by Berry, Tony
Fazal had turned away from her to speak to someone in the row behind them. Liz took the chance to hurry outside before the music finished. There was only so much Bette Milder a person could take. She saw no sign of the aggressive hostess.
*
Liz gestured at the order of service in Bromo’s hand.
‘I felt as if I’d been threatened,’ she said. ‘And for no reason.’
Bromo ran a hand over his bandaged head. It seemed like yesterday had been a bad day all round.
‘So what’s with the dogs?’
‘No idea. But it was weird. So was Fazal.’
Liz took Bromo through her attendance at the funeral. She needed to talk. She was still struggling to make sense of the hostess’s aggressive attitude. There was menace, too, in the way Fazal looked and spoke. Bromo suggested she was getting things out of proportion, blowing a bubble into a balloon. Funerals were stressful, everyone was on edge. Why get upset about one ballsy woman speaking in riddles? Maybe she did cryptics. He looked into his glass. Empty. Not a good idea to suggest a refill.
‘So, who’s this Tamsyn woman apart from being a body in a box?’
He noticed Liz wince and a shudder briefly rack her body. Perhaps he could have phrased it better. That was the trouble with a lifetime of death and duplicity; the immune system became hard and unfeeling. Maybe he should think some more about Polly and his dream. It still disturbed him. Could be there was a message there after all.
Meanwhile there was Liz and her traumas. She was pacing around the room, a cavernous space with well-defined areas for working, cooking, dining and lounging. A far cry from its beginnings as a fiery and filthy sweatshop. He watched her picking up small objects, replacing them, rearranging things. She was nervy, twitchy, needing help.
‘What happened?’
‘She was murdered.’
Bromo waited.
‘Dumped in a shipping container down at Citizens Park.’
‘Any reason?’
‘Seems not. But what would I know? She wasn’t the most forthcoming person, not deliberately secretive, just shy. Something of an introvert.’
‘The sensitive type. Bit like me, eh?’
For a few seconds she thought he was being serious. Then she caught on.
‘Hah. You’re just a professional grump. Tamsyn was a lonely young woman who had trouble making friends. And it’s not something to joke about.’
He took the reprimand in his stride. Par for the course.
‘So, how did you meet? Doesn’t sound like there was too much in common. Not a client, surely?’
Liz greeted his question with a light chuckle. He was pleased to hear it. The tension was easing. Liz assured him there was no way Tamsyn would have engaged herself or any other architect. A one-room flat and minimal funds guaranteed that. This was a young girl on the edge, financially and emotionally. Their talks as they walked in the gardens or sat on a bench were intermittent and hesitant yet always giving that sense that she wanted to say more, or unburden herself.
‘She certainly felt abandoned and lonely,’ said Liz. ‘There’s one ailing parent in Malaysia or Singapore and her best friend suddenly went back home when they finished their studies and refused to stay and settle as they’d planned.’
‘Boyfriends? Women friends?’
‘Neither, it seems. She never made the most of herself. Dressed down, rather plain. Not putting herself out there. Not what today’s guys go for.’
‘Which could so easily upset some young buck whose dick is bigger than his brain.’
Liz snapped a sharp look at him. No flippancy there this time. Simply the Bromo take on life: reality without subtlety.
‘Doesn’t sound like the type to make enemies,’ he added.
‘But that’s just it. She did.’
Bromo felt a spark of interest. He shifted forward in his chair. Too quickly; the pain in his head was still with him. He ignored it and raised an eyebrow. Liz responded.
‘I saw her in the coffee shop, Domo’s. She was weepy. Stressed. Not making much sense. She was going on about being attacked by some man with a knife. I tried to get her to calm down. Told her to go to the police. It was all so garbled. Then she had to rush back to work.’
Bromo shrugged.
‘And another lowlife is left to roam the streets.’
He held out his glass.
‘How about a refill?’
‘Should you?’
‘The government reckons we’ve got to save more water. Make this my contribution.’
