Her bedroom was dim and smelled of incense. The bed smelled of her. She eased herself off from where she’d straddled me and rolled to one side. I put out my arm and she shaped her small body to mine, clinging close.
‘Was it wrong?’ she said.
‘Didn’t feel wrong to me. Felt very right.’
‘No, I know it’s not like a doctor and patient. I meant with Kristina…’
I loved her smell-the combination of shampoo and perfume and her body. I inhaled, buried my face in her hair, kissed her ear. ‘I read that in the London Blitz, in the war,’ I said, ‘people made love where they were sheltering, in cellars, the tube stations, with other people around. Sometimes with strangers. Stress broke down barriers. That’s really something, given that we’re talking about the English.’
‘You say
‘Only half on one side-the rest’s a mixture of Irish and French and God knows what. My maternal grandmother was a gypsy. She’d have said you had gypsy eyes.’ I ran a finger lightly across the dark skin under her eyes.
‘No, no. No Romany that I know of. But in Europe, who knows? Jewish certainly, on one side as you say. Cliff, you think this is just…stress?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think so.’ And I meant it, although the speed of our coming together like that was a little surprising. But the times are strange and everything’s speeded up.
10
I spent the rest of the morning with Marisha Karatsky, interestedly if not productively. I inspected the room that had been Kristina’s. Marisha had said she’d shown me everything useful on our first meeting, but parents only ever know part of their kids’ stories. The quick look I had confirmed my impression-that the girl I’d been looking for hardly bore any resemblance to the young woman I’d found, and lost. Except for one thing. Kristina had had a hiding place-a gap between the skirting board and the wall. It was only wide enough to contain a few small things-a couple of joints maybe, money, condoms. I probed it with my Swiss army knife and came up with a five dollar note and a card. The card had a name scrawled on it, Karen Bach, and an address. No phone number.
Marisha’s work room was a mass of books, keyboards, screens, tape recorders and other machines I couldn’t identify.
‘Everything is digital now,’ she said. ‘Or will be soon.’
‘So they tell me. I’m barely analogue, myself.’
She laughed. We drank more coffee and made love again.
‘I only had two condoms,’ she said afterwards.
‘Just as well. Twice in eight hours is my total limit. Plus I have to go to work.’
My mobile rang in the pocket of my jacket, lying on a chair under her smock. As I bent to find it I realised that I hadn’t been aware of my head hurting for hours.
‘Hardy.’
‘Mr Hardy, this is Detective Sergeant Aronson at Glebe. I believe we’ve met.’
Aronson. I tried to place him, put him in context. A case about a year ago when my investigation of an attempted murder and suicide had crossed with that of the police. We’d remained mutually civil, just. ‘Yes, Sergeant.’
‘I’d like you to come to the station as soon as possible, please.’
Marisha was looking enquiringly at me by this time. I tried to mime business, but probably didn’t succeed. She shrugged and went away.
‘About what?’
‘I’d rather tell you when you get here.’
‘And I’d rather you told me now or at least gave me a hint. Otherwise, I’m on to my lawyer and we talk about it.’
‘Feeling threatened, Hardy?’
I noted the dropped mister and wasn’t surprised. Police courtesy to people in my trade is always skin deep.
‘It’s to do with one Adam Ian MacPherson.’
It seemed a long time ago and a lot had happened since, so my confused response was genuine. ‘I’m not sure-’
‘Come on, Hardy. You were asking about him in a Wollongong pub last night. He was found shot dead in Fairy Meadow today. The locals want to talk to you. They’ve been on to me. I said you were more or less civilised for a bloke in your game and that you’d come in. I’ve got one
of them on his way now.’
‘That wouldn’t be Barton of Bellambi, would it?’
‘Hardy…’
‘I’ll play. Just give me that much.’
‘I remember what a tricky bastard you were, always fucking around to get an edge.’
‘You’d do the same in my place.’
‘I hope to Christ I’m never there. Okay, this isn’t Barton. How long?’
‘An hour.’
‘Pull your finger out-half an hour.’
He hung up-last-word Aronson.
I found Marisha in her work room fiddling with a tape. I put my arms around her from behind and felt the resistance.
‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘That was the police. Something else I’m working on.’
The stiffness went out of her like wine from a bottle. She somehow managed to twist in my arms, turn and get free of the chair. She leaned into me, her small, firm breasts pressing against my stomach. ‘I thought it might be a woman.’
Despite what I’d said earlier, I felt myself responding to the warmth and tautness of her body. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t have a woman.’
I got there forty-five minutes later on the dot. The detectives’ room at Glebe is upstairs, open plan with a couple of interview rooms off to one side. Nothing fancy. Aronson, in his trademark black leather jacket, was sitting in a corner drinking coffee with a man in a suit. Nice suit, too. He stood as I approached but Aronson didn’t.
‘Hardy, this is Detective Inspector Ian Farrow up from the ’Gong. Sir, this is Cliff Hardy, licensed private nuisance. I’ll leave you to it.’
Farrow and I shook hands and he sat down in the chair Aronson had vacated. I took the other one. Farrow was youngish for his rank with fair hair and a fresh complexion. He looked fit, as if he took exercise and ate the right foods. Social drinker at most. He took out a notebook and looked down at it for a second. When he looked up I was blinking at a stab of pain in the back of my head.
‘Something wrong?’
‘Took a knock to the head last night. Hurts a bit. What’d you want from me, Inspector?’
‘You were in Wollongong yesterday and in the Keira Hotel last night enquiring about Adam Ian MacPherson. You left your card with, ah…Margaret Fenton, asking her to give it to him when he came in. She did.’
‘That all sounds correct.’
‘MacPherson’s been murdered.’
I jerked my thumb at Aronson, who was on the phone a few metres away. ‘So he told me.’
‘You don’t seem concerned.’
‘I am. I wanted to talk to him, but I never met the man.’
Farrow looked me in the eye and suddenly he didn’t seem young and fresh-faced anymore. There were lines of experience around his eyes and mouth and a sceptical frown mark between his eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you?’ he
