Holly was surprised to see just how many private investigators there were in the Blue Mountains directory. If the industry obeyed the usual rules of supply and demand, untold numbers of nasty little problems were wriggling under the mountains’ peaceful, nature-loving surface. Problems that police, social workers, priests and marriage guidance counsellors couldn’t fix or wouldn’t touch. Many more than she had realised.
She found the thought depressing. Misery loves company, they say. But as Holly pored through the entries, taking in the offers to follow and secretly photograph spouses no longer trusted, to locate runaways, absconding business partners and debtors, to spy on employees, detect embezzlement and collect unpaid debts, she felt as if she were slipping through a crack in the world and into a dark, oily subterranean realm where many other, unknown victims also struggled. She tried to shake off the feeling and focus her mind on making a sensible choice.
Some of the ‘Investigators’ listings were very brief, confined to a name, address and phone number. Others were large display ads for companies based in Penrith, the large township on the plains at the mountains’ base. Using reassuringly sober borders and dignified type, these firms claimed long experience, and promised expertise, reliability, integrity and discretion.
They were very similar, in fact, to the ads for funeral directors that Holly had once come across in the Sydney directory while looking for Furniture, Retail, except for the long lists of services offered (including de-bugging of premises, corporate investigations and armed VIP escorts), and their frequent references to state-of-the-art surveillance equipment.
Holly didn’t feel comfortable with either of these options. To choose one of the very brief listings would have seemed somehow reckless, a leap into the unknown. On the other hand, she couldn’t help feeling that the companies represented by the large ads, up to their ears in the excitement of solving corporate crime, stuffed to the gills with arcane expertise and bristling with guns and surveillance equipment, might regard her loss of severance pay plus twelve hundred dollars as rather paltry.
Possibly, even probably, both these feelings were quite irrational. But even while considering this, Holly found herself automatically gravitating to her natural comfort zone: the middle ground, represented in this case by the small display ads. There were quite a few of these, so Holly narrowed her choice down by considering only those that mentioned reasonable rates and contained the phrase ‘No job too small’.
The first number she dialled had been disconnected. Her second call was picked up by an answering machine. The recorded voice, which was very husky and of uncertain gender, said it was sorry that the office was unattended at present, but that Holly’s call was very important to it and if she would kindly leave her number, it would call her back. As Holly no longer had a phone number to leave, she could do little but hang up.
Disconcerted by these failures, but still hopeful, she moved to her third choice, dialling what in this case was a mobile phone number, then pressing her finger on the ad in question like a talisman as she waited for results.
O’BRIEN INVESTIGATIONS
*Domestic and Personal *Missing Persons Our Speciality
*15 Years Experience *Friendly, Personal Service
*Reasonable Rates *Discretion Assured *No Job Too Small
‘O’Brien.’ The male voice sounded tired. Traffic roared in the background.
‘Oh, hello! O’Brien Investigations?’ squeaked Holly, quite shocked to be talking to a real person.
‘That’s right,’ said the man. ‘What can I do for you?’ His voice was barely audible. It sounded as if he was standing at the edge of a highway—a highway that carried a lot of trucks.
‘I’m—I want someone found,’ Holly managed to stutter. ‘Could you do that?’
‘Husband?’ asked O’Brien wearily.
‘Fiancé,’ said Holly.
‘What? Sorry, can you speak up?’
‘Fiancé!’ bawled Holly. ‘The wedding was today, but he left. And he took all my money.’
Passing suits glanced at her then looked quickly away.
‘Right.’ O’Brien sounded depressed, as if he had heard the story a million times. Was that reassuring or not?
Holly realised that he was speaking again.
‘I’m in the middle of moving offices,’ he said. ‘Chaos, you know?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Holly, her heart sinking. Was he going to say he couldn’t take the case? Should she have left out the bit about not having any money?
‘I’ll come to you,’ said the voice on the other end of the phone. ‘What’s the address?’
‘I haven’t got any chairs,’ shouted Holly, meeting the eyes of the passing crowd defiantly.
She thought the man sighed, but it was hard to tell because of all the background noise.
‘Okay,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Where are you now?’
‘Phone box in Springwood,’ yelled Holly. The phone had begun to crackle.
‘I’m breaking up,’ said O’Brien ominously. ‘Springwood. Okay. The pub halfway down the main drag—the Vicky?’
‘You mean the Victory?’ Holly roared. ‘Near the corner of—’ ‘See you there in an hour. Beer garden. Name?’
