by J. M. Green
Panic rose in my chest. I pushed away thoughts of outback horror stories. I tried to still my shaking hands, the tingle in my nerves.
Calm down, I told myself. You’re being melodramatic. Or perhaps not. A man had died in suspicious circumstances not far from where I stood. Some caution might be called for. I went to the backpack, took out the breadknife and folded it under the elastic of my undies.
The car stopped about twenty metres from where I was standing. Crystal Watt stepped out, wearing a khaki skirt and pink satin shirt.
‘Hi, Crystal,’ I yelled, relieved. ‘Wow! Perfect timing.’ Under normal circumstances I’d avoid her. She was corrupt and conniving and she’d had me beaten up. But if she gave me a lift out of here all would be forgiven.
‘See? She has no pants. She is an idiot,’ Crystal said to someone in the car.
‘Oh,’ I laughed, feeling a little bashful. ‘I had to take a p—’
‘I offer my advice. But you don’t take it.’ She was walking towards me.
‘Huh?’
‘In good faith, I come to you. I ask you, leave us alone. All you had to do.’
‘I don’t understand. You’re here to give me a lift back, right?’
The driver’s-side door opened and the racist and contemptible Tom Ashwood, former Victorian police constable, now — what? — some kind of dodgy body guard, stepped out. To my amazement he had a pistol in his hand and was pointing it at me.
‘You could have done the decent thing,’ Crystal was saying. ‘I imagine now you’re sorry?’
I was. I should have run back and put my pants on. And my shoes — why didn’t I just leave them on? The knife in my undies was digging into my hip. Ashwood had a gun pointed at me. Tania had died a horrible death. ‘I’m very sorry.’
Crystal laughed. ‘Yes. Now. But it’s too late. So give me the report.’
‘No.’
Crystal rushed at me and grabbed a chunk of my hair before I could react. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Let go,’ I yelled, trying to push her away.
She yanked my hair upwards. ‘Just tell me where the report is.’
Hair follicles stretched the skin on my nape. But I could handle it; I’d spent four hours in the hairdresser — my hair had been yanked, peroxided, and blow-dried. That was torture. This was nothing. ‘I don’t have it. It’s back in the unit.’
‘Liar!’ she said. ‘We’ve been all through your stuff. You have it with you. Now, give it to me.’ Crystal let go of my hair.
Ashwood made a show of aiming the gun at my head. A bullet to the head is more persuasive than hair pulling. I nodded to the backpack. ‘There.’
Crystal ripped it open and found the laptop. She walked around to the front of the car in her fancy high-heeled boots and placed it on the ground in front of the front tyre. Then Ashwood and I watched as she got in the car and drove over it. It crunched into pieces.
‘You didn’t have to do that — wreck the whole computer. Couldn’t you just break the DVD?’
Tendons in Crystal’s neck protruded as she left the car and strode around, strutting like one of her peacocks. She started going through the backpack, pulling things out, and discovered the printed version, the one I showed the Lloyds. And then it hit me. The Lloyds. Those poor, shattered fools were thralls of this woman. Crystal took a lighter from Ashwood’s front pocket and flicked it. Flame lapped the pages and caught. She waved the burning mess about until it was completely alight, allowing the smouldering ashes to fall to the ground and die out on the dirt. ‘Your little game is over.’
‘It wasn’t a game,’ I said, one hand creeping towards my undies. If she grabbed my hair again, I’d be ready.
She looked at Ashwood, shaking her head. ‘She’s completely deranged.’
‘Once again, Crystal, you have underestimated me.’
‘Darling, I don’t estimate you at all!’
‘But I know all about what you did to Tania. I know how you hounded her to make a false sample report for your precious Blue Lagoon.’
‘What you must understand,’ Crystal said, ‘is that Nina was clever. She was good at all that geology business. She knew all the right things to put in to make it convincing.’ She was walking around, coming towards me then moving back.
I put my hand down my undies and held the knife, thinking I’d wait till she was close enough to take a swipe at. They traded looks.
