Dark Summer. Jon Cleary
and Clements went through the narrow hallway and into the living room. Sally Kissen would have won no prizes from House and Garden as a decorator; the room seemed to have been furnished from stalls at the Annual Kitsch Fair. There was a purple-and-red-striped lounge suite; a brass-topped coffee table and two brass sidetables; a 1920s drinks cabinet that opened out to show a mirrored back and, Malone guessed, probably played a musical fanfare; and a Persian rug that looked as if it might have come from a Teheran rubbish dump. There were two paintings on the walls of female nudes, painted, it seemed, by a misogynistic artist. The final touch, which Malone couldn’t bring himself to believe, was three bright orange plaster ducks flying up one wall to the high blue yonder of the peeling ceiling. Sally Kissen had had either wacky taste or a wacky sense of humour.
The two girls sitting in the living room, drinking coffee and munching cookies, went with the room. One had hair so red her head looked as if it were on fire; the other had bleached hers bone-white. They were in black tights and green shirts, open down to the waist and with the sleeves rolled down. They wore no make-up and they looked plain and pale. One had to look twice to see that both of them actually had good features, but the game and their habit had blurred the edges. The rolled-down sleeves told Malone they were probably junkies.
‘Those bickies Iced Vo-Vos?’ he said.
‘Yeah.’ The redhead nodded, her spiky hair shivering; it was like watching a flame quivering in a breeze. ‘They was Sally’s favourites. Waddia wanna know? We know nothing – we told the other guys that. You just come back to do the heavy on us.’
‘Where were you the night before last?’ Malone sat down in one of the purple and red chairs. He noticed that at least the room was clean; Sally Kissen had been a good housekeeper.
‘Out,’ said the blonde. Her hair was long, brushed back and hanging down her back. She had a better voice than the other girl, not as harsh and with the vowels more rounded. ‘We were at a party, we didn’t get home till six yesterday morning.’
‘You’ve got witnesses who’ll back you up?’
The girls looked at each other; then the blonde said, ‘No, I don’t suppose so. They were boys down from the country.’
‘Clients?’ said Clements. The blonde nodded and he went on, ‘Was the party at some hotel?’
‘Yes.’ The blonde was the intelligent one and the redhead seemed content to let her do the talking. ‘Look, we had nothing to do with this. It’s upsetting enough to know Sally is dead. We don’t even know why she died.’
Malone told her.
‘You mean she was murdered?’ The redhead sat with her mouth open, a biscuit crumb on her bottom lip.
‘We’re not saying you had anything to do with it – we’re just trying to clear it up. What are your names?’
The redhead blinked, licked the crumb from her lip. ‘I’m Tuesday Streep.’
‘Ava Redgrave,’ said the blonde.
‘You ever been in movies? You look familiar.’
‘Just art films.’ The blonde smiled, a mistake, since she had a lower front tooth missing. But she had a sense of humour and Malone wondered what she thought of Sally Kissen’s taste. ‘I don’t think they’d be your cup of tea.’
‘No. I like Bugs Bunny.’
Clements went upstairs to look at the actual scene of the crime and Malone stayed with the girls, accepting an Iced Vo-Vo when Tuesday passed him the plate, but declining a cup of coffee. ‘Did Mrs Kissen have any regular male visitors?’
‘We dunno, honest.’ Tuesday, satisfied that Malone was not going to book them, was prepared to be more forthcoming. ‘She never really liked to admit to us she was on the game. She was funny, in a way.’
‘She was a snob, believe it or not,’ said Ava. ‘She said she’d never worked the streets, like we do.’
‘Where do you come from?’
‘From the country.’ He should have picked up the slight bush drawl in her voice. She hesitated, then added, ‘Wagga.’
‘What about you, Tuesday?’
The redhead looked at Ava, then she said, ‘Melbourne. But that’s all I’m telling.’
‘Both of you, do your parents know you’re on the game?’
The two girls shook their heads, then Ava said, ‘We’re both over twenty-one.’
You look it, he thought. ‘Where do you buy your junk?’
‘What junk?’
‘Come on,’ said Malone wearily, nodding at the rolled-down sleeves. ‘I’ve got enough on my plate without doing the Drug Unit’s job. I’m trying to find a murderer. You don’t want him coming back here, do you?’
‘You put it like that –’ Ava rubbed her arm; Malone wondered how many needle-marks were hidden there under the sleeves and on other parts of her body. ‘We buy it from a guy up the Cross. But Sally didn’t use it. She used to, but she gave it up, she said, a coupla years ago. She was on coke, though, but I don’t know where she got it. Maybe the guy who killed her.’ All at once she shivered, as if for the first time she realized the murderer might come back to this house. She looked at Tuesday. ‘I think we better move out.’
‘If you do,’ said Malone, ‘I’ll want to know where I can find you. And I don’t mean up on your beat in William Street. That’s no address.’
‘Why d’you have to bother us?’ said Tuesday, a whine in her voice.
Malone shrugged. ‘We didn’t start this, love. The cove who stuck the needle in her did that.’
Then Clements came back downstairs. ‘If there was anything up there, the Crime Scene guys would have picked it up. Unless the murderer cleaned the place out first. You girls dunno if Mrs Kissen kept a diary or anything, do you? An appointment book?’
‘An appointment book?’ Ava looked at him. ‘What d’you think this is – the Quality Couch?’ That was the city’s top brothel, where clients could run an account and regulars were given bonus sex as a Christmas gift. ‘I dunno if she kept a diary. She was kind of funny, like Tuesday said. Sometimes she’d talk with us, sort of reminisce. Other times she was like a brick wall. I don’t think she was the sort to keep a diary.’
Then abruptly she stood up, an ungainly movement; she was taller than Malone had expected and she moved with that awkwardness he had seen in some tall women. She went out of the room and when she came back she was carrying a wall calendar.
‘Sally used to make notes on this. I dunno if it’ll help.’
It was a calendar about eighteen inches square with a separate fold-up page for each month. Each page was an illustration, the male equivalent of a Penthouse centrefold. Malone wondered that Sally Kissen, in her trade, had any time for men; or were these the sort of clients she dreamed about? Mr January, one hand placed strategically, smiled coyly at Malone. Below the oil-glistening beefcake, on the calendar itself, several dates were ringed and initialled. Sunday, the day before yesterday, was initialled A.H. and so was the previous Sunday. A.H., it seemed, liked to get the week’s dirty water off his chest before starting a new week. Malone wondered if Mrs Kissen charged double-time for weekend work. There had been an attempt to form a prostitutes’ union and he remembered now that Sally Kissen had been one of the spokeswomen for it. He couldn’t remember whether she had advocated penalty rates.
‘You any idea who A.H. might be?’
Both girls looked at the calendar, seemingly oblivious of the male flesh exposed to them. ‘Mostly, we were never here when she let her visitors in – she tried to keep ’em out of our way. It was her snobbery bit again. She didn’t have much time for the way we have to work. She was one of the old-time pros, but