Wyatt - 07 - Wyatt

by Garry Disher

  He let himself out and took the stairs to the basement. He drove the Camry to a quiet back street near the river in Abbotsford and set fire to it. He took a taxi back to Flinders Street station and walked across the river to his apartment building. Almost two hours had passed since the robbery.

  Lydia was still unconscious. He sat and watched.

  Thirty minutes later, the downstairs buzzer sounded.

  * * * *

  17

  Le Page and his cousins lost the GPS signal at 8.55 a.m. They spent an hour prowling around the park, attracted by the smoke and sirens, before joining the onlookers and asking what had happened. An accident, someone said. Involving a stolen vehicle, said another. A third had heard a whisper: a hijack, professional job.

  Just as the three men climbed back into the BMW, Henri groaned. ‘Oh, Christ.’

  ‘What?’ said Joe.

  ‘Look who’s come to the party.’

  ‘Bloody Rigby,’ said Joe.

  Le Page’s cousins were staring at a plain-looking woman, mousy hair, cheap, ill-fitting pants and jacket. She was a hundred metres away, getting out of an unmarked Falcon and teetering down the embankment.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Local CIU detective, the bane of my existence,’ said Henri.

  Le Page leaned over from the driver’s seat and grabbed his shirt front., ‘You are under suspicion? The police are watching you? Tapping your phone?’

  ‘I have the line checked every week.’

  ‘You have not answered the question.’

  ‘I had a bit of trouble a couple of years ago, okay?’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘I was accused of handling stolen goods. The charges were dropped.’

  Le Page released him, stared at him. ‘But this woman watches you?’

  ‘No. She comes into the shop sometimes. Makes a few snide remarks to piss me off, then leaves. Doesn’t question me, doesn’t turn the place over, just wants to remind me I’m on her radar. Happens to everyone. Bet it happens to you.’

  ‘No,’ Le Page said. He paused. ‘So she will come knocking on your door now, this woman.’

  ‘So what?’Joe said. ‘We were robbed, the real thing.’

  Le Page shook his head. It was now after 10 a.m. He started the BMW and they drove back to High Street, Le Page slotting the car next to the Mercedes in the yard behind the store. They got out, Henri and Joe subdued, Le Page fuming. Were Henri and Joe ripping him off? Did the detective, Rigby, know about his business here? He began to search the yard.

  Henri put his hands on his hips. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What do you think I’m doing?’

  Joe was affronted. ‘Jesus, Alain.’

  Finding nothing in the yard, Le Page moved on to the tearoom, the poky bathroom, the ceiling manholes and Henri’s office, his cousins trailing him morosely. The bonds were gone. They’d been in the Audi.

  ‘See?’ said Joe, returning to the yard to smoke a cigarette.

  Le Page wasn’t finished. ‘Come with me,’ he told Henri, heading into the showroom.

  Danielle watched them enter. She’d been waiting for this. The front door was locked, the ‘closed’ sign displayed. She knew the police would be along soon, and they’d have questions for her, but right now she could see that the French guy had questions, too. She slid a tray of engagement rings into a display cabinet and eyed him warily. She didn’t know his exact connection to Mr Furneaux except they did business together. Slight accent. Old, yeah, but not as old as her boss. Maybe thirty or forty. Mr Furneaux was, like, fifty or more, and he was kind of sweaty and nervous. Danielle guessed the robbery had done that to him, but there was something else too, and then she got it: her boss was scared of the Frenchman. It was like Mr Le Page was the boss, and all this time she’d thought he was just some guy that Mr Furneaux bought stuff from.

  She swallowed. Frenchie was fixing her with a look so steady and cold that it made her cringe. Her hand flew up to the commas of hair on her cheeks and she chewed the ends and turned her mini-skirted groin away from that cruel scrutiny, before straightening her back and deciding to brave it out. She’d been looked at before. Guys were scared of her, not the other way around. ‘You got a problem?’

  ‘Danielle, please,’ said her boss, who was hovering behind Le Page.

  ‘Did I do something wrong?’

  ‘You’re not in any trouble, Danielle,’ her boss said.

  Le Page said, in a low, burning way, ‘We cannot be sure of that, Henri.’

  He advanced on Danielle, stopping just a metre away from her. She stepped back. He ran his gaze up and down her body with glittering intensity. She swallowed and said, ‘I don’t work for you, so piss off.’

  He laughed. Mr Furneaux uttered a kind of laugh. She hated them both. Then Le Page’s hand shot out, found her nipple and gave it a squeeze and twist. The pain crippled her. She hunched, jerked and began to cry.

  ‘Jesus, Alain,’ her boss said.

  ‘Shut up,’ Le Page said.

  With one hand over each breast, Danielle began to kick Le Page. He slapped her. She slapped at him. ‘Enough,’ he said.

  ‘I’m gonna tell the cops on you,’ she said.

  ‘I do not think so,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Furneaux, make him leave me alone. It’s not fair. What have I done to him?’

