by Marele Day
‘She did this time. Why didn’t you at least let her know you were OK?’
‘I was going to but then something happened.’
In the course of time Madalena told me about it. She had a cosy little hiding place down here, centrally located even if it was lacking a few facilities.
‘What do you do for food?’ I asked.
‘Mostly we go out to eat,’ said Madalena.
While the place was comfortable, the idea of having to swim through that pool to come in and out didn’t appeal to me greatly.
‘There’s another way,’ said Madalena. She picked up the lamp, took it over to one corner and shone it on a metal ladder ascending up a shaft. The street’s up there,’ she said. ‘At night when there’s no-one round, we use that.’ I wished I’d known about this back entrance before I’d embarked on the journey through the tunnel.
‘Sorry about your ankle,’ Madalena apologised. ‘We set it up like that in case he followed me here.’
‘I don’t think there’s much damage done,’ I said. But I was pretty keen to get out of there and have it seen to. I didn’t want to end up with tetanus. Or worse.
‘We’ll take you up the ladder,’ said Raf. ‘Tonight, when it gets dark and everyone’s gone home from work. It comes out near Druitt Street. This shaft is part of the old hydraulic power system that used to operate in Sydney. Or you can go out the same way you came in.’
‘I’ll wait,’ I said.
Before going to Coogee for dinner I told Mina that I’d twisted my ankle so she wouldn’t be alarmed when she saw the bandage on it. Or the walking stick I was using. I felt about a hundred. My punishment for being annoyed at the old lady who thwarted my first attempt to follow Raf.
I had intended to get a cab over, but Brian offered to drop in on the way home from work and pick me up.
‘Are you familiar with a hydraulic power system that used to operate in Sydney?’ I asked him as we drove towards Coogee.
‘That’s a blast from the past. There used to be about thirty kilometres of pipes around Sydney at one time, pushing high pressure water to power lifts, cranes, operate sprinkler systems, open bank doors. Sydney Hydraulic Power Company. Now isn’t that a name to conjure with. Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, no particular reason. I just like to keep in touch with what goes on in this town.’
‘I presume since you’re having dinner with us that you’ve finished your job?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is she back home, the missing girl?’
‘Depends what you call home. She’s staying with friends in Darlinghurst at the moment. She’ll probably stay there till school goes back.’
‘Has she been in touch with her mother?’
‘She has. Her mother wants her home, of course, but Madalena’s not ready to go. A lot has happened to her in the last few weeks. Amongst other things, she turned sixteen. So unless she’s in moral danger she can live where she likes.’
Brian parked the car outside a block of four seaside flats, each with a balcony. Mina was standing on one of the balconies, waving. Brian helped me out of the car. I tried to be gracious about it.
‘What happened in Leichhardt?’ he said, as I hobbled up the drive.
‘You know the body that turned up in the vacant premises? It was a local who played cards at the restaurant. He ran up a debt, a few thousand.’
‘Gee, they’re strict. They topped him for a few thousand?’
‘Fabio was looking for an excuse. Grimaldi was losing it.’ I recalled Grimaldi at the restaurant, drinking straight from the bottle. ‘So his business associates brought in Fabio to teach him a few elementary business principles. Maddy caught the tail end of that lesson the day she went to see her father.’
‘And I suppose she thought her father was a mild-mannered clerk in an office.’
‘Well, a mild-mannered restaurateur, anyway. She heard raised voices behind the door and her father say, “Get rid of it. Just get rid of it.” She thought maybe she’d called at a bad time.
‘She’s on her way out when she sees Fabio coming down the stairs carrying a rolled-up carpet-with a hand dangling out the end of it. Can you believe it? The guy’s been watching too many movies. It’s OK, Brian. I can manage the stairs,’ I said to stop him trying to lift me up by the elbows.
‘He sticks the body in the boot and then he sees Madalena in the alleyway. By the look on her face he knows he’s got a witness. He tries to run her down. She flees. To Darlinghurst. She can’t go home because she thinks her father ordered the killing. Things weren’t that good between them anyway.’
I told Brian about the brother who had drowned. ‘She always felt that he blamed her for it. Brian, for God’s sake. Let me do it on my own, it’s good therapy.’ Brian mumbled apologies and said he was only trying to help. I apologised as well and said I wasn’t used to being an invalid.
