by Jen Cole
The driver merged with the traffic stream, turning left at the main road, and then glanced back at her in his rearview mirror.
“Where St Kilda you go?”
Jo thought quickly. “A hotel will do, but I don’t know St Kilda well. Do you know any?”
“Many hotels in Fitzroy Street.”
The name sounded familiar. “Okay, a hotel in Fitzroy Street.”
The driver nodded and Jo settled back with a sigh, checking her watch. She had about six minutes before her photo and coordinates would be sent. With a shock she remembered she was wearing the curly brown wig, and delved into her straw bag for the expensive natural blonde one she’d purchased in Chadstone. The Hunter and his people were looking for a blonde with shoulder-length hair, and she wanted to keep it that way as long as she could.
With an eye on the driver, Jo quietly drew out the wig and held it in her lap, untangling the long tresses. She needed to be wearing it when her photo was taken, so would have to put it on soon. However she didn’t want the taxi driver to notice his passenger’s hair was suddenly different. Fortunately this driver wasn’t the talkative type and was watching the road.
Quietly Jo moved to the far edge of her seat, beyond the range of his rearview mirror. She tucked the bag behind her legs, out of sight of any camera shot. The Hunter’s agents would now have a description of her outfit, but the straw bag wasn’t part of it.
A sudden high-pitched beeping made the driver glance into his mirror and then turn his head to locate Jo. Inwardly cursing, she gave him a cheerful smile and held up her arm to display her watch. “Just my alarm.” She silenced it.
A voice on the driver’s two-way radio recaptured his attention and he told his dispatcher he could pick up the new fare in ten minutes.
Quietly, with a thumping heart, Jo pulled off the brown wig, and sat on it. Two minutes till the 5.00 p.m. broadcast. She slipped on the blonde wig as the driver entered a turnoff lane, and saw a signpost to St Kilda. Ahead a traffic light turned red and the cab slowed to a stop. In the relative quiet of the idling car Jo prayed the driver wouldn’t feel the need to fill the silence with conversation. Her prayer went unanswered.
“Fitzroy Street over next road,” he said, turning his head. His mouth dropped when he saw the new Jo, then changed to a leer.
“Good.” Jo’s voice was cold but she felt her face grow hot. The man’s expression had triggered the memory of where she’d heard of Fitzroy Street. Apart from its fun park, St Kilda, she now remembered, had a reputation for its nightlife of drugs and prostitution in and around Fitzroy Street. When they turned into it, Jo told the driver to pull over.
The Hunter’s agents would soon be converging on this area. Quickly she paid the fare and grabbing the straw bag, leapt from the taxi. As the cab took off, Jo remembered the brown wig. It was still on the seat. In her long blonde wig she once again looked like the woman they were seeking and that was something she had to change immediately.
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CHAPTER 12
St Kilda had obviously lifted its game since she’d giggled with her schoolgirl friends about its reputation. Along Fitzroy Street, expensive restaurants specializing in foods of many countries, were opening their doors. Smart businessmen and women spoke into mobile phones as they walked, or perched on stools in wine bars, sipped from long-stemmed glasses.
Pleased that her fear of being stuck on a dark sleazy street had not come true, Jo slipped into a crowded bar and headed for the restrooms. In the cubicle she swapped her blonde wig for the black spiky one with maroon highlights, and wondered whether she should also don the grey track pants and hoodie. Sportswear was down-market for this area, but it would alter her look, so she changed outfits, pushing the jeans and jacket into her bag.
As she washed up at one of the basins, Jo examined herself in the mirror with happy surprise. The wig, which she’d originally thought the most “out there” of the three, not only suited her but totally changed her appearance. The grey track pants and hoodie gave her a “straight from the gym” yuppie image, and with renewed confidence she strode back to the street and hailed one of the cruising taxis.
The driver of this cab was an older man with short greying hair and a square build. The name under his ID photo was Bruce Herron, and his accent was decidedly Australian.
