by Emma Viskic
Reveal he had access to Maggie’s records, or let a possible ally leave? The young man was heaving himself up.
‘I’ve seen Maggie records,’ Caleb said quickly. ‘She IDs clients by a string of numbers. If I get you a copy, could you work out their names?’
Fawkes edged closer. ‘What sort of strings? Sequential? Different lengths?’
‘Random, all nine digits.’
‘Won’t be a code, then. She’s probably just written the names in the back of a book.’ He paused, head bobbing. ‘Maggie’s no genius – I’d be able to trace her clients through the transactions.’
She might not be a genius, but she was smart enough to have protected herself from hackers, Frankie and the feds.
‘How? They’ll all be run through intermediaries.’
‘I’m fucking good, I’d work it out. You got the records here? Can you give them to me now?’
No, Fawkes was too keen – the all-consuming focus of a zealot showed in his thrusting head. A vision of him posting the names online, the kidnappers panicking and killing Tilda. Slow it down, but keep the channels open. ‘Not yet. I’ll contact you. What’s the best way?’
The hacker’s face slackened with disappointment. ‘Reply to that email, I guess. Be good for another twenty-four hours.’ Apparently holding out little hope of Caleb’s success.
‘Better than that,’ Caleb said. ‘A phone number, a name.’
‘Mate, with all the questions you’re asking, I reckon they’ll be coming for you next. I don’t want my name, number or DNA anywhere near you.’ He pulled himself from the pool.
‘Wait. Maggie’s client, the one who got arrested – what’s his name?’
Fawkes looked back with a shrug. ‘Think he’s a builder. That’s what Maggie called him.’ He walked quickly away, his thin back hunched as he disappeared into the change rooms.
24.
Frankie was sitting in the passenger seat, hands in her lap, head back, but nothing relaxed about her. She’d parked as far from a streetlamp as possible.
She sat up as he climbed in, pressing the light switch so it would stay on. ‘Anything?’
‘Nothing clear, but he reckons he could work Maggie’s clients from her records.’
Alarm in her face. ‘Christ no. He posts them online, Tilda’s dead.’
‘It’s OK, I agree. He –’
She held up a hand. ‘Move from here first, I checked the phone a couple of times.’
He pulled out the keys but didn’t start the engine. Frankie was shameless in her snooping, but there was a chance she wouldn’t have read a text from Kat. ‘Anything for me?’
‘Yeah, someone called Henry Collins is pretty keen to see you.’ Her gaze travelled across his face. ‘Or are you worried about Kat?’
No reason to deny it. ‘Yes.’
‘I’d tell you.’ She hesitated, then asked, ‘How’s it going?’
‘On schedule.’ Just like the last two pregnancies, the abruptness of their loss still shocking.
Frankie’s forehead creased as she examined him. ‘And how are you doing?’
‘As expected.’
A terrible moment thinking she’d say something sympathetic, but she just gently punched his arm.
He drove as he told her about his chat with Fawkes, no real destination in mind, just that they needed to stay somewhere central while they worked out what to do. When he’d finished, Frankie swivelled to face him. ‘It’s not that easy to shut down a taskforce. That’s someone with a direct ear to very senior cops.’
The same not-particularly-comfortable thought had occurred to him. He switched on the windscreen wipers as rain beaded the glass. The freeway was busy for this time of night, a steady stream of trucks, cars and motorbikes all heading for the city, nothing on the outbound side. Had he missed a warning? Eastern suburbs being evacuated due to some toxic spill?
Frankie waved to catch his eye.
He didn’t turn. ‘Could we table this for later? Like when we can talk without dying?’
She faced forward. Ten seconds of stillness before she started fiddling with the air vents. A quick adjustment of the louvres, the nozzle direction. And now she was switching through radio stations, muddy sounds filling his ears.
He merged left to use the emergency lane as a buffer. ‘OK, go.’
She flicked off the radio. ‘The bit about the builder doesn’t make sense. It’s cash-based. He wouldn’t need Maggie – could do his own laundering.’
‘Maybe he was making too much. Did a job for a chippie last month, and he was making way more than me.’ So much more it had briefly made Caleb regret not taking up his father’s long ago invitation to join him in the building business.
‘No,’ Frankie said, ‘we’re talking big money, can’t be a builder. You must have misread the word.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I’ve been doing it for thirty fucking years, Frankie. I know when I’ve misread something.’
‘Yeah? Well you’re misreading the room right now.’ She swung back to the road.
