The Dying Trade (20 page)

CHAPTER 24

She took it pretty well, she didn't turn green or any other colour and she didn't scream. Her hands gripped the bed cover a bit harder, but the main expression on her face was that of relief. She'd lived with it a long time until it had become a part of her, but never a comfortable part, never something that augmented her. It was more like a demon to be exorcised except that the exorcism might be too painful, and the hole left by its departure might be too great to bear. There was probably an associated fear, a fear that didn't matter and had never really mattered to anyone but her. A fear that her innermost personal experience didn't matter a damn to the rest of the world. At least now, at whatever the cost, it looked as if it did matter somehow and she felt relief.

She looked at me and spoke through a smile so thin you could slip it through a bank vault door.

“You know where I was, don't you?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then you tell it. I'd like to hear someone else talk about it. No one has ever referred to it but me for over twenty years and I talk to myself about it every day.”

“You're sure you want me to say it? I might get something important wrong.”

“That won't matter, go on.”

“You were in Adelaide. You gave birth to a child, a boy. He was healthy. You were fifteen or sixteen. The baby went to an orphanage.”

“No, he was adopted!”

“Maybe it didn't take, I don't know. He grew up in an orphanage though.”

She was crying softly now and speaking through the sobs. “What could I do? What could I do? I couldn't keep him. They sent me away and arranged it all. I kept his birthday every year.”

“What do you mean?” I said quickly, then something like an understanding hit me, “No, you don't have to explain, Susan.”

“I want to, it's not much to tell. Every year I buy a birthday card and write something on it and seal it in a plain envelope. I post it, just like that.”

“Oh Susan.” Ailsa stretched out her arms to her, ten feet away across the table.

I got up and went round to her. Her shoulders were heaving and tears were streaming down her face. I tried to touch her hands and put an arm around her but she rejected me with savage, jerky movements of her arms and head. Her mouth was working convulsively and she had her eyes shut tight as if she wanted to blind herself.

“She's had enough Cliff,” Ailsa said softly. “Ring for the doctor.”

I picked up one of the telephones in the room and got an immediate line to an action point of some kind. I spoke quickly describing Susan's condition, and a doctor and two nurses were in the room within seconds of my replacing the phone. Susan had calmed a little but this was no less disturbing; she stared straight in front of her and her lips moved silently. The doctor gave me a hard disapproving look and slid a needle into her arm. Almost immediately the stiffness went out of her and she relaxed back onto the pillows. Her eyes fluttered and closed. The nurses released the brakes on the bed and wheeled it out of the room. The doctor looked at Ailsa inquiringly but she shook her head.

“I'm all right doctor, I want to talk to Mr Hardy a little longer. I'll have him call when I want to go back to my room.”

She said it firmly and that, along with the reminder that she was in a room of her own, was enough to send him off about his business.

I rolled two cigarettes, gave one to Ailsa and lit them. After a few puffs she butted it out.

“I'm going to stop smoking, really! Stop tempting me!”

“You never know how strong you are till you know how weak you are.”

“Bullshit!”

“Yes, yes it is.”

I sat down on the bed and ran my fingertips down her arm.

“I'm getting better,” she said, “I won't break.”

I leaned down and kissed her. After a minute she pushed me back. She smoothed down her cap of hair and gave me a look that reminded me that she was paying my hire.

“Well, you certainly broke her up,” she said.

“I didn't mean to, but it was bound to happen.”

“I suppose so, I've never had any children, you?”

“No.”

“They make you vulnerable.”

“You're vulnerable anyway.”

“Oh, profound.”

“That's me.”

I meant it though and I was considering how to face her with her own little piece of vulnerability right then. I couldn't think of any subtle way and it probably wasn't necessary.

“Do you want to know who Susan's son is?”

“Yes of course, you've been detecting?”

“Just a little. He's the man you know as Ross Haines.” I went on to give her the whole thing in a piece. “I found some records that tie it up. Birth extract, picture of the orphanage. There's a picture of him taken a few years back wearing a dark beard. My guess is that those scars he's got are the result of the beating Mark Gutteridge gave him. They've changed his appearance enough to let him dispense with the beard.”

“But why would Mark beat up Ross?”

“I don't know. My guess is that Ross confronted Mark in some way. I'm really guessing now, but I think he found out about Bryn and wrote the letter to Mark. Maybe he tried to blackmail Mark, I don't know.”

