Free Cherry Pie by Leigh Redhead Page B

to look sincere. ‘Yeah. I don’t want to piss off you guys and risk losing my license again. And realistically, I blew my cover last night. There’s no way I’d get away with waltzing back into Jouissance. I was already thinking I’d concentrate my inquiry on other avenues, like the boyfriend and stuff. You promise you’ll let me know if you find anything on Andi?’ I forked the cauliflower mixture into my mouth. It really was a taste sensation.
    ‘Absolutely.’ He smiled, relieved, then screwed up his face when he saw what I was eating. ‘That smells like an old folks’
    home and looks like something my cat sicked up. What the hell is it?’
    ‘Kind of like tuna mornay?’ I said through a mouth full of slop. ‘But not.’
     

Chapter Eleven

The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology was sprawled across a couple of city blocks on the northern edge of the CBD and comprised maybe twenty different buildings, from gothic bluestone to modern structures of concrete and steel. I drove to the city and parked under a new shopping complex that took up a whole block between Lonsdale Street and Latrobe, then followed Liam’s instructions to Bowen Street. It was more of a lane really, blocked off to traffic, skinny trees and wooden benches lining either side. Students in coats and bulky jackets, weighed down with backpacks, hurried into buildings, out of the cold and rain. Wherever Andi was, I hoped it was somewhere warm.
    The cafeteria where I’d arranged to meet Liam was a couple of hundred metres down the lane and the entrance looked like something out of Playschool , a wall of glass squares coloured blue, yellow and red. I looked around. The only person I could see was a gangly guy leaning against a tiled pillar, smoking a cigarette and sheltering from the rain.
    ‘Liam?’
    He was all in black, from his jeans to his gel-spiked hair. He had a long neck with a prominent Adam’s apple and the face on top was slightly beaky. He was no more than nineteen, with remnants of teenage acne that looked raw and inflamed where he’d shaved. Guys that young did nothing for me, but I noted he had a kind of intense poutiness that might turn into something in five years’ time.
    ‘Simone Kirsch?’ His voice was a little strangled.
    ‘That’s me.’ I held out my hand and the wooden beads around his wrist rattled as he gave it a limp shake.
    ‘I’ve read all about you. Big fan of Curtis Malone. You look different than I imagined.’
    ‘I’d normally show up in a G-string and pasties, drawing a gun from my garter belt, but it’s too fucking cold.’
    He laughed and stubbed out the ciggie under one of his Doc Marten boots. ‘You’re not wrong, let’s go inside.’
    The cafeteria was set up like a food court with a linoleum floor and counters selling coffee, sandwiches, burgers and noodles. The air was muggy and the smell reminded me of school in winter: wet wool and tomato sauce. I bought us both a coffee, Liam grabbed a bucket of hot chips and we sat at a metal table beside another glass wall, this one clear glass, posters advertising dance parties and student rallies fixed to the squares.
    ‘Thanks for agreeing to speak to me.’
    ‘No problem.’ He blew on a chip and the sharp scent of vinegar hit my nostrils. ‘Just tell me to shut up if I talk too much. Got up early and popped six Sudafed so I could finish off an assignment. Works like speed, turns me into a motor mouth.’
    ‘Motor mouth is good. Tell me everything. Talk all you like.’
    ‘Sure, but like I said on the phone, I don’t know where she is or what happened to her. I mean, we were still friends but we broke up a couple of months ago.’
    ‘How long were you guys going out for?’
    ‘God, not more than three months. I met Andi when we started at the beginning of the year. We were in a lot of the same classes and I liked her on sight but I never thought anything would happen. She was one of the mature age students and I’m just out of school.