by Peter Corris
I nodded. ‘I like the idea. Somewhere at the hub, like here and maybe something on the coast. Have you got a weekender, Mrs Farmer? If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘No, not at present. But I have my eye on some land.’
Personal stuff over, we got down to details and she made me some appointments—none of which I intended to keep—to look at office space and roomy houses with the potential to double as work and home. Super efficient, she tapped keys and printed me out a sheet with the appointment details—times and addresses—and the names of what she called her ‘associates’.
I didn’t have to pretend to be impressed. I was. It struck me that she enjoyed every element of what she was doing. The ash blonde hair, drawn severely back, came slightly loose and she flicked it away without worrying about it. Her makeup didn’t conceal the encroaching lines around her eyes and mouth and wasn’t intended to. She wore a dark suit with a V-necked silk top under it that showed off the smooth column of her neck. No lines there to speak of.
We finished our business and she stood and extended her hand again. ‘Where are you from, Mr Lees?’
I gave her my try at an enigmatic smile. The one that went with the broken nose and the hooded eyes and that, depending on the circumstances, can look dumb or desperate. ‘Why?’
‘Don’t be offended. These days, one has to be careful. I have to tell you that a corporate client renting property through me has to go through a security check. Not stringent, but . . .’
I laughed. ‘You think I look like an Arab, is that it?’
She didn’t answer.
‘I’m mostly Irish, Mrs Farmer. And not IRA—not at all, at all.’
I went away with the cards of a few of the agency’s representatives in my pocket and a fair degree of confusion in my mind. Elizabeth Farmer’s portrayal of what I supposed should be called her stepmother seemed wildly inaccurate. Matilda Farmer was no empty-headed gold-digger but a shrewd, well-organised and capable businesswoman. She fancies herself a super saleswoman, Elizabeth had said. That was wrong. She was that without a doubt and possibly something more.
The indications were that the business was doing well. The injection of a few million dollars would have set it solidly on its feet, but it was nothing like a hobby or vanity affair or a tax dodge. Not that my assessment really changed anything. Elizabeth’s judgement that Matilda had Frederick Farmer murdered for his money only needed a slight readjustment to read: for his money and control of a business she knew she could turn into a gold mine. Central was the question of Matilda’s character—the purpose of my visit. I had my own opinion now, rating the woman pretty highly. Ruthless, though? Quite possibly.
I called into the pub on the corner of King Street and Missenden Road, just up from the hospital. It had been thoroughly revamped since I’d last been there, when it was a hangout for locals including the residents of the many boarding houses in the area, boxers and footballers from the two gyms nearby, and people visiting friends and relatives in the hospital and thanking God they could get away. Now it was all carpet and muted light with pinball and slot machines and red wine at five dollars a glass.
I sat on a stool and looked out through a tinted window at the street. As I watched, a Camry station sedan slipped into a parking space about twenty metres away. Elizabeth Farmer got out from the driver’s side and another woman from the passenger side. She was younger, smaller and blonde, wearing a knee-length suede coat, black slacks and high-heeled boots. The two women linked arms and set off down the street.
One question answered, quite a few still to go.
4
Tempe was only a couple of kilometres away and I decided to take a look at the house where the missing Kristina had stayed. Sharing suggests paying rent and how does a fifteen-year-old get money to pay rent? A few ways I could think of, all tricky and all likely to leave a trail. I skipped lunch in the interest of my waistline, hauled out the trusty Gregory’s, and located the address Ms Karatsky had given me.
The street was a narrow dead-ender with the traffic roar of the Princes Highway as a backdrop. The houses were small and tightly packed; a few had had the renovator’s wand waved over them but most hadn’t. Ten years ago, rents would have been cheap and there would probably have been squats in this area—houses from deceased estates left to rot, or places where rising damp and decayed roofs had driven out owners and renters. Now the semis and narrow, freestanding houses were all occupied with the residents on mortgages or paying hefty rents. Position, position, position—you could get to the CBD in lots of ways from here. Sydney being Sydney, many of the people had driven their cars. No off-street parking. Oil stains in the vacant spots showed that the street would be solidly parked on both sides at night. Outside number 12, the place I was interested in, were plenty of oil stains but no vehicle.
