Simone Kirsch 03 - Cherry Pie

by Leigh Redhead

  And I was the one doing Andi a favour. She could wait.

  ‘Okay. I’m in.’

  Below deck I got changed and called Andi. ‘Something’s come up, I can’t make it. How about tomorrow?’

  ‘I have to fly to Sydney tomorrow.’

  ‘How about when you get back?’

  ‘If you don’t want to do it, just tell me.’ She sounded pissed off.

  ‘No, it’s just …’ We’d docked at Crown and Brandy’s driver was waiting, ready to whisk me to Richmond. Chloe was busy setting up the wading pool on the rear deck and I got a waft of synthetic lime. The guys roared as someone scored a goal. It was hard to hear. ‘Look, I’ll call you or you call me, okay?’ I couldn’t tell if she hung up on me or the connection was lost.

  I had Monday off and spent it sleeping in, exercising at my gym—a no frills place above a chicken shop on Glenhuntly Road—and poring through spy equipment catalogues, circling pinhole cameras and directional mikes. I got a little restless in the evening and could have gone out, but that would have meant spending my precious business savings. I’d become the world’s biggest tightwad in the previous four months, but it hadn’t been such a bad thing. I’d saved twelve grand and my hangovers were virtually nonexistent since I could only stomach a couple of glasses of cheap four litre cask wine. And without indulging in my usual hobby of seeing bands, getting fried and flirting with guitar players, I’d even managed to stay faithful to Sean.

  Sean was my boyfriend, if that’s how you referred to someone you’d spent two weeks shagging and dodging bullets with. He was also the most unlikely cop I’d ever met, a red haired, chain smoking, vodka swilling vegetarian from Scotland who loved jazz, made me laugh, danced like a dream and spoke eight languages, so was very very good with his tongue. The perfect man. Except for a Virgoan tendency to alphabetize his CD collection and go mad at me for leaving wet towels on the floor, which I was sure we could work out. He’d been on an exchange in rural Vietnam for four months, with two more to go, and I hadn’t even kissed another man. Chloe was convinced pod people had taken over my brain.

  I checked my email. Ads for Viagra and penis enlargements, but nothing from him. That was okay. Internet access was a little touch and go where he was. I sent him one anyway, grabbed a couple of cheese singles and lay down on the couch to watch a Russ Meyer DVD, Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Vixens. It was great seeing those babes go, and nice to live vicariously for once. I’d had enough excitement earlier in the year to last me a lifetime. Things were quiet now. I was glad.

  Tuesday I went for a run by the canal, did a lunchtime jug show at Hosies Tavern in the city, then an afternoon strip at the Clifton in Kew. After going home and showering I met Chloe at the Elwood Lounge, a groovy little hole in the wall just around the corner from my one bedroom flat. She’d called earlier and said she had a business proposition for me.

  Coming from her that was a frightening thing.

  The pool tables were occupied so I found her by the window overlooking the 7-Eleven and the Catholic church, sitting at a scratched laminex table with a bottle of champagne and a plate of dips. I kissed her cheek, smelling her usual aroma of Paris perfume and bong smoke, then pulled up a mismatched vinyl chair.

  She’d gone for a bit of a winter wonderland look that day, billowing platinum hair, tight white jeans and a white PVC jacket with fake fur around the collar and cuffs. Her platform boots were silver and spike heeled. She hated being short and I had a sneaking suspicion she couldn’t actually wear flat shoes anymore, kind of like Barbie.

  ‘How were the shows?’ She poured me a glass of champagne.

  ‘You know. Same old shit, different day.’

  Her mobile started buzzing across the table and she glanced at it but didn’t answer. I peeked at the screen. Curtis. He and Chloe had hooked up a few months before. He’d been a journo for the girly magazine Picture, but had recently found success as a true crime writer, mainly by following me around and waiting for the trouble to start. I tolerated him, though it was hard to completely warm to someone whose articles got you shit-canned from your last job. He argued that if it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else, but still.

  I raised my eyebrows and she tossed her hair over one shoulder and shrugged.

  ‘Why do they always get so clingy?’

