Do you remember Ramona Beckett, Hardy?

I remember her, I said.

Perhaps you also remember that her family offered a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever was responsible for her death. This was about two years after she disappeared, and thats fifteen fucking years ago.

I shrugged. If you say so.

Am I right in thinking that you had something to do with her?

The man whod asked the question was Barry White, an ex-cop, ex-private detective, ex-nightclub bouncer, ex just about anything in that line you could think of. He was middle class, university educated and had made Detective Sergeant pretty quickly, but hed resigned from the force just ahead of a corruption charge. Like me, hed lost his PEA licence for breaches of the regulations. Id regained mine fairly easily and quickly on the basis of a previously good record and the recommendations of police officers and others whose integrity was unquestioned at a time when a lot of questioning was going on.

White hadnt been so lucky. The only cops he knew were as corrupt as he was and were leaving the force under clouds or to go behind bars. He was a big, strong man, or had been, and hed looked pretty formidable outside a nightclub for a while. But the booze softened and slowed him and people who like to start trouble in those places these days have learned martial arts tricks that can make an old thumper like Barry look silly. Me too, for that matter. So hed slipped down a few more notches. When he turned up at my office that Monday morning I thought he might be scrounging for work. He wasnt.

I knew her, yes.

Ramona was a rich, spoiled young woman who wanted to be the first female Premier of New South Wales. She did a sociology degree at Sydney and, after blooding herself in university politics and local government, she decided that blackmail was the way to go. She set about seducing politicians and influential people with the aim of getting leverage on them to put her where she wanted to be in politics. One of her victims had had the guts to come to me professionally and Id helped him.