I had a stiff drink at the pub, then went upstairs. There was a message for me to ring Rosa’s house. I rang.
‘Yes, hello?’ It wasn’t Rosa who answered.
‘Who is this?’ I asked.
‘Who is this?’ the voice repeated back to me.
‘It’s Claudia Valentine, I’m looking for Rosa Grimaldi.’
‘Ah, Claudia,’ the voice sounded relieved. ‘It’s Anna Larossa here.’
‘Where’s Rosa?’
‘She’s at the hospital, Concord Hospital. She’s been there for two days.’
‘What’s happened to her?’ I said, alarmed.
‘Not to her, to her husband. There’s been an accident. He’s been shot.’
‘Been shot?’
‘At the restaurant. There was a fight with that boy, Fabio. It’s very bad.’
‘What was the fight about?’
‘We don’t know. Arturo is unconscious. The woman who works in the restaurant, Dora, she heard the fighting.’
‘And Fabio?’
‘Disappeared.’ Disappeared.
‘Rosa won’t come home, she won’t leave Arturo’s side. Perhaps it’s just as well. It’s terrible here. John is hosing down the house in case the fire jumps the river again. There’s white smoke, like mist. You can’t see more than five metres in front of you. People look like ghosts.·
They may not let her through the roadblock even if she did try to come home. I was just grabbing the car keys when the phone rang. I hesitated, undecided as to whether to pick it up or let the machine deal with it. I waited for the recorded message then heard the caller identify herself as Sofia Theodourou.
I wrenched up the phone. ‘Claudia Valentine. Hello.’
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ she said, ‘we’ve got an unidentified, a girl about fifteen. With a tattoo on her arm.’ My blood ran cold. ‘Do you know how we can get in touch with the parents?’ Sofia asked. Oh God.
I told Sofia about Arturo. ‘I don’t know if the mother would be in a fit state to come down to the morgue.’ I offered to do the 10. I knew it had to be someone who knew the deceased but I felt as if I knew Madalena. I knew her family, I knew her friends, I knew her from the photos. And I would certainly recognise the tattoo if I saw it.
‘Sofia, I’ll be there in ten minutes. I’ll give you a contact number for the mother and do an unofficial ID at the same time. I’m sure under the circumstances this would be all right with the family.’
I got in the car and drove. I was speeding, I don’t know why, it was fruitless. If I’d wanted to speed I should have done it before. If I had devoted the hours to looking for Madalena that I’d devoted to looking for my father I might have found her by now. Guilt weighed heavily on me and I hoped for a reprieve. I hoped it wasn’t Madalena, that Fabio hadn’t got to her. Then I felt sick at heart and ashamed of myself—who did I hope it was, if not Madalena? There was a girl lying dead in the morgue. She was someone’s daughter.
There were television cameras outside the Coroner’s Court when I arrived. The foyer, though, was virtually empty. Whoever the cameras were expecting hadn’t yet arrived. Or hadn’t yet emerged from the court. Camera operators lounged against cars emblazoned with TV channel logos. They didn’t bat an eyelid when I walked by.
I walked straight through to Forensic Medicine and asked for Dr Theodourou. She was expecting me and came as soon as they paged her. She looked tired. ‘The fires,’ she said. ‘They’re all around our area. The police have told us to prepare for evacuation. My husband is packing things up, in case we have to leave.’
I thought of all the roses, of Kirby’s carefully controlled patch of garden. The fire running rampant, unrelentingly destroying what we build around us to make us immune to the forces of nature.
‘Has it come to that?’ I asked as she led me down the long, familiar corridor.
‘If they don’t get some relief, we’ll be the next to go.’ She took me into a room with a TV screen.
‘I have no problems looking at the body directly,’ I informed her.
‘As it’s unofficial, it’s probably better that you see the video rather than the actual body,’ said Sofia. ‘Some relatives prefer to do it that way anyhow. They feel more comfortable. It’s the way most of us experience dead bodies—on a TV screen.’
I lay the photos I had of Madalena out in front of me. ‘What happened?’
‘Hit and run. Last night. In Kings Cross.’
It could have been Fabio. Shot Arturo then went looking for Madalena. And found her.
‘No details on the vehicle?’
‘No.’
‘OK,’ I said, ‘let’s start it.’
Sofia set the machine going. I felt my stomach cave in. It was the hair. Same colour, same wavy texture as Rosa’s. The camera travelled around the face covered in blood. It was hard to distinguish the facial features and I didn’t want to have to look any closer than I already was.
‘Can we go to the tattoo, please?’ I said.
Sofia fastforwarded the video and picked it up again as the camera swept down the right side of the body. She held on the tattoo. It was a phoenix surrounded by flames. I started breathing again. Nothing remotely like the keyhole tattoo that Kerry and Madalena had.
‘Is that the only one?’ I asked. ‘Nothing on the other arm?’
The camera swept down the other side. There was no other tattoo.
‘It’s not her.’
