52 Waratah Avenue

by Lynne Wilding

  Lou pointed to the paper. ‘You read it too? Something of a surprise, hey?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Nick agreed. ‘Michaela rang me last night, brought me up to date. She’s as mad as hell.’ He grinned at Lou and shook his head in grudging admiration. ‘You know our Michaela, she’s not short on attitude. Neil would do well to stay out of her way.’

  ‘What about Caroline?’

  ‘Caro’s resigned, so I heard, though I think it’s premature of her. It might have been smarter to have her stay at Ashworths to feed information to Laura and Daniel about what Neil’s doing. But I guess she has her own plans, her own agenda to follow. She’s going to take that position I told you about, to become a conductor.’

  Lou nodded wisely. ‘It’s probably for the best, I’m sure Caroline’s missed the music.’ He gave his partner a searching look. ‘How do you feel about that, her conducting?’

  Nick exhaled loudly and didn’t answer straight away. He’d been thinking about Caro’s change of plans a lot since the day she’d revealed them to him. At first it had caught him off guard — the possibility that she might be starting the same merry-go-round ride she had jumped onto more than ten years ago. But, after a period of self-examination and analysis, he had seen how selfish he was to think that. If he loved her — and he did, unconditionally — he should want her to do whatever made her happy. If being a conductor and going overseas occasionally to conduct orchestras made her happy, then he was happy, too. Somehow they’d live with the compromise. Besides, he was older now, wiser, more accommodating. And if the truth were known, he would accept practically any arrangement that got her back in his life again, conducting or no conducting. Now … if only he could tell her that and know that she believed him.

  ‘It took a while, but I’m fine with it. If it’s what Caro wants.’ He grinned self-deprecatingly. ‘If she wanted to train as an astronaut and fly the shuttle, that would be okay with me, so long as she and Fern were back in my life on a permanent basis.’

  Lou nodded and shook a thick index finger at him. ‘So, partner, when are you going to tell Caroline that? Madeline reckons you should just go and do it.’

  ‘Yeah. Madeline’s a very wise woman,’ Nick agreed. He would, when he had built his courage up a little more. Their last encounter had ended badly; he’d been tense, she had looked hurt. He wanted the memory of that to fade a little more before he approached Caro again. But he would approach her and get an answer one way or another.

  ‘What’s Michaela doing now that she’s not at Ashworths?’ Lou wanted to know.

  ‘Doing some flying, looking at country properties — she wants to buy one when she comes into her inheritance. She also takes a businessman on country flights. He’s looking into some kind of business development in certain country areas.’

  ‘So long as she’s keeping busy. Your sister isn’t the type to sit around and twiddle her thumbs.’ Lou shook his head at what had come to pass. ‘It’s a nasty business, what McRae’s done.’

  ‘It is, but I reckon his days are numbered. The Beaumonts might appear to be taking it lying down — on the surface — but you can bet that underneath there’s a lot of planning and scheming going on to unseat Neil. McRae had better make the most of his time as CEO. I don’t believe he’ll have a long tenancy.’

  Lou grinned just before he headed for the door. ‘Amen to that, buddy.’

  Leith Danvers was pleased. Markhams had managed to secure a court order for Ashworths to release the company’s books to the auditors, Colin Coberg and Company. It had taken a week to process, a precious week during which Michaela had champed with impatience at being unemployed for the first time in her life. With the court order achieved and the audit proceeding, he could now continue his investigation of Lenny Kovacs. He had become close to being obsessed with uncovering every facet of the man’s life, mainly because it appeared that Lenny had erected barriers and false trails to block his true interests from being scrutinised. Interests that were proving to be, at the least, questionable.

  He steered his Saab out of the parking station at Chatswood, where he’d been to get a bedridden client’s deposition, and headed back along the Pacific Highway towards the city. The Friday afternoon traffic was heavy with early leavers trying to get away for the weekend but, thankfully, it wasn’t yet bumper-to-bumper.

  One source had told him that Kovacs may not be Lenny’s original surname. That might prove interesting! Monday morning he’d go to the office of Births, Deaths and Marriages, to see what he could unearth. He shifted up a gear and passed a slow-moving Commodore on his right. From a legal point of view, people changed their names for two reasons: they hated their first name and/or surname, or because they wanted to cut themselves free of the past.

