'Edwina Barnes. Barnes, Edwina,' Erin muttered to herself. She hauled out the third of several cardboard boxes that constituted Penny Reed's filing system although, judging by the countless others just like it that were stacked in corners and stuffed into shelves or under furniture all around the newsroom, boxing things up seemed to be the office policy on file management.
'We haven't done anything on Edwina, that I can recall, for quite some time,' Erin was saying as she dumped three thick and dusty manilla folders on her desk. 'Let's see, the last article was an open day at The Arena. That was June last year.'
'What's The Arena?' Kit asked.
'One of Edwina's more up-market establishments. Mind you, none of her joints are down-market, some are just smaller than others,' Erin replied. 'This is basically just a couple of paragraphs to go with the photos of The Arena's snazzy new foyer, cocktail bar and refurbished bathroom. And we are talking bath room here!' She handed the clipping to Kit.
'Forget the room, there is none. This must be the biggest bath in Australia,' Kit laughed. 'Where is The Arena?'
'Beaconsfield Parade,' Erin said, consulting a list that was taped to the inside of the folder. 'No doubt it has great views overlooking the bay.'
'Probably from the bath,' Kit said, leaning over to cast her eyes over the list of establishments that made up the Barnes empire. Geoffrey's favourite retreat was listed, as was the Skintone Agency but there was no mention of Foremost Factor Four. Edwina operated at least four other brothels apart from The Arena and owned a couple of beauty parlours. The Trueheart Escort Service, which was the one Kit had gone undercover with eight years before, was still going strong.
'In April last year we have one Herbert Frank Smith threatening to sue for damages after falling down The Arena's front stairs. That was obviously his allocated 15 minutes of fame because it went no further than that,' Erin said replacing one clipping and picking up another. 'In January the police raided the Purple Harem, but only because they had a tip-off that some escaped con was there. There's not a lot here Kit. What exactly are you after?'
Kit shook her head slowly and picked up one of the styrofoam cups of coffee that the poor exploited Simon had fetched for them. 'I'm not sure really. Something, anything, to connect Edwina more closely with someone else I'm investigating.'
'Well I doubt you'll connect Edwina herself with anything much at all. Apart from the fact that her girls have been managing her places ever since she retired, Edwina doesn't get out much since her charming son stuck her in a loony bin.'
'A what?'
'A loony bin. You know nut house, sanatorium, health farm - whatever you want to call it. But a health farm that employs shrinks and psych nurses is a loony bin as far as I'm concerned. Sorry I didn't mention it before but I thought you must have known that already,' Erin said.
'I had no idea,' Kit said. 'But it would make my day if you told me that this loony bin goes by the name of the Endicott Centre.'
'I can't remember off hand. But what a challenge, I haven't made anyone's day for ages,' Erin laughed opening the other folder and pulling out a sheet of blue paper. 'The potted history of Edwina Barnes,' she explained. 'Simon calls them Penny's bonsai biographies.
'Let's see. Edwina Adelaide Barnes, born and bred in Collingwood in the 1920s. Twice married, twice divorced. Three children, born in the late '40s and early '50s, - a son to Nigel Fenton, husband number one; and two daughters to Frank Easton, hubby number two. The first-born daughter Angela Adelaide Easton died at age six; the other daughter, Margaret Adelaide Easton, is presumed living but her whereabouts are unknown. The son, Charles Edward Fenton, took a redundancy package from the Education Department in '92 and retired to Phillip Island.
'Edwina laid the foundations of her escort empire during the '40s by hosting a series of so-called tea dances where Edwina's girls provided pleasant company for Australian and visiting American officers. After the war those same girls formed the first intake for the Trueheart Escort Service.'
'And the rest, as they say, is history,' Kit stated.
'Precisely,' Erin agreed. 'Edwina retired in about 1980 and took herself off for the, no doubt well-earned, grand tour of Europe and America, leaving her empire in the capable hands of her longest-serving girls. She was gone three years. Two years ago, for reasons apparently unknown, to Penny at least, she was admitted to - you're going to love this - the Endicott Centre, an exclusive and trés expensive sanatorium in the Dandenongs.'
