The Inheritance

by Gabriel Bergmoser

  Another silence, then, ‘Are you aware that Len Townsend is in Melbourne looking for you?’

  Just what she fucking needed. ‘Isn’t that the kind of thing that you’d usually arrest someone over?’

  ‘Ever tried arresting someone based on hearsay? It never works out quite as well as you’d hope.’

  ‘I’ll keep it in mind. But the hard drive—’

  There was still very little expression in Dean’s voice. It wasn’t monotone, exactly, but she was good at giving nothing away. ‘Generally speaking, police don’t make deals with wanted criminals.’

  ‘Generally speaking, police want to close cases,’ Maggie said. ‘Or so I’m told. I don’t know if what’s on here can help you bring down the Scorpions, but based on how desperate everyone seems to be to secure it, I’m going to guess there aren’t many other avenues available to you.’

  Dean didn’t confirm or deny. She seemed to be waiting for Maggie to name her price.

  ‘I need a list of all potential Scorpion clubhouses,’ Maggie said. ‘More than that; any properties they’re suspected to own. Even a tool shed.’

  ‘What make you think we’d have a list like that handy?’

  ‘The fact that you’re working their case. You might not have a warrant, but you’ll sure as hell have the addresses that you’re planning to hit the moment you get one.’ She glanced over her shoulder.

  Dean didn’t reply.

  ‘So. Will you give them to me?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘This is a one-time offer.’

  ‘How do I even know you have the drive? Or that you won’t vanish the moment I give you what you want?’

  ‘Well, I’ll certainly vanish if you don’t give me what I want, so you don’t have much to lose there.’

  ‘Only my job. You think the police customarily go around handing out private addresses to murderers?’

  ‘You might want to consider it in this case.’

  ‘If I consider it, I’ll be lucky not to get kicked off the force.’

  ‘Depends on how quiet you keep it. I’m not going to tell anyone.’

  ‘Except for the bikies you’re presumably going after.’

  ‘I’m not going to be telling them much of anything.’

  ‘So what will you be doing?’

  With a twinge, Maggie remembered Julie’s words about Carlin. ‘Plausible deniability is the sweet spot here.’

  Without seeing her face, Maggie could tell Dean was thinking. The detective was right to be sceptical. But in the end, Dean knew that the drive might be her only chance to put an end to the Scorpions, and Maggie was banking on that winning out over anything else.

  ‘I need proof,’ the other woman said. ‘That there’s anything on the hard drive worth my time.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘If my information is right, there’s a mix of photos and videos. Send me a photo.’

  ‘How will I know it’s the right one?’

  ‘If it clearly shows a Scorpion doing something incriminating, it’s probably right.’

  ‘If I send you that, you won’t need the whole drive.’

  ‘How many court cases do you think are won based on a single photo?’

  Maggie checked the time. She had until that evening to find wherever Aaron was and save him. She didn’t have time to fuck around. But she’d be completely aimless without those addresses.

  ‘Give me an hour.’ She checked Dean’s contact listing on Cooper’s phone again. ‘I’ve got your email. But I need you to send me the list within five minutes of getting the photo. Otherwise the deal’s off.’

  ‘You want me to sit and hit refresh until you send something?’

  ‘You want to bring down the Scorpions or not?’

  ‘And how will you get me the drive?’

  ‘I’ll leave it somewhere. Somewhere I’ll tell you about. Tomorrow.’

  ‘Today.’

  ‘No.’ She might still need the drive as leverage. ‘Tomorrow or nothing.’

  Dean didn’t reply.

  Maggie tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. ‘That’s the best I can offer.’

  ‘Why do I get the feeling you’re fucked without this?’

  ‘It’s mutual benefit or mutual nothing,’ Maggie said. ‘You get the hard drive tomorrow. Give me an hour.’

  Ten minutes from Footscray, Maggie parked in North Melbourne before heading fast to the public library. She slowed a little as she walked in, trying to look tired and a bit hungover. A student grudgingly completing an assignment.

