by Marele Day
I wanted to ask about Guy, but it was too long ago.
The Crisis Centre looked like every other terrace house in the quiet street except it had bars on the windows and the door. They must have seen us walk in the gate because by the time we got to the door there was a woman with a strong handsome face, a big wide smile and perky short black hair opening it for us.
‘Hey, Vince, how’re ya doin’?’ Vince gave her a hug.
There was a long hallway down one wall. The front room had been converted into an office. Half a wall had been knocked out to provide a counter. On the counter were cards and pamphlets explaining what the Crisis Centre did. ‘The purpose of this centre is to provide homeless young people with accommodation, support, information and access to resources that enable them to take control of their lives and make informed decisions about their futures.’ There were other pamphlets with advice on safe sex and needle use, in language kids could relate to.
Vince introduced me to everyone—to Paula, Ed and Michael. Handshakes all round. The general mood of bonhomie was interrupted by the appearance of a young guy about fourteen with blond curly hair flopping down into his face. He looked a little agitated but was doing his best to hold himself together. ‘Ed? Can I see you, Ed?’
‘Sure, mate, what’s the problem?’
Whatever it was, he didn’t want to discuss it in front of everyone. Ed got up and walked down the corridor with the guy. ‘Madonna up in your room again, is she, Troy?’ I heard Ed say as they disappeared up the stairs.
‘Claudia’s looking for someone. I know the drill but this is different,’ Vince explained to the others.
I produced the photo of Madalena and briefly explained the story. ‘If you know this girl, if you know where she is, you don’t have to tell me. Just ask her to ring home.’
Paula studied the photo then passed it on to Michael. Neither of them recognised her. ‘We can make a photocopy and put it on the wall,’ Paula suggested. I looked at the wall. There were photos on the wall already under the general heading ‘Have you seen this person?’ Some of them had details—name, date of birth, last seen etc. Young faces, young hopeful faces in photos taken on birthdays, at graduations, the happy joyous occasions when photos are taken. I looked at the dates these kids were last seen. None of the dates were recent. These kids had been missing for years and none of them had been found. I didn’t want to put Madalena up there on the wall with them.
‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s OK. Just, now you know what she looks like, if she turns up …’ I gave them my card. ‘Thanks for your help.’
I was just about to move out of the office when Ed returned, having placated whatever monsters Troy was grappling with. It was worth a shot. The three of them probably weren’t all here all of the time. I didn’t hold much hope but I showed Ed the photo anyway.
He studied it thoughtfully. ‘Yeah,’ he said, as if he recognised her.
‘You’ve seen her?’ I asked, wanting to know everything.
‘Not in person. Seen a photo of her, not this photo but I’m almost sure it’s the same girl.’
‘Where did you see the other photo?’
‘Bloke came in sometime last week. Paula, what day was it you and Michael had that meeting with the woman from Youth and Community Services?’
‘Thursday,’ said Paula.
‘Yeah, Thursday. Reckons he was her uncle but I thought he looked a bit suss, eh? Thought maybe he was a pimp looking for one of his girls.’
‘Did he have black curly hair? About thirty years old, reflective sunglasses maybe?’
‘That’s him. Is he really the uncle then?’
‘I doubt it. He didn’t by any chance leave a calling card, did he?’
‘No. He started to back off then, when I asked for a name and address.’
‘Vince, I’ll give you a call. I’m sure you have a lot to catch up on with your buddies. Thanks for your help,’ I said, addressing them all.
I walked back out to the street. Up on the corner Marius was deep in conversation with one of his cronies. It was early afternoon now and the beer cans were piling up. No doubt they were discussing the meaning of life. It was sunny and bright, the kind of day you felt good to be alive. If you were alive to feel it.
FIFTEEN
All the smart people were eating their sticky date puddings, fruit salads and risotti marinari when I went by the row of cafes with Italian names in Darlinghurst. That bit was easy. Finding the street took more time. I’d only been there once before, and that was at night. In the inner city things look quite different in the bright light of day.
