Inside, Chester stood facing the window like he was contemplating jumping while two men and a woman gabbled on mobile phones. All three dressed and spoke like lawyers.
‘Mr Grant?’ said Emmaline.
Chester turned and an already resigned face sunk even further. Then, as if suddenly plugged into a mains, he lit up.
‘Is this your doing?’ he said, pointing towards the floor. Emmaline assumed he meant the palaver downstairs.
‘Nothing to do with me.’
‘Only two people knew. You and—’
He suddenly shut up and looked to his lawyers who were abruptly ending their phone calls.
‘Me and who, Mr Grant?’
‘My client would like to say nothing at this time,’ said the female lawyer, smoothing down her black dress as she stood.
‘I know what he would like to do but he has questions to answer.’ Emmaline stared at Chester Grant. ‘You and who?’
Chester moved from the window, barricading himself behind his desk.
‘I’m not going to help you. Leaking this—’
‘I’m assuring you I didn’t, Mr Grant. And if I didn’t…’
Emmaline let this hang. If she wasn’t the one who had leaked the details, then it might have been the other person who had known. Naiyana Maguire.
‘She’s still alive?’ asked Chester, a mix of hope and regret on his harried face, the thick beard masking the paleness.
The female lawyer stepped in again. ‘I must strongly advise you to not say anything at this time.’
But Chester Grant was focused on Emmaline, his eyes transformed from weary to wired.
‘She’s still missing. We both know she had information that was potentially damaging to you. And we know you met her on the thirtieth, don’t we, Mr Grant?’
‘You don’t need to answer that here.’ This was the eldest lawyer now, someone who looked as if they should have retired years ago. Probably a partner in the firm. The big boys drafted in.
‘He doesn’t, but it would be worse if it was later discovered that he didn’t help with the investigation.’
Chester Grant slammed his hands on the desk, causing the plaque stating his name and many lettered qualifications to fall to the floor.
‘Did you meet outside of Hurton too?’ asked Emmaline. ‘Was there ever something more between you? An affair?’
Emmaline asked because of the beard and white SUV. It was a long shot but worth ruling out.
Chester Grant froze, his mouth open.
‘Well, Mr Grant?’
‘No. I love my wife very much.’
‘You look guilty.’
‘Last time I checked, looking guilty wasn’t a crime, Detective,’ said the female lawyer, now standing beside her client in a show of support.
‘No,’ said Emmaline, ‘but it is often an indication of wrongdoing.’
‘I have a lot on my mind.’
‘Like the disappearance of Naiyana Maguire?’
‘Like all of this,’ he said, his legs giving out and landing in his comfy office chair.
‘So what really happened at this meeting on the thirtieth, Mr Grant?’
‘I remind you that you don’t—’ offered his female lawyer.
‘Just shut up will you,’ shouted Chester Grant. ‘I’m not guilty. I’m just going to tell them what I know.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We met once. In Wisbech.’
‘When?’
‘The thirtieth. We’ve been over this.’
‘Let’s go over it again.’
He sighed. ‘We met, I asked her to help out Brightside with the photoshoot and she told me what she knew. It was a quick meeting. A few minutes. She kept glancing out the window as if she was in a hurry to get away.’
The story remained the same. There was something about the desperation in his voice that made Emmaline believe him. As if he had too many other lies to cover up to lie about this too.
Emmaline also had an inkling why Naiyana wanted to get away in a hurry. ‘Did you see anyone else nearby?’
Chester winced a little. ‘There was a guy hanging around outside. Leaning on his truck and staring in the window.’
‘Waiting for Naiyana Maguire?’
‘No. I thought he was nosy. Or just passing time.’
Pulling out her phone she flashed him a picture of Ian Kinch. ‘Did he look like this?’
‘Maybe. I wasn’t paying attention. I had other things on my mind.’
‘Do you remember what the truck looked like? A number plate?’ asked Zhao.
