The Mak Collection

by Tara Moss

  ‘Let’s hope she’s local and that she had the work done here,’ Andy commented, inspecting the photograph.

  ‘Who here would work on a girl under eighteen?’

  ‘I hope to find out.’

  They had not got a match on her prints. If they couldn’t get any clues to her identity she might end up as just another Jane Doe, stored away indefinitely in the freezers of the morgue, both her murder and her identity a mystery.

  There was a sound from outside the viewing theatre and Jimmy and Andy both looked towards it. The door opened and Detective Sergeant Hunt entered.

  ‘Hunt?’ Andy said softly.

  ‘Yeah, he’s taken over now,’ Jimmy whispered with little enthusiasm. He had not worked with Hunt before.

  ‘I’m sure you two will be like best mates in no time,’ Andy answered under his breath.

  ‘Skata.’

  Hunt was in his late thirties, with a good suit, a light blond brush cut and an exaggerated chin like a hero in a Marvel comic. He was ambitious, political and slick—everything Jimmy was not. Hunt had worked under Andy at one point, and had soon risen through the ranks with unprecedented speed. Now he outranked Jimmy, who had been in the coppers for nearly ten years longer.

  The detective sergeant approached.

  ‘Hunt,’ Flynn addressed him.

  ‘Flynn.’

  Hunt took a seat one row ahead of them, in the centre, inadvertently giving Jimmy an opportunity to make faces at his back. Jimmy cupped his hand and jerked it around near his groin, mouthing the word ‘wanker’.

  ‘I haven’t missed anything, have I?’ Hunt said stupidly, leaning back with his arms extended like he was watching TV in his lounge room.

  Andy looked down on the sad, bloated corpse through the glass. ‘No, they’re just getting started.’

  It seemed to Andy that Hunt had probably avoided as many autopsy viewings as possible in the past.

  ‘Aren’t you leaving today?’

  ‘Yes,’ Andy replied distractedly, his eyes drawn to the girl’s heart as it was separated from the other organs and weighed.

  CHAPTER 21

  Makedde checked the contents of her overnight bag: change of clothes, make-up, wallet, notepad, monocular, camera. She zipped up the bag and slung it over her shoulder. Marian had booked her a cheap flight for one o’clock and organised a hotel at the other end. The client was happy for Mak to seek information from Meaghan’s interstate friend—so long as it didn’t cost him too much, so Mak imagined the hotel wouldn’t be too flash.

  She had a couple of hours up her sleeve before the flight, so she figured she had time to make one stop before boarding her flight for Melbourne.

  Jag.

  It was best not to turn up in leathers if she wanted to gain the girl’s trust, so Mak made her way downstairs and scrounged around in the miscellaneous drawer in the kitchen to find the spare set of keys to Andy’s little red Honda among a bunch of elastic bands, paperclips and unused suitcase locks. The airport parking for two days was more than it would cost her for a cab, so she would return with the car in time to take a taxi.

  Mak left her packed overnight bag by the front door and set off.

  Meaghan’s friend Jag lived in a crumbly terrace in the suburb of Newtown, a groovy ‘alternative’ area of Sydney, with cafés, CD and book shops, and fetish stores. Mak took a deep breath and walked up to Jag’s front door.

  Okay, here goes.

  Thankfully she found that she felt nowhere near as awkward as she had walking up to the Wallace household the day before. Perhaps she was getting used to knocking on strangers’ doors.

  Makedde rang the doorbell. There were footsteps, and then a young man with spiky blond Billy Idol hair opened the door.

  ‘Hey, is Jag around?’ Mak asked casually.

  ‘Ah, no, she’s gone to the Angelo,’ he said, as if that should make sense to her.

  ‘Oh, the Angelo. Yeah. Where is that again?’ Mak asked.

  ‘Just on the corner,’ he said. ‘It’s, like, two blocks that way.’ He pointed west.

  ‘Cool, yeah. Thanks,’ Mak replied, and trundled off in the direction in which he had pointed. He watched her go, perhaps wondering who she was.

  Mak had no idea what the Angelo was, but she hoped she would spot it easily enough, and she also hoped that Jag would look like her picture.

