by T. J. Beach
“All the world’s a stage, Deb.”
“Ooh, listen to you quoting the classics.”
“And all of us are merely players in it.”
“As if you’ve read Shakespeare.”
“As You Like It. Mr Dutton forced us to do it in English. Worst teacher ever.”
“Until you met the Dave McManus.”
“We’ll get him. What’s he been up to the last couple of nights?”
“On the computer a few more times, but normal person stuff, or he takes it out to his lounge. He got the hard drive out one night but chickened out and put it back in his bottom drawer without hooking it up.”
“We need to be careful.”
“Yeah, but not so careful that even one more sick photo gets added to that collection.”
Gary thought for a while, then sighed. “Agreed.”
Next morning, Austin returned to Bell’s Landing’s main shopping street to press the flesh. The passersby crowded in to meet the screen star candidate. A bored ABC crew stood by. A cameraman leaned on a wall between two shops, the tool of his trade between his feet. A young lady stood beside him with a microphone under her arm, juggling a takeaway coffee to check her phone.
The chocolate men hovered, their dark glasses scanning left and right to meet any threats, which gave Hollins an opportunity to collar Glenn Braithwaite, standing back with lips pursed, a clipboard under his arm, pen in hand.
“That’s a trip hazard.” Hollins kicked a slightly out of whack paving brick.
Glenn gave him a look.
“Sorry,” Hollins said. “You look like a health and safety inspector.”
Glenn blinked.
Hollins joined him in his observation of Bell’s Landing shoppers pouring sympathy on the APP candidate. “They love him, don’t they?”
The campaign manager sighed. “I just hope they vote Gould on election day.”
“You two have made up then?” Hollins asked.
Glenn gave him a wounded look.
“It got pretty heated yesterday after the police left. I thought it might come to blows for a while.”
“Never. We’re old, old friends.”
Austin accepted a hug from a shapely thirty-something in tight exercise gear. The lucky bastard. “Do you ever wish it was you?” Hollins asked.
“It was meant to be for Austin.”
“Not for you?”
Glenn tapped his clipboard. “We need to move in ten minutes.”
Hollins ignored the hint to get the car. “That’s weird about Sophia and Keith Tupaea. I guess we’ll never know what happened between them in the campaign office. Who’d have thought they’d both be dead within a week?”
“Sophia told Austin and I what they talked about. The kid, Keith, wanted—”
“Yeah, that’s the thing. Austin didn’t seem to agree with you, and then you argued in the office.”
“Austin … sometimes … forgets.” Glenn ground his jaw. “He sometimes has to be reminded … Look, this has nothing to do with you.”
“It seemed a bit odd to me, as well. Sophia talked to me about it, came to my home. I don’t know if you knew that. She was quite sympathetic to Keith’s position.”
Glenn flashed hostility, which switched almost instantly to disbelief.
Damned interesting. Something upset Glenn, but only for a moment while he processed it.
Before Hollins could probe any deeper, an elderly man in a suit flew out of a cafe, bumping shoppers out the way to get to Austin.
Josh and Freddo leapt into action, ahead of Hollins, but still a fraction of a second too late.
“You!” the old man yelled. “You bastard!” He yanked on the candidate’s shirt.
Austin pushed him away just as Freddo grabbed the attacker from behind.
The ABC man wrenched his camera onto his shoulder and tagged the reporter.
Austin staggered back a pace but gathered himself and peered at the old man. “Harry? Harry?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t recognise me, you lying bastard! What did you tell the cops? First, you send your bitch around. Then you send the fuzz.”
Austin got into Harry’s face, a finger raised. “Don’t you dare call Sophia—”
“I’ll call her what I bloody like, you sanctimonious prick. We had a deal!” Harry kicked wildly as Freddo hauled him away. Josh grabbed for Harry’s legs, but the ex-car-yard owner and defiler of innocent maidens only yelled louder. “You screwed her, too. I told that sergeant. Don’t think you can put it all on me.”
Josh let go of Harry’s legs and let his elbow jab into the prisoner’s stomach as he grabbed his other arm.
The old man folded like a cheap penknife, and the M&M security team hurried him up the footpath.
The camera operator charged after them. The reporter threw her coffee aside and joined the chase.
Austin’s admirers gaped in shock. Cars stopped in the street. Cafe patrons and shoppers spilled onto the pavement with staff close behind. As Harry disappeared around the corner, slumped between Josh and Freddo with both hands clasped to his middle, all eyes turned to Austin.
He blinked a couple of times and then raised both hands. “It’s okay. It’s all over. Everyone’s okay.”
Hollins had serious doubts Harry Vickers would agree.
“I’ve no idea what that was all about, but it’s done.”
No one moved.
The camera operator and journalist came running back around the corner, Freddo in hot pursuit.
Hollins slipped between a stunned granny and a young mother with a stroller. “Sorry folks. Austin’s got another appointment.”
“No,” Austin said. “I need to talk to the ABC.”
“God, no.” Glenn grabbed his candidate around the shoulders and turned him back to Hollins. “Get out of here.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
HOLLINS BUNDLED AUSTIN into the passenger seat of the hire car and hurried around to the driver’s side.
