I had no doubt that the dead men was Livermore. In the fading light I could see a lot of blood on the grass, but no signs of a struggle or a weapon. There was more blood and a few hairs on the edge of the bench; a cloth cap lay on the grass a few feet from the body. A pair of spectacles was half-covered by the spread skirt of the overcoat. A fall, then? An old, near-sighted man lost his footing, fell and struck his head? Happens every day. I looked up as a uniformed man came running along the path in the direction opposite from the way I’d come. He was heavy, red-faced and breathless when he reached the spot.
“Oh, gawd,” he said, “it’s old Stan.”
I straightened up. “You know him?”
“Yeah.” He pulled down the waistband of his uniform jacket, which had ridden up as he ran. The jacket had flashes bearing the word ‘Ranger’ sewn onto the sleeves and the breast pocket. “I know him. Well, we just call him old Stan. Don’t know his full name. Comes in every night to watch the sun going down behind the bridge. Done it for years. Poor old bugger must’ve taken a tumble.”
He peered at the bench and saw the blood. Then he unhooked a walkie-talkie from his belt and put in a call for an ambulance.
“He’s dead,” I said.
“Just following procedure, sir. Could I have your name, please?”
It was the walkie-talkie that did for me. If he’d had to go off somewhere to sound the alert I might have faded into the distance, but what could I do with him standing there, all ‘Ranger’ flashes, note-book and self-importance? I gave him my name and he lit a cigarette and we waited in the gathering dark. I looked west and the bridge changed from a dark, abstract outline to a big, simple piece of machinery as the lights came on.
9
There was just enough room on the path for the ambulance. The paramedics agreed with me and the ranger that the poor old bugger was dead. Then the cops arrived- plenty of space for them. They parked so that their headlights played over the scene, and after a fairly brief look around and collections of items such as the glasses and cap, they told the paramedics to take the corpse away. It all seemed a bit perfunctory to me, but it turned out that the senior constable knew old Stan too, and he was satisfied with the “fell and hit head” explanation.
“And what were you doing in the gardens, Mr Hardy?” he asked. “Just taking a walk,” I said. “Funny time of day for a walk.”
“I had things to think about, constable.” Satisfied was the senior constable’s middle name. He nodded, copied down the name and address from my driver’s licence ind told me that I should accompany them to the Woolloomooloo police station to sign my statement.
“I haven’t made a statement.”
The senior looked at his colleague, who read from his notebook using his torch to read his notes. “I can take shorthand, Mr Hardy. Your name is Cliff Hardy, I have your address as it appears on your driver’s licence. You were taking a walk in the Botanic Gardens at approximately 4.45 pm, and you discovered the body of a man identified as Stan Livermore.”
“That’s right. I’m impressed.”
“Just accompany us to the station, sir,” the senior said. He turned to the ranger. “And you too, sir, if you don’t mind.”
The ranger seemed to enjoy the ceremony; he spoke briefly into his walkie-talkie, and then we climbed into the back of the police car and drove slowly along the paths to the Victoria Lodge gate.
“I’m going to be late home,” the ranger said.
I was playing the role of a solid, minding-my-own-business citizen. “Me, too,” I said.
The constable was doing the driving, the senior was doing the investigating. “Did Stan have a family, d’you know?” he asked.
If it was a trap for me it was too obvious. I said nothing and let the long, pale grey shape of a warship docked opposite the Boy Charlton pool take my attention.
“Doubt it,” the ranger said. “How long’s this going to take?”
The senior shifted in his seat to let the pistol on his hip settle more comfortably. “Step on it, Charlie,” he said. “The gentle-men want to get home for their tea.”
The ‘Loo police station is new and reasonably high-tech, but rather under-manned. I noticed that the graffiti, a feature of the area, were starting to creep along nearby walls in its direction. They wouldn’t have the manpower to spare to scrub it off, so that station will probably look pretty much like the rest of the neighbourhood soon. The shorthand expert typed up the ranger’s statement and he signed it and left. The constable then sat down at a computer terminal and put the microchips through it’s paces. I expected him to turn his professional attention to me after that, but the sergeant distracted him with some questions about something else. Then he couldn’t find the right form; then he had to answer the phone a few times.
I sat in a too-bright room which had too few things to look at. I soon got bored by the community policing notices. There weren’t any of the ‘Wanted’ posters-the ones with pictures of neanderthal-faced men-that used to decorate police stations. The coffee from the automatic machine tasted like cocoa. I hate cocoa. I was impatient and restless, but I didn’t want to occasion any suspicion. Wouldn’t an ordinary citizen be impatient and restless! I thought. Yes. Would he demand to see his lawyer or try to sneak out when the cop wasn’t looking? No. I sat and waited until the form was found and put in the typewriter and the sergeant went away and the phone stopped ringing. The magic fingers went to work again and I was typed up, signed and countersigned before you could say police commissioner. I said that I was a real estate agent-but that was almost the only lie I told.
It was after eight o’clock when I left the police station, and as soon as I got out in the wind I realised how cold and hungry I was. Also dry. It had been a good day for non-alcoholic resolutions, if not for much else. I had a light beer and a steak with salad and a half carafe of wine in a cafe in William Street.
The wine relaxed me and helped me to shift my attention from the disappeared and the dead to the living. Myself. I walked up to St Peter’s lane and took a careful look around to see if anyone was lying in wait for me. I was in the mood. But not tonight, not yet at least. I checked my notebook for the address Ray Guthrie had given me and located it in the Gregory’s. The Falcon had been sitting all day and was slow to start in the cold air. I let the motor run and turned on the heater. Darling Point. Maybe I should have gone home to change and shave. But if the good people of Darling Point could put up with Rhino Jackson, who’d been known to spit on the pavement and worse, I couldn’t see how they could object to me.
I drove down Darling Point Road, which bisects the peninsula. In some places structured like that, the rich people live off to the right and the poor to the left, or vice versa. In Darling Point the rich live off to the right and left. Ray had given me the name Nash; the address was a cul-de-sac that curled around from the main road and ended just short of the water. High fence, wide gate, bricked driveway; the front garden was so deep I couldn’t see the house. There seemed to be a secondary driveway branching off the main one and I guessed this was where the boating types backed their Mercs with catamarans attached down to the water. I gave it the once-over from the car, drove back a hundred metres and parked outside a big house from which cars had overflowed the three-car garage. There were no signs of a party inside- just too many cars per head. I put the. 38 in my pocket and was all set to go when the rain started. I swore and dug the old oilskin slicker Cyn had given me as a birthday present out of the boot. Cyn had thought I might take up yachting as a civilising pursuit. Another disappointment.