Whispering Death

by Garry Disher

  46

  By 3 p.m. on Monday, Grace was back on the ferry, wearing one of her going-to-the-bank outfits, a slim-line black skirt, charcoal tights, cream silk shirt, bright red waisted jacket. The glasses with the purple rims, hair in a French coil, and carrying a cheap red leather satchel on a shoulder strap, large enough to hold the Paul Klee painting and everything else. Flat shoes; she never wore heels. You can’t run in heels.

  Leaving the Golf near the Rosebud police station, she rented a Commodore and by 4.30 was parked behind the K-Mart in Waterloo. The Safeway car park was closer to the VineTrust, but a corner of her mind said: Don’t park too close to the bank.

  Then she was in the foyer. Monday, close to closing time, so she was expecting a busy, distracting atmosphere, but the bank was quiet, two tellers finalising the day’s figures, the financial planner closing the venetian blinds, and one customer, a young guy in painter’s overalls, paint dotting his boots and the toolbox at his feet.

  Suddenly Rowan Ely was crossing the grey carpet, wearing his I’m-so-glad-you-bank-with-us and I-wish-I-could-peel-your-clothes-off smile. ‘Mrs Grace! Always a pleasure.’

  ‘Mr Ely.’

  ‘Please, please, it’s Rowan. Now, what can we do for you today?’

  Grace had thought about this. She’d had a similar encounter with the manager on Friday, when she’d stowed the Klee in her safe-deposit box. Today it was her intention to clean out the box, never to return. She’d be missed eventually; Ely and his staff would scratch their heads over her—but that would be later, maybe weeks later, when it didn’t matter. Arousing their curiosity today was quite different. So she said she wondered if they could sit in his office and discuss some of the VineTrust’s business banking opportunities.

  ‘Certainly. Follow me.’

  Grace followed. Behind her the housepainter was saying, ‘…open a business account for, you know, me painting business.’

  The words faded to nothing as Ely shut his door. Grace sat erect on the chair facing Ely’s desk. She was never coquettish. She never flirted or signalled, consciously or unconsciously, but men always responded to her as if she did these things. Rowan Ely beamed at her as if his assistance to this beautiful woman had been special, and especially noted by her. It gave him a peculiar glow.

  They talked for a while. He showed her brochures, swung his computer monitor around to show graphs full of brightly coloured lines. They settled on one of his ‘products’ and then he was escorting her out to the foyer, chatting away, saying she should come earlier next time, they were about to close, and if she came earlier they could have a cup of tea and a chat, even a proper drink, his eyes on her chest the whole time.

  That’s why she noticed the shotgun before he did.

  She shifted her gaze to the man holding it, and recalled that the housepainter had been wearing dark glasses, a black beanie and a bristly moustache earlier, when she’d entered the bank. The beanie was over his face now, but the point was, she’d stuffed up. After all, she was the hiding-in-plain-sight expert, and should have been able to tell when someone else was doing it. Instead, like an idiot, she’d been concerned for the bank’s carpet, hoping the guy didn’t have paint on the bottoms of his boots. And now he was waving some kind of sawn-off shotgun in her face.

  47

  It was Joy, the senior teller, who’d activated the silent alarm. The gunman had ordered her to step back from her window, but then he was distracted by the sudden emergence of Mr Ely and Mrs Grace from the manager’s office, so she’d darted forward, pressed the red button, darted back again.

  But Challis didn’t learn this until many hours later. Right now all he knew was an alarm had sounded at the police station, a handful of Waterloo uniforms under Jeff Greener had responded, and he and Murphy had a siege on their hands.

  The first thing he did was try the bank’s back door. Locked. He went around to the High Street entrance. Also locked. Then someone on the inside opened the venetian blind briefly. He saw a huddle of people in the middle of the main room, controlled by a man wearing a balaclava and pointing a shotgun. The blind was closed again.

  So he phoned the bank. Rowan Ely answered, sounding frightened, and Challis said, ‘Rowan, I need to talk to him.’

