by Dave Warner
‘Mr Lane: Mr Nelson Feister, Mrs Kate Hayward, and Simon Feister.’
We mumbled greetings. Dee Verleuwin asked if I would like a refreshment of any sort.
‘Thanks, I’m good.’
She withdrew. Feister was standing at the side of his desk. The other two were seated on one of two sofas. I’d been hoping Feister might have been in some casual man-about-the-house clobber so I wouldn’t feel quite so out of place but he wore a dark suit with an ochre tie. He was trim, the kind of man who thinks exercise a virtue. I put him around twelve years older than me. There was something in her eyes that made Kate Hayward a Feister. I presumed she was the elder daughter and bore her married name now. She was carrying a kilo or two more than optimal but had the curves to compensate and a posture that spoke of years competing in high-grade equestrian events. Unlike his dad, Simon Feister didn’t emanate authority. His chin was slightly weak and his forehead high but he was closest to me in dress sense with slacks and a short-sleeved shirt worn out, not tucked.
‘Take a seat, please.’ Nelson Feister had a deep voice. I sat on the same sofa as his daughter. ‘How much do you know?’
‘Basically nothing. I was having a cup of tea at the beach and Barry Dunn approached me. He told me your daughter, Ingrid, is missing. He thought for about two weeks.’
‘Two weeks exactly.’ It was Kate who spoke. There was a rasp to her voice and I wondered if she smoked.
‘Ingrid left Perth with her boyfriend to go for a holiday up north,’ her father said. ‘They stayed at Port Hedland. The police tracked them as far as the Sandfire Roadhouse. Then they just disappeared.’
I knew the Sandfire Roadhouse from forty years ago. It used to be run by a one-armed misanthrope who worked whatever hours he pleased. You could be stuck for hours waiting for the place to open to get fuel. The first time I ever pulled into the roadhouse a truck driver was upending the servo bin. ‘Serves the prick, right,’ was all he offered before climbing into his truck and driving off. At that time I had no idea who he was talking about but I quickly came to learn.
I looked over all three of them. ‘No word from them at all?’
‘Typical of Ingrid.’ Like the rest of him, Simon Feister’s highish voice measured badly against his father’s.
‘I’m still not certain there’s a problem but her sister and brother convinced me to look into it.’ There was something almost more machine than human about Feister. It put me in mind of a locomotive slowly rolling away from a platform, barely tapping latent power.
Kate said, ‘Ingrid took six thousand dollars out of her bank account before they left. Max is a no-hoper.’
‘Max?’
‘Coldwell, her boyfriend.’
I was regretting having come straight here. My habit was to tape and take notes. I asked if I might borrow pad and pen. Nelson Feister handed me a document with plastic binding.
‘We did up this to help.’
By ‘we’ I intuited he meant Dee Verleuwin. I accepted the dossier and flipped it open on a large photo of Ingrid Feister. I knew this because it had her name in large print with salient details beneath, like her birthday, passport number, Facebook, Instagram, car registration, driver’s licence and favourite foods. A quick calculation told me she would be twenty-one in a couple of months. If I had to sum up in one word what the photo told me about the subject, I would say defiant. Physically, Ingrid resembled the inevitable model girlfriend of a rock star, a mane of unruly hair and the Fuk U attitude unable to camouflage the aesthetic beauty of her high cheekbones and slender neck. She was wearing a t-shirt with writing on it. It might have said Pussy Riot, which I think was the name of the female Russian punk band that got arrested for slipping Putin the finger. I flipped the next page and there was a photo of Max Coldwell. It was blown up from the cover of his CD and showed a young guy with requisite goatee beard, long black hair and soulful but not intelligent eyes. Okay, I know you can’t tell all this from a photo but if we were playing that game where you describe a person as an animal, Max would be a cow. Again Kate pitched in.
‘He produced the CD himself.’ With the inference that no record label would be dumb enough. ‘There’s a copy at the back.’
