‘
All the girls wished they knew Simon.
’
It worried Mak a little that Amy was not answering the home number she had for her. Mak had tried her a couple of times to use the same Rocking Horse Club ruse to confirm her address, but Amy never answered and, even stranger, she had no answering machine or voicemail. What young woman these days didn’t have voicemail? Hopefully the address was up to date, and she would find her at home. And with any luck, Mak hoped, Amy would open up to her.
Marian had organised for Mak to stay at a small St Kilda hotel called the Tolarno. As the taxi pulled up, Mak was surprised to see that the building was a quaint three levels high, and that the front sported a Heineken sign and windows handpainted with swirls of kitsch leaves and a
smiling sun. The name ‘Tolarno’ was painted right across it, so the cabbie was clearly not mistaken. This had to be the right place.
Mak tipped the driver and asked him to wait for her. She didn’t know how much time it might take to catch another taxi, and she always liked to have transportation ready when in unfamiliar territory. It was another of her many paranoid habits.
What, exactly, is this place?
Shoulders back and head high, she strode to the bright red front door, overnight bag in hand, turning the heads of a couple of beer-swilling patrons sitting at picnic benches on the Fitzroy Street sidewalk outside. Stepping inside, she had the feeling that she had been mistakenly dropped off at the entrance to a restaurant by the same name. There were signs for ‘Le Bar’ and ‘Le Bistro’ and a life-sized modern bronze statue of a couple holding hands. No lobby. No porters.
Right.
There were menus propped up on a wooden easel, and signs for the toilets. Mak stood in the entry for a few seconds feeling disoriented before making her way down a meandering hallway, past walls lined with quirky artworks. The passage eventually opened up into a small lobby and sitting room.
This is more like it.
Mak plonked her bag on the desk and checked in. This was her first interstate job for Marian, and
for some reason she had envisaged being booked into a depressing three-star corporate number with bland name-tagged staff, bland halls that smelled vaguely of detergent and cigarettes, and the same bland copied painting of a bouquet in each room. This was an offbeat, retro sort of place, closer to the kind of boutique hotels she had stayed in when she was modelling in Europe. It might have been Australian, but it seemed Euro to Mak, right down to the oversized key, rambling staircase and lack of elevator. Mak found room 222 on the second floor at the end of a big hallway and down an odd set of stairs. Inside was a striking crimson wall and a giant abstract painting of a woman. No flower painting. The room had a good position overlooking the street, the view clear through open wooden slats over the windows. The balcony was exposed; Mak wouldn’t use it.
She closed the slats and peeked out through them secretively. She could clearly see the activity on the street. Her taxi was dutifully waiting for her at the kerb.
Mak brushed her teeth, changed her top, slicked deodorant under her arms, packed her long-lens digital camera, pocket-sized monocular, notepad and mini flashlight into her purse, and dashed out the door again. She had been less than ten minutes.
Soon Mak was in the suburb of Richmond. She found Amy’s home address a few doors past an old television studio in a large brick building
branded with an ancient-looking TVN 9 sign on one side. With few exceptions, the houses in the area looked like wartime shacks: all single-level, with small windows and no yards—far from the sprawling lawns of even the most modest houses on Vancouver Island. Mak let the taxi drive past until she was a block away from Amy’s residence. She paid him, got out and walked back slowly along the street, looking perhaps as if she were on her way to the studio. As she walked she took in the neighbourhood, the movement on the street, and any shrub cover or fences she could use to hide behind if she decided to watch the activity at Amy’s house for a while.
Amy Camilleri did not live terribly well.
The house she rented appeared to be little more than a one-level weatherboard granny flat extended off another modest single-storey residence. Together the two might just make one small house, by most standards. The house did not seem to be very well kept—the white paint of the front had turned grey and patchy—and it looked like it would be very cramped inside. There was a small tangle of weeds where a garden might have been. It had a single window at the front with curtains drawn, and no driveway or garage. Amy had a fifteen-year-old Peugeot registered to her name, but Mak couldn’t see it parked in the surrounding area. At least the lack of garage was good for Mak’s spying purposes, as was the clear view of the front door.
