Hard Landing

CHAPTER EIGHT

  When Gary woke the next morning, he felt like his brain had been dragged behind a car and then given to a dog to gnaw. But he didn't seem to have a hangover. Then he remembered getting hit on the head in Patrick Arnott's apartment and seeing the body in the empty pool. Surely, those events didn't happen. But his headache confirmed they did.

  Should he tell Madeline Arnott that a couple of thugs, who threw someone off a balcony, were chasing after her son? She was, after all, paying him to supply information about the kid and the thugs might shake her down for information about his whereabouts.

  However, if he told her what happened, she would freak out and run to the police, which was the last thing he wanted. His only option was to find her son as soon as possible. In the meantime, she, like all living creatures, would have to take her chances.

  He slouched into the kitchen, gingerly feeling the swelling on the back of his head, and made a bowl of porridge. While slowly munching, he listened to a news bulletin on ABC Radio. No mention of a death in Drummoyne. That didn't surprise him. The news media had probably assumed the guy in the bottom of the pool was a jumper, so his death wasn't worth reporting. It would only touch the story if the Homicide Squad announced it had opened a murder investigation and asked the public for help. That wouldn't happen for several days, if at all.

  Unfortunately, if the detectives did suspect murder, there was a good chance they would come knocking on Gary's door. The CCTV camera in the lobby must have filmed him enter the building. If the detectives watched that film they would surely notice that a big guy with a shock of dark hair entered the building just before the death-plunge. It was also quite possible that one of the detectives would remember Gary from his days as a cop.

  The news bulletin finished and a talk-back host interviewed a man planning to walk to the South Pole for charity. Gary had no respect for silly bastards who went looking for trouble. Life was already chock-full of danger, as the last 24 hours had shown. After putting his bowl in the dishwasher, to hide it from high-altitude cockroaches, he showered and dressed.

  Soon after Gary became a private investigator, he realised that lots of the information he needed to do his job was locked away in the computer databases of banks, phone companies, government departments and the like. He had to employ someone who could sneak past their defences, ransack their electronic files and escape without detection. Fortunately, another private investigator recommended a computer hacker called Vincent Drew. Gary found Vincent was brilliant at his job and hired him regularly.

  Gary had been trying to contact Vincent and enlist his help in the search for Patrick Arnott. He mobile phoned the guy again. Still no answer. Damn. Time to drive over to Vincent's house and knock on the front door to find out if he was lying low for some reason.

  Gary drove over to the run-down terrace in Redfern which Vincent shared with several computers, and knocked on the door. Thankfully, after 30 seconds, it swung open to reveal the hacker.

  Vincent had frizzy hair, spotty skin and a face that only displayed stifled emotions. He once answered the front door wearing a Batman costume for reasons he never bothered to disclose. Today, he wore soiled jeans and a grubby white T-shirt with Darth Vader staring out of it. It was easy to believe he was a computer whiz with poor social interface.

  When they first met, Vincent claimed he only worked as an "information broker" to support himself while studying for a doctorate in statistics. Gary asked how long he'd been studying. Vincent replied: "Ten years, because my thesis supervisor is an idiot. My ideas will revolutionise the field, but he's too stupid to see that."

  Three years later, Gary reckoned the thesis supervisor deserved a medal for gallantry, because Vincent was a potent mixture of arrogance and insensitivity who had obviously become an eternal student to escape the demands of normal life.

  Vincent's face twitched. "Gary, whatchya doing here?"

  "I've been trying to contact you for a couple of days. Where have you been?"

  "Busy."

  "Doing what?"

  "I've been in combat."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah, been wargaming for 36 hours. My squad was fighting some Swedish dudes. Bastards ambushed us. But we wiped them out in the end."

  Drew claimed to be the best war-game sniper in Australia, if not the world. Gary had no idea if that was true or not. "So you survived?"

  "Of course. But plenty of my team didn't make it," he said mournfully.

  "I hope you brought all of your dead home."

  "Of course. Nobody was left behind."

  Gary wondered if Vincent was pulling his leg and realised he wasn't. To Vincent, the cyber world was the real world. Gary found his sincerity oddly affecting. "That's good."

  "Anyway, come inside."

  Gary followed Vincent into a dusty living room with peeling wallpaper, decaying furniture and an odour of mildew he had to push through. Vincent's mother owned the place and let her son stay for free. Gary wished he had that deal.

  Gary sat on the couch and shifted his buttocks to avoid being impaled.

  Drew sat opposite. "How can I help?"

  "I'm trying to find a guy called Patrick Arnott - an accountant - who disappeared about a week ago. His mum's worried about him. I need your help."

  "Is he still alive?"

  "No idea."

  "OK. Give me all the details you've got."

  Gary had written Patrick Arnott's home and work addresses, and phone number, on a piece of paper, which he handed over. "This should get you started. Make all the usual checks: social media, hospitals, bank accounts, airline passenger lists … but start with his phone records."

  A scowl. "I know my job."

  "I know. I also want you to get into the COPS computer. Can you do that?"

  A frown. "I can get into some of it, but not all."

  "Why not?"

