Clear to the Horizon

by Dave Warner

  CHAPTER 38

  Clement sat there with the receiver in his hand, cursing. What did Lane think he was playing at going after Whitmore by himself? Lane had obviously waited to the last minute to call. Clement had heard the boarding call in the background. It was only an hour flight from Darwin to Dili and Lane knew it would take Clement hours to organise himself from Broome. And even if he could get to Darwin, Lane had told him that was the only flight out today. He’d called ‘out of courtesy’, he had said. Clement had barked at him.

  ‘This is effing courtesy?’

  Lane told him he was sorry, but it was for Clement’s own sake.

  ‘It’s much better I’m deniable.’

  Of course Lane might be wrong about Whitmore. He’d been wrong about Crossland, and sure, he’d held off on declaring Plaistowe a killer, but he’d been dead certain it was Carter. In baseball parlance he was batting three for none.

  ‘What proof have you got?’ Clement had demanded that at least from him.

  All he’d said was he was certain this time.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Lane had said. ‘I have backup.’

  And that’s where he apologised and said he had to go and terminated the call. Leaving Clement to stew because there was no flight to Dili now even if he wanted to …

  Clement stopped, reversed.

  No commercial flight. The Feds owed him a favour. They were flying to and from Dili all the time. Clement yelled for Mal Gross. Clement’s phone pinged as Mal Gross stuck his head in the doorway.

  ‘Can you see if the Feds can fly me to Timor asap?’

  Gross didn’t ask why. He disappeared quick smart. Clement checked his phone, a pithy ‘Sorry, mate’ and an attachment. Clement clicked on the attachment and a photo bloomed. It showed Mathew Carter and Luke Whitmore in SAS gear in what might have been Dili. They both proudly displayed an SAS tattoo in the same place on their right arm.

  Whitmore must have had his tattoo doctored later to look like an Eagles tattoo. I thought about him, sprawling on his chair in front of the fire at the Parky pub, deliberately taking off his jacket, taunting me in his own private joke. ‘I’m the gingerbread man, you can’t catch me.’ I didn’t remember seeing a tattoo the previous time we met. I guessed he was wearing a jumper or windcheater. From that first interview he must have known I was looking at the Autostrada case. He’d probably gone the next day and had the tattoo altered just in case, knowing something had led me to think SAS. Or maybe Cornelius had innocently mentioned it when he set us up for a meet. Such a cocky bastard, he even told me he wasn’t really into footy, giving me a clue. He must have enjoyed life on the edge.

  Maybe it was combat high, maybe that was what drove him to abduct and kill. Or more likely he’d always been like that and the army was a perfect profession. I know they do tests for that kind of thing but there was always somebody could beat the system.

  ‘They got them the same time. Whitmore’s idea. I took the photo.’

  Feruggi sat next to me on the plane. At Perth airport I’d been heading out as the Eagles supporters rolled in. I still hadn’t seen the game. Sunday had been all about logistics, booking flights and hotels. On Skype Feruggi’s arms had looked tatt-free but I double-checked when we met at Darwin airport. He’d insisted on coming.

  ‘You’re going to need backup. Do you know where you’re going to get the gun?’

  This was a reference to my carefully thought out plan. I was going to meet up with Luke Whitmore, somewhere; I wasn’t sure where; I was going to tell him it was all over and ask Whitmore what had happened to Emily Virtue and Caitlin O’Grady. If he refused, I would threaten him with the gun, which I didn’t have yet but was going to get from someone who I hadn’t yet identified. If he continued to refuse, I was going to beat him, then shoot him, somewhere like a thigh, not lethal. This was why I could not have Dan Clement along. He was still young enough to have a career. In the blink of an eye I would be sixty. Close to a third of my life I had been tracking a phantom, and now that phantom had flesh, blood and a name. What I was prepared to do was not in any sense smart, or considered, but dealing with these monsters you cannot be smart or considered. They’ll laugh in your face and cut your throat, I’ve seen it before. If things went awry, if I had to shoot him, I guessed they would stick me in jail in Dili.