He got the engine running and steered out of the car park. At the exit, he looked left towards Queen St, the scene of the assault on Austin, and turned right.
“Hell.” Austin had his head in his hands.
“Seat belt.” Hollins tapped the empty slot.
Austin clumsily complied.
Hollins turned towards the beach, feeling like a getaway driver. “Was that —”
“Harry Vickers.”
“Jetty Auto Sales?”
“Yes.”
“What the hell?“
“I haven’t spoken to him in twenty years.”
“But Sophia did.”
“Yes. Oh, my God.”
“He said ‘we had a deal’. What does that —” Hollins’ phone shrilled. He handed it to Austin.
“Hello … yes.” Austin hung up. “Glenn says to go back to the office.”
“Sounds like a plan. Harry said, ‘we had a deal’?” Hollins repeated.
“Did he? I could hardly hear anything for all the hatred.” Austin shook his head. “Why would Harry hate Soph?”
Hollins rather fancied the target of Harry’s animosity was the candidate himself, but he had to keep his wits about him, dodging through busy backstreets. Austin had gone into a worried daze, and Hollins needed to decide how hard to push when he raised the subject again.
Glenn had arrived there ahead of them with the M&M security men. He took his rattled candidate straight into the office and shut the door.
Hollins slipped out the back into the alley, made sure no one had followed him and called Stu Reilly.
For once, the detective answered on the first ring.
“What’s up, Gary?”
“Did you hear what happened on Queen St?”
“No.”
“Harry Vickers, the car yard owner—”
“I know who Harry is.”
“Well, he attacked Austin Gould.”
“As in belted him with a baseball bat or as in offered alternative policies?”
“If he’d had a baseball bat, Austin would be in intensive care. The M&M boys stopped him getting in any punches, so I suppose it’s a bit of both. Harry yelled something about Austin putting you guys onto him. That he wouldn’t let him get away with it because Austin was just as guilty.”
“Interesting.”
“The ABC had a camera there, but I don’t think they got much of Harry’s rant.”
“Okay. This is really useful.”
“Harry said Sophia — well, he said Austin sent ‘his bitch’ to talk to him about Keith Tupaea and ‘they had a deal’.”
“Did he now?” The increase in Stu’s interest was palpable. “I don’t suppose he gave any details of the arrangement?”
“Not that sort of conversation, and cut short before it really got going.”
Stu grunted. “Strange way to behave. He lies to me. Then he goes and tells everyone in Bell’s Landing high street.”
“I doubt he was thinking as clearly as he might.”
“A little agitated, you said?”
“Like a raging bull.”
“He’s rattled. Did Austin say anything?”
“Not at the time. But in the car coming back, it seemed like he knew Sophia had gone to Harry. I asked him about the ‘deal’, but I didn’t get an answer before Glenn and the head chocolate man locked him in the office.”
“Chocolate man. M&Ms? I like that.”
“By the way, after you left yesterday, Austin called Glenn into his office, and they went at it hammer and tongs for a couple of minutes.”
“What about?”
“Austin said ‘differing recollections’ of what Sophia told them about Keith Tupaea.”
“Interesting. One of them lied as well, then. Look, thanks, Gary, this is gold. It backs up what we’re about to do. I need to go.”
He hung up.
The ABC reporter turned up with her cameraman about ten minutes later. Josh blocked their entry, Glenn confirmed there would be no statements, but they hung around in the car park, poised to leap into action if the TV star made an appearance.
Of course, they’d take Austin out the back door if he left, but perhaps the ABC had a lookout keeping watch on the alley.
He found himself a camp chair in a corner and waited for the other shoe to drop, expecting Stu Reilly to make a dramatic entrance at any minute.
Austin and Glenn stayed in the office making calls. Politicians must run up immense phone bills. Josh stood at ease across the door in case another unhappy constituent came looking for a piece of the candidate.
The volunteers chatted among themselves over the endless work of envelope stuffing as if nothing had happened. Of course, no one had briefed them on their hero being assaulted by a crazed used car salesman, and Hollins wasn’t about to spread the word, so it was business as usual from their point of view.
After lunch, a junior detective came to take a statement.
When he left, Josh informed Hollins that Glenn had cancelled the rest of the day’s campaign events, so his services were not required until the next morning.
A leisurely late lunch sandwich at the kiosk by the pirate ship playground gave him the taste for fresh air, so he went for a run as soon as he got home.
Pounding the bicycle path, Spotify blasting his earbuds with his rockiest playlist got his blood moving and his lungs aching. Punishing himself felt right, and he extended the run all the way to the Bell’s Landing jetty and back. Fifteen kilometres of self-inflicted soreness cleared his mind for a thorough review of the accelerating events.
Sophia met Keith Tupaea before he died, and someone lied about what happened afterwards.
A seagull swept overhead in a majestic swirl of pearl white. Probably straight from sifting rotting food waste at the garbage dump and manoeuvring to poop on the woman fishing from the beach. The false elegance reminded Hollins he’d fed everything to the head of the South-West Criminal Investigation Bureau, which made him a snitch.
