second serve. I was solid on the forehand, weak on the other wing, both at the back of the court and at the net. My serve was a reliable, medium-paced kicker.
We played best of three for service and I won. I hadn’t played for almost a year, since a holiday Cyn and I had on the south coast, and I was rusty. I served two double faults, fluffed a backhand, whacked a great forehand volley into the corner, but lost the game when I tried to do it again and missed. Doc’s second serve was very fat- slow with minimum spin. He had me love-thirty with a couple of good first serves and then he faulted with the first ball twice and I passed him easily when he unwisely came in. The game went to deuce and I won it with a good cross-court forehand and a lucky lob.
We both won our serves and were deuce when Doc said we had to surrender the court. I wasn’t sorry, most of the games had gone to deuce with several advantage points-twenty minutes of scampering about in the sun takes its toll when you’re out of practice. Doc went straight into a mixed doubles and after a couple of minutes I was drawn into a men’s with two players about my own standard and one, not my partner, a great deal better. More hard work before we lost seven-five. I sat out for a while and ran my eye over the mob, which had grown markedly as lunchtime receded. They were a well-heeled group to judge from the clothes and accessories-the women sleek and most of the men trying to stay that way, with some notable failures. I played a mixed with a hard-hitting, pretty blonde woman who defended me on the backhand side and we won easily.
I was getting a soft drink from the machine when I spotted Perkins. The club members had their names on magnetised strips fixed to a board. As you joined a foursome your strip was taken from the pool and placed on the board. You went back into the pool after the set until your turn to play came around again. A tall man in immaculate tennis clothes and with short, crinkly red hair placed his strip beside three others. He carried two racquets and wore a sweatband- all just a bit showy to my mind unless he was very good. I removed my visitor’s strip from the pool and went with my drink to Court 8 to watch Andrew Perkins, Barrister-at-Law, at play.
He was good, very good. He was a bit bigger than me, about six-foot-two and around thirteen stone, and, unlike me, he’d been well-coached and every movement he made was economical and efficient. He hit up like a professional, going systematically through the strokes and letting his service action warm up slowly. He could hit flat and with top-spin off both sides; he had a vicious, swinging serve and he was a tiger at the net. He took longer over the hit-up than the others wanted and I saw the frowns and body language and fidgeting that gave me an idea of Perkins’ popularity. He didn’t care. He sharked at the net and his side won the right to serve. He served first and sent down an ace. He won the game to love and took the only point that was really contested with a down- the-line backhand that might have missed fractionally, but no-one bothered to argue.
As a receiver, he seemed bent on humiliation. He lobbed with undisguised enjoyment. His greatest delight was to wrong-foot an opponent. Another couple of games and I’d seen enough. Perkins was a near tournament- standard player with a very nasty streak. His main weakness was a tendency to over-aggression. He missed a smash that he should really have let bounce. His racquet frame paid the penalty for that error.
I played another two sets of mixed doubles, playing once against Doc. He hit some very good shots and was clearly enjoying himself. I did OK, didn’t disgrace myself. I took my strip down after that game and told Doc I’d have to go when Perkins took off.
‘I watched him,’ Doc said. ‘An A-type personality, if ever I saw one.’
I used my towel to wipe away the sweat. Last night’s drinks had been well and truly metabolised. ‘Meaning?’
Doc smiled, ‘Arsehole. Glad you got me out here, Cliff. I was in a rut. Take care of yourself, boy. I won’t shake hands. I imagine you want to put on your cloak and dagger.’
He laughed and walked away, swishing his racquet. When he told me to take care of myself I knew what he meant: Take care of my daughter.
Perkins was playing in a mixed, concentrating his attack on the woman on the other side of the net. She happened to be the blonde I’d played with before and she was standing up to him pretty well. I drifted off towards the members’ car park where there were a good many Volvos, Mercs and BMWs. It came down, I decided, to the black Porsche and the red Alfa Romeo. I took a bet on the Porsche. Back at my car I wriggled out of my shorts and into a pair of jeans. I eased out of the damp tennis shirt, towelled off and put on an old army shirt with a tail that hung down well over the holstered. 38.
