THE NEXT MORNING I drove across town to Fitzroy, an inner-city suburb. Tony Bellami Farrar was the man I wanted to see. He was a struggling private detective who had once worked for Benepharm’s international operations, which he used as a front for his work with Australian Intelligence. He did a good job in arranging exports and distribution of our products in the Middle East, so I turned a blind eye to his under-cover work. He had an expertise in terrorism and had been most helpful during that nightmare time a few years ago when my family had been under siege from kidnappers, and I felt a certain debt of gratitude towards him. Soon after the kidnap business blew over, he had been caught up in an Australian Intelligence bungle in Indonesia and he had resigned from the service and Benepharm. It was then that he had set up in private dickery, and it had been tough. I had heard from Lloyd Vickers, who had originally employed him for us, that Farrar had become a glorified debt collector for finance companies. He was brilliant at industrial espionage and he had done a few missing-persons hunts to Greece to track down children that had been ‘kidnapped’ by a disgruntled parent. I had a hunch that he still did things for Intelligence but very much under deep cover.
Farrar’s offices and apartment were in a terrace house that had been converted into a Spanish-style villa and painted white.
He lived upstairs and ran the agency downstairs. You would have thought from the decorated foyer that he was successful. It was done in an off-white, with reproductions of French Impressionist paintings. But his secretary Roz, a brassy blonde of forty-five trying to look twenty-five, gave another impression. She had over-coiffured hair, an overpowering waft of Intimate perfume and a permanent air of boredom. She continually touched her hair, examined her nails, rolled her eyes and did everything but yawn as I waited to see my old employee. The only sign of interest in life came from her small mouth, which was held slightly open like a doll’s as if she was expecting a kiss.
I had been there a few minutes when Farrar bowled out into the foyer swinging his huge arms like a demented conductor. He was big by any measurement. He stood around 195 cm or six feet five in the old money, and despite this and a pot, moved like a rover. He always had a deep tan that came from some Middle Eastern or Turkish parent, I forget which, and this helped his appearance although he would never win a beauty contest. He had large brown eyes under a ridge of black eyebrows. He kept his hair cropped brutally short like a cross between a London punk and an American Marine.
He seemed pleased to see me and I braced myself for an old-style Aussie handshake where you always wondered if you had been left with broken knuckles. I tried not to wring my hand as he ushered me into his open-plan office, interspersed with potted plants. The corner where he had his desk revealed more of the Farrar that I had known. A computer work-station, filing cabinets and bookcases without books were littered with files, old newspapers, magazines, and bits of paper that had been half-hidden for years. Ancient dust had settled on them. A window that had a cracked pane and was propped shut by a walking stick overlooked a courtyard. It was cobbled, grey and shiny with water that dripped from a leaking drainpipe overhead. The whole atmosphere – I suspected – was sadly indicative of the struggling gumshoe Farrar had become. He had been put under financial pressure by divorce from his wife, four kids and a couple of mortgages.
It was near enough to lunchtime, so he offered me a beer. Farrar was a man bereft of small talk and I appreciated getting down to business as I launched into the story and wished I had a tape of it.
‘How can I help?’ he said. His voice was like a rusty lawn-mower.
‘I want you to help me clear my name and find out what happened to the French woman.’
‘I’m not cheap,’ Farrar said.
‘Neither am I.’
Farrar threw his head back and laughed. It was a throaty roar that shook the rafters. Then his face went mean and serious again.
‘Five hundred a day with expenses on top.’
‘Done,’ I said and pretended I didn’t see his hand reach out to strangle mine again.