No Safe Place

by Jenny Spence

  I call Steve again.

  “I’ve got what I came up here for,” I say. “I want to give all the material to someone on the Board. Can you figure out the best person, and get their address for me?”

  “Sure. When will you be back?”

  “Middle of the day tomorrow.”

  “I’m going home tomorrow,” he says. “I’ve got a three o’clock flight booked.”

  “You can take the car to the airport, if I can get the timing right.”

  “Right. Listen, Ravi wanted to tell you something. You asked him to check out that Suresh guy?”

  “Oh, yeah. Not relevant now,” I say.

  “True. He couldn’t find Suresh anyway, but it turns out Omar knows someone who knows someone who knows Brian O’Dwyer.”

  “Omar?” I say.

  “Omar knows some serious poker players,” says Steve. “Apparently O’Dwyer was in trouble about the time Talbot died. He’d lost a few games and he owed some people a lot of money.”

  I shudder. I know what that’s like. My unlamented husband Max racked up his debts through gambling. O’Dwyer would have been very keen to find himself some money before he got his legs broken.

  Steve and I make arrangements for the handover, then I settle down with Wolf Hall for a while. It’s a relief to be back with the sixteenth century and Thomas Cromwell’s graceful handling of the tragedies in his own life. Unfortunately, though, I can’t help seeing Helena whenever Anne Boleyn appears, so it’s hard to warm to her as a character. I bet Helena screams and throws things when she doesn’t get her own way. I hope I can make her do that.

  It’s going to be a long drive tomorrow and I try to get an early night, but I’m just kidding myself. When I do sleep it’s just a doze, haunted by Brett’s reproachful face. Finally I dream that I’ve refused his invitation to the concert, but I’ve realised too late that I have to get there because something terrible is going to happen, and I can’t find the place. George Street turns into a country road with abandoned diggings, and there’s no-one to ask. I wake up disoriented in the strange room, hearing the rumble of trucks on the highway, and realise that it’s time to move on.

  At dawn I find a truckies’ café and fortify myself with scrambled eggs on toast. Steve has texted the name and address of one of the female Board members, Margaret Carlisle, saying she was once an independent federal MP and is known for being progressive. I put her Wollstonecraft address into the GPS, and it’s cheerfully accepted.

  The radio helps to keep me grounded as I drive on and on through prosperous farming country, retracing my journey down the New England Highway. I reward myself at Maitland with a brief coffee stop, then I pick up the freeway and join the semi-trailers converging on Sydney.

  When I come off the freeway at Hornsby I start looking out for a Kinko’s, but it’s a while before I spot the familiar sign. Ignoring protests from the GPS, I pull off the road and find a semi-legal parking space. With my dwindling cash resources I get printouts of all the documents I’ve been carrying and make two copies of the contents of the brown folder. Then I buy a document wallet and bundle a complete set of papers into it, adding a CD on which I’ve copied everything I’ve got in electronic form.

  Margaret Carlisle lives in a classic gorgeous leafy north shore street. Her house is on a battleaxe block. No doubt it has stunning views of the water from the back. I park on the street, right in front, and walk down the long, steep driveway, clutching my package.

  She answers the door herself, and I recognise her from the day of the Board meeting. Late sixties, tousled grey hair, solidly built but fit. From her clothes it looks as though I might have interrupted her yoga practice.

  “Yes?” she says, looking suspiciously at the package under my arm.

  “I’m not selling anything,” I say, then laugh nervously. Bad beginning, Elly. “People selling something always say that, don’t they?”

  I start again. “Ms Carlisle, my name’s Eleanor Cartwright. I was hired as a contractor to work on the application for the new mine at Lonely Plains, the Green Dragon Resources project? My job was to do the final edit, but I noticed some discrepancies.”

  “Discrepancies?” She frowns.

  “Yes,” I plough on. “So I’ve just been up there, to Lonely Plains, and I’ve found evidence that there’s fraudulent material in the application.”

  “Now wait a minute,” she says. “Who did you say you are? Didn’t you say something about a final edit?”

  “I know, it might seem a bit above and beyond, but if you’ll listen to what I have to say, and let me show you what I’ve got, I think you might be interested.”

  “You’d better come in,” she says, not too enthusiastically.

  Before I’ve finished she’s pacing up and down her stylish living room. I’ve taken her through the contents of the brown folder, and given her a copy, along with everything else. She picks up the phone and starts dialling.

  “I’ve got to keep moving,” I say, getting up to go.

  “Just one call,” she says. “George? It’s Meg. Listen, that 3A – it’s crap. There’s a woman here with evidence. She’s dug it all up. You were dead right about Helena Banfield . . . Look, I’ve got to get off the line now, but can you organise a board meeting ASAP? . . . Yes, today would be fantastic . . . George, I’ll leave it in your capable . . . Yes, talk to you later. Bye.”

  “That’s great,” I say. “It’s important that everybody sees this stuff, and that it’s publicised. Just be careful about Helena until that happens, okay?”

  “Don’t you worry about Helena!” she says, her eyes flashing. “I never liked that woman. I just hope we’ve got enough evidence here to put her behind bars.”

