Signal Loss

by Garry Disher

  Plenty of kids out there wanting a trial.

  He fished a disposable mobile from his bottom drawer and called a woman who worked at the Somerville Pharmacy. Without preamble he said, ‘It’s about your cousin, Nick.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell him if he doesn’t come up with the nine grand he owes me by Sunday, your car will be torched.’

  ‘Who? What?’

  He made another call, reaching a scratchy old voice. ‘You’re Sophie’s grandfather?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Tell Sophie she does not simply walk away. The cost for doing so is thirty-five thousand dollars, you got that?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  A KEY ASPECT OF CARL’S BUSINESS model, the employment of cleanskins.

  People like Chloe, Sophie and Nick were from respectable families and had never come to the attention of the police. Also, Carl kept them at a far remove, just as Chloe kept her runners at a far remove.

  And if anyone stepped out of line, he didn’t threaten them but their families.

  A sound business model also involved sound intelligence. Carl opened his laptop and logged on to a news service. He liked to follow any story that impinged on him in some way—like the Waterloo meth lab. Unfortunately, that story had made way for others pretty quickly. Today’s main story was a road-rage incident out near Bacchus Marsh, a guy crossing four lanes of traffic and crashing head-on into a station wagon driven by a pregnant schoolteacher. Then he’d piled out of his car and attacked the station wagon with a tyre lever. Pulled the woman out of the car and punched her in the stomach before other motorists managed to grab him and throw him to the ground.

  Carl sighed. Dirty drug, ice. But that was none of his concern. He was a supplier, not a social worker. If an individual couldn’t control himself, was Carl to blame? Besides, the road-rage incident had occurred out west of Melbourne. Nowhere near his patch.

  But he wished the meth-lab story hadn’t vanished. They had been on his patch, muscling in.

  TIME TO GO HOME. He did a quick final check of the monitors, satisfied himself that everyone was bright and perky, and walked out to his car, a black Audi, 1BAKE on the numberplate.

  However, the car took him not home but down the coast to Chloe’s house, a brick, steel and glass cube overlooking Safety Beach. Finding her topless on a banana lounge beside her pool, the water shimmeringly blue, a hard glitter in the afternoon sun, he stopped. Drinking in her olive skin, gleaming with coconut oil.

  ‘Hi,’ he said huskily, crouching beside her chair.

  She lifted her sunglasses, gave him a sleepy smile that altered as he watched, languor dissolving into need. Her lips were large, moist, her eyes vivid. Even her nipples stared at him hungrily, and he couldn’t stand it.

  Cleared his throat. ‘You all set for tomorrow?’

  Tomorrow she was making the run to the border. ‘I’m all set for now,’ she said, and, in one fluid articulation of her legs, waist and torso, was out of the chair and dragging him towards the house.

  ‘Wait one second,’ she said, after they’d crossed the cool living-area tiles and entered her bedroom.

  His mouth dry, Carl watched her open a drawer and take out a sweet puff. She dropped a couple of rocks into the bowl, thumbed a lighter, heated the bowl, sucked deeply on the pipe.

  ‘Jesus, Chloe.’

  She drew again, held it in, slowly released. ‘Want some?’

  ‘How long you been using?’

  ‘Come on, couple of puffs won’t hurt, the sex will be amazing.’

  How did she know that? Other men? Women? Had she been high the other times he’d been with her and he hadn’t noticed? Was she high when she made her runs up north?

  Not part of his business model. ‘I thought you understood, no using.’

  ‘No, Carl, you understood that, I didn’t.’

  ‘It’s not good business sense, Chloe. I need my management team fully on the ball. Please, put the pipe away. Chuck it in the bin.’

  She gave him a look full of conniving glee. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing, Carl.’

  ‘I need you to have a clear head tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow’s tomorrow. This is now. Chill out. Have a puff, then have me.’

  She peeled off her bikini pants. Her body seemed to alter, open up, pull him in. He swallowed.

