Earthly Delights Part 9

'I need to check the residents' committee's list of owners,' I said. 'And I need to do it now. Can you help me? There will be Arctic Death in it for you when the liquor shop opens,' I hinted. He brightened right away.

'This way, and we'll just find it. You want a printout?'

I nodded. Gully sat down at a terminal-the apartment was lined with terminals-and found the right disc. Then there was that brief magician's flourish of fingers which marks the really experienced geek, and a printer began to whirr. I grabbed the 121.

paper. I was there and so was Trudi, but under her present name, Johanson. Meroe was listed as Meroe and the flat in which Kylie and Goss lived was under Kylie's father's name. Wherever Mr Fruitcake had got his information, it hadn't been here.

'Thanks, Gully,' I said, and rose to go. Then I had a thought. 'If you wanted to find out what people were called twenty years ago, how would you do it?'

'From publicly available information? No hacking?'

'No hacking. This man is just about able to press "enter". If that.'

'I don't know,' said Gully. 'I'll have to think about it. Ask Taz, perhaps. Can I get back to you?'

'A six-pack for any helpful leads,' I told him, and went out. Although Hephaestus wasn't actually dirty, because the boys had a cleaner in once a week, it smelled too strongly of old pizza, ancient tacos and long worn sneakers for comfort.

When I got out into the street Senior Constable White was just about to buzz my buzzer. I grabbed her arm and she shook me off.

'I have to talk to you,' I said. 'Last night-'

'Can we get off the street?' she said. She had a plastic folder in her arms.

'Yes, of course, come into the lobby. When I came in last night-'

'At what time?' she asked.

'Four am.'

'Were you alone?'

'No,' I said. I lost any urge to volunteer further information. Ms White was not in a merry mood and she was snarling at me as though I had personally offended her. This could go one of two ways, I realised. I could retreat into just answering the question and thus possibly leave out some useful fact which might help find Mr Nutcase. She, sensing that I was holding back, would become more aggressive. Making me more defensive. And so on. Or I could try to break through this formal dance and make some sense of the situation. I shut the door behind us and sat down on the corner of the impluvium. The fish, I was glad to see, were still alive and the water was clear. Their recent food supplement had not disagreed with them so far.

'Shall we start again?' I asked, making my voice slow and gentle. 'We seem to have got off on the wrong foot. h.e.l.lo, Senior Constable White, I'm so glad to see you, I'm scared and so is every other woman in this building and we hope that you can help us. We have a madman and he's escalating.'

She stared at me for a full minute. As the seconds ticked past, I wondered if you could be arrested for being too friendly to a police officer. She had tired brown eyes with shadows under them and a disciplined mouth, tucked in firmly at the corners like a hospital bed. Then, at last, when I had begun to think of who I could call for a bail application, Senior Constable White sighed, almost smiled, and took a deep breath.

'Tell me all about it,' she said, sinking down on the edge of the fishpond.

'When I came in last night in company with Daniel Cohen, after going out on the Soup Run and meeting Sister Mary-what a woman!'

'So she is,' agreed Lepidoptera.

'Someone had splashed what I thought was blood all over the lobby. Daniel found that it was actually tomato sauce. There must have been litres of it. Written on the wall in what I thought was blood was "Death to the unchaste". In that same childish handwriting, I might add. I know you're going to be cross with us but we mopped up the sauce and cleaned off the inscription.'

'I would be cross but I'm too tired and in any case I might have done the same if it was my place,' she said. 'Lucky it was you who found it and not, say, one of those girls.'

'My thought exactly. Or Trudi, who has a bad heart, or Mrs Pemberthy, who would still be having hysterics. It was obviously meant to be found on Sunday morning when our more respectable tenants go to church. It really did look ghastly.'

'I'm sure it did,' she said soothingly. Senior Constable White would have seen enough real blood to fill the lobby and probably wouldn't have turned a hair.

'Then when I talked to Trudi this morning, she gave me a letter which she'd received. The same as the others. If you'd like to come to my apartment I'll show you the others.'

'Purpose of visit,' she said briskly.

When she was seated at the kitchen table I fetched the folder and added Trudi's letter.

'Sorry about the muddy fingerprints,' I said. 'Trudi's a gardener. But the strange thing is that she says she hasn't been Gertrud Maartens for years. Neither has Meroe been Miriam Kaplan. I checked the list of tenants on the residents' committee records and the two girls aren't listed at all. The apartment belongs to Kylie's father, of course.'