  “Me too.” I shake hands with her and leave.

  In the car I look at my watch, then I call Lewis.

  “Elly! Where’ve you been?”

  “Here and there. Are you still in Sydney?”

  “Yes, there were complications.”

  “That’s good. I’ll be in the city in half an hour. Do you reckon you’d have time to come and arrest me?”

  “You bet.”

  40

  Steve Li is waiting on the corner as arranged, all his possessions in a backpack at his feet. I pull over and jump out. As he gets into the driver’s seat I open the passenger door and drag out my own stuff.

  “See that brown folder on the seat, Steve? That’s got to go with you. Take it straight to the office and put it in the safe, okay?”

  “That’s the evidence?”

  “That’s it. But I’ve got a copy, and I’ve given one to Margaret Carlisle. We’re just about there!”

  He gives me a thumbs-up and drives off. I stand there grinning like a maniac, then I’m aware of someone behind me. It’s Lewis.

  “Isn’t that someone from your office?” he asks curiously.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Long story.”

  He holds up a pair of handcuffs.

  “Ready?”

  I gasp, which is just what the bastard is after.

  “Have you had lunch?” he asks, when he’s stopped laughing. “Is there anywhere good around here?”

  We walk through Hyde Park to Oxford Street. I’m glad of a chance to stretch my legs after the long drive. On the way, he fills me in on the Peter Talbot story.

  “Once we put some pressure on him, Brian caved,” he tells me. “He doesn’t seem to have much between the ears. He still had the same phone!”

  “You’re joking!”

  “Nope. He’d found Talbot’s photos and deleted them, but he had no idea they could still be retrieved. This is not your high-tech villain. I felt like a real dickhead asking him how he’d set up Carlos and what he did with the hard drives. He couldn’t understand the questions.”

  “So did he say why he did it?”

  “No, that’s the trouble. First he said they went up the track together and had a fight, only we pointed out there was a bit of pre-plan
ning. Then he made up some story about Talbot getting him fired from a job he had at some sports shop, but it turns out he got caught swiping money from the till.”

  “I’ve heard he was short of money. You should check that out.”

  “Yeah, that would figure. My feeling, though, is someone put him up to it, only he’s not saying who.”

  “Did he know Talbot had a lot of money?” I ask.

  “No suggestion of that.”

  “Hmm. Well, in the end, did he tell you exactly how he did it? Or have you worked it out?”

  We’re standing outside a little Italian place in Oxford Street that looks reasonable appealing.

  “Should be all right,” he says.

  I nod and we go in. After a quick look at the specials board we both order minestrone.

  “So, Detective Elly,” he says. “How do you think it went down?”

  “Well,” I say. “Brian fakes a hangover so he can’t go on the walk with Peter. Either he swaps the phones or, if they don’t look exactly the same, he hides Peter’s phone and when Peter’s frustrated looking for it he says, ‘Here, take mine’. He never realises that Peter’s set up an automatic link to Flickr because Peter’s high-tech and Brian’s low-tech. How am I doing so far?”

  “Pretty good. It was a straight switch. Peter must have noticed as soon as he started taking photos, so he would have just set up Brian’s phone the way he wanted it.”

  “Right.” I go on. “So Peter heads up the track, and Brian stays out of sight some way behind him. Brian stops at one point to take Peter’s phone off the track and hide it – he probably came back later and took it further into the bush, buried it or threw it down a steep gully or something?”

  He nods.

  “So then he catches up with Peter, who must have spent some time at the summit – maybe stopped and had his lunch – and bashes him, probably with a rock.”

  “Right on all counts, Elly.”

  “Good.” I say, smiling at him.

  “He’s locked up in Sydney while the legals are sorted out, then I’ll be taking him back to Melbourne,” he says. “But then the plot thickens. Typhoid Mary strikes again.”

  Without warning my face crumples and tears start flowing. It’s the sleepless night and the long drive. In a flash he’s round the table and holding me. He’s wearing a leather jacket and it has that nice Dubbin smell.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he’s saying. “Always shooting my mouth off. Just call me a bloody idiot.”

  “No, no,” I sniff, trying to pull myself together. “You’re right, it’s my fault, it’s me. Poor Brett. It was my fault.”

  The tears keep coming and he holds me tighter. This won’t do. I pull away gently and grope around for a serviette to wipe my face. He withdraws a little but stays next to me, looking worried.

  “It’s him,” I say, once I can speak. “The same killer.”

  ‘The killer from Melbourne?” I’m not sure if he believes me.

  ”I know it’s him,” I say. “I saw him outside Carlos’s place the day he was killed. The same man.”

  “How did he find you? And how did this Brett guy get involved?”

  “For a start, this isn’t really about Talbot,” I explain. “Well, it is, but the reason Carlos was interested in Peter Talbot was that Talbot was doing something dodgy to earn extra money, and being paid through this dodgy bank.”

  “What bank?”

  “Mercantile Mutual. It’s an online bank that seems to be set up for dirty dealings. Carlos stumbled on it, somehow, and he was nosing around. We know that because he had some of the bank’s information, including Talbot’s account.”