“Where to, love?”
“Wow, an Aussie taxi driver!” she exclaimed, and then blushed at how racist that sounded.
The driver chuckled. “Not many of us left,” he said. “Just a few owner-drivers like me. The ‘13cabs’ drivers are all pretty much new arrivals – Greeks, Lebanese, Pakistanis, Sudanese, Armenians and plenty from India. Driving’s a good job for learning your way around a new place, but it earns peanuts and Aussies won’t do it. Where did you say you wanted to go?”
“A cinema further down the coast, but I’ve forgotten its name.”
“There’s the Palace, at Brighton Bay…” he suggested.
“That’s it. I’m meeting a friend there. Don’t suppose you know what’s showing?”
He laughed. “I don’t have time to be watching movies, but then I usually get my fill of drama on a late shift.”
Jo decided it would be wise to keep up some casual conversation. “Do you travel far during a shift?”
“Depends. No driver likes to go too far afield – you may not get a fare back. Time of day also makes a difference. At night the best business is around the action venues – restaurants, clubs, casinos and so on.”
“Do owner-drivers have to find their own fares then?”
“No, all taxis use a dispatch service. At least half our fares are radioed in to us.”
“So there’d be a lot of dispatch services?”
The driver gave an ironic laugh. “No, two of them have the industry sewn up. You need authorization to provide centralized booking and dispatch using a taxi’s GPS, and in its wisdom the government has decided to authorize just two. We owner-drivers have to choose one of them to be our network service provider, and we pay a flat fee, regardless of the number of jobs they give us.”
“Taxis are equipped with GPS?” whispered Jo in shock.
“GPS, security camera, you name it.” Bruce indicated the camera lens on top of his rearview mirror.
“Most taxis have the latest electronic gadgetry these days in the name of efficiency and security, and recently the government caved in to a group of stirrers demanding security screens!” His voice turned to disgust. “Screens will turn taxis into prison vans. It’s ridiculous. Part of the enjoyment of this job is chatting with the customers. Who wants to be isolated in a glass booth?”
Jo was still stuck on the GPS discovery. “So your dispatch service knows exactly where you are all the time?”
“They sure do. After I’ve dropped you off at the cinema, if someone in Brighton wants a taxi, the dispatcher will relay it directly to me. In the old days it was much more hit and miss. The two-way radios would be going all the time with the dispatchers sending out bulletins asking who was near a particular address and different drivers calling back with an estimate of how far away they were. Drivers had to be on the ball then, and they sure had to know their Melbourne streets.”
Jo found herself shaking. No doubt she’d once again been much closer to capture than she’d realized. At least she now knew she must never be in a taxi when her coordinates were broadcast. All the Hunter had to do was find out from the dispatcher which taxi had been at those coordinates and send agents to intercept it before it dropped her off.
In fact, she realized, the Hunter’s agents could also get the dispatchers to tell all taxi drivers in the area of her coordinates to radio in if they picked up a longhaired blonde girl in jeans and a khaki jacket.
“You okay love?”
Jo pulled herself together. She didn’t want to arouse suspicions in this driver. “I was just thinking on what you said about the security screens. Is taxi driving really that dangerous?”
“During the d
aytime no, but between about 10 pm and the early hours of the morning, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, it can get hairy. Drunks can give you a hard time, and before they changed the law allowing us to take payment in advance after 10 pm, there’d always be some who’d jump and run rather than pay for their trip. We still have to contend with muggers who think taxi drivers are easy game, but I have a little deterrent with me.” He patted the lower half of the seat beside him. “Cameras in the cabs have also helped to discourage robbery.”
Jo hesitated and then decided to risk the question. “Do you ever get police bulletins about dangerous people in your area who might be trying to make a getaway in a taxi?”
“It happens occasionally. In fact just before I picked you up we got an alert to look out for a blonde junkie wanted for kidnapping a baby.”
“That’s terrible!” Jo loaded her voice with horror. “What could make someone do such a thing?”
