The Mak Collection

by Tara Moss

Jack Cavanagh.

  She blinked. A metal taste rose in the back of her throat.

  Jack Cavanagh was the patriarch of one of Australia’s richest and most powerful families—the very same family the stranger on the bus could just ‘tell’ was guilty. The Cavanaghs were unavoidable in Sydney, influential as they were. They owned buildings, real estate, businesses and media. In this instance, Jack Cavanagh was pictured doing a deal on the front page of the business section.

  Mak’s eyes narrowed, anger rushing to the surface of her thoughts.

  ‘Don’t look at that,’ Marian Wendell snapped at her.

  Mak dropped the paper like a reprimanded puppy, and got to her feet. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘I’m serious, young lady. You’ll want to steer clear of them,’ Marian warned her, looking stern. ‘It’s good that you’ve been out of town for a while, and out of their way.’

  Mak recovered herself. ‘Well,’ she said,‘it feels kind of good to be back, I have to say.’

  Marian Wendell smiled inscrutably.

  The older woman was a vital sixty-something, and could cheat the years when she wanted to, which was always. She had a helmeted mane of auburn hair that would do any country singer proud, and though her clothes were a touch outdated, they were expensive and well tailored. Her days of skulking around filthy back alleys to get information for her clients were a distant memory. Today she looked businesslike in a midnight blue suit with a striped silk blouse, the bow oversized and elegantly covering her neck. Mak was glad she’d made the effort to look presentable herself. For a woman of diminutive physical size, Marian could be formidable. She wielded great influence in her field, and certainly she had Mak’s respect, though her agency was by no means one of Australia’s biggest. Such titles were left to the giant corporate investigation companies that dealt in big-money cases—insurance fraud, corporate espionage. Marian managed to earn a good living in her less glamorous niche of deadbeat dads and cheaters. Female clients were unquestionably her strong point. There were a lot of women out there who wanted a ‘private dick without the dick’, so to speak.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ Mak continued.

  She couldn’t resist giving her boss a hug and air-kissing her neatly on both sides of her face in the European style, as had become her habit after years of working as a model in Paris and Milan. In this case the friendly gesture required considerable stooping. Marian, birdlike next to Mak’s exaggerated Scandinavian proportions, looked up at her for a moment after their embrace, and Mak imagined her thinking that this odd young investigator of hers was some kind of giant albatross.

  ‘Come on,’ Marian said, starting towards her office.

  ‘You know, some of your magazines are getting pretty old,’ Mak commented as they walked down the hall. ‘I can pick up some new ones for you if you like.’

  ‘Don’t bother. Nothing ever changes.’

  Mak laughed. ‘Well, actually, Marian, you have one of Diana there that is decades old already. A lot has changed since that happy little cover photo was taken.’

  They’d arrived at the investigator’s office. ‘Faces and names change, but the story is always the same,’ the older woman replied, deadpan. Mak wondered if she was serious.

  Certainly nothing had changed in the personal offices of Marian Wendell. The handsome Art Deco nymph was still positioned on its square display table in front of Marian’s prized painting depicting the Rainbow Serpent of the Aboriginal Dreamtime. The crystal vase was stocked with fresh yellow roses. The ceramic aromatherapy oil-burner was doing its soothing work from the corner of Marian’s wide desk. The rows of filing cabinets were still stuffed with past cases, some of them quite colourful from what Mak had heard, and neat files covered every surface. Naturally, the photo of Marian’s beloved late husband, Reg, still took pride of place in the room. Reg had been somewhat older than his bride, and had passed away a full two decades earlier. He had been her intellectual match, Marian had once confided—a true soul mate—although Mak wondered if such things existed. Though it had been twenty years, Marian had never remarried. Marian’s personal life, like her office and her wardrobe, was an immaculately kept time capsule.

  ‘Take a seat.’

  Mak did. She looked out the window and then at the painting, and finally at the floor. She fidgeted with her hands.

  Ah yes, time for the post-mortem.

