Christ, his chest hurt. He’d given up the fags a while ago, but his lungs felt as tight as when he smoked two packs a day.
Phlegm lodged in his throat, but he dare not hock it up. The lights from the power station were a long way off, but it didn’t mean there wasn’t someone roaming around. The place was a favourite for drug deals, screwing, and lighting up stolen cars.
He was almost up to his knees in swamp water now. Didn’t want to go much farther. He wasn’t one for swimming, even though the night hugged him like an electric blanket turned up high. He was puffing hard, the cough rattling in his throat. Something wriggled against his leg. He jerked away. Lost his footing. Went down with a splash. The cough exploded from his throat.
Fuck! The water was up to his neck. He couldn’t get a foothold. The pain in his chest shot up his neck. He called for help but it came out all jumbled, like a nightmare. The garbage bag had slipped away.
His foot found something solid. Best he could, he slapped at the water, trying to find his way back to the shallows. It was cold beneath the water. So cold. Couldn’t feel his hands. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t …
That bloody Everton girl would be the death of him.
Chapter 20
‘JESUS, FORBES. YOU SCARED the crap out of me.’
Forbes almost dropped the pizza box when Mina stepped into the glow of light shining from her bedroom window. She stood with her hand over her heart, eyes huge, breathing deeply. Light burst from what must be every room in the house.
‘What’s happened? Have they been back?’ He hurried toward her.
‘I’m fine.’
Her short laugh quavered. She made a show of breathing in the aroma of pepperoni wafting around them, made a crack about saturated fats and alcohol being just what she needed, and gave him a tired smile.
‘Come on.’ He jerked his head toward the house. ‘There’s enough antioxidants in this bottle for ten pizzas.’
‘Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. Go on in. The front door isn’t locked.’
‘Is that wise?’
‘When have you ever known me to be wise?’
He kept quiet, watched her lock up behind him then followed her into the kitchen. The room was grimy with charcoal smudges.
‘What on earth—’
Glasses clinked as Mina collected two from the cupboard. ‘The handiwork of your friendly detective.’
He dumped his offering on the kitchen table and pulled out his mobile. Mina snatched it from his grasp.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she said.
‘But what happened here?’
‘Payback, I think. Whether it was aimed at Drummond or me, I don’t know.’ From a drawer, she withdrew a slim stack of paper napkins and tossed them on the coffee table. ‘I’m sure you won’t mind eating with your hands.’
‘Don’t know any other way to eat pizza.’ Forbes uncorked the wine and tried to keep his worry to himself. Her behaviour with Drummond had been disturbing enough. Now she was haunting her garden in the dark. ‘Payback by whom?’
‘Some fat forensics bastard.’
Wainright. It had to be. He’d had enough complaints about Drummond from that man to make payback plausible.
‘I’ll have a quiet word.’
‘Leave it. Let Drummond have a taste of what this town is really like.’
‘If you help him shut down this gang, it might win you some favour in the community.’
‘Who says I want their favour?’
‘If you want your business to succeed, you need it.’
She sighed. ‘I’m not you, Forbes. I can’t put all that behind me. I can’t forget how they treated Mum. She’d done nothing to them.’
‘Neither had you.’
She picked up a slice of pizza. It was so heavy with topping that she put one hand underneath to stop the whole lot sliding off. Forbes poured the wine. He should let it breathe, but she looked like she needed it. He certainly did. And it wasn’t like it would ruin the taste of the pizza.
‘Tell me, what were you doing in the garden and why is the house ablaze?’
‘I was about to go through Mum’s stuff. Spirit started growling. Then I heard someone walk down the driveway. How was I to know it was an old man with a pizza and a hundred dollar bottle of wine?’
She raised her glass in thanks and sipped the ruby liquid.
That dog again. Drummond might think a dog named Spirit suddenly appearing in her life was a coincidence, but he was an outsider. He couldn’t possibly understand what lay behind it.
‘Hang on.’ He felt like the slow one in a three-legged race. ‘You said you were going to sort through Alyssa’s things?’
She shrugged. ‘Isn’t that what you’ve been pressing me to do?’
‘Yes. But why now?’
Mina got stuck into the pizza. At least she hadn’t lost her appetite. The bruising on her forehead was barely visible under all that hair. He thought she’d moved a little stiffly in the garden though that could just be fatigue. She looked exhausted. He longed to ask if she’d been experiencing nightmares again. And to ask about the dog—if it was such a good guard dog then why hadn’t he heard him barking? Why hadn’t he seen him?
‘Are you going to tell me what’s rotten in council chambers?’
He choked on a swallow of wine. ‘Who said anything was rotten?’
She pointed to the bottle of Torbreck Shiraz. ‘That only comes out when you are about to traverse the political rapids.’
He didn’t need to pretend with her. He never had. Somehow he’d forgotten that. He explained the intricacies of political game playing that could snatch away the mayoral robes just as they were within his reach.
‘The chairperson is elected by a committee,’ he said. ‘The town won’t get a vote.’
‘That’s going to go down real well in Failie. Most of them are dyed-in-the-wool lefties. Mum used to say if it wasn’t for the whole ‘Reds under the Bed’ scare campaign in the ’50s, they’d be flag-carrying communists.’