Sofia looked even more weary than she had before. She put her hand up to her forehead as if to rub the weariness away. It would make things simpler for her if I was able to give a positive ID. They could start to package the body up, put it away and go home.
Was this how it had been in 1985, in the floods? Hindley out there in the rain, wanting to get back to the cosiness of the police station. It might not have been Guy Francis Valentine but it was some other old dero. What difference did it make? We were all going to die some day. In the meantime a quick identification would make his paperwork easier.
‘It’s not the same tattoo,’ I insisted.
Sofia rewound till we were back to the face. She had more experience than me of distinguishing facial features beneath the distortions of blood and injury. She held the frame on a frontal view and compared it with the photos I had laid out in front of me.
Then she handed the photos back to me. ‘There’s no point getting Mrs Grimaldi down here. Shit.’ She rubbed her forehead again, grimacing. ‘I’ve got to take some aspirin. I’ve had a headache for days. All this smoke.’ She flipped the video out of the player. ‘I’m sorry, do you mind seeing yourself out?’
I walked back up the corridor and through to the Coroner’s section. I wasn’t feeling in peak condition myself. There was a canteen of sorts, a room with a few functional tables and chairs. I was sure they wouldn’t have anything alcoholic but even a cup of bad coffee would do at the moment. On the wall was a sign which said: ‘Catholic Women’s League is responsible for this canteen and is staffed by voluntary workers’. There was something wrong with the grammar but I couldn’t be bothered working out what it was.
A woman in her sixties was buttering bread, presumably in preparation for lunch. Sandwich fillings—chicken, ham, tomato, shredded lettuce—sat in small trays behind glass. To one end of the counter was a basket of fruit—apples, oranges, bananas. There was also an array of chocolate bars and sweets.
‘Black coffee,’ I said.
She stopped buttering bread and got the coffee ready.
‘Thanks,’ I said, handing her the right change. I went and sat down at a table. It was quiet outside in the foyer, I wondered if the TV cameras were still in the street.
I felt depressed. The body wasn’t Madalena, I should have been breathing sighs of relief. But it was someone. Unidentified. Somewhere someone was waiting for a girl who would never come home.
I could hear voices outside. The hair was the same as Madalena’s, there was a tattoo, even if it wasn’t the same tattoo. Perhaps from the back Fabio … The voices got louder, coming this way. I looked up and saw men in suits.
One of them was Russell Hindley.
When he saw me he looked daggers, face clenched. Like he wanted to take out that .38 Special and shoot me on the spot. But he didn’t try anything. He walked on by, constrained by the circumstances. He couldn’t flex his muscle in the Coroner’s Court the way he could in a quiet backstreet.
Then other suits came in, lawyers judging by the expensive dark fabric. They ordered coffee and hung around, idly chatting, kings in their castles, talking freely in front of the servants as if we didn’t have ears. ‘Someone planted a bomb in that court, they could wipe out what’s left of the old gangs.’
‘Or at least wipe out their lawyers.’ This raised a chuckle. ‘I notice Harrington’s kept himself scarce.’
‘Probably picking his tomatoes.’
‘Is that what he ended up doing, growing tomatoes? Finally put all that bullshit to good use, did he?’
‘I notice his little mate, Hindley, is here though.’ If my ears weren’t pricked already they certainly were now.
‘He wasn’t involved in any of that, was he?’
‘He was at Kings Cross, same as Harrington. You think it doesn’t rub off?’
A woman’s voice cut across the low rumble of men’s conversation, a voice I knew. I looked towards the door and saw Carol come in, talking to a male colleague. What was this, the annual Policemen’s Ball? Carol stopped short when she saw me but at least she didn’t walk out again. She looked, wondering what I was doing here, and not all that pleased to see me. She excused herself from her colleague and came over.
‘Claudia?’
‘Carol?’
We both wanted to know what the other one was doing here. I went first. ‘I’ve been visiting Forensic,’ I said. ‘It’s never pleasant in there, as you know. On my way out I decided to sit down and have a cup of coffee. It was quiet when I arrived, then suddenly it’s the most popular place on earth.’
‘Big event, there’s media outside.’
‘Yeah, I saw them. What is it?’
‘Inquest into the disappearance of Edward Leonards.’ I recalled the name. Vaguely. Carol jogged my memory. ‘Allegedly involved in the Sweetie’s scam.’
Sweetie’s Icecream Parlours. ‘Ah.’
‘But that would have been years ago. Why are they having an inquest now?’
‘Someone upstairs is pushing for it, new broom sweeping clean.’
‘And fortunately, most of the people who could get swept under the carpet are no longer around,’ I remarked. Carol declined to comment. ‘Are you involved in this matter?’ I asked Carol.
‘I’ve been gathering information, yes.’
‘The trip to Melbourne?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Hindley, what’s he doing here?’
‘I suppose as an ex-officer of the Drug Enforcement Agency he might have an interest in the matter,’ Carol admitted begrudgingly. I had a feeling that Hindley’s interest went back further than that. ‘I’d love to stay and chat with you, Claudia, but the court is resuming in a few minutes and I need to speak to my colleague.’
