by Marele Day
‘Hmm,’ I murmured loud enough for Otto to hear, ‘that’s strange. Writers are usually drowned in paper and there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot about.’
‘Not if he’s using electronic media,’ answered Otto. ‘What surprises me is the complete absence of discs.’
‘Hmm. I’d say at a quick glance that someone’s been here before us.’
Otto fiddled with the computer while I carefully opened empty drawers.
‘How are you going?’ I called out.
‘The hard disc seems to be empty—unless there’s a protect program blocking my software. And I can’t find any of his at all. You would have thought he’d have the decency to leave me a game to play with while you’re snooping in his drawers.’
‘I don’t believe a paranoid writer would have all his eggs in one basket. There must be back-up somewhere, a duplicate.’ I was calling out to him from the bathroom, having lifted the lid off the cistern. This did reveal some junkie paraphernalia in a plastic bag, but what else is new?
‘No doubt,’ Otto replied. ‘But not necessarily here. There’s a modem. It allows this computer to communicate with others. Perhaps he transferred his files then deleted them.’
‘Or perhaps someone simply removed them.’ I was in the kitchen now. The cupboard above the sink revealed jam, peanut butter and Vegemite, some canisters containing muesli, dried fruit, nuts and pasta, but no discs. The cupboards below the sink with saucepans and crockery told the same short story.
Back in the computer room I held the curtain aside. Through the gaps in the washing I could see to the flat opposite. There was a Venetian blind at the window but behind that the light was on. I wondered if the occupant of the flat had seen anything through the window.
‘Want to watch me at work?’
‘I thought that’s what I was doing now.’
‘What I had in mind was a bit of interrogation.’
‘You mean with thumbscrews and naked light bulbs? Just as well I’m wearing leather.’
On the other side of the landing was flat number 3. I knocked on the door and waited. A radio was playing faintly in the background but that didn’t necessarily mean anyone was home. Some people leave the radio on like others leave the porch light on—as a sign to burglars that the occupants are out. Doors which in my childhood were left open all night for summer breezes to waft through were now bolted, alarmed and connected to a central security guard system. A sign of the times. There weren’t any drugs then either apart from aspirins in Coca-Cola.
There was no answer. I knocked harder. Not quite as hard as a police knock but one that could at least be heard above the radio.
Otto was shaking his head. I tried once more.
Nothing.
We walked down to the ground floor and went through the same routine with number 2. Same story.
‘Doesn’t anyone in Bondi ever come home?’
‘They’re probably all sitting in a cafe eating icecream,’ said Otto dryly. ‘Which is not such a bad idea.’
It has always struck me as a bit of an anomaly that Germans have such a fetish for icecream. In their cold, cold country there’s an icecream parlour on every corner.
I tried my luck at number 1, forgoing the soft knock and launching straight into the hard one. No answer. I tried again.
Otto was elbowing me out onto the street when a light went on. ‘OK, I’m coming,’ came a voice like 30H grade sandpaper. The door was flung open by a young man with a bullet for a head and a towel round his waist. His legs, the only visible part of him not tattooed, were wet.
‘Yeah, what d’you want?’ he said, eyeing us suspiciously.
‘Just like to ask you a few questions about the flat upstairs.’ I ventured in conversational mode.
‘You moving in?’
‘No, just like to know if you’ve noticed anyone coming or going from it.’
‘You cops?’ he sneered.
‘Not exactly.’ I said showing him my ID.
‘Look, I don’t have to talk to you people,’ he said, jabbing a wet finger in my direction. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you can PISS OFF!’ The wind from the slamming door nearly blew us into the street, a job that was completed by a sudden burst of mega-decibel heavy metal.
‘So much for your charm and winning ways, Claudia. You didn’t even get your foot in the door.’
‘Why don’t you go and buy an icecream?’
‘Perhaps I will. Perhaps you’ll do better on your own.’
We walked to the corner past the row of parked cars. One of them was the BMW. The driver had his head in a newspaper but I was damned sure he wasn’t reading it. It was not a comfortable feeling, being the watched rather than the watcher.
‘Otto,’ I said quietly, ‘either this city is full of coincidences or I’m being followed.’
