The Disappearances of Madalena Grimaldi

by Marele Day

  I went back inside. The woman had cleared away the spaghetti plate but left the salad. My book remained in the same place I’d left it. The couple who were there before had now gone.

  ‘You want dessert?’ she asked me.

  ‘No thanks. Just the bill.’

  She brought it over to me on a saucer. ‘Is there another part of the restaurant upstairs?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘just here.’

  ‘I saw someone go up there. Just thought I’d let you know.’ As if I was being a good Neighbourhood Watch citizen.

  ‘That’s OK. Old men play cards up there sometimes. Nothing to worry about.’

  She seemed to believe it but I wasn’t convinced. I paid the bill and left.

  TWELVE

  I finally had the Daimler back. I’d made the decision to sell it to Danny and I wanted to take it on one long last drive to explain to it what was happening, to say goodbye. Parramatta was a nice long drive. It used to be the limits of suburban Sydney but now Sydney had sprawled so much that Parramatta was the geographical centre. The geographical centre, not the heart.

  Parramatta wasn’t a destination chosen at random. I was going there to see Sergeant Hindley, now Detective Senior Sergeant Hindley. I had been in touch with Forensic Medicine again, to see if they’d simply overlooked the P79A form when they’d sent me the other material, but the form couldn’t be found. Despite the kind of work I do, despite the fact that I have a good friend in the Force, I don’t enjoy visiting police stations. The bureaucracy, the paperwork, the uniforms, it’s too much like prison for my liking. I always imagine they’re going to find some pretext for keeping me there. Run my name through the computer and discover unpaid parking fines from fifteen years ago. Today wasn’t one of my lucky PI days, the kind of day when, just like in the movies, there’s a parking spot right outside the door. I had to leave the Daimler three streets away and walk back to the station. There may have been a lot of space out west but there wasn’t much parking.

  Sitting on a bench in Parramatta Police Station was a woman with blotchy skin wearing a thin summer dress. Through the ample armholes I could see a safety pin holding the bra strap to the bra. She was smoking a cigarette, sucking in as if it was a respirator. Beside her sat a lad, presumably her son. He had tatts and earrings, a skinhead look that had gone a little past its use-by date. He sat staring at the space between his thongs. Maybe he couldn’t afford Doc Martens. But I don’t think that’s what was troubling him in this particular instance. He looked as though the world was pressing very heavily on the back of his head.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ said the guy at the desk. He was young, fresh-faced and eager to please. Just the way I like them. It wasn’t so much what he could do for me as what I could do for him. Take him away from this nasty world of crime, tuck him up in my bed, handfeed him chocolates.

  ‘Hi, my name’s Claudia,’ I said, friendly but professional. ‘I’m here to see Detective Hindley.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Trace? Can you tell Detective Hindley there’s someone here to see him?’

  ‘Trace’ smiled pleasantly then disappeared around a corner. ‘Won’t be a minute,’ the guy said to me, ‘have a seat.’

  Any other place you walk into off the street, any big corporation, they’d want to know your name, the company you’re representing. They make you sign a book and give you a special visitor’s pass. Police stations you can just walk in and see whoever you want to. I guess if things got dicey they could always shoot you.

  Hindley had a receding hairline, and distinctive black eyebrows separated by a single vertical frown mark. His nose was flat, chin dimpled and no matter how hard he tried he was a guy who’d never look tidy. Shortish for a cop but he made up for it in width. Late fifties, early sixties, and showing it.

  ‘Lady here to see you, sir,’ said my nice young man.

  He could hardly conceal his pleasure when I stepped forward. A long-legged redhead asking for him. Boy, was this going to be good for his image at the station.

  ‘Good morning,’ I greeted him, ‘can we talk?’ What I meant was somewhere private.

  ‘Come up to my office,’ said the spider to the fly. He let me in behind the counter and took me upstairs. ‘Have a seat,’ he said, dragging a chair over in front of his desk. He sat behind the desk, leant his chair back against the wall and looked me up and down. I was glad to have the desk between us. I imagined a wall of glass with him on one side and me on the other so that his leery look didn’t get on my person.

