Undara

by Annie Seaton

  He glanced outside as he dialled the number. It had rained until almost midnight, but now the sun was out and glinting on the narrow channel of water trickling down the drive from where the water tank had overflowed.

  ‘Townsville City Bank, may I help you?’

  ‘Good morning, it’s Travis Carlyle from Hidden Valley calling. I need to speak to Graham Edmonds as a matter of urgency.’

  ‘Just one moment, Mr Carlyle. I’ll see if the manager is free.’

  Travis held back a groan as the blasted music chimed in. Finally, the phone picked up.

  ‘Travis. It’s been a while. Haven’t seen you down here for a long time.’

  ‘Graham. I need to be brief. We have an emergency up here. The police are involved, and I have to go out and search for someone who’s gone missing.’

  ‘Sure, Travis, but what can I do to help?’

  ‘A new account has been started in my name, and I know nothing about it. How do I put a stop to anyone accessing that account until I can get down there and sort it out?’

  ‘You say it’s in your name?’

  ‘Yes. Apparently. This is the account number.’ He read off the number that Baker had given him.

  ‘Just a moment.’ A keyboard clicked as he waited.

  ‘Okay. It’s in your name, and your identification is on file against it. It was opened at a branch in Brisbane about three weeks ago.’

  ‘The bastard,’ Travis muttered.

  ‘Sorry?’ Graham asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ Travis tried to relax his clenched jaw. ‘Can you put a stop on any access to that account until I get down there next week?’

  ‘I can. Just some security questions for you,’ Graham said. ‘I know it’s you, but I have to follow security protocol.’

  Travis provided his date of birth, his mother’s maiden name, and the name of his first pet, the third security question, and it was done quickly.

  ‘Okay, Travis. All good.’ Graham’s voice was brisk. ‘Are you aware a sizable deposit went into that account today?’

  ‘No, I don’t know anything about the account. That’s the issue. But what do you mean by sizable?’

  ‘A quarter of a million dollars.’

  ‘What? Are you frigging serious?’ Travis sagged against the wall and held the phone tightly against his ear. ‘Are you able to tell me where the deposit came from?’

  ‘I can. Give me a moment.’

  Travis waited, tapping his foot on the floor as he stared at the wall, not seeing anything.

  ‘A company called Carroglen.’

  ‘The fucking bastard. He’s sold out.’ White-hot fury filled Travis. ‘Just make sure you put a stop on it, and Graham, if my brother comes into the bank, delay him somehow and call the police. I’ll give you a direct number to call. Whatever you do don’t let him withdraw any of that money.’

  ‘Okay, it’s guaranteed. No one can access those funds until you personally come and sort this out.’

  ‘Thanks, Graham. I really appreciate you doing this over the phone for me. I’ll come on Monday … if I can. If the situation here is resolved.’

  ‘Okay, Travis. I’ll see you when you get here. Ring first to make sure I’m free. And I hope everything works out for you.’

  CHAPTER

  29

  Townsville City, 1 February, 2.30 pm

  It wasn’t long before the gloss rubbed off Gavin’s mood. His flight had been delayed by two hours, and once he’d bought some lunch, coffee and a newspaper at the airport, he’d run out of cash. At first he’d scowled when he’d read the headline, ‘Cryptocurrency crash as bitcoin and other prices tumble,’ but then he’d realised that if it was going to crash, it couldn’t have happened on a better day. The day he was buying again.

  All he had to decide was how much to spend and how much to leave in cash reserves. Prices had dropped before and he knew it wouldn’t last. Now that China was clamping down on digital currencies, the western world was taking it up more and more. But the little niggle of concern unsettled him, and as the plane got closer to Townsville, he thought about the unit. He had to decide whether to sell it or rent it out.

  Selling would be a problem, because they’d want addresses and other details, and Gavin intended to disappear. And if he rented it out, that would be a steady little bit of pocket money going into his account. That could be kept anonymous, too, once he set up an agent to manage it.

