First there’d been her delight at being contacted by members of the Mole Creek caving group almost before she had her bag unpacked at their Launceston hotel, and now . . . this! Kirsten had been, in Teague’s opinion, a bit too enthusiastic about being invited on the caving expedition at Mole Creek, a little too pleased that Bruce Wilkinson, a retired insurance type from Hobart and a Golden Retriever fancier, had invited Kendall and Rex to join him for the weekend’s gundog trial. Or was this all just his fragile ego talking? Rex was no help.
“You barely get off the plane and you trot off to this dog trial with me, instead of . . . well . . . instead of something,” he said with a cautious grin. “Doesn’t sound like any sort of honeymoon to me, either.”
Which allowed Charlie to rejoin the fray, much to Kendall’s discomfort.
“It isn’t a honeymoon?” Charlie said, raising his bushy eyebrows in an exaggerated gesture of mock indignation. “You mean you’re staying together in the same hotel room and you’re not married? Good thing this is the twenty-first century, my lad. In the old days, I’d have been duty bound to have you up for cohabiting! Although, to be fair, the term was usually reserved for relations between, uhm, partners of, uhm, mixed races if you take my point. Still, I am shocked, Kendall – truly shocked.”
Which – truly – he was not! Charlie’s own relationship situation was equally fragile, perhaps even more disturbing. So much so that he actually felt guilty – if not too guilty – about twitting Kendall in the first place.
Charlie thought that he, himself, might actually be getting serious about someone, and the concept frankly terrified him. Police of both sexes, he knew only too well, faced fearsome odds when it came to relationships and marriage and family life. Yes, there were exceptions. He knew of a Burnie policeman who was married to (horror of horrors!) a journalist, but seemed to be making it work very well indeed. And, to be fair, Charlie’s friendship with Kendall had begun when the novelist had been a journalist, and had only grown stronger over time.
But it isn’t marriage. Thank God!
For himself, having managed to survive one marital meltdown only because he was young enough, dumb enough, and tough enough, the entire issue now loomed like a gigantic wave. He was old enough now to know his limitations, and in the relationship field, they were legion.
Half your bloody luck, mate. He offered the silent tribute to his Burnie colleague with the journalist wife, then glanced down at the reprobate terrier he’d been lumbered with. And half yours too, little mate. If today’s any example, I’ll end up with you as a chaperone come Monday night. Wouldn’t that be just fucking wonderful? They’d better let your boss out of hospital before then, or you’ll be facing up to a lead injection.
As if!
Bluey, nonplussed by Charlie’s silent thoughts, regarded him haughtily through unreadable amber eyes, and curled his upper lip in something that could have been a sneer, or a smirk, or even a smile.
Or all of the above.
CHAPTER SIX
The four cavers hovered in silence for what seemed like an hour. They just stood there, staring first at the knife, then at each other, then back at the knife again. But they hardly needed to voice their obvious concerns aloud. Was the knife there because somebody had tried to cut the abseil rope and somehow managed to drop the knife in the process? Or, hideously more terrifying, in a way, somebody had cut the rope just enough to weaken it, just enough that a climber might get partway or most of the way up, only to find the rope giving way beneath the strain? It seemed illogical, somehow, and yet also terrifyingly possible. Surely nobody would deliberately . . . ?
No. It made no sense at all. If somebody wanted to trap the cavers below ground, they would have needed only to throw the rope down. It was simply rigged through a hanger hidden beside the entrance.
The possibility of such a problem had even been raised, apparently in jest, but the Tassie cavers had been certain, they said, that the property owner didn’t even know of this cave’s existence. Or did he? If they’d been spotted during their stealthy approach so many hours ago . . .
“The bloke that owns the property has been known to take to trespassers with a shotgun,” Michael commented, barely above a whisper.
“They said in court that he was using quail shot, and he fired way above everybody’s head, too,” Sue replied. But Kirsten noticed a shudder of fear as the words emerged. Again, they looked at the knife, looked at each other. Waiting, but for what?
