‘Fuck ICAC. Yep, our Damien has a shitload of unpaid parking tickets out on him, plus an unroadworthy citation. As we speak, being followed up by the boys and girls in blue.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Up yours. Good punting.’
This was a reference to the method of payment – a deposit in her TAB account. I hung up and studied my notes. I doubted that Cyn would like what I’d turned up so far, particularly the location. Cyn used to regard Leichhardt as the western suburbs and so beneath contempt.
Homebush was much further west.
I’d never spent much time in Homebush, had hardly ever been out there. Despite the attractive name, as far as I knew – and a quick check of an old Gregory’s confirmed it – the place was a bit of a wasteland. Homebush Bay was muddy and mangrove-ringed; there was a brickworks, an abattoir and a huge rubbish dump in the middle of some secondary-growth bushland. The Flemington saleyards were nearby and it was said that escaped pigs from the saleyards had gone feral on the dump and in the bush and were a risk to life and limb. For many years the pub on Parramatta Road, adjacent to the saleyards, was known as the Sheep Shit Inn.
George Avenue was a short street running uphill. From the top there would once have been a view across the bush towards the dam and what lay beyond, now the view was of hundreds of hectares of development for the Olympic Games. Brand new roads with pristine kerb and guttering gleaming in the rain; towering steel and cement structures resembling, at distance, the Pompidou Centre; massive earthmoving equipment reshaping the terrain; kilometres of orange tape and temporary barriers; vast tracts of bare earth and not a blade of grass in sight. Here and there the past had been preserved. The dam still existed and what looked like the brickworks. Some trees remained, but there was nowhere for a feral pig to hide. Despite the heavy rain the work was still going on. Bulldozers and backhoes were moving and cranes were swinging their loads.
I turned my attention to the undistinguished block of cream-brick flats at number 12. A three-storey 1950s job and showing its age, with rust stains around the drainpipes and moss in the mortar. These days we forget that most people didn’t have cars in the ‘50s and blocks of flats like these made little provision for them. It looked as if there was space for three or four cars at most, the rest would have to park in the street. I wasn’t surprised that the psychedelic van wasn’t in evidence – enquiries are rarely that easy. There were twelve letter boxes and the junk mail sticking out of number 3 wasn’t a promising sign.
Security was non-existent – the ‘50s again – and I walked in the front door, located unit 3 at the back and knocked loudly. Nothing. I pressed my ear to the door but got none of the noises of occupation – voices, radio, TV, vacuum cleaner – just the silence that means empty. The lock was pickable but it was a bit early in the proceedings for that. I knocked at number 4 opposite. No response. Likewise at number 2, but the door of number 1 swung open so quickly that I guessed the occupant had been waiting for me. A looker-outer of windows, an ear to the ground type. That could be good.
She was somewhere between middle-aged and older and trying hard to stay on the right side of the divide. She was medium tall, heavily built but holding it well, with considerable undergarment help, in a short, tight skirt and snug-fitting, ribbed, rollneck sweater. She was expertly made up, her hair was attractively arranged and the way she leaned against the door jamb suggested that standing in doorways wasn’t new to her.
‘I thought you might be here for me,’ she said. ‘But even the shy ones don’t knock on all the other doors first.’
Her broad smile invited me to smile in turn. ‘Not today, I’m afraid, I’d like to talk to you, though.’
‘Cop?’
I shook my head and showed her my licence.
‘Cop,’ she said. She glanced at her watch. ‘Well, I guess my 3.30’s not coming. I can spare you some time. We can see how we go. Come in, Clifford.’
I winced at the name, but it was encouraging that she was a quick study. Stepping into her flat from the shabby passage was like moving from economy up to business class. The room was tastefully and unfussily furnished with just enough touches – velvet cushions, Balinese-looking wall hangings, a waft of incense – to suggest that things could get interesting further inside.
She pointed to a chair but I shook my head and stood just inside the room. She chuckled and dropped smoothly onto the couch, drawing her legs together, knees up high. She had good legs in sheer black stockings. Medium heels. ‘I’m Annette, Clifford,’ she said. ‘From the look of you I’d say you’ve been around, so I’m not going to pretend I’m a chiropodist.’
‘More into counselling?’
She smiled. ‘I’m on the older woman game. If I’d known how profitable and easy it was I’d have taken it up long ago.’
‘Good for you, Annette. Less of the Clifford, if you don’t mind. Cliff’ll do. I’m interested in the tenant of number 3, Damien Talbot.’
‘Mmm. Young. Tall. Good-looking. Long hair. Limps a bit. That him?’
‘Sounds right. He drives a Kombi van painted the colours of the rainbow.’
She snapped her fingers. Her nails were long, red. ‘That’s him. Good. You look like trouble. If I can give him some, I will.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Little shit booked an appointment with me and then couldn’t get it up. I gave him the name of one of those male clinics. He went nuts and tried to stand over me. I won’t take that. My bloke broke one of his thumbs. By accident. That discouraged him.’
This was worse than I’d expected and I sat down to absorb it.
‘Not what you wanted to hear, eh?’
‘No. When was this?’
‘Let’s think. Haven’t seen them for a couple of weeks. Say, three weeks ago.’
I took the photo of Eve from my wallet and showed it to her. ‘When you say them, d’you mean this woman?’
She scarcely glanced at it. ‘Yep, that’s her. Poor kid. She looks like she deserves better than him, but you never can tell’
‘Do you know her name?’
‘No. I never had much to do with them apart from that one time and that was enough for me. Come to think of it I did hear a name. From him, that is. Melly? Molly? Something like that.
‘Well, I can see why you’re worried. About her being with him I mean. Bloody good-looking and charming with it, but a real nasty streak. He speaks well. You know, good grammar and all. But it’s an act.’
‘An act?’
‘Yeah. Like he’s acting and the real him is something else. Look, I love a chat but I’m running a business here. I can’t see how I can help you. They did a flit, the agent tells me, so you won’t get a forwarding address.’
‘Just anything you know could be a help.’
She looked at her watch again. ‘Like what?’
‘Their movements. Did they go to work?’
She laughed. ‘Not likely. Dole bludgers for sure. I mean him. I saw her reading at the bus stop a couple of times. Could be a student.’
‘So, what did they do with themselves? Did they have any friends in the flats here? Is there someone else who might know something?’
She shook her head. ‘Scarcely ever here. Oh, there is one thing. That’s if I’ve still got it. Hang on.’
She went out to the kitchen and came back with a leaflet. ‘She put these in the letterboxes. I stuck it up on the fridge. I hate all that Olympics carry on, but I suppose it’ll be good for business. Take a look.’
The leaflet was cheaply produced, with a grainy photograph showing a narrow tree-fringed waterway. It was headed SAVE TADPOLE CREEK and went on to solicit support for the Friends of the Creek’s on-site picket preventing the diversion and piping of the stream.
‘I haven’t heard anything about this, have you?’
She shrugged. ‘They’ve probably hushed it up. I’ve got a client who works on one of the projects over there. He says you wouldn’t believe the rackets going on. And nobody wants to stir the possum. Look, I’m sorry, but I
