Lost and Found

By Peter Corris

‘It’s Colin, Mr Hardy. I know it is!’

She’d shown me a photograph and told me it was of her husband. A wife generally knows what her husband looks like, but I was sceptical. The photo was clipped from a local newspaper - the Eastern Suburbs Courier - one of those free rags full of civic news and real estate ads, not renowned for the quality of anything - photographs, paper, accuracy. The picture was of the Petersham Lawn Tennis Club Men’s A Grade team which had beaten the Coogee team in a semifinal of the club competition.

I put my finger on the rather blurred head of a man turned slightly away from the camera. ‘Him?’

Mrs Andrea Cook nodded. She was an attractive, somewhat care-worn, woman in her mid-thirties. She looked as though a few hours more sleep per night and a few hundred extra bucks per week would’ve transformed her into someone much more vibrant. She had told me that her husband had disappeared while swimming at Apollo Bay in Victoria four years ago. She and Colin Cook had been married for four years. They had a child and Colin had conducted a successful, small-scale building and consultancy business.

‘How small?’

‘Col built mudbrick houses, yurts, wattle and daub, that sort of thing. You know?’

I said I didn’t know and she filled me in quickly on the details of alternative house-building in Victoria in the mid-’80s. Apparently, special government-backed loans and even grants were available for people prepared to build their own houses out of local, environmentally-friendly materials. But the builders needed plans, advice, land-use approvals, and modifications to their solar, naturally-insulated, low-maintenance fantasies. That was where Colin came in. He built a mean mudbrick open-planner and he also had the technical and economic know-how and the political skills to steer projects through the grant application minefield into council-approved heaven.

‘Sounds like he was on a winner,’ I said.

‘For a while,’ Andrea Cook said. ‘But bad times began in Victoria earlier than most people think. The grants and loans started to dry up. The councils started to get scared of the greenies, especially in the country. They began to worry about how real environmentalists would feel about the rivers and creeks being toxic sewers for half the year.’

There was a passionate, iconoclastic note in her voice and, just for an instant, I could see this mild-mannered, suit-wearing middle-class woman as a denim-clad, headbanded greenie, chained to a fence or lying in the mud in front of a low-loader.

‘So what happened?’ I said.

‘The business got into trouble. Colin owed money to people who wouldn’t wait and the people who owed him money couldn’t pay. He was tense, withdrawn. We fought. He drank. We borrowed a house from some friends at Apollo Bay. Col went swimming one morning and didn’t come back. The water was rough that day. I still loved him. It was terrible.’

She told me that Cook had had a paid-up life insurance policy and, while the company wasn’t happy with the circumstances, she got a payout. Not the full amount, but enough to settle the most pressing debts.

‘They weren’t as bad as Col had made them out to be,’ she said. ‘That puzzled me, but it stopped the insurance company from insisting on invoking the suicide clause.’

She said she came out of the legal battles with enough to finance a move back to Sydney where she’d come from.

‘I’m a Maroubra girl and I went back there. You’re from Maroubra too, aren’t you? My solicitor-I was seeing him about something else, but I sort of steered him round to talking about private detectives-told me about you.’

Indeed I was. I’d been ocean-dipped, salt-sprayed and maybe skin-cancered there at least ten years before her. I had no intention of going back, though. The solicitor’s name didn’t ring a bell, but it was a bond of some sort and the job didn’t sound too hard on the operational level. The emotional side of it might get a bit sticky for Andrea later if the man did turn out to be her husband and not David Richmond, the way it said in the photo caption. But that wouldn’t be my problem.

She smiled when I said I’d help and, as I suspected, a smile improved her looks a lot.

‘Did your husband have any brothers or cousins? This could be a family resemblance.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No brothers or male cousins.’

That made it time to caution her. ‘This sort of thing happens, Mrs Cook. Men take off and start new lives, new families.’

‘I have to know,’ she said. ‘If you find that it is Col and what he’s doing, I’ll think about what to do next.’

