Siren

by Tara Moss

  One of Loulou’s lines came to mind. ‘You are like…Jane Bond!’

  Mak did not exactly feel she was living the life of a James—or Jane—Bond. Instead of an arsenal of high-tech gadgets and fast cars, she was prepared for her rather routine assignment with a notepad, compact digital camera, pocket dictaphone, packet of tissues and slimline laptop. Her car was an anodyne rental—thankfully not orange—rather than an Aston Martin. In the movies you never saw a private eye doing paperwork, printing out statements and getting signatures, but that was precisely the sort of thing that took up most of the job. And then there were the exhaustive reports that had to be filed, the tissues to hand to the upset client, the door knocking, the uneventful hours of surveillance. But Mak did have her own tricks. On this occasion she wore carefully chosen smart-casual clothes—a pair of dark jeans, rubber-soled black boots that she could run, jump fences or attend decent restaurants in—a bit like a modern, feminine version of the gum-rubber shoes worn by ‘gumshoe’ detectives of early days—and a lightweight suit jacket she’d had fitted with a small microphone, unobtrusively installed where a button would normally be. This last detail was near enough to the stuff of Bond that she didn’t dare tell Loulou for fear her friend would not be able to stop talking about it. It was a trick she had been told about by an experienced investigator and former undercover cop, Pete Don, who had lectured during her Certificate III course in private investigation. She could ensure her all-important contemporaneous notes were absolutely accurate by transcribing such recordings, but most importantly, if ever there happened to be a debate about her professionalism in handling a particular situation…voilà. Proof of professional conduct, pure and simple. It was a precaution to cover her arse. Recording for that purpose was perfectly legal and acceptable so long as she didn’t broadcast the recordings to anyone else. You never knew when a routine job might turn to trouble.

  ‘Hart household, first interview,’ she said and gave the date and time for the benefit of her button.

  She knocked.

  The door of the family home opened, and Mak was met by a woman in her forties, her face crumpled into a sad smile. ‘You must be Macaylay. I’m Glenise Hart.’

  The two women shook hands, and Mak felt the hard edge of diamonds on the woman’s fingers. Her baubles were the size of small doorknobs. By now Mrs Hart’s eyes were moving speedily over her, measuring her up as she stood in the doorway, a stranger. Perhaps Mak did not fit her image of a private investigator, or perhaps this woman wanted to know at a glance that she had hired someone capable of bringing her son home safely. Adam Hart’s mother was a fair few inches shorter than Mak and wore a pair of light pleated slacks and a brown, round-necked shirt with a simple gold pendant. Her hair was cut politician-short, her smooth skin ruddy from the summer heat. Mak imagined her face would be pleasant under normal circumstances, but now tension bubbled behind the eyes. It was clear she had not been sleeping well. According to the file, she was a widow, and worked as a teacher. That was a lot of bling for a teacher.

  ‘Thank you so much for coming. Please come in, Macaylay,’ the woman politely murmured.

  Mak smiled, ignoring the mispronunciation, pleased that she had passed the first test. She handed Mrs Hart one of Marian’s business cards as she stepped inside.

  Although Mak was only really interested in one room of the house—Adam’s bedroom—she smiled graciously throughout a tour of the ground level of the home and yard. Mrs Hart was clearly houseproud, and everything appeared very tidy and well kept. The tour ended in the living room near the front door, where Mak was invited to sit alone with her briefcase on a loveseat. Mrs Hart sat opposite her on one end of a long, empty couch. A low coffee table separated them.

  ‘Would you like some tea, Macaylay?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you. Actually, my name is pronounced Ma-kay-dee,’ Mak said, gently correcting her. ‘But you can call me Mak if you prefer.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Please don’t be. I get it all the time. Actually, I don’t know what my parents were thinking, giving me a name like that.’ Mak smiled broadly, which seemed to help her client relax. She took out her notepad and placed it on the coffee table. ‘Glenise…may I call you Glenise?’

  A nod.

  ‘I know you’ve been through a lot in the past week, and you may have gone over most of this with the police already, but it would be very helpful for me to hear your view of what’s happened. Please don’t leave any detail out.’