  ‘Should have thought of that before,’ he muttered, and stopped when the woman sitting beside him looked at him. ‘I could have made some cash out of that when I was short.’ He stared back at the woman until she looked away.

  The problem of what to do with the unit was still on his mind as he walked through the car park to the ute, but he figured renting it was the way to go. As soon as he finished at the bank, he’d go to the real estate agent that managed the block and put it up for rental.

  And then the only problem was deciding where he would book a flight to. Vanuatu looked good; he’d met a guy at the bar one night who’d told him about all the Americans who were hiding on some of the smaller islands there.

  Not that I need to hide. I’ve done nothing wrong, just taken what is mine by rights.

  He’d like to see someone try to take it off him.

  He drove around for ten minutes before he could find a park, and in the end, he had to park two blocks away from the bank. The smile on his face was wide as the automatic doors opened in front of him. He’d brought the folder he’d left in the car with his identification in it in case there were any problems transferring that amount of money into his account.

  As he walked into the bank, he frowned. It had been refurbished and there were no counters where the tellers used to be. It was a pain having to come into the branch, but the amount he was transferring exceeded the daily one-hundred-thousand-dollar limit. Looking up at the huge red-and-gold sign above, emblazoned with the bank’s logo, he read, Technology, Leading City Bank Forwards. Underneath the sign was a line of individual booths with a computer in each.

  As he stood hesitating, a customer service officer approached him.

  ‘Welcome to our new technology branch, sir. What service would you like to use today?’ She was tall and blonde and her shirt moulded a nice pair of breasts.

  Gavin slowly lifted his gaze from her chest. ‘I want to transfer some money from account to account, and I want to withdraw some cash, too,’ he said.

  ‘This way, sir. All of the instructions are straightforward, but if you have any issues just press the button beside the terminal, and I’ll come out and help you.’ Her perfume wafted around him as she left him at the terminal.

  Gavin could barely contain his glee as he pulled out his wallet and removed the cards for each account. He inserted the card for the new account and the balance came up on the screen.

  Two hundred and fifty thousand fucking dollars.

  He wanted to turn around and call everyone over to see how rich he was. He glanced up and bit back a smile. Apart from the old pensioner on a walker, the cool, air-conditioned space was empty. Gavin stood there for a moment, wondering if the system would let him empty the account. Another grin lifted his lips.

  Nah, he’d leave Travis ten bucks in it, and then it wouldn’t bring up any account-closure flags. Although if it did, the pretty blonde would see how much money he had. He’d picked his time carefully and made sure that the manager who knew Travis had gone to lunch. Watching the bank and checking out his routine had filled in a few days for Gavin a couple of months back.

  He pushed the ‘transfer funds’ button on the side of the screen, and when requested he entered his pin number for a second time, and then chose his linked account. Pride filled his chest as he typed in the transfer amount on the keyboard. Two hundred and forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety dollars.

  Enjoy your ten bucks, Trav. Who needed to go to some fancy boarding school and university? He’d done neither and had more brains than anyone he knew.


  The timer on the screen whirred in a circle, and when the circle closed a message appeared: ‘This amount exceeds your daily limit. If you wish to continue, please press for assistance.’

  Good. Blondie would get to see how wealthy he was, after all. Gavin pressed the button for assistance, and after a moment, the blonde girl came out of the office.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I need to increase my transfer limit, so I can transfer funds to my other account.’

  ‘Certainly. All I need is some identification, Mr—?’

  ‘Carlyle. Travis Carlyle.’ Perspiration beaded on Gavin’s brow as he pulled out the fake driving licence he’d bought in Travis’s name. The girl glanced at it and nodded before she looked at the screen.

  Her eyes widened. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Carlyle. I’m only a customer service officer. This exceeds the amount I have authority to clear for transfer. I’ll have to wait till the manager comes back from lunch to authorise a transfer of that size.’

