It didn’t feel like such a big deal. It was a reversal of the usual stalker scenario, but what could I expect? It was the twenty-first century and we had climate change, an unwinnable war supported by both sides of politics, a minority government and a female prime minister. Change was everywhere.
Bobby said he’d been back to Miranda’s flat but she wasn’t there. He felt too angry to reply to her emails or phone calls because he was worried she might record him saying something he shouldn’t. He mentioned his bad temper. He wanted me to find Miranda and talk to her. Persuade her that the course she was following would only get her into serious trouble.
‘Would you take legal action?’
He finished his drink as he thought about it. ‘I’d be reluctant. It’d be embarrassing and Jane would find out all about it. But Dad says you’re good at getting through to people. If you thought she was serious about the threats and wouldn’t listen, then yes, I’d take legal action.’
That was sensible. He was smarter than he thought. I had him sign a contract and pay over a retainer. I asked him for more details on how the particular dating website he’d used worked and he filled me in. I took notes. I got his email address and his postal address, his landline and his mobile number.
Jane’s surname was Devereaux and I got her details, including the publishing company she worked for as a commissioning editor. I got Bobby’s agent’s details and those for his father. Bobby and I shook hands and he thanked me effusively. So far all he’d had was a sympathetic ear, and the retainer he’d given me, in line with what I’d learned was the new scale of fees, was steep. I felt I had to have something to contribute immediately. I asked him if Miranda had given him a deadline for carrying out her threats.
‘Not exactly, but she implied I didn’t have long.’
‘If I have trouble finding her, another way might be for you to contact her and arrange to meet. I could step in then.’
He looked dismayed at the prospect, almost angry when I told him that if it came to making contact with Miranda it would be better to do it by phone in case Jane read his emails.
‘She wouldn’t do that.’
‘You never know what a person will do.’
The anger subsided. A flush had come over his face and he’d gripped the arms of his chair so that the structure creaked. He drew in a deep breath. ‘I don’t think I could meet her. I think if I did I might. .’
‘Do what?’
He shook his head and didn’t answer.
‘How strong is this feeling of being followed?’
‘Pretty strong. I haven’t known what to do about it with Jane there in case it was Miranda herself. I mean, she talked about knowing people. .’
He was suddenly anxious to go and I let him. I stared at the closed door and wondered what he’d been going to say. Was it , I might try to prove my manhood , or I might harm her?
After he left I scanned my notes and the signed contract into the computer and created a file for it. I scanned the photos of Miranda and Jane into the computer and made copies. Then I threw the notes away. They say the paperless office didn’t happen; I kept the signed contract but otherwise I was prepared to get as close to paperless as I could.
I checked the site Bobby had used. The drill was to choose a username which could include a bit of your real name or not. The instructions suggested that it was a good idea to give a hint of your main interests at this stage. Then you set up a profile with a list of your interests, likes and dislikes. At this point you also sketch in the kind of person you’re looking for. You get an ‘inbox’ so people can send you messages through the site and you can respond to them. No email address or contact details until you get responses and have communicated back and forth enough to feel confident you’ve latched on to a ‘possible’. Then contact details and face-to-face meetings are up to you. Photographs are optional in the profile but you can protect them from being looked at by all and sundry and restrict access to them to people who take your fancy. You can pay a subscription, and Bobby’s was pretty heavy, or just buy credits and pay message by message.
Bobby, looking shamefaced, had told me that Miranda’s photograph had attracted him and her list of interests included acting and several sports he was keen on. He’d ‘messaged’ her, got a response and they communicated a few times before arranging a meeting at a wine bar in Coogee. He’d given her his email address and mobile number. Once bitten, he’d been more cautious with Jane and they’d spent more time providing details and filling in backgrounds before they’d arranged to meet. He said he hadn’t been disappointed by her looks when they met at a coffee shop in Randwick. He described her face as fascinating. She hadn’t objected to his intellectual shortcomings. He said they’d laughed a lot and at the same sorts of things. He’d agreed to read some books and she’d agreed to let him teach her to play golf. They went to bed on their third meeting and hit the jackpot.
