WHEN I finally fell into bed that night, I
was well and truly buggered. It’s not
every day I feel for my life quite so keenly, and the strain told. Added to that, I’d had to endure the journey
home under the same circumstances as the outward trip. This despite my protests. I’d put it to Neilsen that, since he was
trusting me to find the tape, what about introducing me to my heretofore unseen
friends?
He’d merely confirmed his status as a spymaster. “Need-to-know principle applies,” he said. End of story. Trusting bastard. Oh well, he had his secrets and I had
mine. If he didn’t want to tell me who
his colleagues were, I saw no point in telling him his safe house wasn’t.
Anyway, his bodysnatchers
delivered me home with a couple of metres of masking tape wrapped around my
head. By the time I’d got it off, they
were long gone, leaving me to resume what I was doing before the interlude.
Which meant dinner. I found my groceries on the kitchen table,
still in the bag I’d dropped when I was grabbed. Nice of them, whoever they were, to bring
them inside. I grilled a steak and
stirfried some vegies, all the time keeping an eye on the TV and an ear on the
radio for news of Sandra. There
wasn’t any.
My mind kept replaying
the events of the evening, and my brain kept trying to put it into context,
trying to delineate my role in this contorted scenario. Neilsen had stated the obvious – finding the
tape was crucial – and my chances of finding it would be greater if the number
of people who knew I was looking was as few as possible. And greater still if those who did
know weren’t looking over my shoulder.
But my objective? Just retrieve
the tape? What then? The thought of how I, a mere sergeant, could turn that tape to my advantage had
flickered through the grey matter a couple of times, but then, I soberly
reasoned, Jodie Aston had thought likewise.
There was a bigger ‘but’. Beautiful
women with beautiful daughters can’t hide forever, and I was not the only
person in pursuit.
I decided to sleep on it,
hoping for a return gig with Benny Goodman, but it was the same old nightmare.
This was the one where I cark it and
find myself watching St Peter as he runs his accountant’s eye over my sorry
history. A sort-of dead reckoning, you
could call it. He tells me I’m on the
knife-edge, then yells at me, “Did you murder Lenny Glover?”
I’m too scared to answer.
I woke, startled by
Peter’s vehemence and wondering why he persisted in putting that impossible
question to me. He was supposed
to know these things; why didn’t he tell me the answer? Perhaps it his judicial role not to sentence
me until I’d confessed of my own volition?
Not that I gave a stuff about his judgement – a dream is just a
dream. But I was beginning to wonder
what Freud would’ve said about my recurring nightmare.
I preferred not to lie awake in useless contemplation
so I got up. I ate yet another
high-fibre, low-taste breakfast, showered, and was reasonably presentable by
two minutes to five, just time enough to grab one of my Artie Shaw CDs and get
behind the wheel of the car before the start of the news. Which did not put in an appearance when I
turned on the ignition.
In the distant reaches of my brain, an alarm
bell sounded. I never turn the
radio off. Leave it tuned to the Magic
and leave it on. Might turn it down
when I used the police radio, but turn it off? Never.
So who had? That was easy enough. Couldn’t have been anyone but the
bodysnatchers.
So why? What had they been fiddling with?
For an instant, I froze
in fear. A bomb! Then
I relaxed. If it had been a bomb,
I’d already be dead. Besides, as far
as Neilsen & Co were concerned, I was on their side.
Then I recalled their
kindness of last night – retrieving my groceries. Had it been a kindness? My internal alarm bell was clamouring
now. Or a convenience? What was inconvenient about my provisions occupying
the boot?
I sprang the boot and
peered inside. Looked OK except for - and
I nearly missed them - a few specks of something-or-other glinting against the
black pile of the carpet. I picked up
a couple, grabbed a torch and examined them.
If I was not mistaken, they were pieces of copper wire, exactly like the
debris you get when cutting, trimming and connecting fine cables. By now, the alarm bells were clanging.
A couple of minutes
later, I’d removed the board that divides boot and cabin. And there, snuggled behind the cushions of
the rear left seat, it was.
‘It’ was one of those
electronic compasses, the sort that talks with space satellites. And bloody interesting conversations they
have; the compass asks where it is, and the satellite tells it, accurate to
within ten metres, anywhere on earth.
This was a relay model, re-transmitting the satellite data to interested
parties. It was battery-powered, but it
needed an antenna, and whoever installed it had patched it into the car radio’s
antenna. Hence the wire clippings. And hence the radio being switched off. They’d probably done that while checking
that the compass and radio didn’t interfere with each other. Careless.
I decided to leave it
alone. No point tipping them off that
I’d tumbled to it. In fact, it might
come in handy. You never know.
The first order of
business at work was see the boss, a message on my computer demanding attendance
upon him. Collinson was cordial and not
the least bit inquisitive. He enquired
after my health, then handed me a memo.
It was a direction to research the latest techniques in missing person
location and to submit a proposal to incorporate my findings into the training
manual. Weeks of work.
I felt crushed, until I
realised that Collinson was giving me what is technically called a knowing
look. Then I recalled what Neilsen had
said last night. I stared at Collinson
and he stared at me, and his left eyelid descended and rose perhaps a quarter
of a centimetre. In an otherwise
straight face, I suppose it could have been construed as a wink.
I tested the waters. “This will take bloody weeks.”
He sat and picked up his
phone. “I hope not, but take all the
time you need.”
Thus dismissed - not even
a “keep me informed” - I returned to my desk to find Elliott doing a re-run of
his wearing-out-the-carpet-in-front-of-my-desk routine. And with the same expression.
“He got back at ten
fifteen,” he growled. “Almost an hour
before Aston was topped.”
I got myself up to speed. He was talking about McDowell’s movements on
the night of Aston’s death.
