by Garry Disher
When that was leaked, Tremayne’s health took a downturn. He confessed that he was suffering from depression and anxiety, and said he was under the care of a psychiatrist who considered him unfit to be interviewed, let alone stand trial.
That was two weeks ago. Since then a TV game-show host had been accused of sexual assault by several women, a One Nation party member had defected to the Nationals and two ferries had collided near the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Tremayne faded from public consciousness.
A good time for him to run, Wyatt thought. On a Sunday in May, he packed a bag and headed north to Newcastle.
12
THERE WAS A TIME when Wyatt had used hotels and motels for work. But with CCTV cameras proliferating in carparks, doorways, lobbies, lifts and hallways, there was a growing risk that his face would be linked to a major robbery or a death one day. That doormen and receptionists would remember him if the police came around asking questions.
Not that he could ever pass entirely unnoticed, but there were ways to reduce the possibility. He often used caravan parks. A cabin or onsite van a safe distance from a job. Places full of grey nomads touring the country, holidaying families, the temporary homeless, seasonal and short-term contract workers and men or women, like Wyatt, with no apparent ties, history or future. People who might appear one day, bother no one, and move on again sometime later, the barest physical or memory trace left behind.
Other times Wyatt used an Airbnb account in the name of Wreidt. He’d had to supply a photograph, but he ensured his online photo was fuzzy and unmemorable: neatly combed hair, heavy-rimmed glasses. Often there was no one to see his real face anyway. He tended to book self-contained places not attached to the owner’s house and arrive late, so that a key or a keypad code would be left out for him. Establishing an Airbnb history had been easy—he rented several places for two-, three- and five-day stays, left them clean and tidy, and wrote glowing reviews. Soon Mr Wreidt was glowingly reviewed in turn.
IT SHOULDN’T TAKE MORE than a week to locate and steal Jack Tremayne’s running-away money. Wyatt booked a seven-day stay in a cottage behind an old house in Anna Bay, north-east of Newcastle. The owner was expecting a birdwatcher with a special interest in marine birdlife. Wyatt arrived with his neat hair, glasses and disarming smile, together with a long-peaked cap, clip-on sunglasses, a camera case and a jacket and trousers stitched about with useful flaps and pockets. He was an everyday enthusiast, with nothing interesting to say about the world or the weather: that was all that registered with the owner. Wyatt was driving a white Toyota Corolla with a fake Hertz rental sticker on the rear window for this job, and there was no reason to suppose his camera case contained tracking devices rather than lenses.
On Monday morning he drove the fifty kilometres down to Newcastle, removed his hat, swapped his outdoorsy jacket for a cotton pullover and poked about by car and on foot. As much as he ever liked a place, Wyatt found himself drawn to the region close to the harbour and the old mercantile hub. Palm trees, Norfolk Island pines, small warehouses transformed into galleries, very little in the way of billboard advertising. He walked along the harbour promenade, ferries, ships, silos and Stockton on one side, stretches of open areas, hotels and eateries on the other. People strolled, jogged, sat in the sun. The air was scented mostly by the sea.
Then he poked about The Hill—street layout, getaway routes—before cruising past Jack Tremayne’s house. A kilometre from the business district, it was a concrete and glass slab fronting King Edward Park and otherwise lacking anything to draw the eye. As if conscious of that, someone had stuck a palm tree and a fountain in the stretch of terraced lawn between the house and the street. There was a curving driveway lined with low shrubs. A double garage at the side of the house, open to show a black BMW SUV and a black Audi TT. His and hers, Wyatt thought.
He parked in the next side street and strolled around the block. Open street access to the front of the house, but a tall hedge dividing it from the houses on either side and at the rear. He crossed the road to explore the park. Headed back up the slope just as a white Caprice pulled away from the kerb and a silver Camry took its place. Continual vigilance was built into him, like strapping a watch onto his wrist every morning. He thought at once of surveillance, a changing of the guard. He strolled past the Camry, taking in short haircuts, collars and ties. One man even had a lanyard around his neck. Plainclothes police? Probity Commission?
