‘What investigation?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So why throw the names up in an interview with Mandy?’
‘To see if she knew who they were.’
‘You were fishing for information?’
‘Sure. I was trying to work out why I’d been assigned the case.’ He’s about to say something more, when his phone rings. ‘Montifore,’ he answers, voice dropping in pitch, assuming a more officious register. ‘Right.’ He pauses for a moment, glances at Martin. ‘I want full police protection. No one gets in or out without my say-so. Get the authorisation. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ He ends the call.
‘What is it?’ asks Martin.
‘Claus Vandenbruk. He’s regained consciousness.’
chapter ten
Right now, she hates this city. She feels it crowding in on her: the buildings, the people, the insistent past. She’d thought she’d left it all behind, the facts undeniable: Tarquin had fled overseas with his stolen money, leaving her bereft, unemployed and utterly gutted. He was never coming back, he would never contact her. There was no need to tell anyone of her heartbreak, least of all Martin. Why would she? But now it’s all come rushing back, to catch her out, to insert itself between them. What must he think of her now? And again her thoughts return to Port Silver, the house on the cliffs, her haven. She can’t wait to get back there, to start tending to the future once more and to seal Tarquin Molloy in the past, as surely as his killers had sealed him in his concrete tomb.
Right now she has more pressing concerns: clothes and toiletries. Martin brought her phone and her wallet, but nothing more. All she has is the ill-fitting charity wear Montifore gave her. So she walks along George Street, intent on finding some anonymous store where she can purchase a temporary wardrobe. A tram rolls past; she considers it for a moment but decides she needs to walk. To stand still, even inside a moving tram, would be intolerable.
Yet as she walks up the hill past the cinemas towards Sydney Town Hall, she’s not alone. Memories stalk her; memories of a younger, more naive Mandalay. Living the low life with Billy the bass player, living the high life with Tarquin Molloy, living the half-life after Molloy had disappeared and she’d lost her job. This city has always been her fair-weather friend: revelling in her highs, spurning her in her lows. She sees herself with Billy, living hand-to-mouth but still able to laugh, still able to dance in circles in the rain and splash in the Hyde Park fountain, busking together, her singing weak harmonies as he belted out enough standards to earn them drinking money. Sometimes they’d head to a Sydney City Mission soup kitchen for a free feed. They were desperate days but simple ones, driven by simple imperatives: get enough money to eat and drink, find somewhere to sleep, get hold of some booze or some gear to take the edge off. Simple.
She stops outside the town hall and sees herself stepping out from the back of a limousine onto a red carpet, armoured in the glamour of designer clothes, on the arm of Tarquin Molloy, her dashing and gallant beau, attending a ball. A charity ball: all proceeds going to the Sydney City Mission.
Outside the Queen Victoria Building she stops once again, staring into a shop window, studying her reflection, seeing the fractured ghosts of her former self. She was beautiful, they constantly assured her, all those Sydneysiders: ‘like a model’, ‘like a movie star’, ‘like a muse’. They said it so often there were times she’d begun to believe it. Billy would say it best, most sincerely, telling her she’d inspired some of his most memorable bass lines. She smiles, wishing she could recall even one of his riffs.
God, how she had loved Sydney back when she was with Tarquin, even when she’d been with Billy, believing its pulse was her pulse, that its energy belonged to her, that it was the source of the destiny she felt coursing through her veins. And yet it had never been real: the men were liars, actors in a scripted drama, the city a movie set. This city; those men. She wonders at herself: how could she ever have been so blind, so stupid, as to allow herself to be washed this way and that on the tides of happenstance? How had she allowed those men to shape her fate, to write her script, to feed her lines, instead of writing her own?
Today, as if trying to win her back, the city is aglow, putting on its tourist livery, shining blue and white, the clear light and the seductive breeze, as if the facade might fool her one more time. As if. She knows that it’s all there waiting, easy enough to access, should she wish to: the city’s public face. Not the back lot but the big sets: the harbour, the bridge, the Opera House. Bondi Beach, the Manly ferry, Luna Park. On a day like this, they would be iridescent with assurance: the bright veneer, the cheery gloss, the self-deceiving face. The Sydney of the winners, the Sydney of Tarquin Molloy in his pomp. But today she doesn’t feel like a winner; today she feels like she belongs in the Sydney of Billy the bass player.
Another tram passes, bringing her back to the present. Martin is safe; she knows that much. He’d called, told her he wasn’t harmed, was never in any danger, but that Max Fuller, his old mentor, was dead. Murdered. He needs to help the police. Another victim amid the sunshine, another death behind the scenes. Montifore is right: they should leave this place.
She shops in David Jones. She’s rarely been through its doors, dismissing it as an old lady’s store. It holds no memories, houses no ghosts. She spends with practicality, not pleasure: underwear, jeans, flat shoes, nondescript tops, toiletries. Enough for a day or two, nothing more. It’s
