I might not have been enthusiastic about paying back the favour he’d just done me, but a deal was a deal. ‘Ziggi’s waiting for me outside’ – no doubt illegally parked – ‘so you can let Baker know we’ll head down the coast as soon as I’m out of here.’
‘Do you think you could manage to be polite?’
‘I promise to really try,’ I said, and at that moment I truly meant it.
*
I hated the Gold Coast. It never felt like a real place, and there was a reason for that: it was a threshold, a crossing place from this plane to dark ones, and out the other side. Or at least, it used to be. Once upon a time, those people so inclined travelled along the corridors between the light world and the not-so-light and thought it worth the risk. But then the things that live in perpetual shadow learned to find their own paths through, and started to bleed into the everyday. Such breaches put both Weyrd and Normal at risk, so the ways betwixt were sealed, and scarred over – the Gold Coast was one of those scars. That wasn’t to say that there were no remaining doorways, or that they couldn’t be opened, but it took a lot more effort than previously, and the cost in blood was a lot higher. Yet again I found myself wondering who’d paid the price to bring over the ’serker I’d killed months ago.
The Gold Coast wasn’t entirely ugly. As a holiday destination it had appeal – white sands and beautiful blue ocean, fantastic weather – but both seafront and suburbs were so jam-packed it felt like room to move was a luxury add-on. The housing was a mix of old- and new-style short-lets and brittle surf shacks in between the ordinary homes where residents tried to get on with life in the face of the constant swarms of tourists and backpackers. There were myriad restaurants and shopping malls, and hundreds of souvenir shops, all filled with the same crap imported from China, alongside rip-off attractions like Ripley’s Believe It Or Not™, all shouldering each other, making the most of their piece of the glitziest, tackiest strip of real estate in town.
No matter what the promotional photos promised, there were no deserted beaches, and every inch was at a premium. You had to get up very early to stand a hope in hell of finding your own little patch of sandy heaven, beating the onslaught of determinedly vacationing families, teenagers skiving off school, mad keen surfers and militant retirees, all flocking to the seaside for a tan on the pink side and a taste of salty water.
Other bits of the coast, like the Sovereign Islands, were entirely man-made. This estate for the rich and infamous began life as big boys’ mud pies, not even real landmasses, just piles of landfill dumped in the ocean until even it couldn’t keep swallowing the crap. Once it’d all been teased into a carefully connected archipelago, the developers rubbed their hands in glee and started building concrete-and-metal monstrosities for the nouveaux riches and Mafioso of various stripes to snap up.
One good cyclone and the whole area would be awash with sand and blood and glass. I was really hoping that wouldn’t happen on the very day I went to visit, but given my luck, who knew?
The Islands were reached by a bridge from the mainland, the Sovereign Mile. Ziggi braked gently as we approached the security gate, which was firmly closed, presumably to keep the hoi polloi at bay.
‘What do you reckon, Ziggi? Should we go with charm or intimidation?’
‘S’okay. I got this,’ he said, sounding relieved he didn’t have to make that decision, this time at least.
A middle-aged man in an uninspiring uniform – too-tight brown trousers and beige short-sleeved shirt with straining buttons paired with a brown, shapeless, non-uniform cardigan – stepped out of a guard hut. He squinted and shaded his eyes with a hand as if the combination of sun and purple paint-job were too much to bear, then his expression cleared, he gave my driver a curt, distinctly covert wave and returned to the booth. The iron barrier rose silently and we slid through, feeling rather like a shark entering someone’s nice, well-appointed pool.
Ziggi drove slowly, as if there was some chance we might go unnoticed. The winding streets were overlooked by high fences and higher houses, some mere mansions, others hoping to grow up to be full-on castles. Each abode was a signature piece; not one resembled its neighbour in even the smallest of ways. Materials, form and colour were all unique, but in those desperate attempts at individuality, all sense of architectural harmony had been lost. Expensive vehicles lounged in Taj Mahal-standard carports like big cats. I could almost hear the purring. It didn’t look like somewhere to live, but rather somewhere to be displayed.
