by SJ Brown
HIGH BEAM
A D.I. Mahoney Mystery
SJ Brown
Copyright © 2014 by SJ Brown.
artist: Elena Elisseeva
ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4990-1603-1
eBook 978-1-4990-1602-4
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
ev. date: 11/21/2014
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Contents
Prologue Wednesday 3Rd March 11Am
Chapter 1 Thursday 4Th March 10Am
Chapter 2 Thursday 4Th March 10Pm
Chapter 3 Friday 5Th March 9Am
Chapter 4 Friday 5Th March 8Pm
Chapter 5 Saturday 6Th March 11Am
Chapter 6 Saturday 6Th March 9Pm
Chapter 7 Monday 8Th March 8Pm
Chapter 8 Tuesday 9Th March 10Am
Chapter 9 Tuesday 9Th March 11Am
Chapter 10 Tuesday 9Th March 4Pm
Chapter 11 Wednesday 10Th March 10Am
Chapter 12 Wednesday 10Th March 1Pm
Chapter 13 Thursday 11Th March 9Pm
Chapter 14 Friday 12Th March 11Am
Chapter 15 Friday 12Th March 1Pm
Chapter 16 Friday 12Th March 9Pm
Chapter 17 Saturday 13Th March 9Am
Chapter 18 Saturday 13Th March 11Am
Chapter 19 Sunday 14Th March 9Am
Chapter 20 Sunday 14Th March Noon
Chapter 21 Monday 15Th March 8Am
Chapter 22 Monday 15Th March 10Am
Chapter 23 Monday 15Th March Noon
Chapter 24 Monday 15Th March 2Pm
Chapter 25 Tuesday 16Th March 8Am
Chapter 26 Tuesday 16Th March Noon
Chapter 27 Tuesday 16Th March 5Pm
Chapter 28 Tuesday 16Th March 8Pm
Chapter 29 Tuesday 16Th March 8Pm
Chapter 30 Wednesday 17Th March 7Am
Chapter 31 Wednesday 17Th March 11Am
Chapter 32 Wednesday 17Th March 5Pm
Chapter 33 Thursday 18Th March 9Am
Chapter 34 Thursday 18Th March 2Pm
Chapter 35 Thursday 18Th March 9Pm
Chapter 36 Friday 19Th March 9Am
Chapter 37 Friday 19Th March 1Pm
Chapter 38 Friday 19Th March 3Pm
Chapter 39 Friday 19Th March 6Pm
Chapter 40 Saturday 20Th March 11Am
Chapter 41 Tuesday 23Rd March 10Am
Epilogue Friday 26Th March
About The Author
PROLOGUE
Wednesday 3rd March 11am
It was rare these days for Max Watson to have any time to himself. As a builder he found his services were called upon even more than ever, as home owners organized kitchen and bathroom renovations to make their properties more appealing to prospective vendors. Although he preferred to construct a dwelling from scratch, he was never going to knock back the avalanche of jobs that came his way to spruce up the interiors of suburban houses: it was money for jam. The property boom that had gripped Hobart for much of the ‘noughties’ had shown little sign of abating, despite the effects of the GFC. If anything, it spurred it on as people put their faith in property as an investment. They were shying away from the share market as they looked on in dismay at their superannuation funds careering backwards.
After the gloom of the previous decade, Tasmania was no longer an economic ‘basket case’ and, to put it mildly, good tradesmen had been coining it for quite a while. Mates who were electricians and plumbers down at Margate had work coming out their ears. Blokes with philosophy degrees were driving cabs while anyone with half a clue in the building sector was doing really, really well. How he would love to run into his old careers teacher now.
Life was good. His three kids were finished school and all had decent jobs. The wife seemed pretty happy though it was hard to tell sometimes. She’d taken to doing an interior design course and had come up with plenty of useful suggestions for the nearly completed ‘Ponderosa’ they were building for themselves on ten acres at Acton. Handy for the beach and close to the Royal Hobart Golf Club, it was still only twenty minutes from town. And there was easily sufficient room out the back for his pet project: a lap pool.
Today he was going to spend some ‘me-time’ on the bobcat shifting the soil to create the hole where the twenty meter in-ground pool would soon be. As always, it was an early start for him. Thanks to Tassie’s benign summer, the swarthy six-footer only needed to wear boots, King Gee shorts and his blue work singlet. After an hour, he had already shifted a fair old quantity of dirt and rocks but now he had to hop off the machine to work away at a huge stone that was stubbornly lodged in the soil strata. By jimmying away with the crowbar, he intended to loosen it just enough so the excavator’s shovel could get under it and heave it up and away.
Impatient to get it done, Max had neglected to put on gloves. Out here in the semi-rural countryside it was a measure he should normally have taken. He was one of a small segment of the population that was critically allergic to the sting of jack jumpers. These centimeter long earthbound insects delivered a nasty sting to everybody but to some the poison could be fatal if not treated quickly. Another of the perils of the Australian terrain.
