A few weeks later I was surprised to get a call from a solicitor who said he was the executor of the estate of the late Mr Archibald Ronald Merrett, deceased as of 1/5/90. It took me a second for the name to register.
‘Arch,’ I said. ‘Oh, yes. What can I do for you?’
It turned out Arch had left his case files to ‘my friend and confidant, Mr Clifford Hardy, for his education’. The solicitor sent them round the next day-three cardboard boxes which had formerly contained bottles of Reschs Pilsener and were now jammed full of manilla folders, some bulging, some containing only a single sheet. I stacked the boxes under the stairs and didn’t look at them for months until I was laid up with a sprained ankle, the result of jumping for a smash that Yannick Noah couldn’t have reached. Just for something to do, I dragged out the boxes and started reading. I forgot about the ankle and the pain and about how I had to be careful not to take too many pethidines with alcohol. I could hear Arch’s ruined voice talking to me from the pages. Especially when I got to the last file in the third box. It was a thick file: transcripts of interviews, memos, photographs, receipts. I read it all through. There was also a tape. I put it in the machine, poured out a glass of white and sat back to listen. I’d heard old Arch tell a hundred stories, but it was an eerie feeling to hear him telling one last yarn…
Alistair McLachlan gave me the drum. He was the solicitor representing Mrs Thelma Lucan-Paget in her divorce action against her hubby, George. Thelma had the goods on George- notes, receipts for presents, a hotel bill. The core was Mrs Beatrice Butterworth.
I said to McLachlan, ‘Uncontested, Mac?’ He didn’t like being called that. He didn’t like me, full stop. But he knew I did good work. ‘Not clear at this stage, Merrett. Probably. There’s a lot of property involved. No children, thank God. But things to be sorted out.’
Gravy for you, boyo, I thought. McLachlan told me what he wanted-a series of photographs plus an affidavit. My job was to snap George and Bea leaving her flat at Rose Bay, going to dinner or whatever they were doing that evening, toddling back to the flat, closing the door. The pictures had to be timed and annotated: 27/2/66-8.30 p.m.: subjects entering Romano’s… I was happy to do it. A nice clean one. No lock-picking, no bribing hotel employees, no stealing bedsheets. On the evening appointed, I loaded up the old Ashai Pentax and headed for Evans Road, Rose Bay.
Medium-sized block, older style, garden courtyards on the ground floor, balconies on the upper levels. Beatrice Butterworth’s flat was at the back; it had both features-a small balcony and a landscaped courtyard. The balcony would have had a nice harbour view-say, thirty grand, all up. There was a wide driveway that was marked out in parking spaces, six of ‘em, one for each resident. Bit tricky if you were pissed to park and unpark, but otherwise okay. I’m back there, behind a tree, camera at the ready, super-fast film, and the door opens. A bloke answering the description I’d been given- heavy build, balding, fleshy face-comes down the steps with this good-looker on his arm. She was twenty years younger than him, say thirty, blonde, wearing a blue silk dress, a real sort. A pleasure to take her picture. They sidle up, chatting and laughing, to this silver-grey MG sedan. I took another picture as he helped her in- great legs she had, take your breath away.
Off we went towards the city. I was following in my FE. I had a sense that there was something wrong but I couldn’t put my finger on it. They went to this Greek joint in Elizabeth Street, overlooking the park. I’m close behind them. They give each other a peck-I snapped that, nice shot-and go in. Nothing to do now but go and have a couple of beers and a counter tea, pick ‘em up again on the way out. Starters, mains and afters, bottle of plonk, coffee, what are we looking at, hour and a half? I moved off and, again, I got this feeling that worried me. Didn’t know what it was, probably imagination. An hour later and I was back there, too nervous to eat. I’m jotting down times and places in my notebook, sniffing around. Couple of smokes and here they come again. Christ but she was beautiful, like a film star, and fat George could hardly keep his hands off her. Didn’t blame him. Anyway, I got a good kiss shot with his hand on her bum. I skedaddle around and through the park so I’m ready to follow them back to Rose Bay, and that’s when I twigged. ‘Arch,’ I said to myself, ‘we’ve got company.’ He was good, very good. A little bloke, nothing special about him-sports jacket, open-neck shirt. But I saw the camera as he got into his blue Mini and I realised that I’d seen the car before-in the street at Rose Bay. I also had something you need in this game, call it intuition: I knew this bloke and me had been working the same side of the street. Tricky situation. He must’ve seen me. I’m five ten, not skinny, and this was an uncontested. How careful did I have to be? Only thing to do was pretend I hadn’t seen him, play along, and see what happened.
Back to Rose Bay. George scrapes his MG on the brick wall of the flats and they both get out laughing. What’s a few hundred bucks to George? I drove on. I hadn’t quite finished the job but what the hell? I was more interested in the bloke in the Mini. I parked further up the street and came back quickly on foot. Lucky. George and Bea were having a smoke out in the open, looking from the street down towards the water, before going in to co-respond. The little bloke got a shot of George lighting her up. Then he looked around nervously. He was looking for me but he had no chance. He raced around the back when they went down the drive and got a picture of Bea opening the door to her flat. Nice work. It occurred to me that if I grabbed his camera I’d have the best series of sneak photos since the world began.
I scooted away back to the street and crouched down behind the Mini. When he put his key in the lock I came up behind him and gave him the old forearm-bar. It works particularly well on little men, cuts off the wind and the resistance. In New Guinea we used it on Jap sentries, before slipping the knife in.
I said, ‘Put the camera on the roof of the car. Leave the key in the lock and stay very still. If you don’t, I’ll break your bloody neck.’
He does what he’s told, very meek and careful. I slid my hand away long enough to get inside his jacket and grab his wallet. Then it was chin up again and don’t move a muscle.
‘Let’s talk,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting for you. We’re in the same game. I’m Ted Pike.’
‘What game would that be, Ted?’
‘Private enquiries. My ticket’s in the wallet.’
I let him go and grabbed hold of his car keys and the camera. He turned around slowly and faced me-pale, pixie features, bat-wing ears, a face only a mother could love. But not distinctive. He stood about five foot six and would’ve weighed about nine stone. Slip in anywhere, you’d never notice him. I took my time opening his wallet. He wasn’t going away, not with me in charge of his car and his camera and his cash. He had a fair bit of money in his wallet and his PEA licence. Besides, he’d been waiting for me.
‘So,’ Ted said. ‘Do we talk?’
‘You talk, I’ll listen.’
He sniffed. ‘Tough guy. This is a matrimonial, right?’
I nodded.
‘I’m on Mrs Butterworth. Her husband wants a divorce. You know the drill, he needs repeated acts of infidelity.’
‘No, he doesn’t. He only needs the one. She needs repeated acts. Besides, Butterworth’s wasting his money. I’m on the bloke, Lucan-Paget. His wife’s citing Mrs B as co-respondent. The divorce isn’t going to be contested, so your bloke’s got his cause, cut and dried.’
‘That’s not the way I hear it,’ Pike said.
I gave him his things back and we shook hands. ‘I’m Archie Merrett, Ted. Hope I didn’t hurt you. I think we better have that talk.’
The pubs were closed. We went to a club Pike knew in Darlinghurst and started to compare notes. He knew a lot more about what was going on than me, and some of the names he started dropping were big ones-newspaper bigwigs like Alexander Farfrae, doctors like Molesworth and Hamilton, politicians like Redding, Bothwick, the judge. Lucan-Paget as I already knew, was a vice-president of the AJC; Mrs Butterworth’s husband, although I hadn’t made the connection until we started chatting like this, was Sir Peter, chairman of Allied Industries Proprietary Limited.