The Disappearances of Madalena Grimaldi

by Marele Day

  As the applause died down I became aware of the smell of patchouli oil. ‘There’s a better place down the road, R ‘n’ B, funk, great dance music. Like to give it a try?’ I looked at the guy who’d just sidled up to me. No, I did not want to give it a try.

  Kerry and Tamara were saying their goodbyes and leaving.

  ‘That sounds great. Can you hold this?’ I handed him my beer. ‘Thanks. Won’t be a minute.’

  I followed Kerry and Tamara back to the entrance to Kings Cross station. They were having a discussion, Kerry pointing up the road and Tamara hovering. Kerry trying to convince Tamara to go somewhere with her, Tamara hesitating and looking at her watch. Tamara had forty minutes to make the midnight curfew. She’d be late, but not by much.

  A bit more discussion then the two girls waved goodbye and went their separate ways. Tamara down the steep escalator into the bowels of the earth, and Kerry into the heart of the Cross. I followed Kerry.

  She turned off the main drag and cut through to a back alley. Suddenly all the noise and bright lights stopped. There was nothing but the backs of buildings here, very few windows. It was a short alley that crooked around and disappeared into the backs of more buildings. It looked like a great place for a mugging. There was no-one else in the street. I stayed where I was and waited to see where she was going. Kerry walked briskly, with purpose. Just before the bend, she disappeared.

  I walked on down to The Squeeze. A facade painted matt black, Gothic lettering in silver. If it hadn’t been for the sign it would have been hard to tell the black door from the black wall. Behind me I heard a car pull up. A cab. Out of it got a group of adults dressed like schoolkids. Thirty year old women in short short tunics, hair in plaits, a smattering of fake freckles across the noses and cheeks. Men in short pants and dinky little caps. I pushed the door and went in, wondering just what sort of place The Squeeze was.

  But I wasn’t inside yet. There was another door to get through with three bouncers guarding it. Black trousers, white short-sleeved shirts on the tight side to make the biceps bulge just that little bit extra. We had guys like this at karate class. Martial artists. Tuning their bodies to be perfect fighting machines. Then looking for fights to put the whole thing in motion.

  The outer door opened behind me and in came the ‘schoolkids’. The bouncers stood aside and we all went in together.

  There was lots of chrome and flashing coloured lights inside but it still managed to look dark and mysterious. The club was divided into two sections, a bar in each. In the bigger, more ‘public’ section was a dance area where the lights were flashing. Circling this entirely was a counter with bar stools. If you wanted to sit you could watch the dancers; if you wanted to dance there was somewhere to rest your drink. An arc of the far wall was entirely enclosed by glass, for use by private parties. This is where the schoolkids headed.

  I don’t know if it was because the night was wearing thin or if it was simply the venue, but the atmosphere here seemed more dissipated than at the previous club. Darker, smokier, lots of black clothes. The sort of place you wouldn’t have to look far to find whatever it was you develop a taste for in the wee small hours. A few groovers danced, some alone, some glued to each other. Most of the patrons stood in clusters around the walls, outside the range of the flashes of light. I couldn’t see Kerry. It was hard to see anyone. People were in either darkness or distorted light. Gradually though, my eyes got accustomed to it. I made out the rest rooms which were designated M and W, presumably Men and Women. I bet as the night wore on those M’s and V’s got confused.

  ‘Well, here you are. I thought I’d lost you.’ I didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was. The sweet stale smell of patchouli. Good grief. Even as he talked he was moving in time to the music. I gave him a tired smile and started dancing. After a minute or two he was completely self-absorbed and I was able to lose myself in the crowd.

  I spotted Kerry at the pay phone near the M and W. She said something then she waited. And waited. Finally she slammed the phone down and left.

  Outside, the early hopefulness of the night had worn off and the desperation was showing. Kerry seemed oblivious to the drunks making lunges at her, the streetgirls watching her pass. She waited for the lights at William Street to change. Further down this road, outside the car showrooms displaying Ferraris, Porsches and Jaguars, HIV-positive transvestites did business in cars with blokes from the suburbs too drunk to know or care.

