by Garry Disher
Tess showed her. Leah frowned, trying to get a handle on Tess. A couple of glossy magazines, a lipstick, chewing-gum, postcards.
Ditch the postcards, Tess.
I knew you’d say that.
There was also a Paul Kelly cassette. Good choice.
Tess shrugged. He sings about solitary people and places, just right for the road.
It was a perceptive comment. They walked to the main exit, Leah wondering how long they had before it all went wrong again.
chapter 8
Van Wyk didn’t want the client to know which motel he was staying in and refused to let the client nominate the meeting place. These were basic precautions, as necessary to van Wyk as breathing. So he suggested a cheap motel on the Nepean Highway in Highton and arrived an hour before the meeting. This was also precautionary. If the client was part of a sting then the place would be crammed with coppers posing as guests, reservation clerks, gardeners and delivery drivers in vans parked in the street outside the motel. If there was a contract out on him for any reason, then he wanted to know in advance if he was walking into an ambush.
He watched from a takeaway joint across the street from the motel. It was a sterile place, solitary diners at many of the tables, so nobody looked twice at him. He chewed a few french fries, took a couple of bites from a pile of chicken nuggetshed never tasted anything less like chickenand sipped a Coke slushy with ice. Van Wyk saw a delivery van stop long enough to toss a bundle of newspapers to the ground. A handful of guests left in ones and twos, some wearing suits, as if going off to meetings, some in T-shirts and jeans and carrying daypacks and cameras. A desk clerk loitered outside, pulling hungrily on a cigarette. An elderly man appeared with clippers and snipped at a fraying hedge for twenty minutes. Otherwise there was no apparent danger to van Wyk, and he began to relax.
Then a man carrying a briefcase got out of a taxi and walked along the row of rooms facing the street and tapped on the door at the end. Van Wyk wiped his fingers and left the restaurant and sauntered across the road, one hand against his chest, ready to pull the .22 in the holster under his arm. He never used the same gun twice. This pistol had been stolen from the secretary of a Sydney gun club.
He came up behind the client and said, I have a key, startling the man.
They went in. Van Wyk crossed immediately to the bed and sat facing the window, obliging the client to sit in the chair beside the window in order to face him. He put the .22 beside him on the bedspread, a way of cutting through the crap, of focusing the client.
You have photos?
The client opened the briefcase, van Wyk going tense and placing his hands on the .22. Take your hands out, turn the briefcase around very slowly so I can see in.
The client obliged.
Van Wyk peered into the briefcase. Photographs and a couple of sheets of typed notes. Van Wyk plucked them out, spread the photographs across the bedspread, and scanned the notes. He looked up. I trust youve deleted the file?
Yes.
Where is she?
Somewhere in the bush, out west.
Not in the city?
Thats right.
So I’m just supposed to find her and kill her, somewhere way out in the bush. Van Wyk shook his head in disgust. He couldn’t see this as an easy, up-close hit, somehow. Maybe he would need a sniping rifle after all. Where, exactly?
Look, its all taken care of, I get updated every hour or two. Ill let you know when shes been eyeballed.
No names, van Wyk warned the client. When we speak on the phone, you’ll say something like The goods are on the road between X and Y, okay?
If you like.
Van Wyk stared at the client in distaste. Yes, I do like, I like very much, understood?
Okay, okay, Ill do it your way. Just so long as theres no comeback for me.
Mister, I know where you live. All you’ve got on me is the number of a message service. You don’t even know what city I live in.
The client swallowed. So, I ring you here, at the motel?
Use the same message service. Ill be calling in every couple of hours from public phones, providing I find them, out there in the bush.
Why don’t you use a mobile, like everyone else?
Mobiles can be traced, said van Wyk simply.
I want her disappeared permanently, the client said. If thats not possible, make it look like an accident, she got hit by a car, took an overdose, or at least like a random, spontaneous killing, like she ran into the wrong people.
