Peter Corris - The Coast Road

There was no security. I went up to the door of flat 2 and rang the bell. The young woman who answered looked at my licence folder short-sightedly through thick glasses. She had a paperback book in her hand with a finger marking her place.

‘Really?’ she said. ‘A private detective?’

‘That’s right. No gun, no trench coat.’

She giggled. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Are you Karen Bach?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know Kristina Karatsky?’

She shook her head.

‘Can you tell me where to find Ms Bach? No trouble for her-a missing person enquiry.’

She pointed towards the canal. ‘She’s walking her dog.’

‘Okay, thanks. What does she look like? What sort of dog?’

A kind of shadow passed across her face. She was plain with mousy hair and sallow skin. She was shortish, neither fat nor thin. She wore a sloppy Joe and baggy jeans, socks, no shoes. ‘Karen’s a tall blonde,’ she said. ‘You’ll find her.’

The light was dropping as I walked down to the strip of green. It made the scene softer, more attractive than it would look in the clear light of day. There were a few people around-joggers, dog-walkers, aimless strollers. A tall blonde woman wearing tight red pants, snowy sneakers and a faded denim jacket was striding along the path by the canal with a prancing white poodle on a lead. I like dogs but I don’t like poodles-don’t know why.

I trotted across the grass and fell in beside her. ‘Ms Bach?’

‘Go away,’ she said.

‘I can’t, sorry. I’m a private detective looking for your friend, Kristina Karatsky. I have to talk to you.’

‘She’s not my friend. Never was.’

‘We still have to talk.’ I could handle the pace, but it was brisk. ‘Looks to me like Fifi there needs a rest. I suggest you slow down.’

That got her attention. ‘Her name’s Tasha and she could outrun you any day.’

‘No doubt about it, but she must be due to find a tree. Come to think of it, I am too.’

She laughed and that brought her to a halt. With Tasha skittering at the end of the plaited lead, she turned and faced me. She was young, late teens at most, and beautiful, but there was something older about her. Her big blue eyes had seen more than they should have.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I knew this’d happen one day. An underage, child molestation, minister of religion thing, right? That’s all I fucking need right now.’

We were standing in the middle of the path with joggers bearing down on us. I took her arm and steered her towards a park bench. Tasha tugged at the lead but came along.

‘Nothing like that,’ I said, lying. ‘Nothing to involve you directly. I just need information about…I guess you know who I mean?’

‘Stefan.’

I suppressed a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Right. Stefan Parnevik. Do we talk here or back at your flat?’

Inside, the flat was surprisingly well furnished and appointed. It had been thoroughly renovated and redesigned. Tasha had the run of the place so there were dog hairs on the rugs and the sofa and chairs and probably in other places. Karen Bach introduced me to Becky, the flatmate, who promptly disappeared into a bedroom.

‘Becky’s shy, I’m not. Want a drink, Mr Hardy?’

‘Sure.’

‘Vodka and tonic okay?’

She’d shed the denim jacket and her figure was on display in a tight fitting top. She sliced a lemon, broke out ice cubes and prepared the drinks like someone who knew what she was doing. She noticed me noticing.

‘I did a bar course. Kris did it with me.’

‘She’s fifteen.’

‘So? Here’s your drink. Have a seat.’

We sat opposite each other at a low table with a glass top. The drink was excellent. ‘What about school?’

‘Neither of us was big on school.’

‘Her mother-’

She almost snorted and stopped herself because it didn’t fit her sophisticated image, an image I was sure she was working at constantly. ‘Her mother didn’t know shit. Anyway, she’s nuts.’

‘Why d’you say that?’

She shrugged, reached for a packet of cigarettes on a ledge under the table and lit one. She took a long drag and expelled the smoke theatrically. ‘Look, Mr Hardy, I’ll come clean with you. I agreed to talk to you because I thought it’d be interesting to meet a private eye. I’m an aspiring actress, presently working as a barmaid, sort of.’

I worked on the drink. A refurbished two or three bedroom flat in Five Dock, however plain the building, wouldn’t come cheap these days. Karen Bach, even with a flatmate, wasn’t just pulling beers.

She reached to the ledge for an ashtray and butted the two-drag cigarette. ‘Topless,’ she said. ‘Lap dancing.’

‘Someone has to do it. Kristina… and her mother.’

‘Kris talked her way into the course, fake ID and that, but she couldn’t get a job. All the makeup and come-on in the world didn’t help. Just too fucking young. I did. She freaked. She ripped off my first pay. I told her to fuck off.’

‘You said something about her mother.’

‘You’re working for her, right? Don’t. She’s a monster.’

‘Come on.’

‘True. She used Kris to attract blokes. Started when Kris was just a kid. You’ve seen that place she lives in. How d’you reckon she got that?’

‘You tell me.’

She emptied her glass. ‘Jesus, I shouldn’t be talking about this. I dunno…But it’s hard stuff to know and hold in.’

I could feel something like a chill starting in my spine and spreading out. ‘Tell me.’

‘I’ll deny I said anything about this if the law gets involved.’

‘Right.’

‘As I say, she used Kris as bait for blokes to get her jobs and then…to blackmail them. She’d be using you the same way, I reckon.’

I sat back and let it hit me hard. Then I thought about it. I was alert, keyed-up. A little alcohol doing no harm to the synapses. ‘Her mother steered me to someone named Lucy Kline. Who’s she?’

‘Fucking hell,’ she said. ‘A nerd who happened to get caught smoking a joint. Probably her first and last. Kris’s mother only ever saw me in school uniform. Kris never let her fucking mother know she knew what was going on. She got all she could out of it herself. She’s a better actress than Meryl Streep. Come to think of it, they both are-her and her mother.’

As I’d expected, Kristina had talked to Karen Bach about Stefan Parnevik. She hadn’t met him but had seen him from a distance. ‘Big, fair-haired bloke. Lots older than her, but that never worried Kris.’

‘Do you know what he did for a living?’

She thought, or tried to look as though she was thinking. Maybe practising her acting. ‘Skiing,’ she said. ‘Something to do with skiing.’

‘No idea where he lived or where his business was?’

She shook her head. ‘Sorry. Look, I’ve got to get to work.’

‘Give you a lift?’

‘Thanks. No, I’ve got a car. Hey, that’s something. I saw his car. I know cars-silver grey Saab, beautiful.’

I thanked her and got to my feet with my head hurting a little, but whether from the injury or what I’d been told I didn’t know. ‘Say goodbye to Becky for me.’

‘Goodbye from me as well. I don’t want to see you again. Hey, you think I’m a dyke?’

I shrugged. ‘No opinion.’

‘Becky’s going to be my manager when I get into movies. She’s a fucking genius.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘We need a few of them the way things are going.’

Karen didn’t quite know what to make of that. Tasha was spread out on the imitation leather couch. She lifted her head and watched me all the way to the door.

It was dark by the time I got back to the car. I sat there for a while trying to tell myself that Karen, the wannabe actress, was acting, and that everything she’d told me about Kristina and Marisha was bullshit. Maybe the two young women were still friends, working some kind of rip-off of vulnerable older men. I couldn’t convince myself, and when I followed her Honda Civic to a pub in Erskineville that advertised ‘topless and titty’, I gave the idea away. She wouldn’t be working there if she had anything else going.