to look straight ahead. Like the others, he wore street clothes.
'This is Mr Geary,' the doctor said. 'You have a visitor, Mr Geary.'
He turned slowly and slid his chair around on the polished floor to face me. His face was deeply lined, grey- skinned and slack. His sunken eyes were blank and uninterested. 'Fuck off, shithead,' he said. 'You too, cunt.'
His hands on the arms of the chair were trembling, but as soon as he'd spoken he swivelled around and resumed his former position. I followed Dr Vronsky from the room.
She leaned against the wall, distress showing in her face.
'He's waiting to hear his voice. He was mildly irritated that we interrupted him.'
'He was trembling,' I said. 'This assault, what did he do?'
'He kicked a woman. Kicked her until she fell and then kicked her repeatedly. How was your cousin killed, Mr Hardy?'
'By a shotgun.'
She shook her head. 'Not possible. He has advanced Parkinson's disease. He would be quite incapable of using a firearm.'
A dead end.
'This is a damn fine instrument,' Hank said, holding up Patrick's mobile. 'It's a BlackBerry, the latest.'
'Why do they call it a blackberry? It's a noxious weed.'
'Not in the US it isn't, at least, not everywhere. Anyway, it's one word, spelled with two capital Bs.'
'What will they think of next?'
'It has a speaker phone, wireless broadband, email, huge memory, you name it.'
'So you could get up his phone numbers, his emails, photos, all that?'
'With ingenuity, yeah, in theory.'
'Meaning?'
'He uploaded almost everything to…'
'Where?'
Hank shrugged. 'No way to tell. A server, most likely.'
'You said almost.'
'Do you remember someone taking a picture of the two of you outside some pub or other?'
'Yeah, the Travellers Arms in Dublin. A Japanese tourist took it.'
Hank fiddled with the phone and handed it to me. 'He kept that picture, nothing else.'
I looked at the photograph. Its quality was vastly superior to any of mine. It showed us standing outside the pub; Patrick with his fiddle case under his arm and me with a rolled-up newspaper held in much the same way. For once we were wearing similar clothes dictated by the weather-jeans, sweaters and light slickers. I had a few days' stubble because my shaver had conked out, and we looked like twins again- same height, same build, same pose. I remembered that the obliging Japanese photographer had smiled and said, 'Twin brothers,' as he returned the mobile, and then, 'Brackberry,' and we'd nodded and thanked him.
I took a deep breath and put the mobile on the desk.
'If I'd been there…'
'You'd likely be dead,' Hank said. 'Automatic shotgun, right?'
'Yes.'
'That's a serious killing. He wasn't about to leave any witnesses. It was a Perry and Dick situation.'
Hank had just finished reading the copy of In Cold Blood
I'd lent him. He'd said it was one of the best books he'd ever read. I agreed.
'You're right,' I said. 'I've got to work on this.'
'Sure. I remember when you were showing me the ropes in this business and you told me to stop at every piece of information and ask yourself what conclusions to draw.'
'Okay.'
'In this case just two-the guy had something to hide and he was fond of you.'
It looked like another dead end but that often happens and you just have to scratch away until you draw blood somewhere else. I knew someone at Consolidated Securities, the firm Patrick said he was selling out to. The company was a big, international outfit, handling investigation as well as conventional security matters, and one of its policies was to mop up as many smaller operations as it could to increase market share. One technique was to recruit one-man PEAs like me. I'd been approached several times but wasn't interested. Eventually they'd get around to Hank. I phoned Bruce Carstairs, the executive who'd made the offer to me.
'Cliff Hardy,' he said and cleared his throat.
'Don't be embarrassed,' I said. 'I'm not after a job.'
As a practitioner scrubbed permanently off the books by the licensing authorities, my market value was nil. I told him I wanted some information about their acquisition of Patrick
Malloy's share in Pavee Security. Acquisition of that sort was Carstairs' area of expertise.
'Not sure I can tell you anything-commercial confidentiality and all that.'
'He was my cousin and a friend and he was shot to death in my house. I'm helping the police in their investigation and I just need to know a few things-nothing about the money.'
A pause and then he said, 'I'll help as far as I can.'
'Who was his lawyer?'
'He didn't have one. He was legally trained and did all that side of the work himself.'
'What about his bank? He must have paid the money in somewhere.'
'I see what you're getting at. No harm in telling you this, it's on the public record. There was no money involved. It was a straight share transfer-his in Pavee, and it was a substantial but not an outright majority holding, for a number of ours.'
'Can you tell me when it all went through?'
I could hear the keys clicking and remembered what Patrick had said:… all computers and bullshit. Carstairs came back on the line and gave me several dates. The last few coincided with the time of our trip.
'Emails and phone conversations to tie it up?' I said.
'Of course.'
'What about signatures?'
'All provided earlier. Look, I'm sorry… for your loss, but everything was perfectly straightforward. Agreement was reached easily with both parties perfectly happy.'
'Isn't that a bit unusual?'
'It's not unique. Was there anything else?'
I thanked him and rang off. He hadn't remarked on the physical similarity between Patrick and myself because we'd never met. Our dealings had been solely by phone and email.
Two days later I got a call from Dan Munro at Pavee Security. He reminded me that he'd been at the funeral and asked if I was willing for my phone number to be given to a woman named Sheila Malloy.
'Who is she?'
'She says she's Patrick's wife.'
'His wife?'
'That's what she says. I've got her on the other line, Mr Hardy, and she's very insistent.'
'Tell her I'll meet her anywhere she chooses at whatever time.'
8
I'd read that some lawyers feeling the pinch and unable to afford presentable offices were meeting their clients in Macquarie Street coffee shops, so I wasn't surprised that she proposed a cafe opposite Parliament House. Probably meant she'd have a cut-rate lawyer along. She took me at my word and set the meeting for the mid- afternoon of the same day. All this came through Munro, so I didn't even get to hear her voice and he hung up as soon as the meeting was set.
I arrived early as usual but they weren't far behind. Maybe a sign of anxiety or nervousness, maybe not. Sydney
