Undercover

by Jacqueline Harvey

  ‘Max, could I have a word?’ Jaco De Vere called. ‘How would you like a spot on the team this weekend? After that show out there, I think we could do with someone like you in the ranks.’

  Max grinned. He didn’t have the heart to tell the man that was the first time he’d ever played a proper competitive game of cricket. It looked like Fitz wasn’t going to be the only one studying the rules over the coming days.

  ‘Have you been able to get hold of Mum?’ Ellery asked. She glanced across at her brother, who was sitting on the other side of Max in the back of the Land Rover. Kensy was in the front, having raced to jump in first and put some distance between her and Van.

  ‘No, she hasn’t picked up my calls or replied to my texts,’ the boy said. ‘She’s probably at the beautician or something and can’t get to her phone. You know what Mum’s like.’

  But Ellery knew that wasn’t what their mother was like at all. She always took their calls and texts and she’d never missed a day of picking them up from school.

  A marked police car and another two vehicles had just pulled up at the kerb outside the Chalmers’ house. A tall man in a smart suit and a young woman in a form-fitting cream dress and matching heels greeted the officers – two uniformed and four who were likely plain-clothes detectives – at the front gate.

  Ellery opened the door and leapt out of the car as it was rolling to a stop. Van followed suit but not before thanking Fitz for the lift and saying goodbye to Kensy and Max. The children’s father looked over and gave a wave, then jogged down the path towards them.

  Fitz tensed, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. ‘Kids, you’d better pray this disguise is effective or we’re in trouble,’ he muttered, before lowering his window. ‘Hi there,’ he said.

  ‘Dash Chalmers,’ the man said by way of introduction, offering his hand.

  Fitz noted that Dash hadn’t lost his American accent at all despite living in Australia for years now. ‘Gerry Grey,’ Fitz said, searching the man’s face for any sign of recognition. ‘I’m the new assistant cricket coach and PE teacher at Wentworth Grammar.’

  Dash nodded. ‘Thanks for bringing the children home,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid there’s been an incident.’

  ‘I hope everything’s okay,’ Fitz said, counting on the fact that Dash was still as big a talker as he’d always been.

  ‘Not really. My, uh, my wife’s disappeared,’ Dash said.

  Kensy and Max looked at each other.

  ‘Are you certain?’ Fitz asked. ‘The children seemed to think she might just be running late from an appointment.’

  Dash shook his head. ‘She’s never missed picking them up from school, and the police have tracked her phone to a remote location west of the Blue Mountains. It was lying on the side of the road. Her car was found a few kilometres away, but there was no sign of Tinsley.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ Fitz said. ‘I’m so sorry. Can we do anything to help?’

  Dash’s face began to crumple. ‘It’s just … I don’t even want to think about what could have happened. She’s the love of my life and the children are her whole world.’

  ‘I’m sure the police will do everything they can,’ Fitz said, as a convoy of news trucks drove into the street. Reporters and cameramen spilled out of the vehicles, heading for the house.

  ‘Mr Chalmers,’ one of the police officers called. ‘We need to get inside and set up for the press conference.’

  The man turned and gave a nod.

  ‘I mean it. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do,’ Fitz said. ‘I can take the children to school in the morning or drop them back afterwards. Or they could stay with us tonight?’

  ‘My assistant, Lucy, is going to look after them this evening – she took the children up to the house just now. They can catch the ferry in the morning, but perhaps you can bring them home? They’ve got after-school activities. That’s always been Tinsley’s job,’ Dash said. ‘I’ve got a hectic day of meetings tomorrow.’

  ‘No problem,’ Fitz said, thinking it was strange that Dash was worried about a busy workday when it seemed that his wife had very likely met with foul play.

  Kensy and Max were wondering the same thing. The whole situation was bizarre. They watched Dash walk back to the property and the gates close behind him.

  ‘Okay – so what’s really going on?’ Max asked, leaning between the two front seats.

  ‘Good question,’ Fitz said, his mouth set in a grim line. He turned the ignition and drove home.