'Yes!' Kit exclaimed. 'Now, make my day perfect Erin, and tell me you know the life story of Ian Dalkeith, the yuppie real estate agent.'
Erin's eyebrows shot up in surprise as she tried not to choke on the mouthful of coffee she'd just taken. 'Is he the someone else you're investigating?' she asked.
'No, but he or his name keeps popping up just like Edwina's does.'
'I feel a serious case of deja vu creeping up on me,' Erin said as she flicked her long hair back over her left shoulder. 'This is weird. Twenty-four hours ago Ian Dalkeith was just a name to me. I'd seen his face in the paper a couple of times but that was it. I didn't even realise until yesterday afternoon, when I had cause to do a little digging, that he'd been involved in the fight between the local residents and the developers - on the wrong side of course.
'He was only a bit player really, just a footnote in the history of the ongoing struggle of Action St Kilda and other local residents' groups to stop the money spinners from turning the Esplanade into the Gold Coast of Melbourne. He was in there nonetheless, doing his bit to further the gentrification and overall ruin of St Kilda. I don't know what made him pull out but he and his money were in the news for about nine weeks, nearly two years ago, then he just bowed out.'
'So what happened yesterday?' Kit asked. 'I mean what made you look for background stuff on him?'
'That's the weird part. A guy came in here asking for anything we had on Ian Dalkeith. Now here you are, asking for the same. Is this something I should know about?'
'I don't know yet. Who was the guy?'
'A writer from Sydney. He's doing a book on the battles that Action St Kilda and the Sydney groups have fought against the developers. He said he was down for a couple of weeks to do some research. For some reason though he was particularly interested in Dalkeith and, um, some other guys I'd never heard of,' Erin said, opening her top desk drawer and taking out a notebook.
'What other guys?'
'I have to check my notes. We didn't have anything on them. Ah, Davis Whitten and...'
'Gerald Grainger and Malcolm Smith?' Kit suggested.
'Grainger yes, Malcolm Smith no,' Erin stated.
'What else can you tell me about this writer? What did he look like?' Kit asked.
'He was a big, freckle-faced guy with a huge red moustache, short hair and eyes like a basset hound. He...'
'A moustache?' Kit interrupted.
'Yeah, a long one, and he had a funny accent. It was almost nondescript as if he was Irish or American but had been living somewhere else for a long time. I suppose it was Sydney seeing he's writing this book. His name was Mike Finnigan,' Erin said as she picked up her coffee. 'I have the impression you know this guy,' she added when she noticed the expression on Kit's face.
'Not really, but I think I may have seen him around here and there.' Kit looked at Erin thoughtfully. 'If he comes back I would suggest you be a little cautious. I might be quite wrong but I don't think he's a writer and I seriously doubt that his name is really Mike Finnigan.'
'Is this something I should know about?' Erin asked hopefully.
'You know more about him than I do,' Kit stated.
Whether or not his story was the truth was another matter completely, Kit thought. All she knew was that he'd used that name and a phoney address to hire a car so he could follow Geoffrey, or maybe Dalkeith. Or me, she added nervously.
Kit couldn't think of a single reason why anybody would be tailing her but that didn't stop her from looking cautiously up and down Acland Street as she closed the front door of the Star office behind her. There seemed to be a great many suspicious-looking characters milling about on the footpath but none of them, she was relieved to notice, looked like a big, moustachioed, basset-eyed writer from Sydney.
The sun's glare, reflected off the window of a car on the other side of the street, stabbed into Kit's eyes reminding her that she hadn't had nearly enough sleep.
Get a grip O'Malley. So what if this Mike Finnigan is lurking in the background nearly everywhere you go, that does not mean that he, or anybody at all for that matter, is following you, she thought as she pulled her sunglasses out of her pouch.
The feeling that she might be completely wrong started as a creepy sensation on the back of her neck and then tap danced all the way down her spine. She wouldn't swear to it in court but, in the split second before her eyes had adjusted to the filtered light of her sunglasses, she was sure she'd seen an all too familiar face.
