My first thought was to ring the police, but if I called them out on a goose chase I would lose my efficient staff and probably get sued as well. But what if they had taken Ally? What if the police stormed in and it started a siege? She might be killed in crossfire. Had I watched too many American movies?
The bad news was a hundred metres between the outer buildings and the back of the house. The good news was the number of shrubs and small trees giving cover. I tried to re-assure myself the police wouldn’t dream of jeopardising Ally’s safety. Perhaps I could lure the staff out of the flat while the police rescued Ally, if indeed she was there. But if that were the case, they would have someone guarding her.
I felt as though I had stepped into a war zone.
When I got back to the house, Eloise was working in the kitchen. ‘What happened? Did you find anything?’ she asked, nervously clutching my sleeve.
‘There’s something needs checking out. It won’t take long and then I’ll tell you all about it.’ I kissed the top of her head, bolted for the study and snatched my binoculars off the shelf. Two huge urns maintained sentinel each side of the front steps, perfect for my purpose. Steadying my elbows on the ledge around one, I aimed the binoculars at the tower and twirled the focus until it came into sharp relief.
Shock arced through me. A grill on the inside of the window? It had not been there when I inspected the property before taking up the lease. I carefully adjusted the focus. Definitely a security grill and even allowing for the failing light, the glass shone black. Tinted?
Something moved.
I squinted into the lens, trying to make the image sharper. Was Angelo keeping a girlfriend up there? Or was it Ally? My mind whirled through various impractical plans, then rejecting them almost immediately.
‘James? Where are you? James?’ Eloise came up behind me, a note of panic creeping into her voice. I stood up and gently propelled her back inside, where I recounted my suspicions. She wanted to dash over there immediately, but I talked her out of confronting the family, laying out my reasons for taking precautions. As I had expected, it wasn’t easy.
Having calmed Eloise down, I telephoned the staff quarters and called off the search for the key, advising Mrs Fox I had changed my mind and explaining that my cartons could stay in the upstairs rooms at the main house.
The relief in her voice terrified me. While Eloise bobbed around in agitation, I located the key to a locked room where the owner of the house kept personal property. In the event of fire or water damage, he had shown me the blueprints of the buildings. A few minutes of examination and I saw the possibility of a plan.
The first part was to find out if there actually was someone, a woman, in the tower room, and the first opportunity to reconnoitre would be that night. Mrs Fox and Angelo planned to go out and Bob was, to all intents and purposes, out of the equation. Everything hinged on keeping the trio lulled into a false sense of security.
I’m pretty fit for my age, but young muscles could carry it out faster and I knew just the lad for the job. As I picked up my mobile to call Briece Mochrie, I reflected grimly that since my parents ousted Eloise twenty-six years ago, no one has gotten the better of me until now.
Things were about to change.
STAFF quarters.
June was in a frenzy of fear, but Angelo reassured her. ‘He wanted to look in the tower. Needs a place to store some of his stuff, but I said we didn’t have keys to it. He said we gotta hunt for them tomorrow. He’s gone back to the house, but we’ve got to ring dad. We could be in deep shit. Bastard dog started whining at the tower! I’ll knock the fucking thing off too if I get a chance.’ He balled his right hand and punched it into the palm of the left, face twisting with rage.
‘I’ll call Tommy,’ his stepmother announced. ‘He’s down at the yacht club checking on the boat.’
Angelo took a deep breath, sidled to the window and peered around the edge of the heavily-lined curtain. The old man resumed eating, as June talked to her husband ’Yes, we’ll sit tight. Go ahead as arranged? Of course … that late? Well, we were going to do it tonight anyway, so there’s no reason to change anything is there? It won’t matter what he does about the keys after that.’
She glanced at her father and stepson, biting her lip as she shifted from one foot to the other. The ticking of the wall clock echoed the thudding of their nervous hearts. Angelo smiled and fingered the pristine blade of his knife. The old man chewed slowly, trying not to let his teeth clack. He didn’t want to miss out on anything.