Which there was. Her brother waded in. ‘We’ll email you the electronic files of all this.’
I was feeling my way with all the information. ‘When did you notify the police?’
Kate was now defined as the spokesperson. ‘Three days ago.’
‘That’s not an awful long time.’
‘There was no sign of them having reached Broome,’ Nelson said with the kind of detached air that he probably employed negotiating with the Japanese. ‘They had a four-wheel drive so they could have gone off-road. We have some mining operations in the area and it’s even possible they might have gone for a look.’ His son’s derisive snort gave this option as much credence as making razor blades sharper by sticking them under a glass pyramid. His father ignored him. ‘We put up a couple of light planes and they’ve been searching but have come up with nothing so far.’
‘Is there any history of violence from Coldwell?’
‘He’s an inveterate drug user.’ Kate Hayward made it sound as inevitable as night following day.
‘Hard drugs?’
She shrugged. ‘Probably.’
Her father shot her a look that said ‘steady on’. He turned to me, measured. ‘He was arrested for marijuana four years ago.’
‘They do one, they do the other,’ his daughter snapped back at him.
I didn’t want to be involved in a family spat. ‘Okay, so the way I see it, this is not a kidnap for ransom or you’d have long heard from any kidnappers.’
‘The police said the same thing,’ said Simon Feister.
‘So there’s four possibilities. They both met with foul play, Ingrid has met with foul play at the hands of Max, they’ve had an accident, or else they’ve gone to ground for whatever reason.’ I was thinking of the attitude in Ingrid’s photo. I addressed Simon Feister directly. ‘From how you’ve reacted, I take it the last possibility isn’t out of the question.’
‘Two years ago she flew to the Philippines and cut off all contact with us. Four months later she turned up here as if nothing had happened.’
His sister qualified. ‘Yes, but she kept posting on Facebook and used her credit cards. This time she’s just vanished.’
‘If she had six thousand dollars in cash she wouldn’t need her cards for some time.’ I was trying to be even about all this. There was an odd vibe in the room I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Kate seemed extremely anxious about her half-sister’s fate, yet dismissive of her at the same time.
‘Has Coldwell contacted his family?’
Nelson Feister said, ‘The police say his mother has heard nothing.’
‘Probably too drunk to remember.’ Kate with that cutting tone. I wondered how her husband coped.
I trod carefully with my next question and directed it straight at Nelson. ‘Has her mother heard from her?’
‘No. She’s visiting family in Sweden. We haven’t let on yet that Ingrid is missing. I don’t want her worrying.’
‘How long since you spoke with Mrs Feister?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘I suggest you inform her of the situation. It’s possible Ingrid will contact her.’
‘It’s possible pigs might wear parachutes.’ Kate checking her watch like each second was costing her a kidney. I expected Nelson Feister to make some comment but he let it go and I was forced to ask if there was any problem between Ingrid and her mother.
Feister shook his head. ‘No, they could be closer but it’s just a phase she’s going through.’
I asked if Ingrid lived on the property. I thought it would be important to check her room.
‘She has a flat in Fremantle. There’s a key in the folder.’ Simon Feister pointed.
‘In that case I think I’m done for now. I’ll go home, get changed, and start work.�
��
I stood. Nelson Feister had not yet extended his hand to me and still did not. I understood I was a hireling, no more.
‘Dee will take care of you. She’ll be your point of contact.’
Dee Verleuwin appeared at the door as if she had some telepathic link to her employer. Maybe she’d been waiting outside the whole time or maybe the room was miked. I nodded a farewell and exited, following at her heel. She turned and handed me a cheque without stopping. I saw it was for three thousand dollars.
‘I hope a cheque is acceptable. Mr Feister still prefers cheques and paper invoices. He says one day some computer bug will erase everything.’
In that regard, at least, Nelson Feister was a man after my own heart. We came from an older generation that had seen too many astonishingly bad things happen to place our trust in a remote server and a satellite. We reached the front door. Ms Verleuwin unbolted it. I went out on a slim limb.
