When Terry Reeves of Bargain Renta Car rang me, I bought at first that he was up to his old trick-trying to Hog off an exmember of his fleet on me. Over the years he’d offered me Commodores, Peugeots, even an ‘84 Falcon, but I’d remained true to my Falcon which had been born about a decade earlier.

‘Terry,’ I said, ‘you’re wasting your time, I’m going to be buried in that car.’

‘You probably will be, Cliff. But this is a business call.’

‘You mean you’re going to give me money, not take money off me?’

‘I mean I want you to earn the money by investigating something. That’s what you do, isn’t it-investigate?’

‘Yeah. Lately I’ve done more money minding and debugging than investigating, but I can still remember how it’s done.’

‘De-bugging?’

‘Yeah, it’s all the go. People want you to de-bug everything, cars, dunnies, the lot. I did a course in it.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Means I talked to a bloke in a pub about it. He puts bugs in and he told me how to take them out. He learned it from another bloke in another pub. What’s the job?’

‘You’ve got me edgy, Cliff. Better not talk on the phone.’

‘Bullshit. Nine times out of ten the only bugs I find’ve got legs and feelers. What…?’

‘Just the same I’d rather do it face to face. Come over to the office. And park that wreck a block away at least. I don’t want anyone thinking it’s one of mine.’

I let him have the last word, which is always good business practice and I couldn’t think of a snappy comeback anyway. I worked with Terry as an insurance investigator after I got out of the army and decided I wasn’t cut out for the law. We’d been competitive, had disagreements about fires and things gone missing, but got along well. He went into the car rental business about the same time I set up as a private investigator, about fifteen years ago. He’d probably made a hundred times as much money as me and he’d acquired a nice wife and a couple of attractive kids. I’d lost my not so nice wife who’d gone off to have her attractive kids with someone else. I occasionally rented a car from Terry when a job called for it: we’d stayed in touch.