  The Michelangelo Café was indeed two blocks from Jag’s place. It was a run-down and dusty little place with wooden tables and a badly executed mural of Michelangelo’s ‘David’ painted across the walls and ceiling. There were few patrons, but they included a girl who fitted Jag’s description seated near the back of the place, hunched over a plate. Mak had the distinct impression that the young woman was hungover. She had a plate of fried eggs and bacon in front of her, largely untouched.

  Mak sidled up beside her.

  ‘Hey, Jag, how are you?’ she said casually.

  Jag looked up, startled. Her reactions seemed a bit slow.

  ‘How’s it going? Big night, huh?’

  Jag nodded.

  ‘Can I sit down?’ Mak asked, and pulled out a chair for herself before the young woman could answer.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Jag said, looking at her suspiciously.

  ‘Well,’ Mak told her, ‘this is about your friend Meaghan Wallace.’

  Jag stopped her feeble attempts at eating. ‘Megs?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mak said. ‘Megs.’

  The girl nodded. ‘It’s awful what happened to her.’

  ‘It is,’ Mak agreed. She could see that Jag was sharp, even when hungover. Pulling the wool over her eyes seemed unnecessary. ‘Jag, I am trying to figure out what happened to her. I’m working on behalf of someone who really cares about her, and wants to know the truth about her murder.’

  ‘You’re a…’

  ‘Private investigator, yes.’

  Jag folded her arms. ‘Well, that’s great but I don’t know anything.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Mak replied, giving her verbal room to move, ‘but I just thought I’d chat to you, because she considered you a friend. Sometimes we can know something helpful without realising it.’

  ‘Who are you working for, exactly?’

  ‘That’s confidential, I’m afraid. But I’m not working for the cops, or the Feds, I can tell you that much.’ She slipped a card across the table and Jag looked it over.

  ‘Her parents hired you, didn’t they?’ she said.

  Mak didn’t answer. If she wanted to believe it was Meaghan’s parents who had hired her, that might be a good thing.

  ‘Do you know Noelene and Ralph well?’ Mak asked.

  Jag shook her head. ‘Nah. Megs mentioned them, though. Look, I don’t know why you think I’d be helpful, but I don’t know anything. I didn’t really know her that well.’

  ‘You were friends, though,’ Mak pressed.

  ‘We partied together a few times, that’s all. Her parents should be sending you to someone like Amy, not me. Amy was her best friend. She knew her a lot better than I did.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ Mak paused. ‘When was the last time you saw Meaghan?’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not a cop?’ Jag asked, suspicious again.

  ‘Yes I’m sure. And I’d have to tell you if I was a cop, you know,’ Mak said, fibbing a little. ‘That’s the law.’ Undercover cops could say what they wanted, and they did.

  ‘Okay. I haven’t seen her since New Year’s, I think. Like I said, we weren’t that close.’

  ‘How about Simon Aston? You know him well?’ Mak had a photo ready in case she needed it. But she didn’t.

  ‘Simon? Ha! I wish. All the girls wished they knew Simon.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘He was the big tipper, you know. Him and his rich mate, Damien Cavanagh. They used to visit the club a lot.’

  ‘The Rocking Horse?’

  ‘The strip clubs, babe. You know—where Meaghan and I worked?’

  Meaghan Wallace had been a
stripper—that was where she was getting the money her mother was so confused about. She would never have told her mum. Not a mum like Noelene.

  ‘Amy worked there, too, didn’t she?’ Mak said with false confidence. That might explain the sexy outfits all three were wearing in the photo. They worked together, they danced together and sometimes partied together.

  ‘Yeah, Amy,’ Jag confirmed. ‘She works at the Thunderball Club now. I don’t know how she makes ends meet. The cash is better up here.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard that,’ Mak lied. ‘So you hadn’t seen Megs since the New Year?’

  Jag nodded. ‘She had a straight job and she didn’t come out much any more.’

  Mak understood.

  So when she got her straight job, did she stop with the gifts for her folks? Or was she still dabbling on the side?

  ‘Tell the Wallaces I am really sorry about Megs.’

  ‘I’ll tell them,’ Mak said. ‘Thanks for your time. You call me if you think of anything else, okay?’