He’d been through a couple of cycles on that. First, his promise to keep the police informed dignified his ignominious return to the Gould fold. Something he could throw at Debbie Haring as if he needed her approval. But if he didn’t, why did he make sure she knew his excuse? One for another time.
Then he’d grown to like Austin again, even more than he had before. He’d rationalised his promise to keep Stu Reilly informed as a chance to allay any suspicions the detective might have about Austin’s integrity. Truth be told, he’d even started to develop sympathy for Glenn ‘fake graffiti’ Braithwaite after the insights into his unlucky past.
Now his loyalties were hopelessly confused but he was convinced he’d done the right thing spilling the beans to the boys in blue.
Sophia visited Harry and left him with the idea they had a ‘deal’ that had not been revealed to the police.
What sort of arrangement would they make over a Maori kid intent on outing someone from the old days at Jetty Autos as his father? Not one likely to please Keith, by the sounds of it.
Then Keith texted his mum, telling her he was fine and she should go home.
A sniper aiming for Austin missed a simple shot. Hollins had long since dismissed the possibility that it was a genuine political assassination attempt. He’d convinced himself the shooter meant to scare the candidate, but what if he did hit his intended target?
Who wanted Sophia dead?
The potential fathers had to be the main suspects for Keith’s murder.
If one of the Jetty Autos salesmen garroted their would-be son, could they have killed Sophia?
If she visited Harry and made a deal, there was every chance she sought out the others.
Did she make arrangements with them as well? Deals that meant she had to die?
Hollins almost jogged past the stubby Xanthorrhoea grass tree that marked the end of his run.
Deep into a zone of contemplation, he’d barely registered the last five kilometres.
He did a hundred press-ups and had begun a set of sit-ups to complete the punishment he felt his body deserved when his phone rang.
He interrupted Oasis banging out Acquiescence in his earbuds to answer. “Uh?”
“Gary? It’s Debbie. Did you hear the news?”
He got to his feet, brushing grass clippings off his shorts. “I was there, about two steps from Austin when Harry Vickers attacked him.”
“Harry attacked Austin? I’m talking about the arrest.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
HOLLINS SLUMPED IN a sweaty heap at his kitchen table to catch up with the latest reports.
He didn’t learn much more than Debbie told him on the phone.
Police acting on a tip-off raided a home in East Bell’s Landing to execute a warrant. After a thorough search of the property, officers took a man into custody.
He called Debbie back.
“This guy is ‘helping police with their inquiries’,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“They haven’t given any details of him.”
“They won’t unless he’s charged.”
“Austin’s place is in East Bell’s Landing.”
“You think Stu’s arrested Australia’s favourite TV star?”
“I told Stu about the scuffle with Harry and what Austin said afterwards. They’ve been lying about what happened with Sophia and Keith Tupaea.”
“Crap. Austin killed Keith?”
“No.” Hollins couldn’t get his head around that possibility, whatever the evidence suggested.
“He’s a racist,” Debbie said.
“So you say.”
“You weren’t there. You didn’t hear Austin. That man wouldn’t have been able to bear the thought of a mixed-race son.”
“Despite what he did with the mother.”
“Racists are like that. It’s a power thing.”
Not the man who’d poured his heart out to Hollins more than once. The actor, Hollins reminded himself. The professional fibber. Too many coincide
nces were piling up. Austin had lied about something for sure.
“Are you looking at the ABC?” Debbie blurted out the question. “There’s an update.”
Hollins refreshed his screen.
Man held over South-West murder
Police investigating the murder of New Zealand tourist, Keith Tupaea, have laid charges against a 72 year-old man.
They say the man charged has been unable to provide a plausible explanation for items uncovered at his Bell’s Landing home, which are connected to the brutal strangulation of Tupaea whose body was dumped in a shallow Ludlow Tuart Forest grave.
The rest was regurgitated background.
“Austin isn’t seventy-two,” Hollins said.
“He’s hiding it well if he is. There’s a video.”
They both hit the play icon together — Debbie in the Ridenour Investigations office, Hollins at his kitchen table.
The back gate of the Bell’s Landing police station opened. A squad car and a Ford sedan drove in. Uniformed police jumped out of the first vehicle and went to the rear doors. Stu Reilly emerged from the unmarked car, straightened his suit and positioned himself to be in the picture as the uniforms bundled an old guy out of the patrol unit, stooped, with a blanket over his head.
“That’s not Austin. I’ll bet—”
Hollins completed the thought. “It’s Harry Vickers.”
Three hours later, Hollins sprawled on his sofa. He’d showered and changed into clean shorts and a tee-shirt. The remains of a microwave butter chicken shared the coffee table with three empty Swan Lager bottles. Europa League highlights played to themselves on the TV, and his front and back doors were open to make the most of a pleasant salt-tinged breeze.
A polite knock on the fly screen broke into the endless loop of Sophia-Austin-Keith-Harry swirling in his brain.
“Who’s that?”
“The police,” Stu Reilly said.
Hollins dragged himself up with an effort. “Then you’d better come in. Fancy a Swan Lager?”
“If it’s all you’ve got.” Stu let himself in.
“I didn’t hear your car.”