Dead Heat, page 6
Daniel’s dark-blond hair was sticking up as though he’d been running his hands repeatedly through it, and although deep lines at the corners of his mouth indicated stress, he still looked good. How bloody typical, she thought, that ten years after I leave town he gets to see me looking a complete mess.
Daniel nodded at Riggs, who nodded back. ‘I’ll take it from here.’
Riggs stretched his arms to the ceiling, looking relieved. ‘Great. Give me a chance to grab a shower. Start the day over on a decent note.’
‘I’ll join you when I’m done.’
‘Sally G’s? Or you going straight to the station?’
‘Sally’s.’
The other cop piped up. ‘I’ll drop Riggs off, sir. Grab some breakfast at home.’
So the other cop was local, but Riggs and Daniel were from out of town. Sally G’s was one of the larger, more amenity-appointed guesthouses in Nulgarra, well known for putting up the odd businessman and travelling salesman. And now a couple of cops.
Riggs and his sidekick left, discussing whether Sally would be awake yet and able to rustle up some eggs. She could hear their voices as they walked down the side of the house.
Daniel crossed the kitchen and stuck out a hand. ‘Sergeant Carter,’ he said.
The man had a grip like a mangle, and she tried not to flinch. ‘Georgia Parish,’ she said. ‘I was at school with you.’
‘I know.’
‘You remember me?’ She doubted it.
He shook his head. ‘I heard all about you at the station before I came and remembered the name.’
She raised her eyebrows and suddenly he grinned, losing ten years and looking like the boy she’d known at school, the crooked smile, the penetrating, almost indecently blue eyes. He used to wear a black bandanna, she remembered, and practised kung fu. His fascination with China had briefly become her own and she had even read Sun Tzu’s Art of War back to front, because he had.
‘And I mean all.’ He was still grinning. ‘You were the leader of the pack that used to give the town kids such a hard time. Everyone remembers you as a major mischief-maker.’
‘Nuisance, more like,’ she agreed ruefully, and gestured at what had to be a forty-year-old jug in the corner. Jugs were an Aussie type of kettle, and she’d never seen anything like them until she arrived out here. ‘Coffee?’
‘Love one.’
The grin vanished and she saw his brilliant eyes were very bloodshot. He looked exhausted.
‘You look done in,’ she told him with her customary honesty. ‘Sit.’
‘No. Your hand. I’ll do it. You take a seat and give me directions.’
As he moved to the jug, she felt the energy rush out of her and had to grab the back of a chair to steady herself.
‘You’re okay?’ he said over his shoulder. It was a statement more than a question.
‘Yup.’ She made her voice strong but didn’t think she could pick up a teaspoon she felt so weak. She sank hurriedly into a chair before she fell. The chair cushion matched the linoleum covering the aluminium table. Both were covered with little yellow teddy bears.
She watched Daniel – she couldn’t think of him as Sergeant Carter – make coffee, pour milk, add sugar and stir, with a sense of weird amazement. Her schoolgirl crush was making her coffee. If she was fourteen years old, she’d be pinching herself.
Sitting opposite, he pushed her coffee towards her, took a steady sip of his own, and sighed.
When he looked up, his face had smoothed into a neutral expression. His cop face, she assumed.
‘So, you had an intruder last night.’
‘More like early this morning.’ She took a gulp of strong, dark coffee and added, ‘But your colleagues seemed more interested in Lee Denham than the prowler.’
There was a short pause, and then he asked the same questions Riggs had asked, but faster and without any repetitions. Then he topped up the jug and plugged it in again. Immediately it started to make its usual hideous crackling, popping noise as the twin electric filaments heated up. Georgia decided to buy Mrs Scutchings a jug from the twenty-first century before the woman either electrocuted herself or blew up the house. She’d find something at Price’s, she was certain.
She’d just registered a smell of smoke when Daniel jumped up and said, ‘Jesus.’ He unplugged the jug, flipped back the lid and peered inside. ‘Ah.’ She watched as he pulled a Swiss Army knife attached to a piece of string from his jeans pocket, opened a blade and poked it inside the kettle. ‘That’ll do it.’
