The Heat

by Garry Disher

  Leah had used up her twenty seconds of sweetness. ‘There better not be.’

  Then she was leaving. With Trask waiting in the shadows, ready to intervene if she encountered trouble, Leah carried the crate out to the van, just as a woman walked by with a newspaper and a pint of milk. Leah didn’t miss a beat: waving a cheerio at Ormerod’s house, she called, ‘Enjoy the game, Mr Ormerod. If the set gives you any trouble, we’re just a phone call away.’

  22

  The air was crisp, the early light hazy above the river as Leah Quarrell left Ormerod’s house and turned towards Noosa Heads. Time was tight now, but as soon as she was clear of Iluka, she pulled the van to the side of the road, climbed into the back and tipped the painting out of the box.

  Wanting to know what all the fuss was about, she angled it to the light, hoping to see past the muddy tones to the brushstrokes themselves. Hoping to see something that would speak to her of beauty and antiquity. All she saw was a couple of peasants getting their hands dirty in a field.

  Back behind the wheel, she called Rafi Halperin, using an old iPhone stolen two weeks earlier by Gavin Wurlitzer, someone’s overlooked bottom-drawer phone and still active.

  ‘I’ll be there in five,’ she said when he answered. ‘Meet me out on the street.’

  She was there in six minutes. Halperin, clean shaven, freshly combed in linen trousers and a white Egyptian cotton shirt, raised an ironic eyebrow to see her alight from a van dressed in overalls. ‘I know, I know,’ she said, blushing, aware that her hair was this way and that, her skin oily, her cheek smudged.

  ‘God, I could kiss you, I could eat you up,’ he murmured, sending a current through her body.

  She looked left and right as if for eavesdroppers and stepped closer. ‘Later, that’s a promise.’

  She turned to the van, slid open the side door, and was reaching in for the Sony carton when Rafi reached past her. His lovely tanned arms and slender fingers. A subtle hint of aftershave, something expensive, not the supermarket crap that Trask doused himself in.

  Then he was backing away with the painting in the box, smiling at her. ‘Later.’

  She climbed behind the wheel of the van giddily.

  The plan was she’d shower and change in the RiverRun Realty bathroom. First she parked the van at the yacht club diagonally opposite her office and swapped the uniform for a simple cotton dress, just for the walk to her office. Then she tossed the iPhone and overalls into a nearby bin and crossed the road—feeling uneasy for the first time, as if something had broken loose in the world, the sun striking off every pane and chip of glass on the coast, burning into her brain.

  Was Wyatt watching her? She unlocked the front door and hurried inside, feeling a small grain of satisfaction knowing he’d be dead soon. She was not used to indifference in a man—in such a lithe, prohibitive and quietly dangerous man. It was aggravating; it made her want to disturb him. See the stony face fracture.

  She showered, pulled on one of her Saturday real estate outfits, a sleeveless blouse, a tight, mid-thigh blue skirt and open-toed shoes, and settled in for a morning’s work. The time was eight-thirty.

  No alteration to the Saturday routine—apart from stealing a painting. With any luck, dozens of people would be more interested in buying a property today than watching some stupid football game.

  This late in spring, the school holidays almost over, summer on the way, the market was unpredictable. The town would start emptying tomorrow and those who stayed on, or came here solely to house hunt, would be looking for bargains. But you had to go through the motions.

  First up was a middle-aged couple from Melbourne who’d arranged to view a house listed for sale at Sunshine Beach. Leah, who’d been that close to telling them they couldn’t afford it, showed them her dazzling teeth and walked them through the property. She pretty much felt contempt for all her clients, a side effect of working for her uncle. She was amused to find that attitude persisting today, of all days.

  Payday.

  Then a Maserati-driving hotshot and his gym-toned wife wanted to see an apartment in the French Quarter at the top end of Hastings Street. Leah met them in the foyer, feeling a tug to be so close to where Rafi was staying. She took them in, stood at the window with them—look how close everything is, the bay just a one-minute walk away, Noosa Hill behind the building, the national park a short distance along the walking track from Main Beach and Little Cove. Husband and wife shuddered prettily, as though they’d never walked on dirt in their lives.