  ‘I thought we were supposed to be watching the kids and now it’s their mother whose gone missing. What’s that about?’ Kensy said, her brows knitted together. ‘The message this morning mentioned that she was making a move soon, but suddenly she’s disappeared – that doesn’t make any sense at all.’

  Max spotted Curtis standing on his front porch. The boy gave a wave as the car pulled into the driveway. The twins waved back before the garage door opened and Fitz parked the car inside.

  ‘We should go and say hello,’ Max said. Kensy had told him what happened at lunchtime and how horrible she’d felt about it.

  ‘All right, but don’t be long,’ Fitz said, opening the driver’s door. ‘The news will be on in a little while and I think Dash is going to be front and centre. We need to see what the police are sharing.’

  Kensy and Max dumped their bags at the bottom of the staircase and yelled a quick hello to Song before heading out the front door. They peered around the dividing wall to see if Curtis was still there.

  ‘Hi,’ Max said, noticing that the lad had his backpack on and looked as if he was about to go somewhere. ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘I saw some news trucks driving down Blues Point Road. Thought I’d take a look,’ Curtis said. Unlike yesterday, he didn’t immediately extend an invitation for the twins to join him.

  ‘They’re outside the Chalmers’ place,’ Kensy said, hoping that by giving him some information he’d feel a little better towards her.

  ‘How do you know that?’ Curtis asked.

  Kensy explained that they’d dropped Van and Ellery at home as the police and news crews had arrived.

  ‘I always knew there was something weird going on in that family,’ Curtis said, clicking his tongue.

  For the first time, Max wondered if the boy might actually have some useful information.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Kensy asked.

  ‘Just stuff,’ Curtis said with a shrug.

  Clearly, he wasn’t about to be drawn on whatever it was he’d gathered. ‘Oh, okay,’ Kensy said, taking a different tack. She bet Curtis would be more inclined to tell her if she pretended she wasn’t interested.

  ‘We’d better let you go then,’ Max said, tuning into his sister’s wavelength.

  Kensy opened the front door and was about to step inside when Curtis piped up.

  ‘Do you want to come with me?’ he asked.

  Kensy grinned. ‘You bet!’

  And with that, Kensy and Curtis scampered down the path while Max stayed behind to watch the press conference under the guise of too much homework. He told Fitz where she’d gone and they both agreed it was probably a good idea to keep an eye on the Chalmers’ house – and perhaps Kensy could teach Curtis some surveillance techniques. Although, given the lad’s fervour for spying, there was a possibility that could go either way.

  Kensy finished brushing her teeth and spat into the sink. ‘It’s horrible what’s happened to Mrs Chalmers,’ she said, looking at her brother in the mirror. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Van and Ellery must be worried sick about her.’

  Max nodded. ‘We know what that feels like.’

  Unfortunately, there was nothing of note to report after Kensy’s stake-out with Curtis. She had learned more about the boy’s bag of gadgets, which included a pretty impressive collection of skeleton keys she was fairly certain had never been used, a huge magnifying glass, binoculars, his notebook and invisible-ink pen, a
length of rope, a drink bottle and a survival kit. As for the press conference, the news bulletin had only shown Dash appealing for information and wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. There were no material leads – at least none that the police were sharing.

  ‘Did you realise Mum and Dad have been gone for over three months now?’ Max said, cleaning his toothbrush and replacing it in the holder.

  ‘Three months, two days and sixteen hours.’ Kensy opened the shaving cabinet in search of aloe vera. ‘I can’t stop thinking about them since Mrs Chalmers’ disappearance. The whole situation has been playing over and over in my head, but there are too many missing pieces. So, our grandparents were supposedly killed in a botched robbery twelve years ago, but they weren’t. Then Mum and Dad and Fitz went missing in the fake plane crash, but that was a lie. I wonder if Hector and Marisol knew about that. Do you think our grandparents got a message to Mum and Dad? Or did Mum and Dad discover something that suggested our grandparents aren’t dead?’

  Max frowned. ‘Given how often we moved, it would have been impossible to send a letter – unless it took years to reach Mum.’