Number 12 was a faded brick semi with a gap-toothed wrought iron fence and an overgrown scrap of front garden. A peppercorn tree, sprouting slantwise from behind the fence, hung high and bushy over the footpath, reaching almost to the gutter. Pedestrians would have to brush the branches aside to get by. Bad news for joggers and I was sure there’d be some around these parts.
I pushed open the sagging gate and went up a weed-broken path and some well-worn steps to the narrow porch in front of the house. None of your fancy tiling here; this place had gone up when austerity was the go. There were bars on the windows and a solid security screen. I pressed the buzzer and took out my PEA licence folder and the photograph of Kristina. A barefoot young woman in jeans and T-shirt opened the door and stood behind the screen.
I explained my business, showed her the ID and the photograph.
‘Yeah, she was here. Next door told us about her mum but we weren’t home.’
‘And she told me. Could I come in, please?’
She wiped the back of her hand across her nose and sniffed. ‘Why?’
‘I thought perhaps I could have a look in the room she had. See if she left anything behind.’
‘She didn’t.’
‘I mean a professional look. Could be something you missed.’
‘You’re a real private eye, right?’
‘Yep.’
She unlatched the screen door. ‘Suppose it’s all right. I love those movies. You see Chinatown?’
‘Many times.’
‘Me too. Come in, Mr . . . ?’
I showed her the folder again as I edged inside. ‘Hardy. And you are . . . ?’
‘Denise. Kristina had the second room off to the left. Harry’s in there now and it’s full of his shit, so you probably won‘t find anything.’
‘Just a quick look, then.’
She padded down the threadbare carpet behind me. I stood aside and let her open the door. The smell from inside nearly knocked me back against the wall. Denise grinned and sniffed again. ‘I’ve gotta cold. I’ll get a tissue.’
The smell was made up of tobacco, marijuana, sweat and dirty socks. Harry, whoever he was, dropped his clothes where he stood, liked his window closed and his sheets stiff. Denise was right, there could be no trace of a previous occupant in here. I was backing out when I heard a shout from the front door.
‘Denise, how many fuckin’ times have I told you to keep that fuckin’ screen locked?’
Denise was back, dabbing at her nose. ‘Sorry, Harry.’
‘Sorry, Harry,’ he mocked. ‘Who the fuck’s this you’ve let in, you silly cunt?’
Harry was big, 190 centimetres plus, going on a hundred kilos, some of it blubber, not all. He had a shaven head and his jeans, T-shirt and bomber jacket looked to be in much the same condition as the clothes on the floor in his room. He loomed in the narrow hallway like a Mack truck in a one-way street. I knew the type—his size had won him most of his fights before they even started.
He pushed Denise away savagely when she made a placatory move towards him and that was enough for me. Our relative heights were just right. I put my left shoulder hard into his sternum and gave
him a solid right to the ribs at the same time. Double whammy. The fight and the breath went out of him in a long whoosh. It wasn’t too hard to hit him again with the shoulder and send him crumbling down like a deflated windsock. Denise’s eyes were wide open. She’d never seen Harry outplayed before. I made a gesture to show her that I’d finished and crouched down beside Harry who was gasping for breath.
‘Keep your day job, mate, whatever it is. You’ll never make it as a tough guy. Now, I intended to be polite about this but you changed the rules. I’m going to ask some questions and you’re going to answer them if you want to keep your teeth.’ I put a fist under his nose. ‘Understand?’
He nodded.
‘Did Kristina leave anything behind in the room? Anything at all?’
Another nod.
‘What?’
‘C . . . card.’
‘Where is it?’
He squirmed and reached around for his wallet in his hip pocket. I’d felt something give when the rib punch landed. He was hurting. He fumbled a card out of the wallet and I took it. It was for a brothel in Alexandria—‘The Silken Touch’—with the usual graphic: couches, tresses, diaphanous gowns. On the back of it was scrawled, ‘Anytime—K.’
