The Disappearances of Madalena Grimaldi

by Marele Day

  Marele Day grew up in Sydney and graduated from Sydney University with BA (Hons). Her work experience ranges from fruit picking to academic teaching, and she is currently a freelance editor. She has travelled extensively and lived in Italy, France and Ireland. Travels include a voyage by yacht from Cairns to Singapore which resulted in near shipwreck in the Java Sea. The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender was her first thriller, published by Allen & Unwin in 1988. This was followed in 1990 by The Case of the Chinese Boxes. The Last Tango of Dolores Delgado was first published in 1992 and won the 1993 Shamus Crime Fiction Award.

  For Nick Masterman (1948-1994) and Cybele.

  © Marele Day, 1994

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  First published in 1994

  This impression, 1998 by

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  E-mail: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Day, Marele.

  The disappearance of Madalena Grimaldi.

  ISBN 9781864488743

  eISBN 9781742695105

  I. Title.

  A823.3

  Set by DOCUPRO, Sydney

  Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ONE

  The Kid felt the small round pressure in the middle of his back and the lightness at his hips as the man from Pinkertons deftly removed the pearl-handled guns from the holsters. ‘The slightest movement and I’ll blast a hole clean through your body,’ the man breathed down his neck.

  From the outside it appeared as if the Kid was rooted to the spot. But inside the blood was whipping round his body as if he was about to leap into a ravine. He wasn’t afraid of dying but he didn’t want to he shot in the back. Goddam city man, didn’t he know the rules? Thirty-seven men he’d killed. He didn’t want to be shot in the back by a goddam city man.

  Behind him, the man was doing something. ‘OK,’ said the man, ‘you turn around nice and slow.’

  The Kid turned around nice and slow. The man was pointing a gun at him. As well as that, the Kid’s pearl-handled guns were stuck down his trousers. From out of his coat pocket he produced a pair of handcuffs. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘you put your hands out nice and easy.’

  The Kid put his hands out nice and easy, just like he was told. The man slapped on the cuffs.

  ‘Now you and I are going to take a little ride in my car.’

  That was the last thing the Kid wanted to do. ‘What about my horse?’

  ‘No room for the horse,’ said the man, untying the animal. ‘It can take care of itself.’ He slapped the horse on the rump and fired a couple of shots in the air. The horse hightailed it out of there.

  Shit, thought the Kid. Now the horse was gone. If he refused to go with the man, would he die alone out here in the desert? He knew what would happen if the job wasn’t done properly. If the man shot him and just left him here, the vultures would come circling. And vultures didn’t wait till a man was properly dead. He didn’t want to watch the flesh being picked off his own bones. But better to die out here a man than let himself be captured.

  ‘You want me to git in that thing, you gonna have to put me in it yourself,’ he challenged the man. The Kid kicked a flurry of sand up into the man’s face.

  The only other time someone had kicked sand in the man’s face was when he was a boy of fourteen. That very same day he sent away for the Charles Atlas body-building course. No-one, but no-one, did that to the man from Pinkertons. He knocked the Kid to the ground and beat him till he was unconscious.

  The woman sitting next to me in the plane gave me a dirty look and moved the book away. It probably wouldn’t have helped if I’d explained that my interest in her reading material was strictly professional. I’m a private investigator. I wasn’t particularly interested in how the man from Pinkertons went about solving his cases, I wanted to see what happened when it came time for him to send his client the bill. Because I’d just finished a case and I was wondering whether I should itemise the expenses or just give a total. If I specified this return airfare to Melbourne the client would want to know what I was doing there. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell her about Melbourne.

  There’d been no guns involved, I hadn’t beaten anyone unconscious. Not this time, anyway. In fact, if there was a place in the golden west to which old PIs retired, this certainly wouldn’t be the case I’d reminisce about as I sat on the verandah in the rocking chair.

  I was following a man to make sure he was sticking to his diet.

  His name was John Larossa. He supplied books to country libraries in New South Wales. He had a heart problem and was on a strict diet. On his return from one of his country trips his wife, Anna, had found a paper napkin with Delightfully French printed on it. She thought it sounded as if it might be a patisserie. He wasn’t supposed to eat cake. I suggested to Anna that perhaps he just called in for a cup of coffee. She told me he wasn’t supposed to drink coffee either.

  John Larossa’s library run encompassed the New South Wales south coast as far as Bateman’s Bay, then inland to Goulburn, Braidwood and Bowral. I’d set out to follow him, looking forward to a week in the country. I’d hired a car because my own was in the garage getting a new head gasket. My mechanic was in love with the car. If ever I wanted to sell, he’d buy it. I’d been thinking about that a lot lately. I was only keeping it for sentimental reasons—I mean you can’t really follow someone for hours on end in a car as conspicuous as a 1958 Daimler.

  He came out of his front door in Strathfield, waving goodbye to Anna. He was a short balding man in his mid-forties, fifteen years older than his wife. He got into a jaunty little station wagon, in the back of which were boxes, presumably full of books.