“He must have hated him.”

“He hates all of you.”

She took this in painfully, some strain and tiredness was showing in her face and she had to think back over her relationship with a person she never really knew. It's a hard thing to do. I'd done it myself about Cyn a few times and it never failed to leave me feeling wretched and stupid. It's a consolation that you have to be very unlucky to make more than one of these complete misjudgments in your life, but Ailsa had the added problem that the person she now had to totally reconstruct was trying to destroy her.

“Just explain it to me as you see it now, Cliff.” She lay back on her pillows and twined the drawstring of her bedgown in her fingers.

I picked up a pad and a pencil and drew a few squares, put names in them, scribbled a few dates and connected the bits and pieces up with arrows and dotted lines. I'm not much of an abstract thinker. I crossed pieces of the diagram out as I spoke.

“Ross Haines grew up in an orphanage. Maybe he was adopted out at first and that's how he got the surname, but something went wrong with the adoption, must have because I think he was in the orphanage for most of his young life. The adoptive parents could have been killed I suppose, I don't know. Maybe he was only fostered out. Anyway, he was bright and he had a lousy time. Orphans don't get any of the system's breaks. He did better than most by becoming a landscape gardener. He was pretty good at it. My guess is that he had no sort of a life at all as an adolescent. To judge from his possessions he had nothing from the time he wanted to remember with affection. OK, he's working away in Adelaide as a landscape gardener, working for rich people and that's important. He's wondering who the hell he is and what he's doing not being dead when somehow he finds out that he is a Gutteridge. I don't know how he does it, gets hold of his actual birth record somehow? Don't know. He has an old, faded photograph of her, you could say there's a resemblance. From that point on his course is straightforward, if insane. He comes to Sydney, gets a job as Mark's gardener, snoops out Bryn, puts the needle into Mark and goes on belting away at every Gutteridge he can find. The files are a bonus. He uses them to squeeze people for things, testimonials, money, God knows what else. He's bent on destroying the family that disowned him and he's doing pretty well. He might have had a hand in Mark's death, Bryn's gone as a result of events he set in train, you and Susan have both come pretty close. It all hangs together, but there are a few things that puzzle me.”

“A lot of things puzzle me,” Ailsa said. “He could have killed me twenty times, why didn't he?”

“I think the strategy is to do some other sort of damage first. He probably wanted to send you bankrupt.”

“I see. What things puzzle you?”

“Quite a few. It's
hard to believe that he isn't interested in the Gutteridge money, he's not that mad. But how could he get it after knocking off all the Gutteridges? He might be able to establish a legal claim if he can prove he's Susan's son. But suspicion would fall straight on him. It wouldn't work. Another thing, why didn't he just tell Mark that he was his grandson. He's a well set up lad, not a queer or anything and Bryn was out of favour. He could have done himself some good you'd think. Instead of that he goes sneaking about poisoning minds. Doesn't make sense.”

Ailsa shrugged. “Something else,” I said.

“What?”

“There's not a scrap of proof. It would take a serious, detailed investigation to establish Haines' movements and actions and there's no way of setting one up. The police wouldn't look at it, and more than that, he's got the files and I think they could get him some high level police protection if he ever needs it. He's pretty safe.”

“I'll fire him,” she said.

“Let's mull that over for a while first. It might not be a good idea.”

“What
would
be a good idea?”

“We need to know more about him, to get something on him if possible, maybe force him to make some mistakes or get within reach of the law in some way. At present all we have on our side is that he doesn't know we're on to him, that plus you and Susan being safe in here for a while.”

Ailsa's concentration was fading. She was interested and involved but tired and drained emotionally. She was still on drugs, there was an artificial quality to her composure and it was starting to crack. She gathered up some strength to see it through for now, but it was obviously an effort.

“What do you want to do now, Cliff?”

“I want to meet this guy again to size him up. Also I think I should go over to Adelaide to check out his background as much as possible, try to get a line on him that will help to explain things. I especially want to know why he's used the search and destroy method lately instead of infiltration and sedition.”

“He's done that?”

“Yes, the methods of attack have changed, someone else could be involved of course, in a secondary way maybe.”

“You sound like a military man.”

“I was.”

“You didn't tell me.”

“That's true of a lot of things. You don't like military men?”

