‘They are?’ I said.
‘No, I said they could. The mike’s off now. The other problem you’ve got is that the base station your phone is logged into isn’t an authentic one. It’s what we call an IMSI-catcher. They’re also monitoring your calls. Probably even logging your position.’
That had to be Hound, I thought, remembering all the hi-tech surveillance stuff he had in his Hummer.
‘You are so owned,’ said Miranda.
I digested this information for a while before I said, ‘Okay, if they own me, can I own them without them knowing I own them?’
‘What’s going on, Dom?’ Miranda said, an uncharacteristically serious note to her voice.
‘Like I said, this kid at school’s been tapping phones and –’
‘In case, you hadn’t noticed, I’m not a total idiot. There’s something going on, and it’s not just this.
Gus and Dad and you, you’ve got some sort of secret men’s business happening.’
More than anything I wanted to tell Miranda. Tell her about The Debt. About Gus’s leg. About Dad. About everything. She was my sister, why shouldn’t I? Unburden. Open my mouth and let it all come out.
‘Let me guess – you can’t tell me?’ said Miranda.
I shook my head. ‘Not now I can’t.’
She was silent for a moment. ‘Okay, let’s see what we can do about this phone of yours.’
It took her a while, she even had to ring a friend of hers for advice, but eventually she said, ‘Okay, this is how it works.’
Just as she finished explaining it to me, I looked around and there was Imogen standing next to the bouncing castle.
I waved at her, but she didn’t return my greeting.
I thanked Miranda and walked towards Imogen.
‘What’s happening?’ I said, as I got closer.
‘Have you seen –’ she started, but the rest of her sentence was drowned out by the throaty roar of an accelerating sports car.
I scooted out to the front, Imogen just behind, in time to hear somebody yell, ‘It’s the Maserati!’ There was pandemonium, people running around everywhere.
‘The Zolt,’ they kept saying.
The Zolt. The Zolt. The Zolt.
I moved towards the lawn where the helicopters had landed and there was Cameron Jamison, standing next to his sleek black chopper.
‘You need some young eyes?’ I yelled out to him.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Get in.’
I needed no further invitation. But as I ran over and jumped into the passenger’s seat, I realised that Imogen was still behind me.
‘I’m coming too,’ she said.
‘Not a good idea,’ I said, thinking that she was not the person I wanted with me if I did actually come face to face with the Zolt.
She went to get in, and I really had no choice – I slid the perspex door across. And by that time Cameron Jamison had started the engine and we were ready to take off.
As we ascended I looked down to see Imogen staring up at us, a hurt expression on her face, getting smaller and smaller until she disappeared from view.
‘Don’t the cops on the island have their own choppers?’ I asked Cameron Jamison as we swept along the coast, following the main road.
Cameron laughed at that and said, ‘There’s four cops on this island and they’ve got nothing, especially not a brain.’
‘That’s a bit tough, isn’t it?’
‘Do you really think somebody with a brain would let a punk kid make them look like fools for such a long time?’
‘There it is!’
Up ahead, the Maserati turned off the main road and onto a smaller road that led towards the interior of the island.
My phone rang. It was Mr Jazy. ‘Is that you, Dom?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re in the chopper, right?’
‘Roger that,’ I said, for some reason adopting action-film language.
‘So have you seen him?’
I thought of all the alpha males down below, in their Jaguars and their Porsches and their Mercedes, all dying to start playing catch the fugitive, waiting for some direction from the eye-in-the-sky, from me.
‘Catch the Zolt,’ The Debt had told me. Not Mr Jazy. Or Hound. Or the brainless cops. Me.
‘Sorry, you’re breaking up. I can’t hear you. Reception’s bad,’ I said before I hung up.
We were right on top of the Maserati as it accelerated up the road.
‘He’s really moving,’ said Cameron. ‘One eighty at least.’
I imagined the Zolt below, all six foot five of him, working the gears.
‘He’s going way too fast,’ said Cameron.
