The Undertow

'Mrs Heysen, Cliff Hardy. I'm wondering if you remember a woman named Roma Brown.'

'No.'

A minion, not worth remembering.

'She was the receptionist at your husband's surgery.'

'Oh, yes. I remember now.'

'Do you happen to know where she lived? I want to talk to her. Perhaps your husband had a Teledex or something?'

'He did. The police took it and never returned it. But I remember that she lived very close by. The surgery was in Crown Street, and I recall Gregory saying she was never late because she lived just around the corner. He was a stickler for being prompt. But what street he meant I don't know.'

'Thank you. That's a help.'

'Have you made any… progress?'

'I hope so. Goodnight.'

I brought my notes and expenses up to date. Fifty bucks for Rex Wain. No receipt.

That night the storm picked up again and the branch I'd sawn at came crashing down. The noise woke me and I checked on the window. Intact. I made a mental note to retrieve the ladder and do something about the branch, but my mental notes don't always get acted on.

Next day I located an address for Roma Brown in a mid-1980s electoral roll in the Mitchell Library. The address checked with one of the many R. Browns in the phone book. She was in Burton Street, which meets Crown just below Oxford, so it all fitted. I rang the number without expecting to get her in business hours but she answered. I explained my call by saying that I was working with a police officer writing a book about some of his old cases, such as the murder of Dr Bellamy, and wanted to tie up some loose ends. She gave a little yelp of pleasure.

'I'd be delighted to see you, Mr Hardy. I haven't got many distractions these days, apart from my little hobby. When do you want to come?'

I was only a hop-skip-and-a-jump away, so we agreed on half an hour to give me time to find a park. The block of flats dated back a bit, to the sixties maybe, with the plain lines and absence of extra comforts of that time. No balconies. I buzzed her flat and she released the heavy security door. I ignored the lift and went up the four flights of stairs for the cardiovascular benefit. At her door I buzzed again and she opened it with the chain on.

'Mr Hardy?'

I looked down. She was in a wheelchair. I showed her my PEA licence and she undid the chain.

'Do come in.' She backed the wheelchair expertly and we went down a short passage to a small living room with a minimum of furniture to allow her to get about. She pointed to a chair and drew her wheelchair up in front of me so that our knees weren't far from touching. She was in her fifties, good-looking in a fair, faded kind of way, and very thin. She wore a neat grey dress and black shoes that looked expensive. In fact nothing in the room looked cheap.

'Have you ever been in a wheelchair, Mr Hardy?'

'Once or twice.'

'I've been in one for twenty years. I had a car accident.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Yes, so am I, but I was lucky. The man who hit me was very wealthy and heavily insured so I wasn't left destitute. That gets all that embarrassing disability stuff out of the way.'

'I'm not embarrassed,' I said. 'In your place I'd probably be a cringing alcoholic mess. You're not and I admire you.'

'That's kind, but you might surprise yourself. Pray God it never happens. Now what did you want to know about Dr Heysen and poor Dr Bellamy? I am intrigued.'

An interesting choice of words, I thought, and it clearly indicated whose side she was on. But the lie about a book being written had struck the right note. Bookcases in the sitting room were filled to bursting. I squinted at the titles.

'I'm interested in the missing medical records for Rafael Padrone. Do you remember anything about that?'

She paused, and for a minute I thought she was going to close up, but she was only collecting her thoughts. Some of them must have been pleasant because she smiled and something of the prettiness she must have had in her youth came back into her face. 'I remember quite a lot. I particularly remember the police officer who interviewed me. Do you know that he sat in my office and smoked without asking my permission and that he picked his teeth.'

'Cassidy,' I said. 'You can say whatever you want about him because he's dead. I'm told he wasn't mannerly.'

'That's putting it mildly, but I have nothing more to say about him. Well, he asked for the Padrone file and I looked for it and couldn't find it and he became very rude. He virtually accused me of stealing it. "Why would I do that?" I said, but he wasn't the sort of person to reason with.'

'Do you know who took the records?'

'I have a very good idea. Another policeman came who was more polite, but I still didn't tell him my suspicion.'

'Why not?'

The rejuvenating smile again. 'I wasn't a middle-aged cripple back then, Mr Hardy. I was a lively woman. I was a very good dancer.'

'I believe you,' I said. Also intelligent.' I pointed to the bookcases. 'I can see George Eliot, Trollope, Lawrence, Waugh, Martin Boyd…'

'Have you read them?'

'Bits of, not as much as you. I was more Conrad, Stevenson, Maugham, Hemingway, Idriess.'

She nodded. 'Some strange things went on in that surgery. I was concerned, but it was a very good job, well paid, convenient to where I lived, and I liked Dr Bellamy very much. I wasn't medically trained, I couldn't judge the… ethics.'

'Yes?'

'I'm guessing, from glimpses of some of the people I saw arriving after hours, but I know Dr Heysen had developed techniques for removing tattoos and scars. I suspect he also… altered people's appearance.'

That wasn't what I was expecting but was still interesting, maybe even more so. I couldn't understand why this outwardly respectable woman wouldn't have said something about it to the police, once the shit had hit the fan.

She put on the spectacles she wore on a chain around her neck, stared directly at me, and I had to struggle to look her in the eye. 'I was in love,' she said.

'With Heysen?'

'That conceited cold fish? No.'

'Bellamy?'

She laughed. 'Very attractive, but a lost cause. No, with Dr Karl Lubeck.'

'I haven't heard of him.'

'Well, he was sort of an assistant to Dr Heysen and I suppose you'd say he was employed on a casual basis. Things were much looser then, before the GST and all that.'

'You think he took the records?'

'He might have. There were other files missing. I didn't tell the police about them either. I… I assume they were for these… after-hours people Dr Heysen and Karl-Dr Lubeck-dealt with and that Mr Padrone's file was taken too, perhaps by mistake.'

She sat quietly while I absorbed this. We were both lost in thought, though of very different kinds. She'd given me a whole new perspective on Heysen, one that hadn't come out from Catherine Heysen or in the police investigation, but very possibly what Rex Wain had been afraid to talk about.

She broke the silence. 'I didn't think it mattered. Padrone killed Dr Bellamy and confessed to doing it on Dr Heysen's behalf. I believed that.'

'Do you still believe it, Ms Brown?'

'Yes, why not? But at the time I was more concerned about my broken heart. I didn't say anything about Karl in order to protect him. Love is blind.'

'It is,' I said. 'Part of the fun. So you went on seeing him?'

'For a very short while. Then he told me he had to go overseas to deal with something. He sent postcards. Then nothing. I was hurt and I had no job. Not much money and I had to get on with my life. And I did. I put Karl and his sweet talk behind me. I had other lovers. Then my accident happened a few years later. After that it was hospitals and operations and recovery, ups and downs and…'

'I understand.'

'I was renting this flat. I was able to buy it with the insurance money. The prices weren't so outrageous then. I had the little idea that Karl might come back to look for me. This was where we'd met and made love. But he never did.'