“That’s right. I’m impressed.”
“Just accompany us to the station, sir,” the senior said. He turned to the ranger. “And you too, sir, if you don’t mind.”
The ranger seemed to enjoy the ceremony; he spoke briefly into his walkie-talkie, and then we climbed into the back of the police car and drove slowly along the paths to the Victoria Lodge gate.
“I’m going to be late home,” the ranger said.
I was playing the role of a solid, minding-my-own-business citizen. “Me, too,” I said.
The constable was doing the driving, the senior was doing the investigating. “Did Stan have a family, d’you know?” he asked.
If it was a trap for me it was too obvious. I said nothing and let the long, pale grey shape of a warship docked opposite the Boy Charlton pool take my attention.
“Doubt it,” the ranger said. “How long’s this going to take?”
The senior shifted in his seat to let the pistol on his hip settle more comfortably. “Step on it, Charlie,” he said. “The gentle-men want to get home for their tea.”
The ‘Loo police station is new and reasonably high-tech, but rather under-manned. I noticed that the graffiti, a feature of the area, were starting to creep along nearby walls in its direction. They wouldn’t have the manpower to spare to scrub it off, so that station will probably look pretty much like the rest of the neighbourhood soon. The shorthand expert typed up the ranger’s statement and he signed it and left. The constable then sat down at a computer terminal and put the microchips through it’s paces. I expected him to turn his professional attention to me after that, but the sergeant distracted him with some questions about something else. Then he couldn’t find the right form; then he had to answer the phone a few times.
I sat in a too-bright room which had too few things to look at. I soon got bored by the community policing notices. There weren’t any of the ‘Wanted’ posters-the ones with pictures of neanderthal-faced men-that used to decorate police stations. The coffee from the automatic machine tasted like cocoa. I hate cocoa. I was impatient and restless, but I didn’t want to occasion any suspicion. Wouldn’t an ordinary citizen be impatient and restless! I thought. Yes. Would he demand to see his lawyer or try to sneak out when the cop wasn’t looking? No. I sat and waited until the form was found and put in the typewriter and the sergeant went away and the phone stopped ringing. The magic fingers went to work again and I was typed up, signed and countersigned before you could say police commissioner. I said that I was a real estate agent-but that was almost the only lie I told.
It was after eight o’clock when I left the police station, and as soon as I got out in the wind I realised how cold and hungry I was. Also dry. It had been a good day for non-alcoholic resolutions, if not for much else. I had a light beer and a steak with salad and a half carafe of wine in a cafe in William Street.
The wine relaxed me and helped me to shift my attention from the disappeared and the dead to the living. Myself. I walked up to St Peter’s lane and took a careful look around to see if anyone was lying in wait for me. I was in the mood. But not tonight, not yet at least. I checked my notebook for the address Ray Guthrie had given me and located it in the Gregory’s. The Falcon had been sitting all day and was slow to start in the cold air. I let the motor run and turned on the heater. Darling Point. Maybe I should have gone home to change and shave. But if the good people of Darling Point could put up with Rhino Jackson, who’d been known to spit on the pavement and worse, I couldn’t see how they could object to me.
I drove down Darling Point Road, which bisects the peninsula. In some places structured like that, the rich people live off to the right and the poor to the left, or vice versa. In Darling Point the rich live off to the right and left. Ray had given me the name Nash; the address was a cul-de-sac that curled around from the main road and ended just short of the water. High fence, wide gate, bricked driveway; the front garden was so deep I couldn’t see the house. There seemed to be a secondary driveway branching off the main one and I guessed this was where the boating types backed their Mercs with catamarans attached down to the water. I gave it the once-over from the car, drove back a hundred metres and parked outside a big house from which cars had overflowed the three-car garage. There were no signs of a party inside- just too many cars per head. I put the. 38 in my pocket and was all set to go when the rain started. I swore and dug the old oilskin slicker Cyn had given me as a birthday present out of the boot. Cyn had thought I might take up yachting as a civilising pursuit. Another disappointment.
