Read Online Deep Water by Peter Corris - Free Book Online Page B

Hank would be going back to be with Megan. Good luck to them. I made the drink a strong one. Loneliness wrapped around me like a sweaty sheet on a hot night. I thought of Margaret McKinley in her white uniform with her dark hair held back by a red band. I finished the drink and took the image up to bed with me with the Barnes book. The book was still good but the image didn’t do me any good. I had a restless night.
    Stefan Gunnarson had been a senior officer in the Missing Persons Division for a good part of my career as a PEA. We’d got on well in a rough and ready way, and I was glad when he’d got the top job. We hadn’t had any dealings after that but when I learned that his son, Martin, was now in the spot with the rank of inspector, I was encouraged to ring Gunnarson senior, who’d retired, and ask him to put in a word for me with the head man. Stefan Gunnarson was one of those cops who’d still have a drink with me after mylicence was cancelled. He said he’d talk to his son and that was how I came to be sitting in Martin Gunnarson’s office in the Surry Hills Police Centre securing a small slice of his time. I’d emailed him a rundown on the case.
    He was a duplicate of his dad—short, heavy set, dark, nothing like your stereotypical Scandinavian.
    â€˜This is all highly irregular, Mr Hardy,’ he said, fingering a slim file in front of him.
    â€˜It’s not only regularity that gets results. Ask any proctologist.’
    He winced. ‘Dad warned me about your jokes.’
    â€˜That’s the only one, I promise. You’ll admit it looks very dodgy—no sign of him or his car, house broken into, strange goings on about his drawings …’
    â€˜Agreed, but the trail’s very cold.’
    â€˜The daughter posted him missing weeks back and Hank Bachelor followed up a while later.’
    â€˜We’re understaffed and stressed.’
    â€˜So you outsourced it to the private sector?’
    Gunnarson didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The defiant set of his heavy features said it all.
    â€˜Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to get on the wrong side of you. I’d like you to do the usual thing—print some flyers, talk to the media.’
    â€˜Why do I have the feeling there’s something more?’
    â€˜And bring some pressure to bear on Tarelton Explorations.
    They’re … involved.’
    â€˜They’re also influential.’
    â€˜That right? All the more reason. I’m just suggesting you have someone senior pay a call, ask a few questions.’
    â€˜And you’ll do what?’
    â€˜See if feathers fly.’
    â€˜We can’t act as your … what d’you call those servants that go out to scare up the pheasants for the nobs to shoot at?’
    â€˜Beaters.’
    â€˜Right, beaters.’
    â€˜Your dad did just that, a couple of times, and he didn’t regret it.’
    â€˜Are you saying he owes you and so I owe you?’
    â€˜No. I messed things up once big-time and we’re square.’
    Gunnarson laughed. ‘How have you stayed alive so long?’
    â€˜I sometimes ask myself that.’
    â€˜I bet you do. I’ll send someone and you’ll get an edited report.’
    â€˜Edited?’
    â€˜I’ve bent over, but I’m not going to let you fuck me.’
    Megan had been very busy. She was compiling a list of quarries in an area stretching from Nowra in the south to Newcastle in the north and west to the Blue Mountains. She refused to tell me how many she had so far and I didn’t press her. I was more interested in what she’d turned up about Hugh Richards.
    â€˜He’s a nasty bit of work,’ she said. ‘A God-botherer, as you’d expect given the party he belongs to. Very narrowly escaped prosecution for tax evasion and fraud back before he got into parliament. He’s rich, with interests in a string of