by Garry Disher
35
The first thing Leah Quarrell did at the safe house was look for a way out.
In part, her thinking was a reaction to the place itself, a poky brick-veneer bungalow of the kind you saw in the endless blighted suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney. Not remotely suited to the Queensland climate. Small rooms, low ceilings, grubby carpet where there wasn’t worn vinyl. An air of hopelessness and blocked drains.
But she was also badly frightened: the murder of her uncle, the failure of the police to apprehend Wyatt, the possibility she wouldn’t see Rafi again. In fact, what if Wyatt got to him before she could?
Meanwhile the witness protection officers were treating her like a criminal, not their star witness. Sly grins and indifference on their dopy faces, they could barely look at her. Yeah, well, her uncle had bought off plenty of Queensland’s finest over the years. She wasn’t impressed with the attitude.
Right now she was being guarded by a guy with a hundred-dollar haircut, chinos and a black silk shirt. Lean, sporty, about thirty. Sunglasses permanently propped above his forehead like a seventies porn star, his jaw busy with a stick of gum as he paced from room to room. He hated being there with her. Wanted to be out and about thumping heads or whatever. Running around in short pants kicking a ball. She’d never met a male in his thirties who wasn’t a boy. Then he sat down for an instant and his trouser legs rode up, and wouldn’t you know it, shaved legs. He didn’t want to kick a ball around, he wanted to ride his little bicycle, whee, up and down hills.
God, she was cranky.
But Dirk Diggler was off duty at noon. A woman named Julie—what else?—would take over from him, bringing Leah her toiletries, changes of clothing, business diary and address book.
Of course, they would’ve searched her house and office. Probably made a photographic record of her diary entries and contacts. But that was okay. Every name, address, phone number, time and date referred to an actual person, place and meeting. All were innocuous. Her margin notes were a different matter. She’d coded her offshore banking access details in her jottings about the expected and realised sale prices of past and forthcoming auctions.
But until she had that information, she couldn’t run. She was stuck here.
She could put the time to good use, though.
She wandered from room to room, followed by the dude. He’d lean against a doorjamb, watching her open and close cupboard doors and drawers, a grin on his narrow face, chewing wetly. Christ, he was a mouth-breather to boot. Didn’t he have the least bit of self-awareness? It was incomprehensible to Leah. And he kept checking her out. Face, breasts, waist, groin, legs, face.
‘Do I pass?’
He ceased chewing. ‘What?’
‘Let me guess: tits aren’t big enough. You’ll give me a six, maybe a seven.’
He grinned, chewed again.
‘How often do you get to fuck your witnesses?’
His jaws moved happily. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Leah. And for your information, mostly I look after sad, fat, hairy fuck-ups who’ve decided to rat on the boss before they go down with him.’ He paused. ‘You’re not fat or hairy, I’ll give you that.’
He grinned. Looked her up and down.
Barely able to breathe, far less talk, Leah resumed searching the hovel. In one drawer she found a packet of menthol cigarettes and a not-quite-empty lighter.
‘Going out for a smoke.’
Dirk nodded, too dumb to remember she wasn’t a smoker, hadn’t had cigarettes on her when she was arrested and brought to this shithole.
‘Backyard only,’ he said.
Fine with her. No way was she going to show her face on the street. But the yard would have rear and side fences, maybe even a laneway gate.
Leah walked through the depressing laundry trailed by the dude. Out onto a patchy lawn edged by garden beds full of dead and dying plants. Not the slightest sign of pride or maintenance. A rusty wheelbarrow, a length of kinked hose, a pile of bricks next to an incinerator against the back fence. How long did they keep people here? Days? Weeks? Before and during court hearings? Fairly short term, presumably. Anyone who needed permanent protection would be squeezed dry and then sent to the back of beyond with a new identity.
No rear gate.
Leah lit the cigarette, took a few nervy puffs and ground the butt under the toe of her sandal. From what she could see, the best way out would be a dash to the back fence, one foot on the pile of bricks and over into the laneway. Then run like hell.