  She nodded, and Mak left the girl with her greasy hangover breakfast.

  CHAPTER 22

  The flight lasted barely an hour, but Makedde noticed the drop in temperature as soon as she stepped off the plane in Melbourne. Not exactly a snowstorm—as some Sydneysiders had her believing—but it was about 10 degrees cooler. Considering the recent humidity in Sydney, the change was a relief.

  ‘How far is it to…?’ She read the address off her notes to the taxidriver at the airport. ‘To St Kilda?’

  ‘Is no problem. Twenty minutes this time of day. Tops.’

  Makedde smiled as the taxi passed a bright yellow rod, like a giant French fry, jutting 50 metres into the sky—someone’s idea of art. They drove through a space-age tunnel and across an overpass that afforded Mak her first view of the city.

  It was already two-thirty in the afternoon. Mak would check in to her hotel, freshen up quickly and make it out to Amy Camilleri’s Richmond residential address by perhaps three-thirty; Marian had hunted down the address, so hopefully it was current. Mak would take note of the surrounding area and, if necessary, gently interrogate some of Amy’s neighbours to see if she could make any further ground. If Amy was as good a friend of Meaghan’s as Jag had suggested, then she should potentially be a great source of information. She could have been privy to a lot of details about Meaghan’s personal life; certainly, more than poor Mrs Wallace seemed to know about her daughter, and more than Jag knew or was willing to divulge. Perhaps Amy even knew something about Meaghan’s involvement with Simon Aston, if there had been any.

  ‘All the girls wished they knew Simon.’

  It worried Mak a little that Amy was not answering the home number she had for her. Mak had tried her a couple of times to use the same Rocking Horse Club ruse to confirm her address, but Amy never answered and, even stranger, she had no answering machine or voicemail. What young woman these days didn’t have voicemail? Hopefully the address was up to date, and she would find her at home. And with any luck, Mak hoped, Amy would open up to her.

  Marian had organised for Mak to stay at a small St Kilda hotel called the Tolarno. As the taxi pulled up, Mak was surprised to see that the building was a quaint three levels high, and that the front sported a Heineken sign and windows handpainted with swirls of kitsch leaves and a smiling sun. The name ‘Tolarno’ was painted right across it, so the cabbie was clearly not mistaken. This had to be the right place.

  Mak tipped the driver and asked him to wait for her. She didn’t know how much time it might take to catch another taxi, and she always liked to have transportation ready when in unfamiliar territory. It was another of her many paranoid habits.

  What, exactly, is this place?

  Shoulders back and head high, she strode to the bright red front door, overnight bag in hand, turning the heads of a couple of beer-swilling patrons sitting at picnic benches on the Fitzroy Street sidewalk outside. Stepping inside, she had the feeling that she had been mistakenly dropped off at the entrance to a restaurant by the same name. There were signs for ‘Le Bar’ and ‘Le Bistro’ and a life-sized modern bronze statue of a couple holding hands. No lobby. No porters.

  Right.

  There were menus propped up on a wooden easel, and signs for the toilets. Mak stood in the entry for a few seconds feeling disoriented before making her way down a meandering hallway, past walls lined with quirky artworks. The passage eventually opened up into a small lobby and sitting room.

  This is more like it.

  Mak plonked her bag on the desk and checked in. This was her first interstate job for Marian, and for some reason she had envisaged being booked into a depressing three-star corporate number with bland name-tagged staff, bland halls that smelled vaguely of detergent and cigarettes, and the same bland copied painting of a bouquet in each room. This was an offbeat, retro sort of place, closer to the kind of boutique hotels she had stayed in when she was modelling in Europe. It might have been Australian, but it seemed Euro to Mak, right down to the oversized key, rambling staircase and lack of elevator. Mak found room 222 on the second floor at the end of a big hallway and down an odd set of stairs. Inside was a striking crimson wall and a giant abstract painting of a woman. No flower painting. The room had a good position overlooking the street, the view clear through open wooden slats over the windows. The balcony was exposed; Mak wouldn’t use it.

  She closed the slats and peeked out through them secretively. She could clearly see the activity on the street. Her taxi was dutifully waiting for her at the kerb.

