The Empty Beach was written by Peter Corros in 1983. The synopsis was this. She gave me instructions to meet her in the lounge of the Regal Hotel, and while I haven't been shy about going into hotels for the past twenty odd years, today I was just a bit reluctant. It was close to three PM on a fine day with low pollution levels. My own pollution level was low too, because it was two months and sixteen days since I'd stopped smoking. But now I wanted a cigarette, badly. I'd been a private detective for ten years near enough, and I'd always had a cigarette before I met a client, several while I talked and listened, and a few more afterwards while I thought. It was a hard pattern to break. The regal dominates a stretch of the parade at Bondi. It's white, of course, with a few turrets, one of which supports a flagpole and flag. The palm trees on either side of the entrance would go better in Singapore, but they're doing their best. I was early, as always, and I wandered down to the beach to kill time. The suntan people outnumbered the pallid, although it was only October. You can sunbathe all the year round in Sydney if you pick your spots and days and have nothing better to do. I stood on the steps of the pavilion looking out at the heavy surf and the few people braving it with their boards and bodies. They looked frail, as if the sea was playing with them rather than the other way around. Any minute, it seemed, the water could rise up and obliterate them. But the sun was shining and the sand glowed, some of the pale people were turning pink, and it was no time for glum thoughts. I took two lungfuls of the ozone and still wanted a cigarette. The lounge at the Regal was dark and quiet, as lounges should be, and I had to peer about before I located the woman at a table in the corner. As I went across I thought that this was a good place to arrange a meeting. She would have a chance to see her man irresolute before he saw her. My client would have seen a tall, thin man, dark and not saved from looking forty by the soft light. She sat straight and square shouldered in her chair and held out her hand, business like. Mr Hardy. Mrs. Singer. Her grip was dry and firm. It was nice to shake her hand. Marion, she said. I'm the client, I'll buy the drinks. I was having a gin and tonic. I'll have the same, thanks. She raised her hand and a waiter came over to take the order. I guessed her age at about fifty, perhaps a bit more, but the few extra years weren't showing. She wore a blue linen suit with a white blouse. Her hair was somewhere between blonde and grey and it suited her strong featured face. She had big eyes, brown, a curved nose and one of those mouths that seems to have a line drawn around it, defining it. As I feared, she was smoking. Her brand was Kent, though, which wasn't too hard to resist. What do you think of Bondi? It wasn't a question I'd expected, so for the second time she had the advantage of me. I like it, I said. I'm proud of it. She smiled at me and gave a bit of a smile to the waiter. She stubbed out her Kent and drank some gin. What do you know about me, Mr Hardy? I took a short pull on the drink. Married to John Singer, I said. Sorry, that might be offensive, talking about you in terms of your husband. Habit. I don't know anything about you, Mr Singer, except that you phoned me up this morning, mentioned an old client of mine, and arranged this meeting. She laughed. I'm not offended. I'm proud to have been married to John. What do you know about him then? John Singer disappeared from Bondi Beach about two years ago. I swung around and pointed to one of the big shaded windows. Out there. He was a businessman, successful, bit of a black market here, just after the war, then involved with vending machines, pinballs after that. He had interests in taxis and hotels, probably other things too, but the pinballs were the hard core at the end. That's a funny way of putting it, she said. Are you against pinball machines? I shrugged, drank some more gin, and wished her cigarette smoke would blow the other way. She lit that one while she was talking, the way an experienced smoker can. Not particularly, I said. Mindless stuff. Profitable, I suppose. I wish the kids were spending their time better. Not only kids, adults too. They're a lost cause. She laughed again. Well, you've got it pretty right. I'm impressed that you learnt so much so fast. I keep the business going as best I can. I nodded. She was buying the drinks, she could do the talking. You must be curious about this meeting. Very. John may not be dead. I nodded sceptically this time. Harold Hobb might not be dead, and Sean Flynn and a few thousand others who probably were. You get a lot of nuts in this business. Fantasists. I was suddenly feeling less curious about the meeting and I let it show. She leaned forward across the props of alcohol and tobacco and spoke urgently, with a strong need in her voice. A week ago I got a phone call. He said he saw John in Roscoe Street, shabby and sick. He? A man's voice, that's all he said. Wait, I wrote it down. She fished up a leather bag from somewhere, rummaged in it, and came up with a sheet of note paper. She passed it across. The message was written in capitals. I saw John in Roscoe Street, Mrs. Singer. He looks crook. Not eloquent, I said. No, but a big shock. I want you to check into it, of course. See if there's anything in it. You didn't know the voice? No, it wasn't a nice voice. Very harsh. Young or old? Uh