by Garry Disher
But he was curious about the Falcon. He got out, strolled along the footpath, just some guy out for a walk, perhaps intending to go as far as the lighthouse or Nobbys Beach. Two heads on board, a man and a woman, conservatively dressed, sunglasses.
Wyatt walked on. Federal police, he thought, Fraud Squad or Probity Commission investigators. At least three teams on rotation. Costly. Maybe they suspected Tremayne was about to run, or were interested in who he was meeting as they fine-tuned the charges against him.
He returned to his car and waited behind the wheel with the rear-view mirror angled to show the lawyer’s driveway. Thirty minutes later Tremayne’s car emerged. Wyatt watched for the Falcon to slip into traffic behind it before joining the tail. Tremayne drove a short distance and pulled over on Hannell Street. The Falcon continued past him until it was a dot in the distance. Wyatt hung back briefly. Accelerated again, past the BMW. A quick glance told him that Tremayne was just sitting there at the wheel, looking out.
Looking at the yacht club.
Wyatt pulled in a hundred metres beyond the BMW and watched it through his mirrors. No sign of other surveillance vehicles. What was Tremayne doing? He’d sold his yacht. Did he own another? Maybe the lawyer owned one and was keeping the money on it?
Tremayne pulled out eventually, Wyatt let three cars go by before following. Left into Greenway, left again and back to the man’s house. A white Range Rover was in the driveway this time. Tremayne parked in the street.
Wyatt drove past the house and into a side street. He locked the car at the kerb, strolled around the block, then down across the park and back again. Eventually evening drew in; he returned to his car by way of the footpath fronting Tremayne’s house. No sign of surveillance, no occupied cars, no vans with generic business stencils scrolled along the sides. That didn’t mean the house wasn’t being watched, though. Within a few seconds he’d spotted movement in the window of a first-floor flat at the corner of the next side street. No lights on, curtains drawn but for a slight gap, and, as he strolled to his car, a sense of a face peering out and vanishing again.
There was no covert way of placing tracking devices on the BMW or the Range Rover. He needed a distraction. Making a fast, crouched run in the murky shadows, he entered the carpark at the rear of the flats and rocked on the wheel arches of four cars until alarms blared in two of them. Then along the street, away from Tremayne’s driveway, to a sprawling Federation house at the end. No lights, no vehicles. A brick through a window proved that the alarm had been set.
Finally, he trotted along parallel streets until he was at the other end of Tremayne’s avenue, where he set off another car alarm.
People emerged from their houses. Wyatt joined them in milling about, first slipping on the heavy-rimmed glasses, knowing they made him look concerned and harmless. Two people here, three or four there, a larger clump near the flats. He joined an elderly woman who was standing near Tremayne’s driveway entrance. Folded his arms, looked baffled, made small talk about the state of the world.
In the confusion, all eyes on the apparent seat of the drama further along the street, he fastened tracking devices to the Range Rover and Tremayne’s BMW. The woman, alerted by movement in the corner of her eye, gave him a sharp glance.
He turned his movements into a patting of his pockets. ‘Must’ve left my phone indoors.’
Reassured, she said, ‘Someone’s bound to have called the police by now.’
Wyatt waited a while longer then headed towards the people gathered at the flats. He sensed that she’d follow him, a solid, reassuring presence. She recognised some of her neighbours now, which further reassured her, and Wyatt was able to slip away.
WYATT DROVE DOWN TO the coast road and cruised for an hour. Tremayne’s street was quiet when he returned, few lights showing, no one strolling or standing expectantly at windows. He parked a block from Tremayne’s house and settled in to watch. Early evening his patience was rewarded when the Range Rover reversed out of Tremayne’s driveway and headed down to Memorial Drive, a long strip of sandy beach and rolling surf on his left, lit by the moon.
Not enough traffic to merit using the tracking device. Keeping the Range Rover in view, Wyatt followed it to Merewether Beach, where it signalled right and climbed a short distance up to Frederick Street and a large Federation-era Shingle style house on a double block. It was an imposing two-storey place, pale grey with white trim. Sea views, thought Wyatt. Heritage quality. Worth a few million.
