I considered going over to Hurstville and making a complete statement to the police and getting shot of the whole thing. Something held me back. Professional pride? I don’t think so. Possibly it was something about Danni, who seemed different from the image I’d had from talking to Price and Samantha about her. When I’d said she needed help I meant it, but what kind of help I wasn’t sure. Something. But it was probably mostly to do with someone having shot at me. Couldn’t have that. I had to know who and why and had to do something about it. Anyway, the police’d catch up with me sooner or later. Stankowski and Hammond didn’t look lazy or like quitters.
I’d watched my back very closely on the drive to Hunters Hill and I watched it again as I made my way to Concord to call on Ramsay Hewitt’s sugar momma. I hadn’t had the go-ahead from Tess but I was pretty sure she’d give it eventually. Her attachment to Ramsay was too strong for her to leave things dangling. I was curious myself, and a bit of driving around would give me time to think more about the Price matter while hanging myself out as a target, although an alert one. But I was increasingly coming to think of last night’s shot as a warning. Anyone seriously trying to kill me would have had plenty of easier opportunities than at night through a window. In a way it raised a more interesting set of questions: warn me off what, and why?
Concord was flat and leafy — as I remembered it from when I first met Tess there and we went through a few hoops together. I pulled up outside the address I’d got out of the phonebook — a California-style bungalow on a quarter acre block with a deep front garden. Shrubs, grass and a huge ghost gum with thick branches that would brain you if they fell and you happened to be underneath. I didn’t expect to see Ramsay’s flash Merc parked in the driveway and I didn’t. The wind was still blowing hard and a couple of plastic bags and soft drink cans bowled down the street. Otherwise it was quiet and still with only the occasional car cruising by. I hadn’t been followed from Hunters Hill. I watched the postman arrive on his motor scooter. Nothing for the place I was watching.
The private detective business, whether you’re looking for people or serving subpoenas or bodyguarding, is basically a matter of making house calls. Some turn out to be profitable and pleasant, others not. But it becomes a habit and having found a place where someone I was looking for was alleged to be I was incapable of just driving off. A few questions to Regina Kipps would surely be in order.
Most of the houses on the street had no fences and no front gates and Mrs Kipps’ house was one of these — a testimony to the safety and security of suburban Australia until very recently. I examined myself in the rear-vision mirror and picked away the pieces of tissue that had clung to the cuts. The bleeding didn’t start again and there was no blood on my shirt. I went up the cement drive that led to a garage and branched off on another similar path leading to the front porch. The paths were painted green with raised edges picked out in red but the paint had faded badly, and if Ramsay was living here he certainly wasn’t spending any time weeding the garden beds or pruning the shrubs.
I rang the bell and got out my credentials, quite unsure of what I was going to say. In any case, it’s not always a good idea to map it out beforehand because you might have to adjust to the unexpected. After a short wait I heard footsteps approaching and the door opened, leaving a good strong security screen door between me and the woman inside. It’s odd looking at someone through metal mesh. It’s almost as if they’re wrapped in armour and the mesh stops you seeing certain bits. The woman was medium height and, while not fat, she was certainly well-covered. She was in her fifties at a guess with a pale, slightly puffy face. She wore her fair hair in a style too young for her, although, in a silk blouse with the top buttons undone showing a deep cleavage and a bit of black lace, and a short skirt, she was doing her best.
‘Mrs Kipps?’
I’ve met a lot of different receptions on doorsteps, from passionate embraces to kicks in the teeth, but this was a new one. Every muscle in her face registered disappointment. She glanced at the small gold watch she wore before answering.
‘Yes, I’m Regina Kipps. You’re not… I’m sorry. Who are you?’
I showed her the folder. ‘I’m making enquiries into the whereabouts of Ramsay Hewitt.’
Small cracks seemed to appear around her mouth, leading me to think that the make-up was laid on pretty thickly. Her eyes crinkled and the same thing happened there. She drew in a deep breath. ‘You’re a policeman?’