Having loosened the soil around the boulder, Max turfed the crowbar aside and leant over to prise the stone away from its spot. Just as he braced himself to pull with his arms, he was struck with a sharp and very intense jabbing pain. Leaping back, he saw several of his enemies on his right forearm. He brushed them quickly away but they had already got him good and proper. He had known this pain before. When he was six he’d inadvertently trodden on a nest of ‘jackies’ which had hurt like hell and had generated this lifelong allergy. He quickly checked the rest of his limbs for the little buggers and was glad to see none.
There was no need to panic; he knew he was severely allergic and therefore prone to anaphylactic shock if bitten. As an essential precaution last month, he had already put an epi-pen in the electricity meter box for just this eventuality. Administered correctly, this device shot a dose of adrenalin into the body’s system thereby alleviating the otherwise inevitable swelling of the frontal air passages leading to suffocation.
Max breathed steadily and walked in a measured way around to the side of the house. Was he imagining a slight constriction in his throat? If he stayed calm and jabbed the needle correctly into his thigh he would survive: there was a foolproof solution. As he opened the latch on the meter box, his stolid approach took an extreme jolt. The epi-pen wasn’t there.
Oh, Christ almighty, where was it? Only put it there last week. Now was the time to panic. He couldn’t shout for help…his throat really was tightening. His mobile! He ran over to his van…stuff worrying about his pulse rate now. Opening the passenger door, he found it in the usual spot by the gear shift. Pressing the green button, he couldn’t believe his eyes for the second time that morning. No charge. No recharger. Not
hing. Dead. As he rasped his penultimate breath he thought of his old man. On his last he simply keeled over. Gone.
CHAPTER 1
Thursday 4th March 10am
It would have been practically impossible for James Cartwright to be feeling anything other than buoyant as he strode along the walkway from the Morris Miller Library to the lecture theatre. The planets were aligning themselves. By mid-morning a bright day had developed: the sort of Hobart day that encouraged shirtsleeves but did not quite justify a trip to the beach. A visiting Sydneysider would recognize the sort of weather enjoyed by that metropolis in May and be grateful for the lack of humidity. Cartwright felt alive: his New Year’s exercise regimen was still in place (remarkably so, given the track record of previous attempts) and the flat stomach and more upright posture were testimony to regular attendance at Pilates classes. They were not cheap but the feeling of well-being they helped to generate made it money well spent. An investment in the temple.
And all the kit for his freshly developed enthusiasm for bike riding had stretched his credit card as well but the general benefits were certain…fat loss, stronger legs and the acquisition of a completely new group of mates. The intestinal broom of a detox diet for all of January had also helped him tidy up his body. He felt sharper, slept better and was more confident in himself. Mens sana in corpore sano: his body had caught up to his mind.
As he neared the Stanley Burbury Building, he noticed a lone female sitting at one of the refectory’s outdoor tables. Recalled she was a regular participant at some of his Pilates classes. Having surreptitiously ogled her figure through the summer, this was an opportunity to exchange more than a quick greeting. He paused by her table. “Hello there, how are you?”
She looked up from the newspaper and, he was pleased to note, recognized him straight away. “Oh, hi. You’re a hard-core man, aren’t you?”
Cartwright was gratified she acknowledged him and delighted the conversation was already skirting the edges of innuendo. “Yes. I thought I knew you from our attempts to cultivate inner strength.” Take a cerebral approach. “I’m Jim, by the way. May I join you?”
“Sure. I’m stuck on a clue so a diversion would be good. I’m Amanda.” She offered her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Cartwright shook hands with what he hoped was a firm, but not a macho pressure. Her skin felt smooth. This was going well already. He sat down. “So cryptic or straight?” In support of this witticism was a quick rising of the eyebrows and a half-smile.
Amanda wondered why he was smirking. Figuring the attempted quip to be a clumsy effort to camouflage his eagerness, she decided to play him along. Why not? She was a bit bored anyway and her lecture was still thirty minutes away. “Cryptic. I prefer complexity. Don’t want to take the path most travelled, do we?”
“Absolutely not. Thinking outside the square is definitely the way to go.” This conversation could get very interesting. Get the minds to meet and the bodies would follow. “That’s one of the things I love about Inspector Morse. Perfect mix. Crosswords, beers and an open mind.” And an intangible appeal to willing females, he could have added but managed to contain himself.
She had no idea to whom he was referring but understood exactly what he was talking about. Subtle as a sledgehammer. Why not ask her straight out to screw him? It was obviously what he wanted but not what he was going to get. Still, there was no need for him to know that…just yet. “Definitely. Flexibility is the key, isn’t it? That’s what opens doors. Not much use sticking to the tried and true.” A Greek bearing gifts. She leaned forward in her chair. “You’ve really toned up in the last few weeks. Looking good.”
Cartwright was certain this had tipped over into fully-fledged flirtation. “Why, thank you ma’am.” Rhett Butler had come to town. “You look as if you should be the instructor.” She smiled straight at him. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Would you fancy a drink one evening soon?”