I pulled up the hood and walked back along the road, squinting through the rain. The gates were open, but there was no activity. It was about three hours too early for the high-rollers to show up; probably the hired muscle and the croupiers and the girls hadn’t even arrived yet. The whole scene was tree-framed, shrub-bordered and hedged. I slunk along under overhanging branches from the neighbour’s garden to a point just a few feet from the Nash gate. A quick duck and dive and I was through the gate and under cover again. I worked my way through ti- tree and other foliage until I’d reached the point where the boat ramp branched off. I could see the house now- a two-storeyed, twenty-five-room splendido with too many pillars and steps. The big rooms had balconies, the smaller ones had window boxes.
The rain stopped and I wiped my face with a piece of cloth I found in the pocket of the slicker. When I stuffed the rag back I felt the hard metal of the gun, which was still in my jacket. I debated whether to transfer it to the slicker, but decided against; my policy is to make a gun as unavailable as possible. The fact that I’m still alive and haven’t been shot more than a couple of times convinces me it’s a good procedure.
I stayed close to the brick fence that separated Nash from his or her neighbour. I began to smell the sea before I’d got past the house. The ramp was bricked for some of the way, then made of tarred planks in the best nautical fashion. It was ten metres wide, sloping easily down to a jetty on the left and straight into the water on the right. As well as a lane for boat trailers, there were metal rails for moving heavier craft on wagons and a space for vehicles to back and turn in. A cluster of lights mounted high up over the ramp showed a number of small yachts tied up, and the long wide shape of the houseboat moored directly at the end of the jetty. It had a bulky superstructure, which housed what they probably called state-rooms. All very nice, Cyn would have loved it. Very civilised. But the lights were making the ramp and jetty look like the pitch at a night cricket match. No place for an interloper. Away to the right was a large, open-fronted boatshed wrapped in shadow. I kept clear of the intersecting circles of light and picked my way past a barbecue pit and some garden furniture to the shed.
It rained some more while I waited. The tin roof of the shed amplified the sound but, true to the general standard of the place, didn’t leak. I didn’t explore the inner recesses of the shed more than I needed to. Boat gear is boat gear-oars, ropes, sails, tins of paint and glue. When the rain stopped, other water noise took over-the slap of the sea against the piles of the jetty and the sides of the boats. There was also the creaking of timbers and a thrumming and slapping of the wind against ropes and furled sails. Another sound, which I couldn’t identify at first, underlay all the others. It wasn’t close enough to be disconcerting, but it was puzzling. A growling, scratching, rattling sound. I poked my head out of the shed and tried to see beyond the pools of light. Eventually I located the noise and its source-somewhere on the other side of the boat ramp two dogs were chained up. Poor security; tying up the dogs when you were expecting strangers as guests was the right thing to do, but it had been done way too early.
The action started around midnight. Three cars came down the ramp, turned and unloaded their passengers. I saw white shirts, fur coats and heard the click of high heels. A motor launch cruised up to the dock and there was more movement and sound-motors chugged, feet scraped on wood and metal. A few guys in redjackets appeared from nowhere and got busy. They turned on more lights over the jetty and on the houseboat itself. It was hard to judge the actual size of it from where I was, but it was big, long, wide and high. The redcoats started escorting people to the gangplank with elaborate courtesy. More arrivals by land and sea. I could hear music coming from the houseboat now and see people in clusters on the deck. The wind blew the rain clouds away, leaving a clear, starry sky beneath which the fun people got ready to play.
I counted forty-one people arriving but I might have missed a few when my attention wandered. The redcoats tied up and cast off for the launches, supported the tentative, valet-parked some cars and generally kept things moving. One of them did less work than the others. His main job seemed to be OK-ing a member of each party. After forty minutes he rubbed his hands together and went on board, leaving the other two to stand on the jetty, smoke cigarettes, stamp their feet against the cold and repel all borders. There was no way to get aboard legitimately. Maybe I should have arrived in one of Ray’s boats wearing a tux and with a woman on my arm. But I didn’t have a tux or a woman.
Say what you like, army training can be useful. I fell back on it now instinctively. In a situation like this,
