of our stalled love affair. She had a quick glance around the new digs, was not greatly impressed.
The next morning, when I brought in a cup of tea, she was sitting up in bed holding a long strand of Trish’s dark brown hair between her fingers, peering at it. She turned around to face me, waiting.
I put the tea down, went and had a shower. When I came back Del was walking out the door. She stopped, turned around, pointed at me and said, ‘You’re going nowhere, Bill. See you, I’m off. Don’t call.’
Thursday of the following week I slipped in to work at eleven, raced through the orders. At lunchtime Murray tapped on the door looking red-eyed and liverish. He came over to the desk, sat down, avoiding my eye. I asked how he was, he said fighting fit. Then he asked me how I was. I said all right, why was he asking? He said no special reason.
Then, on my suggestion, we adjourned to the Goulburn, supposedly for a counter lunch of curried snags. Once there though, we kept to liquid sustenance. Murray’s outlook brightened with each nip. Mine got worse.
After a little while Murray leaned over and said quietly, ‘Listen, old sport, there was a chap here asking about you the other day.’
‘Oh yeah? Maybe it was a customer.’
‘He didn’t look the hillbilly guitar type.’
‘What type did he look?’
‘The policeman type.’
‘Fred Slaney?’
‘Heaven forfend. No, this was a New Australian cove.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘That I’d never heard of you.’
‘Thanks.’
Murray finished his drink, bit me for a tenner and left. I killed another hour at the pub, then went back to the office. I finished wrapping the last package, took the whole pile down to the post office and sent it off.
I went back to straighten things up, drew the blinds, locked up and left by the goods lift at the back of the building. It let me out in a loading dock on the ground floor. The dock opened onto a crooked laneway which ran between the Manning Building and the Capitol Theatre. The only people who used the lane were garbos, truckies, and some shadowy blokes who came and went at odd hours. I tapped on a green doorway where an old sign said ‘Chinese Christian Seamen’s Welfare Association’. An aged character opened the door, then stood back to let me in. He closed the door behind me, put the bolts back in place and said, ‘Pipe?’ I nodded.
Mr Ling ushered me into the small room at the back. There were four blokes there, pretty beaten-looking Chinese guys of indeterminate age. They ignored me. Mr Ling directed me to a couch. I gave him ten bob and he brought out the makings. They had recently installed a record player in the room and ‘Quiet Village’ was playing. Which was an improvement on the Mantovani they’d had playing last time.
Mr Ling held a flame under the gooey stuff in the bowl. I drew on the pipe and felt a warming deep inside me. I sat back and drifted off while Fred Slaney, the yellow-shirted bloke, and every single member of the New South Wales Police Force quietly joined Ray Waters at the bottom of the sea.
Chapter 5
To avoid unexpected meetings with coppers, customers, or whomever, I thought it best to enter and leave the Manning Building by the back entrance. The Chinese downstairs were pretty wary, having already had one run-in with Cec Abbott’s drug squad, and these days they kept a watch out permanently. Not that you’d know. The few times I bumped into Mr Ling in the back lane, he gave a tiny nod which I took to mean something like ‘I note that you now regularly use the back entrance; you no doubt have your reasons and they are probably associated with crook goings on. We respect your privacy.’
Murray got sent off the field around that time. He told me he’d be in St Luke’s Hospital for a short stay, would I clear his mailbox while he was gone? I told him no risk.
A week later the estate agents sent a bloke around to change the lock on Murray’s door. Was there a problem? I asked. Apparently the tenant was going bad, the locksmith said, hadn’t paid any rent for months. Next day the agent came around to clear out the office. I asked him had he tried to contact Murray. He had—Murray rented a flat in Bondi from him as well and he had skipped out of that weeks ago, also owing back rent.
I said, ‘I’ve heard he’s been unwell, that he’s getting medical attention.’
‘He’ll bloody need it if I catch up with him,’ the agent said. Then he asked if I’d hold on to the new key, to let in any prospective tenants that he might send over. I told him I wasn’t always here, but he said that didn’t matter, it might save him a trip sometime. I said okay.
That afternoon I went down to St Luke’s. Mr Liddicoat has checked out, the sister said. She said she couldn’t say where to, but then she followed me out and asked if I was a friend of his. I told her I was and she said that as far as she knew, Mr Liddicoat had gone into the new ‘hospital’ at Moore Park, down the road in South Dowling Street. I asked her why Murray couldn’t be treated here. She hummed and ha-ed, then told me the Moore Park place was better for Mr Liddicoat. They specialise in the treatment of alcoholics down there, she said.
Down at the Moore Park clinic they treated me with open suspicion. Who was I and what did I want with Murray? I told them I was a friend. Wrong answer. To them that meant drinking mate and bad influence. I had to sweet talk for five minutes, quote a couple of Mr Ulmer’s epigrams to show what a solid citizen I was. I told them how I was managing Murray’s business affairs while he took this much needed time out. Finally the old duck consented to see if Murray was available. She came back a minute later and said he’d checked out that morning. Against the doctor’s recommendation, she added. They didn’t know where he had gone.
So I couldn’t tell Murray about the winding up of his business in the Manning Building. I’d done my Christian duty by him, to hell with it, I thought.
But I took to doing my work in Murray’s former premises, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to keep out of my own office for a while. It was because of that I became a kind of half-arsed private eye.
I had been in there writing letters and parcelling up orders, and had just decided to have a cup of tea before I went to the post office. After that maybe I’d call it a day, drop by Mr Ling’s.
A tap at the door, and a tall, thin, nervy-looking feller stuck his head around. He was looking for Murray Liddicoat he said. I told him he wasn’t available at the moment. He asked when he’d be back, I said I really didn’t know. He asked if I was a business partner of Murray’s and I said not exactly, but I was sort of keeping an eye on things. He advanced into the room and I gestured for him to sit down.
He said that his solicitor had given him Murray’s name, told him Murray might be able to help him with a certain matter, and was I sure I didn’t know when Murray would be back. No idea, I said. The electric jug came to the boil. I filled the pot, asked him if he’ d like a cup of tea. He said all right.
I poured two cups and gave him one. His hand shook as he took it. He was a little older than me, maybe late thirties. But his hair was completely grey and he was stooped. He was large boned and may have been athletic once, but he couldn’t have weighed more than ten stone now. He wasn’t wearing an RSL badge but I knew the look well enough.