  But Carl hadn’t got where he’d got in business by taking his eye off the ball.

  ‘Later,’ he said, turning his back on all that and walking out to the car.

  HIS WIFE’S CAR, A WHITE Mercedes coupe, 2BAKE, was parked in the driveway when he reached home, high on a ridge in Mt Eliza. He was the first to admit it was a hideous house, a starter palace designed by his wife’s architect and decorated with a dominant motif of self-indulgence. What he particularly loathed was the mahogany chess set in the hallway, each piece the size of a wine bottle, set out on a thick base of polished, crosshatched steel.

  No one in the fucking family even played chess.

  Not for the first time, Carl reflected that he’d married down. Bowie was an old Peninsula name, there’d been Bowie bakeries since the 1940s, when his grandfather started the business in Rosebud. Carl’s father inherited, and added the Waterloo bakery, then died when Carl was five. It all very nearly ended there. His mother started drinking and married an alcoholic; together they got cracking on drinking away the Bowie fortune and dying of alcoholism.

  What they hadn’t drunk away was the modest trust set up for Carl by his father. His education was expensive—Geelong Grammar—and at the age of twenty-one he’d cut all ties with his mother, stepfather and half-brother and begun buying back the bakeries. He wasn’t interested in baking, really, he just wanted to make a point.

  Guys he’d gone to school with were CEOs, bankers, top QCs, army officers and diplomats. Well, he had a bakery empire. But back before he had a business model he’d let his dick guide him.

  ‘Honey, I’m home,’ he called, sending up the phrase as he sauntered in, tossed his keys on the hall table.

  And there was his wife, blonde, gym-toned like all her friends, skin stretched to splitting point over her cheekbones, holding out the phone. ‘It’s for you. Didn’t say his name.’

  Didn’t have to say his name to Carl. Carl recognised the voice. Hector Kaye. Up in Sydney, wanting to know where the hell his boys were.

  22

  ALLIE HAD WOKEN TO A DOZEN texts from Clive on Friday morning: You light my way; The girl of my dreams; Without you I’d be nothing; She walks in beauty; I’ll never tyre of looking at you. Stuff like that.

  Never tyre? It couldn’t be auto-correct; it wouldn’t have put in a British spelling.

  Her gorgeous man had sent a couple of risqué texts, too, that made her a little fluttery inside: I want to taste you and I long to be inside you.

  They had made love, once, a few days ago. It hadn’t been earth-shattering but she was quite enthusiastic about the prospect of doing it again. Practice makes perfect and all that.

  Except he always had things to do, places to be, people to meet, and he’d tap the side of his nose in that old gesture—making her complicit in whatever plans he’d made.

  Something photography-related? Was he taking moody nude shots of eighteen-year-olds? Or some other lover?

  Now it was late Friday afternoon and she was in her first-floor sitting room on the Esplanade in Mornington, looking out over the sea. Heat beat in at her from the other side of the vast glass wall; she was fighting it with a gin and tonic in a tall, frosted glass. Ice and a twist of lemon. Norah Jones singing in the background. Having a man in her life should have been the cure for her nagging dissatisfaction, but Clive wasn’t exactly in her life, not with all of his comings, goings and secrecy. Flooding her with texts, e-mails and presents was all very well, but she wanted old-fashioned attention and a warm body in her bed.

  The front door buzzer sounded. She clopped downstairs in her sandals and there was Clive with a hu
ge grin, a huge bunch of red roses and a huge wad of travel brochures. Her heart turned over and she planted a smacking kiss.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  She stood back to let him in, half-listening to his patter as they climbed the stairs. Been busy…Missing her…Thought he’d surprise her…Did he need a reason to drop in on his lovely?

  Turned to face him when they reached the sitting room, kissed him again and smacked her forehead, saying, ‘What am I thinking? I’ll get a vase,’ and clattered downstairs again. She returned in a more orderly fashion, gathering herself as she arranged the roses, finally joining him at the feature window where the waters of the bay were laid out like a pane of blue glass. He put his arm around her. She moulded herself against his solid, reassuring shape.