‘All right then, around midnight. I’ll remind Angelo to leave the gate open to the back road.’ June hung up and turned to face them. ‘Right, we stick with the plan. You can still go out, Angelo, but make sure you’re back before midnight. I’m going to cards, but I’ll be back in more than enough time. Dad, you just carry on as normal. For two pins if it wasn’t that I want to be there, I’d get you to finish her off now, but he wants to be back here for it too, in case of trouble. Says it’s safer to stick with what we arranged.’
She jerked her head in the direction of the house. ‘They spent the afternoon in bed, so they’ll be sleeping together tonight. That’ll keep them out of the way.’ She laughed. ‘Your father’ll get rid of the body. By morning there’ll be no trace of her upstairs. We’ll keep working here for awhile and then resign, as planned. I’ll enjoy organising the food for her wake. Stop that!’ she added irritably, as Angelo flicked the edge of the blade over and over, against the ball of his thumb.
Reluctantly, he put the knife on the table and smiled. He expected to have a little fun as a suitable reward for his diligence. He just hoped they would give him enough time to finish what he began the day his stepmother copped him with Ally. He would have been into her, given a few more minutes. Now there was a second chance. The fact she’d be drugged like last time was neither here nor there. He would prefer she fought him because it was more fun and appealed to his need for power, but it didn’t matter in the long run. He remembered the feel of her full, rounded breasts in his mouth and her lush, soft body beneath him. His fingers twitched with the urge to pleasure himself.
Just then, the phone rang. They glanced apprehensively at each other. June picked it up. ‘Hello…oh I see, yes. Very good, sir.’ She put the receiver down, relief easing the harsh lines between her brows and around her mouth. ‘He’s changed his mind about finding the key. Going to keep his stuff over at the house.’ She stood silently for a moment, looking at each of them in turn, her dark eyes burning with a deep, agonising pain, carefully nurtured for thirteen long years.
‘Remember, I’m going to see her before you do it, Angelo. She knows she’s going to be killed tonight. Tommy told her this morning, but she has to know why. Ally Carpenter is going to pay for what she did. And that’s my just reward.’
CHAPTER 42
Confessions and Collectibles
Detective Senior Sergeant Susan Prescott
Saturday: 8.00am.
We’re running out of time. Fear held me tightly in its grip. I pulled into the underground car park, grabbed my briefcase and hurried to the lift, arriving as it was about to bear a brace of stalwart constabulary to the upper levels. A ’Morning, ma’am’ chorus erupted as I stepped in and smiled briskly. We all gazed at the floor indicator. The muffled snickers behind me suggested that I had interrupted a dirty joke.
My team were gravitating toward the white boards at the far end of the room while I shed my coat and poured what passed for a coffee. When we started collating reports, other CIB members would gravitate to our end of the campsite to listen in.
‘Ma’am, we’re ready.’ I grabbed my notebook and sat on the edge of a table, trying not to fidget. Inspector Bruce Peterson came and sat beside me. My neck muscles felt as though they had been tightened with screws. Briefly, I closed my eyes and willed strong vibes to Ally Carpenter. Hang in there, Ally. Don’t let go.
‘Ben, what have you got?’ asked Evan.
‘Sarge, there’
s nothing significant in Jessica Rallison’s email history, but her phone records show that during this previous fortnight she made one hundred and sixty three calls to a pre-paid mobile. On the landline, there were twenty-five to Michael Whitby, sixteen business calls, thirty to friends and one to Ally Carpenter at seven pm last Friday.
Setting up Ally? Maybe. I remembered the description of Jessica’s mother’s reaction when advised of her daughter’s murder by CIB Townsville. Oh, Jessica, you were such an unhappy, unloved girl. Would the sister care enough to come and sort out the house and collect the car or get professional packers to do it? Jessica must have known about the pregnancy. Perhaps the father wasn’t in a position to be embroiled in a scandal and killed her to prevent it…
My attention snapped back to the present. ‘Nothing from Briece Mochrie’s clothes as yet. Len?’
‘ No, but Mochrie had his DNA taken this morning, Sarge.’
‘Good, now—’
‘Excuse me a moment. Evan, surveillance on Miller and Mochrie. Anything yet?’ I asked.
