Book of Lost Threads (27 page)

Ana had never spoken of these events to anyone outside her family. Through her teens, she had suffered terrible nightmares. They occurred less frequently now, but sometimes, without warning, the terror returned in a vision of a blood-spattered wall, of brains and viscera on the footpath, of the stench of urine in dark hiding places, or the sound of screams and pleas for mercy coming through the wall of their shallow refuge. Even in sunny Shepparton or in her cosy little New York apartment, the fear would return unbidden.

Lusala looked at her with a world of sorrow in his quiet eyes. ‘My little friend. What can one say in the face of such pain?’ And it smoothed her ragged thoughts to sit quietly in his presence.

‘Thank you, Mr Ambassador,’ she said after a time. ‘I’m alright now.’

‘Yes, my dear. I pray you’ll find peace one day.’ He stood up and became businesslike again. ‘You’re returning to Australia soon, I think?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps it’s time to speak of the other request I have for you.’

‘Anything at all, Mr Ambassador.’

Lusala smiled. ‘I hope you won’t regret saying that.’

‘Me too,’ said Ana, disarmed.

‘The fact is,’ he began, ‘that I had intended to visit Australia myself some time this year. But my duties are set to become more onerous.’

Ana nodded. She’d heard the rumours. The position of Secretary General would soon be vacant and the ambassador was one of three serious contenders.

‘That being the case, I would be most grateful if you were to seek out Mrs Lily Pargetter and give her a token of my esteem—of the United Nations’ esteem. Do you know this town of Opportunity?’

Ana was eager to help. ‘No, Mr Ambassador. But Victoria is not so large that I couldn’t find her. It would be an honour to act on your behalf.’

‘Very good. Very good.’ Lusala turned to unlock a handsome oak armoire. He took out a parcel sealed with the UN seal. ‘I hope this brings her pleasure. You must tell her it’s from Lusala Ngilu, Quartermaster, on behalf of the Secretary General of the United Nations. And Ana . . .’ It was the first time he had called her by her given name. ‘I’d like you to call and tell me about her. Our Mrs Pargetter has been my mentor all these years.’

18
Moss, Brenda and Sir Donald Bradman

T
WO WEEKS AFTER
M
OSS AND
H
amish met with Georgia, she rang Moss with welcome news. ‘Damara can help you, but you’ll need to buy her time,’ she said, and giving Moss the phone number, wished her luck. Moss could hardly wait for Georgia to finish. She hung up and called Damara straightaway.

‘Damara? My name is Miranda Sinclair. Georgia has spoken to you about me?’

The voice on the other end was cautious. ‘Yeah. I might be able to help, but it’ll cost you. I’ll need some money for expenses and loss of earnings.’

‘Georgia told me that. How much for an hour of your time?’

‘A hundred dollars. More if I’ve got the information you want. And you’ll have to throw in a nice lunch.’

Moss asked Hamish to come along, and he was more than happy to desert his studies. ‘Someone has to make sure you don’t do anything rash,’ he added. He wondered briefly how well she had thought through this quest. Nevertheless, he was pleased to see her when he picked her up from the station in his old Commodore.

‘Let’s get moving,’ she said. Hamish drove in his usual careful manner while Moss fretted. ‘You could have made that green light,’ she said impatiently, more than once. ‘You could overtake that truck.’

‘Plenty of time,’ Hamish responded curtly. ‘You can always catch the tram if you don’t like my driving.’

They arrived early at the small Greek restaurant that Damara had named, and looked curiously around at the other diners, in case she had already arrived.

‘I told her I’d be wearing a black jumper with an emerald-green scarf.’ Moss was rather enjoying the cloak-and-dagger aspect of their task. ‘She’ll be wearing a purple top.’

‘And the password is “The bird of night roosts in the banana palm”,’ Hamish muttered from the side of his mouth.

Moss giggled. ‘What an incredibly good guess! I . . . oh, this must be her.’

Damara sat down in the chair Hamish pulled out, and took off her sunglasses. Her dark brown eyes and olive skin indicated Mediterranean ancestry, and Moss and Hamish looked in awe at her pink mohawk, wondering why on earth she thought she’d needed to mention she’d be wearing a purple top. She met their astonished gaze with an ironic quirk of the eyebrow. She was clearly no fool.