The Range Rover pulled in and parked near the front door. Wyatt parked further along the street and ran back, concealed by hedges, to the letter box. He was in luck; the mail hadn’t been collected. He had about ten seconds.
A flyer from a handyman, real estate bumf and supermarket catalogues; and a Red Cross charity drive letter addressed to Mr Mark Impey.
15
‘THE IMP’S IN LOVE with you, babe.’
‘I know,’ Lynx Tremayne said, with the cute rueful smile she was famed for.
‘Can’t blame him, of course,’ Jack Tremayne said, the gallantry reflexive.
She crossed her legs and leaned her breasts forward just slightly as she waited for the inevitable flow of questions. They were in the sitting room, which looked like a corporate foyer with the chrome, leather and glass, and the Antique White walls. But the leather was imported, the Ken Done paintings were genuine and you could buy a car with what they’d spent on the rugs, so fuck you.
‘Was he here long before I came home?’
She shrugged. ‘A few minutes.’
Lynx Tremayne watched her husband’s gaze take in the two wine glasses. ‘Uh huh. What did you talk about?’
‘The usual. Nervous clients.’ She paused. ‘I think the strain’s getting to him. Maybe if you showed your face a bit more it would—’
‘He looked like he’d been caught with his fingers in the jar when I walked in.’
She shrugged to downplay her part in it. Mark Impey had been panting after her for years, too frightened to do anything other than drop in on her a couple of times a week, just happened to be in the area. Finding excuses to stand close, let his hand brush hers or his shoulder her upper arm or breasts. Fifty-three, a little portly; clean and neat and damp and needy. You couldn’t imagine him in jeans and a T-shirt—unless both were brand new and ironed. Contradictory, but not in any interesting way: smart enough to withdraw his investments as soon as he’d made a profit, dumb enough to believe Jack was a financial genius.
She wouldn’t mind getting close to his money but sex with him would be like fucking a pork sausage, and he’d have no personality that she wouldn’t supply.
‘He probably didn’t want you to think the wrong thing. He showed up thinking you might be home.’
It was tedious. Jack had always known Mark had the hots for her, and always known she wasn’t interested, but he liked to needle her. It was what he did, and it had started not long after his economic downturn. If the topic wasn’t Mark Impey, it was her Pilates classes, her book group, the money she spent keeping herself looking good, her past life as an escort. Except that wasn’t the word he used.
‘Where were you, by the way?’ she said.
He shrugged and poured another slug of scotch into his glass. ‘Called in on Will.’
‘And?’
‘The wheels of the law grind slowly.’ He glanced at the ceiling, then back at her with the amused contempt he reserved for the Fraud Squad and the Probity Commission and their bugging devices.
Understanding, she said, ‘I think I left a hose running,’ and he followed her out onto the back lawn. Tricky shapes all about, the moon streaming down on date palms and jacarandas. Unless the authorities were crouched in the bushes with parabolic microphones, they were safe. ‘What did he say?’
‘He’s drawn up a shortlist of top barristers for us with the right kind of experience.’
As far as Lynx Tremayne was concerned, there was no longer any ‘us’. And she doubted there ever
had been from Jack’s point of view—or only when it suited him. She gave him her sweetest smile and said, ‘The right kind of experience. In financial mismanagement, falsification of records, tax evasion, trading while insolvent, misleading and deceptive conduct and defaulting on loans, you mean?’
‘Fuck you.’ He paused. ‘I was followed again. I’m wondering if they’re building up to something.’
He’d dragged her to the window yesterday, pointed to a white Caprice. ‘Surveillance.’ Since then she’d seen a silver Camry and a white Falcon. It was pretty blatant. And clumsy? Had the plods set off all those alarms this evening?
If so, she doubted it’d been the scarily precise man and woman who’d interrogated her not long after she’d returned from shopping that afternoon. ‘I had visitors today.’