She smiled and tilted the Laphroaig into his glass, keeping the measure as small as she could without sparking a complaint. He took a sip, letting it wash around his mouth, savouring the seaborne flavours before swallowing.
‘Time you did the right thing,’ he said.
He noted she didn’t ask what he meant. Maybe she was feeling guilty about her lack of action. A good sign. He pressed on.
‘It’s no use, Liz. You can’t get all worked up and concerned about some murdered waif if you’re going to keep information like that to yourself. Get off your arse and stop whingeing.’
His outburst surprised her. She walked over to the kitchen bench – a long, stainless steel counter – and rested her hands, palms downward, on its pristine surface. She leaned forward, pressing hard, easing the tension, taking several deep breaths.
‘I didn’t think,’ she said.
‘Yes you did,’ said Bromo. ‘It wouldn’t be you if you didn’t. My guess is that you thought about it but didn’t care to. Too many skeletons sitting in the cop shop’s cupboard.’
She flashed him a glare. She was angry; not with him, but with herself – and because she knew he was right. Bloody Bromo. She pushed up off the bench and turned to face him.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Will you help?’
He sipped at the whisky and smiled.
‘For you, Liz, anything.’
He meant it, and she knew it. They’d trod warily down this path so many times; so many hints and innuendos, testing the ground, drawing back, aware of the emotions yet wary of where they might lead.
‘I’ll see what I can find out. Ask a few questions. But you’re going to have to talk to them, too.’
Liz nodded agreement. She moved behind his chair and bent forward, hands placed gently on his shoulders, planting a light kiss on the top of his head.’
‘You’re a sweetie,’ she said. ‘Sometimes.’
He shifted uneasily in his chair. At any other time her move would have been welcomed, maybe used to develop things further. Now, however, was not the time.
His head was aching, his left shoulder throbbed. Pain overruled all other feelings. ‘Sweetie’ was feeling far from sweet. He had troubles of his own to attend to before delving into any problems Liz needed solving. He tugged his phone from its clip in his belt and flipped it open. He called up the message screen and held it out towards Liz.
‘This came through earlier.’
Liz screwed up her eyes, focusing on the small print, absorbing the terse message: “Urgnt 2 meet. Thngs desprte. Deadly. Thali 7:30. Sigiriya.”
‘What’s it mean? What’s Sigiriya?’
‘You mean who; who is Sigiriya? It’s a she.’
‘Oh.’ She drew away. Bromo noted the abrupt response.
‘Another of your women?’
Bromo bridled at her words and marvelled at the way she could so easily make a question do triple service, turning it also into a reprimand and even an accusation. He took it as a positive; a sign of latent jealousy that offered hope for something beyond a relationship that hovered between business and personal. He knocked back the last of his drink and slowly unbent his body into an upright position.
‘Wrong,’ he said and moved slowly towards the door. ‘But I’ll explain later. That’s if I live to tell the tale.’
He scored himself a point for the look of concern that flashed across her face.
‘Diamonds are a deadly business.�
�
TEN
THE day was hotly vicious. Not a pleasant heat, but one that came whirling in with the desert wind as if determined to give city people a burning lesson in outback living. The searing northerly bent the spindly peppercorn trees against their will. Their frail fronds brushed incessantly against the window, doubling over but never snapping. The wind blew discarded newspapers into shop doorways, layering them with grit and dust. Food wrappers hurtled along the footpath, sped along by the gusting gale. People screwed up their eyes against the wind-borne dust but to no avail. A bad day to be outside, decided Bromo, and hoped the promised cool change would arrive before he set out for the city.
He spent thirty minutes trawling through dine-out guides and a back copy of Cheap Eats, checking the listings for Sri Lankan restaurants. None were called Thali. He eventually found it when a search engine lighted on to a menu listing for a spicy Sri Lankan curry – at the Thali Spice Bowl. His mistake had been to assume the mysterious sender of his text message had chosen a Sri Lankan restaurant for their meeting. Thali was Indian. Cheap but good, said one website posting.