I could see why he said this – up ahead was a T-junction.
Slow down, Zolt. Slow down.
But he didn’t.
He overshot the junction, went into a slide, flipped over, rolled three times, then finally came to rest.
Cameron landed the chopper on the road, and I was out of the door almost before it had touched down.
I ran over to the crumpled Maserati.
Looked in through the open window. At the inflated airbag.
At Tristan!
He looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘Become what you are.’
Then his eyes closed and he slumped forward, his face disappearing into the inflated airbag.
I ran back to the helicopter; where Cameron was holding his phone.
‘It’s not the Zolt,’ I said. ‘It’s Tristan.’
‘His dad’s on his way,’ said Cameron.
A few minutes later the first car arrived – a BMW. Then Mr Jazy in his Mercedes. More and more cars. Then the police. An ambulance. Another ambulance.
I kept shrinking back, away from the Maserati, away from the crowd, away from Tristan.
But when I saw Imogen get out of the car that Mrs Jazy was driving I ran straight up to her.
‘Thank goodness he’s alive,’ I said, and I went to hug her.
But Imogen stepped away from me and my open arms.
‘What happened yesterday?’ she said, her arms folded across her chest. ‘What happened with you and Tristan?’
‘Like I told you, we had this accident and –’ ‘Don’t lie to me!’ said Imogen.
I said nothing. What was there to say?
‘Unless you tell me the truth, I’m never going to say another word to you as long as I live,’ said Imogen, her eyes locked on mine.
DEAD COLD HAND
I closed my eyes and they stayed closed; sleep was winning this particular battle.
‘Darling, maybe we should head home now,’ said Mom, stroking my cheek with her forefinger.
She used to do this all the time when I was a little kid, but I couldn’t remember the last time she’d done it. Suddenly I was back in that fuzzy world of childhood, cocooned in comfort and security.
It didn’t last long, though, only as long as it took me to open my eyes and see where I was: in a waiting room in the Mater Hospital.
Yes, the Mater was the poshest hospital on the Gold Coast, more like a five-star hotel where the staff wore stethoscopes, and the waiting room had Foxtel and an espresso machine and an array of upmarket chocolate biscuits, but it was still a hospital.
I checked my watch: it was past one in the morning, and we’d been here since six the previous afternoon, after Rocco Taverniti’s helicopter had dropped us off at the hospital’s helipad.
‘You heard what Mr Jazy said?’ said Mom. ‘There’s nothing we can do, now. We might as well head back to Halcyon Grove.’
Yes, Mr Jazy had said exactly that, about an hour ago. ‘Tristan is in a coma,’ he’d said. ‘But his condition is stable. We really appreciate your support, but you might as well head home now. We’ll keep you informed as to his progress.’
Everybody else had heeded Mr Jazy’s advice and gone home. Even Imogen.
‘Come on, Dom. Let’s go home,’ said Mom, a note of impatience in her voice.
‘You can go,’ I said. ‘But I’m staying here.’
‘You’re fifteen years old,’ said Mom. ‘I’m not leaving you here by yourself.’
I planted my feet, folded my arms: I’m staying.
Mom was cross now; I could see it in her face.
But it didn’t last long because she did that thing she often did: she went from cross Mom to problem-solver Mom.
Taking out her phone she said, ‘I’ll be back in five minutes.’
It actually took her ten minutes but when she returned she was smiling.
‘Sorted,’ she said.
Not long afterwards our Cambodian cleaner, Hue Lin, walked in.
‘I remembered that Hue Lin lives very close to here,’ said Mom, talking as if Hue Lin wasn’t standing right next to her. ‘She’s offered to look after you tonight.’
After Mom had gone I looked sheepishly at Hue Lin. ‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘Nothing to be sorry about,’ she said. ‘Your mother is paying me double dollars.’
She took an enormous book out of her bag – Preparative Chromatography of Fine Chemicals and Pharmaceutical Agents – opened it to a bookmarked page and started reading.