  Mak found herself uncharacteristically nervous, anticipating a brutal dissection of all that had gone wrong in Canberra. She had procrastinated about telling Marian that she was coming back to Sydney, and Marian no doubt knew that. She had not felt ready to explain things, she supposed. Not until she was on that open road and riding away.

  Mak gazed determinedly at the Sydney cityscape outside Marian’s window, inwardly bracing herself.

  ‘Where are things at between you and the cop?’

  Andy.

  ‘It’s over,’ Mak said with resolve, not looking at her interrogator.

  Marian had guessed. She paused, watching Mak swallow heavily. ‘Good then. I’m glad you’re back,’ she continued, and, after another beat, cut to the point. ‘The case I have for you involves a missing person.’

  ‘Okay,’ Mak blurted, relieved by the change of subject. She could hardly believe she’d got off so easy.

  ‘It’s a legit case.’

  ‘Great,’ she said, again too fast.

  All of Marian’s cases were legit, but she always let Mak know she had checked into them. It was one of her important rituals. Checking the legitimacy of a client searching for someone was a very real issue in investigation work. Some people had good reasons for disappearing. Countless obsessed ex-lovers and angry loan sharks tried to enlist a third party to find their victims for them…victims who sometimes ended up dead.

  ‘The subject is a young man. Your client is his mum.’ Marian took a file from a stack next to her, put it in the centre of her desk and placed both hands on it thoughtfully. ‘He’s a teenager,’ she went on, closing her eyes as she often did when recalling information. ‘Well, he’s nineteen. Still lives at home. Name is Adam Hart. It’s been nearly a week and there’s been no sign of him. His mother is concerned, so she called us.’

  Mak took out her notepad and at the top of a fresh page wrote the name ADAM. ‘Surname spelled with an EA or—’

  ‘No E,’ she was told.

  ADAM HART

  ‘Your client contact is Mrs Glenise Hart. I’ve made an appointment for you to see her this afternoon.’

  Makedde nodded. ‘Single mum?’

  ‘Widow,’ Marian explained.

  After a beat, Mak asked the obvious. ‘You said on the phone that she asked for me specifically. Do you know why? How did she hear of me?’

  Marian seemed strangely unprepared for the question. A thought flickered behind her amber eyes. ‘Why wouldn’t a client ask for you?’

  It was clear evasion.

  ‘I see,’ Mak said. She frowned as her mind ran through scenarios. ‘So…she asked for me…’ She paused, hoping for more, but her boss was not biting. The old ‘finish my sentence for me’ trick was one that a surprising number of people fell for, but Marian, of course, could not be so easily led. Mak decided to drop the subject for the moment. ‘Are there any known risk factors associated with this boy? Depression? Drug use?’

  ‘Mrs Hart described him as introverted, but was adamant he was not suicidal. And thankfully he hasn’t shown up in a hospital emergency room or at the bottom of The Gap.’ The Gap. Sydney’s most notorious suicide spot. ‘She insists he would never do drugs, and she thinks he doesn’t even drink.’ Marian relayed this last bit of information with a touch of incredulity. Few parents would want to imagine their child experimenting, but that hardly meant that drugs or alcohol weren’t factors. One thing that private investigation work illuminated was the staggering amount of deception within families. It was frightening what parents did not know.

  ‘What do we know so far?’ Mak prompted.r />
  Marian’s eyes closed again. ‘His pushbike is missing, as is his wallet.’

  Bike. Wallet. Frankly, this sounds like a very boring case, Mak thought.

  ‘I don’t suppose his toothbrush is also missing…’ Mak added cheekily.

  ‘This one’s not necessarily that easy.’

  But it probably is. ‘Does he own a car?’

  ‘No car. No licence.’

  There would likely be no listed property for someone his age, and with no car to trace it looked like Mak was going to have to do a lot of door knocking. ‘I assume a formal report has been filed with the police already?’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Apparently Mrs Hart reported it last week.’

  ‘Right.’ Mak wondered if the police had any good leads, and who she might casually ask about it. Not Andy, that was for sure, and his former police partner Jimmy Cassimatis would probably not be of much help either. Thankfully, she had other friends in the force, if it became necessary.