  She crossed to Darlinghurst on the other side. So did I. Though we were only a road’s width from Kings Cross, everything felt different. We had left behind the prickly garden of delights and were back in the city again. Shit happened here but there was less of it. There were no neon signs winking lecherously at you, you didn’t feel as if the whole place was lying back, legs open.

  She walked past the fire station and the row of little Italian cafes, converted terrace houses with seats out on the street so you could see and, more importantly, be seen. Andiamo’s, Morgan’s, Nicolina’s, the Coluzzi bar. Breakfast, any time of the day or night, for high profile lawyers, bankrupted property developers, boxers, film producers, and the people who want to be seen with them. Kerry walked straight past without giving them a second look.

  A minute later the ambience changed abruptly. We were in the part of Darlinghurst where street gangs fought, gays got bashed and low-rent prostitutes plied their trade to cruising cars. Kerry knocked on a door, a pink door with graffiti and street art sprawled all over it. A brass number 9, or maybe it was a 6, was dangling by one screw. Two steps was all that separated the house from the street. Music was thumping away inside, you could almost see the door vibrating. From somewhere in the vicinity wafted the slow pungent smell of dope. No-one came to the door.

  Kerry then tried tapping on the window. ‘Maddy,’ she called out over the music. No response. ‘Ralph? Simon?’ Still no response. Kerry spread her fingertips out on the glass, pushed the window up and climbed in, disappearing into the darkness of the house.

  She’d called out her name. Maddy. She was here, in this house. Madalena was here.

  The window remained open. When Kerry didn’t reappear I assumed she’d found her friends and joined the party. I was just about to climb in and join it myself when the door opened, letting out an even louder blast of music. A wispy young man was there, seeing Kerry out. ‘Well call me if you hear anything,’ I heard Kerry say.

  ‘Sure you won’t stay?’ invited the young man. ‘No, I’m going home. Mum’s there by herself. See ya, Simon.’

  ‘See ya, Kerry.’ The door closed.

  Kerry sat down on the steps; back hunched, elbows on knees, chin cupped in her hands. The confident young woman who had strode through the streets of Kings Cross was gone now and a worried child took her place. Something was weighing her down, something she didn’t understand. Reluctantly she stood up and started meandering back to the Cross, lost in thought.

  Before I’d taken two paces, someone stepped out of the shadows and barred Kerry’s path. He was dressed differently and it was dark, but I was positive it was the man I’d seen at the Hoyts cinema. He said something to her. She may have replied, I don’t know, with her back to me I couldn’t tell. She tried to get past but he blocked the way. She took a few steps back, but he grabbed her by the shoulder. Suddenly in the darkness I saw the glint of a blade.

  ‘Hey!’ I started running towards her. The guy saw me coming. He pushed her to the ground and ran off into the darkness.

  I bent down and helped Kerry up. ‘Bastard,’ she swore. ‘Look at my tights.’ She couldn’t be too badly hurt if all she was worried about were her tights.

  ‘What did he want?’ I asked.

  ‘He was asking questions about a friend of mine.’

  ‘About Madalena,’ I said.

  She looked at me curiously, wondering who I was.

  ‘Her mother is worried,’ I went on. ‘If you are in touch with her, ask her to call home.’

  Kerry
looked away, biting her lip. I thought she may have been deciding whether I was an adult she could trust but there was more to it than that. ‘She’s disappeared,’ she finally blurted out.

  ‘I know,’ I spoke softly, ‘that’s why her mother is worried.’

  ‘No,’ Kerry said, ‘you don’t understand. She left home. But now she’s disappeared.’

  ‘Perhaps I can help,’ I suggested.

  ‘I was on my way home,’ Kerry said.

  ‘I’ll see you get there safely.’

  ‘It’s OK, I can manage. It’s a long way. Peakhurst.’

  ‘It’s no trouble. I’m going there anyway. My car’s parked near your house.’ She looked at me, completely stunned. ‘My name’s Claudia Valentine, I’m a private investigator. Mrs Grimaldi hired me to find Madalena. You’re her best friend, I thought you might know.’

