The Undertow

Viv Garner had been my solicitor for some years and had seen me through some scrapes in which you could have said I was culpable, and some that were merely misinterpretations. 'You have been,' I said. 'My understanding is that Padrone had pleaded guilty.'

'That's so.'

'But he could have paid for a defence.'

'What's your point?'

'Just that he must have made some sort of deal on his sentence and treatment.'

'I suppose so, but I know nothing about it.'

'After what you've told me I think I can probably put one more question to you.'

We'd finished the coffee, but Simmonds was a man with a taste for the dramatic. He lifted what must have been an empty cup to his mouth before he spoke: 'I can anticipate it-do I think Dr Gregory Heysen was guilty of the charge of conspiracy to commit murder?' 'Right.'

'I do not.'

'Why?'

'The man was highly intelligent. I mean exceptionally so. His academic record showed that and I spoke to one of his professors who said that Heysen could have made a brilliant medical researcher, capable perhaps of major work.'

All news to me.'

'None of this came out at the trial. Heysen refused to allow the professor to give evidence. Can you guess why?'

'Tell me.'

At this point I was almost sorry for Mallory. Heysen said the man was a Jew and second-rate as a scientist and teacher.'

'Jesus.'

'If Gregory Heysen had arranged the death of Peter Bellamy, I'm quite sure no one would ever have suspected him of it. He would have contrived it in a far more clever way.'

'A hard defence to put up, that.'

'Oh, Heysen would have been all for it, but in that event his sentence was more likely to have been twenty years rather than fourteen.'

All things considered, fourteen years seems a bit light.'

Simmonds shook his head. 'Prejudice against homosexuals and the beginnings of the AIDS hysteria. For all Judge Montague-Brown detested Heysen, he probably hated homosexuals more.'

I shook my head. 'Lawyers. Sorry.'

'Don't be. We're just a necessary evil. But you've jogged my memory. I recall thinking that the police were very… ardent. Almost as if they-'

'Had planted evidence? I've seen that.'

'No. Let me think. Don't put words in my mouth. As if they had something else on Heysen and were determined to get him, one way or another.'

6

Rex Wain didn't call. I went to the Redgum gym in Leichhardt for a workout and then to the Bar Napoli for a coffee. Over the long black, I called two of the other cops who'd been on the Heysen case. The Telstra voice told me that one of the numbers was no longer operating and when I called the other I got a takeaway Chinese food outlet in Carlton. Frank's information was sadly out of date.

The day had turned from blustery to stormy with big black clouds piling up against each other. I drove home to batten down the hatches. A big branch from a camphor laurel tree had been brushing against one of the windows and I'd resolved to lop it before the next high wind in case it did serious damage. Of course, I'd put that action off for weeks, months.

I got home before the sky opened, changed into jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers, and put an aluminium ladder up against the wall of the house. I applied an old, rusted bush saw to the branch. Working upwards is not the way to go but my ladder only reached so far. My father had tried to instruct me as a handyman, but I'd found passing him nails and changing between the Phillips head and the other kind of screwdriver so boring I closed off. Occasionally I regretted not having the facility.

'A workman is only as good as his tools,' he used to say. He was right. I never had the right tools for that kind of work.

With the sky darkening and the light dropping, I sawed away in the confined space at the side of the house. I was being scratched by thorny branches and sweat was running into my eyes.

I'm going to flog this place, I thought. Get a unit at Coogee and let the body corporate handle the maintenance.

'Hey, Hardy.'

I was standing on top of the ladder none too securely and, surprised by the voice, I almost fell. As it was I dropped the saw. Bracing myself against the wall, I looked down. Rex Wain was standing three metres below me with his hand on the ladder.

'Gidday, Wain,' I said. 'You bloody nearly made me fall.'

He gave the ladder a gentle shake. 'That's exactly what I'm fucking going to do. Let's see you piss me around with a broken leg.'

'What're you talking about?'

'You fucking know.'

He bent to pick up the saw and took his hand off the ladder. I went down two rungs quickly and jumped. He swore and swung at me with the saw but he was slow and impeded by the branches of the shrubs. I ducked under the wing and bullocked into him, forcing him back against the wall. He dropped the saw. I hit him hard about where his right kidney was and he gasped. I jerked his left arm up his back and held him there, pressing his head against the bricks.

'You're out of shape, Rex. Had enough?'

'Fuck you.'

'Only reason I phoned you was to talk about an old case. That's it. Nothing else. Now you can believe me and come in have a drink or you can have another go and get knocked about. Up to you.'

He muttered something I couldn't catch.

'What was that?'

A couple of fat raindrops fell as a prelude to some heavy stuff coming.

He eased his mouth away from the wall and turned his head towards me. 'Nothing about the Logan business?' His breath stank of booze and bad teeth.

'No.'

'Okay, then. Sorry, sorry.'

I let him go and picked up the saw. 'Let's go inside before it pisses down. No tricks, Rex. A scratch from this rusty blade and you're a tetanus case, for sure.'

'No worries.'

I shepherded him around to the front of the house and we went in and down the passage to the kitchen at the back on the ground floor. Wain was a good ten years older than me and not wearing well. His sandy hair was thin on top and his belly ballooned his shirt front out over his belt. He wore a light grey suit that could have done with a clean and was missing buttons. He rubbed the spot where I'd hit him and stroked his nose. His face had hit the wall pretty hard.

I sat him down at the kitchen bench and gave him a solid scotch. He shook his head when I offered him ice, and tossed it down in one gulp. I poured another and one for myself. The rain came, thundering on the iron roof of the bathroom behind the kitchen-an add-on long after the house was built.

'Who's Logan?' I said.

'Shit, it doesn't matter. Just a pissed-off client. I got into your game after I left the force. I thought he might have hired you to get his money back or something.'

'You don't seem to be doing too well at it.'

He tasted his drink this time and looked around the room. 'You're not exactly coining it yourself. This isn't a single malt and this joint's a dump. Worth a bit though, I suppose.'

'How about we have the talk I wanted to have, since you're here?'

Wain was regaining his confidence. He picked bits of shrub and leaf from his jacket and deposited them on the bench. 'What's in it for me?'

'Are things that bad, that a professional discussion attracts a fee?'

'Matter of principle, Hardy, you prick. Never liked you and still don't.'

'It's mutual, Rex. Let's say I ask you some questions, and depending on your answers I decide whether what you say is worth any of my client's money. Otherwise, finish your drink and get on your bloody bike.'

The recovered confidence was tissue-thin. He drained his glass and pushed it at me. 'Okay. I'll have a bit of ice and water this time.'