The Undertow

I went into Lucia's and asked the young woman arranging things under a five metre long mirror if she knew what time the travel agency opened. She flicked back the sleeve of her pink smock and looked at her watch.

'Should be open by now. Hey, Karen, what time does Will open?'

Another woman, also young and perfectly turned out with the hair, the smock, the nails, poked her head through a curtain.

'Nine thirty,' she said, 'but I haven't seen him for a couple of days. Must be sick.'

The woman I'd spoken to first shrugged. 'I'm part-time.'

'You know him though.'

'Well…' She stopped what she was doing to take a proper look at me. I was presentable, I thought, just, but people's standards vary. 'Why do you ask?'

Good question. I gave her a card that said who I was and what I did.

'Ooh, is Will in trouble?'

'Not from me. Maybe from someone else. I'm working for his mother. I can give you her number if you want to check that.'

She did a nice line in shrugs. 'No. There's nothing much I can tell you. I cut his hair last week. Trimmed it, really.'

'I didn't think this was a unisex place.'

'The world is a unisex place.'

I laughed and she smiled. 'I saw that on TV. You gave me the opening.'

'You did it well. So he hasn't been around for a few days?'

'So Karen says. She'd know.'

'How was he when you saw him?'

'Sweet but, you know, a bit up himself.'

'That's him.'

Karen came out from behind the curtain, apparently keen not to miss anything. 'Something wrong, Trish?'

Trish showed her my card. She wasn't impressed- maybe it was my hair. I asked when she'd last seen William and she said four days ago. I asked if his business seemed to be going well.

'Hard to say,' Karen said. 'People come and go- foreigners, you know, like Asians and Arabs and that.'

'No Caucasians?'

'What?'

'White people.'

'Not many. There was this one guy…'

'Yes?'

She put her perfectly manicured hand up to her smooth cheek. 'I called him Scarface. Real ugly, a real mess. Should've seen a plastic surgeon. He drove a cool black Beemer so he must have the money. Trish, get busy, Mrs Turnbull's due any minute.'

'Does he live here, this bloke with the scarred face? Have you ever seen him around the town?'

Karen shook her head. 'No.'

That was all I was going to get. I thanked them and left.

I enquired at the accountant's office and got nothing at all-professional discretion. I stared longingly at Speciality Travel's locked door and the apartments above and behind, but there was no way of broaching them.

As I moved back to my car, a man wearing a turban approached the travel agency door. I went across to him non-threateningly, and spoke as politely as I could.

'Excuse me, are you here to see Mr Heysen?'

He didn't like the look of me one bit. 'Sorry, sorry,' he said and hurried off, almost tripping on the gutter.

I couldn't see what else there was to be done in Bowral. Maybe Sawtell was holed up here, maybe not. I didn't fancy asking around for Scarface and his Beemer. The day had dawned grey all around, and the wind was keen. Southern Highlands after all, have to expect that. The only thing to do was head back to the city: Catherine Heysen was the key to the next moves and it was definitely time to bring Frank in-to disturb his peace of mind. After experiencing the hard-line resourcefulness of Sawtell, I felt the need for backup such as Frank and Hank Bachelor could provide. Still, I did a run up and down the main street and a few cross streets and out to a couple of housing estates and the business park, looking for a cool black BMW. Waste of effort.

Conference time. When I got back to the city I phoned Hank and brought him up to date on the essentials. He said the earliest he could make a meeting was five o'clock. Frank wasn't at home. I phoned Lily and got her to pull some strings. A couple of hours later the fax, not used that much these days, sparked up and copies of news clippings from the Sydney Morning Herald, the National Times and the Sun began to come through. The cuttings covered the trial, conviction and escape of Matthew Henry Sawtell.

He was born in Balmain, had just enough education to make it into the Police Academy, and was considered an outstanding recruit. Tall, strongly built and athletic, he impressed all the right people, did well in uniform with a couple of citations for bravery, and rose quickly as a detective. After his fall investigative journalists working on the story discovered family connections to the Painters and Dockers and signs that Sawtell had never seen the police force as anything other than a means of personal enrichment. He wore the livid scar on his face as a badge of honour. There were several photographs of him, mostly wearing a hat. Grainy and blotchy though the faxes were, his strong, almost handsome features were apparent. In one photo taken when he was a young man, before he got the scar, Herb Elliot's arm was around his shoulders. Catherine Heysen's kind of guy.

I got through to Frank in the mid-afternoon, told him most of what was going on, and he agreed to the five o'clock meeting in my office. I sat and waited for them with my mobile on the desk. I dislike the things, the fiddly little buttons, the dopey ring-tones, the expectation they've set up that unless you have one you're not a serious player at anything from shopping to international diplomacy. No choice now-it was the only connection to Mad Matt 'Scarface' Sawtell. He didn't need to have anyone keeping tabs on me now. From his point of view he had me where he wanted me. The trick would be to turn that around.

Hank got there first. He settled in a chair and surprised me by lighting a cigarette.

'Stress,' he said.

I nodded. I got an ashtray from the desk drawer, produced my emergency ration scotch and poured him a drink in a paper cup. He took it and nursed it gratefully. The chair I'd set out for Frank was one I'd found in an empty office in the building-I don't do much conferencing.

Frank arrived looking anxious. He accepted a drink before glancing around the office. It was his first time there.

'Shit, Cliff, can't you afford something better than this?'

'Low overhead. Money spent on essentials.'

'Yeah, like a good car.'

'What's got up your nose?'

'Sorry. Personal stuff. Let's get on with it. I admit I'm pissed off about you going after William without telling me. What did you plan to say to him?'

I shrugged. 'I was going to play it by ear. Find out if he was hooked up with Sawtell and try to talk him out of it.'

Hank said, 'That doesn't matter now. What d'we do when he makes contact and expects you to set up a meeting with Mrs Heysen?'

Frank shook his head. 'Can't let that happen.'

'What do you suggest?' I said. 'Give it to the police?'

I could almost see Frank's brain cells working. Playing by the book, he shouldn't have any involvement in this given his relationship to one of the pawns in the game, or two of them-three if you counted Sawtell. Too close to too much. But the police record in hostage bargaining situations is 50/50 at best and there were other considerations.

Sawtell was an experienced shooter facing a never-to-be-released label if caught. With nothing to lose he'd kill if pushed into a corner and take as many with him as he felt like.

'No,' Frank said. 'He expressed his hatred for the police at his trial and I don't imagine he's changed.'

'Cassidy and Wain are out of the picture,' I said, 'but some of the people who helped him escape could still be around and wouldn't want him talking. Remember our feelings along those lines when I got pulled by those two Ds? It only takes a spark to set off a hostage situation.'

'What?' Hank said.

I opened my hands. 'Sorry, mate. Wheels within wheels. There're probably cops and others who don't want him around.'