  I couldn’t answer that, since all the guys I went for ended up pissing off before I had time to get sick of them. My mobile started vibrating in sympathy. The screen read ‘Andi’.

  Feeling bad about letting her down I chose the coward’s way out and didn’t answer.

  ‘So let me tell you about my proposition.’ Chloe dipped a thick finger of Turkish bread in bright pink beetroot dip and waved it in my general direction. ‘I’m expanding the agency—more boob cruises, male strippers on the books, tours to country Victoria and of course the jelly wrestling, which is huge right now. I can’t run Chloe’s from my flat in Parkdale anymore so I’ve found this shop in Balaclava with a two bedroom apartment on top. You take the shopfront for the detective agency, I’ll take the apartment as a home office. It’ll be perfect—we can share the rent and hang out more. What do you reckon?’ She jammed the dip in her mouth just before it splattered all over her faux fur.

  ‘Running an inquiry agency from the same address as Chloe’s Elite Strippers isn’t really the image I want to project to a corporate clientele.’

  ‘There are separate entrances.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘And with your reputation I seriously doubt the corporate types’ll be beating down your door. I mean, c’mon,’ she laughed.

  I was hurt for half a second until a sudden rage bubbled up, blood rushing to my face along with a desire to tip the dip plate into her lap. I scraped my chair back and stood up.

  ‘Back in a tick.’

  I headed for the loos at the back of the bar even though I didn’t need to go, locked myself in a cubicle and sat on the toilet lid, waiting to calm down. It wasn’t Chloe’s fault. I was only angry because I knew she was right: my reputation as a private investigator in Melbourne was shit. Not because I couldn’t do the job, but because things got out of control whenever I did. I’d be lucky to get any bloody work at all.

  Tears welled up but I refused to cry and stared at the graffiti instead, waiting for my eyes to dry. My mobile beeped and I pulled it from my bag. The message icon was blinking so I dialled the number, put the handset to my ear and heard the recorded voice tell me I had one new voice message.

  A clunk. Heavy breathing, and then, in between gulping breaths, ‘Simone, it’s Andi. I’m in big trouble. You’ve gotta come get me or I’m gonna die.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘So who is this chick?’

  Chloe was smoking a Winfield and had the champagne bottle between her legs. We were barrelling down the Nepean Highway in my ’67 Ford Futura, heading for Andi’s place.

  Elvis danced on the dash and the mirror balls and beads on the rear vision mirror shimmied and swayed.

  I told her about Andi contacting me at the Royal, and how I knew her from my childhood. Memories of the time were coming back to me, hazy and fragmented, like a fading dream.

  I remembered overalls, underarm hair, sweat and patchouli, trying to draw the feminist symbol and getting frustrated when I couldn’t get the fist right. I remembered my matchbox cars getting their wheels caught in the seagrass matting and the soft spikes of Mum’s new crew cut under my tiny palm.

  I remembered Andi pulling me around in the wagon, and I remembered her mother, Joy. She was tall and brown skinned with a booming voice and a wild frizz of hair. I couldn’t conjure up any facial features, just huge braless tits undulating beneath a t-shirt that declared: A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle. She’d scared the shit out of me in those days, and I wasn’t sure if it was the boobs, the loud voice, or the way she’d take my mum’s side when I acted up.

  ‘Cut out the tantrum crap, Simone, she’s your mother, not your slav
e.’

  ‘Let me listen again,’ Chloe said. I chucked her the phone and she replayed the message. ‘It cuts straight off after she says she’s gonna die. Can’t hear any background noise but it sounds like she’s in pain. Should we take it to the cops?’

  ‘I dunno, Sherlock. I want to check her place first. Make sure it’s not a wind-up. She’s got a pretty warped sense of humour.’

  ‘I’m gonna die. Who would joke about that?’

  ‘You tell me. You’re the one who reported a fake stalker to the cops so they’d send around a couple of hot guys in uniform.’

  Chloe shook her head and ashed her ciggie out the window. ‘I was bored in those days, young, irresponsible.’

  ‘It was last year!’

  ‘Should I try ringing her again?’

  ‘Go for your life. But it keeps saying the phone’s switched off.’

