’
‘We have to talk doctor.’
‘What is there to talk about? You have the records, took them by force. You’ll use them for your own corrupt ends. I’m old and this trouble will kill me. But that’s fitting, that my life’s work should finish me off. I’m sorry about the branch and the shotgun. I’ve never harmed anyone.’
He seemed to be raving, losing his grip under the spell of the place and the pressure of events. I wanted him in control, as an ally if possible.
‘There are those who would think,’ I said softly, ‘that you’ve killed many times.’
He glared at me, his tired old eyes shining out of the beaten flesh around them. ‘Fools,’ he said coldly. ‘Fools and hypocrites. I have evidence that lives are wrecked by unwanted children, and saved by abortion.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I followed them through do you see? I kept notes on what people did — those who were forced into marriages they didn’t want and those who were free to develop. You’d be surprised, Mr Hardy, if you knew who were some of the fathers of children born and aborted. I know.’
‘Jesus. You mean you got all that stuff from the mothers? You’ve got names and dates?’
‘Yes indeed.’
The enormity of it washed over me slowly. The box was a powder keg of secrets. He’d mentioned post-war Canberra and Sydney and hinted at big names. The thought flickered in the back of my mind that the cards would be better burnt but I let that go. I had a job to do and I was very, very curious.
‘You appear to be struck dumb, Mr Hardy.’
I was suddenly aware of the gun and stuck it in my belt. It seemed like a ridiculous toy; I wanted the box in my hands.
‘Come on doctor, we have to find a way out of this mess.’
He followed me off the rock. ‘Mess? What do you mean?’
‘You can’t be that innocent. Those records are dynamite.’
‘Why?’
‘Men like to father their own children for one thing. It’s a quirk I’ve noticed. They don’t like having it done for them.’
‘Yes, well, I know of many…’
‘Don’t tell me.’
‘I knew it was… sensitive, but that’s why I kept it out here, partly why. I used to drive out and do some work on the cards, add things. But I always thought of it as scientific data.’
‘I think of blackmail and other things.’
‘But it’s so long ago, twenty years and more.’
‘Memories are longer, suspicion doesn’t age.’
‘You’re a philosopher, Mr Hardy.’
We went down the rabbit track to the clearing. The air was warm and pungent with forest scents. It would be a fine place for a picnic with nice food and cold wine and a good spot for making love on some trodden down bracken. We got clear of the trees and the sight of the stark, lonely chimneys brought me back to the business which had nothing to do with picnics and not much with lovemaking in the bushes. I talked to him and he listened. He did some talking himself and I tried to respond to his descriptions of the clinic, as he called it, and how he and Gertrude Callaghan had handled the work. There was a touch too much of ‘moral rehabilitation’ in it for my taste, but he was talking of other times, when illegitimacy could be a life-long curse and divorce court judges were like priests of the Inquisition.
He leaned against the Cortina and looked at me through narrowed, sceptical eyes.
‘And now?’
‘Now you drive me back to my car and we both go back to your house. You help me find what I’m looking for