  Furneaux, standing to one side and behind Le Page, shrugged as if to say it was out of his hands.

  ‘I hate you both,’ she said. ‘I quit, and I’m telling my dad and my brothers and the police.’

  Le Page fished around in the pocket of his jacket and held out five $100 notes. ‘Do I have your attention?’

  Danielle sniffed. She took the money after the merest hesitation. There might be more if she played her cards right. ‘I didn’t do anything,’ she said.

  ‘Let us suppose that I believe you.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘You are aware that Henri and Joseph sell their jewellery to other jewellers, are you not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You knew that another delivery was planned for this week, leaving today and returning on Friday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Le Page said flatly, ‘Did you tell anyone about this? A friend, lover, brother, cousin?’

  The cold manner intimidated Danielle. Her only defence was to screw up her face and say, ‘No way. Who do you take me for?’

  ‘Perhaps you mentioned it in passing to someone. Perhaps you are not actively involved after all.’

  Danielle shrugged, but fabric slid over her ravaged nipple and reminded her of where she was and who she was with. ‘Told no one,’ she muttered. ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘You were the first person to arrive this morning, no?’

  ‘So what? That’s my job, unlocking the shop, putting stuff on display.’

  ‘You opened the alleyway gate for your friends.’

  Danielle frowned, looked at Mr Furneaux, then past him at the front window, seeing one of their regulars, an expensive idle women like many of the others, frown at the closed sign and get back into a sports car. Danielle couldn’t see any comfort anywhere. ‘No! Anyway, Joe was out there, getting the Audi ready.’

  She waited for Le Page’s response. There was a shift in the clouds above Melbourne and the mid-morning sunlight was quenched for a few seconds. The light dimmed and the lovely stones in the display window lost their lustre. Then the sun returned and Le Page said, ‘Are you a stupid girl, Danielle, or is it, how do you say, all a pretence?’

  She’d been asked that plenty of times by schoolteachers. She flushed and snarled, ‘I’m dead honest. Ask anyone.’

  ‘Dead honest or dead,’ said Le Page. ‘One or the other.’

  ‘You’re scaring me.’

  Mr Furneaux said, ‘You’re not in any trouble, Danielle.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Le Page said. He turned to Danielle again. ‘Do you ever discuss your employer’s business with your friends?’


  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps you are angry with Henri. He doesn’t pay you what you are worth.’

  Danielle shrugged. ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘Okay?’ echoed Henri. ‘I pay you more than enough.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Le Page said.

  ‘Well, I do.’

  Le Page said, ‘Perhaps you are angry with Henri because he cannot control his urges and this offends you.’

  Danielle blinked. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘He touches your titties and pussy and you wished to have revenge, no?’

  Danielle wanted to please the guy and get another wad of cash off him, but she knew almost nothing about the robbery. Her world was small, and she rarely noticed anything that did not impinge on it. She knew a bit about blokes. She knew she wouldn’t quit this job or report Le Page for hurting her. She’d been hurt before, hit by more than one boyfriend. Guys did that to get their own way or when they were frustrated. Knowing that about them gave her a hold over them, a sense of satisfaction.

  That’s when Eddie Oberin popped into her mind.

  She said, marking time, ‘Look, Henri and Joe deal with heaps of other businesses. You telling me they’re all straight? I don’t think so. Pick on someone else.’

  Le Page turned to Furneaux, still standing behind him, and said, ‘I am beginning to understand the limited workings of her mind, to understand her limited grasp of the English language. She is incapable of giving “yes” or “no” answers, or saying “I don’t know”. Am I correct?’ he demanded, whirling around on Danielle again.

  ‘Fuck off.’

  His hand shot out and she cringed and wailed, ‘No, don’t. I don’t know anything. It’s not fair.’

  Le Page gestured in irritation. He was finished with Danielle. He said to Furneaux, ‘A waste of time.’

  Danielle swallowed, wondering what would happen to her now. More pain, more cash, or nothing at all? One thing for sure, she shouldn’t mention Eddie Oberin.

  As if in answer, Le Page turned to her and said, ‘You will say nothing of this to anyone. You will not talk to your family. You will tell the police that you know nothing, am I clear?’

  ‘What did I ever do to you?’ said Danielle sulkily.

  But she was watching Le Page’s hands. Sure enough, they reached into his pocket again and a moment later she’d added a further $250 to the morning’s takings.

  ‘I have to tell the police something,’ she said.

  Le Page thought. ‘Joseph went into the yard to, to—’

  ‘Henri asked him to wash the Mercedes.’

  ‘Yes. He discovered the gate open and the other car missing.’ A pause. ‘This is very important: a delivery had not been planned. The stolen vehicle was empty.’

  ‘Joyriding teenage boys,’ Danielle said, alert for more cash.

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘How come?’ said Henri.

  ‘The police, they will look too closely if they suspect a jewellery robbery.’

  ‘Got you,’ Henri said.

  Le Page dragged him to the back yard, where Joe was leaning against the Mercedes, surrounded by cigarette butts. He gave Joe the story—wash the car, gate open, kids, nothing valuable aboard—and had him repeat it.