Not along the laneway. Straight across it and over the opposite fence, and make her way out via a series of backyards, never setting foot on a street until she knew where she was and how to get herself into a vehicle. She’d have to be quick, keep her head down. Any luck, she’d be with Rafi before dark.
Her things finally arrived and Dirk Diggler left.
Julie was a small, slow, placid creature. She looked like a receptionist, Leah thought, one of those women who sat around on their arses all day. Sure enough, she promptly settled onto the grimy sofa. Switched on a daytime talk show without a glance at Leah.
Leah snorted. She shut herself in the bathroom and showered for the second time, needing to get rid of that two-days-in-the-same-clothes sensation. Then, wrapped in a towel the size of a bath mat, she entered the bedroom and selected calf-length pants, a scoop-necked T-shirt, ankle socks and her black Converse.
Pulled them on and returned to the sitting room, towelling her hair. A woman towelling her hair is innocent, harmless. Old Julie was still on the sofa, now flipping through a Who Weekly. The pathetic cow was probably hoping some of the glamour would rub off on her, actors and singers no one had ever heard of pretending to hide their baby bumps.
So cranky today.
She smiled at Julie. ‘Comfortable?’
Julie’s mouth opened, the better to consider the question. Jesus, another mouth-breather. A serious expression came over her moon face. She glanced around the room, rubbed one hand on the fabric of the sofa and said, ‘Could be worse. The department does try to make people feel at home.’
Oh God, thought Leah, a woman like you deserves to be escaped from.
She returned the towel to the bathroom, stepped into the bedroom and engineered a coughing fit to cover the sound as she ripped out the pages of her diary.
Stuffing them down the front of her pants, she re-entered the sitting room and told Julie, ‘Going out for a smoke.’
‘I didn’t think you smoked.’
This bitch was a bit sharper than Dirk the Smirk. Too cow-like to leap over a fence, though.
‘I’ll make sure I stay in the backyard,’ Leah said. ‘Don’t want to be spotted by anyone driving past.’
Julie grunted, shifted her lard-arse to the front edge of the seat cushion and pushed herself upright in a series of slow, fat moves. Grabbed her bag and said, ‘I’d better come with you.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
‘Orders,’ Julie said, and they stepped out of the house, Leah thinking that if old Jules had a gun, it wasn’t on her hip. In the shoulder bag? Take her a while to fumble it out if she wants to shoot me in the back.
With a smile at the cow, Leah spun around neatly, ran to the fence and vaulted, up and over.
Julie, more on the ball than she looked, was already yelling into her phone. Voice sharp, instructions precise.
Feeling panicked, Leah crossed the laneway to the opposite fence and leapt for the top rail. It was high and splintery, and when she’d managed to hoist her trunk part-way over it a backyard dog snapped at her face, full of teeth and saliva. Her heart leapt. She let out an involuntary ‘Oh fuck,’ and dropped back to the ground.
Nothing for it but to run along to the end of the lane, out onto the street.
Wyatt, in the passenger seat of the Corolla, spotted her first. He was neither surprised nor unsurprised. Quarrell’s sudden appearance was merely a fact to deal with. He reached for the doorhandle.
But Sten touched hi
s forearm. ‘Wait.’
They were parked outside a house four doors from the entrance to the laneway, the witness protection cottage two doors beyond that. Now, as they watched, Leah emerged further into view, looking both ways.
Hannah cracked open her door, timing it. As Quarrell closed in on the Corolla she was looking back over her shoulder, beginning to run. Hannah swung the door open. Leah hit it hard and dropped like a stone. Then Wyatt was scooping her into the gap behind the driver’s seat and the Corolla was on the move again.
36
Sirens sounded as Hannah Sten sped along side streets. Wyatt sat low on the back seat, Leah Quarrell pressed into the footwell behind the driver’s seat, his feet on her spine. They turned onto the coast road.
‘Her house, I think,’ Sten said. ‘The police have finished with it.’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘It’s one of the places they’ll look for her.’
He watched her thinking.
‘They know that criminals are stupid?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Are you?’