I watched television, flicking through the channels, nothing capturing my interest for more than a few minutes.
Then I fell asleep for a while.
When I woke I thought: Biscuits!
I started at the Hedgehogs, moved on to the Mint Slices.
By the time I reached the Tim Tams I was feeling pretty bloody yucky.
That way-too-much-sugar-for-breakfast sort of pretty bloody yucky.
So I left the waiting room to go to the toilet, maybe even see if I could have a shower, and Mrs Jazy walked right past me.
‘Mrs Jazy!’ I said.
She turned around and looked at me, and I could tell that she was struggling to put me into context.
Eventually she said, ‘Dominic, what are you still doing here?’
I shrugged.
I wondered how much she knew. Had Tristan told her something about the trip in the speedboat? Had she guessed, the way mothers do, that something had happened?
‘You really don’t need to hang around,’ she said.
Again, a shrug.
‘If you saw Tristan, then would you go home?’ she said.
I nodded.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘This way.’
I walked with her down the corridor, stopping at a room that said Intensive Care 2B.
I followed Mrs Jazy inside.
Tristan was on the bed. White face on white pillowcase. Eyes closed. Motionless.
On the outside, nothing was happening. However, the array of buzzing, beeping, blinking monitors indicated that on the inside things were still going. Lungs were inflating and deflating. His heart was pumping. Blood was circulating. Inside, he was alive. But outside, nothing happened.
Mr Jazy was sitting by his son’s side, in an orange chair.
He said nothing to me, just indicated another orange chair on the other side of the bed. Sit down.
I did just that.
‘I’m sorry, Tristan,’ I whispered. ‘I’m really sorry.’
A series of images flashed through my mind: inviting myself to his holiday house, setting it up for us to go look for the Zolt, the trip in the speedboat, getting shot at, the escape, following in the chopper as the Maserati overshot the T-junction.
I put my hand over Tristan’s hand. It felt so cold, so dead.
Again that series of flashbacks. It occurred to me that my memory was trying to tell me something, but what was it?
Tristan’s monitors kept buzzing, beeping, blinking.
The door pushed open and a nurse entered.
Her eyes took me in and she said, her accent Irish, ‘I’m sorry, but we really can’t be allowing any visitors now.’
‘That’s okay,’ I said, getting up.
Mrs Jazy smiled at me.
‘You’ll go home now, won’t you, Dominic?’
I nodded.
Mr Jazy rummaged in his beard and then held out his hand for me to shake it.
Again, I wondered how much they knew.
I took his hand; his grip was surprisingly strong, and I flinched a bit.
Back in the waiting room, Hue Lin was still reading her book.
‘I’m going home now,’ I told her.
We both went downstairs and she watched as I got into a taxi.
‘Where we going?’ the driver asked.
‘Gold Coast,’ I said. ‘Halcyon Grove.’
We were on the freeway and the sun was coming up on our left, spinning out of the sea.
Again, I dozed off.
I woke to the sound of my phone beeping.
Mom, I thought. Checking up on me.
Or maybe news of Tristan.
But it wasn’t.
It was a text from Zoe Zolton-Bander.
need to talk urgent on bus meet me central bus station 8am
‘So Halcyon Grove’s past the Robina turnoff, right?’ the driver asked.
‘Change of destination,’ I said. ‘We’re going to Central Bus Station, instead.’
‘The Chinese lady at the hospital said to take you to Halcyon Grove,’ said the driver.
I pulled out the money Mom had given me and waved the notes at him.
‘The Chinese lady at the hospital is actually Cambodian,’ I said. ‘And she isn’t paying the fare, I am.’
‘Fair enough,’ said the driver as he swung the wheel and headed for the next exit.
TURTLE TIME
I walked into the cafeteria at Central Bus Station and Zoe was sitting in one corner.
Standing back, I watched her for a while, concerned that this was some sort of set-up, that she had an accomplice.
