Vanished

by James Delargy

  Stevie and Ian joined him outside, not even bothering to cover their faces. Fucking stupid. Especially Stevie. He could be linked to Stevie.

  The silence was broken by Ian offering a hello and Naiyana moving off quickly, her phone shoved into her shorts pocket. Mike followed her with his eyes as she strode away from them. Another problem with being stuck down a dark tunnel. Starved of pretty sights to see.

  ‘Back to work,’ said Ian.

  ‘I’m still on break,’ said Mike, flicking his penknife open and digging at the dirt under his nails. Reminding Ian that he wasn’t in sole charge. That this was a joint operation.

  Ian and Stevie tried to stare him down. Fuck them. They were built for this type of shit. Skinny and fit. All he did was frequently blind himself with sweat. Both stared at him then turned to leave. He took one last look at the glorious blue sky and Naiyana’s even more glorious arse before following. The tunnel and the gold was the reason they were there after all. Not the family. Think of the end game, as Ian was fond of saying. Mike’s end game was a long holiday and setting up his own company. A fresh start. Be his own boss.

  They weren’t crooks – apart from Ian – just opportunists. Skyline wasn’t going to do anything with the data. They were focused on large-scale operations not this small-scale shit. But with some luck – and the imaging data had eliminated some of that – and hard graft, they could get moderately rich. And he wasn’t a greedy man. Moderately rich was good enough for him.

  Analysis of the images had identified that there was an eighty per cent chance Kallayee could bear fruit. It had all the positive markings. The trace of a giant old riverbed underneath leading to the possibility of placer deposits and a chance to free-mill gold. They just had to find the right tunnel. And after a couple of abortive attempts they had struck gold. Literally. A workable mine in good condition. Abandoned for at least forty years and probably closer to ninety. So any real right to ownership had lapsed. In his opinion. The government could take a running. Stevie was with him in that. His position was that something abandoned for this long should return to a state of nature. And nature was there to be looted.

  62 Emmaline

  The reports flooded in. Providing many different angles to look at. Mike Andrews, Stevie Amaranga, Chester Grant, Brightside Foods, INK Tech, Nikos Iannis, the stolen information. The search into any poisons Lorcan Maguire might have purchased was inconclusive: no card payments detected but they were unable to rule out cash payments. Anything was possible, even rat poison, secreted in her meals each day.

  An operation led by ZZ had revealed that Lorcan Maguire did not have a security box opened under any of his, Naiyana’s or Dylan’s details where the stolen data might be stored.

  Thorough searches of their house in Kallayee and the foreclosed house in Perth had revealed no hard disks or electronic storage of any kind. No rival company had reported being offered the material. Though it was acknowledged they likely wouldn’t report it if they had.

  Not that any of this might have stopped Nikos Iannis from pursuing the matter. The disrespect alone would be enough to make him contemplate further courses of action, and it was obvious from meeting him that he did not trust Lorcan Maguire’s denial. So much so that he may have even arranged for people to travel all the way out to Kalgoorlie and beyond to meet him.

  She moved on to Chester Grant. He had been adamant that he hadn’t met with Naiyana Maguire. But given the connection between his family and BS Foods she was sure there was more of a story to tell. Securing a hard-fought warrant through DI Moore and the magistrates, she had been granted access to a diary of his movements and meetings before and after Christmas.

  Her life in the caravan was now a sobering mix of sex and paperwork. The former was more agreeable but she had left Matty this morning with no promise on future plans. It would be left to chance. Unlike this investigation.

  Chester’s movements didn’t immediately trigger any alarms. Dates and times. Meetings with troubled constituents. With business leaders. With family. All scheduled and timed. Official duties interspersed with personal. An expenses report was attached to the diary. Since last year’s front-page scandals over false or exaggerated claims, all politicians were keeping meticulous records. And Chester Grant was no exception. But something jumped out at Emmaline. His expenses report included a trip claimed for that didn’t match his calendar. A flight to Kalgoorlie, a hire car and two hundred kilometres on the clock. Way outside his constituency. On 30 December. It had been marked as WB. Which Emmaline assumed stood for Wisbech. In the direction of Kallayee. A stupid error but one that could easily be made by a man both greedy for money and desperate to keep his job.

