by Maggie Groff
‘Are you okay?’ Daisy yelled.
‘Yes,’ I called back, scrambling to my feet.
I picked up the torch and slid the rest of the hatch cover open, and then gingerly stepped down into the cabin and looked around. It was filthy and smelled like a room full of dirty socks. I opened the cupboard where Bill Shaw had shown me the second manufacturer’s serial number was hidden. Hopeful, I bent down and shone the torch upwards.
And there it was. B23C105.
There was no way of knowing whether this yacht was Lavender or the other one, but I was definitely standing on one of the missing Bomboras.
Excited, I punched the air with my fist. Then I took out my camera and took photos of the inside of the yacht and the serial number. That done, I opened the cupboard opposite and peered inside. At the back, wrapped in plastic sheeting, was a metal box about the size of a large shoebox.
Balancing the torch on a shelf, I pulled out the box and tore off the plastic. It was padlocked and I wedged the box between my knees and attacked the padlock with the bolt cutters. Much smaller than the other one, it soon gave way and I opened the lid.
Inside was a treasure trove of money and documents. I counted roughly two hundred thousand dollars in bundles of hundred-dollar notes, which I guessed was from Leila’s money laundering. Under the money were Australian passports, birth certificates and drivers’ licences for Martin and Lucy Linton. The passport photographs of Martin and Lucy were, of course, Michael and Leila Leary. Ha! I had discovered their getaway stash.
Now what to do?
If I left the documents, Mick and Leila could skip town, so it was a given to take those. It was the money that caused me reflection. Taking it felt too much like stealing, but leaving it would be foolish. I made an executive decision and stuffed the bundles of money inside my swimsuit, front and back, and hoped that, via the courts, some of it would eventually find its way to Nemony.
I was putting the documents safely into the zip-lock bag when two photographs fell out of a passport. One was a copy of the picture that Nemony had showed me of her and Mick on Sydney Harbour. The other was of Mick with his arm around an older woman with shoulder-length red hair, a pointy nose and a pleasant smile. They were sitting together on a park bench and I assumed the woman was his mother.
Tucking the photos back inside the passport, I wondered why he had risked keeping a picture of Nemony. Had he really loved her, after all?
With trembling hands I rewrapped the box and returned it to its hidey-hole. Then I climbed out into the cockpit and repositioned the hatch cover so that it looked closed. I switched off the torch and repacked the rest of my things into the zip-lock bag and shoved it down my swimsuit, which was now stretched to capacity. Shrugging my shoulders, I tossed the borrowed tools over the side.
‘I’m coming back,’ I called to Daisy.
‘Swim fast,’ she ordered.
Carefully, I climbed over the side and lowered myself into the water. I unhooked the ladder, turned onto my back and held the ladder on my chest again and frog-kicked towards the shore.
I’d gone about ten metres when something bumped my leg. Alarmed, I screamed and kicked wildly. It bumped me again and I slammed the ladder on the surface of the water.
‘Swim!’ I heard Daisy shout. ‘Swim, Scout!’
Abandoning the ladder, I turned onto my front and, kicking frantically, swam like blazes for the shore, my mind full of unimaginable horrors. No kidding, I’d have taken gold at the Pan Pac games.
Daisy had stepped into the water with the stick, ready to beat off whatever was after me. As I reached the shallows, she grabbed my arms and pulled me ashore with a great heave.
‘Oh, thank God,’ she said. ‘Thank God.’
Breathing heavily, I lay still while her hands checked my arms and legs.
‘Are they all there?’ I puffed.
‘Yes, you’re in one piece.’
I rolled onto my back and burst out laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ she said, shining her torch on my face.
‘That was brilliant,’ I gushed, high from adrenaline. ‘Just fantastic!’
‘Well, when we get home,’ Daisy said crossly, ‘I’m going to find you a nice job in a health food store.’
Chapter 54
Returning to the resort in time to witness the drop was now the highest priority and we were cutting it fine.
Working fast, I pulled the zip-lock bag and the bundles of damp money out of my swimsuit and stuffed them into my backpack.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Daisy said, shining her torch on the cash. ‘I’d heard there was money in potatoes.’