‘Why should you have all the luck? Perhaps he’s following me.’
Well, we’ll see about that. Go and have your icecream. I’ll meet you later. And Otto, don’t get into cars with strange men.’
‘Only if they offer me sweets.’
I walked round the corner and fused with the darkness of a doorway. Karate had taught me more than just high kicks. Pretty soon someone turned the corner. It looked awfully like the BMW driver. His eyes slid into the darkness and out again without seeing me. He walked on then back down the other side. He didn’t look pleased. He stood at the corner finishing his cigarette, stubbed it out, then disappeared. I wondered if he knew the 1958 Daimler parked a couple of blocks away was mine. Despite sporadic rapid eye movements on the way over here I hadn’t noticed anyone following me. Maybe it was Mark’s flat he was watching. I’d certainly be paying attention on my way home. As no doubt he would. Despite the creepy feeling of knowing I was being watched I couldn’t help smiling: I was being tailed. I must have been doing something right.
The night was crisp and in between the sounds of the traffic you could hear the surf dumping its rhythmic load onto the beach. When I got round to the back flats I was confronted with a set of locked glass doors. On the wall was a panel of names with buzzers beside them. My eyes climbed to the names corresponding to the top flats. There was a choice: Lisa and Sharon, or Mr & Mrs E. Levack. I pressed the Levack buzzer.
Almost immediately the name panel crackled. I announced myself. If it crackled up there as much as it did down here they wouldn’t be any the wiser. There was silence then the doors clicked.
I stepped onto bile green carpet. It was a bit worn in places but in general looked neater than Mark’s block with its scrappy brown vinyl. I wondered where you got this particular shade of green. Not that I wanted any. I wouldn’t (hopefully) be seen dead on it. It was just that you never saw it anywhere except in rented premises. I climbed the stairs to the top floor and pressed the chime bell button of the Levack abode. They were expecting me—or expecting someone. There was a spy hole in the door and I stood in front of it smiling as nicely as I could.
The door opened and I was greeted by a sight I had not seen for years—a woman with her hair in rollers. Behind her, in a faded lounge chair with arm protectors, was a man, Mr Levack I presumed, with his nose in the paper. Characters from Murder, She Wrote flickered across the TV screen and I plunged straight in:
‘Good evening Mrs Levack, I’m Claudia Valentine, private investigator.’
‘Oh do come in!’ invited Mrs Levack, excited as a schoolgirl. ‘Fancy that, I was just watching that show on the television and then in you come. What a coincidence!’
Mr Levack wasn’t quite so impressed. He didn’t look up from his newspaper but he did extend a hand in my direction, a hand that stayed there even after I shook it.
‘No, not that. I want to see your card, proof of identity.’
I showed him my ID, which he examined carefully, both sides, eyes volleying between my photographed face and the real one. He handed it back.
‘Carry on.’ And he went back to reading the paper.
‘Do you mind if I look out your wind
ow, Mrs Levack?’
‘Oh no, go right ahead. Someone following you, dear?’
‘No.’ I smiled. Not right that moment, anyway.
I looked through the Venetian blinds straight into Mark’s flat, or it would have been straight in had the curtains not been drawn.
‘I’ll come straight to the point, Mrs Levack. I’m investigating the death of Mark Bannister, who lived over there in that flat.’
‘Oh yes, terrible business, wasn’t it? Fancy a young one like that dying of a heart attack.’
‘You knew him then, did you?’
‘Oh no, dear, we read it in the paper.’
From out of the depths of his newspaper Mr Levack spoke, ‘It was as good as if she knew him, the way she kept her eye on him.’
‘Well, Eddy, it’s just as well someone is keeping an eye out. The way things are nowadays, you could be lying dead in the street and no-one would lift a finger to help.’ Mr Levack grunted and turned the page. ‘Isn’t that right, Claudia? You don’t mind me calling you by your first name do you, dear?’ I smiled to indicate that I didn’t. ‘What is it you want to know, Claudia?’ she asked, sitting upright on the edge of the lounge ready to reveal all.