  Glenise took a breath and sat forward. ‘Well, I guess you know that my son, Adam, has disappeared,’ she began, her voice strained, as if the mere mention of the subject made her throat close up. ‘I don’t know what could have happened. I am really concerned.’

  ‘I understand. Can you tell me a bit about yourself to begin with?’ Mak prodded, encouraging her. This sometimes made for an easier entry than the problem at hand.

  However, her client’s first statement was anything but light.

  ‘My husband, John, was an accountant. He was killed at work. He hailed from London originally…’ The woman spoke in a rush, as if to get her wretched story out of the way as fast as possible.

  Mak’s eyebrows went up. ‘Oh, I am sorry for your loss.’

  ‘You might well ask how an accountant dies at work,’ Glenise continued. ‘Well, he fell thirty-four floors down the elevator shaft. It was stuck between floors for over an hour, and rather than wait he squeezed himself out of a tiny gap and jumped to the lower floor, which would have been fine except that he fell backwards into the shaft, and…’ She trailed off. ‘That was two years ago.’

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ Mak repeated, temporarily stumped. And your son has been acting out since?

  Thinking again of those diamonds, Mak guessed there had been a substantial pay-out.

  Now widowed and single, her son, along with her teaching career, appeared to be Mrs Hart’s whole world. Though an adult at nineteen, Adam was described by her as a ‘good boy’, upstanding and pure. She painted a suspiciously simple picture of an innocent, thoughtful son, inexplicably missing.

  ‘We are very close,’ she insisted. ‘He did not run away. He didn’t,’ she repeated. To her, this seemed to be an important point—that he had not abandoned her. Mak was sure that the police would already have suggested the possibility to her, to be met, no doubt, with the same firm denials. ‘The police said they can’t do much until someone hears something from him, but what if he’s out there somewhere needing my help?’ Her eyes clouded with pain and bewilderment.

  When citizens are not satisfied with what the law is doing, or able to do, private investigation agencies like Marian’s often come into the picture, Mak reflected. The predicament was more common than people realised, until they themselves became somehow embroiled in trauma. Mak knew she would probably do the same were she in this woman’s position. Despite having a respected cop for a father, her faith in the law was limited. As it was with many of the police officers she knew. Mak suspected she too would insist that her child was faultless in his or her own disappearance, that everything was utterly normal and harmonious except for this one sudden, unexpected incident, and that the police were not doing enough. None of these assertions was necessarily true, however. And Makedde had to disregard such statements in favour of facts, none of which she had yet ascertained.

  ‘Adam doesn’t drink, smoke or do drugs,’ Glenise said confidently, almost challenging Mak to contradict her.

  A nineteen-year-old who never even drank a beer would indeed be a rare find, Mak thought. She was about to ask another question when Adam’s mother abruptly got up from the couch and walked away. Mak wasn’t sure if she was too upset to go on and was leaving to compose herself, or if she had just remembered something.

  ‘Just a moment,’ the woman murmured as an afterthought in the doorway before disappearing from view.

  Mak waited dutifully on the loveseat. She took the opportunity to quickly jot down so
me notes, before taking stock of her surroundings. There was an older-style tube TV against one wall, increasingly rare even in lower-middle-class households. There was a model ship on the hearth, of the type Mak’s dad had once been interested in constructing. Perhaps John had made it before his fatal elevator ride. Landscape prints adorned the walls. Glenise had lots of books stacked on her shelves, and rows of family photographs propped up in frames on every surface. Mak got up to take a closer look.

  Well, hello there.

  On the mantelpiece were pictures of family milestones that one might expect—graduation, birthdays, school presentations —and images from other gatherings. There was also a striking photograph of a well-built young man reclining on a sandy beach with his shirt off, skin glowing, his hair sun-kissed and wavy. It could have been an advertisement for something luxurious like cologne, so handsome was the young man.

  Adam Hart?

  ‘That was taken in Noosa two months ago,’ came a voice behind her. Glenise had returned with a notebook in her hand. ‘He’s sweet, isn’t he?’ She hovered in the doorway then disappeared into the kitchen without another word.