It was not the kind of conversation Wyatt was interested in. He ducked his head up from time to time, checking for police cars on their tail. Leah Quarrell wasn’t stupid and the police probably knew that. But they did things a certain way. Her house was the first place they’d look, the RiverRun Realty office the second. If there was no sign of her there they’d watch and wait and widen the search.
Hannah Sten was impatient. ‘So we question her in a hotel? In a parked car for all to see?’
Quarrell moved groggily under Wyatt’s feet. ‘Are you going to kill me?’
Wyatt ignored her. He tried to think where he could grill her undisturbed. It wouldn’t take long. He had very few questions for her.
He leaned into the gap between the seats, peering at the road signs. They were on David Low Way, heading north. Coolum Beach was ahead, then a series of beach towns and finally Noosa Heads. Fearing that too much attention awaited them—roadblocks, patrol cars, edgy motorcycle cops—he said, ‘Turn left at Coolum Beach. Take us across to Bruce Highway, then head towards Brisbane.’
‘Madness. We need to find a secluded place.’
‘Be patient,’ he said.
When they were on the highway, Wyatt lifted his feet from Quarrell’s back.
‘Turn around, prop yourself in the gap where I can see your hands and face.’
‘I’ll show you my tits if you like.’
Wyatt prodded her with his gun barrel.
‘Okay, okay, keep your shirt on.’ Quarrell pouted like a child and grumbled into position. ‘Not the most comfortable spot.’
‘Shut up.’
‘I can get you money.’
Wyatt watched her face. It appeared open, but he’d seen a range of emotions pass across it in the brief time he’d known her, every muscle at work, switching between feigned expressions and actual fury; sulkiness; an air of victimisation. He knew that lying would come automatically to her, but was relying on his ability to read her face.
She tried an ‘Oh, well’ shrug and grin. ‘I’d thank you and Miss Frigid for rescuing me, but somehow I don’t think you did it for my benefit. So? What do you want?’
‘What I want,’ said Sten, half turning to cast her voice into the rear of the car, ‘is my painting.’
‘I don’t understand. Wyatt, your job was to steal it for her.’
Wyatt had already tired of this. ‘The painting was not there. The police were.’
Quarrell stared at him. ‘Not there?’
‘You took it.’
‘What?’ She made a fair stab at shock and bewilderment. ‘No.’
‘Why were you arrested?’
Leah blinked. ‘It turns out the cops were putting a case together against my uncle and I got caught up in it all.’ She paused. ‘They offered me protection.’
‘From what?’
‘Uncle David.’
‘In fact, you need protection from us—but there is no protection from us,’ Hannah Sten said.
Quarrell tried to crane her face around to see Sten. ‘Look, I don’t know what happened, you’ve got to believe me.’
Wyatt watched her, thinking this was possibly the first time she ever realised she had nowhere to move and nothing to trade. ‘You took the painting and set me up to be arrested,’ he said.
‘I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘What did you tell the police about me, about the Ormerod job?’
‘Nothing!’
‘So it would be safe for me to return to the holiday apartment?’
She kept her gaze steady on him, fighting the urge to turn away. ‘I have no idea what the police know and don’t know. But I can give both of you a lot of money and we can just go our separate ways.’
‘Without the painting,’ Hannah said.
‘I don’t know where the painting is. Someone else must have stolen it.’
‘This money you will give us,’ Sten said, ‘it comes from the sale of the painting? You have sold it already?’
Quarrell’s face slipped some more. ‘I don’t have it and never had it. My money’s on you, Wyatt. I bet you’ve got it and you’re trying to deflect attention away from yourself.’ She heaved up and onto her knees and leaned into the gap between the two front seats. ‘Hannah, he’s conning you.’
Wyatt cracked the pistol butt against Quarrell’s temple. ‘Sit down.’
She was crying. ‘I’m scared. I want to get out.’
‘Where is the painting?’
‘I told you, I don’t have it.’
Wyatt tapped Sten on the shoulder. ‘Give me your phone.’
She handed it through to him. He activated the screen and showed it to Quarrell, who looked sick.
