She was woken earlier than she intended by her mobile.
“Do you realize it is barely six o’clock?” she snarled.
“Too bad,” said the young voice. “Wanted to catch you before I left for school.”
“What did you find out?” Donna ignored from habit the realization of how very young her most reliable informant was.
“Lang Torrens is small fry,” the voice reported.
Small fry sang her suddenly relieved heart. Small fry and hopefully not into drug dealing.
“Owns a small family pearl business,” the young voice reported. “The two wealthiest people are Alex Vallison and an ex-school teacher called Sapphire Green. They both have lots of money tucked away very illegally in off-shore accounts. Although Sapphire has lots and lots more than anyone else.”
“Sapphire Green!”
“Are you contemplating marrying someone up there for their money?” the young voice asked with a snigger. “Pity the richest person turns out to be a divorced female.”
“I owe you,” Donna said through suddenly stiff lips.
She hung up. She had nothing to go on except instinct, and her instinct was that the pearls that Sapphire Green wore were not just fresh water pearls but probably real ones. And her instinct was pointing out Billican Island. It had to be the drop-off point. Otherwise, why had the name of the island caused Lang to be so tense? And the greenie had a logical excuse for visiting Billican Island all the time. Matt needed to know about this. Either the greenie or the mayor must be Mr. Big.
She jumped out of bed and showered, thankful that she had the morning free. The afternoon conference wouldn’t start until two. She changed into jeans, a dark tee shirt, and runners; grabbed her small bag; and hurried downstairs. With luck she would still catch Matt before he left. Didn’t they go out with the tide or something?
She grabbed a piece of toast and a mouthful of coffee from the buffet breakfast bar and limped to the reception desk.
“Ring me a taxi,” she ordered the sleepy boy.
She waited out the front of the hotel, almost dancing with her impatience. Why did the Darwin people have to live life at such a leisured pace? It was barely daylight and the air was still cool. She had noticed yesterday that the heat hadn’t seemed as over-powering. Perhaps she was getting used to it. She looked at her watch. Surely Matt wouldn’t have had to leave this early? She should have looked at the tide tables. He had said something about going out with the tide.
The taxi arrived, and she gave it the address. When it pulled up at the shabby house, her heart sank. The place definitely looked uninhabited. There were tattered blinds and closed drapes, making the house look even more uncared for.
“Wait here,” she ordered the taxi driver.
She thumped on the front door, a very solid looking door considering the general dilapidation of the house. There was no answer. She ran around the back. There was a litter of empty bottles and a greasy, uncleaned barbeque under the shelter of the back verandah. She thumped on the solid locked back door. There was still silence.
There was a ramshackle looking garage. Inside was a rough bench, a collection of camp chairs, and a pile of rags in the corner. Otherwise it was empty. No beat-up blue Holden and no motorbike. She paused in indecision. Matt must have had transport to reach whatever boat he was working on. Would Rabbit have dropped him off? But then both the motorbike and the car were missing. Maybe they went in separate directions?
She stood for a few seconds in indecision, her mind racing. She just had to catch up with Matt. Would Rabbit have given him a lift on his bike to the wharves or would he have taken the car? Both the car and the bike were missing. The rags in the corner stirred and moaned.
“Matt?” she quavered.
She went closer and pulled the rags at where she thought a head might be. She lifted his head up and let out her breath in a relieved sigh. It was the inhospitable Rabbit. What she could see of his face through whiskers and long tangled lank hair looked olive green. He was sweating and shivering
“You all right?” she asked.
“Bad scene,” he muttered and flopped bonelessly back on the ground.
She shook him but couldn’t rouse him. She sniffed. He smelled funny, but it was not alcohol on his breath. She ran around to the front of the house.
“I think the guy around the back is suffering from some drug overdose or something,” she told the taxi driver. “Give me a hand to get him into the car. We can take him to hospital.”
“Hum,” said the driver.
