I spent the rest of the morning with Marisha Karatsky, interestedly if not productively. I inspected the room that had been Kristina’s. Marisha had said she’d shown me everything useful on our first meeting, but parents only ever know part of their kids’ stories. The quick look I had confirmed my impression-that the girl I’d been looking for hardly bore any resemblance to the young woman I’d found, and lost. Except for one thing. Kristina had had a hiding place-a gap between the skirting board and the wall. It was only wide enough to contain a few small things-a couple of joints maybe, money, condoms. I probed it with my Swiss army knife and came up with a five dollar note and a card. The card had a name scrawled on it, Karen Bach, and an address. No phone number.
Marisha’s work room was a mass of books, keyboards, screens, tape recorders and other machines I couldn’t identify.
‘Everything is digital now,’ she said. ‘Or will be soon.’
‘So they tell me. I’m barely analogue, myself.’
She laughed. We drank more coffee and made love again.
81
‘I only had two condoms,’ she said afterwards.
‘Just as well. Twice in eight hours is my total limit. Plus I have to go to work.’
My mobile rang in the pocket of my jacket, lying on a chair under her smock. As I bent to find it I realised that I hadn’t been aware of my head hurting for hours.
‘Hardy.’
‘Mr Hardy, this is Detective Sergeant Aronson at Glebe. I believe we’ve met.’
Aronson. I tried to place him, put him in context. A case about a year ago when my investigation of an attempted murder and suicide had crossed with that of the police. We’d remained mutually civil, just. ‘Yes, Sergeant.’
‘I’d like you to come to the station as soon as possible, please.’
Marisha was looking enquiringly at me by this time. I tried to mime business, but probably didn’t succeed. She shrugged and went away.
‘About what?’
‘I’d rather tell you when you get here.’
‘And I’d rather you told me now or at least gave me a hint. Otherwise, I’m on to my lawyer and we talk about it.’
‘Feeling threatened, Hardy?’
I noted the dropped mister and wasn’t surprised. Police courtesy to people in my trade is always skin deep.
‘It’s to do with one Adam Ian MacPherson.’
It seemed a long time ago and a lot had happened since, so my confused response was genuine. ‘I’m not sure-’
‘Come on, Hardy. You were asking about him in a Wollongong pub last night. He was found shot dead in Fairy Meadow today. The locals want to talk to you. They’ve been on to me. I said you were more or less civilised for a bloke in your game and that you’d come in. I’ve got one
of them on his way now.’
‘That wouldn’t be Barton of Bellambi, would it?’
‘Hardy…’
‘I’ll play. Just give me that much.’
‘I remember what a tricky bastard you were, always fucking around to get an edge.’
‘You’d do the same in my place.’
‘I hope to Christ I’m never there. Okay, this isn’t Barton. How long?’
‘An hour.’
‘Pull your finger out-half an hour.’
He hung up-last-word Aronson.
I found Marisha in her work room fiddling with a tape. I put my arms around her from behind and felt the resistance.
‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘That was the police. Something else I’m working on.’
The stiffness went out of her like wine from a bottle. She somehow managed to twist in my arms, turn and get free of the chair. She leaned into me, her small, firm breasts pressing against my stomach. ‘I thought it might be a woman.’
Despite what I’d said earlier, I felt myself responding to the warmth and tautness of her body. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t have a woman.’
I got there forty-five minutes later on the dot. The detectives’ room at Glebe is upstairs, open plan with a couple of interview rooms off to one side. Nothing fancy. Aronson, in his trademark black leather jacket, was sitting in a corner drinking coffee with a man in a suit. Nice suit, too. He stood as I approached but Aronson didn’t.
‘Hardy, this is Detective Inspector Ian Farrow up from the ’Gong. Sir, this is Cliff Hardy, licensed private nuisance. I’ll leave you to it.’
Farrow and I shook hands and he sat down in the chair Aronson had vacated. I took the other one. Farrow was youngish for his rank with fair hair and a fresh complexion. He looked fit, as if he took exercise and ate the right foods. Social drinker at most. He took out a notebook and looked down at it for a second. When he looked up I was blinking at a stab of pain in the back of my head.