  But the guy actually bought the apartment. Didn’t quibble, wrote out a cheque on the spot.

  Her third appointment for the morning took her to a crummy house in a crummy part of Tewantin. A nuggety old woman from Brisbane who wanted to be close to her grandchildren. Full of doubts and misgivings, none of which Leah assuaged. God she was bored.

  Then a marine biologist from Canada, looking to rent a place at Peregian Beach for six months, then a no-show, then a young schoolteacher from Mount Isa having a look-around because she’d requested a transfer before the start of the next school year. ‘Love the place,’ she said, ‘hate the prices.’ Leah gave an arid smile and zoned out.

  Almost 11 a.m. now, and her final showing of the morning was a Castaways Beach nightmare, a dentist and his wife, both sixty, thinking of retiring, but her thoughts were on the Ormerod house operation. She didn’t hear the man’s question about something in the area.

  ‘Sorry?’

  He looked at her oddly, one of those skinny, tough-looking retirees you saw powerwalking along the river. ‘Nursing homes.’

  What did she know about fucking nursing homes? RiverRun didn’t handle that kind of property. And if he was in the market for a house, why the hell was he asking about nursing homes?

  The man’s son was with him, a guy like Trask, the size of a refrigerator, hands like a bunch of sausages. A builder, he’d said, and Leah knew what that meant—he’d prowl over every centimetre of the house, poking and kicking and sniffing, and then he’d list all the faults and how much they’d cost to fix. Leah shook her head, glanced at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

  The builder son stepped close to her, bending to her ear. Was he going to kiss her? ‘My mother,’ he murmured, with a little jerk of his head.

  And Leah understood. The woman had said nothing the whole while, merely followed the menfolk, looking stunned.

  Dementia. Leah’s skin crawled.

  ‘She tends to wander,’ the son said.

  ‘That must be hard for you,’ said Leah, who didn’t give a shit. She checked her mobile.

  Now the builder was screwing up his face and staring at the walls, the ceilings, as if everything was out of alignment. ‘I don’t know…’ he began.

  Leah knew how to cure that kind of thing in a man. She’d move in on him with her lips glistening and the little moves that made them look at her tits, her body setting up a little hum, a vibration, in him. It was like flicking a switch, it never failed. Today, she didn’t give a stuff. ‘Look, I have another appointment across town,’ she said, glancing at her watch.

  The builder flashed a smile at her chest and hurried to fetch the old woman away from the front door and finally all three of them were saying goodbye, not quite what we had in mind, so on and so forth.

  Just after midday. Too early for a call from Trask, too early for Wyatt to go in. The game didn’t start for another couple of hours and most of the locals were still finishing their Saturday morning chores before shutting themselves away for the afternoon. Leah, knowing she had to stay close to the van now, had ensured there were no more appointments on the books.

  She headed back to Gympie Terrace. Breakfast had been hours ago. She needed energy for the next stage. So, after parking the VW, she walked along the street to the lunch bar near her office. Taking a table deep in the shadows, she looked around fruitlessly for a waitress. Eventually a slouched, gum-chewing kid with metal in her nose and navel summoned the energy to take her o
rder for a green salad and a double-shot latte. Leah wanted to slap her.

  She thought while she waited. Should she bother seeing things through to the end? She could drive to Rafi right now and they could dash for the airport and be in Singapore by midnight. Then on to Europe.

  No. Her uncle would find her somehow. And she’d have Trask on her tail.

  Leah was chewing the inside of her cheek when her salad and coffee were smacked down carelessly in front of her. She said to the girl, ‘Have you got a problem?’

  The waitress blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘If you hate your job, get another one. If you hate your life, go and kill yourself. But do not bring your hang-ups and your grievances to your relations with your customers.’

  The waitress was genuinely bewildered. ‘What?’

  ‘Forget it. Go away and spill coffee on someone else.’

  ‘Do you want a serviette?’

  ‘No, I do not want a serviette. I want you to piss off.’

  The girl slumped off, looking wounded. No people skills.

  23

  When Leah had driven away from Ormerod’s house, Trask slipped back inside. A radio played somewhere nearby. A sprinkler stuttered. Birds went about their business.

