“You sound a bit shaky,” Guthrie said.
“I’m fine. I’d like to see Ray. Where would I find him, say, later this after-noon?”
“Right here if you want. You just have to ask, Cliff.”
I didn’t feel good about it. Old fathers have no right to command the movements of their young sons, but the Guthries were a close-knit family, almost sharing the same mind. So perhaps it wasn’t too bad. I said I’d be at the Northbridge house around six, and Paul Guthrie assured me his son would be there. That left me with about six hours to fill and two things to do-recover my car and visit, if that was possible, Detective Sergeant Meredith in St Vincents Hospital.
I had the car keys in my jacket pocket. I walked up Glebe Point Road past the cafes and bookshops and caught a cab just this side of Parramatta Road. In Darling Point I found the Falcon just as I’d left it except that there was a flyer under the wiper. “Protect your Independence,” it read. “Your Independent local member is under threat from the conservative government’s plan to change the com-position of the Parliament. Write to me. Write to the Premier.” I crumpled up the paper and was about to drop it into one of the big plastic garbage bins that help to keep Darling Point clean when I took a good look at the neighbourhood. I thought the ‘local Independent member’ had a right to be concerned-the big, white houses with their gardens and driveways and high walls smacked of conformity rather than independence. I unfolded the notice and tucked it into a wrought iron gate, just above the security lock.
Hospital visits might be some people’s idea of a kick, but not mine. For me, there’s always too much waiting about, too many starched white uniforms and too much of a feeling that the walls are saying, “You’re on your feet now, but you could be on a trolley tomorrow.”
I gave my name at the desk and after seeing two nurses and a policeman-it’s standard procedure to have a cop on duty after a cop has been shot, why I’m not sure-I was allowed to see Meredith.
“He’s out of intensive care,” the ward sister who was escorting me to Meredith’s room said. “He’s such a strong man! He responded to everything the doctors did.”
“You sound surprised, sister. Do most intensive care patients die?”
She looked as if she had things to say on the subject but thought better of it. “Yes, eventually, Mr Hardy. We all do. Even doctors. He’s in here.” She pushed open a door. “Five minutes.”
“And no arm wrestling,” I said. I can’t help it-hospitals and nurses affect me that way.
I went into the room, which was no bigger than it needed to be for the bed and a lot of medical equipment. It smelled of sterile plastic and glass and detergent. I could barely recognise Meredith for tubes and wires running in and out of his face and body. The tubes and wires were hooked up to drips and monitoring devices; lights were blinking on the equipment and blips were dancing across green screens.
“Looks like they’re about to launch you into outer space,” I said.
Meredith’s face twitched. A smile, maybe. “G’day, Hardy.”
“Sorry about all this. What’re they telling you?”
“Bugger all, but I reckon I’ll be all right. Felt worse after some hockey games.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.”
“Are you talking about the bullet or the hockey?”
“Never played ice hockey. I got a bullet in the leg once. Hurt like hell and still twinges sometimes. Well, I just wanted to look in. Didn’t think you’d be in real trouble. What calibre was Tobin’s gun? Nothing you couldn’t handle?”
Again the twitch, the possible smile. A couple of sentences had tired him.
“That Moody did all right,” he whispered.
“Bloody tremendous. Well, I don’t want to keep you here any longer than necessary, so I’ll…”
“Hardy.”
“Don’t talk, Meredith. You’re tough, but don’t push your luck. It’ll keep.”
“Bridge… foundry… Samuels an’… Booth… missing. I think…”
I could hear the nurse’s footsteps coming down the hall and I was looking for somewhere to pat him without touching a piece of medical intervention. I touched his broad, meaty shoulder. “Take it easy, sergeant. I know what you’re talking about. Just concentrate on getting better.”
“Don’t…”
“Don’t worry. Is there anything you want?”
Meredith’s hard grey eyes were clouding over with fatigue. A slight movement might have been a shake of the head. I patted his shoulder again and retreated to the door which opened as I got there.
“I was just coming to ask you to leave, Mr Hardy,” the sister said.
“That’s OK, sister,” I said, “in a hospital being asked to leave is OK. Ask me to stay and I’d worry.”
Castlecrag looks good. The streets are wide, the gardens are big and the Council picks up the rubbish. But, at least on weekdays, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of life in the place. Maybe the kids are at boarding school and the wives are playing golf while the husbands take meetings. Maybe the wives are taking meetings too. It’s one of those suburbs where the groceries are delivered. Two-car, two-salary, two-dog territory.
The address Louise Madden had given me was a corner block in one of the widest, quietest streets. There was a tennis court on the property and almost certainly a swimming pool behind the high brush fence. An archery range was a possibility.
I pushed a button at the set of wrought-iron gates mounted on brick pillars. I hoped I had the right address-it would be a fair hike to the front of the house next door. After a moderately long wait, I saw Louise Madden begin the trek down the bricked driveway. She was wearing a denim overall and high laced boots and carrying some kind of hooked implement which I never did identify. Her hair was tied up in a bright scarf and the work gloves on her hands were yellow. She opened the gates, shucked off one glove and shook my hand.
“Mr Hardy,” she said, “you look like you’ve been clearing privet.”
I touched the scrapes and scratches last night’s fun and games had left on my face. “Dealing with pests, certainly.”
She waved me through the heavy gate and let it swing back. “We’ll have to talk as I work. The woman here’s a real bitch-wants it finished yesterday, and I’ll get bawled out if I bend a blade of her precious grass.”
“Fun to work for,” I said. I had to hurry to keep up with her as she strode down the path, which gave way to a series of gravel tracks that wound through the gardens. I was right about the swimming pool and, given the stands of tall native trees, I still considered the archery range an option.
“Some are, some aren’t. She isn’t. I take it you haven’t found my dad?”
“No.”
“And from the look of you, no good news.”
“I don’t think you can expect good news, Ms Madden.”
“He’s dead?”
“Probably.”
“Shit.” She stopped and slashed at a bush with her hook. “How? Why?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s why I have to talk to you. Where are you working?”
“Over here.” She led me across to a steep bank where she was setting railway sleepers into the earth. “Look good, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
She wiped a yellow glove across her face. Tears had cut through a thin film of dust, leaving pale streaks on her skin. She banged her hands together and sat down on a sleeper. “You’d better tell me about it.”
“First, what d’you know about your grandfather?”
“Which one?”
“The who that built the bridge.”
“Oh, Grandpa Madden. Yes.” Through her distress over her father, memories of her grandfather caused her to smile. “He was great. But what’s it got to do with…?”
“Do the names Glover, Barclay and…” I struggled to remember the names Meredith had mumbled and had to resort to my notebook. “… Samuels and Booth mean anything to you?”
She shook her head. The sun went behind a cloud, and suddenly it was cold in the big garden. The light dropped and the elegantly and strategically arranged plants looked grim and lifeless. Louise Madden unhooked a heavy cardigan from where it had been hanging on an embedded sleeper and shrugged into it. “Tell me what you’re driving at.”