“OK, that would be good.” She could easily stretch that out to a nice dinner somewhere. Let his presumptuousness foot the bill. “Give me your mobile number and I’ll call you.”
Cartwright nodded. “Oh, good, here you go.” He scribbled it on a slip of paper and handed it to her. “Right then, I’d better be off. See you sometime quite soon.” He stood, collected his satchel and strode off with a spring in his step. Amanda turned her attention back to the newspaper and waited for her friend.
Cartwright went up the stairwell and entered the James Macaulay Auditorium. The 11.10 lecture in Australian Political Systems for an audience of approximately one hundred first year political science students would be starting in half an hour, to be delivered by his good self. His style was to arrive early, set up his notes at the lectern, check that the PowerPoint display functioned correctly and then sit quietly on the stage reading the opinion columns in The Age newspaper. Students filing in for the first lectures of the new academic year were supposed to witness a reliable professional who, despite his various external responsibilities, accorded them the respect they deserved as undergraduates by giving the task of lecturing to them his full attention.
In truth most barely registered his presence while a few thought him to be a poseur. Such a reaction would have perturbed Cartwright, had he the capacity to notice such indifference, as he had assiduously cultivated the persona of a dedicated educator who loyally remained in the tertiary system for reasons of altruism when he could be garnering very healthy consultancy fees in the wider world. Or so he thought.
In practice, the think tanks and companies which might provide such an income stream were a bit light on the ground in his native state so the forty-eight year old should have been a mite more grateful for the work commissions he received from the local media. As it was, he carried on as if he was the only expert worth consulting on matters of Tasmanian politics.
The journalists from The Mercury and the television stations regarded him amicably enough but sometimes wondered why their editors insisted on using Cartwright: it was not as if his insights were all that incisive. Still, it did mean that certain subjective positions could be justified because the spokesman for such claims was an academic and therefore theoretically independent of the media outlet. And, they grudgingly admitted, he was an academic capable of communicating the complexity of the local political scene in a manner which did not confuse the average consumer of the media.
His article in the most recent edition of The Sunday Tasmanian, ‘Not so Hare-Brained’, was a lucid and accessible explanation of the historical background and contemporary repercussions of the extraordinary Hare-Clark voting system that determined which politicians represented the electorate. Although he loved language and displaying his dexterity with it Cartwright had learned long ago that, if he attempted to use the same linguistic exuberance in the mainstream media as he did in research papers, he would experience a very short tenure as a pundit on the machinations of state government. The public exposure more than compensated for having to curb his linguistic skill.
Time to begin the lecture. Smoothing the broadsheet, Dr. James Cartwright stepped up to the lectern – up to the plate as an American colleague described it – and began the fifty minute performance. For him it was another chance to demonstrate that on this subject his was the voice worth listening to. He took in his audience with a measured glance and launched into the task at hand; a more carefully documented and more rigorously argued examination of the same topic he had considered in the latest newspaper article. And it went well, very well. The hands of the busy bees in front were almost a blur, the grumpy greens were taking down some notes and even the languid lopers up the back were paying attention.
Apart from one well-built young man who, having arrived late, spent the greater part of the lecture texting on his mobile phone and occasionally showing it to the attractive girl sitting next to him; the very girl with whom Cartwright had so recently had that very pleasant little chat. He fini
shed his presentation but before signaling the conclusion of the lecture he decided to make a point. The lecture had gone particularly well and he felt in command of the room so an admonishment of the tall blond texter would not be altogether unsuitable.
“Before I formally conclude, may I just say this. The reason I do not provide copies of my notes is partly environmental – too much paper would be expended – but mainly because I believe the skills of listening carefully and compiling thoughtful summaries are abilities you should acquire. Many of you do this well so there is no problem. Obviously, then, it is unlikely it would be possible to download the lecture from hyperspace so I am at a loss to comprehend why the young gentleman attired in a yellow shirt in the second back row should have spent the bulk of my presentation on his mobile phone.” The man blushed while his female companion giggled into her hand. “At the very least, it constitutes a significant breach of etiquette. I trust it will not occur again. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention.”
Cartwright closed his folder and turned away from the students as they began filing out. As he slid the folder into his satchel, a voice clearly called out. “The reason you’re at a loss, mate, is that you’re a loser.” Cartwright wheeled around. It was the object of his censure who then flipped him the finger and exited through the rear door. The postscript soured Cartwright’s ebullience.
CHAPTER 2
Thursday 4th March 10pm
John Mahoney rarely took risks. The deeply ingrained professional habits of checking information, scrutinizing actions and reviewing conversations usually led to him being as predictable as he could be. Inspiration was for artists not police detectives. But tonight he did something spontaneous. As he drove his Toyota wagon along Narrows Beach Road, he flicked off the headlights and continued driving at the same speed for as long as he judged reasonably safe. The cloud cover and absence of any street lights rendered his surroundings almost pitch black. Suddenly he felt enveloped by darkness and the immediate response was a small surge of exhilaration.