royalties and Public Lending Right’ll do it mostly.’
‘Andy says he doesn’t have any money. Gave it to the sect.’
‘Right.’
‘So he’s either got someone doing it for free or he’s lying about being skint.’
‘You’re getting me worried, Cliff.’
I went over and stroked her frizzy hair. ‘Didn’t mean to. It’s more my problem than yours. Either way, what it means is that he’s got someone he trusts, apart from you and me.’
She took my hand and brought it down to close over her left breast. ‘And what do you think about that, you detective you?’
‘Interesting,’ I said.
Over the next few days I dealt with routine matters. Melanie and I talked on the phone a few times and exchanged some emails. She’d keyed in Piper’s manuscript.
‘That’s a lot of typing,’ I said.
‘I’m a gun typist.’
On Friday she rang to tell me that the contract with Bradley Booth, the publisher, was being signed as we spoke, and the advance would be electronically deposited in her account.
‘Have you cleared the extra expenses with the publisher?’
‘Yes. Bradley’s excited about the book.’
‘That’s good because those costs cut in big time now. I’ll send you our contract by fax, Mel, and leave you to sort it out with the publisher. Probably won’t be able to see you till this is over. Better security for you.’
‘Put a rocket up the writer, whoever he or she is.’
I rang Piper. He gave me the address of a flat in Edgecliff. The block was middle-range expensive. The upkeep of the building was good-clean stairs and landings, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers. I rang the bell at Piper’s door and could feel him looking at me through the peephole. He opened the door. He was in his shirt sleeves and had a pistol tucked into the tight waistband of his pants.
‘Gidday, Hardy. Come in. What did you think of my book?’
‘What makes you think I read it?’
‘A snooper like you? No risk.’
I let that pass and allowed him to shepherd me down the short passage into the flat. The room we entered was big and light. At a guess there were three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen. Not bad for a man who’d given his all to Jesus. The big balcony, accessible through full-length sliding glass doors, worried me. I was about to say something about it when a man came in from one of the other rooms. He was a replica of Piper, thirty years younger-not as fat, dark hair, no beard.
‘This is my son, Mark,’ Piper said. ‘He’s helping me write the book. Mark, this is Cliff Hardy’
Mark Piper looked as if he could’ve done a fair enough job of protecting his father himself. He wore a loose T-shirt, jeans and sneakers. His forearms were tattooed and there was nothing effeminate about the ring in his left ear. His manner was wary and his look close to hostile as we shook.
‘Nice place,’ I said to Andy.
‘Mark’s. He’s by way of being a bit of a journalist.’
‘I don’t like the look of the balcony.’
Piper smiled. ‘Out of bounds for me.’
They had it pretty well set up. Mark Piper had an iMac computer in one of the rooms and was taping Andy’s recollections. The father slept in one room and the son in with his computer. The other bedroom was for me and for Reg Lewis, an ex-army guy I’d hired to spell me. Food was on tap from a local restaurant. No alcohol and no smoking. No women. Monkish.
Over the next few days we settled into the routines. Piper spent some time taping, not that much, and Mark tapped his keyboard. I stayed awake while they slept and slept when Rex Lewis was on duty. Andy insisted on going out to Bible study in Lewisham on Friday night and hymn singing in Marrickville on Sunday. I had to sit in on these sessions. I wasn’t converted. Andy and Mark weren’t good company. They watched a lot of cable and commercial TV.
The news broke in a gossip column in one of the tabloids on Tuesday: ‘A spokesperson for publishing giant Samson House confirmed that disgraced former New South Wales senior policeman Andrew “Black Andy” Piper is preparing his “tell-all” memoirs for publication. Piper is reported to be suffering from terminal cancer and to have found God. Sceptics remain sceptical; the guilty men and women aren’t sleeping well.’
Sunday rolled around and I got behind the wheel of Piper’s Mercedes ready to drive him to wherever the Reverend Dr Eli Jacobsen was selling his snake oil. The car, not new, not old, was a pleasure to drive.
‘Where to?’ I asked.
‘I fancy a drink.’
I almost lost control of the car. ‘A what?’
‘You heard me.’
He’d been swallowing various coloured pills several times a day, every day. ‘Are you allowed to drink with all that medication?’
He didn’t answer for a few minutes, as if he was chewing the matter over. He wasn’t. ‘Nobody tells Black Andy what to do,’ he said.
‘So, where?’
He heaved a sigh. He looked heavier and seemed more tired than in recent days. ‘Clovelly Cove Hotel,’ he said. ‘I’d like to look at the water. Won a surf race there once.’
‘I know you rowed, didn’t know you swam.’
‘You don’t know a lot of things, Hardy.’
We parked close to the pub and walked to it with Piper in the lead, moving purposefully. I was hot in drill trousers, light shirt and cotton jacket to cover the pistol, and he must have been sweltering in his buttoned-up double-breasted suit. If he was, he didn’t show it. He plonked himself down where he had a good view through the plate glass out to sea. Pretty safe. From that angle only someone on a boat could take a pot-shot at him.
‘Get us a schooner of old, Hardy.’
Maybe it was a test to see if I’d get pissed on the job. Maybe he’d just had all the piety and healthy living he could take. Or maybe he’d ring the Reverend Eli to come and save him from sin at the last second. I bought the drinks-a middy of soda and bitters for me-and took them to the table.
He didn’t hesitate, took a long swig and pointed at my glass. ‘What’s that piss?’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘I wont.’ He drank deeply and leaned back in his chair. It creaked under his weight. I hadn’t noticed him eating more lately but then, he was a messy eater and it wasn’t something to watch voluntarily. He looked fatter though. Schooners of old would help that along nicely.
It happened very quickly at first, then seemed to slow down to half speed. The man walked into the bar, headed towards the taps, then swivelled quickly and took two long steps in our direction. He was only a few metres away when his hand came up with a gun and he fired three times. The shots were shatteringly loud. Piper grunted and toppled back. My gun was in my hand and I shot twice as I saw his gun swing towards me. I hit him both times, and his arms flew out and he went down and back as if he’d caught a knockout punch.
The bar erupted into shouts and swearing and breaking glass as some of the patrons stayed rooted to the spot and others headed quickly for the door. I put my pistol on the table in front of me and drew in a deep breath. My eyes were closed and a cordite smell invaded me and made me cough convulsively. When I recovered, I found Black Andy Piper standing beside me, finishing the last of his drink. His suit coat was open, his shirt was unbuttoned and the Kevlar vest under it was an obscene grey-green colour.
‘Knew I could rely on you, Hardy,’ he said. ‘Give the cops a call on your mobile, eh? It’d look better from you.’
It was a total set-up, of course. Charles ‘Chalky’ Whitehead was a former friend and associate and later bitter enemy of Piper. He knew that a no-holds-barred account of Black Andy’s life would point the finger at him for