The rain was heavier now, laying a film of oily water across the asphalt. He eased off the accelerator and nudged the wipers higher. Frankie was probably right about the builder. Laundering would chew up thirty or forty per cent of the profits – you’d need serious money for it to be worth it. So maybe they weren’t looking for a small-business owner, but a developer. In the motel, Tilda had watched the TV report about the developer’s arrest with keen interest. The only time she’d been distracted enough to stop watching him and Frankie. As though she knew the man, or had heard his name. John Jacklin. Who’d just today pled innocent to fraud charges.
‘I might know who he is.’ He explained about Jacklin, and Tilda’s rapt attention. ‘Timing’s right – he was arrested last week. Find his address, he should be on bail.’
‘Yeah, OK.’ She began unwrapping the phone.
Not quite the enthusiasm he’d expected. ‘Problem?’
‘He won’t know anything. Maggie keeps everything separate. Didn’t even like foods touching when she was a kid – had to give her a lunchbox with compartments until she was seven.’ Irritation more than fond remembrance in her expression.
How had seven-year-old Frankie approached eating? With a flick-knife? Strange to think of her as a doting older sibling. He used to make Ant’s lunches sometimes. Back in the days when Ant had followed him around, copying his every action, both of them daring each other on in pissing contests and offensive jokes.
‘You made Maggie’s lunches?’
She glanced up from the phone. ‘I made everything.’
Something more than doting, then: necessity. In all the years they’d worked together he’d gleaned only the most basic information about her background. Left home at seventeen, possibly already on the piss. A childhood on the distant fringes of Melbourne with a mother she never mentioned and a cop father who’d died suddenly when Frankie was thirteen. Possibly why she’d become a cop herself, stuck with it despite the obvious personality clash. Be interesting to see what she’d say if he suggested it.
Frankie turned to him, and he flinched. A sudden fear she really could read his mind. ‘Yes? What?’ he said quickly.
‘Jacklin’s in remand,’ she said and returned to her research.
No bail for a first-time offence?
The rain abruptly dumped down, veiling the world in white. The car ahead slowed in panic. Caleb pumped the brakes, windscreen wipers on full, peering at the prisms of tail-lights ahead of him.
Frankie tapped his arm.
‘Wait. I’ll take the next off-ramp.’
She tapped harder, fingers jabbing.
His stomach dropped. ‘Tilda?’
‘Maggie’s awake.’
***
The hospital’s rear doors were locked for the night, a sign directing people to the front entrance. Nine-forty: too late for visitors. Too late for bad news. How to tell a mother her chid was gone?
He followed Frankie around the corner, neither of them speaking. The rain had stopped, the glistening streets nearly empty, only a white-coated doctor furtively smoking up ahead; he glanced in their direction and stepped a little further into a service alley.
Caleb looked at Frankie. ‘Will they let you see Maggie this late?’
‘They’d better.’
He wouldn’t want to be the nurse who told her to come back in the morning.
‘Will Maggie talk to us?’ he asked.
She was a little slower to answer this time. ‘Getting in the door might be tricky if she’s ditched my guard for hers.’
‘I can stay outside.’
‘I meant for me – she was pretty pissed off about the key. But she’ll listen when she knows it’s about Turnip.’
Turnip. That’s right – Frankie had called Tilda that when she’d first greeted the girl at his office.
He kept his tone even. ‘Does Maggie call her Turnip, too?’
Her face softened. ‘Yeah. It started because of the Swedish name. You know, swede, turnip, but she really looked like one when she was a baby. This big white forehead and wispy hair.’ She smiled. ‘Still does.’
Turner. Please.
Turnip. Please
He pictured Maggie’s frightened face in the video, her words butting up against each other. ‘No. Don’t tell anyone about Turnip. Please.’
It slotted perfectly into place. So the person Maggie had been speaking to knew Tilda could ID Jacklin, maybe even other aspects of Maggie’s work. The kidnappers? No, the timing was wrong – Tilda had been taken days after that tape was made.
But less than an hour after Caleb had tested possible names in public. Standing with Henry Collins by the tomato stall, saying each word slowly and clearly, all while the man in the blue baseball cap listened in.
His blood turned to ice. Frankie had never been the target: the kidnappers had recognised Tilda’s nickname and gone after her.
‘Maggie’s video,’ he said to Frankie. ‘The name.’
She shook her head, her gaze going to the service alley a couple of metres away, the doctor taking the last few puffs of his illicit cigarette. He had the Hollywood good looks and highlighted hair of a plastic surgeon, but the build of a heavyweight boxer; easily capable of tearing Caleb apart when Frankie started yelling at him. Yes, wait until they were alone before admitting what he’d done.
They were level with the man when it clicked – muscle-bound, with fair hair.
