very successful writer,’ I said. “Went on from journalism into-’
Madeline Ozal’s hand-waving dismissal was like a signal to take your own life without a moment’s regret. ‘I don’t want to hear about it. I know all about her prizes and husbands and real estate holdings. She was a slut and the world’s a better place without her.’
‘I’m confused. I’m not used to dealing with celebrities, alive or dead. What-?’
She reached out and grabbed the twenty-year-old magazine. Its yellowed pages fluttered as she shook it. ‘Valerie Drewe implied that the woman they found in the water a few hours later had killed the man and then drowned herself. That’s all bullshit. All that silver rose crap-’
Vague was the right word for my recollection of the case. It had happened before I got into the private inquiries business and I’d read about it in the tabloids and magazines like any other voyeur. ‘Forgive me, Miss Ozal, but this is all old history. I’ll be blunt-what’s it to you?’
The big eyes filled with tears. ‘Cliff, they were my Mummy and Daddy. She didn’t kill him and she didn’t kill herself. I was just a baby. They couldn’t have.’
The whole story came out then over coffee and tissues. Madeline Ozal had been brought up by her mother’s sister who was married to a Turk. Hence the name. The name on her birth certificate was Macquarie, daughter of Ernest, whose occupation was given as ‘playwright’, and Josephine, nee Peters.
‘Madeline Macquarie,’ she said. ‘Not as good, is it?’
I shrugged as I made notes. ‘Is it important?’
‘You bet. No-one would ever have heard of Norma Jean Baker.’
‘What about Meryl Streep?’
She laughed. ‘You’ve got a point. Kurt Butler told me you weren’t dumb, not that Kurt’s all that well-equipped to judge.’
Butler was an actor I’d bodyguarded some years ago. I hadn’t seen his name in lights lately, but it’s always nice to be well-thought of, even by a has-been. Madeline Ozal was no has-been-she was big and getting bigger. ‘I had a bit part in one of his movies,’ I said. ‘I threw someone off a building or fell off myself. I can’t remember which.’
She laughed again. ‘In Kurt’s movies it hardly matters. Look, the only people who know about my parents are my aunt and uncle and now you. But soon the whole world’s going to know.’
This sounded like the nitty-gritty, worth getting a contract form out of the desk for. ‘You’re expecting to be blackmailed?’
‘No. I’m writing my biography… well, I’m sort of writing it.’
Astonishment made me rude. ‘You can’t be a day over twenty-five. What’s there to write about?’
She smiled, showing perfect white teeth, nicely spaced. ‘I was brought up by an insane woman who ate twenty-four hours a day and was terrified of going to sleep on account of nightmares. Plus I’ve been in the movie business here and in the States for ten years. You’d be surprised. No, I’m going to reveal the truth about being an orphan in the book. It’s a big selling point.’
I started to reassess her. So far, the only grounds she’d given for casting doubt on the standard account of the Macquaries’ deaths was that they had had her. Now it was a selling point.
She leaned forward across the desk. She was wearing a white silk shirt buttoned to the neck. Nothing so crude as cleavage, but the way she moved made me want to close my eyes and count to ten. Her voice was soft and came from deep in her throat. ‘It’d be a much bigger story,’ she said, ‘if I could prove who really killed them.’
I put my pen down and leaned back in my chair, stomach in, chin up. ‘I suppose it would.’
‘That’s why I’m here. Peter says it’ll make a great chapter. Oops…’ She dug into her leather shoulder bag and pulled out a notebook that had a gold pen clipped to it. ‘I’m supposed to be taking notes. How tall are you?’
‘Six foot and half an inch. Who’s-?’
‘What’s that in centimetres?’
‘I don’t know. I was that tall before centimetres got here. Who’s Peter?’
‘Peter Drewe. He’s helping me with the book. Are you married?’
‘No.’ I wrote the name on my pad and added ‘ghost writer’. ‘Any relation?’
‘He’s Valerie’s son. We’re lovers… sort of.’
‘Uh huh.’
The green eyes were dry now and piercing. ‘I can read upside down. Ghost writer is unkind. You don’t like me.’
‘I don’t see how I can help you, Miss Ozal.’
She put her gold pen and suede-bound notebook away. ‘Peter has some leads. We want you to check them out. We’ll pay your standard fees.’
It all sounded odd, but I was intrigued by the cast of characters and the few routine jobs I had on hand would allow me to spend some time on it. I told her the damage, she signed the contract and I agreed to telephone Peter Drewe. She smiled and we shook hands. I tried not to watch the way she put on her coat, shouldered her bag, flicked back her hair. I tried.
Peter Drewe lived in a flat on the corner of Crown and Burton Streets, Darlinghurst. The building was called ‘Royal Court’, which was a bit too much monarchism in one address for my taste. Nice place though, good security door, wide staircase, vaguely art deco trappings. Drewe was a dark, thin, nervous type who licked his lips a lot. His one-bedroom flat was neat and admirably organised for writing and fucking. His word processor sat on a desk with fold-out attachments to carry books and papers. His writing chair was an engineering miracle. I caught a glimpse of the bedroom- mirrors, satin sheets, uh huh.
‘Maddy’s aunt won’t talk to me,’ Drewe said, after we’d kicked it around for a while. ‘She doesn’t approve of me. But I’m sure she knows a lot more than she’s ever told Maddy.’
‘Did she talk to your mother?’
‘No. She wasn’t in the picture then. Maddy was in hospital with some childhood illness when her parents died. The aunt claimed her about a week later. Valerie wrote her piece within forty-eight hours of the finding of the bodies. That was her way in those days, apparently. She called it “tasting the cum”.’
‘Miss Ozal said you had some leads. Is that it- talk to the aunt?’
‘No. You could see the cop who worked on the case. One Ron Fisher. He got booted off the force later and won’t talk to reporters.’
He gave me the names, addresses and numbers. ‘Have you got a theory, Mr Drewe?’
He shook his head and licked his thin lips. ‘Not really. Valerie said Ernest had a mistress in Adelaide and that Josephine killed him on that account. The silver rose was a gift for the mistress or from her, I forget which. My only theory is that she was completely wrong about those things.’
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘Why not? She was wrong about everything else in her fucking life.’
I stood in the street outside my office building. Ron Fisher lived in Gymea. My car was parked close by, about the same distance away as the telephone. You’re not that keen, I thought. I went upstairs, hauled out the cask of red, drew off a glass and let my fingers do the driving.
‘Fisher.’ A harsh Rommans and Toohey’s Old voice.
‘My name’s Hardy, Mr Fisher. I’m a PEA Frank Parker’ll give you the word on me if you want it.’
‘I’ve heard of you. What is it?’
‘I wanted to talk about a case of yours. Old one-the body on the Opera House steps and the floater.’
‘Talk, then.’
‘The inquests said heart failure and drowning.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What do you say?’
‘Mate, I had so many problems back then I was relieved when I came up with sweet fuck-all. They were both nuts-drunks and coke freaks. My guess is his ticker gave out on him when he was high and she thought she could walk on the water.’
‘What happened to the train ticket and the rose?’
