Lugarno by Peter Corris

I’d done at New South Wales.’
    â€˜Cliff, it was twenty years ago, and you didn’t do all that well. And it was more than one and a half units as I recall. And now that you’ve been convicted of a serious felony and done time …
    â€˜Yeah, yeah. Anyway, does this give you access to student records?’
    â€˜I should’ve known. No way.’
    I gave him the facts and he kept a sceptical face while I recited them, only showing some expression when I mentioned the secretary.
    â€˜Ah,’ he said, ‘Ms Gwen Carroll. No, she wouldn’t fancy you at all.’
    â€˜Why’s that particularly?’
    â€˜Never mind. Go on.’
    I gave him the rest and he relented. He got up and gestured for me to follow him. I did, with myglass topped up. We went into his study and he turned his computer on.
    â€˜What’s this?’ I said.
    â€˜I can access the student records from home by remote access. It’s one of the perks.’
    The screen glowed and images on it flickered into life. ‘What are the others?’
    â€˜Room, computer, free email and Internet, photocopying, library.’
    â€˜I could use all that.’
    â€˜Yeah, but I don’t get paid.’ He seated himself in front of the computer and began tapping the keys. ‘OK, full name and student number.’
    I gave them and he tapped the keys and clicked the mouse. ‘Here he is—Hewitt, Ramsay Stefan …’
    â€˜Stefan?’
    â€˜That’s what it says. You want the address?’
    â€˜Yeah. Hold on, does the file have his student ID photo?’
    â€˜Sure does. The way things are at universities these days the teachers are lucky to know half their students by sight before the semester’s over. Have a look—this’s him.’
    I craned over Viv’s shoulder to look at the small photograph on the screen. It was Ramsay Hewitt all right. He had the long jaw and lean features and pale eyes, but the scruffy beard was gone and he wore a blue business shirt and a burgundy tie. His once dirty, stringy hair was cut and styled and fair, very fair.
    â€˜Model citizen,’ Viv said.
    â€˜Can you print that page out?’
    â€˜I shouldn’t.’
    â€˜I’ll crop it down to the picture. No one will ever know.’
    Viv did some more clicking and the page shuffled through the printer. I took it out and swore.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜The address—it’s a post office box in Strathfield.’
    Viv clicked a couple of times and the screen went blank. ‘Are you going to stake it out, like in the movies?’
    â€˜No, I’m going to send him a threatening letter made up of newspaper headlines.’
    He got up and stretched. ‘Ask a silly question.’

7
    Before I left I asked Viv again what he’d meant by the crack about the secretary not liking me. We were standing by the front door and he leaned back against the wall as if he was doing an isometric exercise. Maybe he was.
    â€˜Our Gwen’s a strange one. Word is she has money and doesn’t need the job, but she’s got a thing for lawyers, especially fair-haired ones.’ He ran his hand over his own sandy crop. ‘Not like this, I mean thick and fair like, say, Greg Norman when he was young.’
    â€˜Staff or students?’
    â€˜Well, she’d taken notice of your guy, hadn’t she?’
    That gave me something to think about on my careful drive home. People can change but they mostly don’t, at least not very much. Not as much as Ramsay Hewitt appeared to have done—from hippie greenie activist to would-be lawyer. A semester of university fees wasn’t cheap nor was the sort of grooming he appeared to be going in for. As the politicians say: ‘Where was the money coming from?’ With the Scotch before my lightdinner, a glass or two with it and a couple with Viv, I was probably somewhere near the limit. But the roads are quiet on a