by Julie Thomas
He recognised the governor’s voice and supressed a satisfied smile. The system was so predictable.
He gave a loud sob. ‘I have to hurt him. The voices in my head, they won’t fucking stop. If I kill him, they’ll leave me alone!’
The voice from outside was calm and reassuring. ‘We can make them stop, Marcus. Just let him go and let us help you.’
Marcus had relaxed his grip so that the terrified man didn’t actually die. Now he poked the face with the knife to make him squeal again.
‘I cut off a man’s ear once, Governor. Did you know that?’
The man squealed again. It was an exquisite sound, a sound Marcus had missed.
The governor coughed. ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Marcus! Let me come inside and talk to you.’
Marcus waited for nearly a minute. ‘Okay. Just you.’
The suited middle-aged man stepped into the cell. Marcus saw his reaction to the blood – there was a lot of blood, everywhere.
He raised the knife to the struggling man’s eye. ‘An eye for an eye, Governor.’
‘No!’ The governor’s voice was a shocked cry. So much for calm and reassuring.
‘But the voices –’
‘I can make the voices go away, really, I can. Trust me, Marcus. You’ve been a model prisoner. We can fix this. We can send you to a place where they will make you well.’
Marcus glared at him and pressed the knife close to his prisoner’s eye. ‘Where?’
‘A hospital, a special hospital. Broadmoor. Your mother can still visit.’
‘I want to go now. Today. I want them to make the voices stop now.’
The governor nodded emphatically. ‘Yes. Yes, I promise you: if you put him down, you can go today.’
Marcus hesitated again. Could he trust the governor? Better to make certain of it. He thrust the knife into the unprotected eye and then threw the screaming inmate across the room. Both men scrambled out and the cell door slammed shut.
Four hours later Marcus was bundled into a prison van. He was the only occupant, and they put him in the rear inside compartment, the one closest to the back door. His hands and feet were shackled, his head was bandaged and the painkiller had taken away the ache. He leaned against the wall and smiled. Nothing to do now, but wait. Trust Tom, and wait.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
WHAKAMARIA BAY
‘Vinnie?’
Anna walked rapidly through the lounge towards the bedroom. ‘Vin, are you here?’
No response. She stuck her head around the door and glanced at the empty room. He wasn’t in the house. With quick, determined steps she went to the kitchen, out the back door and down the path towards the shed. The roller door was up and a truck was parked on the concrete apron. As she approached the entrance, she could see two men loading cardboard boxes onto the long table. Vinnie was checking their labels against a sheet in his hand. He looked up and smiled.
‘Hello, lovely. Nearly done.’
‘I need to talk to you, now.’ She kept her expression as composed as she could, but she knew her eyes were giving her away.
He frowned. ‘Okay, mystery woman.’
He followed her out of the shed and onto the lawn that led up to the house.
‘I’ve just had a call from Peter Harper.’
He pulled up abruptly. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
She could hear the immediate fear, and her heart rejoiced at what she was about to do to his life.
‘He had news, wonderful news.’
‘About?’
‘Marcus Lane. The bastard is dead.’
He stared at her for a moment, frowning, seemingly digesting the information.
‘How?’
‘All Peter could say was that he’d had some sort of breakdown and attacked a fellow inmate. They were transferring him to a psychiatric hospital, and the van blew up on the way. Two guards were killed as well.’
Vinnie nodded slowly. ‘And they’re sure? That it was his body?’
‘Well, they’ve announced his death, so you have to think they’ve checked. I don’t know how much of him was left, though, if it blew up.’
He pulled her to him and hugged her.
‘So maybe the running is over,’ she said.
She knew the excitement in her voice was obvious, and perhaps he thought that was inappropriate, but she felt dizzy with hope.
‘Maybe it is. What else did Peter say?’
‘Nothing, just to tell you and that he’ll be in touch again soon. He was on a burner cell phone.’
