Dan Sanderson cleared his throat, ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to meet Mr Cliff Hardy, who has been a private enquiry agent for…’

‘Longer than some of you have been alive,’ I said.

It got a laugh, but it was true. Some of the bright young faces looking at me didn’t have twenty years on them and that was how long I’d been in the business. We were gathered in a room in the Petersham College of TAFE where I was doing a guest lecturer spot in the Commercial Agents and Private Enquiry Agents course. When I got my licence it was different. All you needed were some solid citizens to vouch for you and an insurance company to give you the appropriate cover. As a former army officer and investigator for an insurance company, I had no trouble qualifying. Now, you have to do a course in small business practice, legal principles and other things. I’m not sure I could pass it. Dan showed me the text books-very thick and not at all racy. But I didn’t have to pass it. Instead, I was on the instructing end.

I talked for about forty minutes, giving them the spiel Glen Withers and I had worked out. I told them about the unwritten rules of confidentiality, the necessity for good relations with the police force, the advisability of having a friend in a newspaper office and various other short cuts to success. I told jokes, like the one about the client who had failed his driver’s licence test ten times and was convinced there was a conspiracy against him. I’d taken him seriously for a time. Then I’d stuck some L-plates on my car and had him take me for a drive. End of case. And I told them about some sad ones, like the man who was sure that he was the father of his younger brother.

‘The main thing to remember,’ I said in the wind-up, ‘is that, as a PEA, you are at the end of a long line. People have been let down by the law, their families, their friends and all the authorities listed in the phone book. Often, you are a last resort. That’s either an opportunity to exploit them, a reason to dismiss them or a challenge. The choice is up to you.’