  ‘It’s—?’

  ‘Claudia,’ I said, ‘Claudia Valentine.’

  I watched his reaction. There was a flicker, then a slight narrowing of the eyes. With eyebrows like his, even this slight movement was noticeable. If there was a Richter scale of reaction it would probably register 3 or 4. A slight tremor but not enough to damage the furniture.

  ‘News reporter?’ he said, as if he’d heard the name but couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘No. I’m Guy Valentine’s daughter.’ Even less on the scale this time. I expected it to be more. I prompted. ‘You identified my father’s body when he died.’

  Still it meant nothing to him.

  ‘Rushcutters Bay, 25 April, 1985. Anzac Day. The floods.’

  I didn’t know whether it was the time, place or mention of the floods, but suddenly the furniture was rattling. A strange look in his eye as if he’d seen a ghost risen from the dead. It lasted for one second, then it was over and he became a cop again.

  ‘My sincere condolences.’ He didn’t mean a word of it. ‘I’m sure your father would be pleased you’ve grown into such a strong, strapping girl.’ Oh spare me!

  ‘You knew him personally?’

  ‘Well …’ he seemed to be considering which had more mileage in it, a yes or a no answer. ‘1985 is a long time ago.’

  What was he playing at? You either know someone or you don’t. There was a game of cat and mouse going on here. A game for two players and each took a turn. Sometimes you can corner a mouse with a few bluffs so that it has no alternative but to tell the truth.

  ‘How come you guys didn’t get in touch with his next of kin?’

  He was on guard now and had his answers ready. ‘They would have tried,’ he explained, ‘but unsuccessfully. The floods …’ as if that was the explanation for everything. ‘Water leaking into the Telecom tunnels, phone lines were going down. Everything was in chaos.’

  He could have been right. They could have phoned a few Valentines without striking Mina. But I still didn’t like it. ‘On the death certificate it says you were the one who identified him. How did you know who he was?’ I asked Hindley.

  He looked at me, taking his time, rubbing his chin. I’d struck bureaucrats, petty bureaucrats, who won’t even tell you the time of day in case they’re infringing some regulation. But Hindley wasn’t one of those. He was playing as if all the cards were in his hand and if he were to flip one over and show me, he’d be doing me a big favour.

  ‘By the Social Security form in his pocket.’

  ‘And that was enough?’

  Was I in some way implying he was lax in his duties? He must have thought about it for no longer than half a second. He was well-protected. All that flood water under the bridge flushing away any slackness, all the time that had passed making it harder to check on things, this nice big desk jutting out in front of him like a giant beer gut.

  ‘All procedure was carried out. He had formal identification on him. This was further verified by one of his cohorts.’ He leaned forward now, friendly but with a glint in his eye, relishing what he was about to say. ‘You look like a girl who’s big enough to hear the truth, Claudia. Your father was a dero. A pisspot.’

  Oh boy, I hated that big girl stuff. I swung my legs up onto the desk and gave Hindley a view of the soles of my shoes. In some cultures that is considered a heinous insult. ‘I hope you don’t mind, when you’re tall it’s always difficult to know what to do with the
m. But I guess you wouldn’t know about that.’ I was probably the first person on this side of the desk to ever put their feet on it. He looked at me, not quite knowing how to take it. I smiled at him, as if it was a bit of a joke and he was such a good sport.

  So my father was a drunk. This sounded more like it.

  The phone rang. He picked it up and identified himself. He listened to the person on the other end for a while, then he looked at his watch and said, ‘Yeah, OK. I’ll be down in five.’ He’d be shooing me out of there before long.

  ‘Look, Sergeant,’ I started. With all those bits to his rank I wasn’t sure what to call him. ‘I’ve only recently become aware of my father’s death. He left home a long time ago, I never really knew him. I just want to know how it was, I just want to…’

  He reached over and patted my shoe, the way you do with someone’s hand. ‘I understand,’ he said condescendingly. Bereaved family member, he probably dealt with them all the time.

  ‘The P79A form is missing. You were the one who filled that in, right?’