Once I found the street the actual house was no problem. The ‘9’ house number was still hanging by one screw and the distinctive artwork on the door was the same. Actually, it was better. At night, it had simply looked garish, but in the daylight I could see that it was quite skilful. A stylised Buddha in the middle of the door, with ornate patterning around the edges, which made it look as if the Buddha was guarding an entrance.
Maddy, Ralph, Simon. These were the names Kerry had called out that night. And later, when she came out again, she’d said, ‘See ya, Simon.’ A wispy young man as I recalled. I hoped I’d recognise him again.
The house still had music snaking out of it but at a much more bearable level. Certainly low enough for anyone inside to hear me knocking on the door.
The Buddha swung inwards and was replaced by the young man.
‘Hi. Simon?’
‘Yes,’ he said warily.
‘My name’s Claudia. I’m a friend of Kerry’s.’
He looked me up and down, wondering whether Kerry would have someone like me for a friend. For a start, I was old enough to be her mother. But you couldn’t tell that just by looking.
‘What do you want?’
‘Can I come in? It won’t take long,’ I assured him.
He took a minute to think about it, then let me in. Into a time warp. There was incense burning, the walls were painted either blue or pink and the dark blue ceiling of the hallway had silver stars painted on it. As I walked by the bedrooms I saw mattresses on the floor with bright-coloured Indian spreads. There was even a girl sitting in the kitchen wearing a long diaphanous top and skirt. The anomaly in all this was her workboots and thick socks. That wasn’t part of the seventies wardrobe. For most of the seventies she hadn’t even been born. If you were old enough to remember what it was like the first time, you were too old to wear it the second time around.
‘Hi,’ she said, a friend to all. ‘I’m Melissa.’
‘Hi, Melissa. I’m Claudia.’
We were now all seated at the kitchen table. They each had a half-finished cup of tea in front of them but neither of them offered me a cup. Maybe the pot was empty.
As far as Melissa was concerned there was no need to ask questions of me. I’d simply come in and joined the camaraderie of the house. But Simon didn’t have the same trust and faith in his fellow beings. He was waiting for me to state my business.
‘We have a mutual friend. Madalena.’ I watched for their reactions. Melissa’s expression changed only slightly. It was as if the rosy hue emanating from her filtered out any harshness in the world. Perhaps it was just the reflection off the pink walls. Simon, on the other hand, took the full impact of it.
‘She’s not here,’ he said.
‘But she was here, wasn’t she?’
He didn’t say anything. I thought perhaps I should help him out.
‘Look, I know what she said,’ I took a guess. ‘Not to say anything if anyone came looking for her, right?’
He shrugged a shoulder noncommittally.
‘Madalena disappeared. If she’s in any danger I want to help her. Don’t you want to help?’
He started fiddling with the teacup in front of him, avoiding my eyes.
‘Did a man come here? A dark-haired man who maybe said he was Madalena’s uncle? Is that why you’re afraid to talk?’
‘I’m not afraid,’ said Simon,
‘I’ve got nothing to say, that’s all.’
‘Hey, I remember him,’ said Melissa. ‘Simon? You remember, he had those really cool sunglasses. When he moved his face they were like … rainbow colours.’
Far out. ‘What happened that night?’ I now turned my attention to Melissa.
‘He came during the day.’
‘Not at night?’ I said, thinking it might have been the night of the party.
‘No, it was the day. He said he was Maddy’s uncle and he had a message for her. He must have found her because she didn’t come back. I think she went back home because her sleeping bag and everything’s gone, hasn’t it, Simon?’
Simon was staring daggers at Melissa. He wanted her to shut up but at the same time he didn’t want to make a big deal of it in front of me.
‘Is that what happened, Simon, she moved back home?’
He shifted uncomfortably. He knew it wasn’t true as much as I did. ‘Yeah, I guess that’s what happened.’
‘Can I have a look at her room?’