‘Holly Love!’ shrilled Holly. ‘I’m—shortish, and blondish. Sort of. And I’m wearing . . .’ She looked down, to check. ‘Black jeans and a pink top. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ said O’Brien. ‘Bring a pic of the loser.’
The phone went dead.
The conversation hadn’t gone the way Holly had planned it. She hadn’t asked O’Brien’s rates, for one thing. But at least he was coming. And he did seem experienced. That tired, gravelly voice had sounded like the voice of a man who had seen it all.
Holly backed out of the phone booth. Traffic noise washed over her. The bright light hurt her eyes. She started walking, her overnight bag heavy in her hand, her quilt bag bumping against her leg. She walked quickly. She had a lot to do. If she hurried she could get back to the house, have a shower, pick up a photograph of Andrew, and still be at the Victory at . . .
She glanced at her watch and was amazed to see that it was still only eleven o’clock. So she was due to meet O’Brien at midday. That was when the wedding was supposed to have been. The coincidence seemed to her extraordinary, and she found herself snorting uncontrollably with humourless, mad-sounding laughter as she turned off the main road and headed for the shell of her home.
The beer garden of the Victory was almost empty when Holly arrived just after midday. The lunchtime crowd was still to gather. The desperates needing a quick slug or beginning their daily ritual slide into oblivion were inside at the bar, close to the action.
Groups and couples sat at the few tables that were occupied. So O’Brien hadn’t arrived yet. Holly threaded her way to a sunny spot that gave her a good view of the door. Foremost in her mind was the annoyed realisation that she had not needed to give O’Brien a description of what she was wearing. Because she’d done that, she had felt compelled to put on the black jeans and pink top again, after her lukewarm shower, even though the very sight of them made her sick, and they smelt damply of foolish optimism, humiliation and sweat.
On the way to the Victory Holly had stopped at the jeweller’s where she and Andrew had bought their wedding rings. It wasn’t far from the office. That was why they had gone there. She had paid for both rings, she remembered, because Andrew had forgotten his credit cards. Or so he had said. They had joked about it at the time. Now it seemed a joke in bad taste.
The ring she was to have worn had disappeared with Andrew, but she still had the ring they had chosen for him, in its little black velvet case. The old jeweller, who remembered her, took it back and refunded the money without a word. He was so totally unsurprised that she wondered if he had been expecting her. Maybe in his job you developed an instinct for these things.
As she left the shop, hearing the tinkling of the bell over the door, feeling the jeweller’s faded eyes on her back, she remembered that he hadn’t smiled at the joke over the forgotten credit cards. At the time, she had just thought he didn’t have any sense of humour.
Well, at least she had a reassuring amount of money in her wallet again. More than enough, surely, to pay O’Brien a retainer, or advance, if that was the done thing in the private investigation business, and to bail out her car. What was left would have to support her till her parents’ birthday cheque cleared. It would be a near thing. She had to find another job, very soon. And another place to live.
She quickly looked away from that thought by glancing at her watch. It was already twelve-ten. She was attacked by the fear that O’Brien had reconsidered. Got a better offer. Was being stood up getting to be a habit with her?
‘Holly Love?’
Holly jumped and twisted violently in her chair. A man stood behind her. He was in his fifties, she thought, and had one of those narrow, slightly swarthy faces which, possibly under the pressure of late nights, alcohol, cigarettes, disenchantment and too few fresh vegetables, had somehow fallen forward and concentrated itself into a humped, beaky nose. Dark sunglasses shielded his eyes. His hair was grey-blond, the layered cut growing out, fluffing slightly over his ears and jutting out over his forehead. He was wearing a faded blue shirt with the top button missing, a crumpled, striped tie with a tiny knot and rather tight cream trousers.
This was O’Brien. She would have recognised the voice anywhere, despite the absence of crackling and traffic noise. She realised that he had come into the beer garden by a door that led from the public bar instead of by the more direct route through the lounge. Because he wanted to sum her up from a distance before she saw him? Or just because he hadn’t been able to resist picking up a quick drink on the way to the meeting?
Filled with misgivings, Holly murmured her agreement that she was, in fact, Holly Love. O’Brien sat down wearily, pulling out a packet of cigarettes.
‘Mick O’Brien,’ he said, sticking a cigarette into his mouth and lighting it in what seemed to be a single movement. ‘Want a drink?’ Gripping the cigarette between his teeth, he began patting his pockets with both hands, as if looking for his wallet.
‘Oh—I’ll get them,’ said Holly, jumping to her feet. She knew she was being outmanoeuvred by an expert, but felt incapable of resisting, and just wanted to get it over with. ‘What would you like?’
