by Garry Disher
‘We’re selling five properties in the general area,’ she went on, ‘so we have a good reason for being here.’
‘One of them is two doors down from Ormerod’s house.’
‘Yes.’
Quarrell throttled back suddenly, fingers tightening on the wheel. A small rental boat was on a collision course with them. A man and his kids on board, oblivious then suddenly gaping, beginning to panic. Leah flicked the wheel, throttled, flicked again and they were past the rental, tucking in behind it, the man offering a greenish smile.
‘Idiot,’ Quarrell said, sharp as a knife.
It wouldn’t do to underestimate her.
They passed under the main bridge, into sheltered water. Here life seemed very still. Wyatt saw the glint of distant windscreens and a light plane passed across the eastern horizon, but most of the pleasure boats were gone. One or two kids poling on boards in the shallows, another flying a kite on a patch of grass, that’s all.
For the next hour, Quarrell took him in and out of the inlets and canals, heading south until the water looked unpromising, shallow and tangled with water plants, then turning around and heading north again as far as Lions Park, pausing for several minutes offshore from each of the five RiverRun properties, including the one near Thomas Ormerod’s house. Wyatt would stand and she would wait at the wheel, motor burbling. He’d shade his eyes and take it all in, the suited businessman from down south.
All but one or two of the older houses were two storey, crammed close to each other, elbowing for the right to claim a narrow strip of lawn, water and floating dock. One or two architectural nightmares; plenty of columns. Now and then Wyatt was struck by a pleasing configuration of glass, wooden shutters, greenery. Every house had outdoor living areas, shaded decks. Chairs and glass-topped tables viewed through a screen of bamboo, shrubbery and palms. Big terracotta pots held succulents, pandanus and mondo grass, so that overall there were many shades of green and the leaves were like an armoury of blades and shields: sharp, blunt, broad, narrow, straight, curved.
The people here want privacy, Wyatt thought. They also want to be noticed. They shun contact with those who cannot afford a house on the water, yet they do want to be seen by them.
Or by the family next door or in the next inlet or on the opposite bank, he thought. Maybe they just don’t see me, or Leah Quarrell, or those teenagers in their pedal boat, or that father with his kids, snatching a week’s holiday in an apartment far from the water.
According to Minto, Ormerod’s house would be empty next weekend. Ormerod would be two thousand kilometres south, attending the football grand final. But did he have a family, housekeeper, gardener? A neighbour to water the pot plants?
‘Ormerod lives alone?’
‘Correct.’
‘No sign of a housekeeper? Girlfriend?’
‘No.’
‘The sons never visit him?’
‘Hate his guts.’
Wyatt stared at the water, the sky and houses. Would the mood of the town change on Saturday? Become distracted by the big game? Could be useful cover.
As if reading his mind, Leah Quarrell said, ‘If I were you I’d do it Saturday afternoon.’
Not quite a direct order. ‘Why?’
‘Obvious. The place’ll shut down to watch the grand final. The streets’ll be deserted, and all you’ll hear is TVs and radios blaring. Even up here it’s a big deal, but especially this year. A bomb could go off and no one would notice.’
Wyatt absorbed that. ‘Or I go in at night, Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Under cover of darkness. Or on Sunday morning while the town sleeps it off.’
Quarrell gestured in irritation and yanked on the wheel, opened the throttle, heading back for Iluka Islet and Wyatt’s second, closer look at Ormerod’s house. On the first run he’d glimpsed a big white cube. Couple of small dormer windows, columns, palm trees, a dock and a gardener trimming a hedge. Now, as Quarrell throttled back and maintained station fifty metres out in the channel, directly opposite the house two doors down from Ormerod’s—a FOR SALE sign hammered into the lawn—he took a closer look. Binoculars this time, careful not to seem too interested in Ormerod’s house.
There was a security box mounted under the eaves, discreet security warning stickers on the windows. Then he saw a cat asleep on a mat beside a deck chair. If there was a cat flap, it would be on a side door. Who cared for the cat when Ormerod was away? Neighbour? Kid from down the street? A cattery? If the cat stayed, then presumably any motion detectors would be turned off.