‘Going to pay her a visit, were you?’
Denise had seen the card. ‘You bastard,’ she said.
I straightened up. ‘Okay, sorry to upset the domestic harmony here. A few more questions. Why did she leave?’
Denise said, ‘She was dealing and using. We kicked her out.’
‘When was this?’
Denise shrugged. ‘A week.’
‘And she hasn’t been back?’
She shot Harry an evil look. ‘Not as far as I know.’
‘All right.’ I gave her one of my cards. ‘You have any trouble with this bloke you call me. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ Her cold seemed to have gone and I had the feeling Harry would follow it soon. I gave him a pat on his bald head and left the house.
Three o’clock in the afternoon is as good a time as any to go calling at a brothel. They operate around the clock and the manager or an assistant would be there and at least some of the workers. Kristina struck me as a night-time gal, but you never know. Most of these places have some kind of protection, and the protector wasn’t likely to be such easy meat as Harry. I stopped at an ATM along the way and drew out some money.
The Silken Touch was in Botany Road with no danger of offending churchgoers or schoolchildren. It was behind a high wall with the number painted on it, large enough for there to be no mistake about punters coming to the right place. There was a factory on one side and a warehouse of some kind on the other; blocks of flats opposite.
I parked and pressed the buzzer beside a heavy metal gate. A mounted security camera above the gate would have shown them inside that I probably wasn’t an axe murderer and definitely not a Jehovah’s Witness. The gate swung smoothly in and I stepped through and along a short covered walkway to the front of the building. It looked like a Federation house that had undergone more renovation than Michael Jackson. The front porch had been glassed in, a bow window flattened and a bullnose verandah remodelled. Every bit of glass in view was tinted and every surface had a fresh coat of paint.
The front door opened at a touch and I stood in a discreetly lit reception area where a woman sat behind a desk. There were chairs for clients, a flat screen television, a VCR, a rack of videos and magazines and prints on the walls that advertised what was on sale here. The woman remained seated. She was a redhead, at least for now, with a wide, flat face, strong jaw and an oddly small mouth. She wore a rollneck sweater with a heavy gold chain hanging between her impressive breasts.
‘Good afternoon, sir.’ Careful vowels and consonants, a small smile from the small mouth, a semi-welcoming gesture of the hands.
‘Good afternoon. I’m not a client. I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge here.’
That announcement changed her manner in an instant. She pressed a button on her desk. A door opened behind her and a man came striding towards us. White shirt, dark pants, no tie. He was medium-sized, short-haired and fluid in his movement. Army-trained if ever I saw it.
I took out my licence folder and the photograph of Kristina along with three one hundred dollar notes which I held so that he could see them and the woman at the desk couldn’t.
‘Help you, mate?’
‘Somewhere we can talk?’
He had good eyes; he’d seen the money and taken in the details of the licence. ‘I’ll handle this, Phyllis. Come through here, Mr Hardy.’
I gave Phyllis a wink and followed him past a series of blown-up photographs showing black men and white women and white men and black women, proving, I suppose, that opposites can attract. He opened a door into a room containing a desk and chair and a three-quarter bed. A screen mounted so it could be seen from the bed showed a movie with the sound turned down. Two women with silicone pumped breasts were seesawing on a double dildo. Another screen, placed to be viewed from behind the desk, was blank but with a faint glimmer. He saw me notice it.
‘The camera’s heat-activated. The latest.’
‘Cute,’ I said. ‘You know my name. What’s yours?’
‘Phil. Now, what’s this about?’
I’m no great shakes at sleight of hand but I can do a bit when needed. I made the money disappear and handed him the photograph.
‘D’you know this girl, Phil?’
‘If I do?’
‘Could be trouble. She’s young.’
‘How young?’
‘That depends.’
‘What’s this? Some kind of shakedown?’
