Billie turned on her heel and ventured the extra block down Northumberland Avenue towards Parramatta Road and the Olympia. At last she’d got something.
She stepped out and paused, passed on the corner of Corunna Lane by a smiling man in black with a stiff white clerical collar riding a bicycle. He dipped his head to her, and she returned the gesture from her place on the footpath. She watched the cycling rector pass, stepped on to the main road and focused on the strip of shops and the Olympia Theatre. It wasn’t hard to find the milk bar. The local kids were drawn to it as flies were to honey. Several children, some still in school clothes, with scuffed knees and unkempt hair, played around the footpath outside under the awning. The Olympia was famous for its milkshakes, Billie had heard. It would doubtless be a popular place, particularly in summer.
A man with dark hair slicked back from his forehead, wearing slightly shabby but elegant pants and shirt, topped with a white apron, emerged from the milk bar as she approached and shooed the children away from the entrance. ‘Time to go home,’ he told them firmly, but kindly. ‘Go on.’
‘Kids!’ The man spoke with a pleasant accent Billie guessed was Greek and she followed through the concertina timber doors of the milk bar. A bell tinkled as they crossed the threshold. ‘Latch-key kids,’ he added. ‘Those factories let their parents out too late. After school they all come here.’ He threw up his hands, a potent gesture that seemed to sum up a widely felt frustration with the ways of the world.
The Olympia was a narrow space, its name proudly picked out in coloured terrazzo on the floor just beyond the entry. The ceiling, Billie noted, was made up of ornate panelled plaster. A few neon signs were up on the walls, and a glass-fronted stainless steel counter faced the wooden tables and chairs dotted around the green, red and yellow tiled floor. It was a cheerful place, colourful and stylish, though it appeared a touch worse for wear, like much of the rest of the neighbourhood. Some of the mirrors and the green vinyl covers of the stools had begun to crack. In places the chrome had lost its polish, though not for lack of care if the busy proprietor was anything to go by. He was already polishing again, his calloused hands pushing a cloth over surfaces, seemingly cleaning up on autopilot while his restless eyes surveyed his domain. He’d have to be eagle-eyed with so many unaccompanied kids trailing in, Billie thought. Bold dares and light fingers were childhood rites of passage.
The sparsely stocked shelves held boxes of chocolates, bright gumballs and a couple of basic sundries; rationing had made its mark. Billie turned her eyes to the proprietor again. He was working alone and wasn’t quite the young soda fountain assistant – or ‘soda jerk’ as the Americans were fond of calling them – you saw in the upscale city joints. His glossed hair was the colour of a raven’s feathers, but under the lights he looked older than she’d first assumed.
‘What can I get you, miss?’ he asked.
‘I’ll have a soda, please,’ she replied, and slid onto one of the stools. She felt the slightly cracked vinyl fight with the weave of her skirt. ‘Keep the change,’ she added, as she pushed her money across the counter.
‘Soda coming up,’ the man said and busied himself.
‘You’re not from around here, are you, miss,’ he remarked, and she let that ride for the moment as she spotted a stack of Hollywood and entertainment rags and a single newspaper at the end of the bar. It was today’s copy of the Truth. She recognised the front page. Her heart sank a little when she couldn’t see any other papers, except for the current Sydney Morning Herald. She noticed the owner filling her glass with a lot of ice, but that wasn’t entirely unwelcome on a warm evening.
‘You know that movie The Killers?’ the proprietor asked, placing the drink in front of her. ‘I ain’t seen it yet myself but I’ve seen that actress in all those rags. What is her name? Ava something. You look like her.’
Billie knew she was no Ava Gardner – if she was she sure wouldn’t be running a humble Sydney private inquiry agency and watching her mother sell heirlooms to pay the rent – but it was one of those compliments a lot of men fumbling for a pick-up line had come up with lately, and she had to admit a fair resemblance was there in her even features and long neck and limbs, and the way she wore her dark hair long and parted on the side, though Billie’s locks flared red like a flame when the sun hit them. For a moment she’d thought Maurice was going to go there, too, with his quip about the pictures.
‘Thank you kindly,’ Billie said. From this gentleman, the compliment was sweet.
‘She’s pretty, isn’t she? Now, in my younger days . . .’
Billie cut in before he got too carried away with his nostalgia. ‘I wonder, would you happen to have any old newspapers out the back? I’m packing up, you see. If you don’t need them anymore, I mean. I would be most grateful.’
He peered at her. ‘Moving into the area?’ he asked, a touch puzzled. Admittedly she wasn’t dressed for packing up a house.
‘I’m helping a friend, actually,’ she responded, lies falling easily from her lips. She could lie about unimportant things, she’d found. That kind of creativity was second nature. Good for the work. She took a sip of her cool soda and again flashed that winning professional smile she’d learned to use years ago.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we have some out the back. You’re welcome to them, though they might have got a bit damp in the rain last night.’ He came around the bar and led her to a back door, on the other side of which were heaped boxes, cartons and a messy pile of newspapers, perhaps two weeks’ worth.
‘Thank you, that will help a lot,’ Billie said, and sincerely hoped that would be the case. Checking through the papers would be no cup of tea, but it was worth a shot if what Adin had got steamed up about proved to be relevant. There were worse things than pawing through damp paper.
‘Okay, pretty lady. You’re welcome to them.’
He gave her three brown paper bags to carry them in then excused himself as the bell tinkled and a customer entered the shop. Billie searched through the papers for those dated from Tuesday the previous week and shoved them into the bags, bundling them to her chest so the papers wouldn’t fall out the bottom. She called her thanks to the proprietor, then bobbed and weaved her way around the children still playing on the footpath and made for the tram.
Chapter Three
‘How did you find out?’
He opened his eyes – at least he thought they were open, but they felt hot and swollen, his eyelids not moving as eyelids normally did, but staying in place, barely lifting despite the urgings of his throbbing brain. He could hardly see, making out only movement and darkness, but he recalled a smile as thin as a knife blade. The smile that went with that voice.
‘Who else knows?’ the voice came again, heavily accented and menacing.
The voice hit him like a slap with every question – ‘Who – Else – Knows?’ – repeating the words with cold, firm precision so close to his ear that his brain seemed to throb with each syllable. He recoiled from the sound each time, pushing back against the creaking chair to which he was tied, until it started to tip backwards and an unseen set of hands put it straight again. In a moment of blissful silence, a pause between the words, the sound of something like a whimper came to his ears and it took a moment to realise that it was coming from his own throat. His stomach ached as if he’d been trodden on, and though he recalled being hit, he could not precisely remember where it had happened or how much time had passed. He knew he’d been in the boot of a motor car. But when?