Online comments suggested it was a recent newcomer to the already crowded budget dining scene in a city renowned for the huge diversity of its culinary offerings. Tourism promoters frequently claimed every cuisine in the world was represented somewhere in the city’s centre and throughout its spreading suburbs, although the offerings of some of the more exotic and impoverished lands were more peasant than haute.
Bromo reckoned the city’s 30,000 or so Sri Lankans were seriously lacking places at which to enjoy their national food. Maybe they all ate at home. Or were happy to enjoy anything from the sub-continent. Which helped explain the enigmatic Sigiriya’s decision to arrange that they meet at Thali.
Or maybe she had other reasons for her choice, thought Bromo as he turned off the footpath of one narrow street and into one even narrower and just as crowded. The place was almost anonymous, identified only by an oval hand-painted sign high up above its entrance. It was small and easy to pass without a second glance. A narrow open shop-front with two wooden tables and eight chairs parked outside. Roll-up metal shutters sealed it off at night with no identifying mark as to what they protected.
Bromo approached it with a caution born of long experience, noting any loiterers or window-watchers. Being baled up by Sigiriya’s messengers and copping the vicious bashing outside Jacowiscz’s studio had alerted him to the risks of switching off his internal alarm system. He had become careless, complacently believing he had left those days well and truly behind.
He sauntered past the café, sneaking a quick look at its open front but unable to see into the dim narrow room beyond. His view was blocked by a display counter where two young men were busy serving in-house diners and filling plastic containers for commuters grabbing a takeaway as they headed home. A chalk board advertised a mini-meal special for $7.95. The people occupying the outside chairs were young and sub-continental, animated and voluble. Students, Bromo decided. Or call centre workers. Non-threatening. Then he remembered; the men who had baled him up outside his apartment had looked much like this – young, loose-limbed and deceptively casual. He strolled on, now even more alert, pausing once to do a U-turn, making a show of hesitation, before slowly continuing, sure there were no followers.
Bromo passed several more cafes, each different from its neighbours – a soup kitchen, a cake and coffee specialist, the inevitable sushi bar, a pasta joint – and all noisily busy. The buzz and activity reminded him of bazaars and souks in Morocco and Egypt, of narrow alleyways with overhanging balconies in the backstreets of Naples and Lisbon, and even the labyrinth of unmapped paths in Beijing where he once was led before China lifted the Bamboo Curtain. The languages and the smells and aromas were different. But they all had that air of danger and menace with which they greeted any outsider. He was aware of it again tonight, nowhere near to the same measure as in all those other places but enough to stay on high alert. He felt he couldn’t be distracted by the casual goings on around him. He’d already twice paid the penalty for trusting the familiarity of his surroundings. He walked slowly to the end of the arcade, a solo man on the loose, not sure what he wanted to eat; casually checking each place, politely declining the menu thrust at him by a waiter at the pasta place and then back towards Thali.
The two swarthy young men behind the glass-topped counter smiled at him and waved inviting hands over an array of stews and curries. Bromo smiled back and turned to look further into the dimly lit depths of the narrow room.
‘The lady has not ordered,’ said one of the men. ‘We saw you pass by and she said she would wait until you came. I am CJ.’
Bromo looked at him. The man was still smiling. Bromo realised it was the smile of complicity, not of greeting. The staff were in on the act. So much for a secret meeting. And so much, too, for his powers of observation; they’d been watching him all the time.
ELEVEN
‘Would you like to order? It’s basic but quite tasty.’
Bromo sensed the woman who spoke standing close at his side as he continued staring at CJ. He checked himself from showing surprise at the way she had caught him completely unaware of her presence.
‘And hallo to you, too,’ he said, still looking ahead, refusing to react to her voice. ‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced.’
