video game arcade, the movies? I had no idea. Danni came into view with two other young women. They were walking and carrying their blades and skateboards. They seemed a little old and affluent for what they were doing but they were having fun. A car load of youths went by and whistled. Danni gave them the finger.
Danni took the parking ticket she’d received from the windscreen, shoved it into her backpack without a glance, and was away. She drove like her stepmother, fast and well. Her head swayed and I guessed they were listening to music on what was probably a six-disc CD player. (The Falcon’s radio works but the cassette player had admitted defeat some time back.) The direction was south-east through Bexley and Carlton down to Ramsgate on Botany Bay. Not hard to see why — the foreshore park featured paths that could have been designed for skateboarding. Slightly cambered, they swept through landscaped gardens giving clear views of the water at high points and not too much of the industrial mess.
Danni and her mates hopped onto their skateboards and sped away. I climbed a rise and watched idly as they swept around a bend. Danni was just as good on the skateboard as the roller-blades, with the same vigorous, hard-hitting style. She went at it strongly, doing all the dangerous-looking tricks you see the kids doing around the streets. She jumped and span, flipped and twirled. After a while she broke away from the other two, expertly foot-slapped the board up, grabbed it and walked to a point where she could look out at the water. The other two seemed to know to leave her be. I watched while she stood very straight, almost rigid, gazing out to the east. Then her shoulders shook and her head dropped. After a while she pulled herself together and turned back towards the path.
She rejoined her mates and they headed back towards the car with me following at a safe distance. Then she stopped and reached into her backpack and pulled out a mobile phone. She held it to her ear for a short time then dropped it back in the bag. I was closer now and tried to read her expression. She was certainly thoughtful, possibly quietly pleased but trying to hide it. Or perhaps confused. She shook her head and looked up at the sky. She re-joined her companions and shrugged at their questions. She skated hard and fast back to the car.
I hung back until it was safe to circle around to the Falcon. Then we were back on the road again heading along the coast to Brighton-le-Sands. I was very puzzled. I’d seen a strong, apparently healthy athletic young woman at play. Admittedly she was aggressive and went at things full tilt, but she didn’t have any of the furtiveness associated with some kinds of drug-users, nor the hectic, manic activity common to some others. She appeared to react with vigour to a challenge, to good news with joy. She seemed to me to be physically and emotionally in good shape.
The Honda pulled in near a pub along The Grand Parade and the three women settled down at a table in a glassed-in area where it was easy to watch them from the bar. I ordered a beer and was drinking again earlier in the day than I’d intended — the game’s hard on the liver as many have found. Danni and her mates lit up and ordered what looked like rum and Cokes. The first round disappeared like a shower of rain in the desert and the second went down almost as quickly. They were on their third drink and hoeing into crisps before I’d finished my middy. Danni was hectic. She was motor-mouthing and waving her hands about, but it was just the alcohol fuelling her. There was no slipping off to the toilet, no nose-rubbing.
I couldn’t see any point in sticking around. The only danger Danni appeared to be in that morning was getting picked up from DUI and that wasn’t my problem. I decided I’d have to have another talk to Price, because his image of his daughter didn’t stack up against what I’d seen. But maybe she was a different person at night or under a full moon. I drove to Darlinghurst to check on the office and consider my next move towards finding Ramsay Hewitt. I’d decided to ring Tess and bring her up-to-date. Maybe the information Prue Bonham had given me would be enough to satisfy her. I hoped so. Ramsay was old enough to take care of himself, and if he’d decided to finance a law degree by being a gigolo he probably wasn’t the first man to do it and good luck to him as far as I was concerned.
I played the messages. Tess, repeating what she’d said on the home phone and keen for news. The next message spluttered angrily on the tape.
‘Hardy! Where the fuck are you? I’ve been trying to get you on the mobile for an hour or more and it’s not fucking working. You said you might be watching Danni this morning, didn’t you? I hope to Christ you were. Ring me at home as soon as you get this!’
I could account for the dead mobile easily enough — flat batteries. I was always forgetting to recharge the thing, probably because I hated it so much. Price’s voice was urgent but still I tossed up whether to call Tess first. I didn’t like being ordered around like that, especially as I was beginning to have my doubts about Price’s grip on things. Still he was paying, so I made the call.
‘Mr Price? This is Hardy.’
‘Hardy. About time. Where the fuck’ve you been?’
‘Knock it off,’ I said. ‘That line won’t get you anywhere with me. What’s going on?’
‘What’s going on? My wife’s dead! That’s what’s going on.’
He said it as though it was my fault, but I let that pass. Grief and stress distort everything. I said I was sorry and asked where, how and when in as consolatory tone as I could muster.
The anger went out of his voice and he said in what was almost a whimper, ‘An overdose of some kind. It must’ve happened between when I left for work and when the emergency service got the call about two hours ago.’
‘Who called?’
‘They don’t know. Someone found her in the house and called but they didn’t give a name and they didn’t stick around. Jesus, I don’t know what to do.’
‘Is there anyone with you? Are the police there?’
‘They’ve just gone. No, I’m alone.’
‘Is there anyone you can get over?’
‘No, I don’t fucking need anyone. I rang Danni and told her what had happened and she said she’d be home soon. Where is she?’
‘What?’
‘You said you would find Danni today.’
‘I watched her for most of the morning.’
‘So where is she now?’
‘Why?’
‘Are you that dumb? Sammy died of a drug overdose, Jason’s dead, and the cops’re sniffing around Danni. What conclusions are they going to draw?’
‘Look, Mr Price, this is all a bit hard over the phone. I think we’d better talk face to face. There’s all sorts of things that don’t add up here.’
‘I don’t give a fuck about your adding up. Where’s Danni?’
‘I last saw her in a pub in Brighton-le-Sands drinking with some friends. This is after getting some news on her mobile.’
As soon as I said it I realised what had happened and what the impact on Price was likely to be. The silence on the other end of the line confirmed my assessment. I heard him draw in a deep breath and expel it and realised that he was smoking again. Little wonder.
‘You’re not telling me she was celebrating?’
‘She wasn’t grief-stricken.’
‘Who’d have a family? I should have stayed in the army and rooted whores and looked after number one.’
I could have told him a few things about men who did that but I suspect that he already knew them. Price was smoking and I wished I had a drink — it was that kind of situation. He took what I guessed was another deep drag and then I heard a different noise and he started coughing and I realised he was drinking as well as smoking. He coughed hard and then his voice cut in strongly.
‘All right, Hardy. This is a fucking mess and it might spell an end to my business, but I still want to protect Danni. She’s my flesh and blood and that makes a difference. I want you to find her.’
‘How? Why?’
‘Fuck me! Why? To get her out of the country. How? That’s what you blokes do all the time, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, but usually with something to go on. All you’ve told me is where she lives and where she skates. That’s it. I doubt she’s still at the pub and you said you didn’t know any of her friends. You’ve tried her mobile