‘The painting,’ he said. ‘Hanging not on Ormerod’s wall but somewhere else.’
‘That doesn’t prove anything. That photo could have been taken any time.’
Wyatt enlarged the image. ‘Yesterday’s newspaper. Someone—you—removed the painting after Ormerod left for Melbourne on Friday afternoon and before I entered his house at 1 p.m. yesterday.’
‘Don’t recognise the room.’
‘Is that the best you can do? Did Trask help you? A real estate agent, you’d have plenty of places to hide a painting.’
She swallowed and looked wildly at the door. The car was moving at ninety, traffic sparse, no help apparent anywhere. ‘No.’
‘Then an anonymous call to the police.’
She looked sick. ‘No. I swear.’
‘Come on, Leah, Trask’s under arrest, he couldn’t have sent this. You must have a second partner.’
She looked away. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Did you idiots work something with Ormerod? An insurance scam?’
She looked genuinely astonished. ‘What? No.’
‘Whoever this mystery person is, they were quick to cut you out of the deal. Happy to let you rot in prison, by the looks of it.’
Wyatt watched her face. Pain and fury fought the fake innocence and won. ‘That absolute shit.’
‘Who, Leah? And where’s the painting?’
Quarrell’s face hid nothing now. She said bitterly, ‘Rafi Halperin.’
Hannah Sten glanced up at the rear-view mirror, meeting Wyatt’s gaze. She nodded. She slowed the car, glanced through the windscreen at an exit sign for Mooloolah, and took it.
The road wound between trees and hills, houses glimpsed on large blocks far back from the road. No traffic, only an impression of stillness in the world. Sten making another turn. Onto a track that led to the river.
Leah Quarrell really was frightened. ‘Please.’
Wyatt said nothing, letting it play out as Sten pulled up in a clearing. Trees, river and grass in harmony, not much else. No other cars and the water rushed unseen beyond the reeds that lined the bank.
‘Please, I’m begging you.�
�
‘Get out,’ Sten said.
‘Please don’t kill me. I’m really sorry. The thing is, we were both cheated.’
Wyatt prodded Quarrell out of the car, hard on her heels with the Ruger. Sten followed. They came to a wooden bench and table set on the grass overlooking a stretch of sluggish water. With Quarrell seated, Wyatt and Sten standing over her, the atmosphere seemed more closed in than it had inside the car.
Sten said, ‘Mr Halperin is still in Noosa?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were hoping to fly off into the great blue beyond with him?’
Quarrell swallowed and nodded desperately. ‘I was scared. It was all his idea. Wyatt was supposed to be killed and buried. Then you’d think he ran off with the painting and you’d eventually give up and go home and he’d sell the painting on the quiet.’
Sten was doubtful. ‘Rafi Halperin was supposed to kill Mr Wyatt? He’s not a…He’s a weak man.’
‘I had nothing to do with that side of things.’
‘What happened?’
‘He must have chickened out and tipped off the police to arrest all of us—me, Alan, Wyatt.’ She looked wildly from Wyatt to Sten. ‘But no one got killed. And I can tell you where Rafi is.’
‘You took the painting to him?’
‘Yes,’ Quarrell said, head bowed, looking distraught.
‘Where?’ said Wyatt.
Still not looking at them, Quarrell gave an address in Noosa Heads.
‘He didn’t waste any time, Leah. Things go wrong and he figures out a way to profit from it.’
Quarrell wailed. Sten stepped up to her, put an arm around her neck, another on her chin as if to tilt her face and exchange a glance of sympathy, and twisted sharply, the head one way, the shoulders the other. A crack of something crucial-sounding, and then Sten was lowering Quarrell along the bench gently, almost in pity and care.
Military training, thought Wyatt.
37
There on the bank under the tree canopy, he watched Hannah Sten’s eyes. Her hands wouldn’t tell him anything but her face would.
‘Relax,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’re stronger than me.’
Wyatt didn’t relax. He didn’t and wouldn’t trust her, not entirely. He knew her a little better, that was all.
