Motorcycle couriers all look alike and there was nothing to distinguish the one who’d brought the package from a hundred others. The envelope was completely unmarked. I shook it thoroughly but no note saying ‘Sorry, taken in error’, fell out. I looked through the folders but could see no sign that anything had been removed or tampered with. The delivery of the files in pristine condition increased my already high level of anger. Here was I doing my Lord Nelson act, facing months of incapacity and all for nothing. It would almost have been better to have got them back ripped to shreds or soaked in blood. At least that might have meant something.
I read the files through carefully before phoning the business number for Angela Prudence Cornwall. Ms Cornwall was apparently a partner in a company controlling a number of up-market florist shops. I would have expected the recession to hit hard at the flower business-after all, you can go out and gather them for free if you try-but the addresses were prestigious and the phone operator who put me through to Ms Cornwall sounded very secure in her job.
‘Angela Cornwall.’
‘My name’s Hardy, Ms Cornwall. I’m a friend and former colleague of Scott Galvani who was engaged by you some time before he was killed. You were aware that he was dead, I take it?’
The voice was as cool as a lily. ‘Of course, yes. I was very sorry to hear about it. May I ask how you come to know about my dealings with Mr Galvani?’
I explained to her that I was tidying up loose ends in Scott’s business affairs, had no intention of prying into her circumstances and was bound by the PEA code of confidentiality, having thought the expression up on the spot.
‘I see. Well, what can I do for you?’
‘Did Mr Galvani conclude the enquiry?’
‘Did I pay him, do you mean?’
‘No, not at all. I’m uninterested in that side of things. I imagine his executor and accountant will concern themselves there. I’m talking about the professional aspect.’
‘Very well. Mr Galvani made me an entirely satisfactory verbal report and I sent him a cheque. He undertook to submit a written version and a full accounting, but it hasn’t arrived. I assumed that.. well, what happened to him, prevented that. I’m sorry, did you say that you were a friend of his?’
‘Yes, I was. Thank you for your cooperation, Ms Cornwall.’
‘I liked Mr Galvani. He was knowledgeable about flowers.’
‘Was he? I didn’t know that, but I’m not surprised. He was knowledgeable about a lot of things.’
‘Can you tell me, Mr Hardy, what happens to the records of private investigators in these circumstances? I take it you’ve read Mr Galvani’s file on me. I might say that I’m soon to be married.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you, but you will understand my concern.’
The question had never occurred to me. My own files, chaotic though they were and some of them no doubt eroded by time and insects, were full of secrets. Some cryptically concealed, others obvious. I wondered what had happened to the records of all our predecessors, stretching back into the ‘Brownie and bedsheets’ era and encompassing almost every known human foible. I had no answer-probably deposited on the various city dumps or burnt-but I decided to play Ms Cornwall straight, the way she’d played me. I told her I didn’t know the answer in general terms, but that I would personally forward her file to her, if that was what she wanted.
‘Thank you, Mr Hardy. That is very understanding of you.’
‘As a last question, how long was it before he was shot that you heard from him? I take it he telephoned?’
‘Not at all. He came to see me in the shop at Double Bay. He told me about the new job he’d taken and, well, he spoke to me for some time.’
‘Could you tell me how he behaved, how he looked and sounded?’
‘I thought there was more to this than you admitted. What are you up to, Mr Hardy?’
‘I haven’t been entirely frank with you. His wife has hired me to investigate his death. I’m in the process of eliminating…’
‘I understand. I wish you luck. I saw Mr Galvani two nights before he died. I would say he was extremely tense and agitated.’
I wasn’t nearly as lucky with the Roberts file. The footballer’s private number didn’t answer and a club official told me that Mr Allan Thurgood, the secretary responsible for inserting the no-drinking clause in Roberts’ contract, was on leave. Brian Roberts, I was informed, would be training at the club’s practice ground in Marrickville later in the afternoon. I decided that I had to get out of the house. Driving the Falcon was out of the question but I thought I could probably manage the Pulsar’s automatic transmission. I collected my bits and pieces and Glen’s keys and went out to the car. After a bit of experimentation, I discovered I could engage drive and release the handbrake with my right hand. By keeping the left hand low on the wheel, steering wouldn’t be a problem and, even if it did hurt a bit, I’d been told that was therapeutic.
The car handled well and I complimented the man in charge at the Newtown service station where I left the cheque.
‘Good. How’s Glen?’ he said.
I used to play football myself in Marrickville when I was a member of schoolboy and junior district teams. Then it was a solidly WASP working-class area, always with a few more churches than I felt comfortable with. It’s changed enormously over the past decades with Greeks, Turks and Vietnamese moving in and giving it life and variety. I drove down Addison Road and took the turn at Livingstone Street just to see how the bizarre three- winged building on that corner was looking. My work rarely took me to this part of Sydney and I hadn’t seen the place in years. The building is like a cross between a Moorish palace and a redbrick university administration block. I’d been told that it was put up by a squatter with a large family and has served many functions since, like a Salvation Army training school. I was pleased to see that it was still standing. At a guess it had been converted into apartments.
The football ground was beside the Cooks River to the east of the municipal golf course. The Gregory’s told me that a strip of parkland ran alongside the river for several kilometres, with picnic spots and barbecues. The last time I was close to the Cooks River I would have thought twice about eating anything within a hundred metres of it. I parked near the entrance to the golf club, ducked under a fence and went through a clump of trees and across a stretch of grass to the oval. I seemed to be haunting sporting arenas lately, but this time I had a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 revolver in a holster that sat above my right buttock. It might have made me look a little lop-sided, but a one-armed private detective can’t afford to take any chances.
The afternoon was cool and a couple of players were already jogging around the oval, slinging a ball between them, getting ready for the time when their courage and collarbones would be on the line. I wandered across to the group of watchers, some in shorts and singlets, others in civvies. They were standing in several knots of two or three, watching the ones doing the sweating. A couple of the onlookers broke away and joined the doers. My arm was aching and I hooked my left thumb into my belt and let it hang there. An overweight man in white singlet and shorts and wearing a floppy hat jogged out onto the oval. Despite his size he ran well, an old athlete gone to seed but retaining the moves. He gesticulated and shouted and the players fell into a series of routines, doing his bidding.
I moved into the shade, close to four men, two white and two black, who were standing around a half- carton of beer cans. Resch’s Pilsener. Good beer.
I used to be a Rugby Union man and only got interested in League when I took up with Glen, who is a passionate Newcastle supporter. I’m still divided about the merits of the two codes, and was a little surprised to see that the players seemed to be concentrating on speed and ball-handling skills rather than the more physical stuff. One of the Aborigines, built more on the lines of a tennis player than a footballer, plucked a can from the box and came towards me.
‘Fancy a beer, mate?’
I accepted the can and opened it awkwardly, one-handed. ‘Thanks.’
‘Wouldn’t be from the press, would you?’
I drank some of the cold beer and shook my head. ‘No.’
He finished off his own can and crushed it expertly in his hand. ‘Club supporter, eh?’