  Why Wisbech? There was only one answer. Naiyana Maguire’s phone placed her in Wisbech on the thirtieth too. Did they meet to discuss what happened next? Or was it an attempt to get her to keep quiet that went south? Or a trap. Maybe he’d found out her location and sent people to silence her.

  Whatever had happened on that same day Naiyana Maguire had vanished. Tomorrow she would talk to Chester again. And get some answers.

  63 Mike Andrews

  Even for an involuntary bachelor like himself, it was weird to spend Christmas Eve stuck down a baking hot tunnel digging for gold. It was like a story from a children’s book. But what would the moral be? With hard work you get what’s coming to you? Nah, not that. Fuck the system? Better but not great. There is no greater reward than cheating the system? More like it.

  Mike appeared into the light, swapping the flavourless gum in his mouth for a new piece. Ian and Stevie were out there already, enjoying the breeze and the shade.

  From the back of one of the nearby houses the father, Lorcan, emerged, as if he had been lying in wait all this time. His phone was up, either recording himself or them. What was up with this family and their need to record everything? What was so special about doing fuck all?

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked, with a clack of gum, stepping towards Lorcan, ready to take the phone by force if it pointed towards him. He felt much more at ease disarming him than his wife. Not that he wouldn’t mind getting his hands on her…

  ‘Just recording the town. The sights and sounds.’

  Ian intervened before Mike could. One step ahead. This was his job. Smoothing things over. The people person, him and Stevie the scientists.

  ‘What for?’ asked Ian.

  ‘A book.’

  Horripilation caused the mass of hair on his back to rise. Stevie looked as tense, the tendons in his wiry arms twitching. Words implicated. Videos too.

  ‘About?’

  ‘About life out here.’

  There was a pause. Mike waited for Ian to grab the phone and chuck it. Finally Ian spoke. ‘Just keep away from here.’

  Lorcan glanced at them all as if about to defy the order, before he walked on, his movements stiff. He seemed to be as tense as they were.

  ‘Are you going to allow that?’

  ‘I don’t like all these videos,’ added Stevie.

  ‘It’s under control,’ said Ian, trying to exert that insufferably calm authority.

  ‘How can it be?’

  ‘We have to learn to live together.’

  ‘I didn’t agree to become part of some sexless orgy,’ said Stevie, looking at Mike.

  ‘We have to keep it together, guys,’ said Ian. Another of his all-inclusive but condescending phrases. As if he was some cult leader. Drink the Kool-Aid and shut up.

  With Lorcan gone Ian dragged the burner phone from his shorts. One of many he had insisted on picking up in Brissy before they came here. For emergencies. ‘I have to go to town now.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A sale. A good price. You two get back down there.’

  ‘And what do we do about him?’ asked Mike, watching Lorcan stand in the middle of the crossroads and spin in a circle, the phone thankfully pointed at the ground.

  ‘Forget about him. I’ll deal with it.’

  64
Emmaline

  Emmaline hit the road early, racing against the sunrise to catch a flight back to Perth. The darkness kept its grip this morning. As if it knew something bad was going to happen.

  From Leonora Airport she called Chester Grant’s office to arrange an urgent meeting. It was a Saturday so she had hoped to encounter a clear diary but his secretary informed her that the Honourable MLC for Curtin was busy all day, visiting a local factory.

  ‘At Brightside Foods by any chance?’ asked Emmaline.

  ‘I am not at liberty to divulge that,’ said the secretary, delivering a practised line to fob off nosy reporters.

  ‘I’m flying to Perth now, so tell him to free up some time.’

