Marisha Karatsky and I clutched each other, fighting for balance. She’d been sitting on the step and I’d blundered into her in the dark.
‘Marisha, what the hell…?’
‘Don’t be angry. I can explain everything. But you must help me. He’s going to take her away.’
She was clinging to me with a strength I wouldn’t have expected. She wore dark clothes, helping to explain why I hadn’t seen her. I wasn’t as much in control as I’d thought-coming down, but still in a heightened state of alertness and apprehension after what had happened at the casino, and the smell and feel of her confused me. I found myself holding her, drawing her close to me.
‘Oh, Cliff…’
I wanted to forget all about runaway teenagers, and Swedish pimps and cops and men with shotguns, and take her inside and carry her up the stairs. I fought the feeling down.
‘Marisha, it’s dangerous here. There’re things going on. I can’t explain. I have to grab some stuff and leave.’ There was no way she was going to allow it. She gripped my arm and her fingers bit hard. ‘Together. We go together and then you can help me.’
I didn’t have time to argue. With her still holding on, I made it to the door, opened it and lurched inside.
‘This has to be quick,’ I said. ‘The police are probably on their way and other people who’ll try to kill me. If you stay with me you’re in the same kind of trouble.’
‘I’ll stay.’
‘Keep out of the doorway then. I’m collecting stuff. You can go through to the next room and the kitchen and grab anything you want. Two minutes!’
I went up the stairs three at a time and into the bedroom. I collected some clothes and stuffed them in an oversized tennis bag. From the spare room the laptop went into the bag along with the Smith amp; Wesson from a locked drawer. I went back down and grabbed things from the bathroom. Marisha was standing in the kitchen drinking wine from a tumbler.
‘We’ve gotta go,’ I said.
She shoved the corked bottle into her big shoulder bag and followed me to the door without a word. I left lights burning, activated the alarm and closed the door.
‘Have you got a car?’
She shook her head and I propelled her towards the Falcon. She slid into the seat. I slung my bag into the back and took off.
‘Where are we going, Cliff?’
‘I haven’t worked that out yet. Just going.’
‘The police are after you?’
‘Not exactly. Can you keep quiet for a bit, Marisha? I have to think.’
‘You tell me to be quiet when my daughter’s life is in danger. Is your other business more important than that?’
I realised that I was driving poorly and aimlessly, a sure way to be spotted by the cops who certainly had my registration number. My usual point of refuge, the Rooftop Motel in Glebe, had closed down. More redevelopment. I thought about the University Motor Inn-quiet and secluded in a one-way street, which was why it had appealed to Sallie-Anne Huckstepp and her lovers in days gone by. Bad idea. The cops would canvas motels within a few kilometres of my house as a matter of routine.
I turned onto Bridge Road, went past the old, defunct Children’s Hospital, and made the turn that would take me up to Annandale and Leichhardt. I was thinking about Wesley Scott’s gym on Norton Street and the flat nearby that Hank Bachelor, who’d worked for me on other cases, had recently rented. Still bad thinking. Both connections were too easily tracked. I lost concentration, almost stalled the car, and stopped outside a fast-food joint in Annandale. Marisha looked at me.
‘You’re hungry?’
‘No, I’m conflicted. Marisha, you’re an actor. Kristina’s an actor. You’re both very good, but I don’t think I can believe anything you say. You lied to me at the beginning and you’re probably lying now.’
‘Who have you been talking to?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘A woman named Karen Bach who knew your daughter at school… and after.’
‘I don’t know her. You believe her?’
‘I don’t know what to believe and I don’t think I care.’
She put her hand on my thigh. ‘You cared when we made love.’
‘I think you were using me. I think that’s what you do. What you’re doing now.’
She moved her hand away and pushed back against the seat, banging her head against the headrest. ‘All right. All right. Let the poor little junkie, hooker bitch die. What does it matter? And let her randy, reffo mother go mad. Who cares?’
Despite all the pressure and tension, I burst out laughing. ‘Marisha, they’re the worst lines I’ve ever heard spoken by a real live person. You must have translated them from some Mexican movie.’
She went rigid and for a second I thought she was going to attack me; then she shook her tangle of hair and let out a long, slow breath. A throaty chuckle followed.
‘Yes, I went too far there.’
‘I was right, then. This is all a game?’
She sighed, pulled the wine bottle from her bag, uncorked it and took a swig. ‘Not very ladylike, but then, I’m not a lady.’