‘No, not exactly.’
‘Worse luck.’ She looked at the watch again. ‘I’m sorry. I’m expecting a visitor. I can’t…’
‘Is he here, Mrs Kipps?’
‘No, thank God.’
‘When can we talk?’ I got out my notebook. ‘Can I have your number? I’ll call you.’
She went up on her toes in her high heels to look over my shoulder. ‘I want him in gaol.’
‘That could happen,’ I said. ‘Your number?’
She reeled it off and I scribbled it down. ‘I’ll call later today.’
‘I don’t know where he is.’
‘That doesn’t matter. I want to hear what you have to say. Thank you.’
She was looking anxious and I didn’t want to press my luck. I scooted down the path and drove away briskly but U-turned further up the street and parked on the other side about fifty metres away from the house. Within a few minutes a taxi pulled up and a man got out. He was dressed in a suit and was a tailor’s dream — tall, broad-shouldered but slim everywhere else, with a glowing head of fair hair. He walked up Regina Kipps’ concrete path in a stride that was almost, but not quite, a swagger. Hot to trot.
Catching up with Ramsay Hewitt was proving to be tricky. If he kept on the move like this I could be at it for weeks. But I thought it’d be worth giving Mrs Kipps a ring later on. She’d said she didn’t know where he was but with Ramsay it was more a matter who he was with, and Mrs Kipps just might have some ideas about that. Her remark about wanting him in gaol might be something I’d have to edit out when I next talked to Tess.
I drove back towards the city at a leisurely pace, turning things over in my mind. I’d decided there was no-one out to kill me just now so I didn’t pay much attention to the traffic around me until I spotted a police car some distance back and weaving through other cars. Being a mostly law-abiding citizen, I eased my way over to let the car get through to wherever it was going.
It drew alongside of me and the uniformed cop in the passenger seat waved me into the kerb. The Falcon is a bit shabby but has no obvious unroadworthy features I was aware of, though who examines their tail-lights on a daily basis? There was nowhere to stop so I cruised along until there was. The police car stayed right behind me and I could see the one who wasn’t driving talking on his two-way. Not a cracked light or a bald tyre then. We were in Queens Street heading for Drummoyne and I pulled over into the car park adjacent to a small reserve. I did a quick mental check: no opened bottles containing alcohol, no concealed weapons, no bodies in the boot.
I sat there while they approached and when I saw they were both young I got nervous. Ninety per cent of police shootings are done by an officer under thirty — something like that. I wound the window down and put both hands on the steering wheel. See, no gun.
One approached and the other hung back with the two-way in his hand, as per regulations.
‘Mr Hardy?’
‘That’s right. What’s up?’
‘Step out of the car, please.’
Things are looking up. The old-style cops would have said, ‘Out!’
‘You open the door,’ I said. ‘If I drop my hand you’d have an excuse to shoot me.’
He nodded and opened the door. Serious guy. I climbed out slowly, partly not to alarm him with any sudden movement, partly because with a still braised stomach and a few years on the clock, that’s how I felt like getting out of the car.
‘Could I see some identification, please?’
‘You think I’ve stolen my own car?’
He was young, nervous and lacked a sense of humour, bad combination. He put one hand on his pistol and held out the other. I gave him my driver’s licence and he examined it closely before handing it back. ‘You’re wanted at Hurstville Police Station, Mr Hardy.’
I shook my head, ‘My lawyer phoned in early this morning.’
He spoke to his mate with the two-way. “The gentleman says his lawyer… made representations.’
The other cop spoke into his radio and then indicated in the negative. ‘Still wanted.’
‘Are you going to take me or can I drive myself?’
‘You can drive.’
‘Going to give me an escort?’
I said it partly to get up his nose, partly to get an idea of how serious this was. Predictably, he took it seriously and had to check with his mate again. More two-way talk and the second cop approached, looking relieved. My guess — no escort.
‘They say it’s in the nature of a request, but if the gentleman shows any signs of resistance we’re to escort him.’