I was wrong about the car. Perkins zipped out in the red Alfa two cigarettes later. He seemed to be in a hurry, or perhaps he just drove that way. The tyres squealed on the first turn and he left some rubber on the road at the lights. Maybe that’s what you have to do in a red Alfa. I wouldn’t know. For all the showiness, it was easy to keep up with him. Driving speedway style between the lights in Sydney, you’re lucky to make up any time at all on grandpa out for his weekend spin. I followed him to Double Bay. It was hardly worth the drive. I was surprised he hadn’t jogged it, but maybe the Alfa needed a run. He turned abruptly, barely signalling, and nosed up to the door of a garage, one of a set of eight that seemed to belong to a row of big houses with deep front gardens set up above the road. The garages appeared to be cut into the base of a ridge hill with the houses on the top.
I stopped on the other side of the road just a few yards on and got quickly out of my car. Perkins had used a remote control device to open the garage door. The Alfa slid inside and I went after it into a kind of car cave- sandstone walls, cement floor, fluorescent light. Perkins didn’t notice me until he was out of the car.
‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’ He was all aggression off the court as well as on, quickly detaching his sunglasses, raising one of his racquets threateningly.
‘My name’s Hardy. We have to talk.’
He put the sunglasses on the roof of the car with his keys and the second racquet. ‘You were at the courts. I saw you.’
‘Full marks. You play a mean game.’
He half turned towards a door that led somewhere. A tunnel up to the house? ‘If you don’t leave immediately I’ll call the police.’
‘What will you tell them about Virginia Shaw and the bloke who took a shot at me a couple of hours after I called your office?’
He moved forward, gripping the racquet. Not much of a weapon, but he was bigger than me and, I suppose, sure of himself having just won three or four sets. ‘I don’t know who you are or what you’re raving about,’ he snarled. ‘But I’m warning you, get off my property before you get hurt.’
I moved up, too. ‘I don’t like warnings, Andrew. I like to know what’s going on.’
The use of his first name annoyed and provoked him as it was intended to do. He swung the racquet at my head, but I’d been ready for that from the first and I ducked under the swing and hit him with a short right jolt, just below the mono-grammed pocket of his tennis shirt. A hard blow above the heart can paralyse anyone who isn’t either trained to cope with it or so full of booze and rage it doesn’t matter. Andrew, for all his flash, wasn’t a boxer or a street fighter. He went down in a heap and lay gasping for wind and strength on the concrete floor. He tried to sit up but his legs were jellied and he fell, getting more oil stains on his tailored, sharkskin shorts.
I’d been wanting to hit someone for the past few days and now I’d done it. Somehow, it didn’t give me the satisfaction I’d expected. I looked down at him as he fought for his breath and dignity and suddenly I had doubts. With the wind knocked out of him, his clothes dirty and his pride hurt he didn’t seem so formidable. Also, he looked genuinely puzzled. He levered himself up on unsteady legs, gripped the car door handle and struggled upright.
‘Who… who did you say you are?’
‘Cliff Hardy — I’m a private detective.’
‘You behave like one. I’m calling the police if you don’t leave immediately. I’m going to take some sort of action against you, anyway.’
He was starting to recover his no doubt considerable confidence and I was losing ground. He wasn’t behaving as I’d expected. ‘I want to talk about Virginia Shaw. She’s my client.’
That got his attention but, perhaps understandably, he was more cautious than interested. ‘I’m not sure that I know anyone by that name.’
‘You know her, Perkins. You set her up with Charles Meadowbank. She hired me to deliver you a message.’
‘You have a strange way of carrying out your commissions.’
This wasn’t going anything like the way it was supposed to. I was on the back foot now and he could see it. He massaged the place where I’d hit him, applied a little pressure and winced. I reminded myself about the phone