  ‘Have you been following me all night?’ I told her I had. ‘You mean, right from my house?’ I said yes, right from her house. ‘Far out.’

  We got the train from the Cross then a cab from Riverwood. By the time we got to Peakhurst I had Kerry’s version of events. There’d been the fight with Madalena’s father over the tattoo. The next day-the day, according to Rosa, that Madalena had disappeared—Madalena, Kerry and the rest of the netball team had played at Concord. But Madalena hadn’t come home with everyone else, she’d decided to go to Leichhardt. To see her father. Kerry didn’t know exactly why but she thought it was to apologise about the fight. Leichhardt’s not far away from Concord and she figured she could maybe get a lift home with him. That was the last time Kerry saw Madalena.

  But she had a phone call from Madalena a few days later. To say she’d left home and was never going back. She was OK, she was staying at Darlinghurst but she made Kerry promise she wouldn’t tell anyone, especially her parents, where she was. Something had happened that afternoon when she went to see her father but she wouldn’t talk about it.

  She had arranged to meet Kerry tonight at Horn of Africa, just to hang out, listen to the music. The things they used to do. But Maddy hadn’t shown up. Kerry thought maybe she’d be at The Squeeze but she wasn’t there either. When Kerry phoned the Darlinghurst house someone had answered the phone then just gone away and forgotten about it. So Kerry came round. They were having a party and couldn’t hear her knocking on the door so she went in the window. ‘I guess you saw that bit,’ she said to me. But Madalena had disappeared. Completely disappeared. She went out to buy some milk and didn’t come back. I suggested to Kerry that perhaps Madalena had decided to get out of town altogether, maybe hitch up the coast.

  ‘She’d never hitch, not after those backpacker murders.’

  ‘Perhaps she got a lift with someone.’

  ‘She would have let me know,’ said Kerry. ‘It’s not as if they don’t have phones up the coast, is it?’

  I asked Kerry what Madalena’s father was like. She said she’d never met him but he sounded like a bit of an arsehole. ‘Totally freaked by the tattoo. I mean, it’s not like she had a nipple ring or anything.’

  ‘What was the tattoo like?’

  ‘Like this.’ Kerry pulled her jacket off her shoulder and showed me. It looked like a keyhole with ornamentation around the top of it.

  ‘Madalena’s was the same?’

  She readjusted her clothes. ‘Yeah. We had them done together.’

  ‘What did your mother say?’

  ‘Couldn’t say much, could she? She’s got a tattoo herself.’

  We’d arrived at Kerry’s house. I gave her my card. ‘If you want to call me anytime, here’s the number.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘See you later.’

  I watched till she went in the door and turned the light on. I waited a few more minutes, just to be sure.

  ELEVEN

  Arturo Grimaldi’s restaurant, La Giardinera, was on Parramatta Road, Leichhardt. It wasn’t one of the trendy restaurants. They’re on Norton Street, a good few blocks away from the grime of Parramatta Road. Parramatta Road is the major artery to the west-not a place where you sit and have a quiet meal. Further down the road are car yards bristling with plastic flags and blokes with blow-waved hair ready to take your money off you. Leichhardt is the heart of the Italian community. There are fruit and vegetable shops, delis, discount clothing stores, places you can buy christening presents and religious statues. I couldn’t help noticing the signs in shop windows as I walked towards the restaurant—CLOSING DOWN SALE … TO LET. There are still remnants of what life must have been like in the village, but the massive supermarket complex is the business that’s booming.

  La Giardinera was on a corner block with an alley behind it leading to an area where a couple of cars were parked. The doorway, on the Parramatta Road side, was arched. The theme was continued with the arched windows. A few faded plastic flowers adorned them, lipservice to the garden this restaurant was supposed to be.

  I’d picked one o’clock to pay a visit because that was peak lunchtime. I’d be eating alone and I didn’t want to be too conspicuous. I had on a pair of glasses with round rims, my hair pulled back. The studious type, always reads a book when she’s eating, a little vague. Someone who might get lost looking for the toilet.