‘It’s an open inquest—open to members of the public?’
Carol could see where this was leading but there was nothing she could do to stop me. ‘Yes,’ she sighed.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘See you in court.’
Before entering the court, members of the public and others had to undergo a security check. Staffing the checkpoint were two sheriffs, dressed in blue with the sheriff insignia on the sleeve. I placed my bag on the table provided and walked through the frame. I felt as if I was about to board a plane.
For some reason I beeped. The male sheriff asked me to extend my arms while he caressed my aura with his metal detecting device. Then the female sheriff asked me to open my bag and show her the contents. There was nothing much in my bag, a notebook, pen, lipstick, the photos of Madalena, a Ferry Ten ticket. Nothing lethal.
I went into the courtroom, a brown brick interior with mustard-coloured wall panelling. It was set out like a theatre, with rows of seats for the audience and a partition separating them from the onstage players. The players were: the coroner, sitting up at the highest table like a king; on the next level down sat the witness at one end and the coroner’s assistant at the other. Lower down, with their backs to the spectators, were the legals. On the right, members of the print media sat taking notes, and to the left were the witness’s minders. Carol was in this area as well.
As well as members of the public who’d come along for the show, there were ‘interested parties’ sitting in the gallery—big men in tight suits or short-sleeved white shirts. Moustaches, hair longish at the back. They’d survived the seventies but not by much.
The witness was a balding man in a light blue suit and a bright paisley tie. Some people are born with it, others never attain it. Addressing him was a barrister. Trim black beard, one of the dark blue suits I’d seen in the canteen. ‘Now, Mr Glasser,’ the barrister started.
‘Excuse me, for the purposes of this court the witness will be known as Mr Jones,’ interrupted the coroner.
‘Now Mr Jones,’ said the barrister sarcastically. ‘In your statement you say that a dinner took place at the Fry ‘n’ Fish on 26 March 1985 during which Edward Leonards was discussed. Is that correct?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘And what was the nature of that conversation?’
‘Dennis said something had to he done about Leonards, he’d become a loose cannon.’
‘And by loose cannon you mean …?’
‘Well, he was getting out of control. He’d kill anyone. If he didn’t like the colour of your tie he’d kill you. He was stupid, going round asking people if there was anyone they wanted knocking off.’
‘This was almost a month before Leonards disappeared?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So why did Dennis wait so long?’
‘Dennis never killed him. Dennis never killed anyone. He was going to talk to Harrington about it, that’s all.’
‘By “Harrington” I take it you mean Detective Richard Harrington as he was at the time?’
‘That’s correct.’
I shifted seats so that I was sitting right behind Carol. I bent over and whispered in her ear, ‘Carol, come outside.’
She sat there frozen, as if she hadn’t heard what I said.
‘Do you think I’d drag you out if it wasn’t important?’ I tried again.
She’d heard. Without turning around, she quietly stood up, went through the motions of bowing to the coroner and went outside. I did the same.
Not surprisingly, Carol was fuming. ‘This better be good, Claudia. You’d just about have to be able to tell me what they did with Leonards’ body to have dragged me like this.’
‘He’s at Rookwood, in the Crematorium wall.’
Everything stood still for a minute then Carol understood what I was getting at. ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘Think about it. I didn’t make the connection at first because I was out of the country when it happened. Leonards was last seen a month after 26 March. That puts it pretty close to 25 April, doesn’t it? Anzac Day. Dennis Carey goes to see Harrington. Harrington arranges a little send-off for Leonards. Both Harrington and Hindley were at Kings Cross at the time. And the night of the twenty-fifth, Hindley was on duty.
‘I don’t know the exact sequence of events but let’s say Leonards is brought to Rushcutters Bay park. He might already have been unconscious when he arrived. Hindley and Harrington both know deros frequent that park. It’s Anzac Day, they’re going to be tanked, passed out. Easy, they think, to grab some ID off one of them and plant it on Leonards. Hindley fills out the Report of Death to the Coroner, saying the body is that of Guy Francis Valentine. The body is cremated, never to be found. Except there’s one thing wrong with it-Guy Francis Valentine is still alive and living in Surry Hills.’
Carol had started off shaking her head but by the time I got to the end she was at least listening. ‘You’ve found him?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘What was it like? What did he say?’
‘We didn’t speak.’
‘What do you mean, you didn’t speak?’
‘He didn’t see me. I left without making contact.’
Carol was waiting for me to explain further. Perhaps over a drink, a game of pool, but not now.
‘You could go and see Guy, ask him what he remembers of that night. Ask him what happened to his coat. But there’s even more telling proof right here in this building. Blood samples. Leonards must have relatives. See if they’re prepared to have a DNA analysis. See if they get a match with the specimens taken from the man Hindley identified as Guy Francis Valentine.’
Carol was thoughtful. ‘Leonards had a son, I believe. Living in Madagascar. I’ll think about it while I listen to the rest of the proceedings. You coming back in?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to get back to work.’