I held up my hands in surrender. ‘I’ll go. I wouldn’t want to take you blokes from Drummoyne to Hurstville. What’s Hurstville got?’
The two-way cop grinned but the other one seemed to be considering the matter. ‘C’mon, Charles,’ two-way said. ‘He’s said he’ll go in.’
Charles, he would be a Charles, looked at his watch. ‘I’ll advise them of the time you started. Drive carefully, Mr Hardy.’
‘Always,’ I said and got back in the car. It was lunchtime or close enough, and I’d be buggered if I’d turn up at a police station for how long I didn’t know without having had lunch and perhaps a couple of quiet nerve-soothers.
Inspector Beth Hammond leaned forward slightly across the desk that separated us. ‘Would you mind telling us why it took you three hours to get from Canada Bay to Hurstville?’
‘I stopped for lunch.’
‘This isn’t a joke, Mr Hardy.’
‘I agree with you. I don’t find anything funny about being stopped by policemen and ordered to go somewhere without being told why.’
Stankowski stood against the wall of the bare and cheerless interview room. Perhaps their version of good cop, bad cop was standing cop, sitting cop. ‘It was a request.’
‘The man making the request put his hand on his pistol.’
The two detectives exchanged a glance before Hammond got back to business.
‘Your client, Mr Price, has made a statement in which he says he hired you to investigate his daughter because he feared she was getting into bad company.’
‘That’s true as far as it goes.’
‘He says as far as he knows you’ve never been to his house. Your fingerprints were found in the house in association with some of Mrs Price’s blood. Coming on top of you being one of the last people to see Jason Jorgensen alive and the professional at the golf club identifying you as a man who misrepresented himself as a sports agent, I think you have some explaining to do.’
I said nothing and thought about it. I was still thinking when Stankowski spoke up. ‘Getting your lawyer to phone in some cockeyed story about your phone being tapped doesn’t help your credibility.’
‘Yours isn’t so hot either, Detective-Constable. I don’t know the status of this interview. You don’t seem to be making a record of it unless you’ve got some sneaky device and I haven’t been told of my rights. If you think I’m involved in a couple of murders…’
‘You’re helping with our enquiries,’ Hammond said.
I nodded. ‘That makes it sound voluntary.’
Stankowski lost patience first which might help to explain why he was out-ranked by Hammond. He pushed off from the wall and would have loomed over me if he’d been a bit taller. ‘Come on, Hardy. You’ve been around. You know the ropes. Something’s going on with these people, this Price and his family and friends. Two of them are dead. Someone brained that kid and dumped him in the river and someone shot that woman up with pure heroin..’
That was news. Hammond gave him a furious look and I knew why. I shook my head and made a movement to suggest I was going to get up from the chair, if not immediately then soon. ‘No way. You’ve got me implicated in two murders. I’m not going to answer any questions without my lawyer present.’
‘We can hold you for a time,’ Hammond said. It was warm in the room and she was beginning to look a little uncomfortable in her suit. Same style as yesterday, blue instead of black.
‘You won’t,’ I said. ‘You know it isn’t worth your while.’
‘I’d do it to take you down a peg or two,’ Stankowski muttered.
‘But you’re not the boss.’
It was the second time I’d faced Hammond down and she didn’t like it. Stankowski liked it even less. In the old days they’d have locked me up, planted something on me or verballed me, had their way. But times have changed. I almost sympathised with them. Almost.
I pushed my chair back. ‘Will that be all?’
They didn’t answer and I walked out of the room. I got to the car and dialled Price’s home number. No answer. I tried the office with the same result. Hope I get you as you’re just about to slip it in, I thought as I punched in the numbers for his mobile.
‘Martin Price.’
Martin now — widower, serious man. ‘This is Hardy. We need to talk.’
‘Yes, we do. Did you find Danni?’
‘I did. Look…’
‘I thought you would. Those police are hopeless. I want to hire you to find out who killed my wife.’