‘Really, darling,’ Crystal said. ‘Are you hormonal or something?’
Ashwood put an arm around her shoulder and they stood there, having a good laugh.
I withdrew my hand and pointed a finger at them. ‘Nina didn’t want to do your dirty work.’
‘It is true. She resisted this idea.’
‘So you forced her to do it.’
Crystal sighed. ‘Forced. That’s a strong word. I like persuaded.’
Ashwood laughed. ‘Forceful persuasion.’
‘How?’
‘Oh, family matters,’ Crystal said airily.
‘You threatened to tell Brodtmann about some error of Nina’s. You’d done it before, told Brodtmann she’d stuffed up?’
Crystal shrugged. ‘We put on some pressure and she caved in.’ Her face darkened. Making this admission annoyed her. She inhaled, put her hands on her hips. ‘You little heart bleeder, you don’t understand. This is business — it’s how we do it. You have to be tough. There’s no room for the sweetie darlings who go around all kind and after you and please and thank you.’
Ashwood was nodding. ‘You’re as tough as they come.’
‘You have to be.’ She flashed her teeth at him, then she turned back to me. ‘But after she made her new report, Nina became devious. She left for Melbourne and threatened to go public with the first report if I didn’t leave her alone.’
‘So why didn’t you?’
She shook her head and her glossy hair swished around like in a shampoo commercial. ‘She had the report. She had the power.’
‘So you went to her salon and threatened her.’
‘Threaten? No. I asked her for little favour, just to break the silly thing.’
‘When she went missing, you had your muscle trash my flat.’
Ashwood grinned; he liked being called muscle. ‘We anticipated that the girl would keep the DVD off-site. The likelihood was she gave it to you,’ he said. He still had the gun aimed in my general direction.
‘Likelihood? You broke every DVD in my place.’
Somewhere in the distance, a mining company chopper thrashed the air. I was starting to wonder if it was one of the last things I would ever hear. We were in an isolated part of the desert, they were going to shoot me, and my body would be picked over by the slow-wheeling birds flying above me.
It was time for plain speaking. ‘I know who kidnapped Nina.’
Crystal put her head to the side. ‘We all do. Idiot gangland drug dealer and his Maori thug. For ransom money.’
‘And how did those idiot criminals know that Tania was Nina Brodtmann? Who told them that, huh?’
Crystal was quiet, her exquisite eyes studied the dust for a second then she planted them on me again. She was now looking irritated. ‘You tell me.’
‘Ask yourself, who stands to gain?’
‘Just fucking tell us,’ Ashwood growled.
‘Merritt Van Zyl.’ I pronounced it ‘Funsail’.
‘What? Happy Hammond? Why would he?’
‘All because of you, Crystal. Your crazy scheme to acquire the Bailey Range tenements made you some powerful enemies.’
‘He wasn’t involved in Bailey Range. Those guys are all gone now. They’ve moved on. Even Trevor Michaels — he moved himself on, just last week.’ Crystal was sniggering.
‘Van Zyl and that crimina
l Cesarelli were investors. They were laundering money through mining projects.’
I watched as Crystal’s skin tone went from rose bronze to whitish pink. ‘I didn’t realise —’
Ashwood’s head moved from his boss to me like a sideshow clown. ‘What’s she saying?’
‘I’m saying Van Zyl wanted revenge. And he got it. He killed Nina, and he outbid you on Shine Point. He wants to undermine CC Prospecting every chance he gets. And he won’t stop until he destroys you, Crystal.’
‘What’s she on about?’ Ashwood asked Crystal.
‘Nothing, darling. She’s lost her marbles. Put the gun away. I think.’
I started to relax the tiniest bit. ‘Do you plan to kill me?’
‘No.’
‘So why did you arrange for the Lloyds to bring me out here?’
‘To give you a fright. I have frightened you? I think so. I want you to forget about this business.’
I was so relieved, I started to laugh.
‘You forget about the DVD, and Happy Hammond, everything. I’ll take care of him.’