‘Anything, Mrs Levack, anything you think might help us with our enquiries. His habits, whether he had visitors . . .’
‘Well,’ she started, ‘he looked to me like the studious type. Not that he wore glasses or any of that, but he spent a lot of time near the window writing or typing. I couldn’t see the typewriter but just by the way he sat I guessed that’s what he was doing. Habits: well, he drank a lot of coffee, twelve cups a day.’ I mentally raised my eyebrows. If ever I needed an offsider Mrs Levack was the one. Twelve cups a day. She didn’t miss a thing. ‘And sometimes when he brought the cup back from the kitchen—actually it was more of a mug than a cup—he’d stand by that very window looking out—I suppose he got sick of the studying—and you know sometimes I could have sworn he was looking straight at me.’
‘Yeah, but you of course was behind the Venetian blind so how could he see you? I’ve told you, Mavis, if you’re going to look in people’s windows at least let them see you doing it. At least that gives them a fighting chance.’
‘Oh Eddy, then they’d think I was a busybody.’
‘Well?’ sneered Mr Levack triumphantly.
‘Well what else have I got to do, you with your head in the paper all day every day. That’s just as much a busybody, isn’t it, only you read about it, I get it first-hand.’
‘Humph!’ retorted Mr Levack. ‘What I read about in the newspapers is important. How many cups of coffee a person drinks a day isn’t important.’
‘It is, isn’t it, Claudia?’
I wasn’t about to be drawn into a domestic. Mrs Levack was on side and that’s where I wanted to keep her. I trod the taut rope, careful not to lean one way or the other.
‘It could be important, Mrs Levack. At this stage we don’t have much to go on so anything you could tell us might be helpful.’
Mr Levack humphed again and noisily turned another page. Unperturbed, I continued: ‘Did he have any visitors?’
She thought for a moment. ‘Only that girl, really, with the hair like a lion’s mane. I don’t think she was a very good influence though, because whenever she came he’d stop the studying straight away.’
I was amazed how much this woman could see through one window, and a window with curtains to boot.
‘Mrs Levack how can you be so precise about what you saw? Surely through curtains you’d only be able to see vague shadows.’
‘She had her binoculars trained on him,’ Mr Levack snorted.
‘They’re your binoculars,’ Mrs Levack threw back at him. Then to me: ‘His racing binoculars. Only he doesn’t go to the races any more and if it wasn’t for me they’d just hang there gathering dust. Shame to waste them really. If you’ve got a thing use it, I always say. Anyway,’ she said, rubbing her hands down her skirt, ‘it wasn’t through the curtains, it was straight through the window. The curtains were always open, even at night. He was the fresh air type. In fact the first time they were closed I seen him do it. Not the young man. It was an older one that closed the curtains. I remember thinking at the time, That’s strange . . .’
‘You’re always thinking “that’s strange”,’ said Mr Levack. ‘If he hadn’t had his first cup of coffee by 9 am in the morning she’d be saying, “That’s strange, he usually has it earlier than this”.’
Mrs Levack cleared her throat and glared at her husband. ‘As I was saying,’ she said loudly and emphatically, ‘I thought at the time it was the police but he wasn’t dressed like the police and Eddy said it was probably those other ones, you know, plainclothes like yourself.’
‘Private,’ said Mr Levack brusquely. ‘She’s private.’
For someone feigning disinterest he certainly had a lot to say.
‘When was this, Mrs Levack?’
‘It was then, it was when he died. I didn’t get a good look at the man because he pulled the curtain across, so I only really saw the arm and the glove.’
‘So did you see this man before or after Mark Bannister died?’
‘Oh, after. It was a Thursday because normally at that time I’d go down and cash the pension cheque. But there was that strike on then and they were late, which was just as well, wasn’t it, because otherwise I would of missed it.’
‘You don’t miss anything,’ said Mr Levack.