  ‘Allie,’ he said, ‘there’s something I have to tell you.’

  She froze, pulling away from him, but his arm was as stiff and binding as a cable around her. ‘It’s not what you think,’ he said.

  ‘You’re married, aren’t you? You want to break it off.’

  ‘No, never.’ He let her go, turned her to face him, his hands on her upper arms. ‘I love you, you know that.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘You know I do. But sweetheart, I need to tell you something serious. It’s to do with my work. It’s a national security matter.’

  ‘Your work?’ she said, reeling a little.

  ‘I need you to promise me you won’t repeat what I’m about to tell you.’

  ‘How can I promise that when—’

  ‘Like I said, it’s a national security matter.’

  The words sank in. Now a lot of things made sense, his unexplained absences and secrecy. He leaned his rugged face to her until they were nose to nose. ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise,’ she said.

  ‘About leaving the Army—that was a cover story. I’m in fact on active duty, national intelligence with the cooperation of Homeland Security in the United States.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, feeling light-headed.

  ‘Sometimes I have to fly overseas, secret work, risky situations.’

  ‘God.’ She didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘I couldn’t tell you before. I needed to be sure of you.’

  ‘This is all a bit unreal, Clive,’ she said. ‘I mean, it’s like a movie. Are you about to go on one of these…these…missions?’

  He eyed her searchingly. ‘Short answer, yes.’

  ‘And the long answer? You’re not coming back?’

  He waved that away. ‘Of course I am, I can’t live without you, can’t you see that? Dear, dear Allie.’

  He gestured at the travel brochures, which he’d piled on the coffee table. ‘When this is all over, I want you to come away with me, somewhere exotic and romantic.’

  She could see the islands of Tahiti. Angkor Wat. A white sail and blue waters in the Bahamas. Lovely…

  She glued herself to his solid chest. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she said, her voice muffled, partly wanting him to hear her say it, partly conscious of sounding pathetic.

  His voice rumbled, a deep bass sound in his powerful chest. ‘The thing is, I can’t be a hundred per cent certain my cover hasn’t been blown.’

  Allie pulled away from him in dismay. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘My cover may have been blown.’

  ‘You’re in danger?’

  ‘Could be. My handlers’—he shook his head—‘well, you don’t want to know.’

  She was caught up in the implied threat from powerful hidden forces. ‘You don’t trust them?’

  ‘Allie, the thing is, if I’m in danger, you’re in danger.’

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘If my cover has been blown, then certain people will know of my relationship to you. I’m sorry, but you could be vulnerable. And I need to keep you safe.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘There are ways of making you invisible to these people but everyone leaves a paper record. If we were to put this house, your car, your finances and so on in someone else’s name, that would make it all that much harder for you to be found. It’s not something we can delay,’ he said, looking at her in a way that laid bare the depths of his regret and heartbreak.

  She pursed her lips, thinking of the hoops she’d have to jump through. ‘It might take a while. The car’s easy. But my money’s kind of tied up and this house isn’t mine, I rent it.’

  He stiffened against her. ‘Rent it?’

  ‘When I divorced Rick, I thought it’d be best to put it all in superannuation.’

  A complicated expression crossed his face and she was, for the briefest moment, frightened. But then his face cleared. ‘You did the right thing. I can’t tell you how glad I am.’

  Relieved, she snuggled against him, her cheek on his hard chest, drawing in a mix of Clive smell and talc. ‘But the car should be easy.’

  He squeezed her. ‘We’ll start there.’

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON WAS PAM MURPHY’S first opportunity to run a more thorough background check on Michael Traill. Here it was, after 5 p.m., and she was logged on to the force’s LEAP system, reading all she could find on the killing of David Booker before she crossed town for her appointment at Mervyn White Realty.

  She was steamed up before she even began. It was bad enough that Challis hadn’t taken her side, but she was also cross with herself for letting Michael Traill—the man rather than the news story—unsettle her. He’d looked tired when she visited him, sad. He’d carried himself with a measure of dignity when another man might have bitched, moaned and sulked.