Jug now churning away, he said, ‘I’d like to talk to Lee.’
Georgia frowned, wondering why he was interviewing her when Riggs had already done a pretty good job. ‘You think he had something to do with the intruder?’
Ignoring her question, Daniel leaned his hips against the worktop and folded his arms. ‘Ronnie Chen’s name was on the flight plan. So were Lee’s and Suzie Wilson’s.’ He gave her a long look. ‘How come yours wasn’t?’
It was the same question India had asked, but this time, restored by the coffee, she had the energy to give a longer reply. ‘Probably because nobody knew I was flying until the last minute. SunAir’s a bit like a taxi: sometimes you get a ride, sometimes you don’t. You can book, but you’re not always guaranteed to get on board. Especially if someone has an emergency, like needing to get to a wedding because their car’s broken down, say.’
The Kelvinator emitted a loud, rumbling noise, making the plastic salad bowl on top rattle.
‘Bri told me his flight was fully booked, but with the weather being so bad, he wasn’t sure if anyone would turn up, so he told me to come anyway.’
‘So, Ronnie Chen didn’t arrive, and you took his place.’
‘It looks that way.’
‘Hmm.’
He refilled their cups and brought them over. She took a sip and attempted to hide her grimace. The man sure liked his caffeine. This cup was even stronger than the first.
‘If Lee gets in touch with you, could you call me direct?’ He withdrew a card from his jeans pocket and pushed it across the table. It showed his name and rank and a mobile number. ‘Would you do that for me?’
Ten years ago she would have walked over burning coals for him, but today all she said was, ‘Sure.’
He seemed to relax at that, and smiled. She smiled back. ‘God,’ she said impulsively, ‘it’s been so long since Nulgarra High.’
He flinched and for a second she wondered if it was the mention of their old school, but he was pulling out a mobile phone the size of a cigarette packet from his front pocket and snapping it open.
‘Carter,’ he barked, then his face softened. ‘Well, hello to you too, pussycat . . . Oh, you’ve been drawing, have you? A princess? And she’s got black hair?’ Daniel got to his feet and went and leaned against the fridge, expression absorbed. ‘Yes, I’m sure she’s very beautiful, but is she as beautiful as you? No, I thought not . . . Oh, hi, Gran. Yes, sounds like you’ve everything under control . . . Yes, I’ll be back for Wednesday; Riggs is covering for me . . . Yes, I’ll pick up the cake . . . A pink-frosted Barbie cake, right . . . I’d better go. I’ll call you usual time, before Tabby goes to bed. Yeah . . . Bye.’
Clicking the phone together he came and sat back down again. He was smiling.
‘Tabby?’ Georgia asked.
‘Tabitha. My daughter. She’s four this Wednesday, and we’re having a party with all her friends. Twelve of them! God, I hope the cake’s big enough. And that the clown turns up on time.’
He hadn’t mentioned a wife or girlfriend. Georgia threw caution to the winds. ‘And Tabby’s mother?’
The smile immediately vanished and she saw a flash of grief cross his face.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said hastily, ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’
Head bowed, Daniel rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘Lucy died three years ago. My wife . . . she was only twenty-eight.’
Horrified, Georgia filled in the awkward silence. ‘I’m sorry, it must have been awful.’ She didn’t dare ask how his wife had died. She racked her brains to think whether there’d been a Lucy at Nulgarra High but couldn’t remember one. He’d obviously met Lucy later.
‘Tabby and Gran live with me in Canberra, which works fine at the moment, but . . .’ He sighed, ran a finger round his coffee cup.
Georgia changed the subject. ‘So what are you doing all the way up here if you live in Canberra?’
Leaning back in his chair, he said, ‘We travel wherever required. Gathering intelligence, conducting investigations. I’m on the PST. The People Smuggling Strike Team. We decided to drop an “S” to avoid being nicknamed Psst.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘We work from the federal office in Canberra, trying to bust illegal immigration.’
She’d never heard of the PST and said so.