It all sounded potentially very dangerous to me unless you played strictly by the rules and exercised a great deal of common sense. But I suppose that applied to the old style of meetings between the sexes. How many mistakes had I made in connecting up with women and how many women had made mistakes in connecting up with me?
First things first. I had to know more about Bobby Forrest. His website was just a photo, a few broad-brush details and a list of his film and TV credits. I’d never heard of the films or the television shows. His agent, Sophie Marjoram, I did know from back when I did security work for film crews. I rang her and arranged to meet her the following morning. That left me sitting in the office at 6 pm with a paying client, a glass of scotch and a nagging half-memory. When I focused on it the name Ray Frost rang a bell but nothing more. Over the years I’ve done favours for people that haven’t needed a documentary record. I guess everybody has. If the name had cropped up in that context I’d have to rely on my uncertain memory, but I had a feeling that it was something more than that.
My filing system has never been well organised and, what with moving office a couple of times and a spell of working from home, it’d become a bit chaotic. So it took me more than an hour and another drink to track down Ray Frost. It was twenty-five years ago. All it took was a glance at one of the notes I’d made to bring the whole thing back to me.
Frost had been in gaol, on remand for involvement in an armed robbery.
‘He’s innocent,’ Frost’s lawyer, Charles Bickford, had told me. ‘I want you to prove it.’
It was a bit unusual for a lawyer to be so adamant about the innocence of a client and I asked Bickford why he thought so.
‘The police have it in for him. He’s been in trouble before and he’s a maverick sort of character. Won’t take shit from anyone, including me. I can’t help liking him.’
I’d dealt with Bickford before and more or less trusted his judgement, so I took his money and the case. Three men had robbed an armoured car delivery to a business in the CBD very early in the morning. They’d been masked and were efficient. They didn’t injure the guards and got away with about sixty thousand dollars-probably less than they’d expected. A witness said the mask on one of the robbers had slipped and he identified Frost in a lineup. I went to see Frost in Long Bay.
‘It’s bullshit,’ he said. ‘I was at home asleep. I’ve never worn a mask in my life.’
‘How do you figure it, then?’
Frost was a big, solid man, handsome in a rugged way. He was very calm, which isn’t easy to be when you’re on remand facing a serious charge. I knew because I’d been there. He didn’t fidget or avoid my eyes. He smoked, as so many did back then, including me, but not compulsively.
‘Must’ve been someone who looked like me. Plenty do.’
That was true enough. He said he was alone in the house at the time of the robbery. His wife had just had a premature baby and was still in the hospital with it. He’d been awake for two days through the crisis and was grabbing some sleep.
‘How d’you read it?’ I asked.
‘To be honest, I see it as payback. I’m no angel and the cops haven’t managed to nail me for a few things I have done. They’re causing me grief for something I didn’t do.’
There were a lot of dodgy police back then, many of them capable of framing people and using their powers and the courts to pay old debts.
‘What about the other two?’
He shrugged. ‘No idea who those guys are but I could hazard a guess.’
‘That might help.’
‘No, I’m not a dog, but you know how it works, Hardy. They could’ve green-lighted the job and set me up to take the blame.’
He was right about that. It happened. If it had, the weak spot in the arrangement was the witness. I poked around and got enough on him for Bickford to cast serious doubt on his evidence if the case came to trial. It didn’t. Wheels turned and the charges were dropped. It made me popular with Bickford, who put work my way for the next few years. Frost had thanked me. It made me unpopular with the police but that was nothing new.
The files were arranged in chronological order so I could see that other matters had come along hard on the heels of that one. It had been a busy time and the details had been crowded out long ago. I made some notes, put the old file back in its place, and copied the notes into the Forrest file and then to the memory stick. I fitted the memory stick onto my key ring. It felt like a day’s work so that’s what I called it.
I felt good about Bobby’s case. It had an interesting texture to it. The phone rang as I was about to leave the office. It was Sarah Kelly, a woman I’d met down in the Illawarra on a brief holiday a while back.
‘You said you’d call me,’ she said.
‘I should have,’ I said.
‘When are you likely to be down here again? I want to see you, Cliff.’
I realised that I wanted to see her, too. Badly. Being back at work and on something interesting was all very well, but I needed warmth. Viv had said I was sour. I didn’t feel sour, especially when I heard Sarah’s voice. She was a part-time soul singer and her voice had a special quality.