  But he didn’t go to the country.

  It started off OK. I followed him onto the Princes Highway, heading south. But at Rockdale he turned off and stopped outside a block of flats. He went up to the flats and pressed the buzzer. About ninety seconds later a young man in a shiny grey suit came out, carrying a small suitcase and eating an apple. They got into the station wagon. The young man dropped Mr Larossa off at the airport.

  Then Mr Larossa and I got on the plane to Melbourne.

  At Tullamarine airport John Larossa went through the hire car formalities then got into a blue Toyota. A little way down the line Otto sat purring in his fawn Subaru.

  Otto is an old friend. I’d phoned him from Sydney, as soon as I realised what was happening. He said he’d be at the airport waiting.

  ‘So what is it?’ said Otto, when I’d got into the car. ‘Mu
rder, drugs, international espionage?’

  ‘Diet.’

  ‘Ah,’ he exclaimed knowingly, as if I’d just used a code word known only to a select group of people.

  ‘No, Otto. Diet. I’m following the guy to make sure he is sticking to his diet.’

  His expression changed completely, like someone who’d just spent a lot of money buying a shirt only to find when he gets it home he doesn’t like it.

  We passed Melbourne Travelodge then got onto the freeway through a grey-green Australia of scrawny gum trees and puffy-clouded sky. Gradually the trees were overtaken by built-up areas. In the nineteenth century Melbourne had been the richest city on the continent. It was the establishment city. The gold they’d dug out of the ground had been converted into solid buildings and solid citizens that were going to last forever. There was no convict stain here as there was in Sydney. Citizens were upright, honest. They believed in law and order. I guess that’s why they acquitted members of their police force when they shot people.

  Trees got greener, more European, the closer to the city we came. Along Flemington Road were banners announcing the Spring Racing Carnival. I didn’t have time to see whether it had been and gone or whether it was yet to come. Other signs whizzed by. Whilst I kept my eyes on Larossa, Otto told me his tale of love gone wrong. ‘So here I am, celibate once again,’ he concluded.

  Otto still had illusions about meeting his prince and living happily ever after. One prince after the other. Although the idea would have shocked him, he was an addict. A romance addict. He wasn’t one to go after rough trade, not anymore anyway. He’d be clean for months, then he’d get a taste and get hooked all over again. He actually functioned well on his own. During those periods of celibacy he was at his best. He went to the gym and got fit instead of using the gym as a pick-up place. But there was nothing like the fiery breath of passion. I remembered it well.

  ‘How are things with you and Steve?’ he asked.

  My turn now. ‘They’re not,’ I said, as briefly as possible.

  Otto looked like a boa constrictor trying to swallow an elephant. ‘So what happened?’

  I kept my eyes on the blue Toyota, three cars ahead. ‘He irons his underpants.’ I abruptly changed the subject. ‘My mother’s getting married.’

  I reached out to steady the steering wheel as Otto almost lost control of the car.

  ‘Mina’s getting married?! Oh my God, who’s the lucky man?’

  My mother was something of a pin-up girl for Otto. She used to dance at the Tivoli. ‘Brian Collier.’

  ‘The journalist?’ Otto seemed to be scrambling for words. ‘But I thought he was an old friend of the family.’

  ‘Didn’t we all?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, after a small silence, ‘I’m very happy for her.’

  ‘Yes, me too.’

  We both stared straight ahead, thinking our private thoughts. It was fine being happy for someone else. A lot easier than being happy for yourself.

  By the time we’d struck the Children’s Hospital I’d sighted my first tram. We stopped alongside it, Otto now familiar enough with Melbourne to understand the protocol. People got off in the middle of the road and crossed to the footpath. To me it was like taking your life into your hands. There was a ‘ding’ sound and the tram started up again. We followed John Larossa through the top end of the city, past Kings Pool Room and men working on the road in bright red safety jackets. I made a mental note of the pool room in case I needed a quick game. Made a mental note of the men too, just in case.

  ‘You wanted to see sights? There’s the National Gallery of Victoria,’ Otto pointed out.

  The waterfalls and the ceramic dragon were pleasing to look at but by the third time we’d passed the gallery I’d had enough. We were going round in circles.

  ‘He’s lost,’ announced Otto.

  ‘How can he be lost?’ I said. ‘No-one gets lost in Melbourne, it’s laid out on a grid, easy to get around. The most liveable city in the world. I saw the sign on the way in.’

  ‘It’s the new casino they’re building. They keep closing off streets. It looks like he’s trying to get into Southgate. The car park’s over there but this approach is blocked off. Maybe I should pull up beside him and give him directions.’

  ‘Oh, yes, and who are we supposed to be? Good Samaritans?’

  We must have driven around Melbourne for an hour, before an increasingly frustrated Mr Larossa finally found his way to Southgate Car Park. What delicacy was he going to reward himself with after all that? In his position I’d be having a stiff whiskey or two. Was his version of whiskey a nice rich cake?