‘Daley and Warren are already making a move to stack the committee, which means the chairperson will be their puppet.’
‘You’ll outsmart them. Failie needs you as mayor.’
He loved her faith in his abilities. She understood that the mayorship wasn’t just a job to him. It wasn’t just a title.
‘I guess I’m not too bad, for a wastrel,’ he said.
‘If your old man could see you now, he’d have to admit that he was the blight on the family name.’
He’d told her all about his father as a way to prove she’d be all right without hers. What he’d never let her see was how much he’d craved the old man’s approval. Just one smile would have been enough. A pat on the back. Even when he’d saved the family fortunes from going any further south, the old bastard couldn’t dredge up a kind word. Forbes had made a lot of money since his father’s death, but achieving mayor would be one in the eye to the man who’d never been more than councillor.
‘You want to hear something funny?’ He topped up their glasses. ‘I snuck into Daley’s office and tried on the mayoral robes of office.’
‘How’d they look? Did you try on the gold chain too?’
‘That’s under lock and key. I would’ve if I got the chance. And I looked very handsome, if you want to know.’ The medieval-like robes suited him. The wide gold trim had glimmered in the glow of the dressing room down-lights, and when he moved, the light had ebbed and flowed across the patterned black silk. ‘I was so taken with my own image that I nearly got sprung.’
Mina looked like she was trying not to laugh.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘I’m just imagining the look on your face if you’d been caught.’
‘Don’t you dare tell anyone. Not even Drummond.’
‘Why would I tell that man anything?’
So things obviously hadn’t improved when he’d left them alone. ‘I know you two got off on the wrong foot, but couldn’t you help him
out? For me?’
She picked up her glass and sat back, her face hard.
‘It kills me to ask. If it wasn’t for this whole chairperson mess, I wouldn’t.’
‘He thinks I’m involved.’
‘Honey, he thinks you’re hot. You threw him for a loop opening your door in a towel. What red-blooded man could be sensible after that?’
‘Perhaps I should walk around town like that. Maybe some red-blooded male will see me as more than Everton’s kid.’
‘Poor Drummond would probably arrest you for your own good. And his.’
Mina took a long swallow of wine. ‘He’s got a killer smile, but he’s also got that knight-in-shining-armour thing going on.’
‘Most girls would love that.’
‘Those guys are only good at riding in to save the day. Besides, he’d have to pull the stick out of his arse before he could get off his high horse.’
Forbes laughed, a warm glow in the pit of his stomach.
‘Tell me something.’ She rolled the stem of the glass between her thumb and forefinger. ‘The council has bad debtors, don’t they? People who don’t leave a forwarding address.’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you go about tracking them down?’
‘Give me their names. I’ll get Baldwin onto it for you.’
She glanced at him then looked at her hands. This wasn’t about bad debtors; she couldn’t possibly have any yet. There was only one person she’d want to track down.
‘It’s very hard to find someone who doesn’t want to be found,’ he said. ‘Particularly if that person is a fugitive.’
‘There was no case. And anyway, the statute of limitations has passed.’
‘Not on the town’s memory.’
She busied herself wiping her fingers with the paper napkin. He knew that look of hers. If he put up barriers, she’d only fight harder, yet if he offered to do it for her she’d refuse.
‘What’s done is done, Mina. We both know we can’t change the past. Let it go.’
‘I can’t.’ Her eyes glittered in the lamplight. ‘I’ve tried. I locked it away and tried to get on with my life, but this town won’t let me.’
‘Then leave. Leave this house, at least. The market’s not as buoyant as it was, but Ronny Clarke is still eager. He’ll give you a good price. Buy a unit. Or invest in your business and come live with me.’
‘Oh sure, and make myself scarce when Valerie comes over to play? No thanks.’
Valerie had already found someone else to soothe her flesh when she fought with her husband, but he couldn’t tell Mina that. She’d feel responsible for the break-up. And women like Valerie didn’t matter. Not when Mina needed him.
‘You staying here worries me. It always has. I tried to get your mother to move, but she was so sure Jacko was coming back, she refused.’
‘Well, he did come back to her. In a way.’
Sadness enveloped them, but Alyssa was gone. It was time Mina discovered her own life.
‘Mina, I really think you should leave this place. There are too many reminders of him. It’s not healthy.’
The base of her glass chimed as it met the table. ‘You’ve got to stop trying to protect me from him.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You freaked out when that wreath arrived. Ever since, you’ve been watching me like a hawk. I’m not going to fall apart again. You have to trust me.’
‘I do. It’s just—’ He rubbed his hand over the prickle of stubble on his chin. ‘He was my best mate, but I can’t forget that because of him there was a barrier between you and Alyssa.’
She stood and whirled away from the table. ‘I loved her. You know I did!’
‘I do know. And I know how much.’
She still gripped the napkin, twisting it tight, as if she was trying to wind back time.
‘I know how hard you’ve worked to get over Alyssa’s death. You’ve proven yourself to Gibson, and your business is ready for its grand opening. You’re finally on the path you’ve worked so hard to find. Don’t throw it away.’
