He dropped the glasses as if reluctant to admit to the vision problem a second longer than he had to. ‘Yep, I’ve seen him.’
‘Mr…?’
‘Bolitho, Tom Bolitho.’ I gave him my card. We shook hands and were away. He pointed to the table and chairs set out on the porch and we sat down.
‘You say his sister wants to locate him. Maybe he doesn’t want to be located. Maybe she’s his wicked stepsister who wants to do him out of his inheritance?’
I grinned. ‘Come on.’
‘Yeah, I read too much rubbish. When you get to my age you look for excitement wherever you can.’
‘There’s not too much in this I’m afraid, Mr Bolitho. He…’
‘Tom. Fancy a drink?’
Occupational hazard. ‘Why not? What’re you having?’
‘At this hour, light beer.’
‘That’ll do me. Thanks.’
He went into the house and came back with two Hahn Lights. Good choice. We twisted, said ‘Cheers’ and drank.
‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s just that he was a bit of a handful but seems to have settled down. He’s been out of touch with his sister for a couple of months and she’s the anxious type, you know.’
Those blue eyes in the wrinkled surrounds were shrewd. ‘But what brings you here, specifically?’
I was ready for that. ‘He rang his sister a while back and said he was living in Strathfield. He mentioned the street and the number. She remembered the street, or thought she did. This is Henry Street, right? She thought it was either Henry or Edward. I’ve tried Edward with no luck. She didn’t remember the number. So I’m trying Henry Street.’
‘Kings of England.’
‘That’s right.’
He took a good swig of his Hahn. ‘Sorry lot on the whole. Didn’t they stick a red hot poker up the arse of an Edward?’
‘I’m shaky on my royal history.’
‘I think they did. Probably deserved it. As for that Henry the V8 — that’s what I call him, Henry the V8, because he had eight wives.’
I smiled and took a drink to conceal the pain. Bad joke anyway, and I was pretty sure on the basis of the TV series that it was six.
‘I’ve forgotten what we were talking about.’
I put the photograph on the table beside my bottle and tapped it. ‘Him.’
‘Oh, yes. Well, if you say he’s not in trouble. I wouldn’t want to dob the boy in.’
I shook my head. ‘No trouble.’
‘I’ve seen him a few times. He comes and goes. Stays in that big, flash place a few doors away. The one with the high side fence and everything just so.’
‘I think I’ve seen it.’ As soon as I said that I wondered if he’d set a trap for me. If he’d spotted me the day before he’d know I was lying. But he didn’t react.
‘Spent a lot of money there she did.’
‘She?’
He drank some more beer and warmed up to the work of gossip. ‘Husband died a few years back. About the time my wife went. No, a few years after. I had my eye on her for a while but then she really went to town — new clothes and hairdo, facelifts, all that. She’s ten years or more older than she looks.’
‘I see. What’s her name, Tom?’
He shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’
I nodded and had a drink, momentarily saddened. The old bloke had looked for a replacement wife and she’d suddenly put up a generation gap to add to the financial gap between them. He’d probably never even spoken to her.
‘And this young bloke comes and goes. He stays overnight d’you mean?’
‘For sure. Drives that Merc right in,’ he winked.
‘Not the only thing he drives in, I reckon.’
I fished out my notebook and scribbled. ‘Old Mercedes, eh? I don’t suppose you got the number?’
‘Old, nothing. Bloody new or near enough. Silver-grey. No, I had no reason to get the number. All I can tell you is that it’s got a sticker on the windscreen — sort of parking permit like for doctors and nurses and that at hospitals.’
Tom would know more about hospitals than universities but his information sounded spot on. I asked him when he’d last seen the man and his Merc but he was vague. ‘Couldn’t say. Last week, week before, last month? Find it hard to keep track of time nowadays. It was before the last party anyway.’
‘Party?’
‘Didn’t I say? She throws these big parties every Wednesday. Be on tonight, I reckon. Lots of people, lots of cars. Quiet though, no trouble. I have to say that.’
I finished the beer and thanked him for it and the information. He went to stand up but decided against it and sank back in the chair. ‘Are you going to pay her a visit?’
The lonely, long past it, voyeur in him was showing. ‘Maybe. I’m not sure.’
‘He’s not the only one you know.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘There’s a few of them like him — young blokes with flash cars. Six footers with fair hair.’
8
The mobile rang as soon as I got back to my car and switched it on. Price.
‘I’ve been ringing for an hour.’
I was in no mood to be stood over. ‘We need to talk.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
I stuck to my plan. ‘I’ll tell you when I see you. Where and when?’
‘Jesus, can’t you…?’
‘No.’
‘OK. I’m bloody busy but if you can get here quickly I can give you — ’
‘Listen, Mr Price, is this matter important to you or not?’
‘Of course it is.’
‘Right. Well I’ll be there as soon as I can and our business’ll take as long as it takes.’
I hung up and started the car. His office was in Bankstown, no great distance, and I was there inside the half hour. The business centre had a scrubbed up look as if it had all recently been renovated. The railway station had had a complete make over and was now super-modern with lots of glass and aluminium, fresh paint and elegant paving. Asian faces dominated in the streets and a good number of the stores had their names and signs printed in Asian languages. The High Fliers had flown as high as the tenth floor in a Cubist-style green glass building named the Bankstown Civic Tower. Several of the floors were taken up by municipal offices and others housed the usual run of professionals and a couple of dot coms whose names gave no indication of their business. You could get just about anything done there from your tax return to treatment for your ingrown toenails. Price had a small suite of three rooms and a modest reception area, all outfitted in fake teak panelling. Pot plants.
The receptionist was everything she should have been and more — young, pale, with Dusty Springfield eyes and a pointed chin that made her better than pretty. Pink silk blouse. I gave her my name and she said she’d see if Mr Price was free. She lifted the phone, but as his door was only three strides away I thought I’d save her the bother. I went past, knocked and walked in.
‘It’s not the girl’s fault,’ I said as she hovered in the doorway just behind me. ‘I barged in.’
Price was sitting behind a desk about the same size as mine but about fifty years younger. Unlike mine, it held a computer, In and Out trays and all the
paraphernalia of a busy executive. He was in his shirtsleeves and looked harassed. ‘It’s OK, Junie,’ he said. ‘It’s OK.’
Junie gave a sigh of relief and closed the door. I sat down in a chair near the desk and tried to figure out what was surprising me about the office. It was conventionally appointed with a serviceable grey carpet, some nondescript prints on the walls along with some framed certificates and citations. The desk, two chairs, a bookcase with more magazines and folders than books and a photocopier. Then I got it. The air, conditioned to a comfortable temperature, was clear. No ashtray on the desk. Probably accounted for the harassed look.
‘Given it up?’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Trying to. Did it once, I can do it again. What’s up, Hardy? You scared young Junie out there.’
I gave it to him between the eyes. ‘Jason Jorgensen has been murdered. Strangled. Dumped in the Georges River at Lugarno.’