something like that. I’d like to know what he meant.’
‘You think the answer lies in her filmmaking?’
‘She doesn’t seem to have done anything else.’
‘She must have. You’ll find something. Will he wait?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Wise. You’re not going to be able to do anything for a couple of weeks.’
‘I’d go crazy doing nothing for a couple of weeks.’
‘Cliff. Don’t be an idiot.’
‘Nobody said nothin’ about doin’ nothin’. Oh, except Stivens said gently does it when it comes to sex.’
‘You asked him?’
‘Of course.’
‘Gently does it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Does it?’
‘Let’s see if it does.’
She helped me up the stairs, she helped me into bed, she helped all down the line. Afterwards, I lay beside her and listened to her gentle breathing as she slept. I fancied I could hear surf beating on a beach and the cries of seagulls. I thought I could live by the beach or I could live in the mountains. 1 could live anywhere within striking distance of the city if I had to. And I would, to have her sleeping beside me at night. Some nights.
16
It was over the next couple of days that Helen started to call me what Whitlam had called McMahon, ‘the Tiberius of the telephone’. I made use of the sorts of contacts you build up in this business, to check on Williamson and Rolf. Establishing that they were Federal cops took a while, and finding that, within the usual limits of narcotics law enforcement, they were honest, took even longer.
Carmel Wise’s flatmate, Judy Syme, remembered me and listened while I described Williamson, Rolf and the other man I’d seen at Shetland Island. My question was, could they have been the men who came to Studio Eight in Randwick before Carmel Wise died.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Positively not. They didn’t look at all like that, none of them.’
‘Have you thought of anything else that might be useful, since we talked?’
‘No. Oh, one thing. They took a couple of copies of the movie.’
‘Carmel’s movie?’
‘Yes. That one I lent you. It was put away somewhere. They took the ones that were lying around.’
‘Did they say anything about it?’
‘I don’t think so. ‘Course, I was so frightened I mightn’t have noticed.’
‘Did Carmel ever say anything to you about targets? About having people as targets?’
‘N… no, I did hear her use the word on the phone one time.’
‘Who was she talking to?’
‘Jan de Vries.’
But there I hit a wall. I phoned the Film amp; Television School and was told that Dr de Vries had not been in for a couple of days and no, that wasn’t unusual. They wouldn’t give me his address or private phone number. I left a message for him-my name and number, my line of work and that it had to do with Carmel Wise. I then got de Vries’ number from Judy Syme. He lived in Lane Cove, close to his work but a long way from the GPO. There I was again, thinking the Inner West was the only place to live. I called the number and got a woman, impatient, upset or crazy.
‘Yes? Yes? What do you want?’
‘I’d like to speak to Dr de Vries, please.’
‘Not here!’ She hung up vigorously, or miserably or madly.
My next call was to the producer of the documentary Carmel Wise had worked on. Tim Edwards was one of the principals of Paladin Pictures Inc. He sounded young and keen, eager to talk in a rapid-fire style about filmmaking, and a bit green. In my limited experience old hands in that business don’t say that someone has ‘too much flair’; old hands don’t really say anything that has any meaning.
‘Leo Wise? Sure I know him. I got Carmel to introduce us once. Thought he might back a project, him being a rich business man and all.’
‘Did he?’
‘Wasn’t long before Carmel died. Seemed interested at the time. He might have. Nice guy. How can I help you, Mr Hardy?’
‘You’re quoted as saying that Carmel might have too much flair for the project. What did that mean?’
‘It means, oops.’
‘Come again.’
‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘You did say it though and it could be important to me. What’s the documentary about, exactly.’
‘I’ve still got funding hassles with it and distribution problems. I can’t…’
‘I’m not in the business. I won’t tell a soul. It could be important. Did she overstep the mark somehow?’
‘Yeah. It wasn’t meant to be a revolutionary number, you understand? Not pap but not barricades stuff. We got the permission of these ten… well eight actually, that’s one of the hassles I’ve got… of these rich people to film them and do a few interviews.’
‘Sounds like something between Sixty Minutes and that thing about the movie stars…’
‘Life Styles of the Rich and Famous, well, yeah, maybe. Carmel, she wouldn’t leave it alone. Kept trying to get footage they didn’t want taken. She tried to change the scripts, even stuck herself into one interview. Terrific filmmaker, brilliant editor, but lousy judgement. She really hurt me, although she did a wonderful job on editing the footage I can use.’
‘I don’t quite follow. Did two of the subjects pull out?’
‘You got it.’
‘Sort of as a reaction to what Carmel did?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Why?’
‘Come on, the girl’s dead, and no-one knows why.’
‘I thought she got caught up in the porno rackets.’
‘Do you really believe that?’
‘I’d like to see a porn movie made by Carmel. I’td sizzle.’
‘Forget it. She didn’t make any. Who pulled out?’
‘Bastards, why should I care? Marjorie Legge and Phillip Broadhead.’
‘Do you have any of the stuff you shot on them?’
‘No. I had to give it up. Broadhead threatened to contact the others and get the plug pulled on the whole thing if I didn’t surrender the film. I’m in debt over it. I had no choice.’
‘How did Carmel react?’
‘Angrily. Look, if that’s all, I’ve got work to do.’
I thanked him, hung up and looked at the two names I had on my pad. Marjorie Legge had a chain of high fashion boutiques. She appeared on television shows and ghost-written articles signed by her were published in the papers. She had been profitably married several times and her views were extremely right wing. A story was told about her that on a talk-back radio show she had advised an old-age pensioner, calling in to complain of boredom and financial hardship, to take up French cooking.
She was a scourge of the feminists and one of their chief targets. Targets! Well, well, I thought, there was an interesting word. Maybe I should take up free associating as an analytical technique.