  But at one o’clock there was hardly anyone else there—one couple. The restaurant was pretty dark, with a well-equipped bar. Perhaps it did more nighttime trade. Nevertheless, the tables were set for lunch and I sat down at one of them. The only other person apart from the couple was a short thin woman with neat grey hair and no make-up. She handed me a menu. It had the usual pasta and lots of veal dishes. There was a specials blackboard, but it was blank.

  I settled on a small spaghetti marinara with side salad. It wasn’t an enormous amount to get through if I had to leave in a hurry and if I didn’t, I could stretch it out as long as necessary.

  The marinara, when it arrived, was chock-full of fresh seafood, king prawns, mussels in the shell. The salad too was fresh with a classic Italian dressing. The food was great. How come there were so few people in here? I propped my book up beside the food and began reading.

  A door at the back opened and I heard a man’s voice. I looked up casually. Arturo. I recognised him from the photo in the lounge room at Lugarno. Tanned skin, grey hair receding at the temples, tension in the neck and shoulders. He squeezed in behind the bar, into a little alcove, almost but not quite out of sight from the dining room. He asked the waitress something in Italian, I didn’t catch all of it. ‘Giovedi,’ she answered. Thursday. ‘Va bene.’ Then he poured himself some grappa. Before he replaced the top he turned his back and took a swig straight from the bottle. Then he went out again.

  I wondered if drinking like that was something he always did or whether it was a recently acquired habit. I’d seen it before—the alcoholic who gets tanked up in private while sitting on one drink all night. I let a few minutes pass then I asked the woman where the toilets were. ‘In the back,’ she said, pointing to the door. I left my book on the table and went out there.

  I was in an asphalt yard. The toilets were to the right. Between the toilets and the restaurant was a set of stairs. I walked past the toilets, turned round the corner and came to the two cars I’d seen before. A grey Mercedes about eight years old and a beige Toyota. I went to the entrance of the yard. The alley continued up to the next street. There were a few bins outside. When it came time for garbage collection they would have to move them up to the street. The alley was too narrow for a garbage truck to drive through.

  From over here I had a better view of the upstairs part of the building. There was a small window that looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in years. Guttering needed fixing too. No customers in the restaurant, repairs needed doing, where did the money come from for that big house in Lugarno?

  I ventured up the stairs. There was a closed door at the top. I pushed it open and came into a big room, sparsely furnished with tables and chairs. To the left four men sat playing cards. Money in the middle
of the table, twenties and fifties. At the other end of the room sat Arturo with another man, a well-dressed man. They were drinking coffee and seemed to be in the middle of a discussion. Both the conversation and the card game stopped when I appeared in the doorway. I stood there peering through my glasses. Arturo looked my way but didn’t come forward, didn’t make any movement that would distinguish him from anyone else in the room. No-one said anything but everyone was looking expectantly at me.

  ‘Ah, excuse me, I was looking for the toilets.’

  ‘Down there. Outside,’ said one of the card players.

  ‘Thanks.’ I started to back out. Arturo watched, trying to work out whether my mistake was genuine. I closed the door behind me and went into the toilets. I should at least let him hear the sound of flushing. If that’s what he was listening for.

  Perhaps he heard a car pull up, because that is what I heard as I flushed the toilet. Then footsteps going up the stairs. I came out quietly, walked up to where the stairs turned at a right angle and caught sight of someone going in through the door. I saw only the back of him but it was enough. It was the same man. The lush curly hair that I noticed the first time at Hoyts. The same man who’d attacked Kerry in Darlinghurst.

  There was now a third car beside the Mere and the Toyota. A big American Chrysler with a personalised number plate, FABIO. I strolled over and had a look. Sheepskin seatcovers, a St Christopher medal dangling from the rear vision mirror, a Gregory’s Street Guide sitting on the passenger’s seat.

  So maybe Arturo had hired a private eye of his own. He didn’t look like any of the private investigators I knew, even the cowboy type.