  The plan was he’d call to say Wyatt was breaking in, and Leah would return with the van. Then she’d wait for the follow-up call, ‘It’s done,’ and help drag the body out.

  He looked at his watch: 8 a.m. He doubted Wyatt would appear before noon. He slipped outside, keeping within the screen of greenery surrounding the house, and installed the infra-red sensors front and rear. Each sensor field described a five-metre arc, and normally anyone, or anything, crossing it would trigger a dedicated alarm, but Cherub had wired it to signal Trask’s phone, a unique soft tone.

  Now it was a waiting game. Trask returned to the main room, dragged a chair to the curtain and sat, the pistol in his lap. Only eight-thirty. Hours to go. The idea, once lodged, was inescapable: Leah would rip him off somehow.

  What did he really know about her? She was waspish, cute-looking, nasty, gutsy, ambitious, corrupt. Enthusiastic in bed, if a little disengaged. Hated to be questioned or criticised…

  Trask had dropped out of university to become a cop. In first-year criminology they’d studied personality types and how some types—like sociopaths—were more prone to criminal behaviour than others. Of course, not every sociopath was going to commit a crime, and sociopathic ruthlessness was usually an advantage in running companies or governments. Trask didn’t know what type he was. He didn’t like rules all that much, but he had feelings, so that probably meant he wasn’t a sociopath. I just like to steal things, he thought.

  Now, thinking back to those half-absorbed lectures, Trask wondered if Leah’s thing was narcissistic personality disorder. Take her hatred of criticism. Didn’t quibble about it, just lashed out. Anger dialled up to ten. And she was utterly without doubts about her abilities. More able, more intelligent and effective—more capable of success than other people. In her mind, she’d go far. And she’d do what it took to get there, with no compunction about using other people. For Leah, their needs, thoughts and feelings were immaterial.

  She’ll have been plotting a few moves ahead in this Ormerod business, Trask thought. What did she have in mind for him, a few moves ahead? All that bullshit about Wyatt trying it on with her; it was much more likely she’d wiggled her butt at him.

  Standing gloomily by the curtained window of the big room, he realised that he was taking Leah’s word for it that she’d be stowing the painting in the Tewantin self-storage. What if she hid it somewhere else? Handed it on to someone?

  He tried to map out her morning. First, she’d go home to shower. He could picture that all right, water streaming over her body. Then she’d put on her cute real estate agent gear and attend to her appointments for a few hours. Tracking to and fro across Noosa and surrounds, meeting clients at house showings, attending auctions, grabbing a coffee.

  Where did the painting figure in all that?

  A related idea: this was a set-up. Wyatt was already on the premises.

  Feeling spooked in the silent, cavernous house, Trask crept from room to room, searching behind doors and under beds, his gun in his hand. Nothing. Nothing in the front, rear or side yards either. Only the cat.

  The cat. Trask headed for the kitchen and found a huge bowl of water, huge bowl of dry food. Kitty litter in the laundry. Enough for Friday to Monday? What if Ormerod intended to come home sooner?

  Not today, though. Trask returned to the main room and opened a small gap in the curtains. Here he had a clear, though narrow, view down the front lawn to the dock and the water, yet could also cover the hallway. He stood loosely, the Glock in his hand, the cat sidewinding around his ankle.

  He lasted about an hour. Couldn’t sit still. No interesting books in Ormerod’s study, the desktop computer password secured. Pity: he couldn’t shake off the image of the child he’d seen with Ormerod earlier in the week. He’d half hoped he’d find images of her.

  He went looking. Cupboards, wardrobes, under beds. He’d carried out this kind of search when he was a policeman. He knew what tricks your typical pervert got up to. At one well-heeled place in Kenmore they’d found a windowless spa room painted in pastelly blues and pinks, nursery-rhyme wallpaper, half-a-dozen soft rubber bath toys. Except the man living there had no children, grandchildren or nieces and nephews. The kids who splashed around in his spa—were posed, photographed and raped in it—belonged to an ice addict and her circle of friends. They’d found the proof easy enough: a box of DVDs ready for shipping. Marked Wimbledon Tennis Highlights 2000–2014. And invoices, email correspondence, witness statements, semen.