  Or maybe they wouldn’t.

  Maybe they’d think that having a serial killer in their midst where he could go back to his old ways with impunity was not such a good thing. And maybe I would convince them that, regardless of what this lying killer said, the fact was I was trying to bring him in peacefully when he jumped me and I had to shoot him. Fact is, I didn’t want to think that far ahead, I didn’t want images of Tash and Grace visiting me in a Dili prison to cloud the judgement I knew I must not have.

  ‘I know where we can get a gun,’ said Feruggi, bringing me back to the present.

  He told me he had a girlfriend but nothing serious. He was divorced with two kids. He had convinced me he had nothing to do with the abductions – don’t worry, the thought had crossed my mind that all three of them could be in on it. I’d made him scan his passport and send it to me to prove that when Caitlin disappeared he had been in Thailand.

  We reached Dili quicker than a below-quota parking inspector writes a ticket. I was nervous approaching passport control. What if I read Clement wrong and he’d alerted them about me? I was gambling that deep in his heart Clement knew this was the best way, that stuffing around with extradition and lawyers would only buy a smart sociopath more time to find a way out. I was gambling he was smart enough to know he needed a stalking horse and Snowy Lane was dumb enough to be it. My heart was in my mouth and poking out my nostrils as I waited. The official glanced at my passport then waved me through. I floated all the way to the taxi. An Immigration contact of mine had slipped me the details of Whitmore’s NGO, an aid-distribution organisation backed by good people who would have had seizures had they known the background of the person driving their truck. Feruggi didn’t have any doubt why Whitmore had come here.

  ‘He got away with it before. The police won’t have a clue.’

  ‘You never suspected him?’ I had to ask.

  ‘No. I didn’t, but when you told me why you thought it was Carter, it all just fitted into place.’

  We drove into town. It was reminiscent of Geraldton, Denpasar and Saigon all blended: sparse bush, eucalypts, white concrete houses, palms and pagoda shapes. It was still early in the build-up season but stickier than date pudding and the taxi had no air con. The driver smelled like he’d been lying in a urinal. He dropped us at the hotel, a two-storey concrete affair, The Lux, that sported plastic chairs and tables in an undercroft area, rated 7 on TripAdvisor, and was the second cheapest I could find online. Feruggi had offered to pay his own way but I’d nixed that and booked him his own room.

  The reception area had the feel of a youth-hostel canteen. The girl on the desk wore immaculately clean clothes but they looked a few years old and had the thinness caused by repeated washing.

  It was moving on towards 4.30 by the time we opened the doors of our rooms. My reminiscence of Geraldton was rekindled. It could have been a room I stayed in back in the early ’80s. Feruggi said he was going out to get the ‘you know what’.

  ‘If the guy is still alive and in the same place it should take me less than an hour. If he’s not, I’ll have to ask around.’

  There was an old fashioned air-cooler, one of those that I can never get to work. This was no exception. I wished in vain for a fan and had to make do with opening the windows, aluminium sliding style. A sea breeze entered but it didn’t have the weight to shift the boulder of humidity that had taken up residence. I decided I’d be better off outside, headed downstairs and out, walking the main drag, trying not to think too hard because sooner or later I’d begin to dwell on Tash and Grace and everything I stood to lose. Traffic was scant. I found myself in some kind of market that evoked those early days in
Bali when you’d wander past brightly coloured mats and tie-dye t-shirts, clutching the little plastic travel bag the airlines used to give you to prove you were an international traveller. I’d hoped by the time I got back to The Lux that Feruggi would have returned but there was still no sign of him and it was well into an hour since he’d left. That meant he was having trouble getting a gun. Something else I didn’t want to have to think about. I bought a beer from the receptionist who doubled as bartender. She poured it daintily so as not to chip her nails. The beer glass was frosted on the outside and I felt better just looking at it. The only trouble was it was xxxx, but it would do. I plonked myself on top of a stool that was losing stuffing, right in the path of a big fan. I sipped slowly and began to feel human. There was one other person in the place, an old guy, some sort of local, maybe the owner. He was playing a solo card game at the table. The girl disappeared behind a cloth curtain. It was then I realised I only had Australian dollars. Feruggi had told me they took US dollars but he was the only one of us with any. I guessed they would just bill my room and I could burn it off plastic. After I finished my beer I waited a few moments in case the girl returned but there was no sign of her so I took the tiny elevator back up, thinking a shower might help revive me.