'Strange,' said Senior Constable White. She had accepted my offer of a cup of coffee and a coffee scroll and now she made up her mind to share some information. 'Here's Mistress Dread's letter,' she said, opening her plastic folder. 'I'm not showing you this and I'm sure that you will never refer to it outside this room,' she added firmly.

'Scout's honour,' I agreed. The letter was the usual script and layout. It was addressed to Anthony George Davis. Well, that answered that question.

'How long has Ms Dread been, well, Ms Dread?' I asked.

'More than ten years,' said the police officer.

'So what do you make of this?' I asked. 'Has Mr Nutcase got the info from an old source? Pa.s.sports, perhaps?'

'Maybe, but I don't think that it's a mistake,' she said, sipping coffee. 'I think this is a mind game. You have to forget everything you ever saw on Silence of the Lambs and read in Patricia Cornwell. Serial killers aren't masterminds. They're nasty little mean-minded b.a.s.t.a.r.ds with dreams of blood. They act out of obsession, not out of deep planning, and they don't leave Agatha Christie clues. I've met several and they're as boring as people who describe the tuppeny Norwegian unfranked blue stamp, except that they're talking about corpses. That's all they think about. Power. Their plots keep them warm at night and their secret obsession makes them think they're better than anyone else. They think they're superman. That's why they fall apart when they're caught. Their whole world is shattered. Their private scenario has been changed. They can't take it. This fruitcake is behaving like a stalker. By coming up with your old ident.i.ties he's saying "I know all about you, you can't escape me, ha ha." The nasty little s.h.i.t. Any more coffee in that pot?'

'Plenty.' I poured and she sipped.

'The trouble is that there's not a lot we can do,' she said. 'I'm being frank with you now, Ms Chapman. So far all we've got is a lot of letters, which would be the basis of a charge of threat to kill, and some property damage by tomato sauce. In a magistrates' court that would get someone with a good solid psych report a bond.'

'That's outrageous!' I exclaimed. She shook her head.

'No one's been harmed,' she said. 'Threats break no bones. I'll put the letters into forensic but I doubt they'll find anything. If you get another, don't handle it, slide it into a plastic sleeve. Then we might be cooking if we can find the owner of the fingerprints, if there are any fingerprints, and even the lone loony these days knows to wear gloves.'

'So, what do you suggest?' I asked. 'We just wait until someone gets murdered?'

She shrugged. 'You need to stay alert but not alarmed, as the prime minister says. So far this nutter hasn't hurt anyone. I'll keep looking,' she said. 'I've put out a call for known nutters. But what with the heroin deaths and the Keep Melbourne Clean people and the press, we haven't got a lot of people to spare. I'm only on this because my sergeant doesn't like me. He doesn't want me on the heroin task force so he's sent me to investigate this to keep me out of his hair.'

'I didn't think there were still bosses like that,' I sympathised.

'Sure are. Well, thanks for the coffee. I'm going to talk to all the other women in this building and make sure everyone knows they're in danger. A bit of a warning goes a long way, I always think.'

She got up to leave. She hadn't said anything about Daniel. I had a question.

'Did the lab find out what was killing the junkies?'

'Yes,' she said, after taking a moment to underline that she was imparting privileged information. 'No rat poison, no speed. Just pure heroin. Far too pure. Something like thirty per cent. Known in the trade as a hot shot. Too rich for our junkies' blood. Our street heroin at the moment is about three per cent. The rest of the mob is out rousting every informer we've got, trying to find out if someone is selling it or whether we've got a revenge murderer or the Lord knows what. One thing at least on this case, the company is better.'

'Thank you,' I said, and saw her out.

So, the police weren't going to be able to do much about our madman. We might have to do it ourselves. Now I was bound by a promise to myself. I had to go and see Holliday, who might even remember me, and at least say h.e.l.lo.

I was not looking forward to this at all.

I searched around for a present, found a really good fruit cake and sliced it. It is made by a friend in Shepparton. She always stuffs it full of the rarer dried fruits, like dried cherries and cantaloupe, as well as the thin connecting fabric of b.u.t.ter and flour which binds it together. I decided to call on the Professor first for some words of wisdom. When I got to Dionysus I found that he already had visitors. I was about to excuse myself when he invited me in in such a marked manner that I went. Never argue with a man carrying a stick.

Oh dear. Mr and Mrs Pemberthy and Traddles. They were sitting on the Roman couches as though they were missionaries who had strayed into a cannibal convention. Mrs P was scraggy, blue-haired and vehement. She wore bright pink lipstick mostly on her mouth and had the terribly white teeth of one who soaks them at night. Traddles was a silky terrier so fat that his feet hardly touched the ground. He had bald patches, a nasty temper and a disapproving manner. Other than that he was a nice little doggy. Mr P was a dim shadow. He was balding and self effacing. I believe he had once been a lay preacher and something in a bank but had retired long ago. Spiritually, he still wore a grey cardigan with leather patches on the sleeves.