Vinnie, Anna and Mary had moved to a remote bay at the end of a long coastal road. Many of the houses were holiday homes and only occupied during the summer months. There was a pub, a general store with a post office counter, a petrol station and a primary school. The land around the bay was sheep country, softly rolling and prone to drought during the dry months.
They had bought a big rambling house made of native wood, with a veranda all around it and lots of windows that folded back to let in the sea breeze. The front lawn ran down to the beach, and they could lie in bed at night and listen to the waves breaking on the sand.
For a month they did nothing but walk Merlot on the beach, get to know others in the community and help Mary adjust to her new identity. Peter had suggested they buy a boat, and all three of them had discovered an instant love of fishing. It was a good way to blend in, and their neighbours were more than happy to provide instruction. The trauma of the confrontation with Norman Lane and the hasty exit from Rocky Bay started to melt away and, after yet another night of sitting outside and watching a sky aflame with stars, they all agreed that it was time to get to work.
The first project was to build a shed with a commercial-grade kitchen, cool storage and a packaging area for preparing boxes for transport. Vinnie and Anna searched the country and the internet for all the machinery they needed and the best sources of flavourings and fillings. It was still a work in progress, what with all the planning permissions and red-tape, and so Anna had limited the first release to four chocolates and three truffles, sold in boxes of four, seven, fourteen and twenty-eight pieces. She had researched a range of possibilities and fiddled in the kitchen for days, tweaking and experimenting. Vinnie and Mary had hung around watching, tasting and looking things up on the internet when required.
‘Ishpink.’
Vinnie looked up from the laptop and smiled. Anna stood in the doorway, latex gloves on her hands and a chocolate-smeared apron around her waist.
‘Same to you. Is this a new language known only to chocolatiers?’ he asked.
She smiled back. ‘It’s a spice, from Ecuador. Sort of a bit like nutmeg and cinnamon. See if we can get any.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Anything else?’
‘Try for combava, it’s a fruit. Apparently it smells like citronella and tastes like lemongrass.’
He shook his head in amazement. ‘Seriously?’
‘Of course. I thought of a white frankincense ganache, but it’s horrendously expensive.’
Eventually, she sat them down at the kitchen table in front of two plates. Five chocolates and five truffles sat in two neat rows on each plate.
‘Here they are. I want you to try the same one at the same time. Eat it slowly and then tell me what you can taste and give it a mark out of ten. At the end I want them ranked from one to ten. I need a final choice of seven.’
Both Vinnie and Mary nodded. Vinnie picked up a white chocolate.
‘I wish someone would create a distilled spirit and call it “Kindred”. Then we could make a chocolate filled with kindred spirit.’
Anna smiled at him. ‘Very droll. Get on with it, clever clogs.’
‘Let’s start with this one, then.’
Mary and Vinnie both popped the chocolate in their mouths and let it roll around.
‘Ginger,’ said Mary.
‘Chilli!’ Vinnie exclaimed.
‘And coconut. It tastes like … what does it taste like, Vin?�
�
Vinnie swallowed. ‘Warm and spicy, with a hit at the end. It sounds silly, but it tastes to me like a curry.’
Anna nodded. ‘And the rating?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Around a seven for me, I think it’s a chocolate you’d eat on its own. It’s quite strong,’ Mary said.
‘I agree. Let’s try this one next.’
Vinnie picked up a milk chocolate with grains of sea salt on it. Mary picked up the same one, and they grinned happily at each other as they put the chocolate in their mouths.
‘Oh, this is gorgeous!’
Vinnie looked up at Anna and nodded. ‘It is – definitely a ten. This is really brilliant, darling. Tequila and lemon and salt.’
Anna smiled. ‘Top of the class. A tequila ganache in lemon oil–infused chocolate and topped with sea salt. Would you prefer lime? It’s sharper.’
‘I think so, the lemon might get a little lost … I just had a black thought.’
‘Really? How unusual. Spit it out before it gets lonely.’
Mary laughed. ‘You two are as funny as ever,’ she said.
‘Wait until you hear my black thought, you might not think we’re so hilarious.’
