The Undertow

'Did you speak to him?'

'No, no. I'm sure he didn't even see me. I suppose I assumed he'd been to see his mother and was fetching something from the house for her. I didn't know anything about him being missing. He went in.'

'How long did he stay?'

'I'm afraid I don't know. I went inside to make some notes on what I'd been reading. I still do some research and writing, you see. I didn't go to the front again at all that day. The car had gone by the next day but he could have been there five minutes or five hours.'

'How did he look? Confident? Furtive?'

'Really, Mr Hardy, you ask the most extraordinary questions. I only glimpsed the boy for a few seconds.'

'Your impression?'

He thought. I suppose psychologists think a lot and don't need any props to do it. His cup stayed on the table and he didn't scratch himself or tent his fingers. He just sat. 'Preoccupied,' he said at last. 'As you'd expect.'

I nodded. Preoccupied perhaps, but not about his mother, who he hadn't contacted. It was unlikely that he hadn't heard about the shooting. I thanked him for giving me his time.

He smiled. 'The odd thing about my situation is that in one way I have all the time in the world and in another, who knows? Maybe not much.'

'I think you're good for a few years yet.'

We moved back into the passage. 'I hope so. I still enjoy life. I'm glad to have met you, Mr Hardy. I haven't encountered many-what should I say, men of action? — in my life. You'd make an interesting case study.'

'I don't think so.'

'Oh, yes. You're drawn to intrigue and violence like a moth to a flame.'

I drove to the office mulling over what Professor Lowen-stein had said, both about my character and his sighting of William Heysen. Intrigue went with the territory, but was it true that I welcomed violence? Cyn had always said so and she, like the professor, was very smart. I didn't think of myself that way, but I knew I'd been involved in violence for the greater part of my life-from boxing as an adolescent in the police boys' club, through military service and on into my career as a PEA. I decided that it was only partly true. I'd done the things I'd done not primarily because I sought the violence involved, but because I rejected the alternatives-the passive life, the routines. That satisfied me on that score.

I parked, climbed the stairs and went into the office. The building is old and in poor repair. After my little nook had been closed up for a few days the general decay of the place seemed to creep in as a smell. But it's probably just the cockroaches and mice-some dead, some alive-in the wall cavities. I sometimes wondered what the space I rented had been used for in the past. I once found a threepenny bit in the skirting board and a stiff, brittle condom caught in the slats of the venetian blind. Doesn't tell you a lot but gives you ideas.

The sighting of young Heysen, apparently prosperous, had to be a positive. Up to that point, given Rex Wain's 'whisper', there had been a chance he wasn't in the country. But why does a mother-fixated son not visit that mother in hospital? Because he can't? Lowenstein could have mistaken preoccupation for worry. Whatever the reason, it hadn't brought me any closer to finding him.

I made some notes on the conversation with the Prof and couldn't help underlining a phrase-He was nothing like his father… The conversation had left me with questions to add to the list I already had: why had William Heysen gone to the house? What, if anything, had he taken, or left? Would Catherine Heysen allow me to search the house? Where was William living? How many black 4WDs are there in Sydney? Not all of the questions I jot down at these moments are sensible.

The coffee and paracetamol buzz was fading and my abused back was aching. A big man in a red Commodore. I was looking for bright and dull coloured cars in a city full of cars. Needles in a very big haystack. As I looked at my notes and doodles, I came close to being sure of one thing, more a matter of intuition than logic: the attacks on Catherine Heysen and me had to do with the old Heysen-Bellamy matter, not Billy boy.

The phone rang.

'Hardy.'

'This is William Heysen.'

I was surprised, but not as surprised as I would have been a few hours earlier.

'Oh, yeah? The William Heysen who drives a black 4WD and doesn't visit his mother in hospital when she's been shot?'

'Do you want to talk, or just make smartarse remarks?'

'You talk, I'll listen.'

'I understand you've been looking for me.'

'Right, on behalf of your mother.'

'Yes, but before she was shot.'

'True.'

'Why?'

'It's a long story. It goes back to Dr Gregory Heysen.'

'My father, the murder conspirator.'

'I have to tell you there's some doubt about that.'

'What? That he wasn't guilty?'

'Possibly. I think we should meet. There are… things to discuss.'

'Such as?'

I had to think about that. The whole matter of his paternity was hanging fire and could go either way. But I had him on the hook and didn't want to lose him. I couldn't think of a better bait.

'The identity of your father.'

'What do you mean?'

'We need to talk. Where are you, William?'

'Patronise me, and you'll never hear from me again.'

Nasty. Maybe he was the doctor's son.

‹T› ›

I m sorry.

'Is your enquiry in any way to do with the police?'

That was a curly one if only he knew it. But I played a straight bat. 'No.'

'All right. We'll talk.'

'Where are you?'

A few seconds elapsed and then the door swung in and a tallish young man stood there, lowering a mobile phone from his ear. 'Right here.'

I couldn't stop myself. 'Who's the smartarse now?' I said.

'Melodramatic, I'll agree.'

He came in and dropped down into the client chair. He was very much as his mother had described him-not quite as tall, slim, dark-haired with an olive tint to his skin, handsome and aware of it. Too aware. He was clean-shaven; his hair was long but neat. He wore loose pants, a T-shirt and a denim jacket, all pricey, all clean. If he was on drugs they hadn't taken any toll on him yet. He sat straight in the chair and looked at me with a confident manner, bordering on cockiness.

'What's this about my paternity?'

'Let's back up a bit,' I said. 'How did you find out about me?'

He didn't want to concede anything but apparently decided to yield a fraction. 'I found your card in the house. I also heard an answering machine message from you that dated back a bit. Plus, a person I know told me you'd contacted her asking questions. Satisfied?'

'That fits. Why haven't you visited your mother? Why drop out of sight?'

He shook his head. 'That's all I'm saying until I hear more from you.'

I wasn't used to fencing with someone so much younger, but there was something steely about him that made it necessary. 'I should really get your mother's permission to tell you this, but when you went off the rails after you found out about your father, she-'

His poise slipped for the first time. 'What? She said that?'

'Yes.'

The composure returned almost immediately, shades of his mother. 'Incredible. Go on.'

This was getting tricky. I didn't want to tell him about Frank and the paternity test and all the rest of it. Not yet, anyway. I swivelled around creakily in my chair that needed oiling and probably more than that. I stared out the window for a moment in the hope of unsettling him. It worked.

'Well?' He was a bit off balance now.

'Look, William, you're the one sneaking around, hiding, making furtive visits, worried about whether I'm tied in with the police. You're obviously in some kind of trouble. I suggest you change your attitude.'