  He heard muffled sounds, as though Ely was holding the phone to his chest, then the manager was back, his voice crackling in Challis’s ear: ‘He says you don’t call him, he calls you,’ and the connection was cut.

  This was the heart-in-the-mouth stage, adrenaline fuelled, a sense of sand running out, and Challis’s chest tightened. He turned to Pam Murphy and ordered the closure of High Street and its side streets and alleyways for two hundred metres in each direction. ‘Nobody allowed in, and shopkeepers and shoppers to be screened before being allowed out.’

  ‘Boss.’

  Then he made a number of phone calls. First, the Force Response Unit; second, a hostage negotiator; third, reinforcements from other Peninsula stations; fourth, the superintendent.

  ‘Just in case you feel tempted to complain to the press about resources, Inspector,’ said McQuarrie, ‘how about I put a bomb under Force Response and the negotiators?’

  ‘I’ve already contacted them, sir,’ said Challis.

  Wondering if he’d redeem himself today, he pocketed his phone and walked into the middle of High Street with a megaphone. There was movement in the bank’s front window again, a hooked finger twitching the blind slats. Then the gap disappeared, the blind trembling briefly behind the glass.

  He raised the megaphone to his mouth.

  A small window, set high in the wall above the ATM, blew out.

  Glass and shotgun pellets flew over his head. He jolted in fear and retreated to the police line.

  ‘Boss?’ Pam said, grabbing at his arm. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Back to the drawing board,’ Challis said shakily. He glanced around, his gaze alighting on Café Laconic. ‘Command post,’ he said, and strode across to negotiate with the owner.

  Then nothing. Late afternoon edged into evening. The Force Response Unit arrived, a dozen men and one officer, armed with assault rifles and dressed like extras in an American cop film. And acting like it, too: they were rarely called upon to do anything but take part in training exercises, and now here was the real thing. Their eyes gleamed and their forefingers twitched.

  The commander was a man named Loeb, sculpted out of blonde hardwood. ‘We can use that busted window,’ he said. ‘Toss in a teargas canister, stun grenade, the guy’s disorientated, my guys rush in and take him down.’

  ‘He has a shotgun, determination and an itchy trigger finger,’ Challis said. ‘We wait for the hostage negotiator.’

  ‘I say we consider—’

  Challis shook his head. ‘We give the hostage negotiator a chance, you know the drill.’

  ‘It’s getting dark.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Could take hours for the negotiator to get here.’

  ‘Could do,’ agreed Challis.

  He was saved by the Café Laconic staff, who brought out trays of coffee and sandwiches. Challis gulped his latte. Strong, as he liked it.

  His mobile phone rang. He answered, listened, pocketed the phone again. ‘The negotiator’s about ninety minutes away.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  Challis shrugged. He was in charge and, as far as he could see, that meant saying ‘no’ to everything. He didn’t tell the FRU officer that the hostage negotiator had only just touched down at Melbourne airport. Her name was York and she’d been attending at a hostage situation in Shepparton. A fruit grower, burdened by debts and claiming that a Mafia standover man was bleeding him dry, had shot the family dog and threatened to shoot his family.

  In the end, he’d shot himself.

  I can’t see that happening here, Challis thought. Meanwhile it was his job to tell the gunman that a hostage negotiator was on the way. He swallowed a few times and walked out into the intersection again. ‘I need to speak
to you,’ he called, hunching to present a smaller target.

  Nothing.

  Challis turned around on the spot, a quick reconnaissance of the intersection and nearby streets. The town seemed to be filling rapidly, an avid crowd of locals and strangers forming behind the barriers, possibly drawn to Waterloo by the TV images. Plenty of media, Challis noted: reporters, cameramen, the Channel 7 helicopter, four or five women holding microphones to their flawless mouths. They were all hungry and, like the crowd—and indeed the police—would be swapping guesses, black humour and misinformation.

  He wasn’t fired upon. He walked back to the command post.

  Then Jack Porteous was blocking his way into Café Laconic. ‘Quick update, Inspector?’

  ‘How did you get though the cordon?’

  ‘Is it true you were fired on from inside the bank? Are the police properly resourced for a siege situation?’

