trouble. Legal trouble, which is what everyone in the profession fears most.'
'I can imagine.'
'At a guess, it's the same for you. I wouldn't want Lubitsch to know where I am or what I'm doing. He'd almost certainly take reprisals. And I'm sure you mean him harm, which is fine by me.' He ran out of breath for speaking but not for smoking, as if the nicotine opened some air passages. 'Malice, Mr Hardy,' he wheezed, 'is my middle name.'
I believed him and handed over the money.
11
How did it go?' Lily asked.
I'd dropped in at a post office on the way home and checked the Brisbane telephone directory. Dr Karl Lubitsch's address was listed as suites 12–14, Glendale Gardens, New Farm.
'You were right on all counts,' I said. 'He's an absolute creep, but he came through with the information I wanted. By the way, he said you traduced him.'
'Bullshit, I changed the name. So where are they?'
'Brisbane.'
'Uh oh, off again. Pretty soon we'll be meeting in airports.'
'Or joining the mile high club.'
'You wish. Well, it'll be warmer up there and I'll have the place here to myself to work.'
'There's a storm brewing. Phone the NRMA insurance if the roof blows off. Is it hard to get to see these guys?'
'Not for the initial consultation… What're you talking about?'
'I'm going to pretend to be a patient.'
'Client, please.'
*
Ian Sangster has been my doctor through metres of stitches and bandage and kilos of plaster of Paris. He laughed like a drain when I told him what I wanted. 'You know what happened to Harry Grebb?'
I did. Grebb, world light-heavyweight champion in the twenties and the only man ever to beat Gene Tunney, had died under the anaesthetic during an operation to straighten his pugilistic hooter.
'Don't worry, I won't be going under the knife.'
'You could do with a bit.'
'The closest I've ever come to cosmetic surgery is getting circumcised and I didn't have a say.'
I gave him the details and he said I could pick up the referral later in the day. I phoned the Brisbane number. A cool-voiced female receptionist answered. I told her I had a referral to Dr Lubitsch, and asked how soon I could see him.
'Would Friday suit you?'
'Nothing before that?'
'I'm afraid not. Unless there's a cancellation. What kind of medical cover do you have?'
'Top rank Medibank Private.'
She took down my number and said she'd phone if there was a cancellation. She rang back within an hour to say I could have an appointment at 8.30 am on Wednesday. I accepted.
'Please have your referral and your Medibank Private card with you.'
'Am I supposed to fast or bring a urine sample?'
She giggled. 'No, nothing like that. The initial consultation is more of a chat.'
'Wonder what you'll pay for a chat,' Lily said when
I told her I'd booked on a Tuesday afternoon Virgin flight to Brisbane in order to make the early Wednesday slot.
'That's a point. I'm going through Frank's money at a rate of knots.'
'Maybe you can get some more from the winsome widow.'
'All I can tell her is that her kid made a good impression on a bloke in a profession she despises. Not something she's likely to want to hear. Oh, and that her late hubby did hush-hush plastic surgery.'
As soon as I spoke, the thought struck me that Catherine Heysen was on a wild goose chase. If I could prove that her husband hadn't organised his partner's murder, still very problematical, it would most likely involve his work as a dodgy plastic surgeon. That was a revision hardly likely to divert the son onto the straight and narrow path. It felt like something to talk over with Frank. Although I hadn't wanted to give him an update yet, I decided I'd better.
'I'm free,' he said when I rang him.
'How about an overpriced drink out at the airport around one o'clock?'
'You're on.'
'What'll you tell Hilde?'
'Not your problem. See you there.'
I didn't like the sound of that but he was right. I had enough problems, including the major one of what I was going to say or do when I came face to face with Dr Karol Lubitsch, aka Karl Lubeck.
I put the Falcon in the long-term parking area, checked my one bag in the required time ahead of the flight, and passed through the metal detectors without setting off any bells and whistles. I had an old sports bag containing a book, a newspaper folded to the crossword page, a map of Brisbane and environs and a collapsible umbrella. I'd checked the weather and found it was going to be ten degrees warmer in Brisbane than in Sydney, but with storms threatening.
Frank was sitting at a table staring out at the planes on the tarmac and nursing a beer. He looked as though he wished he could get on one of the planes and head off. I bought a drink and took a seat opposite him.
'Why here?' he said.
'My investigation on your behalf is taking me to Brisbane.'
'Half your luck.'
I had no option but to tell him what I'd been doing and the way things were looking at that point. He seemed disappointed that I hadn't put in any time on finding William Heysen.
'That wasn't my brief.'
'Yeah, sorry. My mind has been running on him a bit.'
I made the point I had to make-that, however it came out, young Heysen wasn't going to see his father as a model citizen and change his ways.
He nodded as if he'd come to the same conclusion himself before I even spoke. I was worried about him. Always spare, he'd lost weight and the lines on his face were more deeply etched. He was jumpy, wired. He finished his beer, got up and brought back two more.
'It might all take a different turn, mate,' he said.
'How's that?'
'Hilde knows something's wrong. She reads me like a book. I think I'm going to have to come clean about it all.'
'Could be the best thing.'
'Yeah, except she's in this funny state and there's a complication. We haven't heard from Peter in a while and there're reports of trouble in the part of South America he's in. She's very worried about him and I am, too. Not exactly the best time to spring a problem love child on her.'
'How serious are the reports? How credible?'
Frank shrugged. 'I don't know. I'm trying to find out more but the place isn't exactly well-ordered. He's looking into logging near the border of Brazil and Colombia. Hard to know what to believe.'
'What did you mean about things taking a different turn?'
Frank blinked, as though he was looking into the future and couldn't hold his gaze steady. 'God knows how Hilde'll react when I spell it out for her. Then there's Catherine. She's likely to want a DNA test to confirm I'm her