I took the bottle and had a drink. ‘And I’m not a gentleman. Tell me what’s going on or you’re out of this car right now.’
‘I knew Kristina would be with Stefan but I didn’t know where. I thought you might find them both.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you. Why did you disappear?’
‘You won’t believe me.’
‘Try me.’
‘Kristina phoned me and asked to meet. She insisted that I come alone. She specifically said not to tell you or bring you and then she gave me… what is it? The runaround.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Oh, I know you won’t believe this, but it’s true. As in the movies. I was to go to a place and phone her. Then to another. I suppose they were watching me all the time. I got lost. I was frightened. It was terrible, Cliff.’
‘And what was the upshot?’
‘What’s that word you used-conflicted? I was. I’m guessing that this Karen Bach is another prostitute and she told you I used Kristina to lure Stefan. More lies from Kristina. It’s not true. It was all much more complicated than that.’
I could get my head around that, just. ‘You didn’t answer the question.’
‘Yes, all right. I met her. I didn’t really recognise her. She was so different. So …It doesn’t matter now. She has a passport. Stefan has taken her to New Zealand.’
‘Marisha, she’s fifteen!’
‘No. She turned sixteen. Yesterday.’
A fine rain had started to fall as we were speaking and Marisha was sobbing quietly. I watched the windscreen fog up from our breath and body heat and become opaque as the rain fell, more insistently now. On the one hand, I wanted to analyse and evaluate what she’d told me; on the other, I just wanted to believe her. The doubt produced another question.
‘So why did you come to my place tonight and…put on that act?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘I know fuck-all, and that least of anything.’
The sobbing slowed, then stopped. ‘I wanted to be with you.’
I grunted and shook my head.
‘Cliff, didn’t it mean anything?’
‘It did, and then it didn’t.’
‘Because of what Karen Bach told you?’
‘I suppose so. I don’t know.’
‘I’ve told you the truth.’
‘Give me the bottle.’
She handed it over and I drained it, hoping to get some kind of a charge. Didn’t happen. ‘Marisha, your daughter, you say, has gone off to another country with a paedophile pimp. And you…’
She turned her face towards me. It was wan under its olive tint, tear-stained and makeup streaked, but there was life and hope in her huge dark eyes. ‘She told me she didn’t hate me. She said she loved me. She said she’d write and phone and that she’d see me again soon. My daughter.’
If she had gone on about wanting me, I might have pushed her out into the rain. But now I wanted strongly to believe her. She had the look I’d seen before-when I’d located a runaway and brought him or her home. The hopelessness, displayed in the speech and body language of the parents, vanished in an instant on the doorstep and their world was back as something manageable, or almost, at least for now.
‘That’s good,’ I said.
We sat quietly for a time while the rain beat on the car roof. I realised that, for all the deception and doubt and much of it not dispelled, I was glad she was there.
‘So,’ she said, ‘you know I am what is called a drama queen.’
I grinned. ‘You are indeed.’
‘Tell me why you are running away from your house.’
‘It’s complicated. It’s this other business I’ve been dealing with. I have to stay out of sight and try to work out what to do next. The police know where I live, so do the bad guys, probably. They know this car.’
‘Do they know of your connection to me?’
‘No.’
‘You could do your thinking at my place.’
I was about to say no as a matter of instinct-emotional complication was the last thing I needed-when my mobile rang. I made an apologetic gesture to Marisha and answered it, expecting the cops or worse.
‘Hardy.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Dr Farmer, I’m sorry. I was going to call you. It’s been a hell of a night. I had to leave Tania at the casino. She had plenty of money to get home. Isn’t she-?’
‘No, she fucking isn’t. Who did you leave her with?’
‘What?’
‘I’m speaking English, aren’t I? You’re not telling me you left her standing at a roulette wheel with a pile of chips in her hand.’
‘No. She was playing the poker machines and she’d struck up a conversation-’
‘With a woman?’
‘Yes, an Aboriginal woman named-’
‘I don’t want to know her fucking name. Aboriginal. Jesus. Well, thank you very much.’
She cut the connection and I stared blankly at the phone.
‘Dr Farmer,’ Marisha said. ‘Your other client?’
‘Right.’
‘An angry man?’
‘An angry woman.’
‘That’s worse. Come on, Cliff. It’s a terrible night. You look troubled and you don’t know what to do next. Have you got a better offer?’