“Not especially, but I like you. And do you realise you haven't had a drink for two hours?”

“Yeah, I'll have to do something about that soon, my brain has almost seized. I need something from you love.”

“What?”

“A note from you introducing me to Haines and instructing him to introduce me to whoever handles your executives' expense accounts, travel warrants and such. There is such a person?”

“Yes, it's a delicate job actually, taxes involved.”

“Don't tell me. I think this could throw a scare into Haines as well as being useful for itself.”

“It's all right with me, I hope he shits himself.”

I gave her a pen and some instructions and she set to work on a pad that carried the hospital's letterhead. The result was a signed note that authoritatively introduced me to Haines, without any reference to our earlier meeting of course, and directed him to arrange an air ticket to any part of Australia and the Pacific and expenses of up to one hundred dollars a day.

“This will make Ross furious,” Ailsa said.

“That's too bad, I'm weeping.”

I took the note, folded it up and put it away in my breast pocket. The only advantage I've ever found to wearing suits is the number of pockets you get with them, but it still doesn't swing me in their favour. I sat with Ailsa for a while and we said the things you say early on in an affair when the words are new and the feelings are mint fresh and shining bright. She told me to be careful. I said I would be. I called for the nurses and they wheeled her back to her room. I gathered up the bits of paper in the conference room and stuffed them into my pocket. I was desert dry and wrung out from the afternoon's work.

CHAPTER 25

I was at the reception desk of Sleeman Enterprises at 9.30 the next morning. The same girl was behind the desk but at first she didn't associate my denims and shirt sleeves with Mr Riddout. When it dawned on her, her face took on a sickly look and she started to cast about her for help.

“Yes Mr Riddout?” she stumbled over the words. She'd giggled about Mr Riddout to her friends and now she was embarrassed to see him again in the flesh.

“Hardy's the name Miss, I want to see Mr Haines.”

“But I'm sure you're the man I saw yesterday. You looked around . . . interior decorator.”

I made a non-committal gesture and handed her Ailsa's note. She read it quickly despite her agitation and got up from her chair.

“I'll tell his secretary,” she said.

I reached over, took the note and eased her back into her chair by the shoulder.

“Calm down,” I said. “I'll tell her. I just let you see that so you'd let me go through. That's OK?”

“Oh yes, yes, the door you want is . . .”

“I know where it is.”

I gave her a small salute and a grin and went down the passage. I knocked on the door and went in before the blonde answered. She didn't like it and got ready to high hat me. Her hair dominated her, it was fine and yellow and swept up into a beehive arrangement that defied belief. Her voice rasped slightly and I suspected that the hair would be harsh to touch from silicone spray.

“Can I help you? Sir.”

The last word just got into the sentence and hung there looking as if it might lose its place. I took out the note, unfolded it and put it on the desk. I put my licence card down on top of it and gave her my strong, silent look. Her reaction to the name Sleeman nearly cracked the mask of make-up on her face and had the same effect as on the other girl. It brought her to her feet, sharp.

“I'll tell Mr Haines, he's in, you can see him . . .” She was practically stammering. God knows what would happen if Ailsa herself walked in. They'd probably start fainting and this one would spill her nail polish all over the copy.

“That's nice,” I said, “I'm glad he's in, but couldn't you just buzz him?”

She looked down at the intercom as if she'd never seen one before and didn't know whether to talk into it or put a coin in it. She sucked in a breath and flipped the switch.

“Mr Haines, a gentleman to see you. It appears to be important, he has a letter from Miss Sleeman.”

“Five minutes.” Haines' voice had a nice timbre and pitch even over the furry intercom.

I collected my papers and walked across to the connecting door. The blonde jumped up and moved towards me with beckoning hands.

“You can't go in,” she said breathlessly. “He said five minutes.”

“I'm not afraid,” I said and opened the door.

Haines got up looking surprised and I looked him over carefully. He wasn't as big as he'd seemed the first time I'd seen him, but he was taller than me and he was noticeably heavier. It was all wrapped up in an expensive linen shirt with epaulettes and the latest thing in gabardine slacks—a high-waisted production with narrow belt loops and deep cuffs. He had thick dark curly hair and even this early in the morning his beard was making his chin blue and shadowy. He looked a bit loud, a bit florid. My mind jumped about trying to register a firm impression of him before giving it up. He bore a close resemblance to a picture I'd seen in the papers of Mark Gutteridge, twenty years back, accepting a racing cup after one of his horses had carried off a major event. Others might have missed the similarity but Mark Gutteridge, who was probably a two shaves a day man like this one, could not have.

