‘Didn’t this Guthrie think we could handle a missing persons case up here, eh?’
Good point, I thought, don’t press it. He didn’t; I took my cue from Jervis and talked as little as possible. I’d left my gun and burglary tools in the Laser; no one asked me how I was getting around and it seemed like a good thing to keep quiet about. They didn’t like me; the only thing they liked about me was my return ticket to Sydney and Jervis suggested I use it, soon.
A phone call to the hospital confirmed the paramedic’s impression-Chris was in what they called ‘shock’ from a heroin overdose combined with low physical vitality, but he wasn’t in danger. The hospital wanted to know who was going to pay the bills since it was an out-of-state matter. I gave them Paul Guthrie’s name and address, which I’d already given to the cops, because it would have been me in the hospital as well if I hadn’t.
By midday I was on the street again, and by five past in a pub. I had two quick drinks, jostling with counter-lunching policeman. I used the phone in the pub to book a flight back to Sydney and to call a cab to take me back to the freight yard. There was no sign that a train had arrived or ever would again. The hire car had been sitting in the sun for four hours and its vinyl coverings threatened to revert to the original composition of the material. I wound all the windows down and sweltered my way back to Paddington.
The insects were shrill in the overgrown garden and I had to knock very loudly to be heard over the blasting rock music coming from inside the house. Not like the other night-I could kick the door in now and no one would hear. I felt like doing it just on principle; kowtowing to cops isn’t my favourite sport. But the noise level dropped and I got the same female voice quavering through the door.
‘Yes?’
‘Federal police’, I shouted.
‘What do you want?’
‘Open the door, madam, or we’ll force it.’ I thought the ‘we’ was a good touch.
The door opened and a young woman with strained-back hair and a worried mouth looked at me through thick-lensed glasses.
‘There’s only one of you. I want to see your ID.’
I stuck my foot inside the door and gripped its edge. ‘I’m not a policeman, young lady, although you said I sounded like one the other night.’
Her hand flew up to her mouth. ‘Oh!’
‘Yeah, oh. Now I found Chris Guthrie where you suggested-down at the goods yard. He had a needle hanging out of his arm and now he’s in the hospital. His father hired me to find him and I’m going to look in his room.’
‘I’m going to call the police.’
‘I’ve just come from them and they wouldn’t want to see me again. You can’t call from here because there’s no phone. By the time you call from outside I’ll be gone. Now, why don’t you just let me in, and save yourself a lot of bother? You can be back at the books in ten minutes. You call the police and you can forget about studying for today.’
She moved aside and let me in.
‘Chris’s room’s through here.’ I followed her down the passage to a bedroom near the back of the house. The rock music was soft now and the place smelled of incense and coffee. They were good sounds and smells and I let up on the authoritarian manner.
‘Nice place’, I said. ‘What’re you studying?’
‘Politics.’
‘Always study with the music so loud?’
‘Yes, it drowns out the real world.’
‘Ah. In here?’
She nodded and left me to it. The room was small but well lit from a big window. There was a mattress on the floor with bedding neatly folded on it. A student’s desk had books and papers on it and a pen-it looked as if it had been got up from abruptly and never returned to. That was the neat half of the room: on the other side there was a big armchair covered with dirty clothes; there were food scraps balanced on the arms, empty glasses and cans on the floor beside it. There were wadded-up tissues and a bloodstained handkerchief. Between the cushion and the side of the chair I found the plastic cap of a disposable syringe. The room looked as if it had been inhabited by two different people.
I went out, and located the student sitting with a pile of books and notes at the kitchen table. The rock was still soft. She looked up, exasperated.
‘I thought you said you’d go?’
‘In a minute. What happened to Chris?’
She shrugged. ‘He went on to drugs.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You must know something.’
‘He went away for a while, a week maybe. When he came back he looked very bad, sick. That’s when he started on the stuff. He was only here from time to time-he’d paid some rent in advance.’
‘He didn’t say anything about it?’
‘He once said it wasn’t his fault, and another time he said he was ashamed of it. But they all say that.’
Sympathy wasn’t her big thing. I took out the photo of the dark man and held it out for her. ‘Have you ever seen him?’
‘Yes, he was here. I think he’s the one who brought Chris in the first time he was sick. He was around a couple of times after that.’
‘Hear his name?’
‘No.’ She reached out her hand for the knob of the ghetto-blaster and I left her to impair her hearing.
11
At the airport I put through a call to Paul Guthrie. I located him at his city office.
‘Have you seen Chris?’
‘I’ve seen both of them. Don’t be alarmed, but Chris is in the hospital. He’s okay.’ That was stretching it a bit, but a long distance phone call is no way to handle the subtleties. I gave him the details of the hospital and the ward and the businessman in him let me finish. ‘His mother should come up here, perhaps’, I said. ‘I’ll give you the details when I get back to Sydney.’
‘Who hurt him? How did he get in hospital?’
‘He hurt himself, Mr Guthrie. But he had some help. Ray’s in worse shape in some ways. I can’t explain now, but he may think his brother’s dead. He thinks I’m an enemy and he knows you hired me.’
‘But Ray’s not hurt? Or sick?’
‘No, but he’s sort of out of control. You’d better take some precautions.’
‘Ray wouldn’t hurt me.’
‘Maybe not, it’s hard to say. If he arrives, just try to keep him calm, and stay calm yourself.’
‘Do you know what the hell this is all about, Hardy?’
‘Not yet. I’ve got some ideas but not enough information.’ That was true; it was also true that I was trying to safeguard Pat Guthrie’s interests while working for her husband. Tricky.
They were calling my plane and I rang off, still trying to reassure my client. No scanner again. I sat, tightly wedged between a fat man with body odour and a woman who knitted the whole way. I couldn’t concentrate on the Hughes book and the clicking of the needles and occasional elbow dig kept me from sleeping.
I thought about the information I had: both brothers had been jerked violently out of their routines and normal habits, and the man I still thought of as ‘the cop’ was involved in the jerking. Ray was stirred up about his real father, but the connection between that and his present wild behaviour was a mystery.
It was a strange case; I’d seen the subject of my enquiries twice but hadn’t made any meaningful contact. I had divided my loyalties between my client and his wife. I supposed I’d done some good by getting Chris to the hospital earlier than he would otherwise have made it. It didn’t seem like much of an achievement to report to Grandma. Especially with Ray Guthrie thinking of me as an adversary.
The turbulence started about half an hour out of Sydney and intensified as we got closer. The pilot announced that Sydney was being swept by a storm and that we could expect some delays and confusion. I fancied that the body odour got a little worse, but the needles never missed a click.
A summer storm had hit; the gutters and the people had all been caught in light clothes without coats or umbrellas. Those who’d made dashes from the car park or taxis to the terminal looked as if they’d waded there neck-deep. Strangely, everyone seemed to be good humoured about it; the city had had a long dry spell and perhaps the people were ready for the water as well as the plants. I wasn’t, myself-the drivers of old cars don’t like it.