  I keyed the door, no fancy plastic magnetic keys here, and walked in to see Whitmore standing in front of me. Then something that felt like a swarm of bees hit me. My muscles went liquid and I dropped. Whitmore had tasered me. I opened my mouth to speak but all I saw was a bunch of knuckles heading my way. I felt pain and left the earth.

  It was rare that Clement felt Fate favoured him. In that, he wondered if he was different or alike to most people. He couldn’t actually conceive anybody thought they were naturally lucky but he guessed somebody must. Anyway this time he was lucky. The Feds had a plane in Broome, a Learjet, and were prepared to help. It was Risely who made the plea via Nikki Sutton. Clement and Graeme Earle grabbed their passports. At this stage there were no charges against Whitmore but the Dili police had been requested to detain him. He’d then be asked to accompany the police back to WA and if he refused they would determine whether to bring charges or not. Clement was still pissed off with Snowy Lane. He understood Lane’s thinking: he was protecting him from unpleasant things, things being a cop wouldn’t allow him to do to Whitmore. And Clement might almost let him get away with that, except that he wasn’t sure Lane could handle Whitmore.

  The direct route and the Feds hitting the gas meant he was in Dili in around three hours. From Immigration he knew Lane was staying at The Lux so they made straight for it in their taxi. Lane should have only a ninety-minute headstart, hopefully not long enough for him to do too much damage. He and Earle buttonholed the receptionist who was busy tending happy hour to half-a-dozen expats. She gave them Lane’s room number and they scuttled up. The door was open. A guy was sitting on the bed.

  ‘Who are you?” asked Clement.

  ‘I was going to ask the same question.’

  Clement flashed ID. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘James Feruggi.’

  Now he saw it. ‘You’re Lane’s backup.’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  Feruggi looked from Earle to Clement. ‘You don’t have jurisdiction.’

  Earle could look mean when he wanted. ‘Dili police are working with us.’

  Clement saw doubt creep into Feruggi’s face.

  ‘Is he with Whitmore? We know everything.’

  Feruggi gave it up. ‘I don’t know where he is. I went out for a while, when I came back he was gone. He was supposed to stay here.’

  Earle was already on one knee looking at something on the dressing table, a little speck. He caught Clement’s eye. ‘Blood,’ he said.

  I was in the back of a vehicle, on the floor behind the front seat, covered in what smelled like a tarp rather than a blanket. My hands were bound behind my back, my feet tied. My head throbbed. I didn’t remember anything at first except for Whitmore being in my room. I was guessing he’d slugged me but I felt weird, my muscles weak. Had he drugged me? It started coming at me then in fractured flickers: the bastard had tasered me, then hit me when I was down. I remembered the hallway, elevator, a knife in my ribs. He must have dragged me into the lift before he rolled me out into a back lane. It was twilight when we’d emerged. He’d slipped prepared ties over me, pulled them tight, then dragged me into the car, some kind of four-wheel drive. It did not escape me that this was most likely how Caitlin and the other girls had felt, assaulted, in shock, terrified. I guessed he jumped them in the dark. I doubt tasers were around back then but he could have stunned them with his fists, pulled a knife. His training had prepared him for exactly this role: silent, efficient abduction, and death. I’m a big man and he’d handled me like a toy. All the theories about the girls knowing their abductor became straw when you saw this kind of man-machine in action.

  My spine told me when we left smooth road for some kind of track. I felt the pull as the car went uphill. When he stopped I figured we must have driven for forty minutes to an hour. The door at the rear of the car was pulled open. I heard something metallic yanked out and then the blade of a spade bit dirt.

  He was digging my grave.