‘I wonder if you can help me?’
She ushered me out into a glorious spring day and walked to the end of the porch. In for a penny …
‘I couldn’t help detecting some vibe in the room.’
‘You mean with Kate and Simon?’
‘Partly. It’s like they are pushing their father …’
‘If Ingrid dies, they split her share of the family trust. Nelson would probably have waited a bit longer. Ingrid is a wild kid, she’s disappeared before.’
No wonder they were interested to know what might have happened. If their sister were dead they’d be even richer. We’d reached the end of the porch.
‘You know Ingrid, what do you think?’
‘I’m not paid to think.’
‘I am. Is this like the other times?’
She seemed to give it great consideration. ‘I think it’s fifty-fifty. They could be meditating in the middle of the desert smoking pot, or they could have been taken by crocodiles. I think Ingrid and Max are both stoned most of the time. You know if you ever repeat this to anybody Mr Feister will sue the white ants where your house once stood?’
‘Of course. That’s why you hired me, because Dunn told you I’m a vault. So you don’t think Max is violent?’
The way she checked me out hinted at how she evaluated shoes: as if she was attracted but was weighing the downside. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. Not like some men.’
And I just knew she was talking of me but I couldn’t tell if that excited or repelled her. I lifted my folder as a farewell. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘I’ve texted my details to your phone,’ she said before turning on her heel. Yes, a younger Snowy Lane might have got into considerable strife there.
CHAPTER 12
‘Detective Inspector Daniel Clement, Broome. I’m after Mr Angus Duncan.’ Clement hated working the phones himself but it wasn’t fair to leave it to the others when he had nothing else on his plate but the elusive thief. He’d put a call through to Feister’s Giant Iron HQ in Port Hedland.
‘Sorry, mate, Angus isn’t here.’
Only in the north-west could your rank be so easily reduced to ‘mate’.
‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’
‘Probably this arvo. He’s gone to Tenacity Hill.’
In his fifteen months back in the Kimberley, Clement had come to know all the major mine sites. Tenacity Hill didn’t ring a bell.
‘What’s Tenacity Hill and where?’
‘Hundred and fifty k north-east of Marble Bar, give or take. It’s a camp.’
By which Clement guessed his ‘mate’ meant an exploration camp.
‘Who am I speaking to?’
‘Terry Northcott. I’m a production super. I dunno why they put you through to me.’
‘Would you know if Miss Ingrid Feister might have called in to any of the company operations?’
‘I wouldn’t have a clue. She the boss’s daughter? You’d best speak to Angus. He could be back before the end of the day.’
That hardly seemed likely. ‘That’s a couple of hundred k, right?’
‘He flies a Cessna.’
Smart guy. Clement left Terry his number and requested Angus Duncan call him as soon as possible. He crossed the squad room to Scott Risely’s office.
Chin resting on his hand, Risely was staring at a computer screen.
‘Tell me how can I save money and put more personnel on the street?’
Of course Risely didn’t expect an answer. He was just relaying the misery of being between a rock and a hard place: politicians’ promises to their constituents and the resources they made available to those entrusted to ensure they were kept.
‘There’s no sign of the girl, the boyfriend or her vehicle since Sandfire. I’ve got my lot going through all the CCTV they can get a hold of, here and at the roadhouses. Course a couple of them have cameras down.’ Clement didn’t bother to hide his frustration. The Kimberley region was about the size of the US state of Ohio but most of it was serviced by only a few surfaced roads with roadhouses dotted every couple of hundred k. Theoretically anybody you were tracking, even in an off-road vehicle, should turn up at one of these sooner or later looking for fuel. But without cameras you were relying on ID from a human source and those working outback roadhouses in forty-degree heat were almost a different species.
Risely understood the problem better than anyone. ‘I’m told Feister had planes checking the desert.’
