'This is just an informal talk,' Carr said.
'Okay. Mind if I invite my solicitor along?'
'That won't be necessary. A few questions, the right answers, a little cooperation, and you're on your way.'
'With a Cabcharge voucher back to Newtown?'
Carr drew in a deep breath. He removed his suit coat and hung it over the back of his chair, giving himself time to get composed. When Lombardi went to do the same Carr stopped him. If this was good guy, bad guy it was hard to interpret. They were uneasy with each other as well as with me.
'Why did you visit Mrs Heysen in hospital?' Carr said.
'She's a family friend.'
'You're determined to piss me off, aren't you, Hardy?'
I shrugged, looked at Lombardi, and very deliberately slipped out of my jacket. 'You've got your job to do and I've got mine.'
'Mrs Heysen's late husband was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Now she's been shot. A private detective known to us as a troublemaking arsehole visits her. We want to know why.'
'Did you ask her?'
'She wasn't cooperative. Seems to have a prejudice against the police service.'
I shook my head. 'I can't think why anyone would feel like that.'
'Let me put it this way. A serious crime has been committed and you're withholding information.'
'Let me put it another way,' I said. 'You're suddenly interested enough in this to bring me down here. Why? You show me yours and I might show you mine, if I have anything to show.'
The two exchanged nods. Carr stood and picked up his jacket.
'Okay, Hardy,' he said, 'have it your way. But we've just about had enough of you and your cowboy games. You've done time for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and destroying evidence. You ought to see the file we have on you.'
'I'd like to.'
'That's exactly what I mean. You love to take the piss, don't you? I'll tell you this-your old mate, former Deputy Commissioner Frank Parker, can't protect you now. We'll be keeping a close eye on you and the reality is that your fucking licence to operate in your crummy profession is hanging by a thread. One false step and you're gone and good riddance.'
I stood and lifted my jacket from the chair. Lombardi stood and we three big men faced off with the tension crackling between us. Again, in the old days it would have been dangerous and I would've expected to get hurt. Not now.
Lombardi went to the door and swung it open so that it crashed back against the wall. A uniformed officer standing there jumped at the noise.
'He'll see you out,' Lombardi said. 'Piss off!'
19
Over the next week and a bit I tried to show that I was still on the case. I went to the hospital without actually seeing Catherine Heysen, but giving that impression. I took a good look at the rear end of every medium- sized red sedan I came across. Anyone watching me would have known what that meant. I went to a Target store and bought a baseball bat, which I left on the front passenger seat of the Falcon. I carried the. 38 and I watched my back. Nothing happened.
Frank, back from his flit to Brazil, phoned me at the office. He told me that he and Hilde had taken to Peter's intended, Ramona, straight off. He said the feelings seemed to be mutual and that arrangements to get the pair of them home were proceeding smoothly. I made the right approving noises.
'But that's not what I want to talk to you about,' Frank said. 'The DNA test result's come through. It's positive in that it says there's only one chance in a couple of hundred thousand that the boy's not my son.'
'How's Hilde taking it?'
'She's okay with it. Not enraptured, but… interested and a bit more than that. Any luck locating him?'
I told him more or less what I'd told Catherine Heysen, but in starker terms. He listened without interrupting, the way he does.
'We'd better meet,' he said when I'd finished.
'Yeah. She's also hired me to continue the investigation into the Heysen case and the attacks on us.'
There was a pause before he spoke. 'You said us. Has she got to you the way she got to me?'
'No.'
'Good. I told you I'd back you on that-looking for the kid and all the rest of it.'
'I'd rather take her money than yours. You're right, we should meet. Let's make it as public a place as possible.'
'Why?'
'I'll tell you when I see you.'
Centennial Park seemed as good a bet as any other, and we met there mid-morning on a grey day. All the better for there being fewer people about and making it easier to spot anyone suspicious. But there are always walkers, joggers, rollerbladers and cyclists, so the park is never empty.
We met at the Oxford Street gates and strolled in. Straightaway Frank's trained eye spotted that I was carrying my pistol in a shoulder holster under my jacket.
'Why the gun?' he said.
I explained about my Judas goat strategy.
'Thanks a lot,' he said. 'I just love wandering about to be sniped at.'
'I'm going to take steps.'
'Like?'
'The. 38 for one, and hiring Hank Bachelor to watch my back. You remember him, the big Yank with the stun gun?'
'He's capable. Who else?'
I mentioned two other PEAs I could call on and Frank nodded approvingly. 'It's going to cost.'
'What d'you reckon her house in Earlwood's worth? She's selling it.'
Frank agreed and I was relieved to see that he'd apparently got over his obsession with Catherine Heysen. I'd told him she was going to stay with her family where there were willing men and he didn't question me further.
'So we're still in a double-barrelled operation here,' Frank said. 'Trying to latch on to whoever's worried about the old business and getting William on the straight and narrow.'
We reached a bench near the pond where Sallie-Anne Huckstepp had been drowned. We sat and looked out over the murky water. If the predictions were right, it'd one day be a home to cane toads. Those thoughts didn't help my mood.
'There's something else, Frank,' I said. I told him about my encounter with the two detectives and my feeling that someone higher up was taking an active interest in matters concerning Catherine Heysen.
'Jesus,' Frank said, touching his nose. 'It never goes away-the stink. I told you something was wrong about the way the Heysen thing played out.'
'Right,' I said. 'But for all that's happened I don't get a sense of having made much progress.'
'Nothing new in that for you, is there, Cliff?'
'No, I guess not. Things take time to come together and sometimes they just don't.'
We went quiet for a while, staring at the water and the grass and the trees as if the answers lay there. They didn't, and a roar of snarled traffic at a distance cut through the quiet of the park.
'Anyway,' I said, 'you've made some progress on life's journey, Grandad.'
'Fuck you,' he said, but he smiled broadly.
Twenty-four hours after meeting Frank I was in the office wondering whether it was time to hunt down