Van Wyk stared coldly at the client, not liking the way this hit had suddenly become messy and complicated.
chapter 9
She was in a land of four-wheel drives, big dusty farmers and tradesmens vehicles, so there was nothing novel about seeing a Range Rover in the shopping-centre carpark, but Leah, with her nerves finely tuned, recognised this Range Rover. She noted the dented front bumper, lack of country road dust, and the two men just now stepping out of it, last seen at the crash barrier above the burning Monaro.
How had they found their way to Leighton Wells so quickly? She stopped just outside the sliding doors, clamped her fingers around Tess’s arm and edged Tess to one side until a concrete support column concealed them. We’ve got company, she murmured.
Tess froze, began to look around wildly, so Leah strengthened her grip. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Turn you eyes to the right. See the Range Rover on the other side of that row of charity bins?
Oh God.
Tess, look at me. Are they your brothers?
Not exactly.
What do you mean, not exactly? Either they are, or they aren’t.
I mean, my father must have hired a private detective to find me, like you said.
Leah shook her head in exasperation. No time to deal with Tess’s evasions now. She grabbed an empty trolley and dumped her jacket and shopping-bags in it. Were going to casually wheel this trolley to the car as if were close friends or sisters having a natter and helping each other with the shopping, okay?
Tess bit her lip, nodded, seemed as tightly wound as a spring. Her knuckles on the ubiquitous leather day-pack were white as Leah guided her by the elbow out of the alcove in front of the sliding doors. Leah watched the two men from the corners of her eyes. Both wore jeans, T-shirts and trainers, and had shaved heads. It was like a uniform. But one man sported a bushy moustache and the other a tattoo on his forearm. That was sufficient for Leah to recognise them in any crowd. She saw them split up, Moustache heading toward the main entrance, Tatts toward the side of the building, presumably to another entrance. Leah supposed there was also a back way out, leading to loading bays and rubbish skips, and she considered re-entering the shopping-centre. But that would attract attention, and the rear of the building offered only one way out, so she kept walking, Tess close beside her, gripping the handle of the trolley.
Talk to me, she ordered.
Tess was flustered. What about?
Anything, so long as we look natural.
They walked on. Sometimes they bumped hips. Their progress and their attempts at conversation were stiff and clumsy. And then Tess glanced toward the men. That was enough to betray them, for Leah heard a shout and the slap of running feet.
Go! she yelled, sending the trolley toward Moustache, grabbing Tess by the hand and streaking toward the car. Behind them Moustache cursed and there was a metallic clang and a meaty thud, as though he’d fallen to the ground. He called out to Tatts, who was closing in fast on their right, Forget about me, get the sheila.
But which sheila? Leah wondered. A couple of seconds, thats all she wanted. She reached the panel van with Tess, bundled her in through the drivers door, slid in after her. She ground the starter, crashed the gears and reversed out of the parking bay as Tatts reached Tess’s door. Tess yelped. Tatts had her door open now. Leah braked, accelerated, braked again, throwing him off, then headed for the exit. She checked the mirror. A Magna festooned with aerials was entering the carpark, braking suddenly to avoid running ove
r Moustache, who’d knocked the shopping trolley to the ground and was groggily getting to his feet, angrily booting Leah’s new sleeping-bag out of his way. Leah saw the driver of the Magna open his door as if to offer help, but the exit was coming up fast and she switched her attention to the traffic on the highway. When the road was clear, she pushed her foot to the floor, the old car protesting around her.
You okay?
Tess had the daypack in her lap, both arms around it protectively, her face pale and aggrieved, as if to say, Its not fair. Leah glanced at the road ahead, the rearview mirror, the daypack again.
Some pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
Private detectives? Maybe. Books and movies glamorise the private eye. He (it was usually a he) was tough, smart, streetwise, ultimately successful where the police were incompetent or corrupt. He operated on the margins of what was legal and respectable, but that was okay, for he did what he had to do to cut through the bullshit and get at the truth.