Jack narrowed his gaze, as if reading something into the admission; as if he suspected she’d originally decided to keep her mouth shut. ‘Go on.’
‘Probity Commission, they said.’
‘What car?’
‘The white Falcon.’
‘Describe them.’
She shrugged. ‘A man in a suit, a woman in a suit. Very buttoned down.’
‘While Mark was here?’
She shook her head. ‘Earlier.’
‘And?’
‘Same as last time. Same questions, different people asking.’
Her husband was sour and suspicious. He had a right to be. His business partner had taken a deal to testify against him; he thought she might, too.
‘Details, Lynx, okay?’
‘The same dance as before, Jack, okay? They took a step in one direction, I took a step in the other. They circled around me, I stood still, smiling politely.’
He was in her face now, a fleck of spit on her cheek. ‘Fuck the similes or metaphors or whatever, just give me the gist, all right?’
She said, ‘Keep it together.’
‘Fuck that.’ But he lowered his voice. ‘What did they want?’
They’d wanted to know how involved she’d been in his companies, did she remember signing such and such a document, had she in fact seen evidence that her husband was signatory to a blind trust overseas. But to see Jack squirm, to see what he might let slip, she said, ‘They think you’re lying about your assets.’
He reacted as if he were completely at a loss, making a huge, open-armed gesture. ‘What assets? You told them we’re skint?’
‘I said I didn’t know what they were talking about.’
‘The dumb wife act. Good on you.’
That got to Lynx a little. Face composed, voice neutral, she said, ‘It’s true, right, we’re existing on our savings?’
Jack screwed a nasty look onto his face. ‘Of course it’s true, as they well know because they’re monitoring our accounts.’
‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘Well, I think you’re right. They are building up to something.’
His expression was opaque. ‘That’s okay. I can hold them off for now.’
She didn’t want a blasé Jack, she wanted a panicky one. ‘The mortgage is due soon, sweetheart. Legal fees—which will start being astronomical when your case gets to court.’
‘When our case gets to court.’ He stood there brooding. ‘Next time those pricks want to talk to you, call Will. You need to avoid self-incrimination. Let him do what he does best, okay?’
What Will DeLacey did best was flick her clit with his tongue. ‘I know how to handle pen-pushers, Jack.’
‘Just do as I say, Lynx, please,’ her husband said, and he turned to re-enter the house.
She trailed him, eyes burning into him as the night deepened behind her.
16
BRAD SALTER, FLAT ON his back in the prison infirmary that Tuesday, a cop on either side of his bed. He tried for cocky.
‘If all it takes to be the centre of attention is to fall over, I ought to try it more often.’
The older cop, who’d introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Greg Muecke, gazed at him wearily. ‘Corridor CCTV has Sam Kramer and his goons at the door to your cell.’
‘Kramer…Kramer…?’ said Salter. ‘Nope, drawing a blank.’
‘Being hit on the head will do that to you,’ said the second cop, a young smartarse named Henderson, seated on the other side of Salter’s bed. This prick had never been on the end of a kicking that broke teeth and had you pissing blood.
Salter dropped the act. ‘I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I can’t help you.’
Henderson guffawed at that. Leaned in and prodded Salter’s bruised thigh. ‘What did you do to get up Kramer’s nose?’
Salter gasped, went white, and tried to shift away. It was a question he was rapidly tiring of. He’d been asked it by the boss of the prison, the doctor and even the odd screw sidling up to his bed with a sly you-can-trust-me manner.
‘I fell over,’ he said. ‘Got tangled in my own feet.’
Muecke said, ‘Fell over on the back of your head, your nose and mouth, your legs, arms, kidneys and coccyx.’ He looked tired, and old with it. Sagging features, bristling eyebrows and yellowing teeth.
‘It was a bad fall,’ Salter said.