Wyatt looked up at the roof line and the pair of dormer windows. One was partly open. If it was open at other times during the week, that might indicate a forgotten, overlooked window.
A sudden movement at the house between Ormerod’s and the house listed for sale by Leah Quarrell’s firm. Wyatt swung the glasses, focused. A man carrying a plank, five metres from the ground. On scaffolding? It was difficult to tell through the tangle of bamboo and palms.
That might be a way in. Up the scaffolding, across to Ormerod’s roof, in through the dormer window.
If it wasn’t locked or alarmed.
He said nothing about that to Quarrell. Instead, he told her he’d seen enough.
‘Well, when are you going to do it?’
‘I’ll let you know.’
Wrong answer, if the tension in her tiny limbs and the fury in her wrists as she yanked on the wheel were anything to go by. ‘Who’s running this show?’
Wyatt said mildly, ‘Leah, I’ve only just got here.’
‘I could be a real help to you. A lookout, for example.’
She feels underappreciated, Wyatt thought. Perhaps her uncle just throws her crumbs. Did he want an amateur looking out for him?
To make her feel useful he said, ‘It would help if I knew the dimensions of the painting…’
‘Oh…’ she said, thinking it through. ‘I could do that from the photographs.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Why?’
‘I might need to wrap it in something before I carry it out of the house.’
‘Huh,’ she said, her mind working.
13
Feeling irritable, Leah Quarrell returned to her office and caught up on the weekend auction results.
She was about to walk down the street for lunch at the sushi place when her office door opened and a man stood there. ‘Got a minute, Miss Quarrell?’
Cop. She knew it instantly. He knows about the Ormerod job? She covered her thoughts with a bit of bluster. ‘Look, I’m very sorry, but we ask clients to remain in the waiting room until—’
‘Detective Sergeant Batten, Miss Quarrell. Queensland Police.’
‘Ms Quarrell,’ stressed Leah, her mind racing. Batten? Uncle David had never mentioned a Batten on his payroll. He didn’t tell her everything, though. She watched the guy closely, hoping he’d give her a nod and a wink. Tell her it was all right, he was handling it. Whatever it was.
Except somehow she knew it wasn’t all right, and now the guy was stepping further into the room, a weedy, balding guy, resembling a fussy bank clerk in his lightweight navy jacket, white shirt, grey pants. Tightly knotted blue tie, black shoes. A small gold cross in his lapel. Then he turned his head slightly, looking for a chair, and she saw a birthmark under his right ear, a comma five centimetres long.
‘Like to ask you a few questions, Ms Quarrell,’ he said, plonking himself down across the desk from her.
She dragged her attention away from the birthmark, the only noticeable thing about him in all that Christian blandness. ‘I don’t understand. Is this about one of our auctions? One of our tenants?’
‘Your firm is selling a property for a Miss Tanya Ericsson?’
‘Ms Ericsson,’ Leah said. ‘That’s correct. Is there a problem?’
‘Her house was burgled during the week.’
‘That’s terrible,’ Leah said, aware that this wasn’t about the painting hanging on Thomas Ormerod’s wall, it was a
bout Gavin Wurlitzer.
‘Indeed,’ Batten said, looking more like a toe-cutter than a churchgoer.
When he didn’t continue, Leah said, ‘Was there any damage? Did she lose many valuables?’
‘Was there any damage,’ repeated Batten, as if contemplating a philosophical question. ‘Depends what you mean by damage.’
‘Well, broken glass, stains on the carpet…’
‘Most burglaries are attended by damage,’ Batten said, ‘but our burglar went a step further—and I’m telling you this in the strictest confidence, Ms Quarrell—and assaulted Ms Ericsson.’
Leah’s jaw dropped. ‘That’s awful. Poor Tanya.’
‘Of course, it’s not the first time a burglar has assaulted a householder,’ Batten said.
‘You’d think they’d avoid an occupied house,’ said Leah, pissed off with Ericsson for returning home unexpectedly, pissed off with Wurlitzer for not backing out.
‘Or have better intelligence.’
What did he mean by that? ‘It’s just awful,’ Leah said.
‘A statistic that might interest you,’ Batten said. ‘A rise in burglaries on unoccupied houses over this past year in the greater Noosa area.’
