Sydney Girl

By Matt Durrant

When Amy Davenport is reported missing by her mother, Jerome Cardinal takes the job expecting to follow a truant teenager. As he tracks her down, he is catapulted down one girl’s dangerous descent into the seedy underbelly of Sydney’s drug scene and violent gangland. Crossing paths with drug addled fiends and trigger happy gangsters, as well as questionable police, Cardinal has to rely on his street smarts, fearlessness and a sense of humour to get to the bottom of this mystery in one piece.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matt Durrant
• Release date: Jul 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311274526

Matt Durrant

Born in Australia, Matt has lived and travelled around the world since completing his film and business studies at University. He spent 10 years working as a civil servant while continuing to write, direct and produce both short and feature length films. His most recent film work was writing and directing the short film called Pocket Money about two young boys who encounter a gangland shooting. The film was funded though Screen New South Wales Emerging Filmmakers Fund and has screened at festivals around the world, having won awards including Best Screenplay and Best Young Actor. Matt continues to write and develop screenplays for feature films and long form television series, while also launching his debut novel, Sydney's Girl, the first in a new private investigator series.

Book preview

Part I

1

She was an absolute stunner. Gorgeous lips. Full face. Long dark hair. And those eyes. Big brown eyes that held you. I was probably looking at her for a full two minutes, which would have been incredibly creepy, had she not been a painting.

I took another sip of shiraz and glanced around. The artwork in the small Surry Hills studio had a common theme. Every painting had captured a person, and every person was engaged in an intimate moment. Probably unfair to call it erotica, even though it stirred the senses. The naked old men on a tandem bicycle was funny, the Asian baby doll at the end of a hallway reminded me of a sinister bordello, and the young boy staring at a mirror as he played with mum’s lipstick could have been twisted by the Daily Telegraph as pornographic.

I never really got art. On this occasion, I’d merely been invited to attend, probably more out of politeness given I was renting the tiny office upstairs. The studio of Klim and Clark was one of the best design studios in Sydney, and they certainly serviced some of the top companies going around. The exhibition was a chance for their top designers to free form a bit and get away from some of the more corporate blandness their clients requested from them.

They’d invited me at the start of the week. Given I had nothing better to do on a Wednesday night, and factoring in the free wine,

I figured it was only right that I come along.

‘What do you think?’ It was Clark, of Klim and Clark.

‘Terrific stuff. The brunette’s my favourite.’ He rolled his eyes. Yes I was that predictable.

‘Seems to be going well. Are they all clients?’

‘Half are,’ he said without looking at me and keeping an eye on proceedings. ‘The rest are freeloading friends. Oh dear.’

I turned and we both saw an old homeless man saunter in. He had a big grey beard and grey hair to match, underneath an old beanie. Wearing a scruffy parka and carrying a tatty knapsack, he looked like an old sea dog who’d been trapped on land for an eternity. He didn’t miss a beat, and scooped up a half glass of red wine that was being ignored.

I laughed. Clark didn’t. ‘Oh, for fucks….it’s the bloody smokers leaving the door open.’

As Clark continued his tizz, I finished the rest of my glass and put it down on the bench. A hipster waiter made it disappear within seconds.

‘I’ll have a word to him. Just work the crowd.’

‘No fighting please’ Clark begged. I think he was joking.

It was funny how still, after years, the bouncer spirit within me could be summoned on call. Even at parties and gatherings, I was used to looking at doorways, observing the groups, spotting the troublemakers and counting the clock. By now, Old Man River had gathered a few stares from the crowd of fifty odd art lovers and wine connoisseurs. Perhaps he was one himself? The thought occurred to me that the shocked hoi polloi might be drawing breath now, but would probably regale their friends later about the excitement of the wild encounter. He saw me coming. He’d been through this a million times.

‘Hey buddy, how you doing?’

‘Gudday mate.’ Rough. A voice that sounded like it was near the end of the line.

‘You know this is a private party right.’

He looked at me dead in the eye. ‘Yeah right.’

‘No use in hanging around with these types anyway. Conversation will bore you.’ The attempt at humour didn’t amuse him. He glanced around. In a situation like this, you either got to the point fast, or you slowly and calmly rustled them out like a slow moving cattle dog. He gulped the whole glass down fast.

‘Okay, just one more drink.’

‘No.’

I didn’t want a conversation. And fortunately, neither did he. He nodded, turned on his heel and left.

‘Have a good night,’ I said. ‘Piss off’ was the reply, but by then I’d lost interest. Compared to the old Kings Cross nightclub days of ten man brawls, broken glass and bloody faces, it didn’t even raise the adrenalin.

I looked for another hipster carrying a tray of shiraz. And then saw her looking at me. Not the painting again, but a more real version. She was a brunette too, but older. Very meticulous in appearance. The right amount of makeup and appropriate attire. A good-looking woman in her mid forties, or as the mass media would cruelly label her, a cougar. I’d noticed her looking my way earlier but put it down to the general curiosity of someone recognising a person who doesn’t belong.