  Challis nodded to Greener, who came forward from the shadows. ‘Senior Constable Greener will escort you back behind the line.’

  Then more stasis.

  Movement, when it came, was quick and clean. The main door of the bank opened and three figures appeared. Challis recognised the senior teller, just as she lurched forward as if shoved in the back, stumbled, fell to her hands and knees in the street. Now he could see that another woman was behind her. Young, dark-haired, attractive, scared. Scared because a powerful forearm was choking her windpipe and a shotgun was tucked into the hinge of her jaw. Of the gunman, all Challis could see was the forearm and a black woollen head.

  And just as quickly they were gone, disappearing inside the bank, and Challis and Murphy were scuttling across the road to help the teller. Her knees were scraped. ‘It’s all right, you’re safe now,’ Pam said, and Joy staggered, almost a dead weight, as the detectives guided her into the café.

  ‘I say we go in,’ said the FRU officer, hovering over them.

  ‘And to hell with collateral damage, right?’ said Pam, elbowing him aside.

  ‘My boys are trained…’

  They ignored him, Challis asking, ‘You up for a few questions, Joy?’

  She smiled shakily. ‘A stiff drink would help.’

  Challis glanced at the café proprietor, who nodded and reached for a brandy bottle and a glass. When it had been delivered and the teller had swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, Challis began:

  ‘First things first: we need to know who’s in there.’

  ‘Apart from the hold-up man?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mrs Grace, Mr Ely, Erin and Maddie.’

  ‘Who was the woman in the doorway with you?’

  ‘Mrs Grace. Susan Grace. She has a safe-deposit box with us.’

  ‘Erin and Maddie are staff members?’

  ‘Yes. Erin’s our financial planner. Maddie’s just a trainee, only been with us a month, poor thing.’

  Another gulp of the brandy. ‘Sorry, I’m all shaken up.’

  She was a slight woman with a cap of red-blonde hair, and she began to cry. Pam hugged her, giving Challis a look that he couldn’t decipher. He raised a questioning eyebrow, but she turned to the teller and said, ‘Joy, about the customer, Susan Grace—are you sure that’s her name?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Challis cocked his head at Murphy. The question hadn’t been frivolous. ‘Do you know her from somewhere, Murph?’

  ‘There was an incident a couple of weeks ago,’ Pam said, going on to describe it, a woman with a foreign accent being accosted in the street.

  ‘You’re sure it’s the same woman?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘She’d been to the bank?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Joy was swinging her gaze from one to the other. ‘Mrs Grace isn’t foreign.’

  This was a side track they didn’t have time for, so to cut it short, Challis said, ‘Is she local, this Mrs Grace?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Did she give you the impression of knowing the man with the shotgun?’

  ‘Good God, no.’

  He turned to Murphy. ‘You made a note of the time, date, description, car rego?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Follow it up later.’

  ‘Boss.’

  He turned to the teller. ‘Have you seen the gunman before?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘Not very well. He’s wearing a beanie and sunglasses and has a moustache. Average height.’

  ‘Is there a reason why he let you go, Joy? Does he intend to let the others go soon?’

  ‘No. He was very clear. He wants blankets and clothesline twine.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Four or five blankets, huge ones,’ the teller said.

  48

  Mara and Warren had been shadowing Steven Finch since Saturday night, hoping he’d meet with the bitch who’d robbed them, but all he did was move between his house and his business.

  Now it was early Monday evening and they were parked half a block from Finch’s house, watching it through the side mirrors of the Mercedes van, the air ripe around them. Nothing was happening, so Mara said, ‘To hell with this,’ and fished out her phone.

  ‘Steven? I thought we had a deal?’

  His voice croaked, betraying fear. Fear was good. ‘I was about to call you, honest.’

  ‘And tell me what, precisely?’

  ‘It’s not my fault. How was I to know this would happen?’

  Mara shook her head as if to clear it but wasn’t about to admit she had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Indeed.’

  And soon she’d teased it out of him: it was all over the TV, a bank siege in Waterloo, and one of the hostages was the woman who had stolen the Klee. ‘I mean,’ Finch said shakily, ‘what if she’s arrested? She’ll spill to the cops.’

