DINING WITH DEVILS -- A Tasmanian Thriller

by GORDON AALBORG

  And where were her captors? Or captor.

  They’ll be back, she thought, looking once again at the preparations. So how long do I have, I wonder? And what can I do?

  Her mouth was dry again, her furry tongue practically demanding another drink. And the raging headache was not defeated, merely retired temporarily to regroup and prepare a new assault. That much she was sure of, if nothing else.

  Think, Kirsten.

  She looked around once more, then felt the panic gnawing, feeding, growing. Thinking wouldn’t be enough. She had to actually do something, and better sooner than later.

  So do it, dammit!

  Her attention focused on the eyebolt in the wall. She knew about eyebolts, knew about all manner of bolts and pitons and clasps and clamps. It was part and parcel of being a caver. She couldn’t break the chain, couldn’t chew through the plastic cable ties at her wrists in less than a month, if that. But the bolt . . . ?

  Kirsten looked down at the camp cot, speculated, wondered.

  “Maybe.” She spoke the word aloud, half expecting her voice to echo in the dankness of the shack’s interior. It was, vaguely, cavelike, all shrouded in shadows and uneven wall shapes. She was far less afraid of where she was than of why.

  First, Kirsten carefully set the water bottle and aspirin off to one side. Still within reach, if barely so, but safe from her next set of actions. Then she tipped over the camp cot, and nearly cried out in delight to find that she’d guessed right – it was the type with strong, springy, W-shaped supports that fitted into sockets along the side rails.

  That fitted in, therefore could be unfitted. Easily, by somebody with both hands free and balanced leverage. Not quite too easy for Kirsten, but not all that hard, either. A good grip, a kick here and there, and she had one support free, then another.

  What was left of the camp cot she moved aside so she could kneel and insert the steel support into the eyebolt. The rest, she thought, should be easy. Even with her hands bound, she could exert leverage.

  She thrust the steel rod into the eye of the bolt, positioned herself, braced, and heaved on it, tentatively at first, then with all the strength she could muster. It wasn’t as easy as it should have been . . . the W shape and the smoothness of the steel made getting and keeping a grip difficult. The support twisted in her grip, was almost impossible to control.

  She had to try three times before she found the right angle, the right position. But she did. Whereupon the improvised lever bent and the eyebolt remained in place. Open, staring, taunting her.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  She grabbed up another section of cot support. Tried again. Failed again. Cursed again.

  She stopped, panting as much from the sense of growing panic as from the exertion. Looked over the situation again, thought some more.

  Fool!

  She flung down the support rods and grabbed up the main structure of the camp cot. Side rails . . . in sections . . . all short, straight pieces of steel designed to be threaded through the canvas of the bed and locked together so the W-shaped bits could be inserted last.

  Not designed to be pulled apart by someone with her hands bound together, with no way to get the sort of grip that would allow them to be twisted apart, but pieces she’d be able to get a decent grip on, once she got them separated. Kirsten wasted valuable time, cursing the growing panic she could now taste, until she figured it out, until she sat down on the filthy floor, locked her feet on one of the unions as best she could, took the best grip she could on the end section, and tried to pull and twist at the same time.

  She was exhausted by the time she got the first piece loose. Her hands were cramped with the strain by the time she got the second one. The third was, paradoxically, no problem at all.

  Kirsten needed to rest, didn’t dare take the time. She thrust two of the straight steel pieces into the eye of the bolt, momentarily thought of trying to fit in a third, then thrust away that thought. No room. No time.

  She flexed her cramped fingers, positioned herself, took a careful grip . . .

  And watched, hoping against hope, praying silently, as the eye of the bolt moved, then moved some more.

  Yes. Yes, yes, yes!

  No, no, no! Once the eye of the bolt was parallel to the floor, her leverage was gone. Worse, she couldn’t get her levers into the eye from below to take a fresh position. There simply wasn’t room.

  Damn it!

  She tried every angle she could manage, but working almost flat against the eye, she couldn’t manage the torque to twist it up so she could get a new grip, another half-turn. The floor was old, the wood spongy . . . and she was exhausted.