‘I met Brenda just after the accident,’ she said, tucking into her calamari. ‘We both worked for Vince. What a fucking bastard he was. He’d beaten Brenda up real bad and she couldn’t work for weeks. Broke her jaw. I had to take her in. He nicked all her money and the other girl’s too.’

‘Amber-Lee’s?’

‘Yeah. He wanted Brenda to tell him where Amber-Lee hid her stash, but she swore she didn’t know. She wasn’t going to mess about with Vince, so she gave him a box from under the poor bitch’s mattress and he found her money in it. But he just wouldn’t believe there was no stash. So, as I said, he beat her up real bad.’ Damara spoke dispassionately, as though she were describing a business transaction, spearing the calamari rings to make her point.

Hamish watched her with narrowed eyes. She was betrayed only by a slight tremor in the hand holding her glass.

‘Did you keep in touch with Brenda?’ Moss asked without much hope.

‘Yeah, I did for a while. We went to Adelaide and worked together for nearly three years, then she met a bloke and they got married. He knew she was on the game, and he didn’t want her mixing with her old friends, so we sort of lost touch. Last I heard she had a couple of kids.’

‘Did she stay in Adelaide?’ Hamish asked.

‘Far as I know.’

‘Do you have an address?’

‘Nuh. Haven’t seen her for ages.’

‘What was her married name?’ Moss asked.

Damara had already told them more than she’d meant to, and recollected herself in time. ‘That sort of information doesn’t come cheap.’

‘How much?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Five hundred.’

Hamish put a warning hand on Moss’s knee. This was where he could be useful. ‘One fifty. That’s more than fair.’

Threads ‘Three hundred.’

‘Two fifty. Final offer,’ said Hamish, preparing to stand up. ‘Take it or leave it.’

Moss held her breath. She would have been happy to pay the five hundred.

‘Okay. Two fifty.’ Damara waited while Moss counted out five fifty-dollar bills. ‘She married a man called Ivan Lefroy— don’t ask me how to spell it.’ Picking up the half-empty bottle of wine, she pushed back her chair, a warning in her dark eyes. ‘I hope you’re not going to give her any grief. We used to look out for each other.’

The other diners looked on with interest as she swaggered out of the restaurant.
What on earth are those two nice young
people doing with someone like that? I’m sure I saw them give her
money. Buying cocaine or ecstasy, maybe?
And the remainder of their meal was piquant with the sauce of speculation.

‘Lefroy,’ said Moss as they drove away. ‘There can’t be many Lefroys in Adelaide. How would you spell it?’

‘L-e-–f-r-o-–y? Or it could be two words, L-e F-r-o-–y.’

‘Or “i” instead of “y”. No, probably not.’

‘She mightn’t have changed her name. Or she could be divorced. What was her maiden name again?’

‘Watson. There’d be a few more of those.’

As soon as they returned to Moss’s house, they went online and searched the telephone directory.

‘Adelaide has three Lefroys and one Le Froy,’ said Moss. ‘Let’s see: there’s one
I. Lefroy
. And a
B
. What do you think?’

‘Write them all down,’ said Hamish. ‘And Moss, let’s think this through before we go making the calls.’ He could see her excitement at their success so far was in danger of propelling them into precipitate action. ‘We don’t want to scare her off.’

Moss nodded impatiently. Hamish was always so cautious. She was aware that she often acted impetuously, but surely here her impatience was understandable. Acutely conscious of the fact that she had left reconciliation with Linsey too late, she was desperate to settle the matter of Amber-Lee. She delicately scrolled her fingers around the little gold treble clef. So much thought had gone into her father’s gift. Well, she decided, she wouldn’t let him down.

Hamish helped her to plan what she would say. They decided to contact I. Lefroy first. He turned out to be an elderly man called Ian. He told them that he did have a younger cousin called Ivan who may have married a Brenda, but they’d lost touch years ago.

