Read Online The Undertow by Peter Corris - Free Book Online Page A

go bush. No result. Then the medical directory which covers the whole country and is never completely up to date but catches most of the long-termers. Ditto.
    I stood on the steps outside the library as the rain fell, and rang my doctor, Ian Sangster, who sits on various medical boards and tribunals and has extensive contacts in the profession.
    â€˜This was when?’ Ian asked.
    â€˜Twenty-three years ago.’
    â€˜Could be dead, it’s a high stress profession.’
    â€˜He’d only be sixty or so.’
    â€˜What was his lifestyle?’
    â€˜All I know is that he liked sex and I’m told he was good at it.’
    â€˜That’s a life-preserving recipe. Sorry, Cliff, never heard of him, but I’ll ask around. D’you know anything more about him? Any chance he was deregistered somewhere along the line?’
    â€˜Possible, but that’s all I’ve got at present.’
    â€˜I can check that. I’ll let you know if he turns up.’
    Not much more to be done there for the moment.
    There was no mention of a Dr Lubeck in Frank’s notes or at the trial. Either the police didn’t find out about him or Cassidy and Wain knew of him but suppressed the information. Why? Maybe because they were concealing everything to do with Heysen’s sideline. Again, why? Good question. Possible answers were a pay-off or fear. On the basis of Wain’s reaction, I’d have to go along with fear. But of whom or what?
    Another name I had a question mark beside was Pixie Padrone. I was still curious about what had happened to the alleged fee for the hit. I added a question mark beside the twenty grand. Wain had said that Pixie was on the street, meaning that she was in the lower echelon of sex workers—the least paid, the most exploited, the most vulnerable. In that shadowy world people disappear, change their names, change their sex and are hard to track.
    I had a source of information though—Ruby Gentle is the proprietor of the House of Ruby, a massage parlour and relaxation centre in Kings Cross. I’d located her lost daughter some years back, got a protection racketeer off her back, and we’ve remained on friendly terms. I hadn’t seen her since I’d left Darlinghurst for Newtown, but this was definitely the time to renew the acquaintance.
    The House of Ruby is open twenty-four hours a day and Ruby herself is in attendance until the early hours in a supervisory and occasionally participatory capacity. It was mid-afternoon on a Friday and I knew she’d be there.
    I hit the buzzer beside the gate in Darlinghurst Road and the voice spoke softly just above my right ear.
    â€˜Can I help you?’
    â€˜You can tell Ruby that Cliff Hardy is here to see her, thank you.’
    After a few minutes the gate swung open and I went through the scrap of garden to the front door, which clicked open as I approached. The woman behind the desk was typical of Ruby’s receptionists—thirty plus, smartly turned out, expertly made up and with a pleasant voice and manner. ‘She said to go upstairs, Mr Hardy, and that you know your way.’
    â€˜I do, thanks.’
    Your two-storey Victorian terraces all follow much the same pattern on the upper level, with a large room in front, usually with a balcony, and other smaller rooms off a corridor going towards the back. The design is ideal for a brothel and a good many of them have served that purpose. Ruby, naturally, occupied the front room where she’d installed an ensuite and partitioned off a cubbyhole for her office. The remaining space isn’t subtle in decor—a big four-poster bed with silk and satin trappings, two padded, velvet covered chairs, a wall mirror, a cabinet for professional equipment and a television with VCR and DVD players.
    The door was standing open and I walked in. Ruby rose from a chair and sailed towards me like a galleon in a strong wind. She stands close to 180