political history and serious literature, with historical novels from a variety of periods thrown in for light relief. Madden’s golf shoes were pricey but not new, likewise his clubs, which were stored in a cupboard under the stairs. There were a couple of bottles of wine in a rack, a half-empty bottle of riesling and a couple of cans of beer in the fridge. I sat down at the study desk, opened the drawers and went through his papers like an auditor. I found ample evidence of an orderly, bill-paying person. A tax-paying person with a superannuation scheme to guarantee him a comfortable but not riotous retirement. Madden kept his credit card slips for tax purposes, and there was too big a stack of them to go through in detail. A quick shuffle showed nothing out of the ordinary. There was a registration paper for a 1987 Ford Laser with an expiry date in February of the current year. No evidence of renewal. Madden had a chequebook and a savings passbook with unremarkable balances, deposits and withdrawals. No diary, no medical bills out of the ordinary, no love letters or blackmail threats.
I found two photograph albums, neither very carefully kept or annotated. The pictures emphasised the normality and stability of Madden’s life-there was a continuity to them, a continuity of people and places from young adulthood to middle age. The only interruption to the even flow was the absence from the snapshots, dating from about thirty years back, of the bright-eyed, dark-haired young woman who had been Brian Madden’s wife. There were plenty of photographs of Louise, charting her growth from childhood to late teens. Only the odd picture from that point on. No shots from foreign holidays, no handsome schoolboys or young girls with old eyes.
A stack of letters lay on the living room table. I surmised that Louise had collected them on an earlier, worried visit to the flat and that there would be more now in the letterbox. I examined the letters but found nothing remarkable about them. The con-tents of most could be guessed from the envelopes-bills, subscriptions due, invitations, professional bumf. The telephone was on a shelf in the kitchen-stool beside it, pad for messages, address and telephone number book to hand. I’d recently met a young woman who didn’t know the telephone number of her own flat, which she shared with a couple of friends. When I asked her how she rang home, she said. “I’ve got the number on auto-dial at the office. I don’t need to know it.” None of that nonsense for Brian Madden-his phone was the old, dial-it-yourself model and his address and numbers book was as old as the phone.
I raised all the blinds in the kitchen and sat down at the table to leaf through the book. Madden had printed the surnames and street names, but the numbers and first names were written in a hurried scrawl that probably came from taking lecture notes and marking essays. He seemed to know a lot of people and had recorded a good many institutional and business numbers, but not more than you’d expect for a well-educated man with broad interests-a theatre booking agency, several restaurants and hotels, the State library and gallery, the ABC, David Jones, four taxi companies, two plumbers, an electrician and so on. I recognised some of the personal entries: the journalist Max Walsh, the cartoonist Bruce Petty. Several of the names were crossed out, and since these included those of George Munster and Xavier Herbert, I concluded that these people were dead. I’m not big on intuition, let alone premonition, but I felt something not rational or logical at work as I looked at that entry-’X. Herbert, Red Lynch, Queensland, 4899’, and the post office box number-with the firm lines passing through the letters, almost obliterating them. I sensed that Brian Madden was dead.
I put the address book down and went for another wander, in a sombre mood now, alert to different things, through the flat. Most of the rooms carried a picture or two on the walls. A few originals by artists I didn’t know; a couple of prints-a Roberts and a Streeton. Nice middle-of-the-road stuff. Over the small fireplace in the study there was a framed, enlarged-to-a-metre-square copy of the famous photograph that showed the two arches of the Sydney Harbour Bridge just before they were joined. The figures of workmen, right on top of the structure, stood out starkly against a light sky.
The morbid feeling stayed with me as I moved through the rooms. I was irritated with myself for giving way to it and tried to find something to give it rational support-pills, whisky bottles, burnt paper, a bloodstain. I found nothing. Feeling foolish, I examined the golf clubs, which told me nothing except that Madden apparently used the whole set, like someone who knew how to play the game. I upended the bag and only leaves, flakes of mud and a couple of balls fell out. In one of the zippered pockets I found a batch of score cards. All but two of the cards were Madden’s. He shot consistently in the 80s. One card had a jotting on it to the effect that Henry Bush owed Madden ten dollars after losing to him by three holes. The card was dated eighteen months back. Two of the cards were marked up in a different hand and carried the name Dell Burton. Madden and Dell Burton had played rounds together on 1 and 25 April at Chatswood. Madden had shot 86 to Burton’s 87 on the first round; they’d both shot 88 on the second.
I found a telephone number and an address in Chatswood for Burton, D. in Madden’s book. You didn’t have to be Einstein to work out that Dell Burton was ‘the woman’ Louise Madden had referred to. What else is there to do with ‘the woman’? I sat on the stool and dialled her number.
“Hello.” Good voice, educated but not toffee. Mature-sounding.
“I’d like to speak to Dell Burton.”
“Speaking. Who’s this?”
“My name is Hardy, Ms Burton. I’m a private detective. Louise Madden has hired me to investigate her father’s disappearance.”
“Brian’s daughter? He said he’d never discussed me with her. I can’t believe she gave you my number.”
“No. She’s aware of your existence, but nothing more. I’m calling from Mr Madden’s flat right now. I found a golf score card with your name on it, and your number in his address book.”
“I see. A private detective, um, I don’t know. I’ve been calling Brian’s number for weeks. I’ve been to the flat. I thought about going to the school, but…’
“I’d very much like to talk to you. Can I come to Chatswood and see you? Is there a problem in that?”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Hardy, Cliff Hardy. You can look me up in the phone book and you can call Louise Madden, if you want to check on me.”
“I’ll think about that. This is a little bit difficult, Mr Hardy.”
“Could we meet somewhere else?”
“I’m married. God, I’ve been so worried about Brian! I can’t understand what’s happened. Is he…?”
“I don’t want to cause you any trouble, Mrs Burton. I just want to talk about Mr Madden. I need to understand him better if I’m to be of any use. His daughter loves and admires him.”
“So do I, Mr Hardy.”
“Good. Not many men have that much luck. He must be a man worth knowing and worth finding. I need to talk to you.”
A pause while she digested that, and what else? Does a Chats wood wife meet a man who announces himself as a private detective over the phone? On the other hand, can a woman who has heard nothing from her lover in a month afford not to meet someone who’s apparently in the know?
“You wouldn’t blame me for being cautious would you?” she asked.
“Not at all.”
“Then I will look you up in the phone book, Mr Hardy. Tell me, how did you get into Brian’s flat?”
“His daughter told me where to find the key, under the flowerpot.”
“I’ll call the number in a few minutes.” She hung up sharply.
Smart woman, I thought. Taking pre-cautions, keeping the initiative. I flicked through the address book and located a name and number for Henry Bush. When the phone rang I picked it up immediately and said, “Hardy.”
“I’ll meet you, Mr Hardy. There’s a coffee shop in Chatswood immediately across from the railway station. It’s called the Chatterbox. Let’s meet there in half an hour.”
“Fine. How will I know you?”
I heard her sigh, and there was some-thing like a catch in her voice when she next spoke. “Have you looked through Brian’s things?”
“Some of them. I’ve been pretty thorough, I think.”
“Have you seen a photograph of a golf foursome? Brian, a tall, bald man and two women?”
“I think so.”
“I’m the woman in the red sweater. The other man is my husband.”
I thanked her, hung up and went back into the study for the photograph albums. I had seen the photo but hadn’t paid it much attention. A fine day on the golf course-ruddy cheeks, cotton shirts, windblown hair. Madden