‘There’s no indication they ever made it here. We should have been able to find something. But there’s no CCTV of them anywhere. Not so far anyway.’
Risely looked up at his wall map even though he had the geography photocopied into his memory. ‘Could have gone off-road to the Gibb or be anywhere along Eighty Mile Beach.’ Which, translated, meant they could have headed east through the desert, then north to link up with the Gibb River Road, a six hundred and fifty k stretch of tar and dirt that took you to the gorges of the East Kimberley, or alternatively they might have turned west to the desolate coast. Either way, if they’d gone off-road you needed aerial help or keen eyes among the few on the ground. Risely switched back to him. ‘Parks and Wildlife?’
‘Of course. They’re keeping a lookout too.’
Risely sat back in his chair, contemplative. ‘Say we rule out foul play, for now at least. If they came up here to sightsee, my money would be on the Bungle Bungles or the gorges but, gee, they could be anywhere.’ He picked up a pen and gestured vaguely at the map on the wall. ‘Worst scenario is they went inland, struck trouble.’ People had perished in the desert before. Their vehicle breaks down, they foolishly leave it and try to walk. They become dehydrated, delirious and die. As if answering his own thoughts he said, ‘I’ll get more air patrols.’
Clement sidled back to his desk, checking the clock. It was now ominously close to 5.00. Unlike the others, he had nothing to look forward to once the workday ended. Dinner at Scott Risely’s would actually have been a welcome way to soak up time but that was tomorrow night. He sent a text off to his old school friend, Bill Seratono, the only friend he had here outside of work colleagues, asking if he wanted to catch up for a drink. His phone buzzed almost immediately: Anglers 5.30. He felt good about that and annoyed with himself at the same time for being so pathetic. Marilyn was always going to remarry, get over it.
Graeme Earle was getting ready to leave. ‘There’s still no sign of the Feister girl or her vehicle here, Fitzroy Crossing, Derby or Kununurra. They could be camping. It would be so much easier if we could go public.’
‘Ain’t that the truth. But it is what it is. Keep chasing.’
‘I’ve got court tomorrow.’
Of course: The ice addict who had attacked two of the nurses at Derby Hospital. Clement’s brain was bogged. Normally he would never forget a court case. Earle was looking at him like he had something on his mind.
‘What?’
‘You seen Louise again?’
‘No.’
What was it with everybody? All trying to pair him up. Ea
rle was unrelenting.
‘Come on it’s been over a week. You have to move faster than that. She’ll think you’re not interested.’
‘What makes you think I am?’
Earle made some sound through the top of his nose, then he enumerated. ‘She’s gorgeous. She’s smart, she earns good money and she’s in a job that means she understands our world.’
It was true that Louise Albertini was a very attractive young woman. She was a lawyer, so presumably earned good money too. More often than not she appeared in court, which was where they had met, acting for people Clement was trying to put away. Despite this, they seemed to get on and Clement had invited her to lunch on the basis of some popular belief that the best way to forget an ex was in the arms of somebody new. Halfway through the chicken chilli salad he’d been aware that he wasn’t ready for anything more than conversation but at least he’d not been so hopeless as to talk endlessly about Marilyn. The lunch had ended pleasantly enough.
Earle remained stubbornly waiting for his justification.
On the defensive Clement fended with, ‘It’s not like she doesn’t have a phone.’ It was lame and he knew it. Earle hauled a case full of files off his desk and rolled to the back door with a parting quip.
‘Man up, Inspector.’
Clearly Tuesday was not a popular day at the Anglers Club; it boasted six customers of which he was now one. Concrete floor, cheap furnishing, air-conditioning; the club was a functional bar – its function to sell cheap grog. Faded photos of fishermen with a prize catch dotted the walls. The photos had not been sharply focussed in the first place but by now they had about them a bland uniformity. Like soldiers too long at the front, all their individuality and vitality had leached into their surroundings. Bill was waiting for him at the most distant of the tall tables, a full beer at the ready. He inclined his head towards it.