  Coming down the hill towards Milsons Point, Leith saw traffic banking up as it approached the bridge. Same old delays. One day the current government — whichever party it might be — would actually get around to building that tunnel under the harbour. Resigned to a slow passage, he put his foot on the brake and pressed down. Nothing. The car didn’t slow. Actually, because of the road’s incline, the pace picked up. He braked again. Harder. Still nothing. His body went tense. He was going to hit the car in front of him. A quick glance in his rear vision mirror allowed him to swerve to the left. Still no brakes. They’d failed. All at once, as he turned the wheel to straighten up, he recalled that the brake had felt spongy on the drive up to Chatswood.

  ‘Oh, shit.’ Beads of sweat dotted Leith’s face, the knuckles on his hands turned white. He gripped the steering wheel as hard as he could, fighting for control of the now-speeding vehicle. He seemed to be shooting past buildings and other cars at breakneck speed. He glanced at the speedo. Fifty-five, fifty-eight kilometres. He bipped the horn as he swerved to miss another car and stared through the windscreen to where the road curved to the left. Slow down or you’ll overshoot the curve.

  He pumped the brake pedal; there was no reaction. In desperation he revved the engine and pushed the gear into third, then back to second gear. The car shuddered, the engine revved even higher, protesting such rough treatment. But the speed slowed, if only fractionally. What more could he do? His left hand grasped the handbrake and yanked it on, hard. Another shudder — this time the whole car shook. It helped, but the vehicle continued to career down the road and … he smelled something burning. Bang. The passenger’s side hit a parked vehicle, bounced off it, then clipped a Honda Sports on the right. Horns blared as frightened motorists tried to evade the Saab. Leith still strove to control the car, but the increasing speed and the way it ricocheted off other vehicles made it impossible.

  His eyes widened as he looked through the windshield again. The vehicle in front of him was coming up fast. He couldn’t avoid hitting it, with cars on both sides of him. He barely had time to check the speedo — sixty-two kilometres an hour. Seconds before impact, he swung his body sideways and lifted his hands off the wheel to shield his face.

  The Saab crashed into the back of a parcel delivery van. The windshield cracked, then slowly collapsed into the car’s interior, all over Leith’s torso. As if in a dream he heard the sound of grinding and scraping, of glass breaking, of brakes — not his — squealing as other vehicles tried to avoid the pile-up.

  Leith’s body jerked forward, constrained by his seat belt, but part of his chest rammed into the steering wheel. Christ, that hurt! His head shot forward and clipped the top of the wheel too, and then … everything went black.

  Leith heard voices, soft, muted voices. They sounded a long way away. He moved, only to discover that he hurt, all over. It hurt to breathe and there were bandages around his chest. And his head, the throbbing was so intense and painful he thought his brain would explode. He decided that he wanted to retreat into the blackness again, the void where he could feel nothing at all, but relief was denied him because the pain was sharpening his senses, really waking him up. Slowly, cautiously, he opened one eye, blinked against the harsh light and closed
it again.

  ‘I saw that! I know you’re awake.’

  Who had spoken? Michaela. It was a struggle, but this time he opened both eyes. She sat in a chair next to the bed. Behind her stood Jeffrey and Caroline, watching. He tried to smile, at least he thought he did. The attempt was a miserable failure.

  ‘Guess you feel rotten.’ Michaela came up with the obvious as her hand stroked his cheek. ‘You’re lucky to be alive, Leith. You totalled the Saab, and the van you ran into hit another, front to end. It’s a write-off too.’

  He ignored her information about the cars as he answered. ‘Rotten isn’t the word,’ he admitted huskily. ‘I’d use more colourful language if ladies weren’t present.’ He looked around the room. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Royal North Shore Hospital. The registrar said you’ve got concussion, two fractured ribs, a good deal of bruising to the right of your chest, and your left wrist has been fractured.’ Michaela pointed to the plaster cast. Looking at him so still, suddenly her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘I was so frightened. When I got the phone call, you were still trapped in the Saab. It took the police rescue squad over an hour to cut you out.’ She smoothed a strand of fair hair off his forehead. ‘Do you remember what happened, any of it?’