‘We’ve only been going a couple of years. The penalties for people-smuggling used to carry a maximum penalty of two years in jail, but now they get twenty years or fined a quarter of a million bucks. The stakes have been upped so much that the amateurs have dropped out and now it’s run by professional criminal enterprises. Lots of bribery and official corruption. Hence the creation of the PST.’
‘Why Nulgarra?’
‘I got intelligence from our Chinese counterparts that the head honchos of a particular gang we’re after, the RBG, Red Bamboo Gang, might be up here. The RBG were responsible for the container ship that disembarked three hundred illegals in Cairns a couple of years back.’
She remembered reading about that in the newspaper. The police had only managed to catch forty of them. The rest had been smartly trucked off to urban centres around Australia to melt into the general population.
‘It’s big business for the RBG,’ he added. ‘Twenty grand or so a person.’
She did the sums. Six million dollars for a single shipment of people. Not bad.
‘I’ve been working with the Brisbane police and we flew here this morning, hoping to track them down. Make some arrests. Your intruder, we thought, might be connected. We’ll see.’
She recalled the figure she thought she had recognised as they taxied for take-off. ‘I saw you,’ she said, her voice surprised. ‘I saw you on the SunAir steps.’
He looked startled. ‘You did?’
‘I didn’t know it was you,’ she added. ‘Until now.’
‘Wish I’d had a crystal ball. I could have stopped the flight before disaster struck.’ Small pause. ‘Are you planning to stay long?’
‘I’m leaving today.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘After I’ve seen Bri.’
‘You’ll be lucky. Becky’s closed the aerodrome and the roads are still impassable. I checked on my way here.’
‘Then I’ll leave tomorrow, or the day after that. Soon as I can, actually.’ She turned her cup around in her hands. ‘How long are you up here for?’
He didn’t answer, just drained his coffee and pushed the cup away. Then he stretched, and stood up. ‘I’ll file the report about your intruder. Thanks for the coffee.’
She followed him to the front door.
‘Why don’t you wear a uniform?’
He turned and smiled at her. ‘My kind of cop doesn’t wear one.’
‘Why not?’
‘We’re supposed to be invisible.’
Nine
Georgia watched Daniel’s black-clad figure lope down the narrow concrete path, wondering how he’d come to be a policeman, and then she remembered Mathew Larkins. Everyone in Nulgarra knew the story. Mathew Larkins had fleeced Daniel’s father of all his savings in a get-rich-quick scheme, something to do with prawn farms.
Daniel’s father had died of a heart attack soon after he heard he’d lost all his money, and Daniel, aged sixteen, now head of his poverty-stricken family, had blamed Larkins for his father’s death. When Larkins got off scot-free, Daniel had pestered the courts and the police, and when he had no luck, swore retribution. Four years later, when her mother had visited her in Sydney, she’d asked for news about old school friends and, eyes twinkling, Linette had said, ‘Daniel Carter, you mean?’
Embarrassed that her mother knew about her crush, she’d shrugged.
‘He firebombed poor Mathew Larkins’s house,’ her mother told her. ‘They didn’t find any evidence it was him, but I heard from Angie at the Road House café that his mother is sure her son did it.’ Linette sighed. ‘I don’t understand him. Waiting all that time, planning Mathew’s destruction. So unforgiving.’
Now, as Georgia caught a glimpse of a police car sweeping down Church Street and vanishing from sight, she thought it was little wonder Daniel had joined the police. The boy may have exacted vengeance, but at least the man had a badge.
Still thinking about Daniel, she flinched when the phone rang. Since Mrs Scutchings had gone to buy a newspaper – she was itching to get the gossip on the murdered man, Ronnie Chen, at the beach – and there was a little pad of daisy-decorated paper beside the phone, along with a pen, she decided she’d better do the right thing and take a message.
‘Hello?’
‘Georgia?’
‘Mum?’
‘Sweet, I heard from Katie at the general store this morning.’ Her words were hurried, breathless. ‘How awful for you. And poor old Bri. I’m bringing some hypericum. It’s meant to help injuries where the nerves are affected. Do you have some arnica? And what about rescue remedy? Do you really should have a drop or two every hour or so. Jeremy and I were planning on heading south this afternoon, stopping over with the Arlies in Lakeland, but we’ve already rung them . . .’