He tingled, a faint synaptic snap deep inside. He wasn’t a thrill-seeker—in fact he’d walk away from a job if it didn’t look or feel safe. His main emotion was the wariness of long habit. But he tingled to think that other players were in this game. So long as they didn’t see him. And so long as Tremayne knew they were there. It might spur him to run—and that’s when Wyatt would strike.
He returned to his car, made another quick tour of the suburb, used a public men’s room on the foreshore, then returned to The Hill and parked where he could watch both the house and the people watching it. He’d been in this kind of situation before, not knowing if he’d be tailing anyone, or for how long, but he was prepared to wait: emptied bladder and bowels, food, water, a bottle to piss in if the wait was prolonged. A full tank of petrol. A towelling hat, a baseball cap, two pairs of shades—aviators and wraparound—so he could vary his silhouette from time to time if watchful eyes were checking rear-view mirrors.
Three hours later the Audi reversed onto the street with a woman at the wheel. Wyatt’s target was Tremayne. But he was said to be reclusive, and there’d been no other action, so Wyatt started his engine. Waited to see what the silver Camry would do before he pulled out to follow.
The Camry stayed put. Wyatt waited for half a minute more, aware there might be surveillance vehicles he hadn’t spotted, but there was no further movement in the street. He put the car in gear and pulled out.
The Audi was easy to follow. But he remained alert for late-appearing surveillance vehicles behind or in front of it or keeping pace on the side streets. Nothing. The wife was of no interest to anyone but Wyatt just then. He trailed her for half an hour, always keeping at least two vehicles between his car and hers, staying as much as possible in her blind spot. If she ever drifted into the overtaking lane he remained where he was, or overtook some time later. He doubted she was aware of him, but thirty minutes is a long time to stick with someone. He varied the hat and glasses combination three times as he tracked her.
She took him to a resort motel outside Wyong. Wyatt slowed and sailed past as the Audi turned into the carpark, then he parked the Corolla at a nearby golf club. He changed his headgear again and hurried back on foot, lucky that a bus was pulling away from a stop outside the motel so his running along the footpath aroused no interest.
He missed the bus, pantomimed the reaction of a man frustrated with timetables and hard-line bus drivers and glanced toward the motel lobby. Lynx Tremayne, a tall woman wearing a plain black skirt and a white top, hair in a bun, carrying a briefcase, was strolling in as if she had business there. But she cast a casual glance at a parked bronze Lexus as she entered.
The man who emerged from the Lexus a couple of minutes later was Jack Tremayne’s lawyer.
13
LYNX TREMAYNE PROPPED HERSELF on one elbow and ran her gaze along Will DeLacey’s naked body. She’d rearranged her features into what she imagined was post-coital softness—she’d been acting all her life, so she was pretty confident she had it right. Will DeLacey gazed back at her with what she supposed was love now that the lust was sated. She didn’t really do love; but Will told her he loved her fairly frequently. Like all lawyers he was an accomplished liar, but she believed he was telling her the truth about that at least. Not that she cared, but it might come in useful down the track. And he was…okay. Too pale, body hair too dark, no hard planes. Good-looking once but losing it rapidly. The sex was fine, and she liked the sense of transgression. Boredom and restlessness, they had always bothered her.
‘Things any better wi
th Jack?’ he said.
His voice was a nice bass rumble. She liked that about him.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head, trailing her hair over his cock.
‘Oh, God,’ he said.
She did it again but absently, gazing out at the golf course. Their motel suite overlooked green slopes dotted with strange pastelly men and women chasing balls around and cheating on their scores.
Will coughed to recover and said, ‘He’ll be called before the commission soon, darling.’
Jesus, really? She was no one’s darling. William DeLacey, flat on his back, was suddenly too close, too pungently damp and sticky, and Lynx wanted sharply to be alone. Resented his need for reassurance that she desired him physically and emotionally. That she’d make a life with him when Jack got hauled off to jail.
She nodded. ‘He’s getting antsy.’
William shrugged. ‘He knows he’s looking at jail time.’
Lynx Tremayne stroked him from throat to navel. She could see in his eyes that despite the turn in the conversation, he wanted her fingers to stray lower. He was entirely predictable, where Jack wasn’t. Or rather, her husband could be predicted always to have some means of escape up his sleeve, no matter what kind of mess he’d got himself into.
