Of course I agreed to do what I could. Frank had sat at his computer sometime and written down everything he could remember about the Heysen case-names, places and dates. He gave me the printout amounting to over fifty pages. An almost eidetic memory had been one of his strengths as a detective, and when he quoted some of the people involved I was prepared to believe it was near to word-for-word accurate.

Frank looked at his watch and I took the hint. I folded the dossier and watched him take money from his wallet.

'Frank.'

'We've got a joint account. I can't give you a cheque.'

'I'm not taking your money.'

'You fucking are. I want you full-time on this and fair dinkum. It could get expensive. Some of these people have probably scattered. Here.'

He handed me ten one hundred dollar notes. 'Won't Hilde notice you're down a bit?'

'Let me worry about that. Cliff, I hate doing this without her knowing-'

'Me, too.'

'But I've got no choice. I can't really help you either. I guess you could ring me once or twice if you need to, and visit, but Hilde'd get suspicious if it was more often. Shit, I hate this.'

'It's okay. I'll play it your way, but we have to agree on one thing-if for some reason it becomes necessary for Hilde to learn everything about it, that's the way it'll have to be.'

'You're a cunning bastard, Cliff.'

'A survivor. Agreed?'

'Yes.'

We shook hands, something we never usually did. It marked how different this meeting had been from all the others and I hoped it didn't mean any kind of change for the worse.

Frank seemed to sense something similar, and he grinned and did a mock shape-up. 'I feel better now that I know you're helping, mate.'

I nodded. He collected the empties and stowed them carefully in the recycle bin. I wondered if Hilde knew how many beers had been on hand and would notice how many had been drunk. Or would Frank have that covered somehow? A long-time deceiver myself, the standard line came to my mind: Oh, what a tangled web we weave…