‘Dead keen. Pre-therapy. Looking for accelerated healing advice. What’s the prob?’

‘Aw, broken fibula.’

‘Comfrey,’ he said, and whipped away with his clipboard.

I returned the video camera, carefully pocketing the rental invoice. Back in the office, I tapped out a report on the last electric typewriter left in Sydney. My professional opinion was that Ms Carroll was genuinely injured, virtually incapacitated, and incurring considerable expenses in rehabilitation therapy and other areas to keep her business running. I provided details about the home help she employed and their rates. I included the video tape and totted up and documented my own expenses-mileage, payment to unstated informant, cost of video tape and recorder hire with standard fee plus GST. A nice, neat package to send off by courier (cost also included) to Mr Bryce Carter at Sentinel Insurance.

Two nights later I was having a drink with Charlie Underwood, a fellow investigator who has an office in Bondi Junction. Most of his work is in the eastern suburbs but he likes to slum it in the inner west when he drinks. We talked shop naturally, and I admitted that I’d taken on an insurance job against my own inclinations. Charlie has no such scruples.

‘Growth area,’ he said. ‘I’m up to my ears in ‘em. Bit strange really.’

‘How so?’

‘Get you another?’ We were drinking scotch and I’d only had two. Three was safe enough, four meant a hangover.

‘Be my last,’ I said. ‘I’ll buy.’

We were in the Toxteth on a Friday night and it was busy, smoky and loud with the trots on the TV, the pool tables in operation and voices getting louder because the voices were getting louder. Charlie and I had snagged a table near the door and defended it so far against all comers.

I brought the drinks over. ‘You were saying?’

‘What?’

‘Something strange about insurance jobs.’