‘Something wrong?’
‘Took a knock to the head last night. Hurts a bit. What’d you want from me, Inspector?’
‘You were in Wollongong yesterday and in the Keira Hotel last night enquiring about Adam Ian MacPherson. You left your card with, ah…Margaret Fenton, asking her to give it to him when he came in. She did.’
‘That all sounds correct.’
‘MacPherson’s been murdered.’
I jerked my thumb at Aronson, who was on the phone a few metres away. ‘So he told me.’
‘You don’t seem concerned.’
‘I am. I wanted to talk to him, but I never met the man.’
Farrow looked me in the eye and suddenly he didn’t seem young and fresh-faced anymore. There were lines of experience around his eyes and mouth and a sceptical frown mark between his eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you?’ he said.
I had to smile. ‘Are you new at this?’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘The hard stare and the threatening tone. If you really thought I’d killed him you’d hardly invite me here so politely. And if I had killed him would I be likely to leave him with my card, or be hanging about, having chatted to the barmaid like that?’
‘Good point. No, I think we can say we’re asking you to help us with our enquiries.’
‘That’s usually code for being a suspect. You mean in the true sense of the words?’
‘Exactly.’
I had no real reason to be concerned. My client wasn’t compromised in any way. I gave him a selective version of my investigation for Elizabeth Farmer. Farrow took notes but didn’t seem very interested. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t mention Matilda’s interest in buying the Wombarra block, nor Lucas’s hint about why insurance claims are sometimes settled quickly. If there was a connection between MacPherson’s death and the Farmer matter, I wanted to see it for myself before I let the police in on it. Unfortunately, Farrow was a good actor and he’d been faking.
‘You’re full of shit, Hardy. I’ve spoken to a detective at Bellambi.’
‘Barton,’ I said.
‘Right. He says your client thinks her dad was murdered. You go down and sniff around and the guy who sold the insurance on that particular house gets shot after you shout his name about.’
‘Not exactly.’
‘I doubt that anything’s ever exact with you. You’re slippery. But we’ll try-what did you want to talk to him about?’
‘Look, I was just going by the book. My client hired me to investigate the circumstances of her father’s death. The death was by fire. The house was insured. So you talk to the insurers. Routine.’
He consulted his notes. ‘You talked to the investi-gator-Lucas. What did he tell you?’
‘Nothing much. He signed off on the claim. Couldn’t find anything dodgy. One thing he told me was how to find MacPherson, which was to hang around in that same pub.’
‘Sounds to me as if you were just going through the motions.’
There was contempt in every syllable and I struggled to keep my response under control. I studied Farrow closely and decided that he knew he wasn’t on firm ground. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Aronson watching us. This wasn’t a confrontation I wanted to lose.
‘I’m guessing MacPherson was a drunk,’ I said as I got to my feet. ‘I’m guessing he was sacked by the insurance company and probably had very dirty fingers in lots of pies. You need to find out who killed him. I don’t. So unless there’s something else, I’m out of here.’
‘Intending to go back to Wollongong?’
‘Are you offering me a lift?’
‘Don’t press your luck, Hardy. Obstructing a police investigation is a crime.’
So it is, I thought, but there’s nothing to say I had to help it along. I left, nodding to Aronson as I went. I had things of interest to report to Dr Farmer but not all of them reflected well on me-to get both the Bellambi cops, who’d played a part in the fire investigation, and a senior Wollongong policeman offside wasn’t good going.
Glebe doesn’t quite have the variety of ethnic food Newtown boasts, but it’s not too bad. After my emotionally stirring time with Marisha Karatsky and a three-round no-decision bout with canny Inspector Farrow, I needed some fuel. I bought a can of Guinness at the bottle shop a block from the police station and took it into the Italian joint across the road where I ordered veal parmigiana. It was the sort of meal I bought to impress women in my brief student days-with chianti and Peter Stuyvesant, the height of chic.
By the time I’d finished eating it was after one. I rang Elizabeth Farmer who told me she could see me between classes a little after three o’clock. Not enough time to reconnect with Marisha. Nothing to do but linger over a couple of long blacks and think. Trouble was, I was trying to think of two matters at the same time and as far as I know that can’t be done. So I just drank the coffee.