  ‘He is busy all day, Detective.’

  ‘Tell him I want to talk to him about Wisbech. That should free up some time.’

  * * *

  On the plane she browsed a report stating that the search for Naiyana and Dylan Maguire had widened to all states. It had been ten days since their likely disappearance. Their photos were now spread across the country. It wasn’t one of Naiyana’s best in Emmaline’s opinion, dressed elegantly as if for some social event but with a smidge of tiredness around her eyes. A photograph that had highlighted the stress of the Brightside Foods battle.

  * * *

  On landing, she was picked up by Neil. And received a call from Zhao.

  It was as Emmaline had suspected. Mike Andrews and Stevie Amaranga had accessed data both for the Murchison Goldfields north of Gwalia and the Great Vic Desert as a whole. A lot of data. Enough according to Skyline to keep a dozen analysers busy for six months. But Mike and Stevie had obviously found something in the data to convince them that Kallayee was worth the money and effort to explore.

  Zhao also noted that Skyline themselves were making moves to return to the region because of the find. Once the murder investigation had concluded. Move the bodies out and the machinery in. Breathing life back into the dead town.

  Mike and Stevie’s bank accounts had been checked too. Both were a few cents in credit, the redundancy money long gone. Indeed their lives seemed to follow much the same path as the Maguires, the town drawing them in, bleeding them dry and spitting them out the other end. Dead in Lorcan Maguire’s case.

  The accounts had been abandoned since the start of December. Their phone records had been accessed as well, a warrant granted given the positive identification of Mike’s voice on a dead man’s phone, but the records stopped at the start of December too. Last location: Brisbane.

  From there Emmaline guessed they had driven across country to here. A pair of desperate men with a crazy idea. A crazy idea fuelled by data that had proved to be correct but of which they couldn’t have been sure at the time. Nothing in their past indicated a propensity towards violence but the absence of communication and lack of money marked them out as desperate.

  Had they struck it lucky, then killed the witnesses? Were they living somewhere off the proceeds, untaxed and off the grid?

  As she made it to the MP’s office, Emmaline told Neil to have the Kallayee team investigate the local gold markets. Dig up what they could about new contacts in town selling gold. Show them Mike’s and Stevie’s photos.

  65 Emmaline

  The office was on the sixth floor of a high-rise that looked out onto North Perth, the suburbs sprawling lazily into the hazy distance. Relaxing. Better than the view from her shitty caravan.

  The plump secretary in the horn-rimmed glasses informed her boss of Detective Taylor’s arrival. Being announced in this way still made Emmaline feel a little odd, as if her entry should be accompanied by some ominous theme music and spark of lightning to go along with the title.

  Escorted inside, Emmaline found Chester Grant secure behind his desk, no glass of port in his hand, his Armani suit looking pressed and immaculate, the whirring blast of the air con doing its job.

  ‘Thanks for meeting me,’ she said, even though she knew he hadn’t really had a choice. The mention of Wisbech made it a certainty.

  ‘I want this sorry affair solved, Detective.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to do. If you tell the truth.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Emmaline lunged immediately. No point holding back. ‘That you were in the same town as Naiyana Maguire on the thirtieth of December. That you indeed met her. That the meeting wasn’t recorded in your diary.’

  Chester Grant stared at her for a moment, before turning towards the view. He took a deep breath. Emmaline sensed that he had been preparing a defence and this was the opening speech. In the end it was short.

  ‘It was an oversight on my part.’

  ‘A very big oversight, Mr Grant. Some might even call it a lie.’

  He fixed his eyes on her. They were cold, dark and unflustered, capable of anything. ‘A lie is a huge assertion. It was an oversight, that’s all.’

  Emmaline could see that his defences needed to be rattled.

  ‘Was the fact that you are set to inherit a significant stake in a huge company also an oversight?’

  He remained silent so she continued.