‘I’m back in business, Sarah. It’s great to hear from you.’
‘Busy, eh, baby? Well get here soon.’
I went to the Toxteth in an uppish mood, didn’t drink too much and Daphne Rowley and I held the pool table until our eyes got crossed.
Sophie Marjoram had an office in Paddington not far from the Five Ways. It was wedged between an art gallery and an antique dealer with a pub just across the street and a coffee shop half a block away. Ideal location. Sophie specialised in all aspects of the film and television business. She was an agent for writers, directors, actors, sound engineers, special effects people, stunt persons, you name it. It was a good niche that enabled her, sometimes, to get quite a few of her clients in on the one film or TV production and guarantee stability and reliability. And lock in good commissions for herself. She didn’t have any of the big names.
‘Don’t want ’em,’ she’d told me when I first met her. ‘Nothing but ego, ego, ego. I’ve had a few on the way up who’ve left me when they made it, and come back to me on the way down. A microcosm of life’s what it feels like sometimes.’
Our appointment was for 10 am. I showed up on time and she was late. She came hurrying along the street, high-heeled boots tapping, flowing skirt flapping and with a mobile phone glued to her ear. Still listening and talking she dug keys out of her bag, opened the door and waved me inside.
‘Fuck you,’ she said and switched off the phone.
‘Another successful negotiation, Soph?’
‘It will be, it will be.’
We went down a short passage to an open plan office holding three desks.
‘You’ve expanded,’ I said. ‘You used to have half this space.’
‘I’m doing okay. I’ve got two part-timers. I get a government subsidy for employing them, would you believe? You ought to be in on it.’
‘I’m just starting up again after a break. Barely enough work for me so far.’
She sat behind the biggest, most cluttered desk and pointed to a chair.
‘Good to see you, anyway. I guess one of my people must be in trouble. Who is it?’
Direct, that’s Sophie, at least when she was sober, which wasn’t always. She was in her fifties, overweight, vividly made up, energetic. She’d done most of the jobs she now handled as an agent herself in her time except for stunting, and she could be hard as nails or marshmallow soft as required.
‘Bobby Forrest,’ I said. ‘Trouble not really of his own making.’
‘It never is. Well, I know how it works. You won’t tell me a thing about it, and I have to tell you everything I know about him.’
‘Not quite like that. He hasn’t committed any crimes, isn’t a drunk or on drugs or a pedophile, as far as I know.’
‘That’s a relief. I can tell you that he’s a good kid. Good actor, a natural. Limited range but he’s working on that. In a way he’s got too many skills. He can do just about anything and the producers use him a lot, but in snatches, if you know what I mean. He’s yet to get any good, solid roles but he keeps busy.’
‘How bright is he?’
‘How bright are any of them? Not very.’
I showed Sophie the photograph of Miranda and asked if she’d ever seen her. She put on glasses and studied it carefully.
‘Chocolate box,’ she said. ‘No, don’t know her.’
‘Is Forrest, let’s say. . prone to violence?’
‘Ah, now we’re getting to it, are we? It’s not what he’s done, it’s what he might do.’
‘You’re talking. Go on.’
Sophie fiddled with the pens and pencils standing up in a jar on her desk. She selected one and ran her fingers along its length. It had an eraser at the end and she used it to bounce the pencil on the desk.
‘As far as I know, Cliff,’ she said slowly, weighing her words, ‘you’re one of the good guys, although your record doesn’t quite show that, I’m told. You’ve cut some corners, trodden on some toes.’
I nodded. ‘Corners that needed cutting, toes that needed treading on.’
‘You always did a good job for me, sometimes under difficult circumstances. You could’ve picked up money talking juicy stuff to the media.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘So I’m going to trust you.’
‘Yes?’
She laughed. ‘Had you going, didn’t I? You thought I was going to reveal some deep, dark secret about Bobby.’
‘Well?’
‘No, there’s nothing. He is what he seems to be.’
Sophie had been an actress but apparently not a very good one. I thought she was acting now, but I couldn’t be sure in what kind of role. That’s the trouble with theatrical people. When are they acting and when are they being straight? If ever, either way?