  Marian pushed the file across to Mak. ‘Your instructions and info.’ She leaned back in her chair and let out a tiny, elegant sigh. ‘Somehow I can’t imagine the cops committing much time to this. Twenty-two people go missing in this state every day. This boy is not underage, not high-risk. He has no record. He hasn’t been caught up in any crimes or foul play in the past.’

  Marian was right, of course.

  ‘I’ve arranged for you to see Mrs Hart around three.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Mak wished she felt more enthusiastic. She needed the money, but the idea of door knocking to find an errant nineteen-year-old seemed like pretty dull stuff.

  ‘Do you have a car?’ her boss asked.

  A car would be more convenient for transport than her beloved motorcycle, and certainly would be a more realistic option for any surveillance that might eventuate. Private investigation work often involved sitting patiently with tightly crossed legs in a car with the lights off and the window rolled down.

  ‘No car.’

  ‘I’ll get Sarah to organise one.’ Her assistant.

  ‘Nothing too bright this time, please.’

  The last rental the agency had organised had been bright orange, which was not a colour particularly good for blending in. Magnum PI’s red Ferrari would never have been good for blending in either, but that was television for you.

  Mak became aware that Marian was watching her face carefully.

  ‘You’re a good investigator, despite the reservations you have about it.’

  She opened her mouth to defend herself, but said nothing. She would not bother trying to deny it.

  ‘Be thorough with your notes and procedures in case this one turns out to be a criminal matter,’ Marian cautioned her, perhaps sensing Mak’s confidence that Adam Hart was a standard runaway. ‘I hope this kid’s all right, but…we don’t know that yet.’

  Makedde stood. ‘I will.’

  ‘And try to stay away from him.’ Andy. ‘You gave him his second chance already. It’s time for you to move on.’

  She smiled. Only Marian would be so bold as to offer personal advice to someone as stubborn as Mak. Mak performed a mock salute in response and left Marian to her files.

  ‘And stay away from those other people too,’ Marian added when Mak was halfway down the hall. ‘They are no business of yours…’

  The Cavanaghs.

  Don’t worry about that, Mak thought as she stepped into the hall.

  And wondered.

  CHAPTER 4

  Four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines propelled a hulking A380 Airbus through clear skies far above the Indian Ocean.

  Inside the aircraft, over four hundred passengers slept soundly with their blindfolds, travel socks and trays of food, imagining through twitches of sleep their touchdown in Australia. At the front of the plane, one man sat awake and alone in his first-class suite, head bent solemnly. His shoulders were nearly too wide for the fold-down bed, his size forever an issue, and for the moment he sat up in his seat with his eyes closed, awake and pensive. His muscled and knotted form felt even heavier than usual, his neck as stiff as steel. A light but constant headache had plagued him since boarding at Heathrow. Though he was in his late thirties, and considered himself worldly, he was wrestling with his first experience of true grief.

  Luther Hand had lost his mother.

  He would soon be arriving in Sydney, a place of personal significance. It was the place of Luther’s birth, the place of his transformation from boy to man, and man to killer. He had all but left Australia behind him since, reducing it to little more than a fragment of a humble hidden past he did not discuss and avoided reflecting upon. His failures were there, the realities of his humble beginnings were there, and now, with his mother gone, he would have no reason to return. The last of his real past would have turned to ashes, slipping forever into the unknown; the only woman who ever loved him, gone. His trusted contact in Sydney had been the one to inform him of his loss. Even he had not known Luther’s true relationship to Cathy Davis—only that Luther left money for her every month. According to his contact, she had returned to her Redfern apartment with her groceries, and tripped on her porch, cracking her skull open on a garden gnome. The thought filled Luther with anguish and a sense of regret and failure.

  His mother had not yet turned sixty, but had suffered the health of someone much older. She had lived hard in her youth. Luck had been a stranger to her.

  Mum.