He sighed philosophically. “Junkies will do anything for money. All they can think about is their next fix.”
“I hope they find her before the baby gets hurt. The parents must be frantic.”
“They’ll get her.” His voice was confident. “How far can a strung-out junkie go when everyone’s looking for her?”
Jo thanked her stars the driver saw no connection between his expectations of a “blonde junkie kidnapper” and the “nice girl” in the back seat of his cab. Maybe the profile the Hunter had set up for her in the police database could work to her advantage after all.
For the rest of the trip they chatted on a range of topics and when the driver pulled up at the Palace Cinema, Jo was certain he’d never think to associate her with the wanted woman, should he be questioned. The tab came to forty-three dollars and she drew a fifty from her wallet, telling him with a smile to keep the change and thanking him for his good driving.
“My pleasure love. Enjoy your movie.”
He pulled away leaving Jo under a rounded fifties-style archway at the entrance to the old cinema building. Inside was an open plushly carpeted lounge area with a cafe and bar to one side and a wide passageway leading to various cinema doorways on the other. At five-thirty there were few people around, and she decided to plan her next steps over a coffee.
Soon, ensconced at a little round table with a cappuccino and a shortbread, Jo began to consider the coming night. Her next coordinates’ posting would be at 8.00 p.m. so continuing the strategy that had served her well, she set her watch alarm for two minutes before that hour.
She would sit in the cinema for the eight o’clock posting, but what then? Jo had noticed a railway crossing up from the cinema, so a train station must be close by, but that was no solution. As soon as the Hunter knew she was in Brighton, he’d get his agents to the station quickly, and at 8.00 p.m. she’d stand out waiting on the platform for a train. Terrified now of the taxi option, Jo pondered her diminishing choices.
What if I booked a hotel room? After the 8.00 p.m. posting I could zip out of the cinema and hole up in my hotel until the eleven o’clock posting. But after that? At eleven o’clock on a wintry Monday night, the streets will be deserted, except for the Hunter’s agents closing in. How will I get out of Brighton?
Jo fought back a surge of panic. There had to be something she could do. Hitchhike? Too risky – anyone stopping to pick her up at that hour, other than some pervert was likely to be the Hunter or his agents. Bus? If any were still running, the Hunter would have the bus stops covered. Return to the cinema? Agents were bound to be waiting.
She bit her knuckles. Checking into a different hotel wouldn’t do. Once they knew they had her trapped in Brighton, the agents would comb through all accommodations in the area.
The only other option was to take off on her own two feet and the prospect of running and hiding under rain-soaked bushes on a bitter winter’s night, was a bleak one indeed. Even if she did that and somehow managed to evade the Hunter’s agents for three more hours, she’d be exhausted and wretched and ripe for the plucking at two in the morning when her next coordinates were sent.
Tears prickled and Jo groped for a tissue, finally admitting to herself that she needed help. Should she go back to Shep after all? Phillip, Tayla’s dad, would be home by now and he was a big bloke. The Hunter wasn’t likely to take Phillip on, but he wouldn’t need to. He’d bide his time.
Though Jo was practically part of Tayla’s family, her story was just too unbelievable without evidence. They would assume she’d had a breakdown. Phillip had work to do. He couldn’t stay home day-after-day pretending to guard an hysterical girl afraid to leave the house. They’d call a doctor and she’d end up drugged in some hospital, which would play right into the Hunter’s hands. Jo swallowed a rising thickness in her throat. She couldn’t go to Tayla or anyone she knew. Well-meaning friends would be the death of her. She had to be free to run… but where to?
Brighton now felt like a trap. At her 8.00 pm posting the Hunter would send an armada of agents. She could hide somewhere until eleven, but by then all the exits would be blocked and the agents would be tightening the cordon. Jo sat sick with dread, her coffee and biscuit untouched.
