younger fry say.
I found the pub, ordered a light beer and a sandwich and phoned the head office of the bank. Mr Carstairs would see me at 3 p.m. I ate and drank; I knew what Uncle Neil would think of the light beer-he’d cut railway sleepers for a living during the Depression and managed municipal swimming pools after the war. He probably wouldn’t think much of Mr Carstairs either.
I put the Falcon in a car park in Kent Street and walked the couple of blocks to Martin Place. I had a newspaper clipping pinned up on a board at home that showed the route of the proposed monorail to run people between the Darling Harbour development and the city. I tried to imagine it, thin and noiseless on its slender pillars above Pitt Street, and I couldn’t. I also couldn’t decide whether I was for or against it. Not that it mattered; if the people who liked phrases such as ‘high speed people mover’ got their way we’d get the monorail and the citizens would just have to live with it. Like always.
I’d kept Leo Wise’s cheque, drawn on the Federation Bank although not the head office, for just this purpose. Mr Carstairs of Customer Services looked at it and then at me with a fraction more interest. He was a thin, dark man who looked a lot like photographs of the young T. S. Eliot in a biography Helen was presently reading.
‘Making inquiries for Mr Wise. Yes, I see.’
I read the number of the account from my notes and looked inquiringly at Mr Carstairs, who looked inquiringly back. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘What exactly are you asking?’
‘Whose account is this?’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that.’ He took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and massaged the place on his nose where they sat. I wondered if T. S. Eliot did the same in between stanzas of The Wasteland.
‘Why is that? We’re talking about a few hundred dollars a month,’ I said.
‘Yes. Over several years, I understand. That is a considerable sum of money.’
Bankers are selective about what constitutes a considerable sum of money-they never use it when it’s yours-say, when they make an accounting error. I held up Wise’s cheque. ‘It goes to Mr Wise eventually, surely as his agent…’
He shook his head. ‘The bank cannot reveal such details.’
‘What would it take to get them?’
‘A Federal policeman might gain access with the right court order. Might.’
Suddenly, I got angry. Maybe it was the dreams, maybe the phony Swedish decor, maybe my dislike of T. S. Eliot. ‘Look,’ I said sharply. ‘Did you know Mr Wise’s daughter was gunned down in Kings Cross a couple of days ago?’
He looked shocked. ‘No.’
‘Yes. He’d be a big customer of yours, wouldn’t he-Wise? I’ve seen his office. It’s a bloody sight more impressive than this.’
‘There’s no need to be offensive.’
‘Yes, there is. A twenty-year-old girl is dead and her father wants to know why. He’s upset, understand? He wants to cut corners. He’s not in a mood to be pissed around.’
Mr Carstairs arranged paper clips in front of him on his spotless white blotter. ‘I see.’
‘You’re good at seeing. How are you at doing?’ I read out the number again. ‘Whose account is that?’
‘I’d have to ask
‘Don’t ask anyone. Do something off your own bat for once.’ I had him wavering and it was time to sweeten the pill. ‘Look, Mr Carstairs, Leo Wise probably has lunch with some of your directors at City Tatts. If you help me I’ll see that those directors learn from a satisfied customer that you’re a man of judgement.’
His eyes slid sideways to his desk computer. ‘What was that number again?’
I told him and he pressed keys. He watched the screen, rapt. I speculated on whether I should press my luck by coming around the desk to take a look. Decided against. ‘Well?’ I said.
‘Joseph Agnew.’
I let out a long, slow breath. ‘Ah hah.’
‘Is that what you wanted to hear?’
‘Maybe. Branch?’
He hit some keys. ‘Newport Beach.’
I wrote it down so as to look keen. ‘And do we have an address for Mr Agnew?’
He looked alarmed and took his hands away from the keyboard as if the fingers might go into business for themselves. ‘I can’t.’
‘City Tatts,’ I said. I mimed lifting a glass. ‘Bright chap that Carstairs at Martin Place…”
Clickety, click. ‘2 Bougainville Street, Shetland Island.’
‘Thank you, Mr Carstairs.’
11
I should have asked Carstairs whether Agnew’s account was still active and several other things besides, but I thought I’d played the hand out. Movies were on my mind as I walked back to Kent Street. Bermagui and others: in Desk Set Tracy asks Hepburn what’s the first thing she notices about a person and she answers ‘Whether it’s a man or a woman’. Obvious, but easily overlooked. I had that feeling about the case I was on now. That there was something entirely obvious about it that I hadn’t seen. One of the troubles with this sort of feeling is that it leaves you uncomfortable but with no clues. I tried checking Angew, J., Shetland Island, in the telephone book, but there was no entry. One of the other troubles is that the feeling can be wrong-there may be nothing obvious and everything is just as confusing and complex as it appears.
Luckily, I don’t have this feeling too often. For a private detective it amounts almost to incapacity. I phoned the house and told the recording machine that I’d be back later. I phoned Helen’s cousin at Balmoral, got her recorded voice and told it nothing. This was done at a phone in the car park. I stood with the receiver in my hand wondering who I could try, to make it a recording machine hat-trick. I couldn’t think of anyone and hung up. The abortive phoning had pushed my parking fee up into the next bracket. Poor Leo.
I nudged the expense sheet up further with a full tank of petrol and set off for the peninsula. The trusty. 38 was back in the kitchen drawer but I had the less trusty Colt. 45 under the dashboard. I drove wondering why the thought of the gun had come to me. I don’t believe in premonitions. Why couldn’t I think of movies instead? What did Woody Allen say was the only cultural advantage to be had in Los Angeles? I was heading for the part of Sydney where the film people live-actors, writers, directors. They sit in the sun, sip wine, look out to sea and think of dark, threatening things to make movies about.
The Spit Bridge was up and I sat in a stream of waiting traffic, breathing the lead-laden air and considering my next moves. Agnew and his photographs were a key to something. For no good reason the thought came into my mind that there might be two dead women in the case. Maybe Agnew had killed Tania Bourke. Why? And why leave a flat paid for and vacant for years? Maybe Tania Bourke had killed Agnew. Maybe Lionel Darcy had killed them both, and Carmel Wise. I decided this was mental babble. I found Bougainville Street in the Gregory’s and worked out that the best way to get to Shetland Island was to hire an outboard in Bayview. Practical steps, no theory. The bridge opened and I concentrated on my driving.
I hadn’t been to the Bayview marina for a few years. They’d had a fire since then and things had changed a little; there was new timber and fresh paint around; aluminium had replaced some of the rusted iron railings. The place had moved with the times: the shop was new and the emphasis on windsurfing equipment was very new. At the office my Bankcard and driver’s licence got me a runabout with a big Johnson outboard. A young, sleek woman handled the boat hire and turned me over to a heavily built, middle-aged man who looked as if he belonged to the previous, less smart days at the marina.
‘Going over to Shetland?’ he said as he helped me with the boat.
‘Right.’
‘Know people over there?’
We had the boat at the bottom of a short ladder and I dropped into it, feeling it rock, and adjusting. ‘Fellow
