While he read I phoned Frank Parker in Homicide for information on Annie Parker. He got a summary of the medical examiner’s report and proceeded to be cautious.
‘What d’you want to know?’
‘Cause of death.’
‘Narcotics overdose. Death through respiratory and cardiac failure.’
‘Heroin?’
‘No, morphine. How would you classify this death, Cliff?’
‘Probably an accident.’
‘I don’t think we have a category “accident- probably”; what about something more definite?’
‘Accident then.’
‘Nothing in it for me?’
‘Don’t think so.’ Frank said something about Hilde and his baby son which I didn’t hear because I wasn’t listening. My mind was running somewhere else. Morphine and ether. A white Volvo. Sounded like a doctor to me. ‘Hold on, Frank. Maybe you might be interested in this. I can’t tell you much now… ‘
‘But you want me to tell you something.’
‘Right. The Southwood Hospital in Sutherland. Might you have something on it?’
‘We might. I might have time to look. You might call me, eh?’
‘Thanks, Frank. Good about Hilde and the kid.’
‘I told you they had measles, you prick.’
I squeezed out of that somehow. When I put the phone down Greenway was closing the diary. He got a crumpled, much-used tissue out of his pocket and wiped his eyes. ‘Shit,’ he said.
‘Are you talking about yourself?’
‘You didn’t do such a great job either.’
‘Right. I feel like making some kind of amends, what about you?’
‘What can we do?’
‘We can break about five laws and take a look at the records of Southwood Hospital’
14
Greenway made more coffee and we drank that and then started on beer. I gave him my doctor theory and we looked through Annie’s diary for medicos. We came upon ‘Dr Charley’, the druggies’ friend, whom Greenway knew.
‘Not him,’ he said. ‘He’s out of his brain himself most of the time.’
We got ‘Dr S.’ and ‘Dr K.’ from the diary. S. would be Smith whom I’d met. K. meant nothing to either of us. Greenway began prowling the room restlessly. ‘How about checking the registration records to see if a doctor at the hospital has a white Volvo?’ he said.
‘That’d be harder than you think. Most doctors are incorporated these days, their cars are registered to their companies. Or they lease them. It’d be easier to go and look in the car park.’
‘Well?’
‘Yeah, maybe, but would you go to work in a car you’d used the way that Volvo was used yesterday? I wouldn’t.’
‘Hey!’ He dug around in a pile of newspapers on a chair, bent and looked on the floor. ‘Shit!’
‘What?’
‘He took my gun!’
‘Great! Well, it could be worse. It only had one shell in it.’
‘No. I loaded the full clip at home yesterday.’
I shook my head. ‘Well, it’s not so bad. We’re looking for a strong, bald doctor with a white Volvo, a fully loaded Browning Nomad and a thick moustache.’
Greenway shook his head slowly. I looked at him enquiringly. ‘I dunno about the moustache. I’ve remembered what I was trying to recall before. From acting-I smelled that spirit gum you use to stick on false beards and moustaches.’
I gave him a small round of applause. ‘Terrific recall. And I’ve just thought of something else.’
‘What?’
‘It could’ve been used to stick down a bald wig.’
We both laughed.
Greenway was exhausted from his long day and sleepless night. He sank lower in his chair and his eyes kept closing and I had to tell him to go to bed.
‘What’re you going to do?’
‘Make telephone calls. Really run up a bill. We’re still using this bastard’s money, aren’t we?’
He yawned. ‘Suppose so. Okay, I’ll snatch an hour.’
Within ten minutes he was sleeping deeply, looked like he’d be out for six hours at least. I left a note in case I was wrong and drove to my office in St Peter’s Lane. That was a waste of petrol and effort. Nothing there needing attention. No lonely clients with Rita Hayworth legs. Even Primo Tomasetti the tattooist, with whom I could usually waste some time, was on holidays and his establishment was closed. I knew why I was there of course-to check the mail and the answering machine for messages from Helen. I didn’t know whether I wanted a message or not, but there was nothing.
Back in Bondi, I bought a late lunch-two big salad sandwiches-and a six pack in Campbell Parade and ate one sandwich and drank one can sitting on the grass and looking out to sea. It was fine and warm with a clear sky and a pollution-clearing breeze. When I was young I’d come here to surf. Now they came to score-and surf, probably. It was confusing. I examined the big painting on a signboard which showed what the redevelopment of the foreshore would look like-park, playground, pavilion. It didn’t look any different which was fine by me; I like Bondi the way it is.
Greenway was still asleep. I’d shaken the cans a bit and the one I opened in the kitchen sprayed. I swore and dropped another can. Greenway woke up and came stumbling into the kitchen. I handed him the frothing can.
‘Brunch,’ I said.
‘Great.’ He lifted the dripping can and took a long pull. I examined him while he was drinking; he was tanned and lean, almost thin but not unhealthy looking. I pointed to the sandwich on the kitchen table and he fell on it. If he was carrying the AIDS germ it hadn’t done any damage yet to his appetite or powers of recovery.
He munched and spoke around the lettuce and carrot. ‘Well, what now?’
‘You go to the clinic where you met Annie. Ask around. See if anyone was asking for her, or you. Try your description of your assailant on people.’
‘Description? Assailant?’
‘Improvise. Do your best. Wouldn’t be a computer buff, would you? I looked around but you don’t seem to have equipped yourself with a PC yet.’
‘I know a bit about them,’ he said huffily. ‘I can get by. Why?’
‘The hospital’s records are all on computer. It occurred to me the safe way to do it would be to break into the system. We could sit in comfort while a hacker found out all we wanted to know.’
He snorted. ‘That’s in the movies. It’s more complicated than that. You have to know the codes. You’d have to work on the hospital’s system first. Comes to the same thing-a break in.’
I opened a can carefully and waited for the foam to rise gently through the hole. ‘I feared as much. The old ways are always best,’ I said.
Greenway left and I phoned Ian Sangster who is my friend and personal physician, also sometime tennis partner and drinking companion. I asked him what he knew about Southwood Hospital.
‘Not a lot. Nothing really good.’
‘Anything really bad?’