His flippancy was a knee-jerk reaction. He felt rattled. He was out of his comfort zone; too many people were pulling his strings, creeping up unawares. Too much was being taken for granted. He took a quick sideways glance. As he thought, no introductions were necessary; it was as if it were yesterday. The top of her head was level with his shoulder. Her figure was as slim as ever, gym fit and clothed in black – trousers, high-neck sweater, belted anorak. Action woman.
‘The mysterious Sigiriya, I presume?’
He caught the glimmer of a confirming smile.
‘I thought the pseudonym might appeal,’ she said. ‘In case you had forgotten.’
She took a pace back and turned slightly towards the rear of the café. So lithe and lissome, a lean animal on the prowl. How could he forget?
‘It is better that we talk while we eat,’ she said. ‘It attracts less attention.’
Bromo breathed deeply, stilling any outward sign of reaction. The sub-continental lilt of her voice – he thought honeyed was probably the way romance writers would describe it – was as alluring as ever. But now, as once before, it seemed her agenda was strictly business. He pointed to a small hand-written placard on top of the counter.
‘I’ll have the mini-meal,’ he said.
‘Me, too.’
It was more rice than curry – the grains took up two-thirds of the metal platter. Small ladlings of their selected curries filled three indentations in the rest of the dish. He chose lamb vindaloo, a chicken masala and an eggplant curry that was almost all gravy and lacked any sign of the nominated vegetable.
‘It’s all in the imagination,’ said Bromo as he probed for the absent aubergine.
The woman calling herself Sigiriya opted for chickpeas, the chicken and a slurry of kidney beans. She led the way to the far end of the narrow room where she had a backpack reserving a seat.
‘Water?’
She nodded. Bromo walked back to a recessed set of shelves loaded with aluminium jugs and containers. It gave him a chance to take a second look at the other diners – mostly couples, pairs of men, pairs of women but only one mixed duo. All young; students and street people, eating on the cheap. He wondered what the relationship researchers would make of that as he filled two containers from an aluminium jug. So much single sex; such a waste.
He sneaked a look at her as he sat down. She didn’t seem to have aged, her olive-dark face was unlined, her black hair glossy enough for a TV commercial, her eyes had an undimmed sparkle. Bromo took the seat sideways on to the entrance. She had her back to the rear wall, facing out, stirring her food with a fork, mixing in the rice. Two cauti
ous people.
‘You haven’t changed,’ he said.
‘Thank you for the compliment. It seems you are still the English gentleman.’ She smiled. ‘I recognised you, too.’
Must have been a struggle, thought Bromo. She would have had to make allowance for the widened waist, thinning hair and the squinting eyes that vanity deployed to fight against the use of glasses.
‘It’s been a long time,’ he said. ‘Quite a surprise. The Sigiriya reference took a while to work out. It’s Dayani, isn’t it? Dayani Perera? Can I call you that?’
She smiled and nodded.
‘That would be good. I’m pleased you remembered.’
Not half so pleased as me, thought Bromo. It wasn’t anything like a home run, but at least he’d got to first base. He felt a slight easing of his inner tension.
Dayani dipped a hunk of roti in the chickpea sauce. She spoke downwards to her plate, not to him, hesitant and cautious.
‘I am also very pleased that you came. I thought that maybe you would not want to get involved. I am told you have found a new life here.’
A tremor of apprehension rippled through him. Her words were another affirmation that he was being watched. And he didn’t know why or by whom.
‘Why here?’
‘What?’
He repeated the question.
‘You chose this place. Just like a local yet by my reckoning you’ve only been here a few hours.’
‘I have friends here. They told me. It’s a safe place.’
‘Safe from what?’ Bromo snapped back.
The surprise discovery of a lump of chicken meat in the curry provided a focus for his frustration and he stabbed at it victoriously. Such a rare find needed to be caught and savoured. He forked it into his mouth and added a spoonful of rice. Dayani was right: it was basic but tasty. But there were other comments she had made. He needed answers.