The Undertow

'It's on the thumb drive. I'll print you a copy. The subs butchered it, of course. Won't tell you much.'

'Anything'll be a lot compared to what I know now.'

Lil went back to work. Before starting she printed out her article. I stacked the dishes-very few from a minimalist cook like me-and settled down with the article and the last of the red we'd had with dinner. If Lil was having difficulty getting the MFP story up and running, she'd had no trouble with this one. She captured the rapacious, unscrupulous character of the doctors who did plastic surgery on the cheap and without proper referrals or investigation of the backgrounds of their 'clients'.

Their usual habit was to get people going under the knife to sign waivers exempting the surgeons from responsibility for outcomes. It was amazing how many desperate people — some young and seeking to change their fortunes, some older, trying to recapture their youth-were prepared to do this. Lil implied that some of the surgery was to change appearance to avoid arrest, or re-arrest. No names, no pack drill, but at least one of the dodgy doctors had been tied in with a passport-forging enterprise that had gone wrong and put all parties behind bars. The doctor in question, who carried the nickname 'the cutter', had received the lightest sentence for his cooperation with the authorities, but he hadn't survived six months inside the gaol.

Lil finished working and came down the stairs yawning. She leaned over me as I jotted down some notes illegible to anyone else, and sometimes to me.

'It's a great piece,' I said. 'Should've got a Walkley.'

'That's my ambition. What d'you think I'm hanging around with you for?'

Time was when Newport was fairly unfashionable and fairly affordable. Not now. Never mind that salt air rusts the guttering and zaps the computers, Sydney people want to be as close to the water as they can. Plenty of money had been spent in Newport since I'd last been there. The old houses had just about disappeared to make way for apartment blocks and the ones that had survived had been renovated and modified so that their original owners wouldn't have known them.

The Workers Club was at the south end of Newport beach with a view straight out over the Tasman Sea or the Pacific Ocean, take your pick. I'd stopped in Dee Why to pick up the brandy. I don't drink the stuff unless there's nothing else around, and don't know one brand from another. Hennessy appealed to my Irish ancestry.

The club building had undergone change like everything else around, and not necessarily for the better. It had that generic look of polished metal and glass, potted plants and photographs of club officials with chins spilling down towards their tie knots. In my slip-ons, clean jeans, blue shirt and blazer, I passed the dress regulations comfortably. The club was affiliated with almost every other club in the state, so my Balmain membership got me full privileges, whatever they were.

The addicts were feeding the pokies, the alkies were nursing their drinks, and the old surfers were staring out at the rolling waves. The thing about Sydney beaches is that they have a way of looking good whatever the weather. This Monday morning was one that might go this way or that as it developed. There was a mild southerly, good waves, but dark cloud building.

I was early, a chronic habit. I bought a middy of light and sat at a table where I could see the entrance and keep an eye on the water. I'd surfed here myself in days gone by, but preferred the southern beaches.

He came in at eleven-twenty. Lil's description had been accurate and he was easy to spot. After climbing the few steps he was out of breath and clutched the metal handrail as a spasm of coughing seized him. He survived it and lit a cigarette the instant it passed.

He wore a tweed jacket that had seen much better days and he took it off slowly as he looked around. I stood and he moved towards me, folding his coat over his arm in an oddly old-world gesture. He was dressed in a grey pullover, cream shirt and grey slacks, the jumper and pants streaked with cigarette ash.

He approached the table and looked at me with eyes that had a milkiness suggesting cataracts forming.

'Mr Belfrage,' I said.

'Doctor Belfrage, if you please.'

'What'll you have, doctor?'

He lowered himself into a chair. 'I'll have a middy of black and a large brandy.'

I bought the drinks and when I got back he'd lined up a packet of fifty cigarettes and his lighter, and drawn the ashtray closer. He accepted the drinks without thanks, took a sizeable sip of the brandy and a long pull on the middy after inhaling smoke. He exhaled and leaned back in the chair letting the drugs do their work. The area we were in was quiet but activity was beginning in the cafeteria adjacent, and further off the pokies were whirring.

'Private investigator, eh?' he said. 'I used to employ blokes like you when my clients didn't pay up. Do much of that sort of work?'

'Not much.'

'I hope you brought the brandy.'

I lifted the bottle in its paper bag from the chair beside me. 'Hennessy,' I said. 'Hope that's all right.'

He went through the smoke-inhaling drink-absorbing ritual again. 'It'll do. What d'you want to know?'

'Do you remember a doctor named Bellamy being murdered and his partner, Heysen, being convicted of conspiring to kill him?'

'Vaguely.'

'I've been told Heysen and another doctor were performing illicit plastic surgery.'

'In what sense illicit?'

'I mean clandestine and for people wanting to change their appearance for other than cosmetic reasons.'

'Nicely put. Well it happened, certainly.'

'But you can't confirm it in this case.'

'It's a long time ago. Your lady friend traduced me, you know.'

It was clear he was going to play a very cautious game with diversionary tactics.

He smoked and drank some more and looked around as if he'd lost interest in the conversation. His skin was grey and drawn tight over the bones of his face. His greasy, dun-coloured hair was plastered across his skull like a smear of mud. His hands, one holding the cigarette, the other wrapped around a glass, were thin with long fingers and bloodless nails. Lily was right-you wouldn't want him to touch you.

I decided to be direct. 'I'll try a name on you-Dr Karl Lubeck,' I said. 'Have you heard of him?'

He looked at me with the milky eyes. 'Yes, he worked with Heysen in Darlinghurst.'

'So you do remember about Heysen's sideline?'

'I do, and I can probably remember a deal more if I see the money and…' he tossed off the rest of the brandy and beer, 'I get another drink. Same again.'

This time when I came back a garishly dressed old crone with a corrugated face was standing next to Belfrage, who was lighting the cigarette she'd obviously bludged.

'Give Dulce a few dollars, Hardy, so she can dream of a jackpot.'

I handed the woman some change and she mooched away.

'One of your clients, doctor?' I said.

'Watch your mouth.'

'I'm getting sick of this, Belfrage. I know what a defrocked, discredited, dis-fucking-grace to your profession you are. I've got the money and you can have it if you tell me something useful. Otherwise you can sink those two drinks and fuck off without the money or the brandy.'

He sat very still and lit another cigarette. 'Don't smoke, do you?'

'Not anymore.'

'How did you stop?'

'Stubbornness.'

'Yes, I can believe that. What do you want to know about Karl?'

'Where he and a woman named Pixie Padrone are.'

'Pixie!' He tried to drink and laugh at the same time and was overwhelmed by a coughing fit that shook him from head to toe. The cigarette fell from his fingers and the brandy glass hit the table, slopping out half of its contents. I put the cigarette in the ashtray and pushed the middy towards him as he fought for breath. After he managed to suck in a few wheezy gasps he drank some beer and reached for the cigarette. People were staring at us. I gripped his bony wrist, trying to look solicitous.