  All an act, she thought sourly.

  Yet there was that contradictory pull inside her. When she’d left Traill on Wednesday, pocketed her notebook and nodded a curt goodbye, she’d felt a completely contradictory impulse. To step closer to him, into his orbit.

  What was that about?

  She read through the notes on file, including witness statements. David Booker had been in an exuberant mood, said some witnesses. In an obnoxious mood, said others. He’d shouted the bar; he’d been grinning and boisterous all evening. But three witnesses had seen him clamp his hands around a young woman’s upper arm, leaving vivid bruises. He’d hissed something at her, they said, his face contorted in rage. When called to the stand, the woman said she had no memory of the incident. Meanwhile bar staff had several times asked Booker’s party to keep the noise down and been abused by him. There was another young woman, a drinks waitress, first week in a new job. ‘I stood too close to him,’ she told the court, ‘and he felt my…my rear.’ The prosecution hammered her, getting her to admit that in the hurly-burly of a busy bar, she could expect a carelessly flung hand or arm to make fleeting contact with intimate parts of the body from time to time.

  No wonder women don’t report sexual assaults, Pam thought.

  And why hadn’t the media reported this side of the story? Why had they concentrated on Traill and his fatal punch? Because everyone thought Booker was God? She certainly had.

  Now she didn’t know what to think. She read on. One conclusion was unmistakeable: Booker wasn’t God. If he’d been drinking, he could be the devil.

  She logged out, checked her e-mails. One from Ellen Destry: ‘Sincere thanks, your tip was sound, we have a pattern emerging. If you hear of any other questionable burglaries, let me know ASAP.’

  An e-mail from Scobie Sutton. The Colt AR15 found in the burnt-out Mercedes had yielded a serial number. It was registered to a Merricks North orchardist named Arnold Coxhell. He’d reported it stolen six weeks earlier.

  She debated visiting Coxhell, called him instead. If he hadn’t reported the theft, then she would have gone in with backup. ‘We’ve found your rifle, Mr Coxhell. Unfortunately it was involved in a crime and has been damaged.’

  He asked the right questions. ‘A crime? Hell. Was anyone hurt?’

  ‘I can’t comment on that at this stage.’

  He subsided on the end of the line. ‘Oh, right, sorry.’r />
  ‘Mr Coxhell, do you know a man named Colin Hauser?’

  ‘Colin? Sure. It’s terrible what—Wait, are you saying he was shot with my gun?’

  ‘How do you know him?’

  ‘Westernport Sporting Shooters,’ Coxhell said, an edge of hysteria in his voice. ‘Look, did he—’

  Pam was regretting the call. ‘Mr Coxhell, we’re investigating a string of gun thefts from rural properties in the past several months.’

  Coxhell said, ‘Well yeah, of course, we’ve heard stories.’

  ‘Have these stories pointed in any particular direction? Any names bandied about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know a man named Owen Valentine?’

  ‘Nope, can’t say I do.’

  Then Murphy’s mother called.

  ‘Are we all set for Sunday, dear?’

  ‘All set.’

  ‘I know you can be called away at a moment’s notice…’

  ‘Not this time,’ Pam said warmly. ‘I’ve squared it away with my boss. I thought we’d walk on the Flinders pier, have lunch at a winery…’

  ‘Oh, I know exactly where I want to go, dear.’

  Pam checked her watch, panicked, said goodbye to her mother and raced down the stairs. Threaded her way through the bottleneck in the main corridor, men and women gossiping, sipping cups of water from the cooler, discussing weekend plans. Happened to glance into the large room at the end, near the door to the car park. The domain of the civilian staff, clerks, typists, intelligence collators, it had emptied of everyone except Janine Quine, who was standing helplessly at a desk piled with material Pam recognised as coming from the Hauser murder scene.

  She stepped in. ‘Everything okay, Jan?’