‘There were rumours that she was a working girl.’ He sniggered. ‘Just like Ivan to do something like that. I heard he dumped her soon after they moved to Christies Beach. Not sure where he went. Took the kids, as far as I know. Anyway, my wife wouldn’t have anything to do with them, so I didn’t either. Suited me fine.’

‘Let’s hope “B” is for Brenda,’ Hamish said as Moss dialled the next number.

The voice that answered was thick with smoke. ‘Brenda here.’ The woman gave a chesty cough.

Moss began her prepared spiel but Brenda cut her off. ‘Yeah, Damara told me you might ring.’

So Damara had been in touch with Brenda all along
, Moss thought crossly. ‘Are you willing to talk to us?’

‘Two hundred an hour,’ she said promptly, clearly having been schooled by Damara. ‘And a nice meal.’
Easiest money
ever
, Brenda thought, reaching for the cigarette packet that was never far out of reach. She absentmindedly stroked her jaw. It still ached in a cold wind. She remembered the day she first saw the inexperienced Amber-Lee working the streets. Not a bad-looking kid. Very young, though. She looked like a schoolgirl in spite of the heavy makeup. Brenda still had a heart in those days, and she almost advised the girl to cut her losses and go to the Ward Street Shelter. But Vince had sent her to recruit this newcomer, so what could she do? The more girls Vince had, the less likely he was to pay her special attention. At least, that’s what she’d thought then. She drew on her cigarette and mused on their separate fates. Sometimes she wondered whether Amber-Lee was better off where she was.

Moss ended the call after making a time and date to meet in Adelaide. ‘Will you have time to come with me, Hamish?’

Hamish once again felt the burden of the responsibility he had taken on. Moss was becoming increasingly reliant on him. He could try to back out, plead study commitments. But when Moss had her heart set on something, he found her hard to resist
.
Besides, he rather liked the way she relied on him for advice. Companionship too, he hoped. He was confident that she enjoyed his company as much as he enjoyed hers. He shrugged his shoulders and accepted the inevitable. ‘Okay, Moss. As long as it’s no more than two or three days.’

‘You’re a star, Hamish. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

Hamish and Moss arrived in Adelaide two days later. ‘I’ve booked us into the Grosvenor,’ Moss said as they boarded the airport bus. ‘We have adjoining rooms.’

Hamish felt a stab of rejection. He’d expected them to share a room. There was no particular reason for this expectation other than his wish that it were so. He and Moss had been getting on so well and he thought that this trip might be the catalyst that would move them to the next level. Still, he reminded himself, the rooms were adjoining . . .

After dinner, they stopped in the corridor outside Moss’s door.
It’s now or never
, thought Hamish as he leaned forward to kiss her lips. To his chagrin, he found himself offered her cheek.

‘See you in the morning, Hamish,’ she said, returning his kiss with a comradely peck. ‘Remember we’re meeting Brenda at twelve thirty.’ She looked at him gratefully. ‘You really are a mate, Hamish.’

Not quite in the sense I’d hoped
, Hamish thought peevishly as he unlocked his door. A mate! It wasn’t much fun being Mr Nice Guy. Did he have a sign on him saying,
Buddy/Mate/Pal
? A sign that only women could read? He glared at himself in the mirror, brushing his teeth with unusual vigour. Women always called on him when they needed something—a tap washer repaired, a partner for a special occasion, a shoulder to cry on after a break-up . . . He was everyone’s ideal friend, and apparently nobody’s ideal lover. He went to bed feeling very badly done by.

Brenda was a full head taller than Moss, with spiky red hair and a pale, pinched face. She was nervous and twitchy, her restless hands moving the pepper mill, the cutlery, her water glass; twisting her bracelet, smoothing her sleeves and folding and refolding her napkin until Hamish felt quite dizzy.

Moss came straight to the point. ‘As you know, we need information, anything you know about a girl called Amber-Lee.’

‘I told the police all I knew at the time,’ replied Brenda, eyes narrowing. ‘But I might have something you’d be interested in. What would you say to a photograph of Amber-Lee’s family?’

Moss leaned forward, eyes gleaming. ‘Go on.’

I hope Moss never plays poker
, Hamish thought. He was in a more sanguine mood this morning.