  She found long banks of public computers upstairs, adjacent to shelves thick with reference books. She took a seat and moved the mouse, waiting for the computer to come to life. She checked the stop of the stairs. Nobody else was coming up. The computer was still waking up. She reached into her jacket pocket and removed the hard drive.

  It was more than just the key to destroying a dangerous criminal gang. It might also be the only chance Maggie had to find her mother. The only chance she had to finally face up to her and know why. She had already been through hell for that and had thought the need behind her, but she knew now that was only a matter of lost opportunity. Now that the chance for a real direction was so close, the prospect of giving it up was like driving a knife into her own chest.

  But she could live without knowing the truth. It would hurt, but she would survive. Aaron did not have that luxury.

  As the computer finally came to life, she plugged in the hard drive. At the top of the stairs a couple of actual students had arrived, a guy and a girl, mumbling at each other as they took seats at computers further along. On the screen, the hard drive had appeared. Maggie opened it.

  There were three folders. Each was titled simply S, A and M.

  She opened S first.

  There was a lot on here. Many other photos, all with dates and names she didn’t recognise. She opened the earliest-dated folder. As Dean had said, photos. She clicked. Black-and-white grainy shots from what looked to be the security camera of a service station, depicting a man rounding a corner past a fuel pump. She clicked through until she found one where his back was to the camera. The Scorpion insignia was blurry, but obvious.

  A couple more people had come upstairs now. More students by the looks of things. One girl sat only a single computer away from her.

  Quickly, Maggie created a new email address, typed in Dean’s and hit send. For a few seconds, the screen just stayed on a ‘loading’ symbol. Maggie checked the stairs again.

  The email was sent. Maggie made sure the people to each side were engrossed with their own computers, then navigated back to the hard drive. She clicked the A folder. Just photos here. She opened the first one.

  The impact was almost physical.

  Her mother, older, lined, but unmistakable, was on the screen in front of her. Dressed plainly in jeans and a shirt, mid-stride, unaware that she was being photographed.

  She was alive.

  Feet on the stairs. Maggie looked up. Caught a glimpse of a police hat. Instinct told her to move but she didn’t. She returned to the email screen. Hit refresh. Nothing back from Dean.

  The cop, a young man, had reached the top. He cast a lazy eye over everyone on the computers. Maggie tried to remain focused on the screen. She hit refresh again.

  The cop was consulting a notebook. He started walking around the bank of desks, glancing at the people working. Maggie slid further down into her seat. Her heart was pounding, every instinct shrieking at her to run. Refreshed again. Nothing. Again.

  The empty inbox flickered and then there was an email from Dean, Olivia. Maggie opened it. A list of addresses. She didn’t have time to print. She took out Cooper’s phone and snapped a photo of the screen.

  The cop was looking at her.

  Maggie didn’t look back. She unplugged the drive and pocketed it again. Deleted her account. Then logged off and stood.

  The cop was still considering her.

  If Dean
had traced the call, then she could have guessed Maggie had to be headed to a public library or internet café, somewhere she could email the photo. Somewhere less than an hour from Footscray. Or else she was going off the location of Nipper’s body. Or Cooper’s.

  Maggie started to move around the bank of computers.

  The cop moved with her on the other side of the bank. His hand went to his gun.

  Maggie bolted for the shelves.

  Yells from behind her, yells of ‘freeze’ and ‘police’ – as if that much wasn’t already obvious – followed by scattered cries from people in the library. Maggie lunged for the end of one of the shelves and swung around into the aisle. Seconds later, the cop appeared at the other end. He was young and his eyes were wide. He lifted his gun.

  Maggie stayed where she was, rooted to the spot in apparent fear.

  The cop moved towards her. ‘Freeze,’ he repeated, even though Maggie wasn’t moving.

  Until she did, going backwards fast then sideways into the next aisle.

  The cop ran.