‘Well, it’s just as well, isn’t it, because otherwise we wouldn’t be able to help Miss Valentine in her investigations.’ Now that she was on to the big words she became appropriately formal with my name. ‘See, the young man came and sat down at the desk and was typing or something. Then he kind of went rigid and stared. Just stared. Then he stood up, well, not properly up, kind of bent. He was most upset,’ she said leaning confidentially towards me. ‘He was using bad language. I could tell by the way his mouth was moving. That “f” word,’ she whispered. ‘He put his hand to his heart, then up more, near the shoulder, and sort of thumped it like this.’ She acted it out. ‘And looked at me. Looked straight at me like he was begging for help. Next thing I knew he disappeared. Just plopped over.
‘I was going to ring the ambulance, but then the girl came in . . .’
‘What girl?’
‘That girl that’s always there. She just stood there staring too. Her mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. She went into the bathroom then came back and bent down out of sight. She was probably trying to revive him with smelling salts or something.’
‘Gawd, Mavis, smelling salts! No-one’s used smelling salts since Cocky was an egg. Anyway, that’s for fainting, not a bloody heart attack.’
‘Well, she was probably trying to help him with pills or something, you know, like those pills Reggie had for his heart.’
‘That was for blood pressure, not his heart.’
We’d be on to operations soon if I didn’t intervene.
‘Ahem. Mrs Levack, what happened after the girl bent down?’
‘She stood up again. And she picked up the phone and started to speak, using her hands as well. Then her head jerked round and she ran away. She must have gone to open the door because next thing that plainclothes was there. And he closed the curtains.’
‘Did you see or hear anything after that?’
‘No dear, we went to bowls then. It was Thursday.’
‘Yeah, but we did see that police car, Mavis, on the way home from bowls.’ Mr Levack turned to me. ‘Had the devil’s own job trying to tear her away from the window to go to bowls in the first place.’
‘Well, we should of stayed shouldn’t we? I might have been able to solve the mystery, mightn’t I?’
‘Look, Mavis, there was no mystery. He just died of a heart attack. “No suspicious circumstances”, that’s what the papers said.’
‘You can’t believe everything you read in the papers, Eddy.’
‘Thank
you very much, Mrs Levack, you’ve been most helpful.’
They were still arguing about it as I showed myself out.
Back down the bile green stairs I went but I wasn’t thinking about the colour of the carpet.
I was thinking about the girl and the man in the driving gloves.
THEY WILL WANT to know the beginnings, the child that makes the man.
The teacher introduces a refugee to the class, a child from a refugee camp where children suffer from malnutrition. She writes ‘refugee’ on the blackboard carving it up into parts with coloured chalk. The room is a sea of straw coloured hair with blue island eyes—Aryan children whose fathers have just won the war. They look at me curiously, like a caged animal at the zoo. I hear the word ‘scarecrow’ and a ripple of laughter pass across the sea. The teacher makes me take my hands out of my pockets and stand up straight. She puts her hand on my shoulder, a heavy hand that prevents escape, and tells the children I am a refugee. The Nazis killed all my family so now Australia is my new home and the children must make me feel welcome. She asks who wants to sit next to me. No-one puts up their hand, not even the fat boy with glasses who sits alone.
At playtime six of the boys attack me and make fun of my clothes. In the weeks that follow I seek out the quiet solitary moments of each of those boys and one by one show them my knife. Hold it so close to their eyes they cannot even blink. I will not be the sickly masterpiece hiding in the shadows of an alien land. I have stepped off that ship of fools and waved them goodbye forever.
I was a good pupil. I learned my lessons well. In Poland I was top of my class, astounding the bearded teachers in black coats by having the answer to mathematical problems as soon as they had posed them. In this new land I was ‘put back’ because I could not express the many things I knew in the new land’s language. And of course, my schooling had been interrupted by the history being created in Europe. Instead of childhood I had history. I see the child in the clichéd images of many lost childhoods. The snake-black boots getting closer and closer, the child in a loft smelling of putrid hay, the flashing torches, the black shiny boots encrusted with the mud of our land. The child’s mother never daring to look towards the loft, wrapping around the child a cloak of invisibility, the cord rupturing in blood then unravelling like a whimper as the grey soldiers close ranks behind her. Then the long nights the colour of terror, the beds of crisp autumn leaves in the shell-shocked woods, the acid taste of wood sorrel, the stench of fear spurting from the veins of rabbits, the throb of still warm meat.