I had no doubt she would. She operated in a different stratosphere — ordinary laws did not apply.
‘We go back now. You will behave, yes?’
I was happy to agree to that, and to anything else she wanted me to say, but the blare of the helicopter made hearing impossible. It was loud and getting louder. It came closer, flying low.
Ashwood observed the chopper with consternation. Then his eyes widened and he ran to Crystal, trying to shield her. A shot, like a whip crack, cut the air and Crystal dropped to the ground.
‘Crystal!’ Ashwood yelled. ‘Oh fuck.’ He knelt down and put an ear on her chest. ‘No, baby. Don’t die. Baby.’ She was motionless, one eye open, the other leaking blood. He started frantic mouth-to-mouth but blood flowed from her head. It trickled down Crystal’s neck, over her diamonds, and soaked into the sand. Ashwood left her, tears dripping from his nose. He levelled the gun at the chopper.
It descended to a flat patch of earth about a hundred metres away and sent up a cloud of dust. The engine shut off. A man ran out from under its still-rotating blades. Ashwood fired off a couple of wild shots — who knows where they went.
My bare legs were shaking, holding myself up was a struggle. With trembling hands, I pulled the knife from my undies and held it beside my leg. I watched the man approach us, he was carrying a long-barrelled gun. He stopped and put a telescopic sight to his eye and fired. Ashwood twisted at the shoulder and fell back on the sand.
That was a good idea. I threw out my arms and hit the dirt. Perhaps they’d think I was dead too. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man drawing closer — that bow tie, that candy-stripe jacket, befitting to only one man: Merritt Van Zyl.
38
VAN ZYL WALKED like a man approaching the 18th hole for a two-foot putt after an entire round of birdies. A relaxed hand held the rifle.
‘Stella Hardy? We meet again,’ Van Zyl said. ‘Or should I say Galvanina Monte?’
I said nothing.
‘You are a hard woman to find, do you know that?’
I didn’t move.
‘Get up, Stella. I know you are not dead.’
I didn’t budge.
Van Zyl looked back to the chopper expectantly. I followed his gaze. It was Maurangi who stepped out of the helicopter and trotted over on his stubby legs. I stayed still in the dust, but the knife was no longer in my hand.
‘Get her up,’ Van Zyl said.
Maurangi lifted me to my feet like I was hollow.
‘Not very bright this one,’ Van Zyl said to Maurangi, and handed him the rifle.
There was sudden movement in the dust as Ashwood scrambled to his feet and took off into the spinifex. Almost lazily, Maurangi lined him up with the rifle.
‘No!’ I screamed. I waved my arms to distract him. ‘Don’t do it!’
He fired but Ashwood dodged and kept going, a haze of dust kicking up behind him through the scrub. I prayed he’d make it out to the main road. The odds were against it. He was wounded and distraught. He probably didn’t know which way to go.
‘You’ll have to work on your aim,’ Van Zyl said, dryly.
I looked down at my feet and saw a glimpse of knife. ‘Why were you looking for me?’
‘You have something I want,’ Van Zyl said.
‘What? The DVD? It’s gone.’ I pointed to the squashed laptop near Crystal’s car. ‘I made a copy and she burned that, too. There’s nothing of the original report left.’
‘Thank you, darling,’ he said to Crystal’s lifeless body. ‘Maurangi, get this one in the chopper — have her dropped further out.’
Maurangi slung the weapon over his shoulder and scooped up Crystal’s body.
‘So, Crystal has beaten me to it. Gone ahead and destroyed the only proof that she defrauded me on the Mount Percy Sutton deal.’
‘Well, that’s that then.’ I put my hands on my hips, job done. Smoko time. Crystal was dead. Cesarelli was dead. ‘You’ve eliminated anyone who knew anything. So, ah, we good?’ But as I said it, I realised the answer.
‘A clean slate, is how Finchley put it to me.’
Finchley Price, of course. He was up to his wig in it. Probably had money in the deal with the rest of them.