‘Really?’
‘Specifically houses that have been put up for sale or auction.’
Her mind racing, Leah said, ‘I do seem to recall at least two of my properties being burgled in the past year.’
‘Four, in fact,’ Batten said. ‘Of course, yours is not the only company affected. That would look most suspicious. Other real estate firms have been hit, too.’
‘I hope you catch this guy,’ Leah said.
‘You’d have a fair idea of the local scene, Ms Quarrell? You shoot the breeze with colleagues from rival firms, swap stories, put buyers and sellers in each other’s way?’
‘Sure,’ said Leah, not moving a muscle in her face. Then she put on a pretty frown. ‘But you’re not suggesting one of my colleagues is feeding information to this…this person?’
Batten held his arms wide in appeal. ‘Could be.’
‘If I hear anything, I’ll let you know…’
‘This guy,’ snarled Batten, with the face of a hanging judge, ‘is going to kill someone if he’s not stopped.’
When he was gone, Leah shrieked at the receptionist. ‘You let someone just wander on back here?’
The receptionist chewed her gum and thought about it. ‘He was police.’
‘I know he was police. That’s not the point.’
‘Have you done something wrong?’
‘You have,’ Leah said, ‘and if you don’t lift your game, you’re fired.’
Angry, frustrated, she called Rafi Halperin and said she was coming right over.
‘I thought we were supposed to keep a low profile.’
He was teasing her. She said, ‘Low is where I want you.’
She had Hannah Sten’s lawyer stashed in the Flamingo Gate apartments on the hill overlooking the national park and the Noosa main beach. An exclusive place, panoramic views, with its own doorman, and Leah coming and going without question because RiverRun Realty was selling the top-floor apartment. The vendor, the widow of a Hobart accountant, simply wanted it off her hands.
‘Cancel all rental bookings,’ she’d told Leah, not troubling to remove her late husband’s amateur artworks from the walls. ‘Return all deposits, sell the furniture, paint the place, clean the carpets, fix the leaking taps. Sell.’
She was not about to fly up from Tasmania to view the apartment, meaning it was Leah’s for the next few weeks. Not even her elderly partner knew about it. So who was going to question the presence of a suave New York lawyer? As long as he kept his head down for the next week or so.
She parked her VW under the building and took a lift to the foyer, where the doorman greeted her with a little carnal shiver. ‘Afternoon, Miss Quarrell.’
‘Afternoon, Troy,’ Leah called, her voice smoky, her eyes heavy-lidded. That, and an extra hundred bucks a week, was enough to keep young Troy loyal and vigilant. He’d alert Raf if anyone came snooping around asking about the man in the top-floor suite, and then he’d alert her.
She took the lift, and there was Raf, waiting for the door to slide open, coolly cosmopolitan and as unlike the men she usually dealt with—fat Australians with dried-out skin, sloppy clothes and dim expressions—as you could get. Lean, suave, dressed in a crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, dark slacks, slimline black shoes. Leah loved his shoes. Loved his bare forearms, brooding dark eyes, sculpted cheekbones. Loved his New York accent. Loved the hollow at his throat.
Loved the way he folded her against him and murmured, ‘I’m going stir-crazy here.’
By now they had moved to the main window, looking out over the brilliant gloss of the sea. Whitecaps, the curve of the bay, a fringe of green at the shoreline, people in the water. Whales, if you had a good pair of binoculars and patience. But Leah wasn’t interested in whales. She was looking down, intent on the crown of Rafi’s head, now partly concealed by the skirt bundled at her waist.
Afterwards, entangled slickly on the bed, Leah combed his chest hairs with her fingers. ‘I put the idea in Alan’s head.’
‘Great.’
She stroked, he stroked, she purred, and then she said, ‘I just wish we didn’t have to wait.’
‘Me too.’
‘I’d like to put the painting in a suitcase and fly off with you tonight and get paid tomorrow.’
‘Me too.’
‘A million dollars.’
‘Maybe less. What do I know about art? The buyer has to see it first,’ Halperin said.
‘Raf, you said a million. A million would set us up.’
‘Depends on the condition.’