That seemed fair enough. She was a qualified pharmacist and had a job in a Maroubra shop that was doing OK. She was buying a flat and could write a decent cheque. I got a six-year-old photo and some details on Col: born Melbourne, 1952; 180 centimetres, brown hair, olive complexion, solid build; no spectacles, hearing aids or false teeth. I looked at the photo. Like the man in the clipping, he was wearing tennis gear. He held a racquet as if he knew how to use it. Maybe.

“Was he a good tennis player, your husband?’

‘Oh, yes-very good. A schoolboy champion.’

‘Any peculiarities? I mean scars or birthmarks, anything like that?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Nothing. He’s a very normal man. In every way.’ We both noticed that she was using the present tense. She took another look at the clipping before handing it to me.

‘You’ve talked to someone about it now,’ I said. “That can help in itself. You’re still sure?’

Firm nod. ‘When can you… ?’

‘Today,’ I said. ‘But it could take a while. I’ll be in touch.’

I waited until she’d gone before lifting up the L-Z. It doesn’t look impressive but it often works. Not this time though - no Richmonds in Petersham, Stanmore or Marrickville. Worth a try. I phoned the tennis club and was told that the competition players practised on Friday evening. Tomorrow. That was OK; I had bills to pay, phone calls to make, people to meet.

* * * *

The Petersham Lawn Tennis Club was on Stanley Road, Marrickville. I hadn’t expected to find any actual grass courts there, but I was wrong. There were three in a group behind a dozen or so with the usual synthetic surfaces. I parked in the street and took a look at the courts, feeling nostalgic. There used to be a lot of grass courts around Sydney, green in winter, bare and yellow in summer. Bastards to play on, with their uneven surfaces and tricky bounces, but in the 1950s grass was the recti surface, like at Wimbledon, Forest Hills and Kooyong. These survivors were well-maintained and the people playing mixed doubles on two of them were having a good time.

The serious business was taking place on a hard court near the clubhouse. I wandered through the gate, behind the social players and took up a position near the court. It was after six but with daylight saving in operation, the light was good. So were the players. Two men were playing a hard-hitting singles, going all out, whipping top and underspin shots across court and rushing the net at every opportunity to make punching volleys. I watched a few games. Both had grooved, kicking serves and good footwork. The difference emerged in the third game-the shorter guy was a fraction faster and had a little more variety in his game. When he had to scramble for a shot he did something quirky with it. He won more of the points that mattered.

Two men sat on a bench outside the clubhouse watching the play. They wore tennis gear and exchanged remarks from time to time about shots made and missed. One of them was the subject of my enquiry. Height is hard to judge when the person’s sitting, but 180 centimetres seemed about right. He had the pleasant, open face and the square shoulders of the Colin Cook in the photograph. There was a fair bit of grey in his hair, but then, the photo was six years old. Col was getting on for forty now. Still only maybe. I moved a bit closer. A few of the social players wandered around. They looked respectfully at the men I was watching. Tennis obviously had its serious side at the Petersham courts, although I could see the illuminated Tooheys sign near the driveway to the clubhouse and, from the sound of it, some of the activity inside was more social than sporting.

‘Help you, mate?’

One of the pair watching the players had got up and fronted me. Evidently I’d ventured a bit deep into private territory. Maybe he thought I was a spy from Leichhardt or Waverley. I was caught on the hop and couldn’t think of anything clever or devious to say, not that there was any real need.

I said, ‘I wanted a word with David Richmond.’

He shrugged. ‘After the set, all right? Dave and me have got a bet on.’

I looked across at the court. The two players had come off. The score must have been 6-1. David Richmond was standing mid-court waving a ten-dollar note.

‘OK,’ I said, but the man I’d been talking to was already on his way. He went onto the court, put his ten bucks along with Richmond’s under a spare racquet, and took up his position. He hit a ball to Richmond who whacked it back, flat and hard. I turned my back on the court and walked away. Colin Cook had held his racquet in his right hand and had absolutely nothing unusual about him, according to his missus. Dave Richmond hit a classic, one-fisted backhand, like Rod Laver or John McEnroe-left-handed.

* * * *

‘He’s left-handed, Mrs Cook.’

‘Oh.’