The curtains were drawn and motionless. The house looked to be unoccupied, which was terribly disappointing for Mak. She took a chance and knocked quietly on Amy’s door. There was no answer. Discreetly, she peered into the mailbox next to the door. It was positively stuffed full of mail, junk mail, advertising flyers and letters. An unopened telephone bill was visible.
She walked around to the side of the house. There was barely a foot between the house and the next one, and nothing in between them but more weeds and a rusted hubcap. She could not comfortably walk between the buildings.
Shit.
Mak circled the block once by foot, noticing that the houses were backed by a narrow laneway of parked cars and rubbish bins. She strolled down it until she came to the back of Amy’s house. It had one back door and no other windows.
The place really is a dump.
She approached Amy’s garbage bin. She was not above lifting the lid on it, and she did so slowly, with her nose turned up in distaste. She had been taught in her PI course that trash could reveal a lot about a person. Empty champagne bottles and shopping bags said very different things about a person’s lifestyle than a bin full of diapers and bulk potato-chip packets. It was creepy, but still totally legal to search through
anyone’s garbage bins. Sadly, though, Amy’s trash had been collected recently. Mak found herself staring for a moment into a smelly, empty bin and wondering how she got from catwalking in the Milan shows to checking out other people’s garbage in only a couple of years.
Ah well. Half those outfits were garbage anyway…
And when she finally saved enough to open her forensic psychology practice, the only garbage she would have to check through would be in people’s heads, she assured herself.
So Amy Camilleri had lots of mail and no garbage. That was not what Mak had come to Melbourne to find out. She guessed that Amy had not been home for at least a week, so the trip might be a bust. She’d have to come back with some kind of result, otherwise it would look like she had simply gone to Melbourne as a holiday to visit Loulou on the client’s budget. Which was something that had crossed her mind…
Mak wondered again if the client would cover a rental car. If she had needed to stake out Amy’s place, it would be much easier and more comfortable in a parked car; but, now that it seemed that Amy had not been home for a while, such plans were pointless. Amy could be away for some time.
Disappointed but not discouraged, Makedde Vanderwall returned to her hotel to get ready for her dinner date with Loulou and her new
musician boyfriend. She was not worried just yet. She had at least one more trick up her sleeve.
But the next stage of her investigation could not begin until the sun went down.
Simon Aston held himself stiffly as he stepped out the front door of his Tamarama abode, gripping the handle of a heavy briefcase that was not his own. He nervously scanned the beach paths and glanced up the street in both directions before locking the front door behind him and approaching his vehicle. The sun was beginning to set, the air cooling. Locals in board shorts and bikinis could be seen gathering their blankets and packing up for the walk home, bodies tanned and sprinkled with salt and sand.
Wasting no time, Simon strode to his prized nocturnal ‘party van’, placed the briefcase carefully on the passenger seat and set off for the city. A young man normally unhindered by schedules and commitments, Simon was, for once, mindful of the time. The American had instructed him earlier that afternoon that at six o’clock sharp he was to meet with Mr Hand to give him cash and instructions. It was five-forty now, which allowed him just enough time to get to this important appointment. Some cash was in the
briefcase, and a set of instructions was in a sealed envelope in his jacket pocket. When The American had entrusted him with the envelope it was already sealed and the case locked. Simon didn’t dare open either, and he dared not be late delivering them.
Truthfully, he had been severely shaken by the shocking turn of events.
Since the tense meeting in Jack Cavanagh’s office, Simon had not spoken to anyone except The American—not even his mates—and he had not slept. Rather than attending an all-night party with Damien or bedding the latest hot model, visiting socialite or ambitious promotions girl, Simon had spent this last sleepless night at home alone, intensely uneasy about his future. Fear and uncertainty were not feelings he was accustomed to, and the vibe didn’t sit well with him. Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, all kinds of ideas had run through Simon’s head—everything from fear of jail to ideas of blackmail and escape. He’d thought about using what evidence he had to dob in Jack and his pushy sidekick to the cops, or teaming up with Warwick to try to bring the Cavanagh empire to its knees through blackmail or scandal. Both the media and the authorities would have a field day with a story like this one, and Simon could deliver the whole sordid tale personally. After The American had met with him that afternoon, he had even briefly imagined breaking open the case, taking all that
money and leaving town with it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars could get him somewhere—maybe to a comfortable new life in Bali…
But no.
