Man in the Shadows by Peter Corris Read Free Book Online Page B

did she tell you a lot about the place?’
    â€˜Not much. She didn’t like talking about it. I just checked on the routines a bit, you know. That was all I wanted.’ Suddenly he straightened up from the slump he’d been sitting in. The look of tiredness and semi-shock left him.
    â€˜What is it?’ I said.
    â€˜Annie kept a diary! She said she could look in her diary when I asked her about something, some little thing. I said it didn’t matter.’
    â€˜It matters now,’ I said.
    Annie had arrived without bag or baggage and she certainly hadn’t had a diary on her. So she’d left it, presumably with what she’d called her ‘stuff’ with ‘those creeps’. All I knew was that she’d tried to score in ‘the flats’ and some hoods in a red Mazda had given her a bad time. I told this to Greenway who nodded. ‘There’s a source in those flats down by the water. What’s her name?’ He snapped his fingers in the first theatrical gesture I’d seen fromhim since our first meeting when he was doing nothing else but. ‘Barbara-Ann. She’s got a straight front as a caterer but she deals in a pretty big way.’
    â€˜I wonder if she’s got a red Mazda,’ I said.
    â€˜I wouldn’t know.’ Greenway adjusted his jacket. ‘Why don’t we go and find out?’
    I had a vision of Greenway breaking in a door and waving his Nomad with the one shell in the chamber and the safety catch on. ‘I’ll go,’ I said. ‘You’ve got other things to do.’
    â€˜Like what?’
    â€˜You’re going home to wait for the phone call. You’re also going to keep a very close watch on your own back. If you’re still being observed you might be able to observe the observer. That’d be a help.’
    One part of him didn’t like it, wanted to be in on the gung-ho stuff; the other part wanted to play it safe. I helped him out by saying that I didn’t expect any excitement, just a quiet talk. He knew which part of the big complex Barbara-Ann lived in but not the precise number of her apartment. I told him I could manage and sent him back to Bondi with a promise to call when I knew anything. I wanted to take the Nomad from him but I didn’t; he was confused and green, but he had some pride.
    I went out into the street, collected the keys from the glove box of my car and locked it. I strolled around the neighbourhood; I got some looks from people who’d seen the ambulance and one enquiry. I didn’t tell the enquirer anything she didn’t know already. It was after five, the air was cooling and the TV sets were being switched on and the drinks were being poured. I walked to the open section before the road dips down into the blocks of flats and stood looking across the water towards Pyrmont. The water was still; the light faded. I moved quickly into the shelter of the trees that fringe the walkwayaround the water and scanned the landscape behind and above me. I saw no flashes of spectacles, no quick movements. I waited; no car engines started, no birds broke cover and wheeled about in the evening sky.

11
    I went home, fed the cat and myself and waited until dark. I wore sneakers, pants that were a bit big so that I needed a belt to keep them up, and a loose sweater. The .38 went inside the waist of the trousers, under the belt. I walked down to the flats where lights were burning in most of the windows. I moved through the parking areas on to the concrete path that wound between the different blocks. Some of the windows on to the balconies were open; rock music and television made a confusing mixture of conflicting sound.
    The phone book had supplied the lacking information. In the sections for caterers there was a small ad: ‘Barbara-Ann, Home Catering, small functions, Apartment 5, Block 3, Harbourside, Ludwig Street, Glebe.’ The place was in one of the better