It seemed to be everybody's day for getting up abruptly from their chairs. Haines was nearly clear of his when he checked himself and moved back to its padded leather comfort. He was sharp, he'd recognised me immediately I'd stuck my face in and he didn't like it a bit.

“Don't get up,” I said, “this won't take long. Your boss has a little chore for you.”

I handed him the note, he read while trying to work a big chunk of flesh out of his lower lip. When he finished he put the paper down on the blotter and slid one of its edges under the leather envelope corner that held the blotter in place. I went up to the desk and repossessed the note. He didn't object and I was beginning to wonder if you had to spit in his face to make him act as aggressive as he looked. He made himself comfortable in his chair without looking at me: I thought he might feel he had an edge sitting down so I perched on the end of the desk. That still left quite a space between us. He reached out for a cigarette from the open box in front of him. He flicked one out and lit it with a gold desk lighter.

“What's the nature of your business with Miss Sleeman?”

I was listening for a South Australian accent. I didn't pick any up but maybe there's no such thing.

“Sorry,” I said, “didn't catch it.”

“What is your business with Miss Sleeman?”

I paused while he blew smoke around and tried to think of something to do with his left hand.

“I don't think you're too bad,” I said. “Just much too young for what you're doing and a bit out of your depth. You'll get the hang of it.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. I asked you a question.”

“It doesn't deserve an answer. The business is private, confidential, that's all you have to know. Now do as you're told.”

He opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off. “And don't say ‘You can't talk to me like that' because I just did.”

“I wasn't going to say that.”

“What
were
you going to say?”

“Never mind.” His voice was firmer and he seemed to think he was making up some ground. “I can see that you're trying to push me around as much as you can short of hitting me again. I wonder why?”

He
was
making up ground. He let go a smile that crinkled up the fine white scars around his eyes and mouth in a way that was probably very attractive to women.

“How is Ailsa?” he said suddenly. He'd dropped the hurt look and the probing look, now he was mild and charming. He was a chameleon.

“She's OK,” I said gruffly. It seemed inadequate.

“Bloody awful business,” he said, “I got the gist of it from Sir John Guilford, and I read about Bryn. Dreadful. A chapter of accidents.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I don't want to sit here exchanging chummy gossip with you, Haines. I don't like you, you don't like me. But since we're at it, did you hear about Susan Gutteridge? She's in hospital too.”

He looked and sounded surprised. We were talking about his mother although he didn't know that I knew it. Nothing like filial concern showed in his face but there was no way it would—his feelings about his own flesh and blood were unique to him.

“God, no. What's the matter with her?”

“Hit and run.”

“How bad?”

“Broken legs, she'll live.”

He shook his head. It was a bad moment for me because, despite myself, I believed what I saw—a man who apparently didn't know a thing about events he was supposed to have engineered. It was time to get on with it before I found myself giving away too much for this stage of the game. I got off the desk and made impatient movements with my feet. He looked at me curiously for a second and then flicked the intercom button. He told the secretary he'd be with Mr Kent for a few minutes and we went out of the office.

Mr Kent looked like just the sort of man for tax dodges, he faded into the background without a trace. He had wispy hair, a grey suit and a general air of not being there at all. Like everyone in the place he was smart and efficient. He read Ailsa's note, reached into his desk for a manila folder and wrote my name on the top of it. He went to pin the note inside the folder but I stopped him and told him I wanted to keep it. He smiled knowingly. “Very wise,” he said. He pressed a button and a girl appeared in the open doorway about two seconds later. “Photocopy please,” Kent said extending the note to her, “and arrange credit cards for Mr Hardy. The usual things.” The secretary nodded a sleekly groomed head and whispered away. Kent busied himself with a ruled form on which he wrote my name and made some entries in a tight, cribbed hand. There was no love lost between him and Haines who straightened his cuffs and looked more or less in my direction.

“Satisfied Hardy?” he said.

“Very. Thank you Mr Haines. Don't fall in any swimming pools.”