‘Sure,’ said the ever-friendly Melissa. Simon shrugged again—if all her things were gone, there was no harm in me looking.
She showed me to a blue room, a mattress on the floor, some fold-up chairs stacked against the wall. Apart from that the room was bare. I had a good look around but could see no sign of anything.
‘It’s a spare room,’ Melissa explained. ‘You know, when we have parties and things, people can crash here.’
‘Well, thanks for showing me, I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time. Simon?’ Like the gentleman I expected him to be, Simon showed me to the door. When we got there I said, ‘What really happened?’
I must have been in the house a good twenty minutes. Enough time for him to decide whether to trust me. I had been courteous and polite, I hoped he had a good impression of me.
Melissa was out of earshot but he looked around anyway. ‘I … I don’t know.’
‘You didn’t think it was strange that she just upped and left?’
‘I thought she’d gone back home. When she first came here, she was really upset, she wouldn’t say why. Kerry said she’d had a fight with her old man the day before so we just assumed it was that. Then when she left, I assumed she’d gone back home. But she hasn’t been in touch with anyone. You’d think she would have let someone know. I mean, she didn’t even call Kerry.’
‘So when she left she took her things with her.’
He frowned. ‘No. They went missing later. I thought, maybe she’d come back for them when everyone was out.’
The same pattern as when she’d left Lugarno. She disappears then her belongings disappear. ‘Who lives here?’
‘Melissa, me. Alex, but he’s away.’
‘Does anyone else have a key?’
‘Raf does.’
‘Raf?’
‘He did all the painting,’ said Andrew. ‘On the door here, on the ceiling in the hallway.’
‘Does he live here?’
‘He comes and goes.’
‘Where might I find him?’
Simon gave me one of his shrugs, but this time without the surliness. ‘He just turns up. You never know when.’
I walked back past the trendy cafes and waited at the main intersection that separates Darlinghurst from Kings Cross. Raf. I kept saying it over and over in my mind. When I’d heard Kerry call it out the night I’d followed her, I thought she’d said ‘Ralph’. But it was Raf. An abbreviation. Raffia. Raffish. Rafael. Not a very common name but one that rang a bell with me. I’d seen it in Gothic lettering in a book in Madalena’s room, a fantasy book about a lost world. Rafael Khan. Maybe there was a phone number in the book as well. Has a key to the house but ‘comes and goes’. A mystery man. An artist who has books about lost worlds. I wondered if he knew anything about lost girls.
Raf wasn’t the only mystery man. There was also the one who drove the car with the FABIO plates. Wherever I went he had also been. Always one step ahead. Maybe that’s because he’d started sooner. And knew something I didn’t.
I descended the escalator into Kings Cross station. Was it possible that Madalena’s father had hired someone, and not told his wife? Just as she was not telling him about hiring me. I didn’t like his tactics with Kerry but then he wouldn’t be the first private investigator to bend the rules. Perhaps he wasn’t a professional, just someone who worked for Grimaldi.
I had to talk to Madalena’s mother. I looked at the posters on the wall on the other side of the track, Speed Kills. I could imagine Rosa sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring. Hoping it was Madalena. I told her I would let her know how things were going. How could I tell her the story so far and make it sound hopeful rather than alarming?
There was a rumbling and a whoosh of cold steely air heralding the approach of the train back to the city. The headlights appeared out of the darkness of the tunnel, people stirred. Got themselves ready for when the train stopped and the doors opened. One or two people alighted, then those waiting on the platform got on. The automatic doors closed behind us and the train started up. We travelled briefly underground then the train burst out into the open, the roofs and buildings of Woolloomooloo visible below us.
It was then that I saw the two young boys outside the carriage, standing on the bit that joins one carriage to the other. Joyriding, scared shitless but trying to look nonchalant, getting a buzz out of flirting with death. The train went into the tunnel again and down under the city. Down and down it went, all the way to Town Hall.