We took the long road down the right arm, making our way out to the most remote of the islets, until we sat outside a driveway. Access was blocked by an artistically beaten panel of copper set in a soaring wall of ecru render and secured by the modern equivalent of a gatehouse, from which stepped yet another security guard. This one was youngish and female, a concrete blonde with a dark red birthmark up the right side of her neck. She stared at the cab as if it were a blot on the landscape. I could see her point.
Everything about her looked muscular, and her white long-sleeved shirt and navy trousers had creases that were obviously meant to be there, as if no fabric would dare wrinkle on such a hard body. Her straw-pale hair was pulled into a tight bun, and the lines around her eyes and mouth made me reassess her age upwards; she was more thirties than twenties, and maybe even a passably preserved forty. I spotted a Taser that I was pretty sure shouldn’t have been hanging from the belt of a private citizen – Ziggi owned one too, and he wasn’t meant to have it either. Maybe she was a cop making a bit extra on the side, just using departmental equipment to make her life easier. Of course, that immediately raised the question of why Anders Baker might need extra security.
Ziggi craned his neck to exchange glances with me. ‘Wish me luck,’ I mumbled, and opened the door. Climbing out, I pasted on a smile that felt like quick-setting plaster.
‘Can I help you?’ She stood too close – we were roughly the same height, but I was glad of the inch or so I had on her – and breathed spearmint gum-scent into my face. There was neither warmth nor friendliness in her voice, but I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt; I might be decently dressed for a change, but I couldn’t deny Ziggi and his car did look pretty rag-tag.
‘I’m Verity Fassbinder. I’ve got an appointment with Mr Baker,’ I said, searching for a flicker of recognition and was vaguely miffed to find none.
Blondie stared back, then walked past me and inspected the taxi, leaning down to peer in the windows. Ziggi gave her a two-fingered salute, the affable kind, but it didn’t expedite matters at all. I waited for as long as I could, which wasn’t very long, then said, ‘So, you going to call up to the big house? Let the boss know I’m here?’
A ripple went through well-trained jaw and cheek muscles as she clenched down on a retort. With that kind of strength I reckoned she could spit and cause an injury. I gave in and said, ‘Please.’
She might not have moved any faster, but she did at least amble over to her hobbit hole and pick up the phone. I could hear muttered queries, then pauses while answers were given. She didn’t bother to step out again, but the gate swung open. I got in the car and Ziggi hit the accelerator.
Baker’s cash was new, barely out of the wrapping, and his home was proof, if ever it was needed, that money couldn’t buy taste. Misplaced orange faux adobe met and mated unwillingly with white wrought iron and a butt-load of thick tinted glass in someone’s nightmare idea of Mediterranean-style architecture, with some extra attitude thrown in. The rolling gardens weren’t much better: a manicured mix of Australian natives with imports like foxgloves looking horribly out of place, all surrounded by a legion of palm trees growing along the fence line, leaning a little drunkenly over the top. A six-foot-tall bronze of Poseidon, complete with trident, bulging budgie smugglers and leer, stood manfully in a massive fountain, eternally drenched by multiple water jets. A circular drive of stamped black concrete curled around it.
The whole set-up was eye-achingly frightful.
‘Ms Fassbinder. I’m so pleased you’re able to give my son some of your valuable time.’
Though it sounded suspiciously like sarcasm, I let it go. Baker was little more than a thug with a lot of coin; I doubted his manners had yet been finely tuned. I’d cut him some slack, at least until I was proven wrong.
‘Let’s talk inside, shall we, Mr Baker?’ I used his handshake to pivot him around, then pressed the small of his back to steer him through the entrance, smirking to myself when he looked startled. Rich people are so used to being deferred to that they get quite a shock when someone else takes charge. You usually only get away with it once or twice before their sense of self-importance reasserts itself, but sometimes you just need the upper hand for a little while.
