by Nick Place
‘How do I know the cargo is legit?’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ said a guttural new voice loudly. Lou and Jake’s eyes met as they thought the same thing: the Wild Man.
Stig’s voice overrode the interruption. ‘Because we’re not about to do what we’re doing on a phoney run. This is a once-only stunt by us, Barry. You know that. Nobody will be seeing us again.’
‘I want to think about it,’ Barry said.
‘Fair enough. But not for long. I do have other potential buyers.’
‘Sure you do. Which is why you’re standing here, exposed, in front of Jenssen’s local guy.’
There was a silence before Stig spoke again.
‘That’s a calculated risk, Barry. And if we feel the risk was ill-conceived, we can rectify it.’
‘So you’re threatening me now, as well.’
‘Just letting you know this is life and death. For all of us. I know you’re a smart businessman and I’m offering you a free spin of the wheel, as far as sending the usual profits north goes. It seemed like a simpler way of moving the cargo than putting it on eBay.’
‘Okay. That is attractive. Let me think about it.’
‘We can trust you not to pick up the phone as soon as we walk out of here?’
‘Yeah, of course. I’ve known a dozen like your mate here. I’m not suicidal.’
‘Good. Then we understand one another.’
Jake’s leg was screaming underneath him.
‘Yeah we do,’ Barry replied. ‘How do I contact you? I don’t want my voice or number on any phone you’re caught carrying.’
‘There are still a couple of phone boxes left in Melbourne. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon. About four.’
‘Fair enough. Now go. You head out and I’ll get the alarm.’
‘Cool. Thanks for meeting. I know it’s a weird situation.’ Stig’s voice getting fainter as he spoke.
Jake and Lou listened to Barry’s footsteps shuffling. Five beeps on the security system.
‘Do not move a muscle,’ Jake whispered.
The door closed and was locked. Two cars started and moved away, their sounds becoming distant.
Lou stared at Jake, his face sweaty in the dark. Her eyes huge. He slowly unfolded himself, wincing as he straightened his left leg.
‘Oh crap, that was hurting.’ He flexed the leg a few times, swinging it gently in the air, bending the knee. ‘Wow. Okay, once I leave this room, the motion sensors kick in and I have twenty seconds to turn it off,’ he said. ‘Don’t blink until you hear the fifth beep.’
Lou nodded slightly and held her breath as he limped out of the room. As he passed the registers, she heard beeps start, soft but regular, as the alarm registered the movement. She’d counted twelve beeps when she heard the louder sound of the security system’s buttons being pushed. And then Jake’s voice saying: ‘It’s off.’
Lou stood up, cramped legs groaning. Took a few steps out of the storeroom and found that she was shaky.
‘God, my heart is pounding,’ she said.
The adventure was gone out of the night.
Jake, standing near the entrance, said, ‘That was your boyfriend? The guy from the café?’
‘Ex-boyfriend,’ she said. ‘Very ex.’ She almost laughed at the relieved look that crossed Jake’s face.
‘And his psycho mate,’ Jake said, almost to himself. ‘With Barry.’
‘What was it about? I can’t believe Stig would be pushing drugs.’
‘You think they were talking about drugs?’ Jake looked shocked. ‘I only heard them say “cargo”. I thought it must be a container off a ship or something.’
Lou stared at him. ‘For real? Contraband groceries?’
‘Maybe,’ he said defensively.
‘You don’t sneak around at one a.m. discussing groceries, Jake.’
‘You and I were before they arrived,’ he said, suddenly smiling.
‘Yeah, we were,’ she agreed, and started sniggering. ‘Maybe they’re planning their own sticker run and we beat them to it?’
And then they were both laughing so hard that it hurt, high on adrenalin and the pure relief of not being caught.
‘Oh God, I almost pissed when they arrived.’
‘You did?’ Jake looked shocked.
‘Not literally, Jake.’
They started giggling again, shoulders quaking.
Until finally Jake said, ‘I think we should go.’
