‘Well?’

‘Can’t be sure,’ he said. ‘But I think it’s the blue stuff that gets onto the money.’

‘You know what that makes this set-up, then?’

‘Yeah,’ he growled. ‘Looks like this is where they try to get it off.’

And that was the way it looked a few days later when a microscopic examination of my hundred dollar note had been made. Frank Parker rang me with the good news.

‘Serial number checks with a run stolen from a bank in Parramatta last month. Traces of the dye-not visible to the naked eye. Someone’s found a way to take it off.’

‘What about my money?’

‘Sorry, mate. Evidence.’

‘Great. What about the house?’

‘Nothing. Clean as a whistle. Leased under a phoney name, paid for in cash.’ His laugh was a harsh bark. ‘Cash?’

‘Don’t be bitter. You must have something to go on.’

‘Not a bloody thing. Looks like they just cleared out after your pal Scholfield went for the jump.’

‘Are you looking for people who’ve turned blue lately?’

‘Have you got any other helpful comments, Cliff?’

‘Can’t you just take a photo of it?’

‘What?’

‘My hundred bucks.’

That finished the conversation with Parker and left me wondering what to do next. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a case on hand; I was on a retainer from a security firm to check on some of their employees who were suspected of not rattling the doors they were supposed to rattle and not shining their torches where and when they were supposed to shine them. It was night work mainly, but not exclusively. I had the job for a month and was only half way through. The company didn’t expect a perfect record from its men, apparently that was unheard of; it was a question of ‘acceptable levels of-non-performance’. I ran over some of the results I’d got so far, but I couldn’t keep my mind on the job. I kept getting pictures of Norman Scholfield trying to cope with worry in a good-humoured way. I didn’t like the idea of someone throwing him off a twenty-storey building-that was too much for good humour. Then I remembered the pub.