The enormous hall had a chessboard pattern of black and white marble tiles underfoot. In the centre was another fountain, this one an oversized bronze mermaid, though not quite as big as the god of the sea. She held a hairbrush poised over her flowing locks and a mirror in front of her face, so she could admire her own beauty with the bluest of glass eyes.
Baker led me into a sunken sitting room that overlooked a lap pool. The place was a symphony in creams and browns that might just have worked, if only someone hadn’t installed a naked-brickwork bar at one end, allowing the Seventies to live and breathe again. The carpet was thick silk shag and I felt self-conscious about letting my boots touch it. A fireplace with a mammoth hunk of camphor laurel as a mantelpiece took up half a wall. I chose a single butter-coloured leather armchair to ensure there was no chance he’d try to sit next to me for a cosy chat.
‘Drink?’ he called from behind the bar, waving a bottle of something amber.
I stared at the label. ‘Err, no thanks. A little early for me.’
‘The sun’s past the yardarm somewhere in the world,’ he said cheerfully, and splashed himself a good five inches from the forty-year-old bottle of The Macallan. It occurred to me then that he might be more nervous than clueless – or perhaps as nervous as he was clueless. He sat across from me in the middle of the three-seater couch, leaning forward, elbows on knees, crystal tumbler cradled between thick fingers. Under his spray tan his nose had an unhealthy pink bloom, which made me wonder how long he’d been pouring his own drinks; I suspected the intake had increased recently.
When he spoke again, the tone was a little petulant. ‘I’m glad you came to your senses.’
I stiffened, tamping down the urge to make a very rude gesture, and said, as politely as I could, ‘Mr Baker, I am looking into a number of matters at the moment, including several missing persons, not one of them less important than your son, although they may not be as rich. They deserve my attention as much as Donovan does.’
He held up his hands as if backing off and said hastily, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply . . . Verity, I just want to say how grateful I am for your help.‘
We eyed each other for long moments before I gave in. ‘Mr Baker, I’ll do what I can, but I need to be honest with you: I think your son’s missing of his own free will. He’s young and a bit aimless, and I gather he’s financially independent?’
‘Trust fund from his mother,’ he answered curtly.
‘Right. So, what makes you think he’s not just gone off to “find himself”?’
His mouth puckered as if he were sucking on a lemon and the false bonhomie dropped away, leaving the truth of him exposed. The man was all hard desire to have his own way and punish those who denied him. At first I thought the bitterness was directed at me, until he said, ‘Because the boy’s too gutless to do anything for himself.’
The contempt hung in the air. I considered then that it might be less about concern for his son and more about irritation at being defied, about having something he owned taken away from his influence. The boy had left under his own steam, or been removed, and both were equally unacceptable to Anders Baker.
I cleared my throat. ‘Maybe you should tell me about Donovan. What was he doing with himself?’
‘He was doing as little as possible at Bond University. Doing nothing seems to take up all his time.’
‘What was he studying?’ I asked.
He shrugged, all fatherly despair. ‘He started a business degree, but kept changing – I’ve paid more withdrawal fees than I care to think about. I believe he finally settled on leisure management – what the hell does that even mean?’
‘Beats me. What about friends, from school or uni, maybe?’
‘No friends. The losers from high school who let him tag along because he paid for everything finally dropped him. At uni even the leeches stayed away.’
‘A girlfriend, then?’
‘What did I just say about leeches?’ Ouch. ‘Apparently my son’s spinelessness, coupled with my money, still wasn’t enough to attract even the most determined gold-digger.’
He took another swig of his drink and I noticed the whisky was almost gone. There was a good chance his mask would slip further and his level of aggression would rise. I didn’t fancy being around for that, although not because I couldn’t handle him. Mindful of his reputation, I just preferred not to.