  Once in the car park he struck it lucky, finding a parking spot straightaway. ‘Just let me out here,’ I said, as I saw Larossa heading for the lift. ‘Where will I meet you?’ asked Otto, suddenly panicked.

  ‘I’ll be around.’ And left him to enjoy the adrenalin surging through his veins.

  Southgate was full of shops and restaurants, not unlike Darling Harbour, except that instead of being on the harbour it was on the river. There were lots of tempting little cafes and restaurants and, sure enough, Mr Larossa entered one of them. It didn’t come as a surprise to me to read the name on the awning—Delightfully French. I had my miniature camera in my pocket. There were lots of photo opportunities here—the humped pedestrian bridge, redbrick Flinders Street Station across the mud-brown waters of the Yarra. Men from Sydney coming all the way to Melbourne for a piece of cake.

  Although he had so much trouble finding the place, now he was here he seemed to know his way around. He went straight to a table by the counter and sat down. The guy at the espresso machine greeted him then turned his head as if speaking to someone out the back.

  In about three seconds a woman came out, planted a lavish kiss on John Larossa’s cheek and joined him at the table. She was a striking woman in her fifties, black hair pulled back in Spanish style, well made-up, lipliner. A big woman who knew how to dress. She spent a lot of time stroking his hand before the guy at the espresso machine put a coffee down in front of her, and a bottle of mineral water in front of John.

  I became aware of the sound of impatience and looked up to see a waiter hovering, blond hair, each curl crisp, perfect and rock hard as a Greek statue. ‘I’ll have the blueberry bavarois with cream, thanks,’ I gave him my order.

  His lip curled as crisply as his hair. ‘You won’t need cream,’ he said.

  ‘I’d like cream,’ I countered.

  Louder now, as if I hadn’t heard the first time, he said: ‘You won’t need cream. The bavarois is rich enough already.’

  I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, especially not now when things were becoming so interesting, but I was really starting to get a strong desire for cream. ‘I’ll have cream,’ I said in a voice meant to wither his curls. He looked at me for a long time, lips pursed so tightly they turned white.

  ‘And to drink?’ he said finally, stretching the lips across his teeth.

  ‘Short black. No cream.’

  I was sitting in the outside part of the cafe, which meant I could keep my sunglasses on without looking conspicuous. John and the woman were obviously pleased to see each other and seemed quite at home in each other’s company. Judging by his hand movements he was describing to her the roundabout way he’d taken to get here.

  The waiter and Otto arrived at the same time. The blueberry bavarois had an enormous mound of cream beside it, as big and white as a snowdrift. The waiter stuck it in front of me and gave me a look of challenge, defying me to eat that amount of cholesterol. I picked up the gauntlet. Before he’d even taken Otto’s order—an apricot juice—a huge spoonful of cream had disappeared into my mouth. He looked at Otto as if to say, how can you bear it? About ten minutes later Mr Larossa and the woman stood up. They said something to the guy at the espresso machine then, even though he barely came up to her earlobes, Mr Larossa ushered this striking woman out with an air of authority.

  I st
ood up to leave too, which brought the waiter over in two seconds flat. He looked at my plate, aghast. I’d eaten all the cream and left the bavarois untouched. ‘You were right,’ I said, handing him a ten-dollar note, ‘it was rich. Keep the change.’ Well, hell. Let him think what he liked. Where I come from, when you have cake, you have cream.

  We followed Larossa and his companion to a big white duplex in Toorak, separate entrances upstairs and down. I took a photo of them at the gate together, the woman checking the letterbox and pulling out three business-sized envelopes. She handed them to him and they slowly walked towards the steps leading to the top entrance. A woman in a well-tailored jacket came out of the downstairs door, carrying a briefcase.

  ‘Hi. Good trip?’

  ‘Same as always,’ Mr Larossa said cheerily. ‘How’s the university?’

  ‘Exams,’ she grimaced. ‘Marking.’ She got into a dinky little yellow sports car.

  Larossa and the woman waved her goodbye then disappeared into the house.

  I stayed three full days in Melbourne and never once did I see Mr Larossa break his diet. In fact I didn’t see him eat anything at all. A couple of times he returned to Delightfully French but mostly he stayed in the house, the doors shut and curtains drawn.

  In five minutes we’d be landing in Sydney. The woman beside me put away her book and started adjusting her hair, so I never did get to see how the man from Pinkertons billed his client. I wondered now whether subconsciously Anna Larossa had more than food in mind when she referred to her husband’s ‘diet’.

  But I’d done the job she’d asked me to do. By the time the plane touched down in Sydney I had my letter to her composed:

  Dear Mrs Larossa,

  re: diet, Mr John Larossa

  I have followed your husband for the agreed period of time. During this time I did not observe him partaking of any of the items in the list you provided me. I conclude from this that, to the best of my knowledge, he is sticking to his diet.

  Best Wishes

  Claudia Valentine

  I would include travel expenses but not specify each item. If she thought that was too much for petrol for a week in the country she could query it. And then I’d tell her about Melbourne.