‘No, there’s been no action, ma’am.’
‘Leave it in place until tomorrow morning. We’ll reassess then.’
‘A neighbour of Rallison’s rang in to report seeing a small, bronze hatchback parked under the trees Tuesday night last week. Her dog pissed on the wheel. A man was slumped down in the front seat, but she couldn’t see his face. Of course she didn’t get the number.’
Collectively, we rolled our eyes. That sense of urgency niggled me again.
‘Okay. Cody?’ Evan waited for the next report.
‘Townsville police rang this morning and advised they have identified Georgie Hird’s lover as Tommy Esposito, aged 58, one hundred and eighty centimetres, dark hair, skippers a yacht for—’ He named a prominent Townsville businessman. ‘The suspect has,’ Cody walked to the white board and proceeded to pin up a computerised photo, ‘this distinguishable feature.’
We examined the dark-haired, dark-eyed man, with swarthy skin and head so square it looked like a box with a face painted on it and a black wig on top.
‘He’s wanted for questioning into Georgie Hird’s murder, but has disappeared. The only link we have so far to connect him to this case is that Hird was Eloise Carpenter’s best friend and godmother to Ally. The post mistress stated Esposito had been seen walking on the cliffs with Miss Hird at dusk on at least one previous occasion.’
A detective constable came into the room waving a fax printout. ‘Following on your inquiry, ma’am, early this week, Ally Carpenter’s father started selling his art collection and cars, a Gull-wing Mercedes and an E-type Jaguar.’
My spirits picked up. ‘Sir, looks as though we might have a break-through!’ DI Bruce Peterson smiled like a shark.
The detective continued. ‘There’ve been large amounts of cash going out of his accounts during the last week. He visited his deposit box in the bank’s vault four times and obtained a substantial line of credit. He paid the money he got from the auto and art sales into his account, but then started spending it again.’
‘Maybe he just wanted to get rid of his collection and move in a different direction? Or perhaps he’s broke,’ one of the team speculated. I didn’t believe it. I picked up my now cold, half-empty cup of coffee, stood up and glanced in enquiry at my superior.
‘Carry on Susan. Let me know what you want. I can arrange for extra bodies from uniform.’
‘Okay, let’s work on strategy. We’re going with Ally Carpenter being kidnapped for ransom and it looks as though her father is amassing a lump sum to pay to the kidnappers. If so, we need to know when and where the drop is going to be made and who’s making it. They obviously haven’t done it yet or the girl would have been released, or…’ I paused.
We all knew what “or” might mean. One of the junior members of the team piped up. ‘Ma’am, what about Briece Mochrie for the drop? He’s Ally Carpenter’s boyfriend and he’s bound to know the father’s alive by now. May have known all along.’
‘You’re right. We’ll keep him under surveillance. If he has a coughing fit, I want to know.’
Open discussion started; ideas flew thick and fast. I excused myself and headed for the restroom. On the way back, I was waylaid by an Inspector from Fraud. As we conversed, I overheard something which didn’t immediately ring a bell.
‘I couldn’t believe it. There was this totally insignificant painting going for thousands of dollars on eBay last night. No one in their right mind would pay that much for it and that’s not all. There’s been stuff sold in fine china, jewellery—you name it, this dude’s buying it. And for stupid prices! Either he’s a total wanker, he’s opening a shop or he knows something I don’t. I tell you, it’s fucking insane, mate!’
I stopped talking and turned around. Two young detective constables were sitting at their computers having a slag session. EBay…
‘Susan?’ The DI looked at me, puzzled.
‘I’m sorry, Alan, you were saying?’ I apologised. We concluded our conversation, then I scooted back to my troops.
It was going to be a long day.
Saturday: 7.00pm.
The news was bad.
‘They’ve lost Briece Mochrie, Susan. One moment he was buying groceries and then he took a call on his mobile and disappeared. His car’s gone from the car park. An all-points bulletin’s been sent out to pick him up,’ said Evan. Fear for Ally ripped through me; I forced my mind to concentrate.