‘Anything—whatever—Scotch,’ said O’Brien. ‘Double. No ice.’
Holly went to the lounge bar and bought the drinks. By the time she got back, O’Brien had taken off his sunglasses and pulled the knot in his tie down to about necklace length. He had obviously decided that she didn’t need impressing. His eyes were small, pale and strangely blank. He seized the drink and swallowed it in a gulp. Holly sipped her mineral water.
‘I brought the photo,’ she said, after a moment.
O’Brien nursed his glass and looked at her broodingly.
‘The photo of Andrew—my fiancé . . . ex-fiancé,’ she urged, pushing the picture towards him. ‘You were going to—’
‘Oh, sure, sure,’ he said. ‘Yeah. So.’ He slapped his pockets again and pulled out a chewed pen and a small black notebook. The notebook’s vinyl cover was smeared with something yellow. A picture of O’Brien eating a bacon and egg roll in his car flashed into Holly’s mind.
O’Brien picked vaguely at the yellow smear, then flicked open the notebook. He prised a business card from beneath the inside cover flap, scribbled on it, then pushed it over to Holly.
‘New cards haven’t arrived yet,’ he said. ‘Bloody printers.’
Gorgon Office Supplies offered a twenty-four hour service on business cards. Of course, Holly thought, things were probably different in the mountains.
O’Brien’s shaky printing revealed that his new office was in Mealey Marshes. This was a small village in the upper mountains, he told Holly, between Wentworth Falls and Leura, more or less. Off the highway, in a nice little valley. Not on the tourist beat, which suited him.
Holly was reassured. She had never heard of Mealey Marshes, but the other names were very familiar. Anne, Paola and Justine were always talking about the Leura shops, and Justine had a friend whose aunt had once had a holiday house in Wentworth Falls.
O’Brien’s top lip quivered as he suppressed a yawn. He flipped to a fresh page in his notebook and wrote ‘Holly Love’ at the top.
‘So, what’s the story?’ he said. ‘Done a runner, has he?’
Holly cleared her throat. ‘How much—?’
‘Don’t worry. You can afford me.’ O’Brien grinned wolfishly. It was suddenly possible to see what he had once been. Much better looking, for a start.
Holly told the story, from beginning to end. O’Brien drew spirals and took a few notes. Occasionally he asked a question. Once he said, ‘It always comes down to money in the end, love,’ and she thought tolerantly how cynical he was, while another part of her mind wondered if he was calling her by a casual endearment or if by some chance he had remembered her second name.
Halfway through the process O’Brien put his sunglasses back on. Holly didn’t know if this was a good sign or a bad one, but she was glad. His eyes had been worrying her. They looked exhausted. Haunted. The irises were dim, grey-blue. The whites were yellow-pink. And when he blinked, his lids stayed shut for a fraction too long. Mornings obviously weren’t the best times for O’Brien.
When she had finished, he nodded.
‘I’ll get onto it,’ he said. ‘No probs.’
‘You really think you can find him? How quickly?’ Holly’s heart fluttered with hope.
‘Couple of days,’ he said. ‘These guys are amateurs. Trust me.’ He licked his lips. ‘There’ll be a few expenses,’ he added.
Holly nodded, gripping her handbag.
In the end, he asked for a hundred dollars. Holly smiled feebly, ignoring the warning signal flashing in her mind. Things seemed to have gone too far for her to turn back. It wasn’t that she liked O’Brien, but a strange sort of intimacy had grown between them during the past forty minutes. She couldn’t imagine starting again with someone else.
And she did trust him, somehow. The depressed way he’d said ‘no probs’—it was very convincing. Holly was certain he had hunted down a thousand men like Andrew in his time. Men avoiding child maintenance payments, men who had faked suicide and left their wives with massive debts, men who had robbed helpless widows and gullible spinsters. (Like Holly?)
So O’Brien lived hard, never re-knotted his tie, and had egg on his notebook. So what? Andrew had dressed like an ad man, wore expensive after-shave, and jogged. And look how he’d turned out.
She opened her handbag. O’Brien leant back in his chair, his hands behind his neck, very casual. The warning signal flashed more brightly. Holly’s hand slid over her wallet, seized her cheque book.
‘It’ll have to be a cheque, I’m afraid,’ she said brightly.
O’Brien’s top lip twitched.
‘Michael O’Brien, wasn’t it?’ she chattered on, pen poised over the cheque.
‘Cash’d be more convenient, if you don’t mind,’ said O’Brien, flashing a smile. ‘Bit of a hassle getting to the bank, little cheques . . .’