  She took a sip of the water, only a small sip. At least, she thought, her headache was gone, driven away by the exertion. The panic remained, gnawing at her, growling, demanding her attention.

  No!

  She sat back, pulling her knees up and clasping her arms around them. There had to be a way, if only she could figure out what it was. She looked at where the other side of the cot frame was still inside the canvas . . . a six-foot length of jointed steel. Could she use that, she wondered? Could it help her reach something that might help her?

  Then she heard the sound of arriving vehicles.

  Too late.

  Even before the door was flung open, Kirsten was on her feet, one of her steel bar levers in her bound hands. She crouched, listening as vehicle engines stopped and the faint sound of footsteps grew less faint as they approached the shack.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The panic in Kendall’s voice flowed through the telephone lines like quicksilver. Charlie didn’t need the raft of earlier messages to recognize how agitated his friend was, how angry, how frustrated, how terrified.

  “Thank you, God! Charlie – would you please speak to this officer? Would you please tell him, explain to him – I’m sorry, what was your name again? . . . oh, shit! Just talk to him, Charlie. Please!”

  The next voice on the line was all Charlie needed to know what half the problem was. Had to be. He knew that voice and the policeman who owned it, could visualize the scene just by hearing the voice.

  “This is Constable John Small. Who am I speaking to, please?”

  It’s “To whom am I speaking?” . . . asshole! Not that I’d expect you to know that.

  “This is Sergeant Charles Banes at St. Helens,” Charlie replied. Heavy on the Sergeant. “What seems to be the problem, there, Constable?” Even heavier on the Constable. Not that it would matter, or at least not much. Charlie knew that, but it couldn’t hurt to establish rank right from the start.

  There is a fine, fine line between what makes a cop and what makes a crook. Maybe no more than a flip of a coin at some point in time. Maybe even at birth. The best in both worlds are often cut from the same cloth, poured from the same mold, shaped – some authorities suggest – by the same mental quirks. Most cops know it, few admit it (at least in public) and Constable John Small epitomized it. He was one of the worst cops Charlie had ever encountered – and, perversely, one of the very best. But in Charlie’s mind, Small should have been a crook and, Charlie often thought, very likely was. He had a fleeting moment of wonder at what stupidity Small had managed to get him posted to the city, of all places, then focused his mind back to the issue at hand.

  Charlie knew instinctively that Small wouldn’t like Kendall, would like nothing better than the ability to rattle Kendall’s chain. He’d obviously been doing exactly that, and pleasure was reflected in the tone of his voice, which Charlie had always thought had been borrowed from a whiny, spoiled infant.

  The voice was too light for the man who spoke in it: Small was of medium height, with a stocky, athletic build slowly going to seed. And it might have been only the phone, but Charlie found himself thinking that Small’s whiny, perpetually sneering voice had actually gotten higher as his hairline receded. Charlie had a mental picture of the words issuing through a rust-colored moustache that matched the thinning ha
ir.

  “We have a situation here, Sir,” the constable said, letting each word grudgingly escape. “There seems to be a knife involved, and it may be involved in the possible disappearance of a female person.”

  “It damned well is involved, and it’s not a possible disappearance – she’s been abducted, dammit!” Kendall’s voice was distant thunder, his agitation clearly getting worse. Charlie wanted to shout back, to tell his friend to settle down, shut up, and let him get on with handling this.

  You’re only making it worse, little mate. You’re playing right into Small’s hands, doing exactly what he wants you to do. And I’d best not do the same.

  So he clung to the slight advantage of rank as he slowly drew from the Launceston constable sufficient details so that Charlie could actually make sense of it all. Such sense as there was!

  It was like pulling teeth. Charlie had no authority advantage in Launceston and Small damned well knew it. They both knew it. Whatever was going on with Kendall and Kirsten was none of Charlie’s business, officially, either – and they both knew that, too. But he could ask, and he did, bracing his ears against that goddamn whiny, supercilious voice, half wishing he dared to scream at the constable, to pull rank with a vengeance. Which he couldn’t, didn’t dare to even try.