Because really, how far could I trust her? She’d put a whole lot of spyware on my phone. Her brother was a notorious criminal. And her mother was … well, I’m not too sure what her mother was, but I knew she definitely wasn’t to be trusted either.
The accomplice could be her, I thought, clocking the backpacker sitting at the next table. Or him, the businessman on his phone. Or even one of them, that gaggle of Japanese tourists.
But then I realised how paranoid I was becoming. Eventually, inevitably, you have to trust somebody. Sort of.
‘Hi,’ I said, approaching her table.
Immediately she got up, whispering, ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘Why?’
‘We’re being watched.’ She nodded her head to indicate the person at the adjacent table.
He looked pretty anonymous: a lumpy, bald middle-aged man engrossed in the sports pages of the paper. Zoe, however, was very keen to get away from him.
‘What was that all about?’ I asked after we’d left the café.
‘We have to be careful,’ said Zoe, adjusting her glasses.
‘Then where do you want to go?’ I said.
‘Just somewhere very public.’
‘How about the zoo? It’s only about ten minutes’ walk.’
‘Perfect,’ said Zoe Zolton-Bander. ‘Purr-fect.’
It was school holidays, so there was a long queue of people waiting to get in.
‘I don’t do queues,’ Zoe said, and the next time a family went through she just tacked on to the end of it.
I followed her lead.
I hadn’t been to the zoo for years, not since I was a little kid. It’d changed a lot since then, all the concrete and bars had been replaced by enclosures, designer cages.
It still sounded the same, all those animal sounds – the bellows, trumpets, squawks and chatterings – and it smelt the same too, like poo, zoo poo.
‘Anywhere in particular?’ I said.
‘I don’t like monkeys that much,’ said Zoe.
‘Overrated?’
‘Totally, especially those ones with the technicolour bums.’
We avoided the monkeys, especially those with the technicolour bums, and found a seat i
n front of the Galapagos turtle enclosure.
There weren’t any people here and the two turtles seemed to like it like that, not doing anything much to attract a crowd.
‘Okay, me first,’ I said. ‘How did you know I was back in the Gold Coast?’
‘Reverie isn’t a big place,’ she said.
‘So you caught an overnight bus just to see me?’
Zoe nodded. ‘My turn now.’ She scanned the area before she said, ‘You’re a liar. You are so not the president of my brother’s fan club.’
‘So what? You tapped my phone,’ I said.
‘You were so going to tap mine,’ she said. ‘I just got in first.’
When an elderly couple approached, Zoe tensed.
‘Relax,’ I said.
They shuffled in front of us, peering out into the enclosure.
‘What in the blazes is this supposed to be?’ asked the man.
‘It’s the Galapagos turtles, sir,’ I said.
‘They doing anything?’ asked the woman.
‘No, not a lot. Just eating some vegetables.’
‘Ludicrous,’ said the man, then the two of them wandered off.
Zoe waited until they were well out of sight before she said in a level voice, ‘Do you want to start again?’
‘I think that’s a good idea,’ I said. ‘Why did you contact me?’
Zoe considered my question, in much the same way as one of the Galapagos turtles was now considering the piece of cabbage in front of its nose.
She sighed, as if she had just made a momentous decision. ‘Because I thought you might know where Otto is.’
‘You don’t?’ I said, not bothering to disguise the surprise in my voice.
‘Not any more.’
‘Not since he got away from Hound de Villiers?’
‘Hound de Villiers is a moron.’
‘I don’t know – he did figure out where your brother was.’
‘Only because somebody told him.’
‘Somebody?’ I said, but I already had a fair idea of who that somebody was.
‘Your mum?’ I said.
Zoe nodded. ‘Otto didn’t get away, he was taken away.’
‘How do you know that?’ I asked, remembering Hound’s story about the boat with the ASIO types aboard.
‘Because if Otto had got away by himself, he would’ve contacted me.’
‘Using your Facebook code – sorry, concealment.’
Catch the Zolt Page 14