‘That was more distinctive. One of the old Ford Falcons you don’t see much anymore. Rusted and not in great shape. A shame really. I remember because my grandad used to have one. He let us drive around his fields after harvest. It’s where I learned to drive as a boy.’
In relating the story, Chester had finally become animated, a smile returning to his face. That he couldn’t pick Ian Kinch out of a line-up wasn’t helpful but at least the description of the truck matched what they had been expecting. It was the same type of Ford that had crashed with Mike Andrews and Stevie Amaranga inside. But in the end it only amounted to circumstantial evidence based on a witness statement from a few weeks ago. And given the latest events, not a very reliable witness.
After a few more questions, she left Chester Grant to clean up his mess. He had a lot of work to do.
The circumstantial evidence of the miners’ ute being in Wisbech on the thirtieth led Emmaline to another theory. Naiyana Maguire and Ian Kinch had been in the same town on the same day. And if they were having a seedy affair, where best to continue it but at a seedy motel. She put Rispoli, Barker, Anand and whoever Zhao could rustle up onto it while she made her way back out east.
108 Naiyana
She broke off the hug. The dry air began to steal all moisture, giving her a prickly feeling that made her antsy, like maggots had already infested the recently deceased bodies and were now crawling all over her own skin. Assuming she would be next.
‘I have to check on Dylan. On Lorcan.’
Ian stared at her. She could see that he was weighing up the new set of circumstances.
He shook his head. ‘We have to move these first. Get them away from here.’
‘But what if Lorcan and Dylan heard?’ she countered.
‘If they had they would be out here by now.’
‘Unless they were terrified.’
‘Good. We need them indoors. While we get rid of these bodies.’
Naiyana glanced in the direction of their house. She wanted to go and make sure Dylan was safe. Mike had claimed that Lorcan shot Stevie. Did he then go and shoot Dylan? The maggots that were crawling over her face now crawled down her body, her skin clammy and itchy.
‘Nee!’ Ian’s voice was insistent. ‘We have to do this.’
Backing his ute to the edge of the road, he carried Mike’s upper torso while she struggled with his thick legs. Though she was facing the body she tried to look anywhere but at it, whimpering as she caught glimpses of the damage, one eyeball and socket caved in with the force of the bullet, the blood rapidly drying in the sun.
After he was loaded onto the flatbed, she wiped her hands on her dress, the essence of death rather than blood clinging to them.
Stevie was easier, about sixty pounds lighter. Again she refused to look at the fatal wound, the still-wet blood helping ease the slide onto the back of the ute. The friends reunited.
She wiped her hands frantically. Two dead bodies. One executed right in front of her. Ian had coldly and calmly shot a defenceless man. But wriggling amongst the stomach-curling disgust was an acceptance of what had to be done, as if some of Ian’s steadfast demeanour was rubbing off on her. Only an hour ago they had been fucking in his dirty ute, her head scraping the roof as she straddled him on the front seat. And now this.
‘We need to burn them,’ he said as he clipped the back of the flatbed up. She held her stomach as he said this. He continued. ‘It will remove the chance
of ID-ing them quickly and break any DNA link we have to their bodies.’
‘In the tunnel?’
‘No. The smoke might only attract someone. We don’t want them discovered until we are long gone.’
‘We?’
Ian nodded. ‘It’s a “we” now.’
‘What about my husband? My son?’
‘Your boy won’t talk, but Lorcan?’
She studied Ian. What was he implying? That Lorcan needed to be removed as well? She wondered if she could go that far.
‘I want to make sure that they’re okay,’ she said.
‘We need to get rid of these bodies, Nee.’
‘And we will. But I want to make sure my son is okay.’
She offered what Lorcan called her puppy-dog eyes, an expression that was hard to conjure up under the circumstances. If he said no, she was likely to resist and go anyway. But Ian had shown that he was not someone to be messed with.
109 Naiyana
She made for the house. Ian had parked his ute a little further up the road out of sight. She spoke to him in a whisper.
‘I’ll tell him what’s going on.’