‘Come on, Soph. Is there something?’
‘No, nothing.’
I simply didn’t know whether to believe her or not and I let it go. We talked a bit more. I thanked her and left her still stroking and bouncing her pencil. In books and movies the private eye seeking information lurks outside the door to listen to the subject pick up the phone and give the game away. I’d never done it and, anyway, in Sophie’s office there was nowhere to lurk.
The simplest way of meeting up with Miranda, if it worked, was to check whether she was following Bobby. I rang him on his mobile.
‘This is Cliff Hardy, Bobby. Where are you?’
‘I’m out at Fox Studios doing some voice-overs.’
‘What’re your plans for the rest of the day?’
‘I’m going to play a round at Anzac Park with a mate and then go home and read and then pick up Jane and go out to eat. Why?’
‘I want to check whether you’re being followed.’
I got a description of his car and the registration number. He told me where he was parked and how long before he’d be back at his car. I told him not to worry about feeling he was being followed because I’d be doing it.
He laughed. ‘Well, that’ll be a new experience. What will you do if someone else is following me?’
He sounded much more relaxed than before, perhaps too relaxed. It happens sometimes. People feel better for just having talked the problem over and being offered some help, still to be delivered. It’s like the way an ailment can feel better after you decide to see a doctor.
I had time to get out to what used to be the showgrounds and take up a position within sight of Bobby’s red Alfa Romeo. Right car for a rising star. It was Tuesday and quiet at the complex. I spotted the Alfa and parked in a two-hour zone close by. Bobby came out within a couple of minutes of the time he’d suggested. He was dressed pretty much as before but carrying a slim briefcase. He opened the car from fifty metres away and looked around, but there were twenty or thirty cars parked in the area and he didn’t know which was mine. He tossed the briefcase onto the back seat, climbed in and drove away. I waited to see if any of the parked cars would follow him. None did.
He drove fast, too fast and aggressively for the amount of traffic. He cut in and out, skilfully but leaving little margin for error. After one manoeuvre the car he’d cut in on gave him a blast on the horn and tailgated him up to a set of lights. Bobby jumped out and strode back to the car. The other driver got out and stretched a 190-plus centimetre body with bulk to match. Bobby shouted at him and the driver shaped up to throw a punch. Bobby got ready to mix it. Cars were banked up at the lights and horns were blaring. I was two cars back. I got out and shouted.
‘Police!’
Bobby and the other man froze. I came up and jostled Bobby.
‘I’m not a cop, but look around. Half these people are on their mobiles and the cops’ll be here any minute. You two fuckwits better get back in your cars and piss off.’
The pair looked around. The big guy shrugged and got back in his car. Bobby did the same and drove off, just catching the green light. He’d mentioned his bad temper and now I’d seen an example of it. Pretty extreme. You could say it added shading to his rather bland character, but it was a dangerous addition.
I followed, hanging back, made the short run to the golf course and pulled into the car park. A Mazda pulled in next to him. A young man got out and shook hands with Bobby. They hauled their clubs and buggies out of their cars and squatted on the driver’s seats with the door open to change their shoes. Then they fitted the clubs to the buggies and strolled away. I rang his mobile. Golfers tell me you need a clear head, preferably an empty one, to play well. I wondered if Bobby was still seeing red.
‘Hardy,’ I said. ‘Jesus, Bobby, you need to watch your temper. That guy would’ve flattened you.’
He sounded calm. ‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s a problem.’
‘I’d say so. Anyway, you’re all clear for now. Enjoy your round. What time will you leave home to pick up Jane?’
He told me. That left me with eight empty hours. I drove back to Pyrmont and entered a few notes on my conversation with Sophie Marjoram into the Forrest file. I Googled Goldstein Smith Publishing and clicked on the name Jane Devereaux. The entry came up with another photograph, just an upper body shot showing her at her desk, and a list of her accomplishments. It was a formidable tally-honours degree and a Masters in comparative literature, a batch of literary criticism articles published, co-editorship of a literary magazine. The photograph showed her glancing up in the direction of the lens. The shy smile was there along with an expression that could only be called intelligent. It enlivened her face but left it a long way short of pretty. I wondered about the attraction between her and Bobby. On the surface it looked like an attraction of opposites, but that was probably too simple. I copied the entry and added it to the file. Still no more paper.
