Appeal Denied: A Cliff Hardy Novel by Peter Corris Page B

time for Townsend, the one I’d been thinking of working with.
    And, based on our less than friendly meeting, my reaction to Gregory was very ambivalent. If he was up to his ears in some conspiracy to do with Lily’s death, then he was a pretty good actor. The removal of Williams and the doubts of Constable Farrow, as reported by Townsend, counted against him. What of DS Kristos? Had he stolen my computer? Was he playing a lone hand or operating with someone who wasn’t even in the picture yet?
    As Dylan says, ‘You gotta trust somebody’, and I trusted Harry Tickener to give me the drum on Arthur and Townsend. I also needed to get out of the house. Harry, who has done everything in journalism from copy boy in the old hot metal type days to major broadsheet editor, now runs the online newsletter Searchlight dot.com —a thorn in the side of the big end of town and anyone else it gets in its sights. Harry particularly likes media scams, so perhaps I could get a line on Lily’s story that focused on that. Seemed like a plan.
    I drove to Leichhardt where Harry had his office and walked in on him without knocking. He expects me to do that. He has only one part-time staffer, another journalist, and no overheads like a receptionist or secretary. In the nineties there was much talk of the paperless office. It never happened, but Harry got pretty close when he stripped down to the newsletter.
    His shiny head was held low over the keyboard, bending his spine the way forty years on the job had carved it, but he can still straighten it, just. A quick glance to identify me and a single finger held up to get me to wait. Harry is a gun-touch typist and I guess, like a pianist, he can take the odd finger away and not lose the beat. He clicked and clacked as I sat down and looked around the big, well-lit space that held books, magazines and framed prints, but none of the stacks of paper you expect to see in writers’ workplaces.
    ‘Sorry about Lily, Cliff,’ Harry said when he finished. ‘You know I don’t have anything to do with funerals and wakes.’
    I did. Harry’s father was a mortician and Harry claims he saw enough death and heard enough talk about it when he was young to last him forever.
    ‘Let me guess,’ Harry said. ‘Even though you’ve been wiped as a PEA you’re investigating Lily’s murder and running into lies, damned lies and bullshit.’
    ‘That’s about right. I’m particularly interested in two characters in your field—Tim Arthur and Lee Townsend.’
    I put them in that order deliberately and it seemed to have an effect on Harry. ‘Oh, shit, those two. No love lost there.’
    ‘How so?’
    ‘They fell out over the rights to a story a few years ago. Some kind of conflict about exclusivity of an interview or some such crap. Right and wrong on both sides, I expect. Townsend got the inside running and got a Walkley.’
    ‘So if Arthur says Townsend’s not to be trusted, it’d be over some professional matter rather than meaning he’s untrustworthy in general?’
    Harry shook his head. ‘Aggressive, a go-getter, small man syndrome and all that, but he’s a genuine investigative type with a lot of chutzpah.’
    ‘Okay. Have you heard anything about someone in the media being involved in money laundering?’
    Harry’s desk is bare, no photos to gaze at, no pencil to chew, no paperclips to bend. When he has to think he just thinks. He shook his head. ‘Nothing comes to mind now that Kerry’s gone, and he was always more into tax minimisation than anything more risky. When you say media person, d’you mean owner, presenter, actor, what?’
    ‘I don’t know. Try this on for size—a politician, no gender specified, using influence with the immigration deadheads to help someone in the sex-slave business.’
    ‘Lily’s stories, right?’
    I nodded.
    ‘State or federal politician?’
    ‘Dunno.’
    ‘There was a pollie in Victoria allegedly in on an immigration fiddle, but it didn’t have