Leah knew that it wasn’t like that for real private eyes. They were bound by strict regulations and faced a daily grind of lies, evasions, wasted time, belligerent or violent witnesses, wrongly transcribed phone numbers and non-existent addresses.
Like the police, Leah thought.
But there were cowboys in the profession, not averse to theft, industrial espionage, offering bribes, passing prosecution secrets to defence lawyers, even hiring themselves out as hitmen.
Was that who these guys were?
chapter 10
Van Wyk chose a big Yamaha for the hunt, the bike giving him speed and flexibility. He wore leathers and carried a small pack with a tent and sleeping-mat, and the clients first message had taken him to the town of Prospect, way out in the west of the state. When van Wyk was finished there he coasted to a stop on the forecourt of a service station, propped the bike on its stand and went in and called his message service again, idly watching a couple of young guys who were eyeing the Yamaha. The road west stretched empty across a red dirt plain. Good, there was a message: Call your client. Van Wyk dialed the guys fixed phone, not his mobile and said, What have you got for me?
Ive just had word, the client said, and went on to tell van Wyk that the target had been located—except he almost said the targets name before he could stop himself. Sometimes van Wyk wanted to sit his clients down and slap them about the face and demand to know how serious they were. Emotions don’t come into it when the decisions been made, he wanted to say. Names are personal things, they denote feelings. My job is impersonal. I hit targets.
Plus, the wrong people might be listening in.
When and where?
Ten minutes ago, a Coles Supermarket carpark in Leighton Wells.
Is she still there?
No. Shes with another woman, they’re driving a white 1970s Holden panel van, heading west along the Borung Highway.
Did your man make contact?
Not exactly.
What do you mean, not exactly?
Theres another player involved.
Don’t stuff around. Spit it out.
Two other players, to be exact. They tried to jump the target and her friend in the carpark but they got away.
Your man saw it?
Yes.
Who are they?
Don’t know. They headed after the panel van in a black Range Rover. My guy ran the plates: they belong to a Volvo station wagon.
Are you sure they’re not after the other woman? Do we know anything about her?
Nothing.
Wheres your man now?
Somewhere behind them.
Keep me informed, van Wyk said, breaking the connection.
He bought muesli bars for the hunt. Outside he agreed with the young guys that yeah, it was a cool bike.
chapter 11
Fifteen minutes on the other side of Leighton Wells, Leah and Tess came to a sign bolted to a fencepost: Ingleside Bed and Breakfast 5km, and a bold red arrow. Leah turned off and they found themselves on a well-maintained side road that led toward the foothills of a small, grassy range blotted here and there with lonely stone reefs and the ashen tree trunks left by some long-ago bushfire. A few minutes later, they came to a dam, a barn and a signposted track: Ingleside 1 km. The track wound along a cypress avenue, opening onto a shrubbery, a sloping lawn and a stone cottage with a bright red door, flower boxes, curtains, a TV antenna, a satellite dish. Leah drove on, following arrows past sheds, stockyards and a dense stand of fruit trees, coming eventually to a large stone farmhouse. As she pulled up between a sundial and a set of concrete steps to the main house, a man in khaki work clothes stepped out onto the verandah. Leah called through her open window, Do you have a vacancy?
He had a wry, weather-beaten face. We do.
I’m sorry we didn’t phone you first. We just happened to see the sign and thought a bed-and-breakfast would make a nice change from a motel.
Traveling around, are you?
Thats right.
He nodded, smiling pleasantly, tiredly. Theres only one problem. Normally a gourmet dinner is part of the deal, but the wife and I have to go out tonight, and its too late in the day for her to start cooking. We wont be back till after midnight.
Leah smiled at him. Thats okay.
But Ill check with the chief cook-and-bottle washer. She could have something in the freezer that you can heat up.
That would be fine.
Ill have to ask for payment now, you understand.
Of course. Leah paid, and again found herself giving a false name and address.