  “Okay.”

  “So he started investigating Talbot’s disappearance thinking it must be, you know, no coincidence, and he did find something suspicious about that, which led us here. But it was really because he was investigating the bank.”

  “And you’ve been doing the same thing? Is that how they found you up here?”

  “No. I came to Sydney because I thought I’d be safe, and I’ve been working on this project, and there’s something corrupt going on – I’ve got all the evidence here.” I show him a stack of printouts.

  “Someone’s falsified a report to get approval for a new coal mine. It’s worth a lot of money to some people up here, including this woman called Helena Banfield. For a start, she’s been buying up land, supposedly to sell it on to the coal people once the thing’s approved.”

  “So she’s behind the false report?” He’s trying hard to follow, so I try to slow down.

  “Yes, she’s on the Board of the organisation which is supposed to be assessing the application to develop the mine, but she’s also in the pocket of the developers. So I decided to tell all to Brett, who was the sort of supervisor of the project.”

  “Right.”

  “He suggested we go down to that building in Darling Harbour to talk in private. They’re setting up new offices there. Of course I should have smelled a rat. He’d run straight to Helena, you see, and they were setting me up.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I don’t think Brett had any idea what he was doing. He just worshipped Helena, and whatever she said was fine by him. But when we got there, this guy came after me.”

  “Oh, shit, Elly. How did you know?”

  “I had someone watching my back. I’ll tell you about him eventually. The killer, Lewis. He must be a professional, like you said. It turns out there is some connection between this business and our friend Talbot, and whoever is behind it seems to employ various shady people to do their dirty work. I’m guessing Helena set him onto me without having any idea who I was, but he recognised me from Melbourne. Anyway, I got out of there and Brett wouldn’t come, but I thought he’d be all right. By that time I was starting to think he was one of them after all.”

  “So you went to ground?”

  “That wasn’t exactly what I planned, but I wanted to find out what was going on, so I went up to the Liverpool Plains. Which was just as well, because now I’ve got the full story. I’ve already handed over a copy of everything to Margaret Carlisle, who’s on the Board, and I’ve got this extra copy for you.”

  “Doing our job for us again, Elly?”

  “I want to go home, Mike.”

  He gives me a big smile.

  “Did you get a good look at the guy?”

  “Oh, yes. I saw him.”

  “Well, we’d better get out to Parramatta and start going through the formalities.”

  “Parramatta?”

  41

  It’s actually not that far to Parramatta, especially the way Lewis drives. The police headquarters there are pretty swanky, better than what they’ve got in Melbourne, but I’m not too impressed when I see the computer system. I sit with the Identikit artist and he builds up a rough likeness of the killer from my description, but then he passes me a stack of loose-leaf folders full of photographs and asks me to go through them.

  “You’ve got a stack of good criteria there now,” I remark. “What software are you using?”

  He gives me an unfriendly look.

  “Can you just look through these files and let me know if the face comes up?”

  I spend what seems like hours going through page after page of pictures, none of which look much like my nemesis. Meanwhile a young female constable slowly and painfully types up my statement.

  Eventually we reach some sort of impasse. The public service mentality seems to pervade here as well, especially as it’s Friday, and a lot of people have turned off their PCs and gone home. No-one seems to know where Lewis is – indeed, no-one seems to have heard of him. My spirits are low and I’m contemplating how I can get the hell out of there and catch the train to Newtown when Lewis pops up.

  “All done?” he asks brightly.

  “Looks like it.”

  “I’ll give you a lift.”

  He’s transferred to a rented car, which is in the basement car park.

  “
I’m gonna drop you off and go to the airport,” he explains. “This is it for me. They’ll be holding O’Dwyer up here for weeks with all the red tape, so I’m going home.”

  I feel a stab of disappointment, but also relief. My guard has been crumbling, and I don’t trust myself to spend another evening with him. I give him the address and settle back, weak with exhaustion.

  “You didn’t find him, did you?” he says, unusually serious.

  “Nothing like him,” I say. “Don’t you people use facial recognition software?”

  “Limited access. Applications have to be filled in in triplicate. That sort of thing.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.” He’s driving a little more carefully than usual, looking thoughtful. “There’s something about this guy that rings a bell.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t put my finger on it. I can think of a whole lot of killers it wouldn’t be, but that’s no use to you.”

  “Anyway, in my book Helena is the real villain,” I say. “If she paid him to silence me it didn’t work, so surely she’ll call him off now.”

  “You’d think so.” He’s watching the road. “But it won’t hurt to keep being careful, okay?”

  “Sure. Anyway, I’m going home tomorrow, so if he’s still looking for me up here he’ll be out of luck.”

  “Right. Good.”

  He drops me off in the narrow street and there are cars banking up behind, so we don’t linger. I go into the tidy flat, my modest striped bag still sitting where I’d left it, and call Miranda.

  “What time’s your flight tomorrow?”

  “Nine. Are you still in Sydney?”

  “Yes, but I’ll go back with you, if I can get on the plane. I’ll see you at the airport. I suppose you’ll be getting an early night?”

  “Oh, sure, Mum.”