It wasn’t even six yet. Maybe she should jump on a train right now while the carriages were still crowded, and get out of Brighton. But where would she go? She’d have the same problem in any suburb. Even the city would be mostly closed down at 2.00 a.m. on a Monday night and if she could find a club open, they’d never let her in dressed the way she was.
To stay alive, Jo thought, I have to move fast and far after each posting and the Hunter knows that. He’ll send agents to every bus and train station around my coordinates and have taxi drivers in the area alerted to report in if they pick up single young females. With all the exits covered, his agents can close in on my location and round me up.
There had to be a way of escaping this nightmare. Perhaps the Yellow Pages would give her some ideas. Across the corridor was a bank of three public phones. No phone books, but maybe if she asked… Jo returned to the coffee counter and caught the eye of a pimply boy arranging cups.
“Excuse me, do you have a Yellow Pages I could look at?”
The boy reached under the counter and drew out two tatty volumes.
“A-K or L-Z?”
She reached for the books. “I’ll take both.”
“Bring them back when you’ve finished,” he called as she returned to her table.
Opening to the index, she began scanning the entries, hoping something would jump out, but nothing seemed helpful. Hope faded and Jo closed the book and shut her eyes. What I really need is someone who won’t ask questions and who can spend all night driving me around. She pictured herself sleeping peacefully in the back of a car. What about a limousine service? Would limos be bound by the same constraints as taxis, having onboard GPSs with dispatchers aware of where each one was? Unlikely. Limos were usually booked for several hours at a time. A car might only be hired out once or twice in an evening and that would be done directly through the limousine company, not a dispatcher!
Jo grabbed the L-Z book and flipped to limousines. There were dozens of companies. Most seemed geared towards weddings and parties, but some were aimed specifically at a corporate clientele and these all emphasized security and confidentiality.
Her heart now racing, Jo read through the most promising advertisements and picked out three possibilities. She wrote their names and numbers in her notepad and then looked up Brighton Hotels, writing down two that sounded swank. To hire a limousine she’d need to be able to give a convincing pickup address. Both hotels were located on a street called Esplanade. She wondered where that was.
Her appetite suddenly returned, Jo gulped down the lukewarm coffee and chomped on the shortbread, eyeing the other patrons. Most were queuing for tickets or buying popcorn, but two carrying glasses of wine were settling at the table next to hers.
“Excuse me.” She leant across to the girl, who had just opened her mouth to speak to
her boyfriend. “Do you know how far Esplanade is from here?”
The girl turned, frowning at the interruption. “It’s just five minutes down the road.”
“That’s if you’re driving,” her boyfriend said. “On foot it would be closer to twenty-five.”
“I will be walking actually. You couldn’t tell me a good way to get there?”
“Turn left out of the cinema and go down Asling Street,” said the girl quickly, obviously not keen that her boyfriend had entered the conversation. “Asling becomes St Andrews. Follow it to the roundabout, and you’ll see Park Street branching off. Park Street will take you to Esplanade.”
“Thanks,” smiled Jo.
She returned the phonebooks to the counter and headed out of the cinema. It was just on six. If the boyfriend had been right in his estimation, she had enough time to get to the hotel, book a room and return to the cinema before her eight p.m. coordinates were broadcast.
~~~~
CHAPTER 13
Although the rain had now stopped, the wind cut straight through Jo’s thin hoodie and shirt, making her thankful for the additional padding of the money belt. She tucked the bulky straw bag under one arm and set off down Asling Street at a comfortable jog, glad the track pants made her look the part. St Andrews was a well-lit street with attractive houses and Jo began to enjoy running off the tension of the day. After ten minutes she had worked up a warm glow and reached the roundabout.
In Park Street she slowed to a fast walk to get her breath back, occasionally swapping the annoying bag from one side to the other. Five minutes of this brought her to Esplanade, which turned out to be a busy highway running along the beach. She turned left and began jogging again, breathing in the salty mist from the dark sea. A few more minutes and the Brighton Savoy appeared. Jo stopped to think through her strategy.