  My brain ran wild. What did I have to defend myself? Nothing. Could I jump him before he dragged me out? Once I was out of the car I was dead meat. I saw Natasha and Grace in my head and bile rose in my mouth at what I was going to lose. Maybe Feruggi had seen us leave? It was a weak hope anyway; he had no vehicle, how could he follow? And through all this the spade drove down into the earth, duller as the sand got richer and the hole deeper. I can’t tell you how long this took. It seemed like an hour or longer, maybe it was, or maybe it was twenty minutes. Then I heard a final grunt and the spade blade was driven down for the last time. I tensed as I felt him approach.

  Earle had gone to get to the police. Clement felt his blood pumping too fast. Think. He grabbed Feruggi.

  ‘There might be somewhere he’d take him. Somewhere he used to hang out. Come on!’

  Feruggi was trying. Clement urged him, aware it was probably useless but unable to help himself.

  ‘Somewhere he would go that he thought was connected to him.’

  ‘There was a hill on the way to Maubisse. We’d drink beers. He used to say, this wouldn’t be a bad place to be buried.’

  Clement told himself that had to be it. There was no time for second-guessing.

  How far?’

  ‘Forty-five minutes?’

  Clement started moving. ‘Let’s go.’

  The lift was already occupied and heading down. Clement pressed and re-pressed the button. No exit stairs. He saw the lift had hit the ground floor, and heard it start back up.

  ‘Come on,’ he urged. It seemed to take forever. Not for the first time he cursed Lane. Finally the lift clicked in. He pulled open the door and Feruggi and he jumped in. Another eternity going down. Maybe Snowy could talk his way out of whatever Whitmore had planned but he thought the odds were all the other way. Whitmore was used to beating the police. He was probably too arrogant to think he’d ever be caught.

  They ran out of the hotel onto the street. There had been no time to organise phones that worked here. Earle came running towards them. He started calling out ten metres off.

  ‘Police are scrambling. They’re checking on Whitmore’s vehicle. He left work early and nobody has seen him.’

  ‘We’re going south towards Maubisse,’ yelled Clement. ‘It could be where Whitmore’s taken him. You wait here.’

  Feruggi had waved down a four-wheel drive and had the back door open.

  ‘He’ll take us.’

  Clement followed him into the rear seat. ‘Thank you.’

  The driver, a local by the look of him, waved and smiled. It made Clement feel worse. He did not want a Good Samaritan hurt but that did not stop him shouting.

  ‘Faster! Vite.’
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br />   ‘I hope I can remember the way,’ said Feruggi as night rushed by outside.

  I was still jammed between the back of the front seats and rear seats. I knew Whitmore was above me now. I could feel him there. I held my breath, I made my eyes lose focus, played dead. I heard and felt the tarp ripped away.

  ‘Ready, arsehole?’ he said.

  I didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. You’re dead, you’re dead, I told myself. I imagined him thinking: Have I killed him? Did his heart give out?

  I felt him lean in …

  With all the force I could muster I lifted my body and rammed my head into his face. I heard a crack of cartilage, a stifled cry. I tried to push myself backwards and out but remained stuck in the gully between front and back seats. This time he grunted from anger and effort and brought both hands down like a hammer on my face. The pain was exquisite.

  ‘Fucking arsehole.’

  He pulled me out of the car by my shoulders. I tasted blood down the back of my throat from my smashed nose. My head and shoulders hit rough earth, my arse and legs were still in the car. Another heave and I was out under stars I could not appreciate. We were on a hill, wooded. I saw him close up. I’d done some damage to his face, maybe broken his nose. He kicked me in the ribs, twice. A drop of his blood fell beside me. It gave me a stupid sense of achievement. I had to get him talking, hope he’d make a mistake.

  ‘This is pointless. The police are onto you.’

  ‘No, the police have that vet. They’re dumb. They’ll set him up if the facts don’t fit.’

  ‘You think I would come here without letting them know?’

  ‘Probably. You are pretty damn stupid, “Snowy”.’

  He liked to think he did good snide.