work behind their blue and white tape up at the flats, and then went into the convenience store for some painkillers and on to the Gladstone for a long overdue drink.
Over the beer, with the paracetamol cutting in to dull the pain in my shoulder, I reflected on what had happened and how things stood. The police didn’t believe me but there wasn’t much they could do about it. The four thousand dollars plus wasn’t a lot of money, not enough to positively contradict my story. That might change if they found a sizeable amount of the money I’d paid out to Montefiore and Fay in Noumea lying around in their flat, but somehow I doubted they would. Those two were the type to spend it and stash it.
I’d described the gunman accurately to the police, which is to say hardly at all. The quick look I’d had at him was consistent with what I’d been told about the Noumea mystery man, but it also fitted about eighty per cent of the Australian adult male population. The name was further from our grasp than before. But maybe not completely out of reach. There was a chance that Reg Penny knew it, just a chance. A better than even chance of knowing lay with Stewart Master, but he wasn’t likely to cough it up. The ‘man without a name’ was in Sydney; he knew my car and office and probably my house. Did he know Lorrie? Hard to say.
I had a second beer and a toasted sandwich and felt more or less composed. I’d left my mobile in the car. I used the hotel’s public phone to call Bryce O’Connor and was put straight through to him.
‘This is a mess, Hardy.’
‘Could be worse. Lorraine and I could be dead. Or maybe you wouldn’t consider that worse.’
A pause. ‘I don’t get your meaning.’
‘Forget it. I’m stressed. The cops say she’s probably gone from Balmain hospital by now. Where is she?’
‘I’m not sure I should tell you. What in God’s name has been going on?’
‘I could fill you in, I suppose, if you dropped the outraged manner and cooperated. A very dangerous person is out there. It’s all to do with Stewart Master’s conviction-a cooked-up job. You’re involved at that point. Then there’s my investigation and who knows how wide it could spread? We’ve got a dead man in Noumea and two dead people here in Sydney. And a wounded woman-your client and mine. This goes beyond the legal niceties, Mr O’Connor. Where the fuck is she?’
‘She’s in the Cartland private hospital in Bellevue Hill. I thought she should be near her business associates and her children.’
‘Very thoughtful. I hope you arranged for security.’
‘I did. There’s a guard.’
‘Good. Contact him and authorise access for me on proof of identity.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because if you don’t, Bryce, when all this gets sorted out, and it will, I’ll tell how you helped to set Stewart Master up for a gaol stretch he didn’t really earn.’
‘You’re being ridiculous, but I’ll make the call and Lorraine can deal with you herself. What possessed you to take her to this criminal meeting I can’t imagine. I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t report you to whatever sleazy authority supposedly regulates your profession.’
‘Nice speech. Good stuff in court, but it sounds like bullshit to me.’
He hung up. Accusing him was a shot in the dark and I couldn’t tell whether it had struck home or not. He was a smooth one, possibly worth his price whoever paid. I rang the Cartland and was told that Mrs Master was sleeping peacefully. The nurse brought the guard to the phone and he confirmed that O’Connor had rung him. He sounded young, alert and American.
‘Please ask when it’d be possible for me to see her,’ I said. I heard some murmuring and then he came back on the line.
‘They say later today, around five o’clock.’
‘Thanks, I’ll see you then. You are…?’
‘Hank Bachelor. Mr Hardy, what exactly is the threat here?’
‘Look out for a guy in a stocking mask with a silenced pistol,’ I said.
The Cartland was as unlike the Victorian piles that house most of our public hospitals as it was possible to be. In fact, with its tinted glass and white bricks and landscaping, it reminded me of the Atlas gym. Lorrie was in a private room of course, on the third floor, no doubt with a view.
Hank Bachelor had the size and the physical presence for his job and the boredom that kind of work entails hadn’t yet taken its toll on him. He watched my approach carefully with his hand on something nestling in his lap. I stopped a few metres away and said my name.
He nodded and I went closer. He put his piece of equipment on the chair and stood. He shook my hand vigorously, told me that ‘the lady’ was looking forward to seeing me, and that he aspired to be a private enquiry agent himself. He was doing the TAFE course.
‘Interesting work, huh?’
‘It can be, but there’s also a lot of this sort of sitting around and waiting.’
He looked crestfallen but only for a moment. He had that buoyant Yank attitude they graft onto them somewhere in their formative years. ‘Not looking for an assistant, I suppose?’
‘You’ve got a job.’
‘I could moonlight.’
At a guess, he was in his mid-twenties and about the same size and weight I was at his age. His dark hair was held back in a short, tight ponytail and he wore jeans, a long-sleeved navy T-shirt and Doc Martens. I nodded at the object on the chair.
‘What’s that?’
‘Tazer, man.’
‘Illegal in this country’
‘So’s marijuana and obscene language.’
I laughed and gave him my card. ‘You never know, Hank. You never know. I might be able to use you. Where’re you from?’
‘Where d’you want?’
‘Not Texas.’
‘I’m not from Texas. Go right in, Mr Hardy.’ Lorraine Master was sitting up against a nest of snowy pillows. Her complexion, which I’d thought of as olive or something close, was several shades lighter. Her features were drawn and I could see lines I hadn’t seen before. Her dark eyes, distorted by the anaesthetic, looked all the bigger in her slightly pinched face and she actually looked more attractive, like a rather bigger Edith Piaf. She wore a white hospital gown and she tried to hold her arms out to me. The heavy dressing on her right shoulder stopped the gesture and she winced at the involuntary movement.
‘Easy, Lorrie,’ I said. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry I got you into this.’
Her eyes sparkled through the dulling effect of the painkillers. ‘Fuck you, Hardy, you’re sexist. Get it right. I got you into it.’
18
She told me that the police were giving her twenty-four hours to recover from her wound before interviewing her and that O’Connor would be present.
‘Mmm.’
‘What does that mean?’ she said.
‘We had a small falling out over the phone. I accused him of helping to set Stewart up.’
‘Christ, did he?’
‘I don’t know. I was trying to pressure him so I could get to see you. It was hard to judge his reaction. Anyway, you’ve got nothing to worry about.’
‘Thanks. I suppose you’ve been shot lots of times.’
‘I’m sorry, I meant-’