Simon was no model citizen. He had not so much a skeleton in his closet as a whole crypt, so he was hardly going to speak to any police or reporters. And he knew he had nowhere to run to. Even the money in the case would not sustain him.
He had no choice but to try to salvage the situation, even if it meant being pushed around by Damien’s father. Simon needed Damien and his Cavanagh connections for everything he did in his life.
Unlike most of his friends, Simon didn’t have a title or an impressive career. He was little more than a part-time procurer who dealt in the occasional weed or cocaine, hookers or heroin—whatever people were into. As he saw it, he was not exactly a drug-dealer; he was just a guy who got stuff for Damien and their friends when they wanted it. And, while not a full-time job by any description, the money he made from those casual transactions was all the income he had. He had his looks, the designer clothes on his back and his Cavanagh connections, and those three things were literally his only assets. Even his van was on lease.
Without wealthy friends who wanted to party, Simon could kiss his little money-making ventures goodbye. And without Damien he could kiss his
living arrangements goodbye, too. The Tamarama house he stayed in belonged to the Cavanagh family. It was one of the standard late-seventies buildings of the area with a great view and bad plumbing, and the family was going to knock it down, rebuild and resell it. Damien had talked his father into letting Simon live there in the meantime. So far, Simon had stayed blissfully rent-free for the past two-and-a-half years.
Being cut off would mean disaster for him on every level. It would mean social and financial suicide, and he knew it.
It is your responsibility to make it right
, Jack had said.
Responsibility had nothing to do with it, however; Simon would do what he needed to retain his lifestyle.
At one minute past six, Simon Aston arrived at the Inter-Continental Hotel on Macquarie Street in the city, leaving his van with the valet and telling him he wouldn’t be long. He
hoped
he wouldn’t be long. He didn’t fully know what this meeting would entail, but he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.
Simon entered the sliding glass doors with his head down.
‘Simon? Is that you?’ came a voice.
He whirled around, his heart pounding. It was Julie from the Cavanagh offices.
‘Um, hi, Julie,’ he said, completely unprepared to run into anyone he knew.
‘Are you feeling okay?’ she asked, looking at him oddly.
‘Sure,’ he said. A trickle of sweat ran down from his temple.
‘Is Damien around?’ she asked, casting a glance around the lobby.
‘No! No, he’s not here. I’m just, um, meeting a client,’ he stuttered.
‘Oh. Why don’t you guys meet us up in the club lounge for a drink, then?’
‘Okay. Um, I gotta go,’ he said vaguely. She seemed puzzled as he walked away through the lobby towards the elevators.
Minutes later, it was with great apprehension that Simon knocked on the door of room 2908. ‘Excuse me,’ he said through the door, feeling hugely uncomfortable. ‘I’m here for Mr Hand.’
He waited only a few seconds before a deep voice replied from the other side of the door: ‘The time.’
Simon looked at his watch out of instinct.
‘Eleven eleven,’ he said. He’d been told it was a code.
Then the door was unlocked and opened only enough to set it slightly ajar, so that it wouldn’t slide back and lock itself. After a quick pause, Simon pushed it open and stepped inside. The door shut behind him and he was alone, holding the briefcase and the small envelope containing
the unknown instructions for Mr Hand. His heart was in his throat.
From what he could see, room 2908 looked to be an average five-star hotel room, complete with double bed, television and small sitting area. The room was dark, except for a floor lamp in the far corner. Simon guessed it would have a nice aspect of Sydney Harbour, but an opaque blind was obscuring the view. Light seeped through the heavy blinds in blurred patches of colour.