  Maggie brought both hands hard into the heavy reference books at head height, just as the cop appeared through the shelves in the next aisle. A yelp as the books on the other side were forced through, clocking him in the head, one after another.

  Maggie snatched a hefty hardcover off the shelf, swung back around into the first aisle, and as the dazed cop straightened up, brought the spine of the book crashing into his nose. A cry, a spurt of blood and Maggie was running past the bank of computers, past the terrified students, then—

  Thunder on the stairs. His partner was coming. Maggie threw herself against the wall, looked to the students and yelled, ‘That way!’, pointing as she did. Like scared sheep, they looked the way Maggie pointed just as the cop burst onto the landing and did the same.

  Maggie swung the book into his gut. He doubled over with a gasp as Maggie brought it down hard on top of his head, sending him crashing to the ground. She threw the book aside and ran, diving over the cop, hitting the stairs and tearing down them, feet colliding with the first floor then running past stunned faces and out onto the street again.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Had Dean sent the police? It made more sense than the alternative: that two cops had either decided to check out a library first thing in the morning or had happened to see Maggie pass them, but whatever the case she had no way of being sure. Just like she had no way of being sure if the list Dean had sent was genuine.

  But she was willing to bet that it was, just as she was willing to bet that Dean hadn’t sent more cops to watch these addresses. If Dean was behind the near miss at the library, then it made more sense as an attempt to capture Maggie cleanly; something that would be impossible the moment they were trying to carry it out around a bikie clubhouse. If Maggie disappeared, Dean didn’t get the hard drive. If the bikies got it first, then Dean’s chances of destroying them vanished. It was safer for Dean to just let Maggie do her thing and expect that the deal still stood at the end.

  Maggie hoped.

  Hurting those cops definitely wouldn’t have helped her case, but given she was already wanted for murder along with God knew what else after the past couple of weeks, there wasn’t a lot she could do to endear herself to Dean anyway. She wasn’t wholly comfortable with how things had played out in the library, but it wasn’t as though she had had a world of choice in the moment. It was break noses or be arrested.

  She hadn’t taken the hard drive out of her jacket pocket, but she felt its weight as Melbourne slipped away behind her and the landscape out the window turned slowly to brown grass and rugged hills, to expanses of forest and harsh dropoffs into scrubby nothing. She knew where she was going, but the destination seemed unimportant given what she had seen on the drive. In the end, despite the alcoholism and the abuse, despite his descent into an incoherent mess of violence and delusion, the good detective in her father had come through, securing not only evidence about the Scorpions, but actual information about her mother. Somewhere on that drive, and the thought came with a terrified rush, was likely a location, somewhere Maggie could head for the moment this was over. She just had to make it through the night.

  It was simple enough to work out where Aaron was being held. The message to Cooper implied it was a place he knew about, and for that to be the case it had to be somewhere the bikies had had for a while, back in the days when he was still involved with them. Anywhere they’d owned for that long would almost certainly be on a police radar. And when she’d checked Dean’s list, several locations scattered across the country, one had jumped out.

  Bonnie Doon. BD.

  Less than three hours from Melbourne, it was a tiny town nestled on the edge of a vast, mostly dry lakebed that stretched and wound for kilometres between bush-heavy hills. She knew this from a search using Cooper’s phone. The address, which the maps app on Cooper’s phone told her was high up in the hills overlooking the lake, made perfect sense as a bikie hideout. Remote without being far-flung, hidden without being inaccessible.

  She didn’t know what to expect when she got there. Whether the bikies relied enough on the secrecy of the place and Cooper’s compliance to only have a small group guarding Aaron, or whether they had the place surrounded by killers armed to the teeth. The former, apart from being Maggie’s preference, seemed more likely. Less noticeable and, if Cooper did decide to bring the police down on them, less likely to result in a huge chunk of their number imprisoned or dead.