‘Bloody hell! What was he doing at the supermarket? He had a carload of groceries yesterday afternoon before we interviewed him, so how come he was back there tonight? And how long ago did they lose him?’
‘Around fifteen minutes ago. Somebody took their eye off the ball and they’ve been running around like headless chooks ever since,’ he thundered, as he bolted for the lift, followed by three of our team.
‘He’s deliberately given surveillance the slip. They’d better find him again or I’ll put them all on traffic duty,’ I snarled.
The eBay wanker. Why would someone buy rubbish art, jewellery and cars on eBay for outlandish prices? Wealthy people were canny with their money.
It hit me like as stab in the ribs with a knitting needle. Could it be possible that some of the ransom was being paid via eBay? Anonymous, discreet, it was a place where accounts could be opened and closed in short spaces of time, but amateurish. A way of keeping frantic parents occupied or very clever indeed? As long as money seemingly changed hands without problems, there would be no reason for anyone to suspect what was happening. If it hadn’t been for a young constable who just happened to know his collectibles market…gotcha!
I dialed Evan’s mobile. ‘Evan? Is Pamela Miller still at home?’
‘Yes, she’s there,’ he shouted against the roar of the surrounding traffic.
‘Get someone to go in and check it out. Make some excuse. Ditto, Whitby.’
‘It’s already done, Susan.’
‘Good. Where are you?’ I asked.
He told me.
‘I’m joining you out there.’
‘Best not yet, until we get a fix on Mochrie. I’ll let you know the minute we have a sighting. Sit tight.’
‘Remember, just follow and don’t lose him.’ My heart pounded. My inner voice screamed ‘Hurry hurry.’
‘Yes, Susan, I know.’
He signed off quickly, before I could hound him any further. ‘Probably the whole damn orchestra’s in on this,’ I thought bitterly, but then I remembered a slight hesitation as Eloise denied talking to Briece Mochrie recently and it all slotted into place.
I snatched up my bag and coat, phoning Evan back as I ran.
‘I think I know where he’s going! Where are you now?’
I shot into the lift, tucked the mobile between my neck and shoulder and stabbed frantically at the button for the car park. Evan’s voice was faint, but the salient details got through. I talked fast, arranging to meet on the street that ran along the rear of Jame
s’s property and advising Evan not to use sirens.
Hurry! hurry!
I threw my belongings into the car, hurled myself behind the wheel and drove off, struggling to fasten the seat belt as I wove in and out of the traffic.
CHAPTER 43
Armageddon
Saturday: 7.30pm.
Angelo turned the engine off and coasted quietly through the back gate, thoughtfully opened by his stepmother for his father to gain entrance later that night. He was not going to miss out on playtime with Ally Carpenter. He was looking forward to it and June wouldn’t stop him this time. It would be great fun slaughtering Ally while he was fucking her, pleasure which had been denied him when he was forced to kill Jess.
His father, the expert strategist, had hand-picked her for the “in” saying Pam Miller was no use, as she had no axe to grind with Ally. Using his exceptionally good-looks and charm to ensure an affair with Jess, stirring her festering jealousy to plant the suggestion in her mind to play a joke on Ally.
But when he arrived at her house on Wednesday night she had been hysterical, having realised they had used her jealousy for their own purposes and that kidnapping the Carpenter girl was not a prank after all. She had grabbed her mobile and tried to dial Triple 0. He smiled, remembering the terror in her eyes, the whimpering when she realised he was wasn’t going to bash her—just gut her like a fish. He padded past the windows of the lounge room, his joggers soundless on the concrete. That old goat, Bob, would be slumped asleep on the sofa, drooling into the cushions with his loaded shotgun beside him. ‘Got it in case of home invasion,’ he explained.
Angelo paused as he rounded the side of the building, licking his lips, studying the landscape like a wolf on the hunt testing the air for rivals to its prey. Nothing moved. Re-assured, he walked to the door leading to the tower, quietly opened it and slunk up the creaky stairs, well prepared with torch, gag and knife.
Saturday: 7.40pm.
James and Brie set out, carrying an extension ladder between them, using the light blazing from the main house as a guide until their eyes became accustomed to the dark.
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