swinger.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I just thought with the name-Portia, and everything-and with Jeff being an ad man, there might be a literary leaning in the family. Diaries are useful…’
‘Portia was my mother’s name,’ Jessie said frigidly. Jeff was looking hostile, maybe he thought I’d maligned his profession by suggesting that it had anything to do with literature. I still liked the thought, though.
‘Are her school books here?’
Jessie nodded.
‘May I see them?’
‘The policewoman had a good look,’ Stevenson growled.
‘Even so, I’d like a look if I may. And I’d like to see her room, please.’
Stevenson gently shook off his wife’s hand. ‘That’s okay, of course, you’d want to do that. Drink up, Hardy. Jess’ll show you the room. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a couple of calls to make.’
He got up slowly and drained his can. He wasn’t much over thirty but something was taking a toll of him- self-indulgence or business worries. There were strain lines in his fleshy face and his colour was too high. He moved rather slowly, like an ex-athlete who has stiffened up. I drank some more of the wine, put the glass on the floor, and followed Jessie back down the passageway.
She pushed open the second door along and flicked the light on. The bedroom was scrupulously tidy, the way no seventeen-year-old could have kept it. The bed was made, the rug was straight, the books were lined up, the cassettes were stacked. The room was already beginning to feel like a mausoleum. I opened a wardrobe and looked at the solid bank of clothes, all neatly placed on hangers.
‘She didn’t take many clothes?’
She shook her head. ‘She was wearing her…’ She choked on it.
‘School uniform, I know. Take it easy, Jessie, Let’s have a look here.’
Portia had one of those student’s desks with a map of the world on it. A few text books were stacked on top of Europe and a pile of exercise books covered Australia. Jessie sank down on the bed and looked at me helplessly. ‘Is there any hope?’ she whispered.
‘Sure.’ I turned over the leaves of the books-domestic science; maths, social studies. They were neat and orderly. Another book had a clipping of Robert Redford pasted to the cover. On the first leaf ‘Personal Development’ was printed in bold letters. I showed it to Jessie.
‘What’s that?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ll just go and see if Jeff wants anything.’ She started to get up but I waved her down.
‘Hang on, won’t be long.’ I turned over the pages; there were poems and essays and questionnaires-all bland and almost impersonal. No outpourings of the heart here. Near the end of the filled-in pages there were marks on the back of one leaf. The scribble was in a different ink from the writing on the other side. I looked at it for a minute; Jessie looked too.
‘Oh,’ she said uninterestedly, ‘I saw that. It’s from a carbon paper put in the wrong way.’
‘No, it isn’t. Is Portia a left-hander, like you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Some left-handers can do mirror-writing automatically, without thinking. Can you?’
‘I used to be able to, when I was a kid. I wouldn’t have tried to in twenty-five… a long time.’
I took the page over to the dressing table and looked at the image in the mirror. In an irregular hand, quite different from the rest of the writing in the book, was written: ‘A woman at last! It was wonderful! I knew it would be. We both want more and more.’
Jessie stood beside me and stared at the mirror. Her shriek bounced off the walls. ‘No! Oh God, no!’
Heavy footsteps shook the floor and Jeff Stevenson flung himself into the room; beer slopped from another can in his hand.
‘What the hell…’
Jessie leapt for him and clung. She buried her head in his shirt front and sobbed. Stevenson bullocked across the room, carrying her with him. He stared at the mirror and then at me. His high colour flamed even higher.
‘Jesus, Jesus, what… what does it mean?’
‘I’d say it means she’s got a boyfriend,’ I said.
‘Sixteen…’ Jessie sobbed.
‘I thought she was seventeen,’ I said.
‘Only just.’ Stevenson patted his wife’s shoulder clumsily. I closed the book and put it back with the others.
‘Let’s go out and talk about it.’ I virtually had to shepherd them out of the room and to the back of the house. Stevenson remembered his beer can and I re-possessed my red wine. We all sat down again and drank- except Jessie, who gripped her husband’s knee.
‘It helps,’ I said. ‘It supplies a reason. It gives us something, someone-to look for. Somebody must know who he is-a friend, someone in a coffee shop, a pub. Kids have got to go somewhere and there are people who know where they go. Cheer up.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Jessie said. ‘I just can’t believe it.’
‘She is seventeen,’ Stevenson muttered.
‘But not to say a word. Not to bring him home, even. Oh, he must be so unsuitable.’
She was upset and confused and her mixed feelings were showing all too clearly-snobbery was strongly present along with the protectiveness and hurt.
I wrote the message in the exercise book in my notebook, working from memory. I tapped the contents of the folder into neatness. The Stevensons watched me.
‘Now, does this give you any clues? Anything come to mind? Something you mightn’t have thought of before?’
They shook their heads. I put the notebook away. ‘Okay, I’ll take it from here. Sorry, but I’ll have to ask you for a retainer and some sort of letter of authority.’
Stevenson pulled down his waistcoat and sucked in his gut. ‘Yes, of course. I’ll fix it up. Ah, Jess, I could go a cup of coffee; you, Hardy?’
‘No thanks.’
‘I’ll make some fresh, dear.’ Jessie jumped up and headed towards a door behind the bar. Stevenson found his suit jacket hanging on a chair, dug into the breast pocket and pulled out a cheque book.
‘Umm, Hardy, now you come to mention it, I think I do know something that might help. Five hundred do you for now?’
I nodded. He spread the cheque book on the bar and wrote.
‘I’ll get my secretary to knock up an authority. Put it in the post tomorrow. That do you?’
I nodded again and waited for whatever it was he was wanted to tell me. He ripped out the slip and handed it to me.
‘Hardy, I… ah… didn’t know what to make of this. I only heard it today and it didn’t make any sense. But in view of what you found in that notebook… I didn’t want to say anything in front of Jess.’
‘About what?’
‘Well, I put all sorts of feelers out, of course. People on the road come into the agency, you know. I’ve told them about our trouble. And this guy, he travels about a bit. He said he’d seen a girl who looked a bit like Portia over at a truck depot in Ryde. I don’t know, it’s probably nothing. But you know, the trucks go interstate from there
‘What’s the name of the place?’
He told me and I said I’d take a look there as well as re check with the girl’s friends and teachers and do a thorough local snoop. I said I’d be in touch as soon as I needed anything.
‘Or when you need more money,’ he said.
‘Yeah, well it would come to that if there’s an interstate angle.’
‘Interstate?’ Jessie Stevenson came back into the room carrying a tray with a coffee pot, cups and sweet biscuits. Jeff’s waistline was in for another hammering. ‘What about interstate?’