I didn’t know whether to say I was sorry or not. I had her clipping and photograph on the desk in front of me and I’d made out a refund cheque for some of the money she’d paid me. I told her on the phone I’d be sending these things in the mail.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure. It would be impossible for a right-handed person to play tennis like that. I once saw Boris Becker change hands to reach a shot, but that was just a little flick. Mr Richmond’s left-handed.’

‘But he does look like Colin?’

‘I’d say so, yes. Older, of course.’

‘Of course. Well, thank you, Mr Hardy.’

And that was that, or so I thought. The Cook file became one of the very slimmest in my drawer and I got on with other business. Two days later I was walking towards my front door when David Richmond stepped from behind the overgrown vines that fill up most of the garden. The weapon he was holding looked like a cut-down .22 rifle. He had it levelled at my belt buckle.

‘I want to talk to you, Hardy.’

I felt for my keys. ‘You don’t need the popgun for that.’

‘Keep your hands clear.’

‘Keys.’

‘Bugger the keys. We’re going to my car. The gun’ll be inside my jacket but still pointing at you. Don’t get any ideas.’

From the way he spoke and moved I concluded that he was serious. That made him dangerous and obedience the best policy. He guided me towards a Volvo parked two cars away from my Falcon. He opened the front and rear passenger doors on the kerb side and told me to get in the back. I did and he flicked the door closed and was settled in the bucket seat, turned around and with the gun pointing at my chest, before my bum hit the vinyl.

‘Right. Now you tell me what you were doing out at the tennis club the other night. Said you wanted to see me, but you sloped off.’

I shrugged. ‘Case of mistaken identity, Dave.’

The freshly cut, raw metal end of the rifle barrel jerked a fraction. ‘That’s not good enough.’

‘Have to do, until you tell me how you found me and why it matters so much.’

It was dark inside the car, just a little of the street light seeping through, but I could see enough to detect something odd about his face. It had an artificial look, as if it didn’t quite belong to the person behind it. He said, ‘One of the people playing on the other court recognised you. He’s a cop, or was. Said you were a private detective.’

‘When you asked around?’

‘Right.’

‘Why?’

The noise he made was exasperated and angry. At that range a .22 bullet can kill you. He was sweating and I could feel something potentially very harmful building up inside him. I said the first thing that came into my mind. ‘Do you know someone named Colin Cook?’

He sighed. ‘Shit. Is that what this’s all about?’

‘Is for me,’ I said. ‘Looks like you’ve got bigger problems.’

‘Let me get this right. Someone spotted me, thought I was Colin, and hired you to check on me?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Who?’

I shook my head and didn’t say anything. He sat and thought while I examined what I could see of the gun. Cheap pea rifle, basically; sawn-off barrel and stock, solid magazine, maybe twelve-shot, semi-automatic. Very illegal, very nasty, but hastily contrived, not professional.

Abruptly, he said, ‘The word on you is that you’re more or less honest.’

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘Your client legitimate? I mean…’

‘I know what you mean, Richmond. And I’m getting a bit sick of this. Yeah, legitimate, solid citizen, parent, taxpayer. What the hell are we doing here?’

He slid the safety catch forward and pushed the spring that released the magazine. He caught it as it fell free.

‘Empty,’ he said. ‘There’s just one bullet in the breech.’

I managed a derisive snort. ‘Thanks a lot. One’s all it takes.’

‘I’m not a killer, Hardy,’ Richmond said. ‘Let’s talk. Have you got anything to drink in that dump of yours?’

* * * *

David Richmond didn’t look like a drinking man. He had a hard, disciplined, compact body and there was no spare flesh around his face. But he put his first scotch down in record time and held out his glass for another. He’d left the .22 in the car, so I poured willingly.

‘I knew Col Cook,’ he said. ‘How much have I got to tell you before you open up?’

‘More than that,’ I said.

‘Right. Well, I met Col in Victoria. I was designing houses and he was building them.’

‘Yurts and such?’

His eyebrows shot up, animating his face somewhat. Under the light tan it still retained a tight, unnatural look. ‘You know about yurts?’