SIXTEEN
Naturally, the first thing Rosa did when I phoned her was ask about Madalena. I said there’d been some developments but I’d prefer to discuss them with her in person. She said yes, all right, there was still time this afternoon before her husband came home. That was one of the things I wanted to discuss with her, this skirting around her husband. If he had hired someone, perhaps we should all sit down and pool our resources, I thought wryly.
The next phone call I made was to Danny. He was patching up the Daimler’s scratch and I needed another car. Despite my refusal to sell just yet, Danny was still working on me. If I’d asked him for a whole fleet of cars he wouldn’t have objected.
This time it was a panel van, a blue iridescent number with portholes in the sides. Love machines, I think we used to call them. It wasn’t exactly the most inconspicuous car but at least it wasn’t registered in my name. The van was airconditioned so the long drive to Lugarno was bearable. It had a CD player installed as well, and some good country music.
But good music wasn’t the reason I drove right by the Grimaldi house instead of stopping. He was there. Watching the house. When you do surveillance for a living you recognise someone else doing it straightaway. He wasn’t in the Chrysler with the FABIO plates but it was him just the same. So I drove right on by. He’d had a good look at me at Hoyts, he may have recognised me that night in Darlinghurst, but he hadn’t yet worked out how to follow me. I wasn’t going to give him the chance this time either. I turned the corner and kept driving. When I’d worked out what to do I rang Rosa.
I was on my way to Strathfield, to Anna Larossa’s place. I was surprised to find I was looking forward to the visit. Anna was Rosa’s cousin, she knew what was going on. And Rosa saw her frequently so that when Fabio followed her to Anna’s place he would think it was just a routine visit.
But there were other reasons I was looking forward to the visit. It would give Anna a chance to ask questions. If she had any. Her silence was making me curious. The travel expenses had been pretty hefty. If it had been me, I would have queried them. But maybe she’d just taken it at face value. If you had nothing to compare it to, how would you know? I walked up to the house. Anna was expecting me. Rosa had phoned her and Anna was on the lookout. ‘Nice to see you again,’ she said.
The house was pleasant, a polished timber hallway, white walls. ‘I’m making coffee. Will you come into the kitchen?’
The kitchen had blac
k and white vinyl tiles that looked like a chessboard. The theme was continued in the black and white check curtains, now closed, at the window. On the stove sat a coffee percolator making noises. Anna reached up to a cupboard and got out a packet of muesli biscuits. ‘John’s doctor is pleased with the progress he is making. There are not so many restrictions with the diet now.’ She arranged the biscuits on a plate and turned off the heat under the percolator, which appeared to have reached its climax. ‘Come, we will wait for Rosa in the living room.’
The living room had the same polished timber as the hall. Grey leather lounge suite around a smoky glass coffee table. Beneath it was a fluffy white rug that looked like it might once have been a dog.
‘John will be home later,’ said Anna, as if I’d be really pleased to hear this news.
‘He’s not on the road, then?’
‘You remembered,’ beamed Anna. ‘No, he has a different run now. He does the libraries around Liverpool. He doesn’t go away at all now.’
‘How nice for you.’
‘Well, I’ve had to make some adjustments,’ she hinted.
I didn’t get to find out what those adjustments were because the doorbell rang. Rosa. Anna sprang up and went to the door. They exchanged greetings, I could hear the voices getting louder the further they came down the hall. Anna went into the kitchen to get the coffee and Rosa came down and sat beside me on the lounge. She seemed flushed from the journey.
‘Here is the book you asked me to bring.’ She handed it to me, The Lost World of Agharti. I put it in my bag. ‘The car followed me here,’ she announced. ‘I did like you said and didn’t look at it but when I got to the last traffic lights, I saw the car in the mirror.’
‘Did you recognise the man?’
‘I couldn’t see the driver too well. It was too far away.’
Anna came in with the coffee on a silver tray. She deposited the tray on the coffee table then left us in peace.
‘It’s the same man we saw at the cinema that first day,’ I told her. ‘I think he’s working for your husband.’