Van Zyl paced around, waiting for Maurangi to come back, waiting for him to sling that rifle around and shoot me. He wanted Maurangi to do it so he didn’t have to get his hands dirty.
‘I bet it was easy for you to convince Cesarelli to rinse his drug money through Bailey Range.’
His eyes were on me. ‘Easy?’
‘Yes. It was a gold mine, literally, a fucking gold mine. It wouldn’t be a hard sell.’
He shrugged. ‘That proposition did hold some appeal for the man.’
‘What else? Promises of big returns: no worries, mate; it’s safe, can’t go wrong? After all you had your own capital on the line, and you wouldn’t throw that around foolishly, would you?’
Van Zyl was laughing. ‘Very good, Hardy.’
‘But it went down the toilet and you both lost millions.’
Van Zyl closed his eyes, the memory too much perhaps. ‘A lot of money.’
‘How’d you find out it was Crystal who brought the whole venture crashing down?’
‘She told me herself,’ he said. ‘She boasted about it. She was drunk and started complaining to me that Nina had betrayed her.’
The wind picked up and an uncontrollable shiver took over my legs.
‘Can you imagine,’ he said, ‘telling a madman like Cesarelli his money was gone?’
‘No. How did it go?’
‘I confess I had to soften the blow.’
‘How?’
‘I made certain offers. I suggested that he kidnap the girl and hold her to ransom. Two birds. I get revenge on Crystal and Cesarelli gets the ransom.’
‘After you took her to Cesarelli’s farm, Nina told you I had the DVD?’
‘Eventually,’ Van Zyl said simply. Maurangi had joined him now, and was picking his nose. ‘He persuaded her to tell us.’
Maurangi shrugged. ‘Reminds me, where’s me money? Haven’t seen a cent yet.’
‘And what would you spend it on?’ Van Zyl asked. ‘A new pair of — what do you call them — jandals?’
Maurangi sucked something out of his teeth, spat it on the dirt.
‘But you got Brodtmann back with the Shine Point deal,’ I said to Van Zyl. ‘Wasn’t that enough for you? You won. He lost. Why kill Nina? She was one of them, she wanted to get away from them.’
‘One must not simply win,’ Van Zyl sighed. ‘It is not nearly enough. Competitors are one thing, but Crystal put me dangerously close to bankruptcy. And Cesarell
i, he wanted blood.’
Maurangi held the rifle, slung by a strap over his shoulder, loosely pointing at the ground.
‘Now,’ Van Zyl said. ‘How about a nice ride in my helicopter?’
‘I don’t want to. You’re going to clean-slate me.’
Van Zyl nodded to Maurangi, who then took the rifle from his shoulder — and, as he raised it, it went off. I felt a searing heat in my foot. The pain was blinding. I dropped, rolling around on the ground, holding my foot and whimpering.
‘That’s enough,’ Van Zyl said, holding his hand out for the rifle.
‘It just went off. Something wrong with it.’
‘Learn to shoot, you idiot.’
Maurangi’s head lolled back like an exasperated adolescent. ‘Yes, boss.’ He held the gun out for Van Zyl.
I rolled to the side and there in the dirt, right beside me, was the knife. I could reach it. Maybe stick it in Maurangi’s fat calf.
Van Zyl regarded Maurangi contemptuously. ‘You know, I don’t like your tone.’
Maurangi put his head on the side. ‘My tone? You fucking racist pakeha, you just called me an idiot.’
‘I’m not saying that because you’re black. It’s just that you are rather slow.’
I watched a sly smile curl the corners of Maurangi’s mouth.
‘We had a mess on our hands,’ Van Zyl said to me. ‘I had to kill Cesarelli myself. Can you imagine? With a knife. Then the girl.’
Behind them, I saw the blades of the helicopter gather speed, the engine whined.
‘Let it go, man. So what?’
Van Zyl leaned right up into Maurangi’s face. ‘My dear, dumb Tapahia,’ he said. ‘Gage told me you were not to be trusted.’
Maurangi stopped laughing. ‘Gage? That psycho? When did he talk to you?’