  Leith tried to think about that, but he couldn’t, and his vision was blurring. There were two of Michaela, then three. He felt himself drifting … it was a strangely pleasant experience. ‘The brakes. Didn’t have any. Couldn’t stop the damn car.’ He thought of something, something important. ‘Anyone else get hurt?’

  ‘No. The brakes, you say.’ Jeffrey moved forward as he asked the question. ‘Wasn’t your car serviced a few weeks ago?’

  ‘Yes.’ Leith’s smile was wobbly, his eyelids drooped. ‘Didn’t do a very good job, did they?’

  Michaela watched him drift into a deep sleep. For the last few hours she had never known such fear. She thought he might die, or that he could be crippled. It had been awful, too awful to think about, but she couldn’t help it. A variety of scenarios she now wanted to forget had run — like a never-ending movie — through her head. Thank goodness Caroline had come with her to the hospital. Her sister had been solid as a rock. She hadn’t allowed her to believe for a moment that he was seriously injured and, as it turned out, Leith wasn’t.

  ‘Damned funny,’ Jeffrey said, half to himself. ‘Leith’s car is pretty new, and he looks after it like a baby. Brakes shouldn’t have failed.’ His forehead knitted in a frown and he dug his hands into his coat pockets. ‘Might have a word to the police about it, I think.’

  Caroline grasped the inference behind his words. ‘Jeffrey, you think the brakes could have been tampered with? Who would want to hurt

  Leith?’

  Jeffrey shook his head, his tone sage. ‘No-one I can think of, but lawyers make enemies, sometimes more than we ever know about. A dis satisfied client could have a grudge. Who knows?’

  At Jeffrey Markham’s insistence Leith’s Saab, or what was left of it, was brought into the police department for a complete overhaul. Not surprisingly, at least to Jeffrey and, later, Leith, police mechanics found the brake cable had been tampered with. It had been perforated just enough to allow a slow leak of brake fluid so, by the time the Saab was returning from Chatswood, whenever Leith touched the brake all he was pumping into the brake cylinders was air. Police further advised that natural wear and tear could not have caused such a problem.

  Two days after Leith left hospital and was at home convalescing — the concussion still plagued him — he received a cryptic letter put together melodramatically with words cut from newspapers to form the message:

  YOU WALKED AWAY FROM THIS ONE. THE NEXT ONE YOU WON’T. IF YOU WANT TO STAY ALIVE, STOP INVESTIGATING YOU KNOW WHO.

  Michaela and Jeffrey thought the warning might have come from Neil because the auditing was proceeding. Secretly, Leith thought otherwise, but he kept the information to himself. The note was a warning from Lenny Kovacs or one of his cohorts, he was sure of it. He must be closing in, making his quarry nervous. So what? A muscle along his strong jawline flexed determinedly. No-one threatened him to make him knuckle under, especially not a crim. His gut feeling told him that that’s what Lenny was and, while he didn’t have hard proof against the man and despite the possible fall-out — Michaela would most likely be loyal to Kovacs — she had to be told.

  He had the opportunity to voice his suspicions about Lenny the following evening after he and Michaela, who wasn’t overly domesticated, had made dinner in his apartment.

  ‘So, when are you taking Kovacs up to Coffs Harbour?’

  ‘Saturday week. Fern’s coming with us. It’ll be her last jaunt before she gets stuck into some serious studying,’ Michaela said as she scraped and sluiced plates before stacking them in the dishwasher.

  Once the kitchen was tidy, they gravitated to the living room. Leith put on one of their favourite CDs and sat beside her on the sofa.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, going to Coffs Harbour. I’ve been doing some field work on my own, investigating your friend Kovacs. I’ve learned that he’s a questionable character, to say the least.’

  ‘Questionable? In what way?’ Her voice rose querulously. ‘You did a check on Lenny before I began to fly him all over the state. You told me he was okay.’

  Leith almost winced at the implied criticism in her voice. He shifted in his seat, moving the arm with the plaster cast to a more comfortable position. ‘Initially, yes. He checked out okay, but something about the guy bothered me, so I dug a little deeper, asked a few shady people about him, that sort of thing.’

  ‘And?’