His mind was racing, putting things together. He was pretty certain that the older cop was the one who’d grilled Carl Ayliffe. That snippet of information had flashed around the inmate population before lights out. Then Carl had appeared at breakfast the next day with a bruised cheekbone and a shuffling walk—but apparently under Kramer’s wing now. Wouldn’t look at Salter, wouldn’t talk. Stuck close to Kramer and his psycho goons.
Salter had known he’d be next and spent a tense few days until it happened. But it was curious that the cops were interested. Why? Carl couldn’t have told them about Nick Lazar, or why he’d been asked to collect information on Kramer—he didn’t know.
Muecke got right to it. ‘You formed a friendship with an inmate called Carl Ayliffe, correct?’
Salter shrugged. ‘Made a lot of friends. I’m a friendly guy.’
‘Made a few enemies, too,’ Henderson said, his round, unlined face a picture of disparagement.
Muecke flicked the younger cop a look, then swung back to Salter. ‘Mr Ayliffe is a trusted prisoner.’
A pause. Salter didn’t nibble.
‘Day-release privileges.’
Another pause.
‘Sam Kramer is likewise privileged.’
‘But that’s likely to change,’ Henderson said.
Salter thought, interesting. He also thought he’d like to wipe the smirk off Henderson’s face. ‘So?’
‘You are aware of Mr Kramer’s reputation, I take it?’ Muecke said.
‘His reputation?’
‘Fingers in many pies.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Perhaps you ripped him off? Underperformed? Or maybe you’re working for one of his rivals?’
‘Don’t have a clue what you’re on about,’ Salter said, dropping his head back on the pillow, tired now, aching deep in his bones. Henderson’s thigh-poking had set off a new, more acute pain, and the bed was narrow, the mattress cheap and soft.
‘I put it to you that the beating you received at the hands of Mr Kramer was related to his extra-curricular activities,’ Muecke said.
Salter went ‘no comment’, as he should have done right from the start.
‘Was he dishing out a punishment, or was he after information? Both?’
Oh, most definitely a punishment. And a warning. And aimed at eliciting information. Salter was unconscious before he’d said anything. Had come to in the infirmary, sore all over, soaked in piss.
‘Does he think you’re a dog?’
‘No comment.’
Salter wanted painkillers, but the infirmary staff were going about their business. Muecke and Henderson could be zapping him with cattle prods for all his carers cared.
‘What’s it going to do to your reputation in here when word gets out we’ve been to see you?’
Salter reflecte
d that it wouldn’t do a whole lot of good. ‘No comment.’
‘We can see to it that you’re protected.’
‘No comment.’
17
A COUPLE OF HOURS after the Bradley Salter interrogation, Muecke received a call.
‘This is Natalie? You asked me to ring if there was any movement?’
Muecke concentrated fiercely, hunched in his ergonomic office chair. Then, making the connection, he relaxed and began to swing to and fro. ‘Rowntree’s.’
‘I’m really really sorry but I lost your card and Mr Rowntree said not to say anything and I didn’t know what to do.’
Muecke said, in the gentle, patient voice he’d sometimes used with his daughters over the years, ‘Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.’
‘That boat you were interested in.’
He stopped swinging. ‘The Santa Ana? What about it?’
She sounded ashamed, then indignant. ‘It left a few nights ago. They didn’t pay for everything.’
‘Had they finished the repairs?’
‘No.’
I spooked them, thought Muecke. ‘Natalie,’ he said, ‘I could tell you had doubts about those people. So did I. But I’d like to hear your version.’
‘Well,’ she began, and it poured out of her, how they treated her like she wasn’t there, how she was expected to clean up bottles every morning, how she just knew the boys were sleeping with Mrs Reschke, who if you asked her was a bit old to be prancing around topless like that.
Muecke went still. ‘Wait—she was sleeping with her sons?’
A snort. ‘They’re not her sons.’
Shaun Maxstead and Dustin Snell, who’d rolled up at Rowntree’s one day, looking for work. They made Natalie nervous, something not right about them, but Mr Rowntree couldn’t see it. He was pretty pissed off now, though, the way they’d shot through on him.