  ‘It’s definitely her?’

  ‘Turn on your TV. They keep running the same footage.’

  Mara weighed it all up. ‘This is what you do, Steve: grab anything incriminating in your house, then do the same at the shop, and disappear for a few years.’

  She terminated the call and immediately started Safari on the iPhone. She found a news report and, indeed, there was the woman who’d robbed them.

  She turned to her husband. ‘Let’s do it. He’ll be coming out his front door pretty soon.’

  ‘Do what?’

  Mara ignored him, climbed into the rear of the van. Finch’s house was as heavily secured as his shop but from tailing him she knew that he was vulnerable for a short period as he walked between his front door and the driver’s side door of his car. An Audi coupe, mind you, funded in part by Niekirk money, parked in the street because the houses were renovated workers’ cottages a hundred years old, no garages or carports.

  Everything was going swimmingly for Mara now, after days of twiddling her thumbs. She opened the van’s rear door a crack, saw that she had a clear line of sight to the junk dealer’s front step, and removed her Steyr rifle from its slipcase.

  When Mara was a teen, she’d spent school holidays on Grandfather Krasnov’s farm in New England, and the old émigré had taught her how to fire a rifle fitted with a telescopic sight. Tin cans, usually, plus the occasional watermelon—just like the assassin in The Day of the Jackal, Mara enjoying the satisfying, pulpy explosion as the bullet hit. Sometimes kangaroos, foxes and rabbits, and, once, a neighbour’s stray sheep dog—a spectacular shot, 500 metres at least.

  She stretched out on the camping mattress, propped the rifle on a small tripod, sighted the German lenses, and waited, unseen, the van’s fittings and metal skin ideal for deadening sound. Was that a shot? people would say. They wouldn’t be sure.

  She wiggled about until she was comfortable, and after that was absolutely still, breathing shallowly, feeling nothing, not even anticipation. She didn’t even register the jittery presence of her husband.

  Finch stepped out of his front door and for a moment remonstrated with someone wit
hin the house, then the door was slammed and he presented himself to Mara, there was no other way to describe it. He stood there for a couple of seconds too long, carrying a black holdall, a panicky look on his face as he scanned the street, his gaze passing over the van. Mara placed the cross hairs on the centre of his chest and breathed out in one long, slow exhalation and squeezed the trigger.

  ‘You must squeeze, never pull,’ Grandfather Krasnov had taught her, and Mara, packing the rifle away now, folding the tripod, shutting the rear door, telling Warren to drive away slowly, realised anew that there had never been a man in her life like the Krasnov patriarch.

  ‘Another loose end cleaned up,’ she told her husband as he drove in his nervy way out of Williamstown and back to the Peninsula. ‘Now it’s time we all took a long overseas holiday.’

  49

  The blankets and clothesline were delivered to the bank, and time passed.

  McQuarrie called. ‘Well, inspector?’

  ‘Wait and see, sir.’

  ‘Can’t you go in?’

  ‘Still waiting for the hostage negotiator.’

  ‘I don’t want any loss of life, Hal.’

  ‘Nor do I, sir.’

  So I’m ‘Hal’ now? And you want me to send the marines in and avoid loss of life? He paused. ‘Got to go, the negotiator’s here.’

  Senior Constable York was a forthright, large-boned woman, reminding Challis of the rural women he often encountered on the Peninsula, who worked with horses and married cheerful, open men. He outlined the situation quickly, and she said, ‘Huh. You’d expect something concrete by now. Deadlines, demands, a lot of panicky to and fro…’

  Challis shrugged. ‘Well, this guy hasn’t said a word.’

  ‘Okay, let’s get squared away,’ York said.

  She’d arrived with a special van fitted with digital recorders, phones, camera monitors, a TV set, scrap paper, pens and a whiteboard and markers. There was also a small, soundproofed inner compartment fitted with a chair, a monitor and a telephone. ‘The throne room,’ she grinned, ‘so I can talk to him without distraction.’ She gestured at the white board. ‘And this is for intel.’