Kirsten stood there in the eerie group silence, suddenly aware that everyone was looking at her, and also suddenly aware that they were seeking something. Leadership? She shivered inwardly at the mere thought.
Hey, guys. I’m just a tourist here. This is your country, your cave. Don’t expect me to have any answers. It isn’t fair.
But she said nothing. Nor did they, until Kirsten finally, decisively, stepped over to and grabbed the dangling rope, pulling on it first tentatively, then with all her strength, leaning back hard and bracing her feet.
The rope held, showed no sign of any inherent or newly created weakness. (But how could it? What the hell signs should we be looking for?) Kirsten dropped her side-pack and reached high, then hitched herself up along the rope, not using the abseiling gear, merely shinnying up the rope until she was several feet above their heads.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” she said, voice already harsh with the exertion. “Somebody else grab on and come up behind me. We should be able to get all our weight on it before anybody’s dangerously high.”
Which they did, and the rope did not break. Then they settled down for another round of staring at the rope while everyone caught their breath and waited, watching each other to see who would now be first to tackle the real climb.
“I’m the heaviest. Might as well be me,” Michael said, then scurried to attach the climbing gear as if he feared losing his courage if he didn’t get started right away.
But before he began his climb, he took a clean handkerchief from his pack and gingerly picked up the knife. He made no attempt to close the blade, just wrapped the open knife in the handkerchief.
“Anybody got a spare piddle jar?” he asked, and when one was produced, he dropped in the knife and stuck the bottle into his pack.
“There might be fingerprints on it,” he said somewhat lamely. “Or . . . something, anyway.”
“You’ve been watching too many American cop shows,” quipped one of his companions. But the look they all cast upward at the rope suspended from above held no humor at all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was full dark when the Mole Creek mob dropped Kirsten off in front of her Launceston hotel after their day underground, just as it had been when they’d collected her that morning.
She was exhausted. The ardors of her day, coupled with residual jet lag from her flight from Canada, were combining to produce a skull-shattering headache. But she was jazzed, too, almost giddy with excitement at the underground wonders she’d been privileged to enjoy.
Also, despite having been told not to be, she was feeling just a touch guilty. Her newfound friends faced not only a long drive home – the cave was, after all, only a few minutes’ drive from Mole Creek in the first place – but they had the task of cleaning up her borrowed caving gear along with their own.
And the shocking price they had to pay for gasoline, high even by Canadian standards, merely added to her guilt.
And the Americans scream blue murder when they’re not paying half what we do. Spoiled, that’s what they are! They should all come here, maybe. No. Transport to Tasmania – that’s how they settled the place in the first place, although thankfully not with Americans. The irreverent thoughts produced a hiccup of giddy laughter.
But the expense issue, at least, she could partially atone for the next day, she thought as she made her weary way through the lobby and into the elevator. She’d insisted they return for lunch the next day . . . tomorrow. Her treat!
Kirsten stared
blearily at her image in the elevator’s mirrored wall, less than impressed by what she saw. A medium-height, slender enough figure, but one hardly enhanced by muddy hiking boots and jeans stained by grass and mud as well. Her bush shirt was half out at the waist and her long, strawberry-blonde hair was disheveled to the point of being outright unkempt. Then she smiled, and that, at least, was genuine Kirsten . . . tired, exhausted or not. And why not? She’d had a helluva day. A wonderful day. A day to remember always and forever.
Kendall wasn’t in the suite when she entered, and she couldn’t help feeling slightly guilty about being glad for that. All she wanted now was a shower, then a drink and something to eat. If she could stay awake that long. Then the oblivion of sleep, beautiful sleep. She moved through to “her” room, glanced at the bed and felt drawn toward it, here, now, her entire being suddenly magnetized by the illusion of slumber and peace.
I’m in the wrong business; I should be designing TV commercials.
Kirsten dropped her fanny pack just inside the door and was headed for the bathroom, fingers already fumbling with her shirt buttons, when she paused at a soft knock at the outer door.