He strolled around to where the body of Rabbit was stretched out on the floor of the garage.
“Yeah, that looks like a hospital case to me,” the driver agreed. He picked up the sagging body effortlessly and Donna followed as he led back to the taxi.
“There was no bike or car in the garage so I assumed that both of them were out,” Donna explained.
“Bikers keep their bikes inside so they don’t get pinched,” the driver explained.
“In the house?” Donna asked, shocked.
“Probably beside his bed,” the driver said.
When they reached the hospital, Donna ran inside for assistance. Orderlies came out with a stretcher and took the limp body of Rabbit inside.
“Are you waiting with your friend?” the driver asked.
Donna thought about it. She was going to miss trying to find her brother, but if Rabbit really was a friend of Matt’s, he would be pretty annoyed at her not trying to be helpful.
“Suppose I had better,” Donna agreed slowly. “He is actually a friend of my friend’s.”
The taxi drove off. Donna sat with the pretty receptionist and gave the correct address for Rabbit and with a slight hesitation said she thought his name was S. Sutley, and then she waited. She was going to miss out on catching up with Matt, she decided gloomily, but she could hardly leave without finding whether Rabbit was going to survive or not.
She did go over to the receptionist to ask when the tide was turning and was told nine o’clock. Not that it was any help. She didn’t know from what wharf he was leaving, or even the name of the boat he was working on.
It was over an hour later that the same young doctor who had checked her ankle came out. “Friend of the Rabbit’s, are you?” he asked.
“A close friend of mine shares the house with him,” Donna said. Her brother was under cover. Donna Madison, journalist, had no links to him.
“Overdosed on something not very pure,” the doctor explained. “He should be okay, this time. We’ll keep him in under observation for a while.”
“Much problem with impure drug overdoses? Donna asked.
“The stuff keeps getting into the place,” the doctor complained. “Although we have had a break for a few weeks.”
“Until another shipment comes in?” Donna felt her excitement rise. There must be another shipment coming in for Matt to be so cagey.
“There does seem a pattern,” the doctor admitted. “When the stuff hits the streets we get a swag of drug-related social problems, and then get the usually fatal overdoses as the stuff gets used up and gets broken down with something the human system isn’t designed to cope with.”
A nurse tapped his shoulder, so he turned and left. There must be another shipment due in, Donna thought. Matt was right! She had to find him and tell him about the off-shore accounts of the mayor and the greenie. She looked at her watch. It was still only eight-thirty. She still had time to snoop out on to the wharf and try to find whether the beat-up blue Holden was parked among the other cars. She went out to the foyer and over to the receptionist.
“Would you mind ringing a taxi for me?” she asked pleasantly.
“No need for a taxi,” Lang’s voice behind her said. “I’ll drive you.”
Donna looked at the smiling receptionist. Had the receptionist rung Lang that she was here? Darwin was surely a small and nosy place, she fumed to herself. She turned and stared at Lang. He smiled back at her, his face bl
and. It was all very well to use a local for information, but she couldn’t risk him being involved. Her contact had assured her he didn’t have an offshore bank account, but that still didn’t mean anything. Matt’s life might be at stake if she was wrong.
She stared at him, her mind working swiftly. If she got him to drop her back at the hotel, she could ring another taxi and still be back to hunt around the wharves before nine.
“I would appreciate a lift back to the hotel,” she said with a smile. “I still have some work to catch up on.”
“You do get an early start on your day,” Lang probed as he closed the door of the BMW and settled himself at the wheel.
“The only way to go to cope with the heat,” Donna agreed.
“You have been a good Samaritan, bringing Rabbit into hospital,” Lang remarked. “He is lucky that you found him.”
“Yes,” Donna said flatly.
“So early in the morning, too,” the bland voice marveled.
“I’m an early morning person,” Donna replied.
“Or had you stayed the night?”