A nice congregation to walk into on a Sunday. I gave the Prof a reproachful glance and he smiled his Juvenalian smile.

I set down my cake plate and said h.e.l.lo to Traddles, who snapped at me and missed.

'Oh, it's you, Corinna,' said Mrs Pemberthy without any pleasure. 'Did that insolent policewoman visit you as well?'

'Senior Constable White, yes, I spoke to her,' I said. 'Why do you say "insolent"? She seems to know what she's doing and this is a nasty situation.'

Mrs Pemberthy reached over her shoulder without looking and Mr Pemberthy put a fresh linen handkerchief into her hand. He never raised his eyes, though occasionally I could see his sad grey moustache whiffling.

'She said that someone was sending letters alleging unchast.i.ty to the women in this building,' said Mrs Pemberthy. 'No one has ever suggested that I was unchaste!'

'I'm not sure that anyone's said that to Trudi either,' I said. 'Or Meroe or the girls or me. It's some madman. We need to be on our guard. That's what Ms White was doing here.'

'I'm leaving,' she shrilled. 'If it wasn't for Traddles I'd be leaving at once. He so hates being moved to kennels, poor dear. They don't understand him. No one understands him but his mother. Doesn't she, my darling?' There followed some ritual acts of dog worship which even Traddles seemed to find embarra.s.sing. He wriggled out of her perfumed embrace. Mrs P continued, 'I'm not staying here where someone can say such a thing about me!'

'Now, dear,' soothed Mr Pemberthy. 'You know you're not well.'

'Peripheral neuritis,' said Mrs Pemberthy proudly, as though this conferred some credit on her choice of disease. 'My specialist is quite puzzled. He says I'm an interesting case. But I'm leaving this place. No, we shall sell this apartment and find another in a nice new building where such things do not happen. And that's my last word on the matter!' she said, and Mr Pemberthy said, 'Yes, dear.'

One got the impression that he said that a lot. Mrs P rose and left. She trailed a cloud of very expensive perfume, in which she must have been bathing. Traddles had a go at my ankle as he left, and missed again-his aim was off. Then Mr P, refusing to look at either of us. Poor man. He probably liked it here and didn't want to move. It didn't sound like he was going to get a lot of choice in the matter, though. What Mrs P said clearly went.

'Phew,' said Professor Dion.

'Phew,' I agreed. 'Have some fruit cake. I'm just off to say h.e.l.lo to a man whose daughter ran away and was never found and I was hoping for some pointers.'

'That would be dreadful,' he said, stroking his neat, trimmed beard. 'Death is one thing, it's final, you know the person has gone and is not coming back and therein lies the wound. But just run away, might be alive, might be dead. Uncertainty has nothing going for it.'

'Amen,' I agreed. 'Take some cake. I've got to go and see poor Holliday, and he probably isn't hungry.'

'It's another of the corporeal works of mercy,' he said, sounding a little like Sister Mary. 'How did the Soup Run go?'

'Grand guignol,' I said. 'All it needed was gas lights and it would have been an engraving by Dore. I never thought such things happened in a civilised city.'

'Civilisation is as thin as a cigarette paper,' he told me. 'The Romans knew that, and the Greeks. We have forgotten it.'

'Indeed,' I said, and went off to Holliday's apartment, Daphne. I rang the bell. The door opened.

'h.e.l.lo,' I said. 'You might remember me-Corinna? My ex-husband James mentioned you when I was dining with him last night.'

He was a fattish man, dark shadows under his eyes, heavy alcoholic breath at two in the afternoon. Clearly after his daughter had run away he had hit the bottle and it was now hitting back. He blinked.

'James's wife? Aren't you called Yvonne?'

'No, that's his present wife. I'm the original. I live here. James said you had moved in and I thought I'd come and say h.e.l.lo.'

'h.e.l.lo,' he said vaguely.

The door was open so I went in.

The walls were flanked with boxes. I knew how depressing all those boxes were. You stacked and put away and stacked and put away and at the end of a fifteen hour unpacking spree, there were just as many boxes as you had had at the beginning and you still couldn't find (1) the floor or (2) the frying pan. You could always detect the recently unpacked by the way they refused a packing box at the supermarket. The sort of reaction you expect from a shipwreck survivor asked for some helpful comments on tides. It had only taken me three days to unpack when I moved in, because I had an unpacking party and laid on quite a lot of wine. Some of the things were later found in interesting places-I still don't know who put my envelopes in the freezer-but at the end you can do a merry box flattening dance and get rid of the b.u.g.g.e.rs along with all those empty bottles.

