Following my last major case, I was given a suspended sentence for various offences. This, together with an earlier serious infringement and a brief prison spell, caused the police board that handles the licensing of private enquiry agents to scrub me for life. To raise a bit of money, I handled a few minor matters before the hearing was held but that was it. I lost the appeal against their decision. The next step was an appeal to the Administrative Decisions Tribunal and I lost that one, too. Appeal denied.

‘That’s it, Cliff,’ my solicitor, Viv Garner, said when he gave me the news. ‘Unless you fancy the Supreme Court and the High Court of Australia.’

‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘You gotta know when to fold ‘em.’

‘So what’ll you do now? You’ve got no super. Your house’s worth a bundle but you’ll never sell it, will you?’

I shook my head. The house in Glebe was worth a lot of money, even in its rundown condition, but there were a lot of reasons why I wouldn’t sell it. First, call me parochial, but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere on the planet except there. Second, it held too many memories-of my first wife, Cyn, when we were young and in love, and then when we weren’t; of Hilde Stoner, my ex-tenant and still a friend, now married to Frank Parker, another friend; of the women and clients and cops and enemies who’d trooped through bringing love and money and death and destruction. Too much to give up. Plus, I couldn’t bear the thought of packing up all the stuff. Inertia is a powerful force.

‘I’ll think of something,’ I told Viv. ‘I had a thorough check-up from Ian Sangster the other day and he reckons I’m good for quite a few years yet.’

‘Yeah, you look all right given the life you’ve led. Full head of hair, not much grey, not much flab. How d’you do it?’