to see that the conservative government was in trouble at the polls. The opposition was scoring better on most counts and the commentators were predicting a close election, with some reading it one way and some the other. I’d be back in time to cast my vote for change. It was well past time.
Margaret’s message came through with a number of attachments-two photographs of Henry McKinley, one obviously taken a few years back showing him with his daughter and grand-daughter, who looked to be about ten. There was a photostat of his driver’s licence and several newspaper clippings recording his winning a number of awards-one for a book on water management in the Sydney basin, another some kind of medal from the Australasian Geological Society, and one for the first over-55 finisher in the Sydney to Wollongong cycling race.
Margaret’s notes said that her father owned the townhouse he lived in at Rose Bay, that he had no pets and that his mail went to a post office box, so there was nothing at the flat to indicate that it was unoccupied. She included the phone number and URL of the corporation he worked for and documented the times she had made calls and emailed enquiring about her father. She listed the friends she had referred to when we spoke, and a number for the secretary of the Four Bays Cycling Club. It was an impressive dossier-she was obviously highly organised as well as very worried.
Henry McKinley was tall and lean with tightly curled fair hair. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles and his expression would best be described as good-humoured. Hard to judge from the snapshots and newspaper photos, but he looked weather-beaten, which I guess is natural for a geologist and a cyclist. He was born in Canberra, the son of a public servant father and an academic mother. He did his bachelor and master’s degrees at the ANU, topped off with a PhD from Cambridge. He’d worked briefly as an academic but then branched out into consultancy, taking on commissions from state and local governments and the private sector. He’d worked for mining companies, presumably for big fees, and advised,
I eased back from the screen after absorbing this information.
‘A good bloke,’ I said.
Spending too many days alone, I was beginning to talk to myself. It was definitely time to get in touch with other people. I phoned Margaret McKinley and told her I’d found the material she’d sent both helpful and worrying and that I was relaying it to a colleague in Australia with a recommendation that he begin an enquiry.
‘Thanks, Cliff. Won’t he need. . what’s it called? A retainer?’
‘He’ll need a contract, but we can deal with all that later. I’m booking a flight home for next week and I’ll take it up with him then. His name’s Hank Bachelor. He’s an American, as it happens. Resident in Australia. The reverse of you.’
‘Globalisation,’ she said.
I laughed. ‘Right. Can I see you before I head off?’
We met at a middle-range restaurant of her choice on the edge of the old town, walking distance from my flat. Margaret wore a dress, heels and a linen jacket; I wore a blazer, freshly dry-cleaned trousers and shirt, no tie. We’d dressed for what it was-somewhere between a date and a business meeting. That could have felt uncomfortable but it didn’t. There was a confident easiness about her that communicated itself to me and we were soon chatting, ordering-oysters, fish, boiled potatoes and salad both- and enjoying ourselves. The place was busy without being packed and the service was casual but efficient. We had a bottle of Jacob’s Creek chardonnay.
‘We’re going Dutch, aren’t we?’ she said.
I shook my head. ‘This is my first meal in company since my heart attack. It’s an occasion for me, and you’re my guest.’
She smiled. ‘Should’ve ordered caviar.’
‘Not too late.’
‘I’ve never liked caviar. Never saw what the fuss was about.’
I told her I’d relayed all the material she’d sent me to Hank Bachelor and that I’d see him about it as soon as I got back to Sydney.
‘It’s over a month,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t look good, does it?’
‘A month’s not that long if he’s had an accident and amnesia, or even if he had to take off suddenly for some godforsaken spot and can’t get in touch.’
‘Thanks, but. .’
There was no point in kidding her and she seemed the type to be able to face facts. I asked her whether her father had made a will and she said she didn’t know. I asked if he had life insurance or superannuation. She thought for a while.
‘He said something once about managing his own fund. What are you getting at?’
‘Just that if he’s dead you’d be his heir, wouldn’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘We’ll have to try to track down his lawyer. Maybe this Tarelton mob’ll know.’
She went quiet and we got on with our eating and drinking. She’d already told me that she’d come by taxi because the San Diego police were red hot on DUI. She was drinking her share. I asked her a few things about her work but she barely answered. I tried to tell her something about the private enquiry game in Sydney but she scarcely listened. Eventually she put down her fork (she’d been eating in the American manner, cutting up the food and using her fork), without finishing.
‘If he’s dead,’ she said, ‘and if I inherit his house and his money, I’ll come home to deal with it. But please, please, I don’t want you to find that he’s dead.’
And then she wept.
3
Tom Cruise in Rain Man was wrong about Qantas as he no doubt found out later when he was with Nicole- you didn’t have to go to ‘Mel-born’ to catch it. You could pick it up in LA and fly to Sydney. I gave myself plenty of time to cope with the absurd security screening, tougher in my case because I had a couple of minor criminal convictions to my name. I’d pulled strings to get the entry visa, but the men and women, black and white, in the starched uniforms with the epaulettes checked and rechecked before conceding that Guantanomo wasn’t an option. I travelled first class, stretching my legs, walking about to avoid DVT and enjoying the Australian accents, the beer and the barramundi.
‘Been away long, Mr Hardy?’ a steward named Frank asked, as he poured a Crownie.
‘Felt longer than it really was,’ I said.
‘Right. Home in time to vote.’
‘You bet.’ I raised my glass. ‘To better times and better people.’
A man sitting opposite heard me and did the same, repeating the toast a touch more loudly. I glanced around the section-more smiles than frowns. Encouraging.
At Mascot, I was met by Hank Bachelor and Megan. I shook hands with Hank, and resisted his attempt to take my cabin bag and my single suitcase. I hugged Megan.
She stepped back. ‘We’re an item,’ she said. ‘We think.’
I laughed. ‘Since when?’
Hank said, ‘We sort of got together when we heard about what happened to you in San Diego.’
Their happiness communicated itself directly to me and cut through the jet lag. ‘I should be able to come up with something about the heart and growing fonder and all that,’ I said, ‘but I’m too knackered. Good luck to you. Let’s have a drink.’
A few days later, installed back in my house and with outstanding correspondence and obligations, mostly financial but also social and medical, dealt with, I called on Hank in his Newtown office to talk over the Henry McKinley matter. I climbed the familiar stairs from King Street but now a fluorescent light made them more negotiable. As I was making my way up a man coming down fast bumped into me and almost knocked me off