I laughed and told her of my discoveries as I pulled clothes on over my wet swimsuit. Then, using torchlight to guide us, we clambered up the hillside and, despite my previous concerns, quickly retraced our steps across the island. While I walked I ate a banana, as I knew my blood sugar level had dropped and needed a boost. Our pace was fast and steady and occasionally Daisy, who was in front, jogged a short distance. And here’s a tip: don’t jog in the dark while eating a banana.
As soon as we were back in the room Daisy helped me cut open a pillow and remove enough stuffing to make space for the swag from Valor. I pushed the pillow back in the pillowcase, plumped it up and put it back on the bed.
‘Perfect,’ Daisy said. ‘You’d never know.’
Fifteen minutes later we were showered and dressed in jeans and sweaters and sitting in the bar with about fifty other guests. It was 9.45 pm.
Leila was working behind the bar with two young women and a young man. The youngsters were wearing the blue and white staff uniforms and Leila was wearing the same outfit I’d seen her in earlier, except this time I could see a name badge. I watched her for five minutes and she didn’t smile at a guest once. She was an ice queen and I pitied the kids working for her.
‘Do we know what the person bringing the money looks like?’ Daisy asked me.
‘McCormack said to look out for a stocky thirty-year-old bloke with muscles and tattoos who looks like he’s been sitting on a horse.’
‘What?’
‘That was his description,’ I said, smirking.
Daisy sipped brandy, which she’d said she needed, and I had a glass of white wine and a glass of water. The wine was for show.
We had positioned ourselves so that I had a good view of the bar and Daisy could see the entrance. My digital camera, ready to shoot with the date and time activated and the flash off, rested on my lap.
As 10 pm neared, Leila looked frequently at her watch.
‘Hey up!’ Daisy said softly, and I brushed imaginary fluff off my shoulder and glanced behind me. Coming through the doorway was a Rambo lookalike with the bandiest legs I’d ever seen. He was wearing jeans and a black tank top and his arms were covered in tattoos. In his left hand he carried a black plastic bag.
Walking like an orangutan, he approached the bar and hoisted himself up onto a stool. Leila gave him a nod, poured a beer and took it over to him. They had a brief discussion and then he hopped off the stool, looked around and moved over to a group of empty seats near us and sat down, holding the plastic bag securely on his lap.
Studiously ignoring him, Daisy and I embarked on a lively conversation about potatoes, with her doing most of the talking and me pretending to listen. Rambo-man was directly in my line of sight and I covertly took a shot of him holding the plastic bag.
Shortly, Leila walked over to the man and sat down opposite him. They both leaned forward in their seats and commenced talking intently, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings. I didn’t take my eyes off them while Daisy blathered on about potato blight and I said things like ‘really’ and ‘gosh’.
Whitney Houston was hitting the high notes in the background when a group of young people poured into the bar laughing and cajoling one another. It was an opportune distraction and Leila reached out her hand as the man passed the plastic bag to her. The moment her hand touched the bag I clicked my camera again.
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She must have sensed my action because she looked straight at me.
Uh-oh. Cursing silently I threw my head back, laughed and then said loudly to Daisy, ‘I’ll take another one of you. I didn’t have the flash on.’
Daisy posed holding her drink and I took a picture of her with the flash. Then I pretended to look at the photo, smiled at Daisy and nodded. We both laughed and Daisy said something about potatoes and we laughed again. It was an Emmy-winning performance.
Out of the corner of my eye I was relieved to see that Leila had lost interest in me and had resumed her conversation with Rambo-man. She was holding the plastic bag tightly on her lap in case it jumped up and ran away.
McCormack had been right. The drop was not discreet, but then it’s not uncommon for people who live in a geographically isolated environment to consider themselves immune to the rules that govern the rest of us. And sometimes the best way to hide something is to place it in full view of everyone.
Daisy had finished her brandy and I pushed my wine across to her.
She picked up the glass and raised it in a toast.
‘Did you get it?’ she asked.