‘Oh, I know,’ said Holly. ‘I’m really sorry, but Andrew took all the petty cash, and I can’t draw on this account with a card.’
Hard times had toughened her, she realised. Suddenly she could lie through her teeth without a qualm. And she told herself there was nothing to be guilty about, anyway. The cheque she was about to give O’Brien would take up to four days to clear. By that time her parents’ cheque would have cleared, and there would be money in the account.
O’Brien sighed, shrugged, and gave in.
Feeling efficient and in control, Holly asked for a receipt. Smiling cynically, O’Brien wrote it on a page torn out of his notebook.
As they parted, he said he’d call her. She told him that she didn’t have a phone, and said she’d call him. When?
‘Couple of days,’ he said again, tucking Andrew’s photograph into the pocket of his shirt. ‘No probs.’
Holding tightly to the belief that she had achieved something by hiring O’Brien, Holly bought a sausage roll at a takeaway opposite the Victory and wolfed it down so fast that she scorched her tongue. Then she walked down to the service centre.
The Mazda was parked all alone near the yard gate. It had the air of having been finished with, though in what sense Holly didn’t know. Crossing her fingers, she went to the little office where she’d used the phone. There was no one there, but a door behind the counter was open, and loud music pounded from the workshop beyond.
Holly walked around the office to the workshop. A pair of blue-clad legs protruded from beneath an immaculate old gold Mercedes.
‘Hello?’ Holly called. ‘Hello!’
The mechanic slid out from under the Mercedes and got up without haste. He looked at Holly as if he had never seen her before.
‘The Mazda,’ Holly shouted over the music, stabbing her finger towards the yard gate. ‘The white Mazda?’
With no change of expression the mechanic jerked his head and slouched towards the office.
They met again with the counter between them. The mechanic stared at Holly, then his eyes flicked away in what she thought was a furtive manner.
‘Had a look at her,’ he said, rifling through papers with oil-grimed fingers. ‘Couldn’t do much with her, but.’
Holly felt a clutch around her heart.
‘You mean . . . it still won’t go?’ she asked childishly.
The mechanic looked up, looked quickly down again.
‘Oh, she goes,’ he said, and went on thumbing through the papers. He finally found the one he was looking for and slapped it down in front of Holly. She stared sightlessly at the indecipherable scrawls, looked down to the total at the bottom.
The man couldn’t meet her eyes. He was obviously cheating her. But she had told him to go ahead if . . .
‘We take cards,’ the man volunteered, not looking at her. ‘Mastercard, Visa . . .’
‘I’ll give you a cheque,’ Holly said coldly, wondering if he or O’Brien would get to the bank first.
‘Nup,’ said the mechanic. ‘No cheques. Card or cash.’
That seemed to be that. In silence Holly signed the paper and gave up the contents of her wallet. She watched as the small bundle of notes disappeared into the cash register.
‘Thought you were getting married today,’ said the mechanic, handing her two dollars seventy-five in change and giving her another fleeting, furtive glance.
‘I decided not to,’ Holly snapped, feeling her neck grow hot.
‘Good on ya,’ said the mechanic. His hand jerked convulsively to his mouth. He ran a greasy knuckle over his lips and turned away.
‘Take her slow, don’t thrash her, don’t flood her,’ he remarked over his shoulder as he slouched through the workshop door.
It took Holly a split second to realise that he was talking about the car.
She called after him, demanding the car key. He told her it was in the Mazda, on the floor on the driver’s side, and it instantly occurred to her, with a stab of bitterness, that she could have taken the car without paying, if only she had known. The thought startled her. Only twenty-four hours ago it wouldn’t have crossed her mind. It was sobering to experience at first hand how quickly the veneer of civilisation cracked under stress. Still, she thought, leaving the office, it would have served that shifty bastard right to get dudded himself for a change.
Walking across the yard, she looked over her shoulder. The mechanic was standing outside the workshop watching her, wiping his hands on a rag. Suddenly she became convinced that he hadn’t fixed the car at all. But the Mazda started on the first try, purring sweetly as if it had been soothed by the touch of the mechanic’s oily fingers.
Holly’s eyes suddenly welled with tears of gratitude. Her car, her only territory now, was whole again. The mechanic’s shiftiness had not been because he had failed to do a good job, then. It must have been because he knew he was overcharging her.
Well, she could almost forgive him that. And she had shown him she was on to him, anyway. That was a comfort.
She adjusted the rear-vision mirror and saw that a large, curling flake of sausage-smeared pastry clung like a scab to the corner of her mouth.