Appeal Denied: A Cliff Hardy Novel Read Online Free

late-life son he could’ve asked for. According to Lily, they’d been a successful family until cancer got her mother in her mid-fifties and her father, at sixty-odd, a few years later. It was one of the reasons Lily hadn’t wanted children.
    With too many of these memories on my mind, I talked briefly to a few people I knew, but basically wanted to be on my own and let this ‘celebration of Lily’s life’ go on around me. I walked to the deck rail and looked out over the water. There was a good breeze and the boats were making the most of it. It’s not something I ever took to. The few times I tried, it seemed to consist of alternating between being bored rigid and working your arse off while someone yelled at you. I guess if you did it long enough to know what you were about and had enough money, you could get to do the yelling.
    I’d had a big scotch on arrival and a glass of wine since, or was it two? I finished the drink, whatever number it was, and thought about another. Against that, if I ate a few sandwiches and had some coffee and took a walk around the streets, it’d probably be safe to drive home. Home—not a lot to feel good about there. I was leaning towards another drink or two and a taxi, when a man appeared beside me.
    ‘Cliff Hardy?’
    ‘Yes.’
    A small boat about to tip over in the wind caught my eye and I watched it without looking at the man who’d spoken. Rude of me, but for the first time in a while I was looking at some outside action, instead of in at myself.
    ‘I’m Lee Townsend.’
    That got my attention. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I was miles away.’
    I recognised him. Townsend was an investigative print and television reporter, the sort that get up the noses of politicians, bureaucrats and business types—my kind of guy. He’d broken big stories on police corruption, political cover-ups and government department mismanagement. He’d fronted several television documentaries that had made his image as well known as his written work. He had a couple of spin-off books to his credit that I hadn’t read.
    I was facing him now, using the word loosely. He stood about 160 centimetres at the most and his build would have to be described as puny. The magic of television had concealed this.
    He saw my reaction. ‘Yeah, I know,’ he said. ‘People think I’m a six-footer like you.’
    I shook his hand. ‘Jean-Paul Sartre was one fifty-eight centimetres on his best days,’ I said.
    He laughed. ‘Thank you for that. Your eulogy was good. Spot on.’
    ‘You knew Lily?’
    ‘A bit in the early days when we were wage slaves. She had the handicap of being a woman, and I was too fucking small to be taken seriously.’
    ‘You both did okay.’
    He placed his glass on the balcony rail. Looked like scotch. He wore an expensive lightweight suit. I was in a dark blazer and dark pants, blue shirt—closest I could get to the suit look. No tie. Lily said ties were as stupid as gloves and she was right.
    ‘I’d like to have a talk with you,’ Townsend said. ‘Here, if you’re agreeable, or later if you’d prefer it.’
    He might have looked different from his TV persona but his strong, resonant, convincing voice was the same. I had a feeling he’d be worth talking to. In a strange way he reminded me of Lily—smaller, of course.
    ‘Now’d be good,’ I said. ‘Lately I’ve been talking mostly to myself. What about a drink? Was that scotch?’
    He nodded. I picked up his glass and mine and headed for the bar. The crowd had thinned out a bit but not much. You can count on journos to form a good, solid hard core at any boozy bash. They’ve always got plenty to talk about and it takes a long while for the grog to make them boring.
    Muddy was doing his number: Lily and I had seen the movie of the Band’s supposed last performance— The Last Waltz —before they kept reincarnating. Muddy had done the song in his suit, but still managed to look as if he was down on the delta:
    Ain’t