‘No,’ said Ian. ‘You can’t—’
‘Not the truth obviously. A cover story. To keep him calm.’
Ian twisted his lips tight and glanced towards his truck. She understood his trepidation. He wanted to get rid of the bodies immediately. But she had to see her son. He was the only thing that mattered right now.
She tried the door. It was forced shut. She called out for Lorcan and Dylan. It was her husband who came to the door and opened it, kicking a large iron pulley away from it.
He looked stressed, his face drawn. He was shaking.
‘What’s that for?’ she asked, nodding towards the pulley.
‘I thought it would make a good doorstop. An antique.’
She supposed it did. A tripping hazard too but she let that go. She was more anxious to see Dylan. But he wasn’t at the door, buzzing around or running into her arms. She held her breath.
‘Where’s Dylan?’
Lorcan nodded back over his shoulder. ‘Asleep. He was chasing around after the bike all morning. He’s exhausted. Me too.’
She considered going to check on her son but if he was asleep that was good. It was better than coping with this mess.
‘When did you get back in?’ asked Ian, in the background. There was distrust in his voice.
Lorcan shrugged his shoulders. ‘An hour, hour and a half ago.’
‘Why are the tyres on the bike slashed?’
Confusion crossed her husband’s face. ‘Slashed? I don’t know. I nearly totalled it earlier at the crossroads. I abandoned it after that. It’s left me a little…’ He held his hand up to show how it was shaking.
‘You didn’t see any gold? Didn’t try and take any?’ asked Ian.
Lorcan reared back in the doorway as if he’d been punched by an invisible fist. ‘Take the gold? I assumed you had it. To sell it. That’s where you were, right?’
Naiyana flashed a panicked look at Ian. His lips grew thin, nodding deliberately in reply.
‘I’m going back to lie down,’ said Lorcan, squeezing his eyes shut as if in pain.
‘You do that,’ said Naiyana. ‘I have to go to town to get something.’
She didn’t elaborate on it and Lorcan didn’t ask her to elaborate, giving a tired sigh and turning from the doorway as they left. It was every man for himself now and they all knew it.
110 Naiyana
She followed Ian across the back roads west of Hurton and up a dirt road she didn’t know and didn’t trust. He quickly left her behind, with only the blossoming dust cloud in front for directions.
She found him parked off the road, the rusted old Ford facing what looked like a deep gorge beyond. He was liberally dousing the inside of the cab with a jerrycan full of what she assumed was petrol. She could make out two heads propped up in the front seats ready to make their final trip.
‘What took so long?’ he asked, exertion making his T-shirt stick to his muscled body.
‘I was being careful,’ she responded, glaring at him.
‘Good. We need that.’
She watched as he wiped down the surfaces with a cloth before striking a match. A whoosh of orange flame danced behind the glass screen, smoke beginning to eke out of a crack in the window as Mike and Stevie started to burn. She wanted to be long gone before the smell reached them.
Moving to the rear of the ute, Ian put his shoulder to it and pushed, the Ford inching slowly towards the edge, his feet planted in the sand. The front tyres reached the drop and in a flash the vehicle disappeared out of sight with a scream of metal and the crack of bushes being torn apart.
Ian tiptoed back to her, sweeping his tracks behind him with a branch, and got in.
‘I’ve even buckled them in for safety,’ he chuckled.
She wasn’t in the mood to joke. All she wanted was to get away. Turning the car sharply across a nearby patch of hard-packed gibber plains, she headed back towards the road.
As she drove a slew of emotions overwhelmed her. Fear at what Ian had done, of what he might do to her and her family, regret at leaving Perth, at pushing things too far with BS Foods and Chester Grant, and disgust at where she now found herself. Only her love for Dylan and, even scarier, her singular love for Ian, fought against this. She knew why she was attracted to Ian. They were the same. She had come to realize that. Even now. He might be capable of more extreme acts to get what he wanted but she understood it. The need to win.