‘Then again,’ Lou had a look in her eye as she put a hand on his chest, Jake’s heart finding a new level of pounding right underneath her touch. ‘We’re never going to want to be here again now we know how scary it would be to be caught.’
Jake looked at her. Confused.
‘So we should make it count,’ Lou said.
He barely dared to say it: ‘You want to have sex in the Groc-o-Mart?’
She stepped back and frowned at him. ‘Ewww. Umm, no, Jake, I don’t.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I get it. You want to get back to the stickers.’
She gave Jake a grin. ‘There any alcohol in this place?’
‘Cecy? Rocket.’
‘Hey,’ her voice came down the phone. ‘You coming in today or is that now a redundant question?’
‘Possibly, later in the week. Is everybody missing me?’
‘Let’s just say life is quieter without you.’
‘I’ll take that. Can you do me a favour?’
‘Sure. Shoot.’
‘I need you to look at the missing person logs. A girl called Eloise.’
‘Any other info? Age? Address?’
‘Um, no.’
Cecy laughed that laugh of hers. He could see her head thrown back. ‘You love challenges, huh?’
‘Cec. This is how it works when you finally get your arse off that bike saddle and move into detective work. The tiniest of threads may be important.’
‘Christ. You sound like one of the lecturers at the academy.’
Laver was genuinely alarmed. ‘Do I? Jesus.’
‘It’s okay, sweets. I think we can both assume it was a rare lapse. I’ll see what I can do.’
After hanging up, Laver was surprised to find himself looking across the lounge room at his bike, seriously considering it as an alternative to his car. But since he actually had no idea how far he’d be travelling, the car won out. It even started on the second try, in appreciation of his loyalty.
White Pages Online had listed Thirsk’s office, ‘Ace Investigations’, as an office block in Camberwell. Laver fought his way along Bridge Road and then Burwood Road, inevitably caught behind a tram until he could turn and shunt his way through to Camberwell Junction.
He was only a couple of blocks from where Thirsk’s office would be when he saw her. Marcia’s animated walk unmistakable as she left a café and dodged a couple of pedestrians coming the other way, swinging her hips. Wearing her scarlet high-collared shirt and a short black skirt; shorter than she’d normally choose. With a man in a silver-grey suit who said something that made her laugh, really laugh. Laver’s stomach clenching as the man put a hand on her arm, no big deal, and said something, speaking softly into her ear, which had her smiling. The prick with blond hair, possibly blow-dried, Laver noticed. Now blipping a remote to unlock a white Lexus sedan and stepping onto the road, coming around the back of the car to the driver’s door as Marcia opened the passenger door and climbed in.
The car behind Laver honked loudly and he realised the traffic had moved, who knew when, and he needed to accelerate, leaving them behind. He put everything he had into paying attention to the brake lights in front of him and the movement of the traffic. There was a good possibility he’d rear-end the car in front of him if he didn’t focus.
It had only been a hand on an arm. He probably did that himself, to Cecy, to Ratten, to other women, a dozen times a day without even realising. The guy had been telling a joke. It was nothing.
Laver scored a park within a block of the
address and forced himself to sit in the driver’s seat, eyes closed, breathing for a few moments – what he thought of as his Jedi mind trick. A discipline that had taken him years of cop work to achieve; turning everything off when he was about to go into work mode. Opening his eyes only when he was certain he was not the guy wondering who the fuck had just been talking to his fiancée with such familiarity, but Laver, the detective. Double-checking his emotions to make sure and then finally opening his door. He had work to do.
Thirsk’s building turned out to be an 80s block, all glass and metal and completely devoid of any soul. Rent-an-office on all six floors, with small-timers trying to present a professional face while sharing one nineteen-year-old receptionist to answer phones.
Laver was glad he’d actually bothered to wear a collared shirt instead of his usual T-shirt. And boots instead of runners. He gave himself half a chance of passing for a cop.
He flashed his badge at the teenage receptionist and said he was a follow-up from the Homicide Forensic Squad that had already been through.
‘They were here all day yesterday,’ she said. ‘So many of them.’
‘We’re very thorough,’ Laver nodded. ‘Just a couple of loose ends today so it’s only me.’