old, I'd say. The empty beach was written by Peter Corus in nineteen eighty three. The synopsis was this. When a man thought to have died two years previously is spotted on a Sydney street, the widow asks Hardy to investigate. This was a week ago, you say. You've been thinking about it. Is it all right to ask you how you want it to turn out, dead or alive, as it were? I'd picked up her book matches, pulled two out and was shredding them with my fingers, all without knowing it. She tapped my hand with two fingers that carried pricey looking rings. Stop fidgeting. Why are you doing that? I stopped smoking. You poor bastard. Why? To slow down the aging process. You're aging all right. I've seen worse. Another drink? I'm watching that too. No thanks. What about it, Marion? Dead or alive? She finished her drink and pushed it aside as if my example had given her strength, but she didn't have the skin of a boozer. I'm not sure, she said slowly. I'd adjusted, got used to the idea. I'll be frank. I suppose I hope it's not true. John and I had been married for fifteen years. We weren't lovebirds anymore. Any children? She tapped another Kent out, another little reward or penance. No. Would he have any reason to fake a disappearance? You know, like that pommy politician? Stonehouse, she said automatically. Not that I can think of. Up till he got this call, what did you think had happened to him? He suicided, it was an accident, or he was murdered. I just don't know. What would you bet? I don't know, she repeated. Look, we weren't all that close at the end. John had other women and I had other men, but we got along all right and the business was in good shape when I took it over. He could have had worries. He was a secretive man. It sounds as if you didn't know a lot about him. Well, it was like that. John was an Englishman, he came here after the war. I'm a Kiwi myself. I left New Zealand in nineteen fifty, and I've never been back. We both love Sydney, Bondi particularly. No ties for either of us. We both worked at the business and played a lot of tennis and golf. We had a lovely boat. It was enough. Just great, Cliff, I thought. Canny Pom goes missing off the beach. Wife grieves mildly because she doesn't know him at all. It sounded like two days on the street, two hundred dollars and lunch money. Still, maybe I could get some swimming in. I told her I'd do what I could and she wrote me a check. I noticed she didn't write my name on the stub. I'll need a photograph, I said. Oh, I've got one here, John on the yacht. He's got a few days growth, but she dug in the bag which rustled and clinked the way women's bags do. Damn, I thought I had it. I suppose I could get a newspaper photo. You'd be lucky. John didn't go in for publicity. She looked at her digital watch. I wanted to meet you here because it's quiet and I didn't want to broadcast my business. My flat's a bit public. She put her cigarettes and matches away. But I feel a bit better just from talking about it. She pulled out her purse and a sheet of typing paper came with it. She looked at it like an actress studying her lines. Here's a list of some of John's interests, the places where he spent some time. It might help. I took the paper and she put money on the table. Run me home, she said. I'll get the photo. I escorted her out to my Falcon with a touch of pride. My last case but one had been a moderately fat job and I'd had some money to spend on the car. Mechanical overhaul, paint, fresh upholstery in the front. The last case was better forgotten, a foul up that had cost me money. All the more reason to open the car door smartly for misses Marion Singer, and not to shut it too roughly after she'd glided her nice, neat legs inside. It cost nothing to be a gentleman, as old Jack Dempsey used to say. She directed me north up the hill and around a couple of turns that brought me out in the street I didn't know. It ran along the side of a cliff that dropped away down to water, rocks and a little sand. There were four apartment blocks, Shea Singer was in a ten story block that boasted the name the Reefs. None of the residents would be victims of life's shipwrecks. The building soared up and was placed to give a maximum view of the water. The balconies were long and deep and the acres of glass were tinted. I guessed that a title for one of the apartments would change hands for around a quarter of a million. I stared the falcon towards a car park with more potted plants than Vorklur's house. Mrs. Singer turned, looked out the back window, and potted my arm. Bugger it, she said. Mac's here. Stop a bit further on. I drove past the entrance to the car park, rolling gently. Who's Mac? My business partner, sort of, she said. I'll mail you the photo, sorry. She clutched at her bag nervously, I thought. I'll have to think of some story if he saw you. You could say I was your long lost cousin from New Zealand. God forbid. Please do your best, Mr Hardy, and keep me informed. She got out and walked back to the reefs. She walked well, head up, tummy in, as befitted someone who filled in her time with tennis and golf. I drove on to the end of the street, past the main, turned and came back. Through the entrance I saw Mrs. Singer talking to a man who stood with one hand almost possessively on her arm. I stopped and looked at them among the potted plants. He was stout, no taller than she, and built wide, like an all in wrestler. That was the first chapter of the Empty Beach by Peter Corus.