Kit turned abruptly and headed back towards her car, stopping every now and then to glance casually around or make use of a shop window to see if he was behind her in the crowd. It eventually dawned on her, however, that Tuesday must be official 'Dishy Blonde Boy Day' in Acland Street. The crowd was littered with variations on the theme and not one of them appeared to be at all interested in her.
'Now you really are getting paranoid,' she muttered to herself as she unlocked her stuffy car. The mysterious Mr Finnigan is one thing but there's no reason why Christo Snakehips would be on your tail, you idiot!
Kit swung out into the traffic on Fitzroy Street and, as she headed back towards the Junction, she started scanning the buildings for numbers, looking for the one that belonged to Factor Four.
She rolled her shoulders a few times to relieve the tension in her back. After a taste of what it must feel like to have someone following you, even if it had just been her imagination, Kit could almost understand Geoffrey Robinson's attempt to stop Byron from doing it, even though he hadn't been. It was definitely not a nice feeling. Of course in Geoffrey's case the belief that he was being watched was not his imagination. He'd just picked completely the wrong person to blackmail.
Kit laughed out loud. The idea that someone had her under surveillance was ludicrous. Unlike Geoffrey, who was being watched, and followed and photographed because he had lots of things to hide and was generally up to no good, Kit had nothing to hide and wasn't up to anything much at all. All she did was watch people, and follow them, and photograph them, and then reveal their secrets to a third party who paid her for the service. What a life!
She pulled into a parking spot and walked across the road to the building that was located at the address on the business card Delvene had given her. The front window, behind which was a mannequin tableau of a turn of the century wedding party, was emblazoned with the name Nostalgia Incorporated.
Listed in gold lettering on the front door were the names of businesses or photographers which Kit assumed were either part of Nostalgia Incorporated or used the premises. Foremost Factor Four was third on the list. The only other thing on the door was a curtain on the inside, which prevented anyone from seeing in, and a big white sign that said 'back in one hour'.
'Oh great, what does that mean? One hour from an hour ago or have they only just left?'
Kit looked at her watch. It was three o'clock. There was still time to kill before Geoffrey's appointment, whatever and wherever it was. Kit hadn't heard from Quinn so she had no idea whether the 'family' was still meeting with Douglas or whether Quinn was traipsing around town after her step-father.
There was also the possibility, of course, that Celia's cryptic note had not referred to one of Geoffrey's mystery rendezvous at all. Maybe she had wanted Kit to check out something else. But what? Celia had said something about a shipment in the message she'd left on Byron's answering machine but that was as light on details as her note.
Celia, Celia, Kit thought. I don't seem to be getting anywhere with this. And where the hell is Byron? Why didn't you at least ring and tell me about what your no-good husband tried to do to him?
Realising that the answers to those questions were not going to materialise out of thin air, Kit decided the sensible thing to do was ring Douglas' office to find out if Quinn and Geoffrey were still there. If they weren't, there was nothing she could do but go home and wait for Quinn to call.
As she stepped off the curb in front of a parked car she heard someone yell: 'Look out lady!'
Look out lady? What the hell does that mean? Kit wondered. Does it mean 'hey you in the polka dot dress, look out there's a man pointing a gun at you', or 'look out you with the pram there's a big hole in the ground'? It was a pretty stupid thing to yell really when it would make most women wonder who, in this day and age, had the nerve to call anyone 'lady'.
While these thoughts passed through Kit's mind at warp speed she looked frantically about, just in case the yeller was in fact referring to her. She couldn't help but notice the blue Torana swerving across the road. Actually it wasn't so much swerving as bearing down on her with serious intent. The driver, whose face she could not see, was not fighting to regain control of a runaway vehicle. He/she was definitely heading straight towards her with what could only be malice aforethought.
Kit threw herself backwards across the bonnet next to her and rolled off onto the footpath just as the Torana sideswiped the parked car and then squealed off up the street.
