Man in the Shadows Read Online Free PDF

I’m losing my grip. You must have noticed that the phone hasn’t rung and no-one’s called since you arrived.’
    â€˜It hasn’t been long,’ I said. ‘You’re probably in a rough patch.’
    â€˜It’s nothing but rough patches.’ She wiped her face and rearranged it into something like a smile. There was a charming, witty woman in there somewhere behind the blubber. ‘Ah, well, I can always go back to voice-overs.’
    â€˜Is that what you did before agenting?’
    â€˜Yes, and after acting. After I got too fat. I suppose everyone was something before. You were something before you were a private eye.’
    I didn’t want to get into that. I’d been a happily married organisation man; sometimes it sounded good. ‘Yeah. Have you got an address for Greenway?’
    â€˜Are you going to cause him trouble?’
    â€˜He’s caused himself trouble already.’
    â€˜What’s he done?’
    â€˜You could call it . . . impersonating a lunatic.’ She clicked her tongue. ‘Gave you a performance, huh?’
    I nodded.
    â€˜Told you he was good. Impersonating a lunatic,what a part. Well, I don’t owe him anything.’ She pushed her swivel chair back and swung to her left. Her hand on the file card drawer was narrow, long-fingered and white. I’d heard there were people who made a living from having their hands and feet and ears photographed. I thought maybe she could do that as well as voice-overs, but I didn’t say so. She pulled out a card and read off the address, ‘1b Selwyn Street, wait for it—Paddington. He shared with someone. No phone. Can you imagine that? An actor with no phone? I had to send him telegrams.’
    â€˜I can’t imagine a detective with no phone. D’you think he was serious about that?’
    â€˜He showed me the ad he’d put in the paper.’
    â€˜What paper?’
    â€˜The
Eastern Suburbs Herald
, I think it was. It was something like Sherlock Enquiries, no, that’s not it. Greenlock Enquiries. Private. Confidential. That sort of thing. Greenlock, you see?’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I said. ‘Holmes. Jesus. Did the ad give the Paddington address?’
    â€˜Sorry. Don’t remember.’
    â€˜When was this?’
    She consulted an appointments diary on her desk. ‘Three months ago. January 7.’ The phone rang and she almost snatched it up. She crossed her fingers and looked at me. I crossed my fingers too. She lifted the phone. ‘Fanshawe Agency. Roger, how nice. Yes, I think so. Bruno? He’s available I think.’
    I mouthed ‘Thank you’ at her; she showed the first class teeth in a wide smile and I left the office.
    It was uphill from the ‘Loo to Darlinghurst and I was sweating when I reached my car. I drove to Selwyn Street where there were no parking places. I circled the block without finding a space so I double-parked outside number 1b which was a tiny terrace in a row that had been crimped and cutied like apoodle. A solid knock on the door brought a response from the balcony above me.
    â€˜Yes? What is it?’
    I backed out onto the footpath. A young man in a singlet and jeans was leaning over the railing. Sunlight glinted on one long, dangling earring.
    â€˜I’m looking for Gareth Greenway.’
    â€˜He’s not here.’
    â€˜This is the address I have.’
    â€˜He moved out when I learned that I had it.’ There was a bitter edge to his voice; he sounded like the people I used to interview who’d let their insurance lapse before the fire that wiped them out.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜What d’you think? AIDS. Gareth’s not the caring and sharing type.’
    His hair and beard were dark stubble over thin, tightly stretched skin. Bones protruded around his neck and along the tops of his shoulders. He was deeply tanned but he still looked sick.
    â€˜When did he