There was an icy undercurrent to his voice. Donna was puzzled by it. He sounded upset, but surely there was nothing upsetting about seeing someone be a Good Samaritan?
“Stayed the night?” Donna echoed blankly. “I’m staying at the hotel.”
“I know that you journos get very keen when following a lead. I thought maybe you had spent the night catching up with your diver friend,” he continued in the same icy tone. “It didn’t really sound very plausible to start your socializing at six in the morning.”
“Spent the night?” Donna echoed like an idiot.
She suddenly realized what he was hinting and temper rose, hot, scalding and reckless. There was also a weird and painful ache of disappointment at him possessing such a petty and vulgar mind. She restrained herself from hitting out at him. He was cruising along the bay road, and there was traffic along it. An accident could hurt the innocent.
“How dare you,” she hissed. “You nosy foul-minded moron. I suppose one of your spies at the hospital passed on my movements to you. I do need to interview the diver for my story.” And this was the actual truth, Donna fumed to herself. “And I do happen to be a very close friend of the diver, and do care most desperately about his welfare.”
Lang flinched at this and two spots of red appeared on his face. “I am sure your movements are your own affair,” he said coldly. “Only you are an idiot if you don’t understand about how dangerous and ill-judged your actions are with your friend.” He emphasized the word friend just slightly.
Donna yanked on the hand brake between them with all the strength of her pent-up anger. The car slewed to a stop. She flung open the door and scrambled out. She slammed it behind her and limped blindly across the park towards the beach.
She heard him call “Donna” after her, but she didn’t turn her head. She hobbled as fast as she could along a winding path that soon became obscured from the road by the vegetation. After a while she slowed to a walk. She still fumed. She was a top investigative reporter, and he dared criticize her. Dangerous and ill-judged, indeed! Who did he think he was?
The sun, now well up, blazed down, and the blue of the sky spread across to the blue of the water. It was going to be another hot, perfect day. The path was sloping down towards the beach. It opened out into a large clearing full of parked cars, not the expensive cars of tourists but Utes and four-wheel drives with faded and scratched duco. Among them her eyes rested on a battered faded blue Holden.
She gasped as she hurried closer and checked the registration. She looked down at the water. Almost directly below was a wharf. There were boats starting to move out across the bay. She glanced at her watch. It was nine o’clock, and the tide was turning.
She scrambled down to the wharf and raced along it. Not all the boats would have divers on board. If she was lucky, perhaps someone could point at which boats were tourist industry, fishermen, or others.
There were lots of boats moored, from luxurious-looking yachts to stained and shabby fishing boats and charter boats. None of them looked as if they were going anywhere. None of them had divers piling aboard with their gear.
Her steps slowed. What if he had already left? If only he had bothered to tell her where he was heading. She looked over the side of the wharf. Below, a figure on a long, shabby, narrow boat was casting off. The dilapidated structure on the top deck concealed whoever else might be on the boat. Donna gave it a last dismissive glance and turned away. The boat hardly looked seaworthy enough to move too far out from the land. She was looking for a boat faster and more powerful.
The engine thudded quietly into life. Too quietly. To Donna’s educated ears that motor sounded well-maintained and expensive, despite the seediness of the boat. She spun around more alertly and grabbed for biro and paper. The long, narrow boat named Let’s Loaf had a number along the hull. She wrote it down quickly. She could at least check the registered owner of the boat with such an interesting discrepancy between looks and performance.
Someone had come up behind her. She half turned, but too late. A strong pair of hands grabbed her and shoved her over the side. She fell headlong, missing the side of the wharf by a hairsbreadth.
She had deliberately been shoved off the wharf! The water was warm, but by the time she had struggled to the surface she saw with incredulous horror that she was moving away from the wharf. The tide was going out, and her with it! The wharf was too high for her to see her unknown assailant.
She gritted her teeth and stroked back towards the wharf, but despite her efforts she wasn’t getting any closer. She remembered some of the blood-curdling stories she had heard about Darwin’s sea-going crocodiles and looked around in panic.