  And they both knew that, too.

  Charlie and John Small had a history. Both were of an age, both had come up through the country cop system in Tasmania. But Small was a cowboy, always bending the rules, always traveling just a whisker off the straight path. Which partially explained why he still held only constable ranking, while Charlie was now a sergeant, and more than likely explained what he was now doing on duty in the city. Charlie didn’t know, hadn’t heard. Charlie did his best at all times to avoid office politics, even in his own office.

  You must be hating it. Poor bugger. Wonder what you did this time. I really should keep track of things better.

  Most people, at least occasionally, get into a rut. Alcoholics, it’s sometimes said, compound the situation by furnishing their ruts and hanging up pictures. Charlie wasn’t an alcoholic, but he had that element to his makeup. He’d found his niche in St. Helens, dug his rut there on the east coast of Tasmania, furnished it, hung pictures on the walls, curtains on the windows, carpets on the floors. And would be totally content to retire there. He was a country copper to the teeth, had never wanted to be anything else.

  John Small, Charlie thought, was much the same. They’d been stationed in the same places, occasionally, had never gotten along well, never would. But Charlie had a grudging respect for the other policeman; he was a damned good cop when he bothered to work at it. Except . . .

  Small was as phony as a political promise and smarmy as a snake-oil salesman. But he was tough, utterly fearless, doggedly persistent when it suited him, and a man Charlie would far rather have on his side than against him.

  But he wasn’t going to like Kendall, and the dislike would be reciprocal. That was made even more obvious when Small cautiously raised the issue Charlie had been waiting for. The constable didn’t even get all the words out before Charlie heard Kendall’s voice in the background, hoarse with outrage.

  “Goddamn it, why can’t you just say it? Charlie? This silly bastard thinks it’s all a fucking publicity stunt!”

  No surprise, that. Worse, Charlie couldn’t blame him; he’d have wondered the same in Small’s situation, although he might have been more circumspect about voicing it. But then he knew Kendall, whose volatility was legend, once provoked.

  Fuckaduck . . . fuckaduck . . . fuckaduck! You bloody idiot, Kendall!

  Which was not what he said to Constable John Small. Instead, he forced calm and appeasement into his voice. Where Small might eventually fit in all of this, Charlie didn’t know, but he did know this was no way to gain any help from him at all.

  “Sorry, John,” he said in his most engaging voice. “Would you please put that fool on the blower for a tick, before he does himself an injury?” Charlie was far less appeasing when the telephone had changed hands.

  “Dammit, Teague,” he swore. “Will you stop carrying on like a pork chop and let me try and deal with this? The policeman you’ve got there is known to me. He’s a friend, Kendall. He’s on our side.” Charlie surreptitiously crossed himself, glanced skyward for forgiveness, then continued. “So will you just go in the corner, shut up for a change, and give us a chance to sort things out?”

  “But . . .”

  “But bloody nothing! Do it – damn it!”

  There was no doubt his voice had carried throughout the room at the other end. Constable John Small’s voice held a tone of smarmy satisfaction when he took up the phone again. But it took only a few moments of quiet conversation before Charlie could see that he’d done the right thing by taking Small’s side.

  By the time Charlie finally hung up, it was established that the knife would be taken into the Launceston offices for fingerprinting, the prints sent to the data bank in Hobart for processing, and that John Small and his patrol partner would immediately begin reviewing the hotel security footage to see what that might tell them.

  And Charlie had told Kendall that his friend would be better served if he could somehow hold his temper and cooperate with John Small!

  Fat chance of that.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Bloody oath!”

  Ian Boyd stopped dead in his tracks, his tall frame blocking the entry to the shack momentarily until Rose shoved her way in with him, placing them side-by-side as their eyes adjusted to the dimness inside, as their minds adjusted to what they faced.