‘How about any enemies, either yours or his? People who might try getting to you through your son? Any disgruntled employees?’ He shook his head. It occurred to me that any enemies Baker had probably didn’t last, and ex-employees wouldn’t stick around for fear of being kitted out in a fetching new concrete bathing suit. ‘Do you have a housekeeper, or other domestic staff?’
‘No. I like my privacy. I eat out mostly. An agency sends cleaners once a week.’
I pursed my lips. ‘The guard on your gate – how long has she worked for you?’
‘Almost fifteen years; don’t worry about her.’
That sounded like a fair while for a private security guard to hang around. Maybe Baker offered really good benefits. ‘What was Donovan doing last time you saw him?’
He hesitated, and that immediately confirmed my suspicion that he didn’t take much notice of his child. It told me he hadn’t seen Donovan for a few days before he realised the boy had disappeared.
‘I . . . I think I saw him one night a few days before . . .’
I didn’t make him go on. ‘Did he have any hobbies or special interests? Talents?’
‘Wasting money? Taking everything as if it’s his right? He’s as spoilt and useless as his mother.’ The hostility rose a couple of notches and I followed his gaze to a portrait hanging over the fireplace. A slender blonde stared out from the canvas. ‘Haughty’ just about covered it.
I knew a little bit of the gossip from Bela, a lot more from Ziggi. For ten years or more, Anders Baker had been half of one of those mismatched power couples you saw all the time in the social pages: Dusana Nadasy, the elegant Weyrd beauty, alongside a man whose only recommendation was the size of his wallet and his willingness to open it. They’d played together nicely for a while, long enough to have a child, at least, then things had gone south as battle lines were drawn and the fights started escalating: she would change the locks on the house, he’d cut up her credit cards; they’d make up for a bit, then it would all start over again: Dusana sliced the crotches out of his Armani suits; Anders made a bonfire of her Ferragamo shoe collection . . .
Despite that, Anders Baker remained relatively tolerant, by all accounts – until the year (or even the month) of the pool boy, the gardener and the tennis instructor, when his patience was finally exhausted. There was an explosion at their Bridgman Downs mansion, which not only took out the missus, but also said pool boy, gardener and tennis instructor. It was a messy business, but according t
o Ziggi, everything was soon settled by a liberal application of funds in the right places. An inquest verdict of ‘death by misadventure’ was handed down and the newly widowed Anders Baker took his young son to live at the new family home on the Gold Coast. Since then he’d kept a string of increasingly young, blonde and not-very-bright mistresses, each of whom was replaced the moment they mentioned marriage or put on weight.
On the drive there Ziggi told me the boy, Donovan, had no power to speak of, and I knew personally how that must have hurt – when you’re a mixed child, the best thing you can hope for is some kind of ability so the Weyrd will at least pay attention to you, not write you off completely.
‘Kid seems like a bit of a vacant space, V. Gotta feel sorry for him.’
And I did. I’d lived long enough straddling two worlds; I knew how easy it was to fall between. Donovan Baker had had no one to offer him a hand, to pull him back up when he fell. And my sympathies didn’t lessen, hearing his father talk about him. It was becoming clearer and clearer that Baker Senior didn’t know much at all about his son, and it was getting harder and harder for me to repress my dislike for the man.
‘Can you think of anyone – anyone – your son might go to if he was in trouble?’
Baker’s head moved from side to side and his eyes drifted away from the portrait and back to the bar. If I didn’t distract him he was going to be chugging down another five inches of boozy peaty goodness and that would be my interview done.
‘Relatives?’ I asked loudly.
‘What?’ He looked at me, confused.
‘Are there any relatives Donovan might have gone to see?’ I enunciated.
‘I’m an only child and my family was wiped out in the Second World War. Donovan didn’t have siblings or cousins to grow up with, no uncles, no aunts, no grandparents.’
‘What about the other side? The Nadasys?’
Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 Page 15
