I found a telephone number and an address in Chatswood for Burton, D. in Madden’s book. You didn’t have to be Einstein to work out that Dell Burton was ‘the woman’ Louise Madden had referred to. What else is there to do with ‘the woman’? I sat on the stool and dialled her number.
“Hello.” Good voice, educated but not toffee. Mature-sounding.
“I’d like to speak to Dell Burton.”
“Speaking. Who’s this?”
“My name is Hardy, Ms Burton. I’m a private detective. Louise Madden has hired me to investigate her father’s disappearance.”
“Brian’s daughter? He said he’d never discussed me with her. I can’t believe she gave you my number.”
“No. She’s aware of your existence, but nothing more. I’m calling from Mr Madden’s flat right now. I found a golf score card with your name on it, and your number in his address book.”
“I see. A private detective, um, I don’t know. I’ve been calling Brian’s number for weeks. I’ve been to the flat. I thought about going to the school, but…’
“I’d very much like to talk to you. Can I come to Chatswood and see you? Is there a problem in that?”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Hardy, Cliff Hardy. You can look me up in the phone book and you can call Louise Madden, if you want to check on me.”
“I’ll think about that. This is a little bit difficult, Mr Hardy.”
“Could we meet somewhere else?”
“I’m married. God, I’ve been so worried about Brian! I can’t understand what’s happened. Is he…?”
“I don’t want to cause you any trouble, Mrs Burton. I just want to talk about Mr Madden. I need to understand him better if I’m to be of any use. His daughter loves and admires him.”
“So do I, Mr Hardy.”
“Good. Not many men have that much luck. He must be a man worth knowing and worth finding. I need to talk to you.”
A pause while she digested that, and what else? Does a Chats wood wife meet a man who announces himself as a private detective over the phone? On the other hand, can a woman who has heard nothing from her lover in a month afford not to meet someone who’s apparently in the know?
“You wouldn’t blame me for being cautious would you?” she asked.
“Not at all.”
“Then I will look you up in the phone book, Mr Hardy. Tell me, how did you get into Brian’s flat?”
“His daughter told me where to find the key, under the flowerpot.”
“I’ll call the number in a few minutes.” She hung up sharply.
Smart woman, I thought. Taking pre-cautions, keeping the initiative. I flicked through the address book and located a name and number for Henry Bush. When the phone rang I picked it up immediately and said, “Hardy.”
“I’ll meet you, Mr Hardy. There’s a coffee shop in Chatswood immediately across from the railway station. It’s called the Chatterbox. Let’s meet there in half an hour.”
“Fine. How will I know you?”
I heard her sigh, and there was some-thing like a catch in her voice when she next spoke. “Have you looked through Brian’s things?”
“Some of them. I’ve been pretty thorough, I think.”
“Have you seen a photograph of a golf foursome? Brian, a tall, bald man and two women?”
“I think so.”
“I’m the woman in the red sweater. The other man is my husband.”
I thanked her, hung up and went back into the study for the photograph albums. I had seen the photo but hadn’t paid it much attention. A fine day on the golf course-ruddy cheeks, cotton shirts, windblown hair. Madden was standing next to a fair woman in a white jacket; they were watching the bald man demonstrating a shot to a woman who was frowning with concentration. She was small with a taut, energetic-looking body and cropped brown hair. Her red sweater was draped over her shoulders with the sleeves tied in front. She looked as if she couldn’t wait to get hold of the club.
6
I parked in one of Chatswood’s extensive parking areas and walked towards the railway station. At a casual glance there wasn’t much that I couldn’t have bought in the shops, from a leather tie to a chocolate pavlova. On the other hand, I didn’t see anything I actually needed. The Chatterbox was one of those bright, glossy places where everything was scrupulously clean, but you wouldn’t put money on the chance of getting a good cup of coffee. I took a seat by the window and told the waitress that I was waiting for someone. She checked that the table, ashtray and plastic-coated menu were spotless, and went away. There were three or four other people in the cafe, all singles. No chattering just at present.
Dell Burton arrived five minutes after the appointed time. She was wearing tight black trousers, the kind with a strap under the foot, high-heeled shoes, a loose blue sweater and helmet-like red felt hat. A leather bag like — small duffel was slung over her shoulder. She marched straight up to my table.
“Mr Hardy?”
I lifted my bum off the chair. “Mrs Burton.”
We shook hands and she sat down. She pulled off the hat and rubbed her hand over the cropped hair. All her movements were quick and busy. Her makeup was effective-a woman of about forty years of age looking her best. “Have you ordered?” she asked.
“Not yet.” I looked up and the waitress was there, magically ready.
“Long black for me,” Mrs Burton said.
“The same.”
The waitress made two squiggles on her pad. “Anything to eat at all?”
We both shook our heads and she left, gliding away over clean tiles in rubber-soled shoes. Mrs Burton dug a crumpled soft pack of Marlboro out of her bag and offered them to me. I refused and she lit up. “Three a day,” she said. “Maybe four today, or ten. So?”
“I’m hoping you can tell me something about Brian Madden that’ll help me to find him.”
She blew smoke over my shoulder. “I wish I could. If I had any ideas I’d have acted on them myself by now.”
“Despite your… situation?”
“Yes. My situation, as you call it, is not all that tricky. My husband knows that I’ve been having an affair. He doesn’t know with whom, and he doesn’t want to know. They’re the terms we struck. It works all right. I’m not housebound, no kids. I could’ve… looked…” She waved the hand with the cigarette in it, more emphatically than theatrically. “But I didn’t know what I could do. I thought about trying to contact the daughter, going to his school. But…” The hand waved again, indicating lack of direction.
The waitress brought the coffee. I put a spoonful of raw, granulated sugar in mine; she didn’t take sugar, but she still stirred the cup with the spoon-the gesture of an ex-sugar user. She drew solidly on her Marlboro a couple of times and then stubbed it out. I waited for the waitress to spring up with a fresh ashtray, but a few new customers drifted in and took her attention. The coffee was a bit weak but acceptable. “Sane, balanced, contented people don’t disappear for no reason,” I said. “Either they fall victim to some random senseless force or there’s some-thing in their lives, their backgrounds, that… removes them from the scene.”
“You mean, makes them run away, change their names?”
I shrugged and drank some more coffee. “That sort of thing. You haven’t tried your coffee. It’s okay.”
“I don’t want it. I want another cigarette.”
“Fight it.”
“Know all about it, do you?”
“Not about moderation, just quitting.”
She drank some of her coffee. “I couldn’t, not possibly. Well, I hadn’t ever thought about Brian in the way you say, about a random act or a reason for disappearing. I don’t know what to think.”
“You can’t recall anything he said, or anything you overheard, or half-heard, that suggested some problem in his life? Past or present. Some… disorder? What about his marriage? Any threads?”
“No. He spoke about his wife a few times, but there was nothing to suggest that it wasn’t just a sad event in the past. Normal, almost.”
I nodded. That was the word I had hit on when looking through the flat. “What about the daughter?”