Georgia tuned out as soon as her mother mentioned Jeremy, her latest earring-toting, ponytailed boyfriend. They’d met for the first time at Tom’s funeral, and just as she knew he wouldn’t want to see her again, she didn’t particularly wish to see him either.
‘Mum, I’m fine. You head on home.’
From the window by the phone she could see the top of an ornate crypt in the near corner of the cemetery. A stone angel stood with its wings furled, hands clasped in front of its chest, head bowed. Rivulets of rain were running down its face. Oh, Tom, she thought, her tears rising. That angel. He’s crying for you.
‘Sweet, you shouldn’t be alone.’
Georgia swallowed her tears. ‘I’ve barely a scratch on me, I swear it. You go to Lakeland. I’m fine.’
‘No, Georgia.’
Startled, Georgia stared at the phone as if it had levitated. The only time she’d heard her mother use that tone of voice was when, just outside their cabin, she had gone to pick up a centipede the size of a Havana cigar, which she hadn’t known was poisonous.
‘Jeremy’s going to make his own way south, so it’ll just be me. I’ll be leaving for Nulgarra the second I’ve put the phone down.’ Linette’s tone hadn’t changed. Hard, determined. ‘I want to see you. Make sure you’re really all right.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘The more you say you’re fine, the more I want to make sure. I’ll be there in a couple of hours.’
Click.
Georgia stood gazing at a straggly spider plant on the windowsill. Mum to the rescue. Amazing. She didn’t think she had it in her. But then she remembered the time not long after Dad had died, when a burglar had seen their unlatched windows in Glastonbury and crept into their house. Her mother hadn’t hidden beneath the bedclothes, she’d ripped her bedside light free of its socket and charged for the man. Then she’d chased him outside and along the street dressed in nothing but her flimsy nightie.
Back then she and Dawn hadn’t been astounded as much as impressed, and now she was going through the same emotions. Georgia gave a small smile, and shook her head. Her mother could certainly pull a surprise when she wanted. Turning her mind to practicalities, she decided to get some lunch in, rather than rely on Mrs Scutchings cooking for them. She’d get some snapper or maybe some bream. Her mum loved fish.
Promising to leave Mrs Scutchings some money to cover her calls, Georgia rang India Kane. It was barely eight o’clock and India was, she said sleepily, still in bed. Georgia told the reporter that the aerodrome was shut and some roads still impassable, and they arranged to meet at the National Hotel for a drink in the evening. Then Georgia rang her housemate, Annie, and filled her in.
‘You mean your plane got trashed into a million pieces and I still don’t get to inherit your estate?’
Georgia laughed. ‘Better luck next time.’
After reassuring Annie she was okay, that she’d be back soon, Georgia hung up and redialled. The line was terrible, but she could just make out Maggie’s voice shouting anxiously, ‘G? G, is that you?’
Now was definitely not the time to remind her boss not to call her G, which made her sound like a goddam horse.
‘Yes, it’s me!’ she yelled back, and suddenly the line went crystal-clear.
‘Ah, that’s better,’ Maggie sighed. ‘Bloody Harbour Bridge always interferes with reception. So, how was the funeral?’
‘More’s happened since then,’ she said, and quickly filled her in on the crash.
‘Shouldn’t you be in hospital?’ Maggie sounded shocked and upset.
She reassured Maggie as she had her housemate, and was reminded of the run-up to Tom’s funeral, where she had spent an inordinate amount of time reassuring everyone she was okay when all she wanted was to be left alone. Heavens, reassuring people was just so exhausting.
Eventually Maggie began to sound relieved, and resumed her normal brisk tone rather than sounding as though she was speaking to someone lame-brained and on their deathbed.
‘Well, obviously you won’t be back in time for the conference. We’ll miss you and, dammit, you’ll miss Alan McGary! I’ll get him to sign one of his books for you, I know what a fan you are.’
‘Only because he’s gorgeous!’
‘And what would Charlie say about that?’
‘It’s none of Charlie’s business.’
She heard Maggie’s sign down the line. ‘Don’t tell me you two split up.’
‘That’s right.’