Leah placed the flat of her hand on his chest, the slenderness of her fingers against his hard, taut torso. ‘So long as Trask doesn’t stuff up.’
Rafael turned onto his side and fondled her nipples. ‘What’s our fall guy like?’
Leah thought about her two encounters with Wyatt. ‘Tough. Hard. Surly.’
‘He may not give up the painting without a fight.’
‘Trask’s no pushover. Plus, we’ve already scouted Ormerod’s house and street.’
Raf nodded. ‘Have you given any thought to disappearing the body?’
Distracted, the sensations in her breasts touching off sensations in her groin, Leah forced herself to concentrate. ‘Maybe at sea?’
After a while, Rafi said, ‘Will he come after you? Trask?’
‘One moment I’m in Noosa, the next I’m gone,’ Leah said. ‘He won’t know where. He won’t know I’m in New York with you.’
It gave her a quite peculiar thrill to see the scowl on her lover’s face. She snuggled against him, ‘Settle down, I’m not sleeping with him.’
‘Yeah, but he wants to sleep with you.’
‘Then he’ll have to keep wanting, won’t he?’
After a while, Raf hitched himself onto one elbow and said, ‘Can you get me a gun?’
Leah went very still. ‘Are you saying you want to hit Wyatt? It’s not exactly the kind of thing you or I are good at.’
‘Nothing like that. I’m stuck here alone day after day, I don’t know who half the players are, and something could go wrong. I’m vulnerable here.’
Leah gnawed on her bottom lip. Along with computers, iPhones, cameras, coin collections and gold bars, Gavin Wurlitzer had burgled the occasional firearm. ‘A little .32 automatic?’
‘Perfect.’
They had sex again and by now the afternoon sun was streaming across the bed.
‘I have to go,’ Leah said.
‘We could have dinner tonight.’
‘Raf, we can’t be seen together.’ She touched his perfect lips with the tip of her finger. ‘You can’t be seen. Everyone thinks you went home to New York.’
‘Bitch-face is in a hotel down on the Gold Coast.’
‘Bitch-face could decide
she wants to be here in Noosa for the handover. And what if Trask sees you?’
Raf sulked. It was cute, a twist of his lips, a little frown between his depthless eyes. She kissed it away. ‘You’ll have your revenge soon enough.’
After all, he’d done the groundwork—only for Hannah Sten to say thanks, you can go home now. Fuck that.
14
On Tuesday morning Wyatt drove to Noosa Junction to replenish his wardrobe at the Salvation Army op shop. A daypack, faded yellow boardshorts, plain white T-shirt, straw hat, canvas trainers and wraparound mirror sunglasses. Used clothing, because he didn’t want anyone to look at him twice. All-new gear was something someone might notice, if they were bored or curious. They might construct a little drama around it—hapless tourist taken clothes-shopping by his wife on the first day of his holiday. Then later there’s something in the news and their imagination goes into overdrive. They remember. Make connections. Better not to be noticed at all.
He returned to his holiday apartment, changed into the op-shop clothing and walked along Noosa Parade to the access road leading to Iluka Islet. Crossing the narrow bridge, he discovered how deceptive the little knob of land was. Viewed from a boat, or from Lions Park, it was a tiny island. Full of water-view houses shoulder-to-shoulder around the rim, with road access via a stubby bridge at the end of a little street that intersected with Noosa Parade. But when Wyatt did his harmless tourist stroll across the bridge, he found a narrow circular road within, separating the waterfront houses from an inner clump of less pricey dwellings.
Houses, potential witnesses.
He walked on, his face concealed by the hat and sunglasses, and began to realise that many of the houses were rentals and holiday homes. A fair percentage of the cars had interstate plates, and the twenty or so pedestrians he encountered had the look of holidaymakers. A knot of teenage girls passed him, bright as ribbons, trailing perfume, flashing their vivid teeth, carrying purses and bags, talking of the beach, the shops. Smaller kids splashed around unseen in backyard swimming pools. A man from Tasmania washed his car; a Victorian family piled into a people mover. A private clean-up crew was sweeping and blowing leaves, collecting palm fronds, trimming hedges. Electric gates slid open and shut, tennis balls bocked, birds called and dipped in the air: benign sounds in a benign setting.