  ‘And they never even made it to Africa, although Fitz said they were in the Maldives at one point. Something must have happened there, or on the way there, for them to know Hector and Marisol were still alive,’ Kensy said, rubbing the soothing lotion onto her sunburned arms. ‘Have you been talking to Carlos at all?’

  Max glanced at his sister in the mirror, then spat into the sink. ‘Um, yeah, just the other night. Why? You’d better not have blabbed to Autumn.’

  ‘Why would you immediately assume that?’ Kensy retorted. ‘Autumn called a little while ago on the video link. I gather you probably knew that she and Carlos have been doing some investigations of their own about the house explosion. Apparently, there are no finger prints and the lab hasn’t been able to trace where the ingredients of the bomb came from either. She knew about the missing CCTV footage too.’

  Max’s eyebrows jumped up. ‘Wow, she’s amazing.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure that feeling is mutual,’ Kensy quipped.

  The pair was interrupted by Fitz calling them from downstairs. ‘Kids, you might want to come and take a look at this!’ he yelled.

  Kensy dropped the bottle of aloe vera onto the vanity and ran out of the bathroom with Max behind her. They found Song and Fitz standing in front of the television in the family room. There on the screen was Dash Chalmers with his arm wrapped around his wife and news crews clamouring to get close to them.

  ‘They found her already?’ Max asked. ‘That’s so unlikely. Statistically speaking, ninety-nine per cent of missing people turn up and eighty-five per cent of them appear within the first week, but when it comes to abductions, only around fifty per cent of people are found inside thirty days.’

  ‘Someone’s been paying attention in class,’ Fitz said with a grin.

  Kensy sank down on the sofa. ‘What a relief.’

  The footage looked to be out in the bush somewhere and Mrs Chalmers had an angry red mark on her forehead and a bandage on her left arm.

  ‘Thank you all for your concern,’ Dash said to the camera as they walked towards an ambulance. A team of paramedics flanked the couple on either side and there were police officers too.

  ‘Do you know who was responsible for your wife’s disappearance?’ a reporter asked.

  Dash looked straight down the barrel of the camera lens. ‘At this stage, there are no leads, but rest assured I will be working with the police to bring whoever did this to justice.’

  ‘Was it a kidnapping? Did you pay a ransom?’ two reporters asked over the top of one another.

  ‘Has this got anything to do with The Chalmers Corporation? It has just been named the most powerful pharmaceutical company in the world,’ another journalist asked.

  ‘Look, that’s all in the hands of the police,’ Dash said. ‘Now, please, my wife needs to rest and we have to get home to our children. Thank you all for your concern. We’ve been overwhelmed with support, but, for now, I ask that you give us our privacy so my wife can recover from her ordeal.’

  ‘Did you see that?’ Kensy said, leaning forward.

  ‘What?’ Max asked.

  Kensy rewound the footage and hit pause. ‘That there!’ she said, jiggling on the spot. ‘See that look on Mrs Chalmers’ face and how she pulls away when Dash leans in closer? Don’t you think that’s weird?’

  ‘That is a very impressive observation, Miss Kensington,’ Song said.

  Fitz nodded. ‘Yes, well done, Kens.’

  ‘I have a very bad feeling about this,’ Kensy said. ‘There’s something off about the whole idea that she’s planning to take the children away. I mean, maybe she has a good reason.’

  ‘You’re right that it doesn’t add up,’ Max said. ‘What do you think, Fitz?’

  ‘Tinsley looked absolutely terrified,’ he said. ‘Not like a woman with a plan, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Well, as much as I’d prefer not to, I think we’d better work out a way to spend a lot of time with those kids over the coming days,’ Kensy said. ‘Before anyone else disappears.’

  Overnight, a thunderstorm had growled and crackled across the city, blowing away the oppressive heat that had been building for days. This morning the sky was a cerulean blue with a salty freshness in the air. Curtis had been waiting for the twins at the front gate and there was a spring in their steps as the three of them walked to the ferry, chattering about the events of the previous evening. It had come as something of a surprise to see Van and Ellery there on the wharf too, given the circumstances. Seizing the opportunity, Max hurried over to chat with Van while Kensy made an excuse to Curtis that she needed to ask Ellery about their dance classes. Of course, she was actually eager to find out how their mother was.