‘Go on, then,’ Anna said, as she picked up a chocolate and put it in her mouth.
‘I’ve used a bottle, a gun and a tank of must as murder weapons, quite successfully I might add.’
‘Vinnie!’
Mary tried hard to look shocked, but Vinnie could see she was suppressing her amusement.
‘So, how could you kill someone – in self-defence, naturally – using chocolate? Any ideas?’
Eventually Anna settled on her Secret Boozy Seven for Aunt Muriel’s Magnificent Chocolate Masterpieces. They were: a cognac, coffee bean and coffee powder very dark chocolate; a tequila ganache in lime-infused milk chocolate with sea salt on top; a white chocolate infused with coconut oil and filled with a blend of ginger, cardamom and chilli; a mulled wine truffle with red wine, lemon, cloves and cinnamon; a truffle made from a bourbon-infused ganache rolled in finely chopped peanuts; a salted caramel and whisky dark chocolate; and a piña-colada truffle with pineapple, coconut and white rum.
The truffles and chocolates looked incredible in their silver paper baskets, nestled in soft silver tissue and lined up in black boxes tied with a silver ribbon. They had employed a graphics company to create a cartoon image of a grey-haired, plump woman with a chocolate in her hand and a twinkle in her eye. This was ‘Aunt Muriel’, and the banner around her read: ‘Aunt Muriel’s Magnificent Chocolate Masterpieces’.
The three of them stood looking at the boxes on the table. Vinnie picked up a four-piece box.
‘They look so professional.’
Anna laughed. ‘I should hope so, the amount of money we’ve sunk into packaging and design!’
He nodded. ‘So now we send them out and see what happens.’
‘We do – to shops, media, chefs, hotels. Aunt Muriel will invade them all.’ She turned to Mary. ‘Are you ready, Aunt Muriel?’
Mary picked up a box and smiled at her. ‘I’ll capture every tastebud in the land and hold them to ransom.’
That drive for recognition had brought them more initial success than they could handle. Big orders meant more machinery, and Anna took on some of the local women and taught them the skills she could share. She still tasted a sample from every batch and set very strict rules about how the temperamental ingredients were handled.
Summer heat caused transport issues, so they started packing the consignments in cold store boxes. By the autumn the business had become a well-oiled machine. Anna was in charge of the creative side, Vinnie handled sales and orders, and Mary was Aunt Muriel, a chocolatier of many years standing who had recently emigrated from London and brought her love of mixing quality chocolate and wonderful flavourings with her. It was a performance role, which suited Mary’s love of amateur dramatics, and she happily did telephone interviews. When people requested a photograph, however, they were sent a high-resolution image of the logo, because that was how Aunt Muriel wanted to be known.
That evening the three of them sat on the veranda, sipping a glass of Rocky Bay Gravitas and talking about the news.
‘His protection in jail must have cost a fortune, and maybe the well ran dry, with Norman dead,’ Vinnie said.
‘I feel very sorry for the families of the guards,’ Mary said quietly.
Anna sipped her wine and looked up at the star-filled sky. ‘I wonder how they got the bomb onto the van,’ she said, ‘Do you think the van was stopped en route or did it leave prison with the bomb on board?’
Vinnie shrugged. ‘No way of knowing.’
‘So, he’s dead. Gone. We can stop looking over our shoulders.’ There was no excitement in Anna’s voice, only resignation.
Suddenly Vinnie sat up and put his drink down. ‘The teeth-mould trick,’ he said, almost under his breath.
‘The what?’ Anna asked, her curiosity aroused.
‘Nothing … just something I remember from my misspent youth. I met a rather shady dentist once, and his job was making replicas of teeth for mobsters, using real human teeth, so that if they needed to fake their own death they could put a few teeth in the wreckage. When there’s nothing left, dental records can then give a positive ID.’
Anna put her glass down and looked at him carefully. ‘Are you telling me that you think Marcus faked his own death?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I’m not. I’m sure he’d had death threats from other prisoners. Mob rivalry makes it a dangerous place.’
