‘So you’re still working on it. Are you getting anywhere?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Good. Stay with it and remember, any help you need I’m here.’
Kinsolving called an hour later and said he’d be happy to speak with me and he could give me some time at his Bondi Junction rooms at 2 pm that afternoon.
‘Did you call Ray Frost?’ I said.
‘I had someone call him, yes.’
That’s the way top people handle things. He sounded poised and confident and as if I should feel privileged to be talking to him in person. I hadn’t met any of the people in Kinsolving’s photo lineup, but then, he’d probably never met Brett Kirk or Jimmy Barnes. Remembering the doc’s sartorial style, I wore the suit. I didn’t think I’d need the gun.
Kinsolving’s rooms were in a street close to the shopping centre but not too close. The street featured a row of elegant terrace houses with tiled porches reached by tiled paths and steps. Well-maintained iron fences, tasteful gardens, imposing teak doors. I mounted the steps and pressed the buzzer. A click told me a surveillance camera had taken a look at me. Then the door opened and I walked into a carpeted passage that smelled of money.
A discreet sign pointed me to a waiting room halfway along the passage. Wide marble stairs with a polished handrail mounted to the heavens.
I went into the waiting room where a woman sat behind a desk. I agreed that I was Mr Hardy and she got up and opened a door. I went in to a large room with muted lighting. Bookshelves, a couple of armchairs, no desk, no couch. Dr Kinsolving came towards me with his hand out.
‘Mr Hardy, so glad to meet you. Please sit down. Would you like anything-tea, coffee?’
‘No thanks, doctor.’
I sat in one of the chairs. He remained standing for a few seconds-good manners or a little dominance strategy? He was about fifty, getting a bit portly but tall enough to carry it for a few years yet. His shirt and tie were blue, restful colours. His voice was quiet and his manner was confident.
‘Never met anyone in your profession before,’ he said as he sat. ‘I imagine you’re the sorts of fellows who can handle their own problems. Would you say?’
‘Possibly. In my case, so far.’
‘Good. Now I don’t have a lot of time. How can I be of help? I have to warn you, the constraints on what I can say about a client are severe.’
‘Even if he’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell me, in very general terms, what problem Bobby Forrest came to you with?’
‘No.’
‘I know he had sexual problems. He told me about them. I’m not interested in that. I’m wondering if he had. . fears.’
He smiled. ‘Sexual problems generate possibly the worst fears of all.’
‘Okay. I’ll be direct. I’m trying to find out who killed him. I’ve got a possible candidate but not much information on the circumstances. I’ve been told there was a person who threatened him. I’d like to know whether Bobby took the threat seriously.’
‘I’ve never had a client murdered before. It’s left me with a very uneasy feeling. I’m wondering whether I could have done more for him. Perhaps prevented this from happening.’
‘You know, doctor, you’re the fourth person to have that feeling.’
This didn’t please him. His eyebrows shot up. ‘Really, who?’
‘His father, his girlfriend and me.’
‘You’ve met her, the girlfriend?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s she like?’
‘Very impressive, mature, intelligent. .’
‘Yes, I imagine so.’
He nodded as if he were talking to himself. He swivelled half away in his chair and seemed to be carrying on a silent dialogue with his eyes half closed and his hand stroking his beard. The silence didn’t bother him. Eventually he swung back and faced me.
‘I’m going to break some rules and be as frank with you as I can. Robert came to me with a troubling doubt about his sexuality. He had problems with impotence and wondered if he were homosexual. Obviously I can’t tell you about the experiences he’d had that gave rise to this doubt. We talked about it of course, and also about other matters. To answer your question, yes, he was worried about the threat and took it very seriously.’
‘Thank you. Why did you decide to be frank?’
‘Your interesting description of the girlfriend. She must be a remarkable person. Robert was a different man after he met her. He acquired sexual confidence and this threat you’ve mentioned didn’t seem to trouble him as much as it had. The change in him was extraordinary and I’m honest enough to admit it was more due to her than to me.’
I nodded.
‘I can tell you a little more. Robert said he’d tried to make amends to the man who threatened him but didn’t succeed. The man said he would kill him.’
19
Waiting for Timpani Stafford to return from wherever she was tried my patience. I hadn’t got around to watching the DVDs of Bobby’s films. Now I did, with a lot of fast forwarding. Bobby had style. The bonus was that Jason Clement had small parts, playing the sidekick to someone else in two of them. He didn’t have a lot to do or much to say but he appeared to be perfectly competent. He also looked big and strong and moved like an athlete. They can’t teach that at NIDA; it’s a kind of gracefulness that some men have naturally, like Ali, like Carl Lewis, like Roger Federer. There was no interaction between Clement and Bobby in the films but I thought back to the driver Bobby had challenged at the lights. Like that guy, Clement was bigger than Bobby but I could see Bobby taking him on if his blood was up.
I arranged to have lunch with Jane Devereaux. She was getting on with her life as I was pretty sure she would. I’d checked with her a couple of times before and she’d said there’d been no approach of any kind from Michael Tennyson. But she had no interest in simply ‘moving on’ as the expression goes. She was anxious about the progress of my investigation, disappointed when there wasn’t any, and keen to hear what I had to say now. We met in the Surry Hills wine bar again. The weather was warmer than before; she wore trousers, a sleeveless top and flat heels. Salads and garlic bread; white wine for me, mineral water for her.
‘How’s the book on the police chief going?’ I asked.
‘Just about ready. He was an interesting man. He had a network of informers, some of them quite as bad as the people they were informing on.’
‘That’d be right.’
‘D’you want to come to the launch?’
I said I would and then asked her if the name Jason Clement meant anything to her.
‘Yes, Robert talked about him.’
‘What did he say?’
She worked on her salad before answering. I knew what was going on. She’d compartmentalised her memories of Bobby and put them aside to allow her to function. Now she was opening the door. I ate and drank and gave her time.
‘He told me he was his enemy. No, I haven’t made that clear. He meant that Jason Clement regarded Robert as his enemy, but that Robert didn’t regard him as an enemy. Do you follow? Why? What’s happening?’
‘Just a minute. Did he say why Clement felt like that?’
‘No.’
‘Didn’t you ask him?’
‘No. When it came up he seemed very disturbed about it. He changed the subject quickly and I could see it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. Do you know?’
I told her they’d had a fight but didn’t go into the details. I said there was a possibility Clement was responsible for Bobby’s death and that I was trying to find him. I wanted to know how seriously Bobby took the threat.
‘I think he took it seriously. Did you know he was seeing a therapist?’
I nodded. ‘Kinsolving.’
‘No, just a therapist. He was helping him with anger management. Robert said he had a fierce temper but was learning to control it.’
‘Do you know who this anger management therapist was?’
‘No, he didn’t say. I think he was a little ashamed of needing that kind of help. It just slipped out somehow when he was talking about golf. All I remember is that he said he mostly had the problem on the golf course. Can you find Clement, Cliff?’