  He felt her stiffen against him. He knew she would react this way. She could be incredibly loyal and unless he could show her something in black and white, hard evidence against Lenny, it would be an uphill battle to convince her to end her association with him. ‘Your Lenny Kovacs is not the upright, squeaky-clean businessman he makes out to be. He’s got a criminal record, and he’s done time — I only found that out last week. He’s well known; in fact, he’s highly respected within the Sydney criminal scene, according to my sources.’ He paused for a moment to give her time to absorb what he’d said. ‘Interestingly, when I first began to probe, no-one wanted to talk about him — he’s quite feared by small fry …’

  Michaela interjected, shaking her head vigorously. ‘I don’t believe it. Lenny? No! He … He’s always been respectful to me. A perfect gentleman — he doesn’t even swear.’ She turned her head to stare at him, the expression in her eyes mildly hostile. ‘Leith, you’re wrong about Lenny. Someone, your “sources,” have given you the wrong steer. Maybe they have him confused with someone else. Or, maybe someone has a grudge against him and they’re …’ she thought for a moment, ‘trying to blacken his name. That’s possible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Possible, yes. Probable, no. Michaela, he even has a thug running his home for him at Tamarama. There’s too much smoke around the guy not to be a little fire, too, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘You’re talking about Donger. I’ve met him. He’s as ugly as sin, but when you get to know him he’s a nice guy. Lenny told me all about him. He was abused as a child, brought up in an orphanage. He was a boxer for a while, which is how his face got mashed up, and then he took to drugs. Lenny straightened him out and he’s worked for him ever since.’

  Leith groaned silently. The woman he loved believed Kovacs’ cock-and-bull story about the thug. He didn’t, but how could he convince her otherwise? He didn’t have any real hard evidence on Kovacs. Just an inordinate amount of hearsay, mostly from unsavoury characters, plus a bunch of suspicions and possibilities. What he had wouldn’t convince a court of law, so what chance did he have of making Michaela believe him? Zero.

  ‘Michaela, what about his criminal record?’

  She frowned furiously at him, her annoyance obvious. ‘How long ago was that, I wonder?’

  ‘More than ten years.’

 
‘So Lenny made a mistake and he paid for it. I don’t think you or I should crucify him for something that happened so long ago.’

  He saw where their conversation was heading: nowhere, so he tried a different tack. ‘I know I’ve shocked you because you think you know him well. I maintain that you don’t know the guy at all — you’re only seeing what he wants you to see — and if so, you should be wary of him. Ask yourself this, what’s the real reason behind your flying him to various places in New South Wales? Is the business he purports to be doing really on the up and up? You don’t sit in on his meetings, don’t know what’s discussed.’ He looked deeply into her dark eyes, trying to convince her. ‘You don’t have any idea what he’s planning, do you?’

  ‘Ummm, no. He tells me the meetings go well, most of the time. That’s all,’ she admitted grudgingly.

  ‘What about the warning note I received? You and Jeffrey believe the car accident and the note could have been instigated by Neil because we’re going ahead with the auditing of Ashworths’ books, something Neil desperately doesn’t want us to do. I believe the accident and the note afterwards came from Lenny or someone in his employ.’

  ‘But … why? Why would Lenny want to harm you when he doesn’t even know you?’ she asked, clearly concerned by the possibility he’d just raised.

  ‘I’ve been asking a lot of questions about him. He’s a very secretive man, and he doesn’t want anyone to know how he really makes a living. That’s why.’

  She shook her head again, then sighed and sat back against the sofa. ‘I … I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘I know. All I’m asking is that you give everything I’ve said serious consideration.’

  Michaela’s thoughts were in a quandary. Leith’s information on Lenny had come like a bolt out of the blue, totally unexpected and to her, though he’d put his case well, as a lawyer would, unbelievable. Could Lenny be as dangerous a person as Leith thought him to be? The picture she got of Lenny told her otherwise, as did his demeanour and behaviour towards her. But Leith wasn’t the kind of person to make statements without believing in the truth of them. So, whether she liked it or not, she would have to do as he suggested … think long and hard on Lenny and her business association with him. She would keep the faith with him by flying him to Coffs Harbour as promised, but after that … she wasn’t sure.