‘A nice kind. You tell me everything you know about her and you walk away with the money and that’s it. If you don’t do that there could be . . . consequences.’
‘I could hurt you.’
‘You could. Army?’
‘Right.’
‘Me too, but a fair while ago. I’d back you in, but why take the risk?’
He thought about it the way a man who enjoys violence does. Dumb ones go for it no matter what, smarter ones pick their moments. ‘Okay, I know the girl. Calls herself Kristina. Looks a lot older than in that photo, though.’
‘You would say that, wouldn’t you? I don’t suppose she’s around now?’
He shook his head.
‘When?’
‘What’s the date?’
I told him.
‘Next week, the tenth. She was here two days, then said she was taking a week off. They come and go. They’re free agents. Plenty around.’
‘Did she . . . give satisfaction?’
He shrugged. ‘Far as I know.’
‘Out calls or here?’
‘Both.’
‘Her address?’
‘No, and we haven’t got her ABN or her tax file number or her—’ ‘Okay, I get the picture. You must have some way of getting in touch. Mobile?’
He nodded. The terse type.
‘Give me that for real and you’ve got your money and I’m gone.’
‘How do I know you won’t raise a stink anyway?’
‘How do I know you won’t come after me and have a go?’
‘Fair enough.’ He went to the desk, pulled out a drawer and consulted a notebook. He read off the numbers and I scribbled them down. I handed him the money.
‘Sure you don’t want to stay a while? Some pretty hot babes here.’
‘I’m too old for hot, I prefer cool.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He pocketed the money and turned his attention back to the television. The sound came up—the usual pulsing rhythm and heavy breathing plus squeals.
‘One more thing—was she a junkie?’
He kept his eyes on the television. ‘No way. No tracks and we do a fair dinkum blood test.’
Interesting. Not exactly good news to tell her mother given the source, but something.
Things were slow, just Phyllis in reception, no takers, n
o givers. I nodded to her and got a stony stare in reply. I went out, unshipped my mobile and rang the number as I leaned against the car.
‘The mobile phone you have called is either switched off or cannot be reached at this time. Please call again later.’
5
Standing probably twenty metres away from him, I rang Phil and gave him the news about Kristina’s mobile number. I told him that I’d keep trying to contact Kristina, but that if I didn’t reach her he should ring me the minute she turned up. He didn’t like it but, with the way things were with public, media and police interest in the underage sex scene, he didn’t have much choice. A white Commodore pulled up as I was driving away—business at last.
I didn’t have anything much to report to either of my clients, but the day hadn’t been a complete zero. I drove around aimlessly for a while, just letting impressions form and take shape. I drifted back towards Glebe, going with the flow of the mid-afternoon traffic. The twin towers in New York might be gone, but the two towers of the Tempe brickworks still stood, although the huge rubbish dump and quarry have been landscaped into something called, with brilliant imagination, Sydney Park. I made a mental note to have a good walk around its rolling grassy hectares some day. Perhaps jog around it. Perhaps.
Old habits die hard, especially those associated with work. I’ve heard of writers who couldn’t tap out a word for months after giving up smoking or going off the grog. I was still coming to terms with having no office to go to—no way to break up the day, compartmentalise life and work. I’d always done a certain amount of work at home—read files, made phone calls, used the computer—but having only the house as a base irked me. I’d liked the vibe of Darlinghurst—the number of people there living on the edge, taking risks, bombing out, occasionally coming up trumps. It acted as an antidote to the conformity I felt creeping over the country, seeping out from the conservative mandarins of Canberra. The upshot was that, increasingly, with no office to go to I didn’t want to go home.
I keep a spare set of clothes, a toothbrush and shaving gear in the car for those times when it’s not possible to go home. This time it was a matter of choice. With the Kristina Karatsky case on hold and possibly headed for a win, there was no reason not to scoot down to the south coast and take a look at the burnt-out house in Wombarra. I’d taken notes from the stuff Elizabeth Farmer had given me so I knew the names of the people I needed to talk to. I hit the Princes Highway and went south.