I checked my camera. Then I raised my water glass and we clinked.
‘Oh, yeah,’ I said.
Back in our room, I downloaded the photographs of the drop onto my laptop and emailed them to McCormack.
It was too late to call Nemony to see if she had found anything that might contain Mick’s DNA, so I checked my inbox to see if Tom the boat code agent had contacted me.
There was nothing from Tom, but there was an email from Rafe sent at noon today titled Please read. I promptly deleted it without reading. I was still very cross with him, although I was definitely mellowing. Maybe I’d leave the email in the trash file for a few days. Just in case.
‘Nothing from Tom,’ I told Daisy.
She was lying on her bed staring at the ceiling.
‘Is it always like this? What you do, I mean?’ she asked.
‘Sometimes,’ I told her. ‘And other times it’s days of trawling through documents.’
She was quiet for a time. ‘It isn’t for sissies, is it?’ she said at length.
‘It’s not for sissy assistants either,’ I said, and she smiled at the ceiling.
Ten minutes later, Daisy was dabbing calamine lotion on her sandfly bites and I was surveying the bruises on my legs when Dandy McCormack called.
‘You bloody beauty,’ he crowed. ‘They’re great shots, thank you, and sorry if I woke you up.’
‘No worries,’ I said. ‘I’m still up, and thanks for the passport picture.’
‘When’s your story ready to publish?’
‘Imminent,’ I told him. ‘How about you?’
‘I’m a good three weeks away. Don’t worry about exposing Leila’s part in your case. It won’t damage mine,’ he assured me.
‘Hard to leave her out,’ I said, but I was pleased he’d given me the go-ahead.
I waited for him to say something else but there was a long silence. Eventually he said, ‘Aren’t you going to ask me about the insurance?’
‘Okay, have you found out anything?’
‘My mate couldn’t find any old life insurance policies on a Michael Leary or O’Leary that had been claimed, which doesn’t mean that the bloke didn’t have any, just that my mate couldn’t find anything.’
‘And?’
He chuckled. ‘And Michael and Leila Leary took out boat insurance with a Queensland insurer in September 1983 on two Bombora 23 Classics with the manufacturer’s serial numbers B23C104 and B23C105. In November 1983 Leila Leary made a claim on the policy for the loss of B23C104 during a storm. In May 1984 she was paid $36,000 for the loss of a sailing vessel called Lavender with the serial number B23C104, which sank during a well-publicised storm in November 1983 in Sydney Harbour.’
My heartbeat sped up a notch. So Lavender probably had sunk after all and the old blue tub Valor was the second yacht.
‘Go on,’ I said excitedly.
‘The payment was made following submission of a coroner’s report and a meteorological report detailing the storm.’
I stood up and started to pace around. Daisy, who had sensed my excitement, was watching me.
‘Was there a dinghy claimed on the insurance, or any sails or safety equipment?’ I asked.
‘Nope.’
So Bill Shaw’s theory that Mick had used the dinghy to escape was more than likely correct.
‘Have you got the name on the other Bombora, B23C105?’
‘Valor.’
Yes! Things just kept on getting better. ‘This is great news for me,’ I told him, ‘and it ties up a lot of loose ends. Any chance of the paperwork?’
‘Check your inbox in ten minutes,’ he said. ‘I’ll scan it in.’
‘Thank you.’
He paused. ‘Tell me, Scout, do you already have a significant other?’
Oh, help!
‘I have,’ I said sweetly, ‘but I’d certainly give you some thought if I hadn’t.’
‘It was worth a try,’ he said, laughing.
‘And I’m flattered,’ I responded.
‘It was good working with you, mate,’ he said. ‘Hope to do it again sometime.’
‘Likewise,’ I agreed. And meant it.
After ringing off I relayed the highlights to Daisy, leaving out the flirting bit.
‘But the coroner’s report had the name O’Leary on it,’ she said. ‘And Nemony’s name.’
‘Leila could easily have deleted the O’ and changed Nemony to Leila with correction fluid and a typewriter, then photocopied the document so you couldn’t detect the changes,’ I explained.