“The Neighbourhood Watch
fella can’t remember exactly when he saw the car. Thinks it was before ten, but won’t swear to
it.” Elliott looked disappointed. “Lets McDowell off the hook, probably.”
I was glad he added the
‘probably’; in my mind, there was nothing certain about McDowell.
“Night before last
night?” I reminded him.
Elliott consulted his
notes. “Left here at seven. Drove straight home.” He frowned.
“I took a squiz at his car’s log.
The mileage tallies.”
So much for McDowell
having a direct hand in Connie’s death, if he’d been involved at all.
“What now?” Elliott
asked.
“Now,” I replied, “I find
Sandra Pastor.”
His eyes narrowed. “On whose behalf?”
I’d already decided not
to enlighten him about my previous night’s adventure, but with this question, I
could at least be honest.
“On mine, on yours, on
hers. And on Connie’s.”
“I want to help.”
One thing about young
Elliott – he knew the value of information.
Like most of us, he had a personal network of coppers, crims and
informants. But where my network of
coppers consisted mainly of middle-ranking blokes, Elliott’s had a preponderance
of the rising, young, well-placed cops who, while they might not be privy to
the big picture, knew what was going on in their own bailiwicks.
“OK. What’ve you heard?”
“Not much,” he began. “McDowell’s unit’s been checking all her
known haunts, her friends, relations etcetera. They know she hasn’t left the state by
public transport, but it’s being watched all the same. No sign of her car and she hasn’t used a
rental.” He took a moment’s
reflection. “How much start did she
have after she donged Heckle? Half an
hour? No way could she have driven out
of the state. I reckon she’s holed up
in some hotel or motel somewhere.”
“She’s too smart for
that. Knows we’d have her within three
days.”
“Being sheltered by a
friend, somewhere remote?”
Possible but
unlikely. Sandra was not the type to
jeopardise a friend. But I agreed that
she was more than likely sequestered somewhere remote.
Elliott pondered. “I wonder if she’s got some property nobody
knows about.”
I couldn’t imagine
McDowell’s minions overlooking that line of investigation, but it wouldn’t do
any harm to check. Time to get rid of
Elliott.
“I’ll see. You check if she’s got any other vehicles
registered. Then see if Channel Nine’s
provided her with a car. Failing that,
see if she’s got a pilot’s licence.”
As before, I had no right to be ordering Elliott
about. Neither was I kidding myself
that he was growing to like me. It was
just that Connie’s death had given us a common purpose. However, between hearing my order and returning
to his own keyboard, something like admiration flitted across his
features. As it should have.
I hunched over my computer, picking my
laborious way into the probate documents of Trent Morgan, Sandra’s late
husband. Was there something left over after the tax
boys took their cut? Recalling the
relative opulence of her apartment, it was obvious that there had been a
little something, but whether it ran to houses in the country, I had my
doubts. The probate documents showed
that I was wrong, but only half-wrong.
There had indeed been a
house, a three-bedroom, twenty-five square little shack in the high country
beyond the town of Bright. Elliott had
been closer to the mark than he realised – it had been left to Sandra,
but the taxman had grabbed it to defray her late husband’s debt to the
government.
There was no other
property in Sandra’s inheritance, but the fact that house existed was enough
for me to invoke my ‘what if?’ principle.
This is the principle that tells me never to accept anything at face
value. I had a girlfriend who applied
it to her reading of detective novels, of which she had hundreds. She would take each statement uttered by
each character and ask herself: what if
he or she is lying? Applying that
system, she invariably worked out ‘who done it’. In the two years I’d known her, I never saw
her finish a novel. She didn’t have
to.
Sandra’s house had
fetched a tick over a third of a million – no mean sum in the bush. I took it as read that living in such an
abode would not be roughing it exactly.
In my mind, it would be a highly desirable getaway from the rigours of
city life and hence a privilege that most people would be reluctant to
relinquish, especially people seeking an escape from the personality cult of
commercial television. Had she
regained an interest in it? After all,
she wasn’t actually impecunious now and, if necessary, she could always flog a
McCubbin or two. I pointed myself back
to the computer
Damn!
The house now belonged to
a Mrs. Betty Strachan, who’d bought it from a Mr Alec Downes, who’d bought it
at the tax auction.
I had a sudden question: when did this Mrs Strachan buy it?
I checked. It was November 16 – six months ago. My mind was on a roll. I dived into Hatches, Matches and
Dispatches. It took just a minute to
locate Sandra, then a few seconds to home in on her parents. Her mother’s maiden name was Strachan.
It was looking good, but
I wanted to apply the ‘what if?’ principle just one more time. I dialled my long-suffering friend in
Special Projects. “Andy,” I said, “it’s
Mark. Another favour, mate...”
When the profanity died
down, I gave him the address of the country house and asked him to put a phone
number to it, and a name. It took him
no time. The phone was in the name of
a Mrs Betty Strachan, which I’d expected.
I asked him to check the address of whoever was paying the bill. That took a bit longer but it was worth the
wait. It was Sandra’s,
I summoned young Elliott. “Wanna play cops and robbers?”
Ten minutes later,
Elliott left the building, beginning a leisurely drive towards the Dandenongs,
some 30 clicks east of the city.
Inasmuch as he was wearing my jacket, ny sunnies, my headphones and
driving my bugged car, I was willing to bet heaps he would be tailed. From my perch on top of the building, I saw
that he wasn’t.
Interesting, I said to
myself.
Another ten minutes later, I drove Elliott’s car out of the basement, doing my best to resemble my young colleague. I drove aimlessly for a while, an eye on the rear-view mirror to make sure I had no shadow, then headed for the Hume Highway, destination Bright.