  Mak brushed her teeth, changed her top, slicked deodorant under her arms, packed her long-lens digital camera, pocket-sized monocular, notepad and mini flashlight into her purse, and dashed out the door again. She had been less than ten minutes.

  Soon Mak was in the suburb of Richmond. She found Amy’s home address a few doors past an old television studio in a large brick building branded with an ancient-looking TVN 9 sign on one side. With few exceptions, the houses in the area looked like wartime shacks: all single-level, with small windows and no yards—far from the sprawling lawns of even the most modest houses on Vancouver Island. Mak let the taxi drive past until she was a block away from Amy’s residence. She paid him, got out and walked back slowly along the street, looking perhaps as if she were on her way to the studio. As she walked she took in the neighbourhood, the movement on the street, and any shrub cover or fences she could use to hide behind if she decided to watch the activity at Amy’s house for a while.

  Amy Camilleri did not live terribly well.

  The house she rented appeared to be little more than a one-level weatherboard granny flat extended off another modest single-storey residence. Together the two might just make one small house, by most standards. The house did not seem to be very well kept—the white paint of the front had turned grey and patchy—and it looked like it would be very cramped inside. There was a small tangle of weeds where a garden might have been. It had a single window at the front with curtains drawn, and no driveway or garage. Amy had a fifteen-year-old Peugeot registered to her name, but Mak couldn’t see it parked in the surrounding area. At least the lack of garage was good for Mak’s spying purposes, as was the clear view of the front door.

  The curtains were drawn and motionless. The house looked to be unoccupied, which was terribly disappointing for Mak. She took a chance and knocked quietly on Amy’s door. There was no answer. Discreetly, she peered into the mailbox next to the door. It was positively stuffed full of mail, junk mail, advertising flyers and letters. An unopened telephone bill was visible.

  She walked around to the side of the house. There was barely a foot between the house and the next one, and nothing in between them but more weeds and a rusted hubcap. She could not comfortably walk between the buildings.

  Shit.

  Mak circled the block once by foot, noticing that the houses were backed by a narrow laneway of parked cars and rubbish bins. She strolled down it until she came to the back of Amy�
�s house. It had one back door and no other windows.

  The place really is a dump.

  She approached Amy’s garbage bin. She was not above lifting the lid on it, and she did so slowly, with her nose turned up in distaste. She had been taught in her PI course that trash could reveal a lot about a person. Empty champagne bottles and shopping bags said very different things about a person’s lifestyle than a bin full of diapers and bulk potato-chip packets. It was creepy, but still totally legal to search through anyone’s garbage bins. Sadly, though, Amy’s trash had been collected recently. Mak found herself staring for a moment into a smelly, empty bin and wondering how she got from catwalking in the Milan shows to checking out other people’s garbage in only a couple of years.

  Ah well. Half those outfits were garbage anyway…

  And when she finally saved enough to open her forensic psychology practice, the only garbage she would have to check through would be in people’s heads, she assured herself.

  So Amy Camilleri had lots of mail and no garbage. That was not what Mak had come to Melbourne to find out. She guessed that Amy had not been home for at least a week, so the trip might be a bust. She’d have to come back with some kind of result, otherwise it would look like she had simply gone to Melbourne as a holiday to visit Loulou on the client’s budget. Which was something that had crossed her mind…

  Mak wondered again if the client would cover a rental car. If she had needed to stake out Amy’s place, it would be much easier and more comfortable in a parked car; but, now that it seemed that Amy had not been home for a while, such plans were pointless. Amy could be away for some time.

  Disappointed but not discouraged, Makedde Vanderwall returned to her hotel to get ready for her dinner date with Loulou and her new musician boyfriend. She was not worried just yet. She had at least one more trick up her sleeve.

  But the next stage of her investigation could not begin until the sun went down.

  CHAPTER 23

  Simon Aston held himself stiffly as he stepped out the front door of his Tamarama abode, gripping the handle of a heavy briefcase that was not his own. He nervously scanned the beach paths and glanced up the street in both directions before locking the front door behind him and approaching his vehicle. The sun was beginning to set, the air cooling. Locals in board shorts and bikinis could be seen gathering their blankets and packing up for the walk home, bodies tanned and sprinkled with salt and sand.