Torn Apart by Peter Corris Page B

carry on where we’d left off. But the peephole showed me that it was a man wearing a suit and a serious expression. I opened the door.
    â€˜Cliff Hardy?’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    He held up his warrant card and produced a document he unfolded and waved in front of me.
    â€˜I have a warrant to search these premises on the grounds of suspicion of the importation of illicit items, as specified in the Customs Act.’



They read me my rights and then it was back to Surry Hills again. I knew I was in trouble. My standing with the police, never high, these days was positively poor. They had me red-handed for forging a name and opening a package not addressed to me. The fact that Patrick had been murdered in my house didn’t help. Their behaviour would depend very much on what the illicit substance was, and I had no idea.
    I was ushered into an interview room and left for the best part of an hour. Standard procedure, but I knew they’d be digging out bits of paper and talking to people like the cop in charge of the investigation into Patrick’s death. I struggled to remember his name. In the past I’d have entered it in the notebook for the case I was working on. Not now. Trying to remember the name gave me something to do. I tried the usual tricks: visualising the person; running through the alphabet hoping a letter would trigger the memory. My mental image of him was too vague to be helpful. I got it on the third run-through—W for Welsh, Detective Inspector. First name forgotten, but that didn’t matter. They’d be talking to him for sure, and he’d remember that I’d said nothing about parcels coming from the UK.
    If I’d been expected to read the name on the arresting officer’s warrant card, I hadn’t: I’d been given no names since. When he came back into the room and turned on the recording equipment, I saw that he was looking nervous, fumbling the switches. I hadn’t noticed it before in the surprise and the speed of the proceedings, but he was young.
    He settled in a chair a metre away from mine with a small metal desk between us. He looked at me, swore and left the room, coming back a minute or two later with a file. He opened it and cleared ‘Interview with . . .’
    â€˜You haven’t turned on the recorder,’ I said. ‘Light’s not showing.’
    He had the misfortune to have a fair complexion, which showed his blush. He switched on the recorder and cleared his throat. With his hand on the file, he began again.
    â€˜Interview with Mr Cliff Hardy by Acting Detective Sergeant Kurt Reimas, Surry Hills . . . ’
    He stated the date and looked up.
    â€˜I’m not saying a word without my lawyer being present.’
    â€˜That can be arranged, of course,’ he said. ‘But I’d encourage you to cooperate in this preliminary interview . . .’
    I shook my head. ‘I’ve been through this many times, Acting Sergeant. Not another word.’
    What I said seemed to encourage him. He closed the file and turned off the recorder. ‘I’m sure you have,’ he said. ‘Served a sentence at Berrima, I see, stripped of an investigator’s licence . . . but things have changed. You can be held for some time now without charge or access to legal advice.’
    â€˜To do with terrorism.’
    He smiled. ‘That’s subject to wide interpretation. You’ve recently returned from overseas in the company of a person who has been murdered in a brutal manner, and you’ve been found in possession of an imported illicit substance. Do you want to reconsider?’
    â€˜No.’
    They took me to the lock-up and put me in an observation cubicle, one of a set, with a perspex wall and a heavy metal door. Nothing there but a cement bench to sit on and a metal toilet. I was the only resident. I knew this had to be temporary. If the intention was to keep me for days this wouldn’t