“Who is it?” She almost recoiled at the impatience in her own voice. Get a grip, girl.
The response was muffled, or too soft for her to catch all the words. She walked back, opened the door and found herself facing a total stranger, a tall, lean man, taller than Kendall and slimmer, his eyes hidden behind reflective sunglasses. Standing quiet, not threatening, not aggressive. She had an instant to notice dark hair under a broad-brimmed hat, regular, normal, casual clothing, expensive casual footwear. Then he spoke.
“How do you like Pauline’s blue hair?” His voice had the texture of rich chocolate fudge. It was deep, resonant, hypnotic.
The nonsense of the question didn’t register. Neither did the voice, nor the words themselves. Not consciously. But subconsciously . . . Kirsten straightened, her body functional if strangely rigid but her mind . . . gone! She didn’t notice the man’s quick, savage smile of pleasure, was unaware of the hypnotic suggestions that followed.
He waited, still with that predator’s smile, while she gathered up her fanny pack, checked to make sure it held her passport, her wallet, her ID. Then he took her arm and guided her out into the corridor, moving slowly, patiently, as if leading a blind person.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The breathalyzer stop near Scottsdale caught Ralph Stafford by surprise, but only because it wasn’t where he’d expected it to be. He’d nearly taken to the back roads to get around Scottsdale, knowing it was Saturday night, knowing a police breathalyzer unit was possible in that region of the Tasman Highway. Then he’d decided not to waste the time.
And in any event he hadn’t considered this particular stretch of highway, which was little more than a wide spot in the steep, twisty section known as “The Sideling.” It was an unlikely spot for a breathalyzer stop, but one that offered no escape routes. The locals could have told him that.
Stafford came around a curve, saw the police lights, tasted panic like acid in this throat, then swallowed it in a convulsive gulp. If they stopped him, he could brazen through it. He hadn’t been drinking, hadn’t been speeding, his license and reggo were in order.
As for his sleeping passenger . . . Kirsten Knelsen was no worry at all because she would stay asleep. He’d made sure of that. Her face was obscured by the inflatable neck pillow at her nape, and the travel blanket he’d draped her with obscured the bonds that confined her wrists and ran down beside the seat to further confine her ankles.
Stafford was hugely, enormously pleased with how the post-hypnotic suggestion he’d implanted more than a year ago had survived, even perhaps strengthened in Kirsten’s subconscious. She had succumbed perfectly to the seemingly innocent question about Pauline Corrigan, his former office assistant in Canada and Kirsten’s best friend in the whole world.
It had, with hindsight, perhaps been risky to even try it, but now . . . ? A sign; it could be nothing else. Fate!
No, he thought, he’d get through this. There was no way known her disappearance could have been flagged yet, no way this could be more than a routine breathalyzer stop.
Fate wouldn’t do this to me. Fate loves me.
And Fate did favor him. The police, with two other vehicles already lined up, waved Stafford through without a second glance.
Thankyouthankyouthankyou.
Stafford, no longer a doctor, no longer, technically, Ralph Stafford for that matter, didn’t believe in God (except on those increasingly frequent occasions when he thought he, himself, might be God) but he had a curious sense that some things were governed by fate.
In his mind, it had surely been fate that had allowed him to escape from the Canadian cave in which Kirsten Knelsen had left him trapped. Once free, albeit with the help of the cougar that had physically dragged him from the cave mouth and nearly killed him in the process, it had been his own brilliance for pre-planning that had let him tend to his own wounds, flee to Mexico, endure months of painful reconstructive surgery, and then make his way to Australia despite the post-9/11 increases in airline security.
During his early years in practice, Stafford had worked in a variety of prisons and mental institutions, where he’d been as fascinated by what he could learn about identity theft and criminal methodology as he was with the inmates themselves. He had put that knowledge to good use over the years, and had sufficient identities, documents, and funds cached in various places around the world to let him roam almost at will.