I could see Daisy was troubleshooting my theory.
‘But if the insurance was in the name of Michael and Leila Leary,’ she said, ‘and Leila claimed as Leila Leary, technically they didn’t defraud the insurance company.’
‘Yes they did,’ I said. ‘They didn’t have an insurable interest in the boat. They defrauded Nemony of her money in order to steal the boat, and as it was stolen they didn’t have a legitimate financial loss when it was destroyed. They’ve broken just about every rule in the book.’
‘Don’t forget the bigamy,’ Daisy insisted.
‘I won’t.’ I grinned at her. It amused me that she was so gung-ho about the bigamy.
‘So what do you need now?’ she asked.
‘A photograph of Michael Leary’s face and hair with the date on the photo.’
‘Isn’t the passport photo enough?’
‘I need photographic evidence of where he is now, and what he’s doing. I’d also like something with his DNA on it.’
‘Tomorrow’s tasks?’
I nodded.
‘Best get our beauty sleep then,’ she said decisively.
Before going to bed I sent a text to Harper to let her know that all was well. Then I checked my messages. Rafe had sent two texts this afternoon, both saying, Urgent! Ring me!
Urgent, indeed!
‘Fat chance,’ I muttered and deleted his texts. There was nothing else important and I cleaned up the inbox and then climbed into bed.
As soon as I closed my eyes an image of Rafe formed in my psyche. I tried to delete that too, but it wouldn’t go away. He was lying on the daybed on the balcony of his apartment at Tallow Beach reading a book and sipping a Scotch. Many times I had lain on that daybed with him, although we hadn’t done so since the cooler weather had set in. His was a summer place just out of town, with a pool and airconditioning. And a waterbed. I heard a loud yearning groan and, realising that it was me, I ordered my brain to concentrate on work.
I lay awake for a while, mulling things over. As soon as I had a good photo of Mick I would have enough pieces of the puzzle to complete the exposé. I planned on writing it as soon as I was home, and knew that it would take a couple of days of editing until I had the story exactly right. I was already looking forward to the leisurely process of s
itting in my study with Chairman Meow, drinking tea and putting all the pieces together.
Chapter 55
Daisy and I had caught the early ferry from Silver Gull Island over to Shute Harbour on the mainland.
It was warm and sunny and we were sitting in the open cockpit aboard Kestrel, a luxury cruising yacht with a shiny black hull, a gleaming white deck and a tall, elegant mast. You could easily see why she’d been named after a muddy brown potato.
We were still tied up at the jetty waiting for our skipper to arrive. I was nervous that Mick might not materialise, as well as feeling sick to my stomach with excitement at the prospect of actually seeing him in the flesh.
‘This is the most exciting holiday I’ve ever had,’ Daisy announced as I discreetly took a photo of the plates and numbers on the transom. ‘And today is work too, isn’t it?’
She seemed to want it to be, so I said brightly, ‘Yes, today is work too.’
I was pleased that Daisy was having a good time as, so far, all she had done was chase around after me. My undertakings would have been difficult without her help, and I said as much to her and she beamed happily at me.
I’ve waited in worse places. Shute was a busy natural harbour surrounded by high, tree-covered peaks and filled with yachts and expensive-looking motor cruisers. People in crisp uniforms hurried along jetties with clipboards, seagulls squawked from tall posts, and light winds clanked the rigging on masts, making a pleasant outdoorsy sound.
Apart from us, there was a family of six on board Kestrel: two parents and four loud and lively prepubescent boys that I recognised as guests from Silver Gull. There were four crew: two girls and two boys, who I guessed were all in their twenties. They were dressed in black shorts and black polo shirts bearing the white splash logo. Their names were embroidered below the splash. The girls, Danni and Brittany, were preparing coffee, and the boys, Bigelow and Rocky, were doing important things with sails and rigging. I expect Bigelow and Rocky didn’t know how to make coffee.
While we had refreshments, Danni ran through the safety instructions and handed out orange life jackets. I was putting mine on when Bigelow called from the bow, ‘Here comes the skipper. Look alive!’