  Again a slight seismic tremor. Bereaved family members don’t usually go into this sort of detail. ‘That’s right,’ he said warily.

  ‘What did you say in the Narrative?’

  Whatever charm I had was wearing thin. ‘Give us a break, it’s nearly ten years ago. How can I remember what I wrote ten years ago?’

  ‘Believe it or not, Sergeant, you’re the closest link I have to my father. Otherwise I wouldn’t be bothering you.’

  His tone softened a little. ‘We found the body floating face down in the water, near the entrance to the stormwater canal. When I turned him over I realised it was one of the deros that hung around the place. I was stationed at Kings Cross then, the park was part of my beat.’

  ‘Did you know him well?’

  He laughed derisively. ‘Getting acquainted with the occupants of the park was not high on my list of priorities. I knew him by sight. That’s all. When we searched through his pockets we found the Social Security form.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Just the form.’

  ‘No wallet, no little personal items? Didn’t that strike you as odd?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, maybe the coat with his gold AMEX card was at the drycleaners,’ his voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘Maybe he was rolled, how would I know?’

  ‘So he might have been murdered then? Bashed unconscious, then pushed into the stormwater canal.’

  Hindley stiffened and his face got uglier. ‘I don’t like your implication, missy. We thoroughly investigated the matter, as we would for anyone. It was raining, he was drunk, he fell and hit his head and couldn’t get out again. He drowned. That’s all there is to it. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got police work to do.’

  I could tell by his tone of voice that he wasn’t going to be asking me out on a date. I stood up, made departure movements. He didn’t budge. Wasn’t he going to see me out? ‘Thank you for your time,’ I said. ‘You seem to have a nice crew here. Very pleasant desk staff downstairs.’

  ‘Yes,’ he grunted. ‘One big happy family.’

  I noticed now the dartboard hanging on the back of the door. ‘Just straight down the stairs, is it?’

  ‘Same way you came up,’ he said, as if I was the world’s biggest fool and he didn’t suffer me gladly.

  ‘One more thing and I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘What is it?’ an expression of pain on his face.

  ‘What did he look like, my father?’

  ‘What do you think he bloody looked like? He looked like someone who’d drowned.’

  ‘Did he look relatively … healthy? For the sort of life he led, I mean.’

  He was really fed up now. ‘What do you do for a living? Train pig dogs?’

  ‘I’m a private investigator.’ I thought about giving him my card but it would more than likely end up in his waste paper bin.

  He looked at me as if I was the scum of the earth. ‘He looked like they all do—grey, unshaven, grisly. I’m surprised he didn’t fall in sooner, the state of him. I can tell you, it’s no skin off my nose. One less bludger the taxpayer has to support.’

  ‘Thanks for your concern and sympathy. Goodbye, Sergeant.’

  ‘People usually call me sir,’ he shouted after me.

  I banged the door hard behind me and heard a satisfying clunk as the dartboard hit the floor.

  Downstairs the woman who had been sitting on the bench was now standing at the counter signing a piece of paper. The boy remained in the same position, still staring at the space on the floor. I waited till she’d finished before 1 let myself out. ‘C’mon, Shaun,’ she said to the boy. ‘Thanks, Sergeant,’ she said to the lovely young man. I doubted he was a sergeant but what did it matter. I also thanked him. ‘No worries,’ he said, opening the door so I could get through. If I’d had a chocolate on me I would have offered him one. Still, I’d always know where to find him later.

  I stepped out of the station just in time to see the woman give the kid a hefty slap across the back of the neck. He went to hit her back but let his hand fall away before it made contact. ‘Don’t you fuckin’ dare,’ she growled. ‘You wait till your father gets home,’ she warned him.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ he smirked. ‘He’s coming home, is he? You know something I don’t?’

  I walked the three streets back to where the Daimler was parked. I didn’t particularly like Hindley, his smart-arse comments or his leery style, but the description he gave me of my father did verify the impression I’d always had. So why didn’t I feel satisfied with that? The more I tried to fill in the gaps, the more holes appeared.