  Andi’s place was more Ormond than Elsternwick, a dilapidated weatherboard on a street that ran off North Road. In typical student house style the gate was rusted, the garden showcased a comprehensive selection of weeds, and the porch was home to a sagging brown couch and milk crates full of long necked beer bottles. A tatty awning hung from the veranda roof, striped in faded red, yellow and green.

  We got out and slammed the car doors shut. High above us fluorescent pink clouds streaked the steel blue sky. A light wind froze the tips of my ears, flapped the awning and made the long grass hush. The house was dark and quiet and I realised my heartbeat had elevated and my pulse was pumping hard and fast at the base of my throat.

  Chloe crushed her Winfield under her pointy boot and swigged from the bottle.

  ‘Spooky,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you reckon the windows look like eyes?’

  I ignored her, pushed through the rusting wire gate and walked up the concrete path. When I rapped hard on the front door peeling paint fell to the spiky welcome mat.

  ‘Hello? Andi? Anyone home?’ I put my ear to the door but couldn’t hear any movement inside.

  I turned to talk to Chloe but she was already picking her way through the overgrown grass, heels sinking into the dirt, heading for the concrete driveway that led to the back of the house. I hurried after her. The back was similarly overgrown and home to a wonky Hills hoist and a laundry shed with an old washing machine and concrete tub. The fence was corrugated tin and an open gate led to a cobbled back lane where the wheelie bins congregated. A train sighed as it pulled into a nearby station and I could smell charcoal chicken from the shop we’d passed on North Road. Chloe tried to slide the back windows up, to no avail, then pressed her face against the glass.

  ‘Can’t see much. A kitchen, I think. It’s pretty dark. What if she’s, like, dead in there?’

  I flashed back to the time I’d found a body: the staring eyes and tangy metallic smell of blood. I went dizzy and leaned against the Hills hoist for a second.

  Chloe squinted at me. ‘You right?’

  I straightened up. ‘Fine. I’m gonna see if the front windows are unlocked.’

  I walked back around the side to the front porch, trying each one. No go. When I returned Chloe had her face up against the back door, fiddling in the old fashioned keyhole with a rusted piece of wire.

  ‘That shit only works in the movies,’ I said, ‘maybe I should find a brick …’

  She stood back and turned the knob. ‘Ha!’ The door swung in.

  I obviously wasn’t utilising Chloe’s talents enough.

  ‘Where’d you learn that?’

  ‘Wagging school in Frankston, hanging out with Colin and Worm.’

  ‘Worm?’

  ‘He was in and out of holes a lot.’ She stepped back. ‘After you.’

  The gloom inside made the door look like a gaping mouth.

  I felt faint again but forced myself forward. It was ridiculous.

  I didn’t usually scare easily and I’d been in a lot tougher scrapes than walking into an empty house. Christ, it was kindergarten stuff, Private Investigation 101.

  I climbed the concrete steps, crouched and went in low, swinging left and right to check no one was lurking on either side of the door. Chloe snorted behind me, amused.

  ‘You could have gone first,’ I told her.

  ‘And got decapitated by the psycho killer? No thanks.’

  I felt around the walls and hit a switch. Fluorescent tubes flickered and hummed and my pupils constricted in the brightness. It was an old kitchen. Brown laminex cupboards, an ancient gas stove, orange and brown lino in a fussy, hexagonal pattern, lots of dirty dishes in the sink. A bathroom ran off one side and I checked it before I lost my nerve. Brown and orange like the kitchen. A toilet, sink, shower cubicle with frosted glass.

  I wrenched the shower door open. A couple of bottles of Herbal Essences shampoo, a thin sliver of soap, pale blue shower puff hanging off the tap, mould climbing the tiles.

  Chloe stuck close behind me, still clutching the champagne bottle and standing on tippytoes to look over my shoulder. The kitchen and lounge room were separated by a curtain of hanging beads. I clicked through, turned on the light and found myself in a living room furnished with an old cane lounge set, the faded cushions printed with yellow palm fronds and brown bamboo. The carpet was floral and the wallpaper patterned with roses. A small TV sat atop a batik draped pillar, coathanger aerial poking out. I’d done my share house time and would have bet a hundred bucks three milk crates were lashed together under the cloth.