  Either way, how she planned on getting close was key. The bikies would of course be on the lookout for a single person. But Cooper, willing to die rather than risk the bikies discovering he had told anyone about Aaron, would not have taken Maggie’s approach. He would have driven straight up, slow and deliberate and doing everything in his power to appear non-threatening.

  The deadline was ten o’clock that night. By eight it would be dark and that was when Maggie planned on making her approach. She would move slow and silent through the trees, dressed in black, and attempt to get a look at the place. She had Nipper’s silenced pistol along with a length of rusted pipe, about the size of her forearm, that she had found in a carpark along the way. Both relatively quiet as weapons. If there weren’t many guards, then hopefully she could take them out, then attempt to gain entry to the house.

  The element of surprise would be her best friend here. The fact that there were only thirteen rounds left in the gun was the opposite.

  Would tonight lead her to Rook Gately? Since the moment the Scorpions’ involvement became clear, his name had lingered over everything; the bikie leader had set this in motion by making an offer to three young policemen. Now all of those cops were dead and still Rook endured, his gang continuing their reign of terror with impunity.

  She partly wanted Rook to be there tonight. She wanted to come face to face with the man behind all of this and pull the trigger. The thought was intoxicating.

  It was late afternoon by the time Maggie arrived in the tiny township of Bonnie Doon. From there it wasn’t a long walk down to the lake. The houses dissipated, leaving brown grass, rough bushes and soon cracked red dirt peppered with jagged rocks. This continued down into the basin of what, when the rains were heavy enough, sometimes counted as a lake.

  Today, however, it was just a dusty bowl of mounds that rose and fell around tilting dead trees that jutted, jagged and gnarled, from hardened clay. Maggie walked out onto the lakebed. On the far side, she could see the point where the water had once come up to, a harsh line across the steep hill faces, dividing the browns from the dull greens and yellows that were the undulating hills surrounding the lake. There was a strange, haunting beauty to it all, to the sprawl of the empty lake, the hills, the skeleton trees that Maggie now walked among as she neared the centre of the basin.

  She looked up towards the nearest hill. Somewhere among those clumps of trees was the hideout. The day was cooling. She reached back under her jacket and felt the butt of the gun.

&nb
sp; Darkness shrouded the hills and stars filled the night, spreading through the clear dark sky, their shine making the dead trees look ghostly, the shadows stark and unforgiving.

  Nestled between a few bushes, dressed dark in her jacket, the pipe in her belt and Nipper’s gun in her hand, Maggie began to move. She had taken the time to plot out her approach, placing herself on the other side of the bridges near the base of the hill on which the bikies’ house was situated. This side was slightly thicker with trees, but between them remained clear patches a little too vast for Maggie’s liking. But in the dark she would be as obscured as possible, plus she would be approaching far from the road, which was surely where the bikies would be watching most intently.

  She reached the first lot of trees and stopped, listening. For breathing, cracking twigs, any sign of the bikies waiting here for anyone to do exactly what Maggie was doing. But there was nothing. Light, cool wind in the leaves. The plaintive cry of a faraway bird. A lone car trundling along the bridge.

  She kept going. Reached the edge of the trees, scanned the first uphill clear stretch of grass. Watched for movement in the shadows on the next lot of trees. Nothing. She ran. Low and fast, feet light. She hit the next clump and repeated the process, but still there was no sign of movement.

  The closer she got, the louder and faster her heart beat. But every step she took without encountering a bikie lent credence to her prevailing theory; that the Scorpions were operating with a skeleton crew. How many would remain to be seen, but her chances of coming out of this alive seemed to be rising.

  Behind her the lakebed fell away. When she glanced back from between trees, it looked full of looming dark, even in the starlight. The sprawl of the landscape and the lack of any new sounds made her feel, despite the cover, exposed and alone, vulnerable. Her hand around the gun tightened.

  The higher she went, the slower she moved. She paused longer in the trees, listening intently even for the particular vacuum of noise that was somebody holding their breath, determined not to make a sound. But there was nothing.