  Shit. When I got back to the Daimler I discovered a scratch down the entire length of one side, as if someone had dragged their car keys along it. Why do people do things like that? I got in the car and sat there without going anywhere. We’d had a lot of good years together, the Daimler and I, I couldn’t let her go quite yet. Not with a scratch on her.

  When I got back to Balmain there was a message from my mother on the answering machine. Just ringing to let me know they were back from their honeymoon.

  ‘Hello?’ I heard Mina’s tentative voice. She always answered the phone as if she expected bad news.

  ‘Hi, it’s Claudia. How was the south coast?’

  It was wonderful. The place was just what they wanted, they lay out on the sundeck, went to nice restaurants and guess what? ‘We’ve taken up golf.’

  Maybe that’s what I should do—take up a hobby. Put the past behind me as Mina and Brian appeared to have done. I couldn’t even give up my car, let alone allow my father to rest in peace.

  ‘When are you coming over to see the photos?’ Mina asked. I forgot there would be photos. Lots of shots of the sky, if I knew Mina. ‘Come over for dinner,’ she burbled. I accepted the invitation. ‘Brian wants to say hello,’ she said. ‘See you next week, dear.’

  ‘G’day,’ Brian greeted me.

  ‘That golf’s going to interfere with your sedentary way of life, isn’t it?’ I suggested.

  ‘Well, a dog is never too old to learn new tricks. It’s not weight-lifting or anything. All you do is walk around and hit the ball occasionally. You meet some very interesting people that way.’

  ‘So is this the new career path?’ Brian was old enough to retire but it had always been impossible to imagine that he would. ‘No fear. I still want to be in amongst it. I’m married, not dead.’

  ‘What’s Mina doing?’

  ‘Unpacking. Why?’ he said warily.

  ‘Nothing serious,’ I assured him. I explained that I’d been thinking a lot about Guy, now that we knew he was dead. That I wanted to speak to people who knew him, to have something to make up for all those years of absence.

  ‘Claudia …’ I could tell by the way he said my name that he didn’t think I should be keeping this wound open. He was in a sensitive position himself. Guy’s best friend, now married to his wife. He couldn’t very well say forget ab
out it, leave it alone. Guy was what brought us together, the common thread. If I wanted to know about my father, Brian would tell me. He wouldn’t like going over it all again but he’d do it. As many times as I asked.

  Brian and Guy had been colleagues, crime reporters. Young, brash and ready to change the world. But the world had got to Guy, the underworld in particular. They’d threatened him. He had a wife and young child, he backed off. He found it difficult to live with himself, he started drinking.

  I told Brian that Guy had been found in Rushcutters Bay and asked if he knew any of his cronies, someone I could talk to. Brian said he’d lost contact with him long before that. ‘After he left your mother, when he really hit the turps, he started drinking in a pub in Chippendale. Pub near that alley where The Fish got shot, remember it? Early eighties.’

  I remember Brian telling me about The Fish. His memory for crime facts and figures was formidable. Googly-eyed Frank ‘The Fish’ Hashem, a heroin dealer who ripped off other dealers, was shot in an alleyway by a cowboy cop, Richard Harrington, in what was probably a set-up. Harrington went on to bigger and better things for a while then he was shoved sideways, then out all together.

  The pub was frequented by what Collier would describe in his newspaper reports as ‘colourful characters’ on both sides of the law. Or at least that’s the way he described them then.

  ‘Guy hung out in that pub?’

  ‘After he stopped drinking at the journos’ pub near work he went to the other side of Parramatta Road. When you’re on the way down, you don’t want to be reminded of what you’re leaving behind. I’m telling you because you want to know, but it’s not a pleasant story.’

  I pressed on. ‘You think Guy could have been involved in something?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ he said, already with an inkling.

  ‘Well, you know, if that’s the kind of pub he drank at, maybe he unwittingly came across someone who harboured a grudge, someone he may have written about, who caught him at a vulnerable moment and killed him.’

  ‘Why bother killing someone who’s already dead.’ The way he said it, it wasn’t really a question. ‘Do you really want to put yourself through this?’