  There was a rattling of dishes and the whine of water coming to the boil. After a few moments, Mrs Hart returned with a pot, some biscuits and glasses of water on a large lacquered tray. She put her notebook on the seat next to her, and poured Makedde some tea that flowed from the spout the colour of molasses. You’ll be up for hours,Mak predicted.

  ‘Thank you. That’s very kind,’ she replied graciously. She took her place on the lonely loveseat again, and picked up her pen and notepad. ‘May I have that photograph to copy?’

  ‘Yes.’ Glenise nodded and closed her eyes for a moment.

  ‘Adam looks quite athletic. Does he play much sport?’ This was more than a way of simply building rapport. Mak needed to find out whom she could canvass about his disappearance. Team-mates? Classmates? Friends? Neighbours?

  ‘Oh, no. Nothing like that. I tried to get him interested in joining some clubs but he’s not very social.’

  Does ‘not very social’ mean ‘depressed’?Mak wondered.

  Glenise explained that Adam had not played organised sport since early in high school, and that he was not in touch with any of his school friends now. He was a natural athlete, she said, but never used his gifts. His only nod to athleticism was his cycling, which he appeared to do mostly to get to university and back. It kept him fit, and meant he didn’t feel the need for a car. Again Mak wished he had a car or something equally traceable. His bike was missing, which meant that whatever happened to him, he appeared to have at least left the house voluntarily. But that didn’t mean he was voluntarily staying away. Am I going to be knocking on doors all bloody day, with nothing else to go on?

  ‘If you could provide me with a description and a serial number for the bike, that would be helpful.’ It would be something. Mak took a sip of tea. It tasted as strong as it looked. ‘I have a few more questions,’ she continued, her pen poised.

  Glenise nodded distractedly, her fingers unconsciously straying to her notebook.

  ‘Has your son ever run away before?’

  ‘No!’ Glenise declared, fully alert now, her hands forming fists. ‘He hasn’t run away. He’s a good kid.’ She paused thoughtfully. ‘Not that he’s always been an angel. But if I find out he’s run away…’ She trailed off and her fists tightened, a wellspring of anger becoming apparent. ‘If he’s run away I’ll take him straight to the police! A night in jail would teach him a lesson!’

  This sudden change in tone was jarring.

  ‘I understand you must be very concerned about him,’ Mak said soothingly, ‘but it’s not illegal to run away—if that’s what he’s done. He’s nineteen for starters, so technically he can go where he pleases.’

  Glenise appeared momentarily stumped by this obvious fact, and reddened.

  If Adam ended up in the hands of the correctional authorities, Mak doubted it would give him the kind of lesson his mother hoped for. Jails were often nothing more than a school for delinquents to learn how to become better delinquents.

  ‘I didn’t mean that literally,’ Glenise explained. ‘Of course I would never want my son in jail.’

  ‘Of course,’ Mak agreed. She waited a moment for the older woman to regain her composure before continuing. ‘Does Adam have any tattoos, piercings or other identifying marks?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Does he have a mobile phone?’

  ‘Yes. I haven’t found it.’

  ‘Passport?’

  At this Glenise frowned for a moment.

  ‘I checked, and it’s still where I always keep it.’

  So no travel plans.

  ‘His wallet?’

  Glenise shook her head.

  ‘Does he have a credit or debit card we might be able to trace?’

  ‘He had a credit card for a while, but he couldn’t keep up the payments, so I made him cancel it. He’s on a family card now. A MasterCard.’

  Okay, that’s something.

  ‘Has he been using it?’

  Again, a shake of the head.

  ‘So you haven’t noticed any unusual activity on it? No purchases you can’t recall making?’

  ‘No.’

  Mak pressed on. ‘It would be helpful if you could give me a full list of Adam’s friends, as many as you can think of, even if there are a hundred of them.’

  ‘There won’t be a hundred.’