  Jesus. What now? Panic began to churn in Gavin’s gut, and he thought quickly. Glancing at his watch, he shook his head. ‘Look, I don’t have time now. I have an appointment, I’ll come back later and do it. I’ll just withdraw some cash now, and I’ll come back and see Graham later. What time does he finish lunch?’

  ‘He’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Right, I’ll be back in an hour or two.’

  ‘Okay. If you’re happy to do that, I’ll leave you to it.’

  Gavin nodded and pulled his handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers. He wiped his neck and turned back to the screen.

  How much? How much could he withdraw before he got another stupid message like that? He settled for two thousand to start with and pressed the ‘withdrawal’ button. The circle whirred as he stared at the screen. This time, when the error message came up, anger began a slow burn in his stomach.

  ‘Funds not available.’

  Jesus, he’d give them fucking funds not available. Gavin pressed the ‘cancel’ button and lowered the withdrawal to just under two thousand dollars. He’d have to call her over and change all of the account limits on her iPad. It was strange that there were limits; when he’d set up the account, he’d tested it a few times with some of his bitcoin profits and he’d never had an issue before.

  Not so clever, after all, Gav. Travis’s voice filled his thoughts so clearly, Gavin turned around, half expecting to see his brother standing beside him, but no one was there apart from the old bloke stabbing at the screen.

  ‘Shut up,’ he said.

  The other man glanced at him and Gavin glared back as he put the new withdrawal amount in. This time as the circle whirred, he knew it wasn’t going to work before the error message appeared.

  Fucking hell. What was he going to do now? He didn’t have more than five bucks in his wallet. Biting his lip, he stared at the screen. From memory, there was about forty bucks in his own account. He inserted the card and asked for the balance to be displayed on the screen. Forty dollars. He pressed ‘withdraw’ and the transaction went through. As he opened his wallet to put the money in, a shadow fell across him.

  ‘Hello, Gavin. Deandra said you were having some issues with your account?’

  Gavin looked up at Graham Edmonds, the manager. The blonde girl—Deandra—was hovering in the doorway, the phone pressed to her ear, her eyes fixed on him.

  ‘Oh, hello, Graham. No. Not at all. No problems.’ He held up his wallet. ‘Have to run. I have an appointment.’

  Graham shot a glance at his assistant, and Gavin saw her nod as she walked back into the office. Suspicion flared as he looked at Graham. If the blonde bimbo had told Graham he was Travis, Graham would be wondering what was going on.

  What to do? What to do? His eyelids flickered as the words went round and round.

  ‘Come into my office for a moment, Gavin. We can get it sorted for you now. It’ll be quick, and there’ll be no need for you to come back later.’

  For a moment Gavin hesitated, wondering if he could wing it, and then common sense came into play. Of course, they wouldn’t let him transfer money from an account that purportedly belonged to his brother.

  ‘No. I’ll come back later.’ He turned for the exit, but Graham grabbed his arm.

  ‘I think you need to do it now.’ His grip was firm, and Gavin stared at him. There was something in Graham’s eyes that told Gavin he knew something was going on. ‘We’ll sort it out now.’

  Gavin wrenched his arm from his grip. ‘No.’

  He raced for the exit as Graham yelled to the blonde, ‘Tell them he’s taking off!’

  Tell bloody who? What the hell had happened?

  As he stepped out onto the footpath, two cars came flying around the corner into Sturt Street and pulled up outside the bank.

  Gavin put his head down and ducked into the doorway of the next office block. Four men hurried from the cars into the bank; he knew by just looking at them they were plain-clothes cops.

  Muttering under his breath, he made his way through the building. He’d been in here before and knew there was a shortcut to Walker Street at the back of the foyer. Trying not to run and draw attention to himself, Gavin hurried across the tiled floor. He pushed open the back door and ran for his car.

  They must have found that stupid insect woman. How had they found her so quickly? He’d depended on her dying on the floor of that cave. There was no way she could have got out, and with a bit of luck, the air would be bad down there and she should have carked it quickly.