‘We have to leave,’ said Ian, as they scythed off the dirt road with a jolt and joined the once-paved road to Kallayee. ‘Pack up the gold we have and run. I’ve copies of their security-box keys so I can get their cash too.’
‘We can make it work,’ she countered, scared of how fast things were moving. They were like the truck now, the front tyres over the edge and barrelling out of control.
‘Not here.’
‘But I didn’t kill them,’ said Naiyana, immediately realizing that it was a stupid thing to say to a man who had just executed someone in front of her in cold blood.
111 Emmaline
By the time Emmaline reached Wisbech, her team had completed the search.
The Stay-Here motel on the outskirts of Wisbech was a flat-topped, two-storey block ringed in concrete pillars that hadn’t been erected but left on the ground, partly hidden now by bushes and ready to rip the axle off some unsuspecting vehicle.
‘We found it under his alias Ian King,’ said Rispoli, meeting Emmaline outside. ‘No plus one given. The owner says he was there alone.’
‘Are they certain?’
Barker nodded. ‘She said that she keeps an eye on comings and goings. That she is careful with her place. No riff-raff.’
‘Even though she looks like the queen of riff-raff,’ said Anand, with a smile.
If the outside screamed Siberian gulag, the inside wasn’t any better, the decor a mustard yellow that looked like one massive stain, wood and beige coverings that had been an attempt to create synergy when it was first decorated but now looked tired and dowdy. Emmaline dreaded to think what the actual rooms were like. And she had just spent the last few days sleeping in a dead man’s caravan.
She was introduced to Phyllis Trent, the owner and manager. Immediately she could see where Anand got his description from. With her neck tattoos and heavy-lidded eyes, she looked like she was no stranger to police questioning, calm but suspicious, waiting for a bone to chew on, almost snarling at their presence.
‘Do you keep strict records?’
As Emmaline asked the question, Phyllis Trent shot her a look of contempt. ‘Been doing this for more years than you’ve been shitting outside a nappy, love,’ she said bluntly.
Emmaline ignored it. ‘So he was here alone?’
‘If that’s what the log says.’
Emmaline took another look around.
‘Do you get many men
wanting a room for an afternoon?’
‘How do you know he—?’
Emmaline was waiting for the question and pounced.
‘The system notes his arrival at thirteen ten and the man we’re after had things to do. Appointments to keep. So, is this the type of place that men use for an afternoon? Their partners kept off the books for reasons unasked?’
Phyllis remained schtum. The most risk-averse form of defence.
‘Who else was working that day?’
Phyllis didn’t need to answer that. Rispoli already had the information.
‘Katie Yan,’ he said. ‘She’s working today too, according to the rota.’
Phyllis sneered at being bypassed. And sneered even more when Emmaline requisitioned her office to speak to Katie.
* * *
Katie Yan was seventeen, with skin that looked perfect even close up, thick foundation and blusher giving her an almost Photoshopped look of perfection. Emmaline quickly learned that this job was a part-time earner on afternoons when she didn’t have class. No way was this her career. Something she stated numerous times despite not being asked.
After confirming that she had indeed been working on 30 December, Emmaline showed her photos of Ian Kinch and Naiyana Maguire.
‘Rings a bell.’
‘How big a bell?’
‘I keep to myself usually. Clean the rooms. Stock the ice machine. Sit on reception, sneak in some study. But she…’ Katie then paused as if something had suddenly tugged at a memory.
Dragging her mobile from her pocket she started flicking through it. After a few moments she handed it over. ‘Here. On the thirtieth.’ She tapped the screen. ‘I texted a mate that there was a fight in the parking lot.’
‘A fight?’
‘Okay, I exaggerated a little. A dispute.’
Emmaline didn’t respond, keeping her face neutral. Letting Katie talk.
‘Some arsewipe,’ she said, rolling her eyes, ‘was complaining about a ute parked in his space even though there were lots of empty spaces around. A girl came out of twenty-seven and moved it to another space. That’s what she looked like,’ said Katie, pointing to the picture of Naiyana Maguire.
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