Like his current mess, which was making him edgy, but with a submerged light in his eyes. ‘You’ll stick with me, right, babe?’ he’d asked that very morning. Not seeking confirmation, exactly; more like a warning.
She didn’t know how she’d survive if he was declared bankrupt, stripped of what remained of their joint assets and sent to jail. Certainly there was no spare cash around, or the authorities would have found it in one of their raids.
It had been like attracted to like when she met him. Like most escort services, hers catered to convention hacks—husbands and fathers who were variously shy, drunk, impotent, thankful, underappreciated and aggrieved. Jack Tremayne had been different. He hadn’t pretended he was on a real date with her; and he’d made her laugh, which always counts for a lot. And it wasn’t until the second or third time with him that he told her she was beautiful and sexy, and even then he said it offhandedly, like it was too obvious to bother saying. He was no movie star, but his looks had grown on her. Nothing was sacred to him, except money. And he had a slippery mind. So—they were evenly matched.
Except there was a good chance he was going to jail, and their reputations were in tatters and she’d lost most of her friends, and that was only the beginning.
William broke into her thoughts. ‘I have a meeting with him tomorrow—tactics if we go to court, which silk to engage—but it’s going to feel strange…’
Lynx leaned to tug on his chest hairs with her lips. ‘Don’t for God’s sake say anything about me. He’s pretty perceptive.’
‘Shit yeah. It’s like I can feel him probing around in my brain sometimes.’
Lynx laughed, a rich, natural chortle. ‘Exactly.’
She noted with satisfaction the wince of jealousy on William’s face. It suited her to keep him a little off-kilter. But, God his mind was working slowly today. The sex, she supposed. What she wanted was for him to start wondering why Jack wasn’t more nervous. What Jack might have in mind. Where his hidden assets were, if he had any.
And if Jack had his own personal—solo—escape clause.
Other things being equal, she’d always choose Jack ahead of William. So long as Jack could stay out of jail and keep making money. But they were flat broke now, and even if he was only locked up for a short time, they’d be starting all over again. At her age? No thanks.
If only Will would start using his brain and stop thinking like a small-town solicitor. ‘If Jack’s charged and prosecuted, he’ll need money.’
Will snorted. ‘A lot of money.’
She coaxed up some tears. ‘I feel so let down, you know?’
‘Oh, babe.’
And he was clasping her to him, pressing her face into his shoulder. She badly wanted a shower and time to herself. But she still needed to get his thinking on track.
Pulling free, she added, ‘He’s ruined my good name. My friends won’t talk to me. We look like losing the house. Going forward, life doesn’t bear thinking about.’
Stung, William said, ‘Lynx, I keep telling you—I’ll look after you.’
‘But what if I’m liable for his debts?’ Dimpling a breast with her forefinger, she said, ‘What if I go to jail?’
DeLacey pulled her down again. His breath gusted in her face: ‘You won’t. I’ll make sure of it.’
Lynx Tremayne doubted that. Anyway, she needed him scared, not heroic. ‘Will, you don’t think there’s a chance you’ll go to jail, do you? Ever get too creative with the paperwork? Sign things you shouldn’t have?’
A great run of denials streamed from his mouth—well, he was a lawyer—but she could see from the trace of panic in his eyes that he’d been fudging things all his life without affecting his sense of himself as a decent person. If there’d been a warning voice in the back of his head, he’d ignored it. Until now. She pressed her advantage.
‘What I’d really like is if you could have another look at the paperwork. Hidden assets. Property we needn’t let the authorities know about. And an indication of what Jack’s up to.’ She ground against him. ‘You and I have the love to make a life together but think how much better it would be with the money to back it up.’