  ‘Fucking hell, what’s happened?’ Gavin muttered under his breath as he unlocked the car door.

  There was no way on God’s earth that Travis would have got wind of the bank accounts, so how the hell did they know to look for him at the bank? He clenched the steering wheel with one hand as he tried to put the key in the ignition; his hand was shaking so much he dropped the keys on the floor.

  ‘Jesus bloody Christ!’ His scream echoed around the car and he sat there for a moment, trying to calm himself.

  What to do, what to do?

  He started the ute and pulled out into the traffic on Walker Street. He couldn’t go back to the branch now. They were looking for him.

  But why? How?

  Gavin fought for control.

  Calm down.

  He was clever. He had more brains than the lot of them; he just had to think calmly and work out what to do. If he knew what was going on, he could plan. He was tempted to ring Travis and suss out what had happened up there.

  No. Stupid. Don’t show any weakness.

  The light ahead turned red and he slowed, glancing nervously in the rear-vision mirror. Would they be looking for his ute? But there was no one behind him.

  Think, think.

  Taking deep breaths, he counted to twenty. His mother had taught him that when he’d been in one of his rages. It had been a few days after the fire, and he’d realised that he’d lost his Nintendo. He knew his mother was scared of him, and he enjoyed hurting her. Only little things, pinches and scratches, and sometimes he’d bite her, but the stupid bitch had never told his father. Only that stupid doctor who’d told her about the counting. Maybe he hadn’t been that stupid, because it worked.

  As he drove along the Strand towards his apartment, he counted again to twenty—twice—and his thoughts began to form a coherent order again.

  Even when he hadn’t been thinking straight, his subconscious hadn’t let him down.

  Of course. He could change all of the bank limits at his unit, and then go to another branch, transfer the money and withdraw the cash.

  Cairns. He’d go to Cairns. Gavin smiled. And there was an international airport there.

  He turned into his street and he drew a sharp breath. Anger settled deep as he saw one of the cars that had been at the bank pull up outside his building.

  CHAPTER

  30

  By three o’clock that afternoon the search for Emlyn was in full swing. The polic
e helicopter had arrived, as well as the police sergeants with two ground crews from Mt Surprise and Mt Garnet. As Travis had suggested, the research team’s dongas were being used as a base, and a meeting was about to start. Joel and Jase had been horrified to hear that Emlyn was missing somewhere out on Hidden Valley and both had been eager to help in the search.

  ‘The helicopter is doing a sweep to the west until it gets too dark,’ Detective Baker told the assembled group. ‘Because Dr Rees has already been out there for over twenty-four hours as far we know, we need to start the ground search this afternoon and continue it through the night.’

  Sergeant Brennan from Mt Surprise was organising the search grid, and after Baker had thanked them all for being there, he called Travis over to the table where they had spread out large maps of the locality. ‘Are you and your boys confident to go out on horseback in the dark?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Brennan nodded and traced his finger over the map. ‘We have to assume that they were on the road or a fire trail, so we’ll map the search grid two kilometres either side of the roads that a car could have been on.’

  ‘Travis. Are there any buildings in the scrub? Any reason why your brother would have taken Dr Rees to that location? An old hut, or any place that he would need to go before they went to Townsville?’

  Travis shook his head. ‘It’s just bare paddocks. We rarely go out that way, and there’s no cattle, either.’

  ‘The land is too barren? So it’s open and dry?’

  ‘No, quite the opposite. There are some lush areas, and many bush thickets, that we now know,’ he nodded to John, ‘that indicate there’re more caves out there.’ Travis looked at Bluey, who was sitting quietly in the room. ‘There’s no point for us to ever go to the western paddocks. We can’t muster the cattle on motorbikes because of the terrain, and over the years, my forebears have recounted the stories of how the horses baulk in the far paddocks.’ He shrugged and Bluey nodded.