  Doors on either side of the lounge had to be bedrooms.

  I turned the handle on the left one, and when it clicked open I nudged it with my foot so that it bounced off the adjacent wall and I knew no one was lurking behind it. Chloe giggled again. At least she was having fun. The room was neat and looked like it had been filled with a Fantastic Furniture package deal. A navy blue doona covered the wrought iron bed, IT texts and Dungeons & Dragons figurines crowded the bookshelf and five computer monitors were lined up on a huge desk along the far wall. I dropped to my knees and checked under the bed.

  ‘Andi’s room?’ Chloe asked.

  I slid out a stack of Penthouse and Picture magazines.

  ‘I think not.’

  We crossed the lounge and stood outside the door to the second bedroom.

  ‘Can I do this one?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  She turned the handle and kicked so hard her spike heel dented the wood and the door slammed into the wall. I looked at her and she shrugged, took a slug from the champagne bottle and turned on the light. I scanned the room. No bodies. No blood. No staring eyes, thank Christ. My pulse finally returned to normal.

  But Chloe was aghast. ‘Someone’s turned this place over!’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ I gingerly picked my way into the room.

  The futon bed was a jumble of scrunched-up sheets and blankets. An empty beer bottle lay next to it, and a chipped cup with the remains of milky coffee, both balancing on a plate sprinkled with toast crumbs. Books, journals and newspapers covered every available surface and clothes escaped the rim of a wicker washing basket, migrating across the floor in a desperate bid for freedom. ‘I’d say she’s just messy.’

  ‘And I thought you were a slob. At least she has good taste in music.’ Chloe had wandered over to a shelf jammed with books and CDs. ‘Iggy and the Stooges, Radio Birdman, the Ramones. I used to love the Ramones. Back in Frankston.’

  ‘With Colin and Worm?’

  ‘They were more into the Radiators.’

  The only neat things about the room were the empty square on her old wooden desk where I guessed her computer had sat, and her two work uniforms. A length of pipe hung on chains secured to the ceiling, and at the end of a row of jackets the black pants and shirts were pressed and the aprons neatly folded and draped through the hanger. I told Chloe not to move or touch anything with her bare fingers, and stretched the sleeve of my jumper to cover my own as I riffled through Andi’s desk.

  The top drawer contained the usual detritus
: paperclips, rulers, blank CDs. Her completed assignments crammed the next one down and I was quietly impressed that the worst mark she’d got was a distinction. The bottom drawer was stuffed with notes but nothing that appeared to relate to any big hospitality scandal. Her expanding file was overflowing with ancient electricity bills, transcripts, old superannuation statements, receipts, cards, but nothing remotely sinister and nothing that might provide a clue to her whereabouts. Not a single threatening letter composed of cut-out newsprint, no matchbook from a sleazy bar to follow up.

  The bin underneath the desk was empty and the corkboard above blank in the middle, just a few current bills hanging around the edges, a card for a mechanic and hairdresser and a printout of library books she’d borrowed. I checked them off against the list and found one missing. All That Glitters: King’s Cross in the Seventies and Eighties by someone named Chris Ferguson.

  Chloe was crouched down flipping through a photo album with a tissue over her hand, humming ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’. ‘This Andi?’ She held up the album.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘She’s cute. Find any clues?’

  I looked around the room, shaking my head. ‘It’s not what’s here, but what’s not. Computer gone, notes on whatever she was working on, a library book …’

  ‘She could have taken them with her.’

  ‘… bins emptied. Doesn’t square with the rest of the mess.

  She could have done it herself, or maybe someone cleaned the place out.’

  ‘Look at this.’ Chloe carried the photo album over.

  ‘A couple of pages from the end, some photos are gone. You can see the outline of where they were.’

  ‘No shit. You’re turning into a hell of a sidekick, babe.’

  Chloe smiled and did a little wiggle. ‘Thanks.’

  I stared at the noticeboard again. There was a drawing pin in the middle with a minute scrap of photographic paper hanging off it, like a picture had been ripped off.

  ‘You find an address book?’ I asked her.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay. Since we can’t call anyone who might know where she is, we go to the cops. Report her missing, play them the phone message.’