Now back in Tasmania, he’d used one identity to buy a 4 × 4 with nearly a year’s reggo in place, rented modest accommodations with yet another identity. He had access to vast amounts of funds stolen from patients over the years. His biggest worry had been keeping busy.
Until now.
Stafford was brilliant, and knew it. As a young man, on a lark, he’d taken the Mensa application test and passed. Later independent tests proved he wasn’t just in the top two percent of IQ scores, but the top quarter of the top one percent. Maybe higher than that, since IQ tests were of questionable accuracy in the first place. But he thought it exemplified his oft-stated opinion that ninety-five percent of Mensans couldn’t pour piss out of a boot without written instructions and the other five percent wrote the instructions – in Japlish.
This arrogance in the young doctor was eventually tempered, if only slightly, by the realities of his profession, but by that time his own mind was going awry anyway, synapses dissolving, reality shape-shifting with little or no warning.
So he’d come to rely on fate as he understood it, and rely on it in ways nobody else would or could understand.
Fate, he was certain, had caused him to glance at the newspaper on the day it made much of Teague Kendall’s visit to Tasmania, providing him with Kendall’s book-signing schedule for the entire state. And with that knowledge, the dessert, the delicious bonus that Kirsten Knelsen would be accompanying Kendall to Australia. To Tasmania. To him.
Stafford had hardly been able to believe his luck. Kendall, in his eyes, was more or less irrelevant. A nuisance factor at best. But Kirsten! Stafford salivated like Pavlov’s dog just at the thought. He’d been so close that first time to being able to compare the taste of Kirsten with that of her sister Emma, but the older sister had eluded him in the end. A second chance, having her come to him as if served up on a platter, well . . . could it be anything but fate? As for the incident near the cave mouth? A mere glitch. Of no importance. Certainly not now!
All these elements hummed around in Stafford’s mind like contented bees as he steered carefully through the night, running east from Launceston on the Tasman Highway almost to St. Helens itself, aiming to turn south on the bush tracks below Goshen and Gould’s Country into the jungle of scrub above Loila Tier. His destination was an isolated shack he’d been shown by Ian Boyd, who, coincidentally, had also guided Stafford to the abandoned mining setup he’d previously used as his hide
away butchery during his incarnation as the Specialist.
At that time, it had been a tossup which of the two locations to use, and he’d chosen the one on Blue Tier for its ease of access. He’d not wanted to risk damage to the borrowed SUV that had come with his work at the St. Helens mental health facility. But that wasn’t an issue now. The 4 × 4 he was driving was already scratched and nondescript, and there was nobody to care but himself.
Beside him, Kirsten slumbered peaceably, courtesy of the sedative he’d administered even before he’d got them out of Launceston. She was properly buckled into her seatbelt, not that he expected anyone to notice or care, now that he’d passed the breathalyzer unit. The highway was virtually empty.
Then he came around a tight curve, almost at the turnoff to Pyengana, and found the road bright with police flashers and a uniformed officer waving him down with a bright red baton.
*
Stafford kept both hands in sight, one of them very much so. He held it to his nose in the universal sign for silence as he used the index finger of his other hand to point to where Kirsten stayed slumped in the passenger seat.
“She’s had a really tough day,” he said in a voice rich as chocolate fudge, barely even a whisper but adequately audible to the policeman at the window Stafford had just rolled down.
Stafford’s voice, in addition to its rich, melodic quality, was a tool of his (former) trade, a professional instrument he had honed and perfected over the years. He expected the policeman to respond to it, wasn’t surprised in the least when the man whispered back.
“Just a routine stop, Sir. May I ask if you’ve had any alcohol this evening?”
“Not a drop,” Stafford replied with a pleasant smile. “Not a drop in weeks, actually.” He knew the qualifier would grant him no leniency, was totally unsurprised when the officer produced the breathalyzer and asked politely for a breath sample.
DINING WITH DEVILS -- A Tasmanian Thriller Page 4