  ‘Who owns a company called AG Solutions, Mr Grant? Which itself is owned by AG Holdings? And AG Future? And AG Decade? Who is AG? Whoever it is owns forty per cent of Brightside Foods. So they might do just about anything to someone who threatened it.’

  He turned from the view to stare at her. His jaw was tense. She could almost hear the beard hair bristle. ‘Those are owned… The companies are owned by my mother. And managed by a financial advisor. I have no say in how they are run or what they might invest in.’

  ‘But do you inherit these companies when she dies? Is it true that the shares constitute the bulk of your family’s wealth?’

  ‘What do you want to know, Detective?’ he said, his tone now sharp, seeking to get to the point. To find a way to avoid it, no doubt.

  ‘As I explained – the truth.’

  Rolling his tongue over his upper front teeth he sucked air through them with a sharp squeak. ‘You haven’t told anyone?’

  ‘I haven’t made it public if that’s what you are concerned about. But these things have a habit of coming out.’

  Chester scowled at this. In that moment with the scowl and the thick beard, there was something animalistic about him, as if he wanted to tear the room apart.

  ‘When did you meet her?’ asked Emmaline.

  ‘On the thirtieth. Like you said.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We needed that photo shoot. She had been the face of the whole shitshow so we needed her onside. To prove that Brightside had taken appropriate action. A good news story.’

  Emmaline wasn’t sure if she bought it. It was a long way to travel to accomplish what a phone call could. For a busy man. For a man with a family at Christmas.

  ‘To lift the share price.’

  ‘To stabilize it.’

  ‘Or bump it so you could divest your stock. Rid yourself of the possible headache.’

  Chester didn’t answer this, so Emmaline continued.

  ‘Why hide the meeting? So you could deny being personally involved if something happened?’

  ‘No,’ he said but his vicious gaze had returned to envy the freedom outside the window.

  ‘What happened at the meeting, Mr Grant? Did she realize that the ingredient change wouldn’t be immediate but gradual? Did she reveal that she knew all about AG Holdings and the others? Your mother’s involvement. Your involvement.’

  ‘Nothing happened!’ he barked. ‘She refused to go along with the photo shoot or any publicity. She stayed for five minutes and left. Like she was in a hurry to get somewhere else.’

  ‘Can you prove that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That she only stayed for five minutes.’

  ‘I was back in time for a meeting that afternoon.’

  ‘A real meeting?’

  ‘Yes, a real meeting. But I’d rather not have you poking around asking for an alibi from
them.’

  ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t, Mr Grant, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t.’

  Chester Grant looked more than a little riled at this. Emmaline pounced.

  ‘Did Naiyana Maguire threaten you with releasing details about the ownership of the shares? Did it make you angry? Did you threaten her?’

  ‘No. Yes… She said she knew about them.’

  ‘What did she want?’

  ‘Nothing! That was the problem. She just grinned like a bloody cat. Like she enjoyed holding this sword over me. I offered her money. I offered to sweep the whole Brightside thing away. Get her a good job here in Perth. But nothing. She didn’t want anything but to see me suffer.’

  ‘So she was principled. An endearing quality to most people. Did that make you angry?’

  ‘Are you trying to say I’m not principled?’

  Emmaline refused to let him settle. ‘So you were scared that she would make this info public? What did that cause you to do, Mr Grant?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Chester’s ruddy face was now purple.

  ‘Did you let other people know where she was?’

  His mouth opened wide, the accusation freezing him like a wax model. The 2019 Condemned Man Collection.

  Then his head shook furiously. ‘No one.’

  ‘Not even Brightside Foods?’

  ‘I told them there was nothing more I could do.’

  ‘And how did they react? What did they do?’

  ‘As far as I’m aware, nothing. And that’s the truth.’

  ‘That seems to be in short supply these days,’ said Emmaline.

  66 Lorcan

  The crash woke them all. It sounded as if, instead of coming down the chimney on Christmas night, Santa had blown a hole in the wall.