‘Not really. Go on.’

‘All kinds of weird materials and designs- circular, like the yurts, cylindrical, crystal-shaped. The banks were lending money for land and building like never before. Col and me worked on a few projects together, then we both got burned when a couple of things went wrong and the funds started to dry up.’

I sipped some scotch and nodded. So far, his story jibed with Andrea’s.

‘Well, we were both in trouble. Then this opportunity came up. One of our clients had a big dope plantation near Castlemaine. Col had a truck. I had a secure telephone and reasons to pay lots of calls on people. Neither of us had any criminal associations. It went well for a while.’

‘Then?’ I said.

‘It went bad. There was opposition. To cut a long story short, Col ran over a guy with the truck and killed him. It was put down as an accident but it preyed on Col’s mind. He’d had some kind of Quaker upbringing. That’s how he got into the alternative lifestyle thing. He went nuts.’

That didn’t sound quite right. ‘What about his family?’ I asked.

Richmond shook his head. ‘He didn’t have a family. He was a very secretive, lonely type. Always going off on his own. Hard to get to know. Hard to understand.’

‘He had a wife and a kid,’ I said. ‘She spotted a photo of you.’

‘Jesus. I didn’t know.’

I poured us both some more scotch. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, the operation folded. We’d both taken a good whack out of it. Col comes to me one day and tells me he’s sent most of his money to the wife of the bloke he’d run over. Then he breaks down. I try to steady him but he rushes off. Next I hear, he’s drowned off some beach. I got scared. I thought he might have left a letter for the police or a lawyer or something. He might have put us all in the shit. I didn’t know about the wife and kid. I thought he’d offed himself. Was it an accident?’

‘That’s what the insurance company decided.’ I put my hand up to my face, tapping my cheek. ‘What about this?’

‘Col and me looked pretty much alike as it happened. When he shot through that night he left some stuff behind, including his passport. I didn’t have one. I went to this doctor in Melbourne and got a bit of plastic surgery done. Didn’t take long or cost that much. I used the passport and went to Thailand.’

‘Why Thailand?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve got friends there and plenty of Aussies pass through. You can get the news from home. Six months and no news, so I came back, settled in up here.’

I sat and thought about the story. It could have been true. On the other hand, Richmond might have killed Colin Cook and stolen his money. He looked prosperous-the Volvo was newish, his clothes were good. For a man who had done a little criminal activity six years ago his behaviour when I turned up seemed like an over-reaction.

He saw my scepticism and touched his face. ‘Plastic job turned out not so good.’

‘You could have it done again,’ I said. ‘You look to have the money.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘I’m wondering whether to believe your story.’

‘I left the gun in the car, didn’t I?’

‘I’m wondering why you had it in the first place.’

He looked around the room. ‘You could be taping me.’

I laughed. ‘The only tapes here go from Benny Goodman to Dire Straits.’

He sighed. ‘OK. OK. I made a couple of deliveries from Thailand. No problems. I’ve burned the passport and I’m a hundred per cent legitimate now, but… it leaves you edgy.’

‘So it should,’ I said. ‘Drug couriers are arseholes in my book. So you chopped down your rabbit shooter and came to see if I was a narc or someone connected with your deliveries?’

‘Yeah. I improvised.’

‘You seem to be pretty good at doing that. I still don’t know whether to buy your story or not.’

He put his glass carefully on the floor and stood up. ‘What difference does it make? We don’t have any beef, do we?’

‘I suppose not. What’s this legitimate business you’re in now?’

‘I’ve got a little health farm and sports centre at Bowral. I’m the tennis coach, as well as the proprietor. I keep a flat in Petersham, too. I like those grass courts. Do you play tennis?’

‘Not in your league,’ I said. ‘OK, Richmond. I don’t like you but I believe you. Why don’t you grow a moustache? There’s a nice woman in Sydney who doesn’t need to see that face in the papers.’

We were in the hallway, moving towards the front door. He stared at me with his oddly bland eyes. ‘You’re a strange man, Hardy.’

‘I’m in a strange business,’ I said.