Holliday had unpacked as far as finding the scotch, a gla.s.s, a packet of cigarettes, an ashtray and the TV. One armchair was set in front of it. I turned another the right way up and sat down on it.

'I don't even know your first name,' I said. Those cigarettes were beckoning. Come to us, they said. You remember us.

I did remember them. My love affair with tobacco had been long and pa.s.sionate. Holliday stopped standing by the door and slumped back into his armchair. His hand groped for the remote. Then he spoke. 'Andy,' he said, in answer to my question, which had crept its way along his synapses until it found one which still fired.

'Give me a smoke,' I said. Oh, Corinna, called my conscience. You have failed! 'And tell me. Are you happy here just drinking yourself to death, or would you like some food?'

'Food?'

I sat still and smoked that cigarette down to its b.u.t.t and I felt wonderful. Slightly dizzy, but wonderful. Then I went into the kitchen, which was bare of any comforts but the drinker's friends, Berocca and coffee. Instant coffee. A big box on the floor marked 'kitchen' yielded five shirts, a book on regional wines and a handful of cutlery. One under it gave me a saucepan, a tin of gourmet game soup and a box of matches from The Club. I didn't want to know what sort of club it was. I made the soup according to the label and then rummaged for a cup or bowl. I found three in the parlour in a box marked 'misc'. Andy Holliday hadn't moved a muscle.

When I came back I put the mug in his hand and said, 'Drink the soup,' and he drank the soup. Possibly I was copying my manner from Mrs Palmer, a strong-minded nurse who definitely had the Prof 's auctoritas. I made him drink some more soup and then have a cup of coffee with a piece of fruit cake. He was starting to sober up.

His hand crept to his pocket and he showed me a picture of a sharp-featured girl in disco gear. She was very blonde with narrow eyes and strong bones. She was tickling Andy Holliday with a long feather and laughing. Andy looked much younger, almost as I remembered him.

'That's her,' he said. I had never heard a voice so defeated.

'What's her name?' I asked.

'Cherie. She was Daddy's darling,' he said. 'And then she ran away.'

'How old is she here?' I asked.

'Fourteen. That was three years ago. I looked for her. I'm still looking. She went off at night without leaving a note and-and ...' he dried up. 'My wife didn't believe her, you see, Tina wouldn't believe what Cherie said about her uncle. And it didn't seem possible, did it, such a nice man, so fond of children? I told her I didn't believe her and she ran away and she never came back.'

He started to cry.

'Was it true?' I asked.

He wiped at his streaming nose. I gave him a tissue. 'Oh yes, it was true all right. He was caught molesting his other nieces-my brother had enough sense to believe what his daughter said and he caught him at it, actually caught him in the act-and now he's in jail and I hope he never comes out because if he does I will kill him. And his sister, my wife, Cherie's mother, for G.o.d's sake, she stuck by him, said it was because of their own father. I divorced the stupid b.i.t.c.h. But my innocent daughter, my darling Cherie, she went away and I never saw her again.'

'And how have you tried to find her?'

'I was on Australia's Most Wanted,' he said with faint pride. 'I paid a fortune to a private detective but these kids never get onto the records and half of them use false names. He came up empty, said he'd be wasting my money if he went on. Nice guy, ran an agency called "The Open Eye". He said she wasn't dead, at least no body matching hers had been found, she was not an unclaimed body or in hospital under her own name, and hadn't applied for a pa.s.sport or got a learner's permit. I was going to teach her to drive,' he mourned.

He lit another smoke from the b.u.t.t of the previous one and I didn't. My conscience faded out, nagging as she went. I wasn't going back to being an addict. I merely liked the occasional taste.

'So you're just going to sit here and sink into melancholy,' I commented as lightly as I could. I couldn't imagine what this sort of pain was like. I had lost Horatio for two days once, when he got shut in a house which was being renovated, and I had suffered agonies imagining him dead or maimed. That had only lasted two days. This had lasted three years.

'The guy said that she was most probably in or around the city, not in St Kilda or in a brothel or ma.s.sage parlour, where they have to keep records. So I'm going to put out posters. When I get a little more organised.' He looked around helplessly at the mountains of boxes.

'I'll see if I can send you some help,' I said. Meroe would be perfect at unpacking, divining what was in each box by touching it. I was sure that I could ask her for some help for this human wreck. The karmic benefits would be huge.