  "They've upgraded the security - a lot - and I haven't had time to crack it. Why do you want to get into COPS?"

  "A guy went over a balcony in Drummoyne last night and fell ten storeys. I want to know what the police are doing about it. Who's handling the investigation? How are they treating the death? Are there any suspects?"

  "Why? Was this guy murdered?"

  "I think so."

  "By you?"

  "Don't be rude."

  "I wasn't being rude. I don't care if you've murdered someone. Be kind of cool, actually."

  Just when Vincent started to seem normal he said stuff like that. "Well, I didn't."

  A shrug. "Too bad. Anyway, I'll try to get into COPS but, like I said, it's not easy right now."

  "OK. Can you get into the ambulance database?"

  "Sure, that's easier. What for?"

  "To find out whose body was carted away."

  "You don't know who died?"

  "No idea."

  "OK. Will do."

  "And don't leave any trace."

  Drew looked affronted. "I never leave a trace - you know that. I'm like Cary Grant in that old movie, about the cat-burglar ..."

  "To Catch a Thief?"

  "Yeah. I'm an internet cat-burglar."

  Gary wondered why he'd never made the connection before. He once asked Vincent what he thought of Edward Snowden and Vincent said: "The dude's heart was in the right place, but he was a bungling amateur. Shouldn't have got caught."

  Gary said: "Alright, call me when you've got something."

  "Will do. I'll action this as soon as possible."

  "Why not now?"

  "Can't. You're not my only client, you know. I've got other clients who want me to do stuff."

  Gary growled. "You mean, more important clients?"

  "No, clients who asked me first."

  "You're only behind with your work because you farted around war gaming with your buddies."

  "I'm entitled to have a life too, you know."

  That was hardly a life. "How long will you take?"

  "Give me about 24 hours."

 
Gary sighed unhappily. "OK, call when you've got something."

  "Will do."

  Gary left Vincent Drew's house with time on his hands. The next morning, he would attend the Sunday church service of the Sunrise Mission, at Pyrmont, in case Patrick Arnott turned up. But until then his hunt for the guy had stalled.

  Driving back to Bondi, he thought, for the first time in a long while, about his father, George Maddox, who died three years ago. His father was a semi-legendary cop who Gary hugely admired. So Gary got a big shock when, on his deathbed, his father revealed that he had buried $300,000 in his backyard and wanted Gary to have it. His father didn't explain how he acquired the money, but must have done something dirty. Gary felt betrayed and didn't want to stay in the police force and compete with a lie. So, after his father's funeral, he quit and gave the money to a charity.

  His father and mother were buried, side-by-side, in South Head Cemetery. Because he was angry with his father, he hadn't visited their graves since his father was interred. However, the events in Patrick Arnott's apartment gave him a big jolt. He kept remembering the pistol pointing at his gut and the spread-eagled body in the bottom of the waterless pool. He wished he could discuss those events with his father, who would have given him good advice and comfort. That realisation dissipated the anger he felt towards his dad. Maybe it was time to visit his parents' graves.

  Instead of parking behind his office, he drove down to the beach esplanade, where he turned left and followed the coast for a couple of kilometres until he reached South Head Cemetery.

  He parked in the car park just inside the main gates. From there, the cemetery tipped down to the sea, giving every grave a dress-circle view of the Pacific Ocean. Indeed, the beauty of the scene, which only the living could enjoy, gave death an extra sting.

  His parent's graves were about half-way down the hill. When he reached them he saw, to his surprise, that a bunch of fresh red roses sat on his father's grave. Who on earth put them there? Gary was an only child and his parents had no close relatives still alive in Sydney. Very strange.

  He sat on a nearby tombstone and looked out over the ocean. Cotton-ball clouds speckled the tall blue sky and sent fleet shadows racing across the water. The panoramic view made the follies of mankind - including any his father committed - seem insignificant. Anyway, what right did he have to judge his father without hearing his side of the story? Maybe his father had a good explanation for how he acquired the money. And, if he didn't, surely a good son would forgive him.

  Gary relaxed and bathed in the breeze while letting the sun drag its warm tentacles across his face. He dredged up happy memories of his father and forgot about the money. After twenty minutes, feeling refreshed, he got up and returned to his car, still wondering who left the flowers and feeling guilty he brought none himself. Next time, he would.

  That evening, Karen dropped over to his apartment, just before seven o'clock, toting some Vietnamese takeaway. They ate it on the couch while watching a mindless sitcom.

  Fortunately, his hair hid the bump on the back of his head and she didn't probe him about what he'd been doing for the last few days. However, because he'd recently fled a murder scene, afraid of being accused of the crime, he felt rather uncomfortable sitting on a couch with a Homicide detective.

  When the sitcom finished, he said casually: "You know, I visited my folks' graves this afternoon."

  He had previously told her that he was angry with his father for burying tainted money in his backyard.

  She looked surprised and smiled. "That's good - really good. I'm glad you did that."

  "I thought you would be. How's your investigation of the wino's death going?"

  A sigh. "Nowhere, I'm afraid."

  "If you don't catch a culprit soon, you'll have to frame someone."

  A big grin. "Maybe. But I hope that won't be necessary."