  Sydney was also the location of Luther’s only failed contract of the past six years, and the circumstances and target of that failed job came to the forefront of his thoughts as he prepared for arrival. The target had been, of all things, a beautiful woman. He had underestimated her resourcefulness and luck. She did not know him and had never seen his face, but he knew her well, and regarded her with special interest. The enigma of the one hit who had escaped him seemed to loom profoundly as the plane hurtled towards the geographical place of their encounters, where it had been his job to follow her and, later, to kill her. They had scuffled in a darkened hall, a messy exchange. And he had soon after witnessed her crash her motorcycle to what should have been her death: a clean kill for his client, attributable to mere accident, no one to blame, no investigation. But this unusual woman had survived.

  She had broken Luther’s nose with her motorcycle helmet. He had not bothered to have it fixed.

  Makedde Vanderwall.

  Luther wondered where she was now, and if ever chance would have their paths cross again.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jimmy Cassimatis was gnawing anxiously on the end of a warm Mars bar, and gripping a styrofoam cup of coffee, postponing the inevitable. That morning a couple of boring cases were sitting on the detective senior constable’s desk—a burglary at some rich guy’s house in Macleay Street; a fatal hit-and-run. But the visit he was about to make was in relation to an older case.

  A death knock.

  Not one person in the department liked to be stuck with a death knock. There was no gratification in informing a member of the public that their loved one was dead. And Jimmy, who for all his long years in the department regularly pulled the short straw, was two blocks from the address where he would have to tell a Madeline O’Connor that her missing husband, Warwick, was dead. And this death knock was going to be particularly ugly. There had been somewhat of a bungle in forensics.

  Skata. Fucking forensic fuck-ups…

  With that death knock but minutes away, Detective Cassimatis was more than happy for the distraction of this phone call from his mate and former police partner, Senior Sergeant Andrew Flynn.

  ‘Well if it isn’t the big shot,’ Jimmy drawled into his mobile phone. ‘I wondered if I’d hear from you this year…’

  Jimmy hadn’t heard from Andy in weeks, not counting an amusing postcard sent from the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia, the town just outside the FBI Academy where he’d been holed up in some kind of exchange program with the FBI. The postcard pictured a smiling blonde pin-up
straddling an aircraft gun, Hanoi-Jane-style, wearing nothing but a pair of brief stars-and-stripes hotpants with two superimposed red stars demurely covering her impressive DD bare breasts at the nipple. Just the kind of postcard Jimmy appreciated. WISH YOU WERE HERE, the caption said. Well, that was exactly what Jimmy wished. Especially now. He kept the postcard in the squad car glove compartment, and occasionally referred to it using an improvised double entendre or two in an attempt to induce some personality in his new police partner, Rhys. She could blow me…away…with those weapons of mass destruction. So far, these attempts had not worked.

  ‘Mate, it is so good to hear from you,’ he said, meaning every word.

  ‘I can’t talk long,’ Andy interrupted him. ‘I’m just on the highway…’ The phone was crackly and Jimmy cupped his ear with one meaty hand to better hear his friend’s voice. It was the same hand that was holding the Mars bar, and a bit of melted chocolate smeared his neck like a wound. ‘Any chance I can crash at your place tonight?’ Andy was asking.

  Jimmy had made the words out fairly clearly over the din of traffic and static, but he was mighty surprised to hear them. ‘Of course, mate. Of course. You’re always welcome at our house. I’ll let the missus know.’ She would spew at him about the late notice, but she liked Andy, so he hoped she wouldn’t whinge too hard. ‘It can be a bit loud with the little ones, but you are most welcome.’

  Jimmy was delighted he would see his friend and former partner in person again after so many months, but he was confused. Andy had moved on to a bigger job. It was Federal. He was now an important figure at the serial crime unit in Canberra and consulting on big investigations. If he was coming to Sydney, why was he driving? Why wasn’t he flying in business class? Why wasn’t he being put up at some fancy hotel?

  ‘Crashing at my place? They pull your budget already?’ Jimmy joked. ‘I knew they’d eventually figure out you got no talent.’ He could say it confidently because it was so very far from the truth. Andy Flynn had cracked some of the biggest and most famous cases in Australia in recent years. And he had paid a heavy price for it, too.