'I think so. But what-?'
'Just read it back.'
She did and had it pretty right. I corrected a few things. She didn't like it and tried to press for more personal details but I overrode her. 'Just get that message to Clement or I guarantee you won't have a job tomorrow.'
I cut the connection, rang Oceania Securities and went through the same procedure, except that the message to Barclay Greaves referred to Clive McGuinness rather than Clement's son and the time I specified was midday.
I put the phone down and nodded to Tommy as he went past me out into the yard. He and Sharon wrestled for the rake and both laughed when Tommy let Sharon win. It was the most light-hearted moment I'd seen in some time and it gave me a lift. Then I put in a call to Hank Bachelor. I'd told Clement and Greaves to come alone, but I didn't believe they would and neither would I.
Why is it that, with emails and mobile phones, people are harder to get in touch with than ever? Probably because they move around more. There's spam, so they put off reading emails or wipe them by mistake; the mobiles go on the blink, run out of charge and there are blank spots where they don't work. Whatever the reason, I couldn't get in touch with Hank. I was swearing about it when Lily Truscott rang me.
She doesn't beat around the bush, Lil. 'Anything on Greaves yet?'
'Not yet. Maybe soon.'
'Like when?'
'Don't hold the page, Lil. Put in an ad.'
'I'm not the editor anymore, remember? Oh well, is there anything I can do for you?'
'Thanks. No. Why?'
'You sound stressed, Cliff. Not your upbeat self.'
We talked for a while about nothing in particular and I felt better. I changed into my gym gear and helped
Tommy in the yard so that by evening I was tired. Tommy, Sharon and I cleaned up the remainder of the lunch food as well as plenty of toast. Billie slept or sulked. I slept.
22
I'd been in the QVB a few weeks before buying audio books for my daughter Megan at the ABC shop on the second level of the three-gallery structure. She was going on tour with a theatre company-a lot of boring bus travel. Megan's an addicted reader but, like me, she gets sick trying to read in a bus. Okay on trains and planes. I got her The Woman in White and The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Seemed like a balanced selection. I remembered noticing that the coffee shop had been busy, and I wanted plenty of people around when I confronted Clement and Greaves, to deter them, or more likely their backups, from doing anything violent.
After her additional doses of antibiotics, Billie was feeling a lot better in the morning and was beginning to harass Sharon about her money. I told Sharon to hold off until the afternoon when I hoped to be able to report some development. I had no real expectations; I just wanted to break the deadlock and see where the chips fell.
Clement and Greaves had to be in the dark about a number of things. Clement didn't know that Rhys Thomas was really working for Greaves. God knows what he'd been told about the death of his son. It depended on how Thomas and Kezza had played it, but it was unlikely to be the truth. Greaves had to be wondering about McGuinness and what had happened to the woman he'd had abducted and paid out money for with no result.
With the two women squabbling and Tommy sweating as the day promised to be a scorcher, I was happy to leave Lilyfield. After sleeping in my underwear and sporting a three-day-old shirt, I wasn't feeling fresh. For my own sake, I wanted something to happen, almost anything.
Before leaving the house I wiped Jonas Clement's gun clean of my prints and put it in a green bag. It was a Beretta nine millimetre with the latest word in silencers attached. Highly illegal, but a nice gun if you like guns.
Thomas's pistol was a Glock. There was blood on it- Thomas's or Clement's, I couldn't be sure which. But I'd only handled it by the muzzle so that Thomas's prints were still on the butt. I wiped the muzzle carefully and put it in with the other one. I wrapped a plastic bag around the handles of the green bag. When I took it off there'd be no prints of mine.
Hank Bachelor hadn't been available so I called Steve Kooti. I had the feeling that Kooti, despite his sincerity in turning over a new leaf, still hankered deep down for something more exciting.
'I just want you there as a presence,' I said. 'You don't have to say or do anything.'
'What if I want to say or do something?'
'I'll trust your judgement.'
'And this gets the mess cleared? Tommy can get on with his job and that?'
'I hope so.'
'You don't fill me with confidence, Hardy.'
'Mate, I play it by ear. Are you in?'
(T) 5
'I'm in.'
I found a parking place near the old Fairfax building in Jones Street and walked the rest of the way. The promised thirty-eight degrees were rapidly approaching and I was sweating by the time I got to the QVB. As arranged, I met Kooti on the escalator and we went up to the top level. Then he hung back and I went along to where a row of tables sits beside the gallery. It was eleven fifty exactly and Clement was there. He looked a very different man from the one I'd seen at his party not long back. His face was pale and drawn; his tie knot was slipped down and his shirt was crumpled. He fiddled nervously with the sugar sachets on the table.
I circled stealthily and came up behind him. 'Don't turn round,' I said. 'I'm Hardy and this is your boy's gun.'
I dropped the green bag at his feet.
'Rhys Thomas was quicker on the draw. His gun's in here, too, with his prints on it.'
He half turned, then stopped the movement. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Thomas standing almost hidden by a pillar twenty metres away.
'What the hell do you mean?'
'I don't know what he told you, but Thomas shot your son. I was there. I saw it. He's working for Barclay Greaves. Speak of the devil, here he is.'
Greaves came striding towards us; he was early and agitated. Clement gave a roar of anger. He sprang from his seat and rushed at Greaves, who saw me, stopped and looked confused. Clement swung a wild punch that caught Greaves on the side of the head. He threw up his hands, lost his balance and hit the rail. His arms flailed and it seemed he might right himself, but he was clawing at thin air and he went over. His head cracked on the rail a level below. He let out a strangled cry and fell the rest of the way to the ground. Had to be thirty metres.
They say people sometimes witness violent scenes in the streets, think it's a movie shoot, and move on. Not this time. Women screamed, men yelled, children rushed to the rail and were hauled back. Clement stood still, rooted to the spot by shock. I spoke quickly into his ear. 'Tell the police where Scriven is and they'll go easy on you.'
I drifted away, signalling for Kooti to do the same as the crowd hemmed Clement in. I heard someone say his name and then mobile phones were out and the circus was in town.
As I moved away I noticed Thomas disappear down the stairs. If Greaves had had a minder I didn't see him. Kooti and I took the escalator down. The police and ambulance sirens were sounding before we reached the bottom. The area was empty, everyone either clearing out or gravitating to where Greaves had fallen.
Like all bouncers and enforcers, Steve Kooti had seen some rough things in his time-eyes gouged out and ears bitten off-so he wasn't too fazed, but he shook his head several times and didn't speak until we were out in