The boat, Let’s Loaf, was circling. It was going to pick her up. A rope dropped with a lifebelt on it and she was dragged on board.
“Thank you,” she gasped to the stone-faced, unshaven man who had pulled her over the side.
He jerked his head. Another man grabbed her arms and marched her down to a door. He opened it and pushed her in. No one had spoken, and the door was locked behind her. She looked around. It was empty except for coils of rope. Donna went over and sat on one of them and pulled her bag from across her shoulder. She checked her mobile phone. Swimming hadn’t agreed with it. She was imprisoned, and no one knew where she was.
Chapter Fifteen
Donna looked around. No portholes.
She took off her runners and squeezed the water out of her socks. She would not panic, She was not the panicking sort. Someone must have been watching her. Was Matt safe? Had anyone followed him from her hotel room? The motor speeded up. Its thudding note was powerful and steady. Wherever they were going, they were moving at full speed.
The cabin was airless and hot. Her clothes dried quickly, as did her mobile, but it was still dead. She replaced her dried socks and runners, spread the rope around to make some sort of couch and settled down to try and sleep. Whatever was going to happen wasn’t going to happen immediately, and she intended to conserve her energy.
When she woke it was very quiet. The motor had stopped, and the boat rose and dropped. So they were moored somewhere in the ocean. From under the hull came a muffled clang. She tilted her head, but the noise wasn’t repeated. After a while there was the murmur of voices, gruff and irritable, from outside the door. Donna listened. She took out her Dictaphone and pressed a button. Nothing happened. She put her ear to the door. The voices were already fading as they moved past.
“How else would she have picked on the Let’s Loaf if she hadn’t been tipped off?”
“Who was supposed to have tipped her off?”
“She was snooping so she must know something.”
“Doesn’t matter. Orders are to turf her over.”
Whose orders? Donna fretted. No one could possibly be so cold-blooded!
“What if she can swim?”
“So we’ll go up and throw some
thing in to encourage the sharks. Doesn’t matter now; we’ve collected.”
Collected what? Donna mused. The voices got further away. Water had caused the ink to run in her notebook. She shrugged and settled back to writing the remembered boat name and registration number and then the interesting dialogue and tore it off the notebook. There was nowhere to secret it. She folded it tightly and pushed it into the keyhole of the door.
She slid her small bag over her shoulders again, just in time. The door opened. The same two men she had seen before dragged her out. She didn’t resist. Once on deck she glanced around. There was no other person in sight. They were moored just out from a large rock that the water foamed and thundered around, but not quite over.
She stared with incredulity and dread into the pinkening water at the sharks thrashing around the raw chunks of meat. They really did intend to throw her to the sharks.
The two men started to lift her over the rail. She gritted her teeth, strengthened her grip on the arms each side of her and pushed with her feet against the rail as strongly as possible. This was something her captors weren’t expecting, and she was suddenly very grateful for her height and weight. There were astonished oaths, and then the three of them were tumbling into the water.
Donna let go as soon as they hit the water and dove deeply, ignoring the frantic activity behind her. Weren’t sharks supposed to be surface scavengers? She swam further and further under the hull, grateful for her ability to dive deep, and came up at last on the other side to cling to a rusty iron ladder. She nervously looked back into the depths of the water, but all the action seemed to be on the other side of the boat.
There were rifle shots and men shouting. So there were more crew on board, and they were armed with rifles. Perhaps they were just being shy about being seen, even if they were sure she was not in a position to give them any unwelcome publicity.
The rifle shots kept on for a few more minutes, but the shouting died down. Donna tried to work out what to do. She was still alive, which was astonishing, but she wouldn’t be able to hang on to the boat until it returned to Darwin, even if she was undiscovered. If she risked swimming to the rock, she would die of hunger and thirst before anyone discovered her.
The Secret Agenda Page 6