'Holy Shit!' Kit exclaimed as she struggled to her feet. The heels of her hands had absorbed most her body's impact with the concrete but she'd also ripped the left knee of her jeans and grazed her elbow. 'Ow, fuck! What the hell was that all about?' She rubbed her palms up and down on her thighs to get rid of the jagged pins and needles that were running from her fingertips to her elbows.
'Hey? Are you OK?' came a voice from behind her.
'Yeah, I'm fine. Sort of. Well I'll be damned! If it isn't Hector, um,' Kit said in astonishment, trying to remember the guy's surname. She snapped her fingers a few times to help jog her memory till she realised the movement was hurting her hand. She was actually more surprised by the way Hector was dressed than she was by the fact that it was him.
'Chase. Hector Chase,' he said. 'If I'd known it was you, Officer O'Malley, I'da kept me mouth shut.'
'Thanks a lot.'
'Got to do my bit to keep the cop plague from getting out of control,' he said with a grin.
'What's all this then?' Kit asked reaching out to touch the fine cotton of his short-sleeved shirt that was tucked neatly into a pair of black trousers. The last time she'd seen Hector he'd been wearing filthy jeans and a holey singlet and was having the crap beaten out of him by two skinheads, after helping them rob a bottle shop. They had apparently decided they didn't want to share the spoils. He'd been 16 then, which would make him about 22 now.
'You knocking off clothing stores now?'
'No!' he said indignantly. 'I don't do that shit no more. I'm into computers now.'
'What, stealing them or operating them?'
'Programing them, Officer, not that it's any of your business. I shoulda let the bastard run you down.'
'Did you see the bastard?'
Hector rolled his blue eyes as if he was thinking hard. He removed a rubber band from his wrist, gathered his shoulder-length brown hair back into a pony tail then thrust his hands into his pockets and just stood there as if he was waiting for a bus.
'Give me a break Shintaro,' Kit said. 'Would it make any difference if I told you I was no longer a cop?'
'It might. What happened? Were they too slow in promoting you to Police Commissioner?'
'Something like that. So did you see his face or not?'
'Nup, the sun was right on the windscreen. I got the rego number though, if you're interested. Got a pen?'
'If I'm interested?' Kit said taking a biro from her pouch.
While Hector pulled out his wallet and removed a business card to write the registration number down, Kit took the time to do a body check. She turned her left hand over and picked out a tiny piece of gravel that was embedded in the skin and then inspected her leg through the hole in her jeans. Her knee was grazed and bloody.
'At least your jeans are fashionable now,' Hector said.
'Nah, that was last week. I'd have to sew a piece of hippy batik over the hole to be in this week. So who do you work for?' Kit asked, studying the card which had Hector's name and a mobile number on it under the word Graffico.
'Me, myself and I. I'm a freelance computer wiz.'
'Really? Do you get enough work to support yourself?' Kit asked.
'What are you trying to say?'
'Nothing. I'm just asking.'
'Well, yeah, I do. Most of the time. Some weeks are better than others. But I can pay the rent and I'm not starving and I have time to do my own stuff, inventing programs and games.'
'I'm impressed,' Kit said.
'Yeah sure. Bad boy done good, right?'
'No, not that at all. Although I must admit that is also impressive. I just happen to be in awe of anyone who can do more with a computer than turn it on, tap away for a while and turn it off again without losing everything into a black hole.'
'I can manage a bit more than that,' Hector grinned.
'I don't suppose you'd be interested in helping me upgrade my antique would you. And I think I need a new modem,' Kit said.
'Sure. I don't sell the stuff but I can help you buy it and I'll set it up for you.'
'Great, I'll give you a ring. On second thoughts, here take my card,' Kit said. 'If you don't hear from me in the next week just ring and remind me. I have a system failure every time I think about my computer. The idea of actually giving it more things to do is a truly frightening concept. I'll pay you for your time.'
'You are still a cop,' Hector exclaimed, holding her business card at arm's length.
'No I'm not. I'm a freelance inquiry wiz. It pays the rent, I'm not starving and it gives me time to do my own stuff.'
