Free Open File by Peter Corris Page B

an impact. I leaned back in the chair and took in a deep breath of the smelly air.
    ‘How?’
    ‘I don’t think we’ll go into that. You left your card for her. We need to know when you saw her and why.’
    ‘I actually left the card for her daughter. But I saw her the day before yesterday. I was hired to locate her son, who’s been missing for over two years.’
    ‘Hired by her?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Don’t piss me off, Hardy. Hired by who?’
    ‘Whom.’
    He let that go by. ‘What was her state of mind when you saw her?’
    ‘She had a failed marriage, a missing son and a difficult daughter. She wasn’t a happy woman. And if you want to see my notes on the interview you can forget it.’
    For all his tough exterior and aggressive style, Watson wasn’t going to make life harder for himself than it needed to be.
    ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You don’t like me and I don’t like you. Neither of us likes being here or talking about a woman being killed. Can we cut the shit and try to do something useful?’
    So I told him about the Hampshire–Pettigrew problem and about my confrontation with Ronny and the later conversation and my meeting with Sarah. In line with him not revealing anything about how Angela was killed, I was selective. Watson scribbled notes in shorthand. Useful talent.
    ‘Ronny who?’
    ‘I don’t know. Wasn’t told.’
    ‘He hit Ms Pettigrew?’
    I peered at his notes. ‘I hope you’ve got the squiggle right. I said he
pushed
her. I did the hitting.’
    ‘Of a juvenile.’
    ‘As big as me or you, and faster if he got a chance, I’d reckon. Now, let’s have a bit from you. How was Ms Pettigrew killed?’
    He paused, but I’d said enough to convince him I wasn’t at Church Point the day before. He wanted more from me though, so he decided to play along: ‘She was beaten to death with a ceramic ornament.’
    ‘No chance of an accident—a blow and a fall?’
    ‘None. Where’s the ex-husband?’
    I gave him the address in Rose Bay, hoping that Hampshire had moved as I’d advised. I didn’t think it likely that he’d killed Angela. All the indications were that he’d spent the time drinking and smoking while trying to get his financial affairs in order, as he’d said. Still, you never know. In any case, it’d be better for him if he contacted the police rather than have them hunt him down. I figured it was my turn for a question.
    ‘Where’s the daughter, Sarah?’
    ‘She’s there. Distressed. She found the body. A policewoman’s with her and a neighbour.’ He consulted his notes, ‘You haven’t really said anything about the missing son. D’you reckon he’ll turn up?’
    I shrugged. I’d been about as cooperative as he could have expected, but he still didn’t like me and he decided to let it show.
    ‘Oh, maybe I haven’t asked the right question. Do you think you can find him? Or
have
you found him?’
    ‘All that’s between me and my client.’
    ‘I suppose this is the fiftieth fucking time you’ve been told you have no privilege.’
    ‘Being a shitkicking private nuisance? Yeah, about that often.’
    He closed the notebook. ‘I think that’s all for now, but if we need to talk again, and we probably will, you’ll make yourself available, won’t you?’
    ‘Under the right conditions, yes.’
    ‘I don’t have to tell you to stay away from the people involved in this, do I?’
    ‘Including my client?’
    He didn’t answer. He put his card down in front of me, got up and went across to the senior detectives’ glassed-in room. The cop who’d been watching us from time to time as he went about his paperwork waved me out.
    At the phone booth outside the post office I called the number I had for Hampshire and was told he’d checked out the day before. I went home but there was no message on the answering machine. I drove to Darlinghurst and heard on the radio news about the death of a woman at Church Point which the police were investigating. The light was