Sophie had given me the names of a few films Bobby had been in and I found three in my local DVD place. Action stuff mostly. Looked watchable.
I had lunch in a cafe and went to the Redgum Gym in Leichhardt to work off the lunch. Since my heart attack and bypass I’ve had to take quite a bit of medication and some of it has to be taken clear of food and clear of other medication. It irritates me having to swallow pills at particular times, but not as much as another bypass would. I put in a solid workout on the treadmill, the machines and the free weights and felt virtuous.
‘Going fine, Cliff,’ Wesley Scott, the proprietor, said as I completed the last set. ‘Looking more cheerful too, man.’
‘I’m back in business, Wes.’
‘God help us. So you’ll be coming in all bruised and battered again.’
‘No, I’m aiming for a better class of client.’
‘Won’t be hard to achieve. How’s your grandson?’
‘Thriving. How’s business?’
‘Would you believe I’ve signed up five politicians all keen to lose weight and look good for the next election.’
‘Which side?’
‘Both sides, man. Both sides.’
‘Must be hard to tell them apart.’
Bobby lived in Redfern in a street that was physically close to the Block, the area heavily populated by Aborigines, and a continual problem for people well disposed to the Aborigines and those hostile to them. But Bobby’s street was a million miles away in economic terms. Every house in it had been gentrified recently and the speed humps were new and the bricked footpath was even newer. It was on the fringes of Surry Hills and it was a sure bet the real estate agents advertised the houses as ‘suit Surry Hills buyer’ just as they used to say ‘suit Balmain buyer’ for overpriced ruins in the inner-west.
Bobby’s house was a neat, single-storey terrace. Good investment if he owned it, high rent if he didn’t. The Alfa was parked outside and I had about half an hour until Bobby emerged, slamming the door behind him and feeling in his jacket for the keys. He was more smartly dressed than before-white shirt, beige jacket, dark slacks, boots. I was parked just around the corner in a cross street. Not many of the houses had driveways and there were quite a few cars parked in the street. Bobby drove off, heading east, and no one followed except me.
He drove carefully and well, more like a solid citizen than a speedway performer this time. Maybe he’d learned his lesson or perhaps the thought of Jane had a calming influence on him, or perhaps it was just because he knew I was following him. I kept a few cars back. It’s easy to follow someone when you know where they’re going and Bobby was obviously heading to Randwick, where Jane lived. Her street was off Alison Road, not far from the racecourse. Bobby pulled up outside a block of flats and used his mobile phone. No honking horns or knocking on doors these days. There was nowhere to park, he’d snaffled the last spot in the street, so I had to cruise past, turn and come back. It took two passes before Jane came out of the building. Bobby sprang from the car and wrapped his arms around her. She was smaller than she appeared in the photograph and she virtually disappeared into his big-bodied hug.
They broke apart and he opened the car door for her. She wore high heels, a dark-coloured pants suit and a white blouse. It was a simple but elegant outfit, not striving for glamour. Well, it was only Wednesday night. They did some kissing before Bobby started the car and moved off. I was going slowly in the other direction. A Commodore that had been parked fifty metres from the Alfa started up and followed it-at least it made the same turn, further down the street. I lost time and distance going in the wrong direction before I could turn. I got back as quickly as I could and saw the Commodore waiting to make the turn into Alison Road.
The traffic was heavy and the Commodore had to bluff its way into the stream of traffic and I had to do the same. The Alfa had to be a fair distance ahead and it was no certainty yet that the Commodore was following it. The road rose and although the light was dropping I could see the Alfa signalling right in the distance. The Commodore nearly caused an accident getting across to make the turn. I was locked into a stream of traffic and there was no way I could change lanes. The Alfa and the Commodore headed off and I was forced to carry on a kilometre or more before I could make my way back.
There was a maze of streets in the direction they’d taken and any number of options for dinner. A waste of time trying to track them. I was certain that Bobby had been followed and equally certain that Miranda wasn’t doing the following. Not unless she was a mistress of disguise-the driver of the Commodore had been a man.