quilt.
“Possible, I suppose,” he said lamely. “Is that your theory?”
“I haven’t got a theory, just a feeling. It’s a strange one. I never heard of two ransoms being asked before. Complicates things. Not that they’re not messy enough already.”
“Madeline told me you’d rung the other night. By complicated you mean about the Abo? What’s happened since then?”
I gave him an outline leaving Coluzzi out and not going into details about Noni’s reputation in Newcastle. He couldn’t help on that score; he’d practically lost all touch with the girl from the time his wife had left to when Noni turned up motherless. Ted’s instincts, bred in the SP game and sly grogging, were to avoid the police, so he fell in with my suggestion that we keep the police out of it for the time. I had a feeling, which I was backing, that the girl wasn’t in danger. But the cops wanted to talk to her in connection with Simmonds’ death and if they started poking around and stirring things up it could all turn sour and Noni might suddenly become dispensable. I gave Ted the gist of this and he agreed to raise the money and wait for the contact.
“I think that’s just plain stupid,” Madeline Tarelton said from the doorway. She came in carrying a glass of water and some pills on a tray. She set them down on the bed and gestured at her husband to take them. He did. I pocketed the note and got up from my chair.
“Just a minute,” Madeline said quickly. “This is insane, you must go to the police.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “And your husband agrees with me.”
She snorted. “You’re playing games. I have my doubts about you Mr Hardy. This is a mistake.”
“Keep out of it Madeline,” Ted said sharply. Maybe the pills had done him some good. Madeline swung round on him, surprised, but he cut her off.
“You don’t give a damn about the girl, she’s nothing to you. Alright, fair enough, but she’s my daughter and I want her back safe. We’ll do it Hardy’s way.”
“That’s not fair!” Her composure was disturbed which looked like a rare event. “That girl is a menace, the dregs, she…”
“Shut up!” Ted roared. His face turned purple.
“Don’t shout, you’ll have another attack.”
I left them to it and went down the stairs and out of the house.
I pulled up the hood of the light, plastic parka I was wearing and walked through the drizzle to Oxford Street where I caught a bus to the city. On the bus I read yesterday’s paper. Simmonds’ death got a small notice on page four in between an item on rail fares going up and the birth of an elephant at the zoo. The police appealed to the blonde woman who’d found the body to come forward. The Chev Biscayne was described. The woman and the car were the police’s only lines of investigation. I couldn’t imagine the La Perouse blacks identifying Noni to the police, however much they disliked her, but some back-tracking by the cops could turn her name up soon and then the heat would be on me.
I got off the bus outside The News building and bought the morning paper. There was nothing more on Simmonds but the discovery of an injured woman on her farm near Macleay got a mention. The woman was in a critical condition in Macleay hospital and police were anxious to interview a tall dark man wearing light-coloured clothes and carrying a dark coat. If they were any good it wasn’t going to take the local police long to trace that man from his taxi to his breakfast to his shave. I’d used the name Colin Hocking for the plane ticket but a quick scout about at Newcastle would turn my car up and then I could expect visitors. On the sporting page there was a preview of the fight coming up between Jacko Moody and Tony Rosso. It would be the first main event for them both. They had good, rather similar records, but Moody had KO’d two men whom Rosso had only decisioned and he was favoured to win. It reminded me that I had to get tickets from Harry Tickener for Ted Williams.
The News building is a standard glass, concrete and plastic tower which creates a canyon without and neuroses within. The lobby was hung about with glossy blow-ups of press photographs that showed politicians with beer bellies and worn-out smiles, football players spattered with mud and fashion models of unbearable thinness. I went up to the fourth floor where Harry shares some cramped office space with thirty other reporters. They steal each other’s cigarettes and listen to each other’s phone conversations. I wound through the desks and wastepaper bins. Harry’s typewriter was blasting.
“Hallo Cliff – hang on a second.” He pushed a lock of his thin yellow hair back and stabbed at his keyboard with long, tobacco-stained fingers; three of them.
“Carry on exposing,” I said. I sat down in the hard chair drawn up in front of the desk and rolled a cigarette. The old tobacco had tasted bad enough last night; this morning it was disgusting. Tickener stopped pounding and stretched both hands up in the air. Nothing creaked, he was still young.
“What can I do for you Cliff?”
“Two things; tickets to the Moody fight – a pair. OK?”
“Yeah, no trouble. You coming with me?”
“I hope so. I’ve got something on but it should be worked out by then, one way or another. Remember the guy we met at Trueman’s?”
“Oh yeah, the actor. His bird was missing. Flushed her?”
“Not yet. Now the other favour.”
He looked quickly down at his typewriter, picked up a pencil and made a note on the copy.
“Are you sure you’ve got the time Harry? I’d hate to throw your schedule out.”
He looked embarrassed. “Shit. Sorry Cliff. It’s this piece on Moody. I want to get it right.”
“Read A. J. Liebling. Who’s your top crime man?”
“Garth Green.”
“Good memory? Knows the files?”
“Steel trap.”
“Will you introduce me to him?”
“Sure, when?”
“Now.”
He looked relieved and jumped up from his chair.
“Steady,” I said. “Are you sure he’ll be in?”
“He’ll be in.” Tickener came around the desk. “He works till two p.m. and drinks till two a.m. Let’s go.”
I followed him. There were a few people walking about in the corridor and a small clutch of reporters was grouped talking in a doorway. They parted like the waters when a six-foot girl with close-cropped red hair walked through the door. She was wearing boots, a long dark skirt and a tight-fitting jacket and she carried her head like a Queen. She had a high, proud nose and big dark eyes in a face as pale as a lily. I gaped with the journos but Harry seemed not to notice her and kept on his way. I wondered about Harry. He knocked on a door which had stuck to it a file card with the name garth green typed on it in lower case.
Tickener pushed the door open and I went in after him. A big man in shirtsleeves with heavy striped braces was sitting in a swivel chair looking out the window. With his grizzled balding head and meaty arms he looked like a cop which probably helped him in his calling. Looking out the window was probably a good idea for a crime reporter too. As sure as hell there’d be some of it going on out there. He turned slowly round to face us.
“Hello boy wonder,” he said.
Harry laughed a little more heartily than he needed to. “Garth, this is Cliff Hardy, he…”
“Private man, I know.” He leaned forward to shake hands. “Glad to meet you.” I trusted him with my hand and he gave it back to me undamaged.
“Hardy’s on a case Garth, and he could use some help. I thought you might have something for him. OK?”
Green waved at him and pulled a cigar out of his shirt pocket.
“I’ve got a piece on the run,” Tickener went on. “I’ll just get back to it.”
Green waved again and Harry gave me a nod before he scampered off.
“Good bloke, Harry,” Green said. He lit the cigar. “Doing well too. What can I do for you? Who do you want the shit on?”
“Not like that. It’s criminal history I’m after.”
“Why don’t you ask your mate Evans?”
“You’re well informed.”