14
WYATT SLIPPED INTO THE carpark and placed a tracking device on the Audi, then another on the Lexus. He waited. He hadn’t looked hard at William DeLacey yet, but he recognised him from the Tremayne research: news photographs of the solicitor protesting the heavy-handed tactics of the Probity Commission in seizing files related to the Tremayne-Roden group of companies. But if he was Lynx Tremayne’s lover…
Ninety minutes later, Wyatt tracked DeLacey’s Lexus back to Newcastle. It turned into the carpark at the side of a two-storey building near Lee Wharf and he drove past, parked near Throsby Wharf and walked back. Corris House, according to a discreet sign between a couple of low shrubs. Home to an accountant, a financial services firm and Anderson, Grieve and Mott, lawyers. Wyatt returned to the car and watched the building. A small but busy regional city business premises. Harbour views and a few well-heeled clients, judging by the car and foot traffic. For long periods there was no activity at all.
He waited, and he thought. In his line of work, inference was as necessary as direct observation. He had witnessed a tryst between the wife and the lawyer of a man reputedly about to flee Australia with a nest egg worth a million dollars. What did some random information and a few vague suppositions add up to in this case? Wyatt let his mind circle slowly outwards, making possible, probable and likely connections and seeing how they stacked up against each other. Maybe a picture would emerge. If not, he’d observe and think and learn some more.
By late afternoon he decided he’d learnt all he was going to by sitting there. He left the harbour and went to the municipal library wearing his birdwatcher rig. Head down to avoid CCTV, he logged on to a computer for thirty minutes. William DeLacey was forty-five, a Mount Isa miner’s son. He studied law at Bond University and clerked with a supreme court judge. Poor and clever, thought Wyatt. But not ambitious? DeLacey had worked at two suburban Sydney firms, commercial law, before moving to a house in the Newcastle suburb of Tighes Hill with his wife, a primary school teacher who’d wanted to live closer to her ailing parents. One child, Down Syndrome. Joined Anderson, Grieve and Mott in 2015. Yet to be made partner. One mismanagement lawsuit, settled out of court. Appeared to have the backing of his firm, but the lawsuit, the Probity Commission raid and the headlines would take a toll, Wyatt thought.
Was he ripe for helping Tremayne escape? Or helping the wife move against her husband? Was he worried he’d go to jail alongside his client? Did he intend to leave his child and his mousy wife for Lynx Tremayne? Did they know about the money?
The wife and the lawyer were defi
nitely players. But until he’d gathered more facts, there was little more that Wyatt could do.
He bought Thai takeaway and returned to his Airbnb cottage to unwind. It didn’t work. He was in the middle of a job that didn’t have shape yet. After eating, he stalked about the cottage, trying to fit the facts and suppositions together. All that did was reveal more gaps and widen existing ones.
Mid-evening, he switched on the TV. Four men with code readers, earpieces and balaclavas, another watching split-screen images on a laptop: a gang, he realised, executing a bank heist. He felt depressed. The story was inane, the gang dynamics ridiculous, the gadgetry mostly invented and the character roles unprofessional. But more than anything, Wyatt was reminded that the technical world was passing him by. He could barely outwit the alarm system in a suburban house these days.
He switched channels and watched an apparently mediaeval world in which humans of a modern sensibility spoke like seers. Their queen was named Calisi, which Wyatt had thought was a control virus for rabbits. He supposed adults wrote this kind of thing and perhaps even watched it, but it wasn’t anything he needed to know about. He went to bed thinking about Jack Tremayne’s money.
ON TUESDAY MORNING A message from Phoebe Kramer was waiting. Her father had been accused of orchestrating the assault of another inmate. His day-release privileges had been revoked. And he says be careful, something’s up, he was being monitored.
Wyatt messaged back—thanks—and headed to Newcastle airport, where he hired a Hyundai and drove it to The Hill. Cruised past Tremayne’s house. No black Audi, no black BMW, and no white Caprice or silver Camry. He returned mid-afternoon. Both cars were there—and Tremayne’s BMW reversing from the driveway. Wyatt wasn’t superstitious about luck or chance, but knew them as factors in any job. He accepted his good fortune and steered into a side street long enough to let a white Falcon pull out and follow the BMW before he tailed both cars down to the harbour. Tremayne parked at his lawyer’s building. The white Falcon parked short of it. Wyatt drifted on past and into a spot vacated by a Kombi van. He adjusted his mirror and waited. An hour went by.