The farmer scribbled her a receipt, noted the registration number of the panel van, and handed her a key. Here you go. Settle yourselves in. Ill be along directly.
Leah parked next to the cottage and they got out. It was late afternoon now, the air crisp and scented by gumtrees, dusty grasses, diesel fuel, horses in a nearby yard.
Tess stopped for a moment to look out over the valley and the lengthening shadows. A good place to chill out, she said.
Leah glanced at her. Tess seemed smaller, more vulnerable, less bratty and petulant. Leah hugged her briefly. You can have the room with a view.
As if touched by the antic spirits of kids arriving at a beach house, they trooped into the cottage, hungry for experiences. There were two bedrooms, a well-appointed kitchen and bathroom, a sitting-room with a luxurious sofa and matching armchairs, coffee table, TV and DVD.
Leah showered and changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Shed been carrying the clothes in a shopping-bag since Prospect and shook them out first, thinking: So much for buying a new backpack. For all she knew, it was still lying on the ground outside the supermarket in Leighton Wells.
At 6.30 the farmer knocked on their door with a covered tray. One beef Wellington, one chicken curry, take your pick. Its the wifes cooking, mind you, restaurant quality. They’ll thaw in the microwave.
Tess gave him a delighted smile. Thank you.
The wife and Ill be off now. You’ll be okay? Got everything? Theres bread, croissants, butter and milk in the fridge, tea, coffee, jam, Vegemite, cereals etcetera in the pantry.
We found them, Tess said, still smiling.
The farmer winked. Well, see you in the morning then.
See you.
Ten minutes later he was back, shyly offering them a bottle. To make up for the frozen dinners.
Leah was touched. Thank you.
Heres my mobile number if anything goes wrong. Bushfire, bushrangers…
Earthquake, aliens
You’ve got the idea.
When he was gone and the farmyard was quiet they microwaved the frozen meals, heaped the food onto plates and settled onto the verandah. The sun was low, the shallow valley below them striped and stippled by light and shade. There was no wind, only birds settling in the trees and the rubbery snort of the horses behind a tractor shed. Cars crawled across the valley floor, headlights probing the half-light here and there. They heard the distant snarl of a motorbike, and the r
umble of an airliner thousands of metres above their heads.
Tess toasted Leah with her glass. To us.
To us, Leah responded, adding, Tell me about the drugs.
chapter 12
Tess went very still. What drugs?
Leah indicated the little daypack at Tess’s feet. The drugs that didn’t burn up in Mitchs car. The drugs in your bag. The bag you wont be parted with. The bag you even took to the shower with you a little while ago.
Tess reached for the pack, swung it onto her lap, clutched it tightly. You mean you wanted to search my bag? What a bitch.
Don’t give me that indignation routine, it wont wash. So, what have you got in there? Coke? Weed? Ecstasy? Speed? A bit of everything?
Tess clasped the bag tighter. Why don’t you leave me alone.
All this time I thought it was me those guys were after, but its you, isn’t it?
Tess shook her head, a look stubborn and mulish on her face. Don’t know what you mean.
Or rather, they were after Mitch, who’d ripped them off, but now hes dead, so they’re after you.
This time Tess tried to work an expression of outrage and grief onto her face. I loved Mitch. He was the best thing that ever happened to me, and here you are, attacking him when hes dead and cant defend himself. What a bitch.
Leah ignored her. How did it work? Mitch dealt to the kids at your school, but he was also a courier, am I right? He made deliveries out here, the western areas of the state? Had a regular run—what, once a month, twice a month? Regular customers, regular drop-off points?
You’re dreaming, Tess said. Why don’t you get a life and stop talking dirt about Mitch.
Leah leaned forward, her face hawkish in the light of the candle. So what did our hero do, Tess? Decided to rip off the big boys? Thought he’d make his regular run, only not go back with the money but take off into the sunset with you at his side? How romantic
Tess snapped. Shut up. Just you shut up. It wasn’t like that.
