The Greenwich Apartments by Peter Corris Read Free Book Online Page B

opened the door. ‘You don’t have any clues on what those men wanted, do you? Or on why she was killed?’
    â€˜I haven’t the faintest idea.’

7
    I T was late afternoon, the tree shadows would be long in the park and I could sit by the lake and look at the ducks. On expenses, not bad. First I called Helen from a public phone.
    â€˜Hello,’ she said. ‘Where’re you?’
    â€˜Randwick.’
    â€˜Really? That’s where I might end up.’
    â€˜It didn’t go too well, the flat-hunting?’
    â€˜Lousy.’
    â€˜I’m sorry. Look, I’ve got another call to make. I’ll be home around six or so. We’ll go out. Okay?’
    â€˜All right. Maybe.’ She hung up. After that I didn’t feel like the walk in the park anymore. I didn’t feel like tramping up and down stairs questioning people about a murder either, but I had no choice.
    I drove in to the Cross but ended up parked close to White City. Some of the courts were in the shade, some were still fully in the sun.
Be nice down there,
I thought. Forehand, backhand, lob, smash. I could see people on the courts doing just that—small white shapes darting about. Doing something just for fun; should be more of it. But then, there should be more of a lot of things—rain in Africa, B. B. King cassettes and small flats in Glebe Point, evidently.
    I put
Bermagui
in the glove box and locked it. I locked the car too, took an envelope with a selection of the photographs, including the one of Tania Bourke, and walked. Away from the sporting scene,business before leisure, past the temptation of the wine bar and up the lane to the Greenwich Apartments. A jogger swerved around me—a woman this time, with matching head and wrist bands. Nothing had changed in the courtyard; the arrangement of the flanking buildings allowed a fair bit of the late afternoon sun to penetrate. I sat on the empty pedestal and felt the warmth the bricks had retained. There were two apartment blocks to consider, maybe a dozen places with windows that permitted a view of the courtyard and activity in flat one of the Greenwich. I was there at the right time. It was odds on that the person I wanted was the weird old girl with purple hair. Do weird old girls go out to work? Not usually. I tucked my shirt firmly into my pants, pulled my collar straight and buttoned my jacket. Notebook and licence folder in hand, evidence in an envelope, the private detective goes to work. Bullshit. I went to the winebar and bought a packet of Sterling cigarettes and a bottle of Mateus Rosé. I was ready for the purple hair.
    I drew six blanks in the building on the left. I tried every apartment with the right aspect: two no answers, two were occupied by young women who weren’t interested once they found I wasn’t there on business. The fifth resident was a middle-aged man who would have talked about anything from the price of gold to the Iran-Iraqui war. Loneliness wailed from the bare room behind him as he stood in the doorway. There was an old woman in the sixth flat; she had a raspy voice like the telephone caller, was about the right age and her windows were in the right place, but her hair was bright, buttercup yellow.
    I found her on the second try in the other building. She was small and thin and her face was creased and rumpled like an old passionfruit. She could have been 80 or maybe she was just a 60-year-old who’dbeen busy. The purple hair was like a kindergarten kid’s wild drawing; she had bright blue stuff around her eyes and her caved-in mouth was like a sunset—yellow teeth and bright red lips.
    â€˜Yes?’ She teetered on high heels and had to hang on to the door for support. She’d already started, perhaps she never stopped.
    â€˜Good afternoon, Madam,’ I said. ‘I believe we talked on the telephone the other night.’
    â€˜What?’ She had the door on a chain and was peering