  A slender woman with long, unkempt, strawberry-blonde hair was crouched, facing them, her eyes narrowed, her entire body poised for action, a length of steel rod in her bound hands. She wore jeans, hiking boots, a worn, faded bush shirt, and, they quickly noted, a chain that encircled her narrow waist, then ran to an eyebolt in the wall behind her.

  She looked angry, terrified, vulnerable, and dangerous, all at the same time. Like the sort of mad person folklore said every old rural family in Tasmania kept chained up under some tree in a back paddock someplace. A nonsense, of course. Usually.

  Rose knew all about mad women from the back paddocks. Knew also that this wasn’t one of them. Knew, once her eyes had adjusted to the gloom inside the hovel and she was able to get a clear look, exactly who this woman was. Rose had seen her picture all too often on international television and in Kendall’s damned book.

  But here? Now? She knew who . . . but not why. It made no sense at all, but it was certainly interesting. Fascinating, in fact.

  “Get yourself outside and keep a lookout while I sort this out,” she demanded, her voice a whip crack aimed at making Ian obey before he said another word. She was so certain of her domination that she didn’t even bother to look at him. She kept her eyes fixed on the disheveled figure at the end of the chain, willing the captive also to stay silent.

  Ian muttered an indistinct obscenity, then shambled outside, slamming the heavy door behind him. Clearly he wasn’t happy, but Rose didn’t care. Not now. Now, there were more important things to worry about.

  “You’re Teague Kendall’s . . .” And she stumbled over her words, unsure how to define Kirsten. She had, of course, read Kendall’s book, but that, too, had skirted around any specific definition. Was this woman a fiancé, girlfriend, or something more or less than either?

  “I’m Kirsten Knelsen, and . . .” Kirsten glanced down at her bound hands, held them up in front of her as if to make sure Rose could also see them. “. . . I could really use some help, here.”

  “What’s going on?” Rose asked the question, but made no move to help Kirsten.

  “I don’t know! Will you please cut me loose?”

  Rose stayed silent, but her mind was racing a mile a minute. Obviously, Kendall’s girl had been kidnapped, but why? And by whom? And – most important of all – how could she turn this situation to her own best advantage?

>   “You’ve been kidnapped.” It was neither question nor direct statement, merely a verbal expression of the thoughts in Rose’s fertile mind. “Yeah, that’d be it. But by who . . . whom?”

  And she could have kicked herself. Among the baggage from Rose’s brief marriage to Teague Kendall was an often subconscious awareness of proper word usage and grammar, and worse, it cropped up at the most unexpected times.

  Damn you, Teague Kendall, for that too, why not?

  Rose blamed Teague Kendall for a lot of things, not least his having dared to achieve his success as a novelist after their divorce and under circumstances that didn’t entitle her to the financial share of it all she thought was rightfully hers. And then going back to Canada and striking it rich again – because of this woman here!

  It wasn’t true, of course, but even God could never convince Rose that she hadn’t earned a share of Teague’s financial success. Like sixty percent, maybe. Or more. Maybe even seventy-five percent. Hadn’t she put her entire life on hold so that he would have the time in the evenings and early mornings and on weekends to work on his damned novels? Hadn’t she given up parties, nights out with the girls from work (she’d been working as a psych nurse in Hobart then, where Kendall was employed as a journalist), and even fought to get her shifts regularized so they could spend more time together? Which he spent writing his damned novels!

  Rose hadn’t done any such thing, actually. Except in the very beginning, when the relationship was new and they spent as much time in bed as he did at his word processor. Almost from the moment he’d decided to try his hand as a novelist, however, the resultant restraints on Rose’s lifestyle had galled and chafed like an ill-fitting halter.

  By her own admission, Rose was a hedonist. She’d told Teague that, right from the start. Almost. She’d been honest. Almost. If she’d had his way with words, she might have more properly defined the word hedonist, might have gone beyond the clinical definition. Because it wasn’t so much that Rose believed that pleasure was the chief good and proper aim in life – Rose believed that her pleasure was those things and more. Nobody else’s pleasure was remotely relevant.