  Thank God. ‘That’s fine,’ Mak said. ‘Just give me a list of all his regular contacts, when you are able. I know it may take a while, but it would be very helpful. Most of these sorts of cases are solved that way. Often, someone knows something. A romantic partner might know a great deal, for instance. Is Adam involved with anyone?’ Makedde asked. ‘A girlfriend, or…?’ She left her query open.

  ‘He isn’t seeing anyone.’ The reply was swift.

  ‘No one that you know of then?’

  ‘No.’ Glenise was definite.

  Mak frowned slightly. Was there something Adam’s mother was uncomfortable with? ‘No recent partners?’

  She shook her head.

  Mak felt her client shrinking away, and decided to move on to another subject. ‘Now, if you can, I’d like to hear your view of things. You last saw Adam on Tuesday at dinnertime, I understand. Is that correct? What was he wearing?’

  Glenise surprised her by opening her notebook up about halfway through. It was not a notebook at all, Mak saw, but a diary. The year was embossed on the cover. She had sprung up and left Mak alone so she could fetch her diary. This was a good sign, even if the timing seemed odd. Glenise was the meticulous type. This could be helpful.

  ‘He was wearing a dark blue hooded sweatshirt and jeans,’ Mrs Hart recited, as if reading from a textbook. ‘He came home from uni, and then said he was going to eat in his room. He took his dinner upstairs. He wasn’t there in the morning.’ She paused and, when she spoke again, Mrs Hart sounded as if she was barely keeping her emotions at bay. ‘He didn’t come down for breakfast, and he wasn’t in his room.’ She referred again to the pages before her. ‘At seven-fifteen a.m. I discovered he was missing,’ she said dolefully.

  So he could have left any time that night.

  ‘You sure keep a thorough diary,’ Mak commented.

  ‘Always,’ Glenise replied with a touch of pride.

  ‘Does Adam keep a diary as well?’

  Glenise frowned. ‘No. I don’t know. Well, he used to…’

  ‘Did he often eat alone in his room?’ This had struck Mak as odd; did it mean he and his mother had been fighting? It was antisocial, to say the least.

  ‘He’s a teenager.’

  Mak nodded, and made another note. LOOK FOR A DIARY

  ‘You know, Kevin recommended you very highly,’ Glenise said, quite to Mak’s surprise. She looked up from her notes.

  ‘Kevin?’

  ‘You did such a good job with Tobias that I hoped you could
help me,’ Glenise added.

  Mak twitched at the mention of the boy’s name, and the fingers of her right hand gripped the seam of her jeans, nails curling up to stab the stitches. Kevin was the name of Tobias’s father.

  Tobias? How would she know anything about Tobias and Kevin?

  ‘You know Tobias Murphy?’ Mak asked calmly, managing a decent act of masking the impact of the connection.

  ‘Oh, the Murphys are a lovely family. They moved in down the street earlier this year.’

  Mak felt a rush of uneasy adrenaline surge through her.

  Okay, you now have my attention.

  Sixteen-year-old Tobias Murphy had been wrongly arrested for his cousin’s murder. It was all part of the same complex and sordid investigation that led Mak to uncover Damien Cavanagh’s involvement in the suspicious death of an underage girl. Mak’s investigation resulted in Tobias being cleared of any wrongdoing, even if she did not quite manage to bring the Cavanagh heir to justice, or cause much more than a ripple in the wealthy Cavanagh family’s privileged, important lives. She often wondered how Tobias was doing after being released from police custody and reunited with his biological father. The thought that he had so narrowly avoided spending his life imprisoned for something he was innocent of sent Mak’s thoughts quickly into territory Marian would not approve of. Injustice had a way of invigorating her. Of course the case had long since departed her professional domain. She had been sternly and repeatedly warned to be sensible and steer clear of any further involvement for her own good, perhaps even her own safety.

  Mak was smart, but not always sensible.

  This was the connection Marian Wendell had been hesitant to mention. The Cavanagh case was the reason for her recommendation. Mak had sensed that her boss was holding something back.

  ‘Are Adam and Tobias friends?’ Makedde asked with deceptive calm.

  ‘Oh, I think they’ve got to know each other a bit.’