and credit cards that could not be honoured. He was a quarter of a million in the hole before the problem had come to the casino’s attention. A deal had been worked out for him to pay off the debt, but Ken Galvani’s representative had put a simple proposition to him-withdraw the design from the consideration of the board or the arrangement would be cancelled and Clark would be bankrupted. Knowing of Joe Galvani’s reputation for straight dealing and opposition to his brother, Clark had come to him for help.
Joe, in turn, had come to Scott who had not long taken up the casino job. Scott’s notes contained an account of his conversation with the architect, as well as research into Ken’s position in the management structure and the procedures covering tenders for design, construction and location of the permanent site for the casino. In his notes, Scott speculated about Ken’s motives. There were a number of tenderers for the designing job and Scott had worried about the confidentiality of the system. Scott was a bright operator and he’d homed in on the central question-was there something unique about Clark’s design that would explain Ken’s motive, or was he just throwing his weight around generally?
An entry posing that question was the last one in Scott’s notebook. I flicked back through the pages of transcript to the point where Scott had noted Clark’s address. I stared out through the windscreen at one of the pylons that held up the freeway. High above me the tyres were thumping across the lane markers.
‘Louisa Road,’ I said aloud. ‘Shit me, he was on his way to talk to the architect again.’
I was conflicted, as the Americans say. Suddenly, the fact of Gina being under the control of Ken Galvani disturbed me. It sounded as if Ken was pulling a lot of strings. On the other hand it was imperative to talk to Joe Galvani and to Julian Clark, to try to penetrate the mystery Scott had been scouting around. I dithered; I played back parts of the tape and ran my eyes over the pages, looking for answers and leads I knew were not there. The Commodore came with its own car phone, of course. I rang Gina’s number and got the same, worrying, recorded message from Ken.
Scott had noted the address and number of Joe’s office in Greenwich. I called it and got an engaged signal. I hung up, waited, and called again with the same result.
I sat back in the comfortable bucket seat and tried to feel my way around the various questions. Was Julian Clark a stocky, dark guy who owned a silver-grey Mercedes? It would help if he was. Was Ken Galvani holding his sister-in-law hostage in some way? Had he arranged for his brother to be murdered, and if so, what did an architect’s design for a casino have to do with it?
I riffled through the sheets to see if Scott had entered phone numbers for Julian Clark. No luck. The nearest intact telephone directory proved to be a ten-minute walk and a long wait away. I fumed outside the box while an overweight woman ploughed her way through the books, keeping the phone to her ear and making several calls. She seemed to need all the books at once. I gave up on her and went in search of another phone. The one in the Oxford Street pub had no accompanying directories. I had a beer anyway for my nerves and went back to the booth. Fatty had gone and I seized the yellow pages. The offices of Clark, Perkins amp; Wells were in Chatswood. I groaned at the thought of the drive and hurried back to the car.
I pressed the buttons and rehearsed aloud what I would say.
‘Mr Clark, my name’s Cliff Hardy. I’m a private investigator and I’m… I was a friend of Scott Galvani. I’m calling about… ‘ What? The blackmail attempt? The threat that made you withdraw your design for the casino? Your gambling debts…?
I decided that it was impossible to handle over the phone, cut off the call before it was answered and started the engine. About the last thing I wanted to do was drive to the other side of the city, but no-one ever said that this kind of work was about doing what you wanted. At least I had a good car, with air-conditioning, tape deck and AM/FM radio, to do it in. As I drove I thought about calling Glen until I realised that that would be as difficult a call as the one to the architect. My ex-wife Cyn had made the point long, long ago.
‘You can’t separate the two, Cliff,’ she’d said. Your grotty professional life and the rest. Anyone involved with you feels like a client or a suspect or a bloody victim. You just haven’t got room for anything else.’
I drove back to the city, immune to the elements in the air-conditioned car and protected from a lot of the normal irritations of driving. The Commodore answered the hands and feet instantly; the power steering made it feel as if I could do a couple of other things while driving- like practise my forehand or throw a triple-twenty. I was in the tunnel before I realised that I’d put myself on that route. It wasn’t intentional; I’d made a vow not to use the thing until I’d heard that the millionth car had passed through it. I was deeply suspicious of the tunnel. It seemed like a denial of the bridge and I was a passionate believer in the bridge. Some Melburnian had told me that his kids were terribly disappointed when they’d first crossed the bridge-they’d expected to drive over the arch. In a way, I sometimes felt that I was driving over the arch when I made the crossing. One of my grandfathers had worked on the ferry that had carried people across before the bridge was built. I learned that after I had worked on a case that had forced me to mug up on the history of the coathanger. I think I’m a throwback to that ancestor.
The tunnel had none of that impact. It was like being on a conveyor belt. I felt as if the smooth tarmac would carry me through to the other side whether I drove the car or not. I found myself speeding up to get through it more quickly, and when I emerged into the light I was exceeding the speed limit by twenty Ks. Dangerous to muck around with the forces of nature like that. I eased back and began to think again of what I might say to Julian Clark. Nothing helpful came to mind. Come to think of it, my record with architects wasn’t so hot. Cyn had been an architect, probably still was, as well as happily remarried and a mother of two.
They say you can buy anything in Chatswood and it’s probably true. Costs you, though. I put the tape and the transcript in my pocket, fed a parking meter a block away from where Clark’s office was located and decided to eat and think first. I was charged enough for a salad sandwich to buy two loaves of bread and a couple of lettuces and tomatoes in Glebe. Virtuously, I drank mineral water, promising myself something stronger when I’d finished with this tricky interview. I strolled through the buying shoppers, who didn’t seem to know that there was a recession on, and the lookers who clearly did.
As I approached the steel and glass tower I saw a clutch of police vehicles parked near the entrance. There were a hundred or more people clustered outside the building, some of whom seemed to be upset. The cops were trying to control the crowd and comfort the distressed. I couldn’t get close enough to see what was going on. I circled around and found a similar scene at the back-a hysterical woman, cops under pressure, talking urgently into their car radios, looking edgy. I returned to the front and pushed through close to the section of pavement that had been roped off. An ambulance was drawn up with its wheels over the kerb and the white coats were clustered around a shape on the ground.
‘What happened?’ I asked the person standing next to me, a tall man in his shirt sleeves. His arms were tanned but his face had lost all colour.
‘He jumped from ten floors up. I was looking out the window and I saw him go past. Christ, it was horrible.’
‘Who is he?’
He shook his head and moved back through the crowd. The paramedics had evidently got the go-ahead to move the body. I couldn’t see much but I heard gasps from the people closer in when they got a clearer look at the jumper. The police shouted for the crowd to move back and leave a path for the ambulance. Most stood rooted to the spot and a young constable advanced threateningly. I looked around for the person who seemed to be taking it most calmly and found him in a motorcycle courier who was leaning against his bike, smoking a cigarette.
‘What’s on the tenth floor, do you know?’
‘Yeah, I know. I go in there all the time. You a reporter?’
‘No, I just had a business appointment in the building and I wondered…’
He blew smoke. He must have been all of nineteen years old but violent death didn’t worry him. ‘All architects up there. This guy must have come from the Clark, Perkins amp; Welsh office.’
‘Wells,’ I said automatically.
‘Hey, that’s right. That where you were going?’
‘No. Who was he?’
He dropped his butt on the ground and put the heel of his boot on it. ‘Heard some dude say it was one of the bosses. Fucker probably deserved to die.’
I squinted up at the glistening pile. ‘I don’t see any broken windows.’
He mounted his bike and kicked the stand away. ‘Nah, you can’t break them or open them, ‘cept in the