This time the look she shot him was one of frustration. ‘I’ve got to do something. I feel like I’m wading in deep water with a riptide dragging me backwards. When I think about him, I don’t know what was real.’
Her distress ate at him. ‘I can’t explain why he disappeared the way he did, but I can tell you Jacko loved three things: surfing, Alyssa and you.’
‘And that watch.’
‘Yeah.’ He shook his head at the memory of Jacko’s precious watch. ‘Don’t you think if he wanted a reunion he would have contacted you by now?’
She stared at her empty glass.
‘Even if your dad is an old man living on regrets, he could still have feet of clay.’
‘He’s not old. He’s roughly the same age as you.’
The look she gave him was so full of love he took a slug of wine to hide his sudden emotion.
‘If you do this, you have to be prepared for the worst,’ he said. ‘Don’t pin your hopes on a happy ending.’
‘I’m not my mother.’
‘I know you don’t believe in his innocence. It’s just …’
‘Just what?’ Her stubbornness was back.
‘For years you listened to your mother argue that if he was guilty, he did it for a noble reason. Can you honestly say there isn’t at least a little part of you that wants that to be true?’
‘Don’t I have the right to know, to confront him with what he did to us?’ She dragged her hands through her hair, revealing the ugly bruise on her temple. Distress and anger vied for release. ‘I’ve got to do something. All these feelings are bubbling up…’ She took a deep breath and released her hair. ‘If I do this, I can put it all behind me and get on with my life.’
‘At least let me help you. Let me get someone on it—’
‘No outsiders. It’s bad enough with Drummond fishing around.’
‘What do you think Gibson will do if he finds out you’re looking for your dad?’
She shrugged, but her confusion was obvious. Derek Gibson was her best chance to step out of Jacko Everton’s shadow. It had taken her years to find the courage to face Failie on her own terms. If she stirred things up now, she could lose everything.
That wasn’t the least of it. If she kept pushing, there would be nothing he could do to protect her from the truth.
And the truth would break her heart.
Chapter 21
BY TEN THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Linc was at Gibson’s Fine Antiques ready with questions and a burning desire to put this case to bed. Gibson sat behind a polished desk boasting curved legs and gilded swirls.
‘Tea?’ Gibson raised an empty tea cup in invitation. ‘Nothing like a nice cuppa first thing in the morning, young man. Gets the blood moving.’
Linc smiled. His blood was moving quite nicely thanks to his eight-kilometre run along the water’s edge, the cool sand squelching between his bare toes as the day dawned hot and bright.
‘I’d prefer the benefit of your expertise.’
Gibson preened and gestured to a spindle-legged chair, one of a pair placed in front of his desk. It was made for a lady of delicate proportions, not a six-foot-two policeman.
‘It’s quite safe, I assure you.’ Gibson poured his brew into a gilt-edged tea cup, releasing the strong scent of citrus-imbued tannin then looked at his visitor with an air of moderate expectation.
Linc sat and nodded at the Rococo desk. ‘Is that Louis XIV?’
The dealer ran his palms along its gleaming surface. ‘Louis XIV style. Made in the nineteenth century, but still a beautiful piece. Are you a collector?’
‘My father dabbles. One of his friends collects.’
‘Time you got started, young man. Antiques are a very good investment. I have a few pieces that might interest you. Or perhaps you prefer the advice of your father or his friend?’
Linc smiled noncommittally. He wouldn’t seek advice from Nicholas Drumm
ond if he’d been the Oracle. And the ‘friend’ was Barry Quinlan, a renowned lawyer whose morals didn’t match his office. According to the paperwork Forbes had given him, Quinlan was also part of the syndicate backing Carlson’s development application.
Gibson had launched into a one-sided discussion about the benefits of investing. Behind him, an imposing screen threatened to swallow his slight build, and with his doughy colouring and tweed ensemble—no wonder the airconditioning was set to ‘arctic’—Derek Gibson suited the place. Despite the abundance of gilded furniture, the store was overwhelmingly dreary. His empire consisted of two narrow but deep rooms connected by a large arch cut into the dividing wall. The bronze wallpaper was so worn the sheen had dulled, blending with the dark furniture. Chairs were covered in crimson velvet or, like the one in which he sat, faded needlepoint.
Gibson had moved on to a discussion of Georgian silver. Linc struggled to keep his focus. After tailing Carlson most of the night, he’d stayed awake mulling over the development application. If the dealer talked for much longer, he’d fall asleep where he sat.
When Gibson paused for a thought, he jumped in. ‘I noticed your Jaguar outside.’
Gibson blinked as if surprised anyone would cut short his oratory.
‘Like cars, do you? Well, according to the Jaguar Driver’s Club, mine is one of the best examples of its type in the country.’ Gibson sipped his tea and settled into his chair, a heavy button-backed monstrosity that clashed with the screen behind him. ‘Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?’
‘I’m looking into a series of home invasion robberies.’ Linc held up the blue folder Mina Everton had refused to view. ‘I assume you know of the pensioner who was murdered?’
The dealer’s affability vanished behind a steely gaze. He puffed out his chest. ‘Are you trying to imply that I am somehow involved?’
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