She frowned. ‘But they said they were coming back to pick up the boxes and the computer at 4 pm.’
‘Oh, sure,’ Laver said. ‘That’s right. But things move fast in a murder case so I want to check a couple of things before the forensic boys clean the place out.’ He pointed at her massive switchboard phone. ‘Why don’t we phone head office and you can double check?’
On cue, the phone started to ring, line one’s button flashing. She chewed her lip. Then line two started ringing.
‘You want me to call?’ Laver said.
‘No, it’s all right, I guess. I saw your badge.’
She’d handed over the key. And now he was pulling on disposable rubber gloves, opening the door to Thirsk’s dogbox office, ducking under the police tape across the doorway, locking the door behind him and then standing in the silence. It was habit, more than anything, to stand at the edge of a scene, taking everything in, before he entered the space. A desk. A couch covered in stacks of paper. A couple of lamps. Two bad prints of nondescript Australian rainforest. A coffee table with three or four dirty cups and a plate with a crusty dirty knife. Fingerprint dust on its handle. A shopping list on a notepad. The items of a person who left with no idea he was never going to return. A giant fake fish on the wall which, when Laver finally took a step into the room, suddenly burst into a tinny electronic version of ‘The Chicken Dance’, scaring the living shit out of Laver. How had Forensics not turned that bastard off? He so wanted to, but knew he couldn’t change a single element in the room.
Which reminded him that the sniffer dogs would be back in five hours, to clear the place out. Without a solid suspect, Thirsk’s case notes, diary and contacts would be vital in the initial trawl. He was slightly surprised they hadn’t loaded everything up within an hour of the body being identified.
He stepped over to the computer, sparking another chicken dance, and noted the angle of the chair before he sat down.
It was too much to hope that the computer would be turned on, logged in, fully accessible – and it wasn’t. But Laver was able to boot it up and open a browser. He got onto Google and typed in the letter ‘a’.
Automatic memory kicked in, with a drop list of words starting with ‘a’ that had been searched appearing below the search box. Alan, Armadale, ABC news, Australian Open tennis, anal … Laver had seen enough.
He deleted the ‘a’ and typed ‘b’.
Bali, Blackburn, back pain, Bananas in pyjamas, blonde, boobs, bukkake, Brighton, Brisbane, Brunton Avenue, Bunnings, Bundoora, Burwood, butt, butt plug. And so it went.
Forcing himself not to go directly to ‘e’. Noting each letter’s findings. But finally getting there and watching the search results unfold.
eBay. Essendon football club. Eaglemont. EzyDVD. Easter show. Elastic. English.
Eloise Stanek.
There it was. Laver looked at Thirsk’s files. Packed in boxes, looped with police crime-scene tape. One of which would contain a file that he knew would be for Stanek, E. But it was impossible to search them without waking up tomorrow with Ethical Standards cops pointing guns at him from every side of his bed, or whatever the pen-pusher’s equivalent of a gun was. Pointing Bibles at him, maybe? Throwing rocks from the moral high ground?
Laver stood and readjusted the chair to how it had been. Exactly. Even though the forensics had already dusted for prints and he was wearing gloves, he used a handkerchief to wipe the keyboard and the door, enduring the fishy chicken dance three more times before he finally got clear of the office. He gave back the key, reminded the desk girl that his name was Detective Terry Porpoise, drove home and logged onto his laptop.
He opened the internet browser, called up Google and typed in ‘Eloise Stanek’. Three listings for generic ‘find a name’ databases came up. Otherwise nothing.
Facebook had two Elise Staneks, no Eloises, and the Elises had no info, so he didn’t even know if they were Australian.
He wasn’t yet desperate enough to attempt MySpace.
Instead, he went the old-school police way, showing his rich cop heritage by clicking into whitepages.com.au, residential section. Tapped in ‘Stanek’ and found seventy-one hits Australia wide, which was a blessing.