She knew she had my attention and headed towards me. A tray of drinks passed me and I swiped another shiraz and readied myself for the inevitable opening line.

‘Hello. You’re Jerome Cardinal aren’t you?’

‘I am.’

‘Hilary Davenport.’

We shook hands, and she had a creamy texture to her palms.

‘Pleasure to meet you Hilary. Having a good evening?’

‘Yes, certainly. Well…um, do you mind if we move to the other side.’ She gestured towards the paintings of gyrating stick figures that were being neglected.

I let her do the talking. She clearly had something to say. ‘Clark told me about you. You’re a private investigator.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, I have a problem you see. My daughter has gone missing.’ I felt a tinge of guilt about the carnal direction I thought this had been heading in. With that said, I was well into my thirties and eligible ladies in Hilary’s age bracket were opening up as a new target market.

‘Since when?’

‘It’s been almost two months.’

‘Okay. Have you reported it to the police yet?’

She hesitated. ‘I did, but she wasn’t really missing. You see, she ran away from home. But she’d occasionally answer her phone, and I could see that she was using Facebook too. But she wouldn’t tell me where she was. I went to the police and they said that as long as she was still in contact, albeit every now and then, they couldn’t report her missing.’

‘How old is she?’

‘She just turned 19. I’m worried. Every few days the phone would ring, or she’d send me a text message. But now I haven’t heard from her in over a week and when I call her number, it’s disconnected.’

I felt into my pocket for a business card, almost dropping my wine in the process. Christ, I was starting to turn into a lightweight. I gave her my card. ‘Come by the office tomorrow and we’ll do this properly. Any details you can give me, numbers, email addresses, names of friends, her favourite hangouts, anything, it all helps.’

‘Thanks Jerome.’ There was a tinge of sadness in her eyes, but the occasion meant she was keeping it in, and she seemed like the sort of woman who could do it well. ‘I bet you didn’t think you’d be picking up work at an exhibition.’

‘I’ve found work in more unusual places.’ And I had.

2

I was a tad bleary that morning when I rolled into the office. After my chat with Hilary Davenport, I’d slowed up in the knowledge that I’d be having a second rendezvous with her the following morning, and would need to look and sound the part. Her daughter Amy Davenport, and her sudden disappearance was now the focus of the immediate future.

Half the staff of Klim and Clark hadn’t even made it into work, and the remains in the exhibiting area suggested the evening had kicked on.

I did a quick once over of my office area to make sure it looked somewhat presentable. In all my time working as a private investigator, I’d rarely cared that much for wowing clients with an immaculate showroom as if I was a Williams street luxury car salesman. I stuck to my best assets, my working knowledge of the industry and ability to solve problems.

I’d been in the game for a little over three years, and was easily still a novice. But, I’d had some good basic training before that. Growing up in Kiama, I’d been used to the beach and the bush in equal measure. Living and working on dad’s pig farm had given me a good dose of that Australian hard working mentality. What I’d admired most about dad was his decision to follow his true desire to work for himself. He’d left his plum job working for a bank in the city, and built a piggery two hours south of Sydney. Growing up with my older sister, this meant we all had to change lifestyle choices, although at that age, who cares. Dad wanted to work for himself, that’s all it was. I could understand it then, and I was still inspired by it now.

However life is all about odd turns of fate. I moved to the city for university, limping through a degree in business. It seemed a great distraction, amongst the drinking, rugby and skirt chasing. Working through uni as a bouncer in the notorious red light district of the Cross had given me the confidence to handle myself as well as being a good eye opener into the seedy belly of all that Sin City catered for. However when the crunch came, I decided to make a swift decision and joined the Australian Federal Police. At the age of 23, I’d thought I’d found the perfect fit.

With the Feds I was earning a living in a world that interested me. It also gave an idealistic rookie hope of high adventure. That was the Feds, promising the world and delivering an atlas. It was only after ten years in the AFP that I’d managed to become bitter and distrustful of a system I’d once believed in. Seeing incompetence rise to the top, matters of priority giving way to political power plays and almost having my career and livelihood ruined meant I gladly threw in the towel. I went to build my own piggery.

Private investigation is a funny business. It can be boring, it can be exciting. It’s feast or famine. It’s drawn out, complex fraud matters or it’s titillating voyeurism. I like the unpredictability of it and the fact I serve a real person, and not an anonymous panel of bureaucrats.

Hilary knocked at the door, even though it was open and she’d caught me checking the morning news on my computer. She wore clothes that looked like they were recently bought. They probably were. I suspect she rarely wore the same outfit twice.

‘Come in. Coffee?’ She nodded and I set about loading up a pod of coffee on the new coffee machine my flatmate Kevin had bought me.

Hilary produced a crisp A4 envelope and put it on my desk. As the coffee spluttered, I expelled the envelope’s contents. There were several photos of her Amy, some printed copies of emails, snapshots of a Facebook account and a phone bill.

Amy was a carbon copy of her mother, albeit 20 odd years younger. Long straight hair,