‘Anyway,’ I said, continuing with the story, ‘after a few days she settled down a bit. The phone at Darlinghurst had been cut off because the kids were late paying the bill so she went up the street to phone home. Her mother wasn’t there. On the way back to the house she saw Fabio at the door. And that was it. She couldn’t go back. She went to the safest place she could think of—underground.’
‘How did Fabio know to go looking in Darlinghurst?’
‘Well, some of her friends from the house had gone to Lugarno the next day and picked up some things for her. She’d given them the key. She thought perhaps Fabio had followed their car back to Darlinghurst.’
Mina had left the door open. The smell of garlic and basil wafted out. Delicious.
‘The father’s still in hospital. He’ll live but I don’t think it’ll be business as usual.’
‘And Fabio?’
‘So far, he’s the one that got away. If he made it in time before customs were alerted, he’s probably back in the old country. He would have had to leave the car behind, though. That would have hurt. Hi, Mum.’
As Mina kissed me on the cheek I smelled Ashes of Roses talcum powder. ‘You don’t look as bad as I thought,’ she said gaily. ‘Fancy doing that, all that time you’ve been living at that pub, going up all those stairs, and now you’ve gone and twisted your ankle. You weren’t drinking, were you?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Not on that occasion, no.’
I handed her a bottle of the Minchinbury champagne that she loved so well. ‘Oh lovely,’ she said. ‘I’ll just pop it in the fridge to chill up a bit. Come through and I’ll show you the photos of the honeymoon. I’ve got them all laid out on the table for you. I took seven rolls,’ she said proudly. ‘Two hundred and fifty photos for you to look at. Some very interesting cloud formations.’
Mmm, great. I could hardly wait.
THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF HARRY LAVENDER
Marele Day
Mark Bannister, writing ‘the bestseller of the century’ is found dead at his computer-the victim of a murder so perfect that Claudia Valentine smells a rat … and wants it caught.
The chase leads deep into the murky underworld of Sydney-a world where bright, tough Claudia must play a deadly high-tech game of cat and rat with the menacing overlord of the city’s cancerous network of crime and corruption.
Witty, wryly humorous and fast-paced, The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender is a thriller with a twist, which brilliantly evokes the sleaze below the surface of the city’s glittering facade.
‘Exciting, fast-paced and plenty of just slightly shabby style-in fact everything a good detective yarn should be.’
Daily Telegraph
1 86448 772 0
THE CASE OF THE CHINESE BOXES
Marele Day
Claudia Valentine is back!
Claudia Valentine, Australia’s original female private eye, is back-in an adventure even more intriguing than her first.
The Great Chinese Take-Away starts with a bang, for the contents of the lost safety boxes are infinitely more valuable than money. Claudi
a’s hunt for an elaborate key leads her into a world of ancient treasures, Triad killings and decidedly disturbing kidnappings. The odd respite in a pub, or even in a confessional, seems no more than Claudia deserves.
‘Crisp, clever, classy … this book has a lot of sty!e.’
Doris Leadbetter, Australian Book Review
‘It is a treat to renew the acquaintance of the spunky Sydney redhead whose nearest relative in the well-populated world of private detectives is Cliff Hardy.’
Katherine England, The Advertiser
1 86448 671 6
THE LAST TANGO OF DOLORES DELGADO
Marele Day
Winner of the Shamus Crime Fiction Award for the Best PI Paperback Original
Claudia Valentine is back!
Claudia Valentine, Australia’s spunkiest female private eye returns-in her most exhilarating adventure.
Being a minder for Dolores Delgado was no trouble at all for Claudia. Dolores slept all morning, shopped all afternoon and danced all night. Hanging out with this exotic and beautiful creature was fun as much as work.
Then, things got complicated. Dolores dropped dead. On stage. With barely a mark on her perfect body. Claudia had never lost a client before. Let alone one who was also a friend. This was not going to be good for business.
Claudia’s investigation leads her into a steamy world of passion and intrigue, of death and double crosses, of romance and revenge. And finally to the truth hidden beneath the layers of dazzling deception.
‘Claudia Valentine is smart, sassy and sexy, even when she is up to her eyeballs in mystery and intrigue.’
The Herald
1 86448 875 1