Kent looked up bemused but Haines' face was a bored, non-reacting mask. He inclined his head to Kent and went out, leaving the door open. Kent got up and shut it. I couldn't think of anything to say to him and he seemed to feel the same way about me. We lingered in silence until the girl came back with the papers. She handed them to Kent who dismissed her with the economical nod that seemed to be his speciality before slipping the photostat into the file. He handed the original back to me.

“A credit card valid for the standard airlines for six months will be ready for you at the desk, Mr Hardy,” he said. “And now, a Cashcard?”

“What's that?”

He unleashed what appeared to be the whole of his personality in the form of a tight, self-satisfied smile. “It's at the desk, you can use it to draw a hundred dollars a day for the next calendar month.”

“Wonderful,” I said, “what about taxis, call girls and squaring cops?”

“Your problem, Mr Hardy. To me you are a miscellaneous expense.”

He scribbled the day's date on the outside of the folder and pulled a bulging, loose leaf file towards him like a long lost lover. I was dismissed, I know a perfectionist when I see one.

The girl at the front desk was having a bad day. She held out two cards, one of them similar to a bankcard, the other plainer with a gold edge.

“Please sign these, Mr Hardy.”

I signed them. She slipped them into plastic holders and handed them to me.

“Don't worry,” I said, “capitalism is doomed.”

She gave me a brilliant smile. She'd solved it, I was a madman.

I went home, packed a few things into an overnight bag and phone booked an afternoon flight to Adelaide. The credit card worked like a charm at the first bank I came to. I caught a taxi out to the airport and called the hospital half an hour before my plane was due for boarding. I left messages for Ailsa and Susan telling them not to see anyone except their doctors. After buying the Sydney afternoon and the Adelaide morning papers I went through the ticket collection and seat allocation routines and got on the plane. It was half empty which felt strange until I remembered that it was nearly always that way in first class, I just hadn't had much experience of it.

The plane boomed along for two hours damaging the ozone. I had a couple of gins and tonic because I like the miniature bottles.

Adelaide doesn't rate too highly with me. It's flat and there's no water to speak of. The celebrated hills are too close to the city. It feels as if you could kick a football from the city stadium up into the hills without really trying. When I go there it's always raining and I'm never dressed for it. The plane slewed about a bit on the wet runway and we all scampered for cover in our lightweight ensembles. The rain was more a spit than a shower, but the only happy-looking people at the terminal were those who were flying the hell out of the place.

I went to the Avis desk and hired a Ford Escort for two days after proving beyond all doubt that I was Clifford Hardy, licensed to drive, and handing over enough money to make it not worth my while to steal it. My luggage came down the chute, I slung it into the back of the car and drove in to what they call the city. I tried to cheer myself with the thought that the Athens of the South is a great place for cheap food and drink, but I only half-succeeded. The buildings were dribbling water down their grey faces and those damn hills were still much too close. I checked in at the Colonial Hotel across the road from the University and ordered a bottle of Scotch with ice and a soda syphon. I settled down with a tall glass, a map and the telephone directory. The orphanage was listed and I called it. I might as well have saved my breath and money. The woman I spoke to wouldn't confirm that Haines had been an inmate, wouldn't give out information about past directors of the place and wouldn't arrange an interview for me with the present boss. She wasn't interested in sarcasm either, she hung up as I was thanking her. But that was all right. The first dead end in an investigation is a challenge to me, it's only after one or two more that I feel hurt and start sulking.

They couldn't conceal the address of the place from me. I located it on the map, poured out and drank a quick neat one, and tucked the ice and soda away in the miniature fridge. I got the car out of the hotel parking lot and drove off towards the hills. The rain had stopped.

It took me nearly an hour to reach the orphanage which put the time at close to five o'clock. The photographs I'd seen of the place hadn't done it justice. It was straight out of Dickens or maybe even Mervyn Peake; every angle and corner suggested order and discipline. It had no charm; I like old buildings, but I wouldn't have minded if they pulled this one down. It looked in pretty good shape however, and the grounds were well cared for which suggested a groundsman. Groundsmen and caretakers tend to be long-term employees and I was counting on that now. I parked back up the road from the main gates and set off on a circumnavigation of the grounds which covered about ten acres. The main building stood on a rise more or less in the middle of the land which was enclosed by a high fence of cast iron spears. A paved drive ran from the main gates up to the front of the building and down to a smaller set of gates on the other side. There was a football oval and a fair bit of lawn and garden but too much asphalt and government issue cream paint.