  ‘But there was something valuable aboard.’

  Le Page ignored him, glowered at the brick wall. After a while, he said, ‘They will not so easily move the bonds, these people.’

  ‘They probably expected to find watches and rings,’ Henri said.

  ‘So we wait,’ Le Page said. ‘You have contacts, yes? Ask them to listen, as you say, on the street.’

  ‘Offer a reward?’

  ‘Are you mad?’

  Danielle appeared. ‘The police are out the front.’

  Henri groaned. ‘Rigby?’

  She shook her head. ‘Uniforms.’

  ‘They need not know about me, Danielle,’ said Le Page, starting his car.

  Danielle shrugged as if it might earn her another couple of hundred dollars.

  * * * *

  18

  Wyatt’s wall-mounted security unit showed the grainy face of a man with a bag outside the building, staring up at the camera above the main door.

  Recognising Dr Lowe, Wyatt said ‘Eight-oh-five’ into the grille and pressed a button to deactivate the lock. Rather than wait behind a peephole he stepped into the corridor and stood where he could watch the lift doors and the staircase entrance. The lift peeled open, and the man who emerged saw the pistol and froze.

  ‘You won’t need that,’ he said to Wyatt.

  Wyatt nodded, pocketed the gun. ‘Doc.’

  ‘Good to see you again, Mr Wyatt.’

  Wyatt nodded, gestured Lowe inside and shut the door behind them. The doctor was about sixty, short and slight with a potbelly the size of a basketball. He wasn’t the kind of doctor who treats criminals under the radar—he wasn’t an addict, didn’t have a gambling habit and hadn’t been struck off the register—but he was in Wyatt’s debt. When Lowe’s wife subjected him to a restraining order and a punitive divorce settlement, the doctor hired Wyatt to steal back three paintings he’d paid a lot of money for: a Sidney Nolan, a David Hockney and a Francis Bacon, worth a total of five million dollars. ‘That’s just the start,’ he’d said at the time.

  ‘Through here,’ Wyatt said now.

  ‘So much for the small talk.’

  Wyatt gestured, almost in irritation, and the look that passed across his face seemed to sober the doctor. ‘Gunshot, you said?’

  ‘Creased the side of her head.’

  The bedroom was peaceful, sunlight showing in gauzy bands on the carpet and bedspread. Lydia had tossed a little in unconsciousness. The pillow was smeared with blood.

  Lowe examined her. ‘She should really be in a hospital.’

  ‘Not going to happen,’ Wyatt said. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I can stop the bleeding but she needs monitoring.’ Lowe peeled back her eyelids. ‘I don’t think she’s concussed,’ he murmured, ‘but—’

  ‘Can you patch her up? I need a few days. If she enters hospital like this the police will come sniffing around.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Lowe said. He brooded on it. ‘When we get her admitted we can say she fell off a motorbike, hit her head on an iron spike of some kind.’

  ‘Thanks, doc.’

  ‘The wife’s also got a Bill Henson I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on.’

  ‘Don’t push your luck,’ Wyatt said.

  Lowe dressed the wound and handed Wyatt some pills. ‘Sedatives, painkillers. She’ll be out for a few hours. Let me know if there’s any change.’

  Then he was gone.

  * * * *

  A few kilometres east of Wyatt’s apartment building, Alain Le Page had swapped the rented BMW for a pale blue Ford from the nearest Hertz agency and was seated behind the wheel, nursing the portable GPS monitor and watching the activity at Furneaux Brothers. The rest of the morning passed, the police dawdled, and still no GPS signal. He’d banked on the thieves finding the main transponder, but not those he’d concealed inside the thick carry handles of the document wallets, so something else must have gone wrong. Some kind of signal black-spot, environmental interference, problems with the satellite?

  Danielle emerged from Furneaux Brothers at twelve-thirty, carrying a bag and a light-weight jacket. Le Page saw her stand there and chew on her lower lip, and when she moved he tailed her to a little red Mazda parked in a narrow lot behind a supermarket.

  This could go any way. It went the way Le Page expected. He knew Danielle lived in Highett, but instead of heading home, like anyone who’s suffered a distressing couple of hours, or to a café for lunch, she drove across town to North Melbourne and a hangdog little house on a narrow sloping street. Angling his rental car behind a dump bin, bumping the front tyres over the kerb, Le Page switched off and powered down his window. He propped a Nikon fitted with a telephoto lens on the sill, and snapped Danielle opening
a gate and knocking on a white door.

  * * * *

  There was no answer, and the house felt empty. Danielle hovered, wondering what to do. Go home? But she needed to know if Eddie Oberin was behind the robbery, needed to know if her big mouth was to blame for it. Eddie had sweet-talked her into confiding about work and the creepy brothers who employed her. Pillow talk. Now she felt stupid and scared, stupid for getting fooled, scared of Le Page’s creepy fingers, the way they had hurt her, then paid her in hundred-dollar bills.