  The harbour was like a millpond this morning. Curtis stood on his own, surveying the scene. There were the usual morning commuters, but one man he didn’t know was taking lots of pictures on his phone. He would have looked like any other tourist, dressed as he was in a T-shirt, cargo shorts and sandals, except that Curtis was certain every snap of the harbour also contained either Ellery or Van.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the lad said. ‘Would you like me to get a picture with you in it?’

  The man frowned. ‘What? No, thank you.’

  Kensy looked up and spotted the pair. She wondered what Curtis was doing.

  ‘Well, I think you should stop taking photos of my friends,’ the boy demanded loudly, garnering everyone’s attention.

  The man looked aghast. ‘Excuse me?’

  Ellery’s ears pricked. ‘Why is Curtis Pepper talking about us to that guy?’ she asked in a peevish tone.

  ‘I’ll find out,’ Kensy said, and hurried over to Curtis. ‘Have you been taking photos of schoolchildren?’ Kensy asked the man. ‘You could get into a lot of trouble for doing that, you know.’

  A deep red blush crept up the man’s neck to his cheeks. ‘Please mind your own business. I can assure you I’m not interested in schoolkids,’ he snapped, before dropping his phone into his daypack and stalking off to the other end of the wharf.

  By now the ferry had arrived and the passengers were beginning to board. Max sat with Van halfway down the cabin. He’d managed to ask the boy a couple of questions about his mother, but there wasn’t anything more to tell than what had already been aired on the news. Apparently, she was fine and Van said she didn’t even seem that upset about what had happened, which Max found very surprising.

  Ellery sat at the back of the boat. She pulled out a book and buried her head inside, clearly not keen to talk to anyone this morning. Kensy, meanwhile, waited until the man on the wharf had boarded and she and Curtis scooted into the seats immediately behind him.

  ‘I think he must be working for the press,’ Curtis whispered. ‘He’s probably going to sell those photos to some dodgy magazine.’

  Kensy nodded. She’d been thinking the same thing. ‘I’ve got
an idea,’ she said, a grin forming on her lips. ‘You distract him so I can get hold of his phone.’

  The boy’s eyes widened. ‘Distract him? How?’

  ‘You know – make a fuss,’ Kensy said. ‘Just do what you can to get his attention for a moment.’

  Curtis suddenly felt ill despite remembering his tablet this morning. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Never mind that,’ Kensy said. ‘Seriously, if you have aspirations of espionage, you need to do what I say, okay?’

  Curtis gulped. There was something about Kensy’s manner that made him feel a little bit scared and a little bit excited at the same time. He took a deep breath and sprang into action, tapping the man on the shoulder. It was a game his father played with him all the time until he got wise to it, which sadly he still wasn’t always, even after years of being tricked. The man spun around as Kensy leaned over the top of the seat and unzipped his daypack, digging around and grabbing what she was after.

  ‘What do you want?’ he fumed.

  ‘Um, to apologise for before,’ Curtis said. ‘It was wrong of me to assume you were up to something.’

  The man looked at Curtis quizzically. ‘Okay, whatever. Don’t worry about it.’ He flicked his hand and turned to face the front.

  As the ferry chugged into Circular Quay, Kensy quickly transferred some pictures of Van and Ellery and more of their house and their father in his car to her own device before she deleted them permanently from the man’s phone. She might have got a few extras, but there wasn’t time to check.

  Curtis looked at Kensy in awe. ‘What are you going to do with it now?’ he whispered.

  ‘Watch and learn, Curtis Pepper,’ the girl said with a glint in her eye. She really shouldn’t have been doing any of this in front of the lad, but given his penchant for surveillance, she couldn’t help herself. Besides, if she didn’t do it now with his help, she’d miss her opportunity. Kensy waited for the man to walk ahead of her. She then went to drop the device into his unzipped bag, except at that very moment he pulled it up on his shoulder and the phone clattered to the floor. Kensy was on it in a flash and picked it up just as the man turned around to see what the noise was.