I went to bed with my coffee and brandy and paracetamol buzz with one comforting thought. There hadn't been time for Bob Armstrong to alert anyone to my interest in Clement and activate the Thomas heavy brigade. That still left the question of how, when and why Clement came to think me worthy of his plutocratic attention.
Lou Kramer rang me before eight the next morning. She said she was using some flexi-time she'd racked up before she went on to a part-time contract to work at home and was too busy to meet me anywhere. She asked me to come to her flat. No harm in sussing out the client's residence. I got a taxi to Balmain and picked up the car. Untouched. I parked with dubious legality, walked a block, and buzzed at the door of the newly and expensively renovated old building in Surry Hills. It stood across from Ward Park, named after Eddie Ward, 'the firebrand of East Sydney', a hero of my father's. Fewer of Eddie's kind of voters around here now.
'The Surrey Apartments'- six floors and from the top there'd be a great view of the city whichever way you looked.
'Push, Cliff. Fifth floor.' I pushed and the door released. The lift was smooth and quick and she was standing with the door open when I got there.
'Jesus Christ, you just said you'd been knocked about a bit.'
'It's not as bad as it looks.'
She beckoned me in and kept staring at my battered face. 'That reminds me of that joke about Wagner-his music's not as bad as it sounds. Can you see out of that eye?'
'Sure. So this's what you pay the big mortgage on? Pretty nice.'
'Location, location, location.'
The apartment had a short, wide hallway giving on to a big, light, airy living room with several rooms leading off it. The windows ran from waist high almost to the ceiling and the outlook was to the east. I'm always amazed to see how many trees there really are in Sydney. The sky was cloudy and visibility wasn't good but I suspected there'd be a view of water on a clear day. The room had a good lived-in feel, with books, magazines, CDs and DVDs not put away where they belonged. What looked like the day's broadsheets lay around, haphazardly folded open.
At her invitation I sat near a low table on a comfortable chair and she brought in coffee. She glanced at her watch as she set the tray down.
'I won't keep you long.'
'Sorry. It's just that I have to make the most of this time for my own work.'
'Understood.'
She wore loose pants, sandals and a denim shirt. The top of a packet of her anti-smoking gum peeked from the breast pocket. No makeup, hair barely combed. Working, and not bothering about anything else.
'I'll get to the point,' I said. 'Have you told anyone about hiring me?'
'Why?'
Not the answer I'd hoped for. 'Because I think Clement was behind the attack on me. There was more to it than just Thomas getting even. By the way, does Clement have a son?'
'Yes, big lump of a lad, a nasty type, did a bit of mercenary work-Jonas Junior.'
'He was there last night. More or less in control. You haven't answered my question, Lou.'
'I told someone, yes.'
'Who?'
'I can't tell you.'
I drank some coffee and looked at her. She drank and didn't look at me. 'Why not?' I said.
'I'm not supposed to be seeing him. He's married and all that.'
'You think I'd spill it to 'Stay in Touch'?'
She shook her head. 'Of course not. It's just that I promised him I wouldn't tell anyone. Look, Cliff, I trust him. He wouldn't…'
'Does he have any connection with Clement?'
'I… I'm not sure.'
'C'mon, Lou.'
She wasn't the kind of woman you could push. She flared. 'Do you want to back out?'
I looked around the room again. It had the appearance of a journalist's place-lots of print, up-to-date media machines, a couple of Whiteley prints and Dupain's 'The Sunbather' on the walls. I finished my coffee and stood.
'Let me see your workroom.'
'Shit, why?'
'Indulge me.'
She shrugged and pointed to a half-open door. I went into a room with the blind drawn. Bookshelves, filing cabinets and a big pine table with an iMac computer, printer, scanner and thumb drive lit by a desk lamp. The surface was awash with scribbled notes on post-its, notepads covered with scrawled handwriting, pens and pencils. Squinting in the dim light, I browsed the bookshelves. The Paul Barry best-selling jobs on Bond and Packer; Christine Wallace on Germaine Greer; D'Alpuget on Hawke; Watson on Keating; Knightley's A Hack's Progress; some Richard Hall and a full shelf on African travel, politics and economics. And much else-Bernard Levin, Clive James, David Leich, Paul Theroux, and Bob Ellis. She was a journalism junkie, with a yen to travel.
I turned back to see her standing in the doorway. She opened her hands and did a perfect imitation of the guy in the beer commercial who freaks out his girlfriend in the spa.
'What?'
I grinned. 'Nothing. What you read you are.'
'Another stolen line.'
'Right. I don't think I'm getting a fair shake here. Your cheque's going to bounce-'
'It'll clear tomorrow.'
I ignored her. 'You won't tell me your deadline; you say Eddie was murdered but the official version is it was an accident; you won't name your mystery man…'
‹T› ›
I m sorry.
'Tell me the deadline.'
'Oh, all right. I've got three months to finish the bloody thing and I'm battling to make it, especially if…'
'You don't find Billie.'
'Yes. Are you pulling out?'
'No,' I said. 'It's personal now.'
5
I told Lou to be careful about where she went and the company she kept. If my suspicion that Clement had tried to frighten me off was right, he wouldn't be beyond renewing his attacks on her. Except that I was an independent operator in a not-highly-regarded profession and she was in the media, the new aristocracy.
'I go from here to the office and back as it suits me and them. That's it,' she said. 'I phone out for groceries, grog and pizza.'
'What about when you meet up with Mr X?'
'Oh, I'd be safe enough with him.'
I left and went to the gym for the lightest of workouts and a long soak in the spa. Back in the office I worked the Internet and the phone. I discovered that Liston was officially one of the thirty most disadvantaged postcodes in the country according to a sociological survey. The suburb had been named after a local farm and had become a dumping ground for battlers needing Department of Housing help in the eighties. Back then, it was at a distance from Campbelltown-out of sight and mind. It had a very high level of unemployment and welfare dependency and a considerable Aboriginal population.