Dr Farmer had suggested we meet at the coffee shop just across the Broadway footbridge. Said she needed fresh air at that time of the day. The air wasn’t all that fresh, with the traffic flowing past twenty metres or so below, but the breeze was in the right direction at least. I was there first and saw her walking along beside one of the ivy-covered walls. In long blue coat, scarf and boots she looked the part and it occurred to me that Germaine Greer would’ve walked along the same road, probably dressed in much the same way. Forty years ago. This coffee place wouldn’t have existed, nor the footbridge, but not much else had changed.
We went through the she-sits-you-stand routine, and I asked her what she’d have.
‘Long black,’ she said. ‘I’ll be paying, won’t I? You being on expenses.’
‘I don’t always keep the receipts. Might let you off this one.’
The coffee came in plastic cups but tasted okay. She took a drink and leaned back. ‘Had to get out of that room. It’s a bit claustrophobic.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a touch of asbestos around as well.’
She grinned. ‘Thanks. So, Mr Hardy, how do things stand? But first, what happened to your head?’
‘What?’
‘Your hair’s all matted at the back. I notice these things. I look for bald patches, comb-overs…’
I shuddered. ‘Comb-overs. Yeah, I bumped against a wall. Nothing to do with this.’
‘But to do with something. You’ve got a look in your eye. You’re uppish, despite the injury.’
‘I thought you were a doctor of philosophy, not-’
‘You’re right. You’re right.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘Down to tintacks. Shit, what good would tintacks be? Sorry, I’m…Never mind, I haven’t got long, let’s get on with it.’
I filled her in, telling her the things I hadn’t told the police. There’d been no need for her to complete the sentence she’d interrupted. Elizabeth was wired, high on something chemical. There was a brightness to her eyes and a sheen to her smooth skin and her hand, as she raised and lowered the coffee cup, wasn’t entirely steady. Her body was betraying her. Maybe you needed something chemical to survive in the university scene these days. She unwound the scarf and let it hang down. She’d already undone her coat, and now she sat there in a quite cool breeze with nothing between it and her except a silk shirt. But her brain was working and she reacted sharply when I got to the bit about MacPherson being killed.
‘Jesus, is there a connection?’
‘Don’t know. Possibly not. I’d have to find out more about him and what happened.’
‘How would you do that?’
‘I’ve got ways.’
She accepted that but still shook her head. ‘I can’t see it. I can’t see some developer killing two people to get hold of that land. It’s all subject to slip, it’s honeycombed with mine workings.’
‘So Sue Holland said. There’s an entrance on her property.’
She blinked at the name. ‘Mine too. But as well as that, there’s a height limit to any buildings. Where’s the profit?’
‘Why did Matilda offer to buy it?’
‘Just to screw me’s my guess. Pick it up cheap. Although come to think of it, the offer was on the high side. It’s a great spot, as you must’ve seen.’
I nodded. ‘Pretty good. Bit cold under the scarp in winter I bet.’
‘Barbecues, wood fire inside. Lovely.’
‘Could the land have any other value?’
She laughed. ‘I suppose you could grow a lot of dope there, but it’d be a bit obvious. The spotter planes go over all the time and with the yuppies moving in there’d be dobbers galore. In case you’re thinking otherwise, I don’t consider myself a yuppie blow-in. I’ve been going down there for more than twenty years.’
‘You’ll rebuild then?’
‘You bet. Something as close to the original as I can.’
She looked at her watch. ‘I have to get back. You’re not going to stop are you? There must be something behind this.’
‘Sue Holland said zoning could be changed. It’s happened before.’
She shook her head. ‘Not down there. No way. Something else.’
‘I’ll stay with it. I’ll run checks on Matilda, find out what I can about MacPherson, see if there’s some big money around taking an interest. But…no promises.’
‘Fair enough.’ She stood, formidably tall in her boots, and I immediately thought of Marisha Karatsky, who wouldn’t have come up to her shoulder. We shook hands and she wound her scarf back, buttoned her coat. ‘And mind your head.’