  But Trask found nothing in Ormerod’s study, sitting room or bedroom. The stuff in the DVD racks was innocuous. No little bathing costumes tucked away in drawers, no eye shadow or glitter or ribbons or brightly coloured bits of sheer cloth.

  Trask went downstairs in a funk. He had no doubt Ormerod was a kiddy fiddler and he would have liked to do something about the sick fuck there and then. But he had to get rid of Wyatt first, so he tried to settle on his chair with a golfing magazine.

  A bad funk. He felt restless, grubby. Conscious that he hadn’t exercised that day.

  He did fifty push-ups, stretched his hamstrings, tried chin-ups on a door lintel.

  Ten a.m. now, maybe three hours before Wyatt was due. Did Leah really expect him to stay the whole while? He could be at the gym in fifteen minutes. He kept a change of work-out gear in his locker. An hour of exercise, a shower, back at Ormerod’s before noon. Easy to re-enter the house, now the security system was disengaged.

  He knew better than to leave the Glock. He stuffed it into an old Adidas bag from a junk room upstairs, walked around to Noosa Parade and caught a taxi.

  Saturday morning, the gym was buzzing. Mindful of the time, Trask limited himself to forty-five minutes on weights and machines, then had a shower. Didn’t spot Cherub anywhere. No Mongrels, in fact. Too early for those losers.

  He stepped out of the shower, wrapped in his towel, came around the dividing wall, and encountered a pair of uniforms, all geared up. Boots, Kevlar jackets, helmets, assault rifles and itchy fingers. He halted. Spun around. More uniforms massing.

  And, standing at his open locker, the skinny birthmark guy, gesturing with the Adidas bag Trask had found in Ormerod’s house. For a weedy-looking guy he was in fighting form, dressed in sharply pressed trousers, a white shirt and a jacket with a tiny gold cross in the lapel. A tie pinched him around the throat.

  Trask knew it was all over. ‘What’s up?’

  The guy said, ‘Detective Sergeant Batten, Mr Trask.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I expect you’re wondering if I have a warrant?’

  Trask moistened his mouth and said, ‘Well, it’s a start.’

  ‘Nice Glock,’ mused the guy, fishing it out by the end of the barrel with a pale, gloved hand. ‘I supp
ose you got it from Cherub?’

  ‘Never seen it before. You planted it.’

  Two classic errors, thought Trask: I should have worn gloves, and I should have tossed the pistol after shooting Wurlitzer. But he’d half thought if Wyatt’s body were ever found, a ballistics match with Wurlitzer would pose a nice conundrum for the police—if Wurlitzer were ever found, and Trask was thinking he had been.

  Batten confirmed it, saying, ‘Any objection to the lab comparing a test bullet to the one we found in Gavin Wurlitzer?’

  Trask turned neatly, whipping off his towel and flicking a corner at the face of the closest uniform. It was futile. They all swarmed him, screaming, ‘On the floor, hands behind your head.’

  Cold wet tiles squashing his balls, knees in his back. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said.

  They let him up, he got dressed. Buttoning his shirt, he said to Batten, ‘The way you eyed me during the week, I could have sworn you were a poofter.’

  ‘Hilarious.’

  ‘Sure you’re not queer?’

  Batten said, ‘You do know who owns and frequents this place, don’t you, Al? May I call you Al?’

  ‘No, you may not.’

  Batten stroked his fleshless cheeks. ‘You haven’t wondered about those motorbikes parked out the back? The tattoos and leather gear? Lebanese and Islander thugs everywhere?’

  ‘Get off on that, do you?’

  ‘It’s not unusual for serving and disgraced police officers to share certain interests with the meatheads who join bikie gangs. A big machine between your legs, pumping iron, body image, steroids…You don’t think that’s a little…queer?’

  Trask tried to focus. He swiped at his nostril, wetness, and saw a smear of blood on his ring finger. He flexed his fists.

  Batten bounced on his toes, flexed his pale Christian hands, ready for Trask, daring him. ‘Steady, Alan. All those steroids cooking away inside you, you might not be thinking clearly. Didn’t Cherub warn you not to overdo it?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Trask said, gazing around for a way out.