“I don’t want to sound reluctant to work for you, Ms Madden, but I like to have everything understood upfront. Private enquiries can be expensive and inconclusive. They’ve passed a freedom of information act in this state against all my expectations. You could apply for all documents and material considered by the police. That might be all I get, anyway.”

“No! It’d take months or years. This thing is eating me up. I’m trying not to let it obsess me, trying to keep a sane perspective on things.”

“I’d say you were doing fine.”

“Thank you. But I want something done-now!”

“Okay. I’ll get the details from you- names dates and so on, and I’ll need a retainer of a thousand dollars. Any un-expended part of that’s refundable.”

“Good.” She got a cheque book from a pocket in her overall and I started asking questions and writing down answers. Louise Madden was thirty-five, single, no children, self-employed. She had a degree in agricultural science from the Hawkesbury College and she lived at Leura in the Blue Mountains. Her landscape gardening business employed three people beside herself and was prospering. Her father, Brian Madden, fifty-six, schoolteacher, of Flat 3, 27 Loch Street, Milson’s Point, had been reported missing early on the morning of 5 May. A man answering his description had been seen walking towards the bridge footway from the north shortly after dawn. I got the names of the police officers Ms Madden had spoken to in person and on the telephone. She’d kept notes of the conversations and was prepared to let me see them.

“Have you got a key to his flat?”

“No. There was no need. Dad always leaves a key under a flowerpot at the back.”

“Trusting,” I said.

She passed her cheque across the desk. “He’s a lovely man, Mr Hardy. He’s gentle and kind. My mother died when I was twelve. Lots of fathers couldn’t have coped, but my Dad did. I never felt that I lacked for anything, not really.”