He stood and wandered into the kitchen, pondering why the ghost of Coleman never materialised during the day, even though it was daylight when he shot him. Laver stared mindlessly for a few moments, then shrugged and made himself an instant coffee, silently thanking Holmes, the patron saint of investigators, that he wasn’t chasing Eloise Smith.
He returned to his laptop and narrowed the search to the state of Victoria and now had fifteen Staneks, mostly in the Mitcham/Vermont area, east of the city.
But they weren’t the right ones. He found it on the twelfth call, to P Stanek, Brighton.
The phone rang nine times before a woman answered.
‘Hello?’
‘Mrs Stanek?’
‘Ms Stanek.’
‘I’m sorry. My mistake. This is Detective Senior Sergeant Tony Laver from the Victoria Police.’
The woman uttered a faint ‘Oh!’ and the line went dead.
***
Stig Anderson was on the phone, at the third phone box he’d tried; this one finally worked. He’d already had two strike-outs for sales. And Barry wasn’t answering his phone.
There was one more matter to take care of, Stig making one final call to a number he hadn’t used in ages. Surprise at the other end, some small talk. Stig making up whatever crap he could think of regarding what it was like to work in the mines near Broome. Old classmates discussed and laughed at.
Stig all friendly banter as he said, ‘Mate, yeah, big favour to ask, although I know it’s out of order. You still got the old access to the database at your work? You have? Sweet. A friend of mine recently had a lot of help from one of your fellow officers. Yeah, yeah. Was close to being mugged by a druggie on Smith Street and this bloke stepped in at exactly the right time. She wanted to send him a bottle of something, to say thanks, but I told her that if she sends it to the office it’ll be gone before he ever lays eyes on it. She wants to send it to his home address, to make sure he gets it.
‘I know. I know, but it’s touching, huh? And listen, you might be doing him a major service, between you and me. She’s quite a party girl and if he’s really lucky, she’ll drop it off in person, and let him know in other ways how grateful she is. She’s very tidy, just quietly.
‘His name’s Tony Laver. A bike cop, bless him … Yeah, I can wait. She’ll really appreciate this.’
The line went quiet while Stig’s old schoolmate searched the database.
Wildie had told Stig about this Laver guy fronting him in Brunswick Street. The night before he’d turned up at Louie’s.
Time for the hunter to become the hunted.
***
Laver hit Punt Road and drove south, cursing the traffic build-up through Prahran but finally clearing St Kilda, driving too fast through Elsternwick and making it to Brighton inside of forty minutes.
Her street was blue-ribbon Brighton, just off St Andrews Street, one block back from the bay. A place where traditional money, Portsea holiday houses and pearl necklaces met nouveau riche modern mansions, mostly built by real estate agents or bankers before the global financial crisis. But Brighton was rich enough to mostly withstand a global recession, so the For Sale signs were only occasional blights on the otherwise manicured landscape.
Laver felt slightly grungy, parking his dirt-splattered Pajero in the street.
He walked carefully along the pebble path between the perfect lawn and the strictly controlled flowerbeds. Curtains moved as he approached the front door. The house was single-level, white with a lot of glass. Probably from the 50s or 60s. Tennis court out the back, he’d bet what was left of his wage.
He knocked on the door and wondered if she would try to wait him out, but she didn’t. The door opened and he was facing a woman in her mid to late sixties, immaculately dressed in a pink jumper with a white blouse underneath. A grey skirt. And yes, pearls.
Along with a face that hadn’t seen sleep for a long time.
Laver held up his badge so she could examine it. ‘Ma’am, I’m Detective Senior Sergeant Laver. We spoke on the phone. Well, I did.’
‘I’m sorry I hung up on you,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you come in?’
She seated Laver in one of those living rooms that is for anything but: cold and spotless and completely without character, from the expensive but emotionless artwork to the cream lounge suite and rug.
She seemed resigned, and exhausted, as she asked if he’d like a cup of tea.
‘Why not?’ he said, thinking it would give her time to regain her poise. Once she left the room, he sat watching stirred dust swirl in the sunlight through the window, idly wondering if she ever actually clutched her pearl necklace, like the cliché. If anybody did.