Anna shivered. ‘Still, it’s a horrendous thought.’
Mary hadn’t reacted to their conversation at all. Now she turned her head towards Vinnie. ‘Does this mean we could go home for a visit, Vinnie?’
Anna and Vinnie exchanged glances.
‘We’re dead, remember?’ Anna said.
‘But we could go as the Wilsons, on our new passports,’ Vinnie added.
‘Why? If we can’t go near home, see family and friends, why would we go?’ Her tone was a mixture of sadness and frustration.
Vinnie leaned over and touched her hand with his. ‘I’ll ask Peter.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
MILLICENT MORRISON
Melissa Lane badly needed to recover from the tragedies that had piled upon her of late, as grief and stress and anger were taking a toll. So she announced to her friends that she had come to a decision: she was going to take a holiday, in New Zealand.
All the way through the twenty-four hour flight she kept thinking of Norman and how he must have felt. He was on a mission to free his son, and now she wanted to do her best to find out what had happened to him and where Vinnie was.
‘Mrs Morrison? Millicent Morrison?’
Melissa wasn’t as used to travelling under a false passport as the rest of her family were, and it took her a while to register the name and turn around. She had been enjoying the calm harbour and the boats.
‘Yes.’
The redhead advanced towards her with hand outstretched. ‘Louisa Logan. You’ve booked a wine tour with me?’
Melissa regained her composure and smiled. ‘Yes. I love red wine, and I’ve researched a couple of wineries I want to visit.’
Louisa nodded and held open the door to her minivan.
‘Which ones?’ she asked.
‘Stonyridge, Mudbrick, Kennedy Point and Rocky Bay.’
Melissa settled into a seat and did up her seatbelt, as Louisa swung herself into the driver’s seat.
‘Excellent examples, all of them. Rocky Bay has changed hands and been renamed Waitemata Wines, which means “sparkling water” in Maori.’
Melissa was a good judge of people, and she knew within a few moments that this woman liked to talk, liked to demonstrate how much she knew. This was the personality type that detectives described as ‘gold’ and others as ‘insatiably curious’. It was simple enough to rearrange the schedule so that they visited Waitemata Wines
just before lunch. She met the winemaker, a woman called Gabby, and noticed that she closed down as soon as she heard Melissa’s English accent, which meant either she knew something about what had happened or was still hurting and was suspicious of foreigners and what they could cost. They had a taste of the wine and a small tour around the winery, then Melissa suggested she buy Louisa lunch at the nicest café her guide could recommend.
‘I read an article about Rocky Bay and that winemaker, the girl we met,’ Melissa said casually as she refilled Louisa’s large glass with Stonyridge Larose.
‘Thank you. The blog on the internet? It was very good. They were great, the owners, Dominic and Ava.’
‘Do you miss them?’
Louisa nodded. ‘Very much. Especially Dom, he was gorgeous.’
Aha, a torch was carried. That could be useful.
‘They were recent immigrants, American or –?’
‘English. Londoners, I believe. And right before they left they were joined by Dom’s mother. I picked her up from the ferry and took her there – she wanted to surprise them.’
‘And did she?’
‘They were thrilled.’
Melissa ate her fish, and waited until she could see that the woman was bursting to say more but wasn’t sure she should.
‘So, wasn’t it a bit strange that they left?’
Louisa nodded. ‘It was all very strange. Apparently someone came to the house the night of the harvest party and there was an argument. The police arrived and ambulances, and then Dominic and Ava and a man, also English – called Peter, from memory – came and joined the party as though nothing had happened. The next day they were gone.’
‘The next day?’ Melissa leaned forward as though she were sharing a confidence. ‘How bizarre. What on earth could have happened to make them leave so quickly?’ she asked, her voice full of concern.
‘No one knows. Everything was picked up by a truck – furniture and clothes –and the place was sold. Good price they got for it, too; it makes beautiful wine.’ Louisa hesitated, and seemed to be deciding something.
‘I’m very discreet,’ Melissa said. ‘I only came to see the place because I love their wine.’