'Did that guy try to run you down because of your own stuff or because of this?' Hector asked waving the card.
'I have absolutely no idea why he tried to run me down, but thanks to you I'm at least still alive enough to be able to try and find out. Which is what I'm going to do right now. Thanks again Hector. I'm serious about that computer stuff, so call me, OK.'
'Sure. Catch you later then,' he said.
This time Kit did all the things a sensible person should do before stepping out onto a main road. She looked right, looked left, looked right again and most importantly looked out for a homicidal Torana. The coast appeared to be clear.
'Hey, O'Malley,' Hector called out. 'If you ever need any help with your freelance inquiries give me a call. You know I'm good at getting into places.'
'Shit!' Kit exclaimed as she turned to make a smart remark and an arrow of pain shot through her knee. Hector hadn't stuck around for her response anyway; he was already swaggering up the street.
Kit took a look at the car whose bonnet she'd rolled across. The driver's door was stoved in and the side mirror was mangled. The injuries caused by the Torana were actually quite minor, however, compared with the broken panels and scars of past collisions. Either the car was habitually parked in the wrong place at the wrong time or the driver should never have been given a licence. Kit pulled a scrap of paper from her pocket, wrote the Torana's rego down and stuck it under the windscreen wiper.
She checked the traffic again and then limped across the road to her car. She dialled the number of Jenkins, Cazenove, Scott and Harris and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel in time to the Jimmy Barnes' rendition of River Deep, Mountain High that was blaring from her radio while she waited for the jolly Margaret Richards to put her through to Douglas.
'Ah, Kit,' he said when he came on the line. 'Where are you?'
'Fitzroy Street, Douglas. I gather your meeting is over.'
'Geoffrey left here about half an hour ago. He said he had to get back to the office. Elizabeth followed him. I must say I don't really approve of that.'
'She'll be fine Douglas. It's keeping her occupied, you know. Have you heard from Alex by any chance?'
'Not yet. But she only left here at 1.30.'
'Could you tell her that Quinn and I will be at Angie's this evening if she needs to find us. Unless of course we're still following Geoffrey all over town.'
'I'll leave that message with Margaret. I was just about to leave for the airport. I have to be in Sydney tomorrow so I'm taking a flight this evening.'
Kit hung up and dialled directory assistance to get the number for Orlando House, feeling pretty stupid when she thanked the tinny computer voice that came back on-line with the number.
'No, I'm sorry, Mr Robinson is not in at the moment,' OHP's receptionist stated a few seconds later. 'Could I take a message?'
'Perhaps his secretary could help,' Kit suggested, wondering if Ms Enigma, the transvestite-lesbian, would divulge Geoffrey's whereabouts to a total stranger. It was such a pity that the motor-mouth general dogsbody Julie Whats-er-name wasn't Geoffrey's personal assistant.
'No, I'm sorry, Ms Armstrong is not in today,' the receptionist was saying. 'Oh, Mr Robinson has just returned. Would you like to hold? It could be some time, perhaps you could give me your name and number and I'll have him return your call when he can.'
'Of course. My name is Ellen Ripley, and he can reach me on 555 - 2343,' she replied, giving the standard Hollywood prefix.
Kit started up the car and pulled out into the traffic. She thought about heading to Orlando House in the hope of catching up with Quinn there but decided it could be a waste of time. Geoffrey might be in and out of the office in five minutes and she'd miss them anyway.
She headed through the Junction and left up Punt Road, deciding to go back to the office and pick up the photo of Christo Snakehips. If she had time she'd drop it off with Damien and ask him to show it to Tooly. When she stopped for a red light at the Domain Road intersection she called Marek and asked him to trace the Torana's rego.
'This is masochistic. I've got to get air-conditioning,' she growled. She glanced up at clock on the Nylex silo as she coasted down the hill and across the Yarra. It was 39 degrees! No wonder she was melting. If Quinn didn't ring in the next ten minutes she might at least have time to change out of her ripped and sweaty clothes and tend her wounded knee.