‘Run!’ Caleb yelled to Frankie.
He was grabbed, shoved forwards, head slamming into the wall.
A shockwave of pain.
And somehow sitting. The ground sliding in front of his eyes, blood dripping onto the concrete. Hollywood dragged him into the alley and yanked down his jacket to bind his arms.
Frankie in front of them, hands raised, face hollowed and white. High brick walls and stained ground, lights flickering at the edges of his vision. Something hard against his temple. A gun. The same gun that had killed all those cops? Big gun, blow a big hole in him.
A distant rumble: Hollywood speaking. Be still and let Frankie negotiate. She was already talking, her eyes darting between Hollywood’s face and the gun. ‘… give you the key. Just tell me where Tilda is first.’
The barrel smacked his temple, dull ripples through his skull. More rumbling from Hollywood.
Frankie stepped back, mouth opening. ‘No, don’t!’
A flash. Something dragged over his head – a plastic bag. Twisted shut, a forearm pinning it. Panic clawed through him. Trying to wrench away, the bag sucking against his mouth. Break it, chew it. Body jerking, chest staving inwards. Frankie’s blurred figure coming closer, coming to rip the bag from him. No – giving something to Hollywood, moving away again. Ribs crushed. Plastic melding to face, nose, tongue.
And released.
Lying by Hollywood’s polished shoes, drawing in shuddering breaths. Frankie beside him on her knees, head bowed.
Hollywood was examining a silver key, gun trained on Caleb. A chiselled symmetry to his face, eyebrows neatly shaped. Beneath his lab coat, a tailored suit and white shirt, grey silk tie, only his scarred and ridged knuckles giving a glimpse of his inner violence. He slipped the key into his breast pocket and pulled out a phone. Texting someone. No hurry; waiting at the beautician’s to freshen up his tan.
He finally lowered the phone and turned to go.
‘Wait,’ Caleb said. ‘Tilda. Where’s Tilda?’
Hollywood glanced back, looking slightly puzzled that Caleb was speaking to him. ‘Haven’t found her yet.’
25.
He scavenged a limp tea bag and sugar sachets from the motel’s meagre stocks and made Frankie tea. They were only a few blocks from the hospital, but neither of them had had the energy to go any further. The only room left in the place, a one-bed unit with bare brick walls and overhead lights that shimmered when he turned his head. Why hadn’t Hollywood killed them? Would have been the work of seconds. Hadn’t been squeamishness, that was for sure.
He carried the tea to the couch, pain netting his skull. Not concussed, but not far off it. He sat next to Frankie, handed her the tea. ‘You ring the hospital?’
‘What?’
‘The hospital.’ He pointed to the wall-mounted phone by the kitchen.
‘Oh. Yeah. Wasn’t them.’
‘Maggie’s not awake?’
‘No. Maybe tomorrow. Depends on the –’ She touched her head. ‘There’s still swelling.’ She raised the tea to her mouth, lowered it. ‘He hasn’t got Turnip. I don’t understand. How can it not be him?’
No way of breaking the news gently. ‘I think someone took her because of the video. Maggie’s talking about her, calling her Turnip.’
Frankie’s eyes went blank. ‘What?’
He went through it slowly, told her about testing the names aloud, the kidnapper listening in. ‘I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.’
‘It was Turnip? Maggie was saying –’ She drew in a sharp breath. ‘They wanted Turnip, not the docs?’
‘It’s good,’ he said quickly. ‘They just want information from her, or maybe to keep it from someone else. If they wanted her dead, they would have done it already.’ Aware he was trying to reassure himself as much as her, that he hadn’t voiced the other, greater horror.
Frankie was shaking her head. ‘There’s a chance the kidnappers won’t kill her, but that guy, whoever he’s working for – they will. They’ll find her and kill her.’
‘Haven’t found her yet.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ll get her first.’ The words were dry husks in his mouth.
Frankie stood abruptly and went to the bedroom, turning her face as she closed the door. Her backpack was in there. She’d be getting out her kit and unrolling it, reaching for the needle and oblivion. He’d always judged her for that. But to forget everything. To forget the long and bloodied history of his mistakes; that, he could understand.
A hint of sound, a raw wail that ripped through him. He went to turn off his aids, then lowered his hand and stood.
Frankie was sitting against the wall, knees drawn to her chest. No booze or needles, nothing but naked grief on her face as she wept. Choosing to feel the unbearable without dulling the pain. A memory: eighteen years old, a few weeks after his mother died. His father bowed over the kitchen sink, shoulders heaving. He’d never seen his father cry before, hadn’t known what to do with such unfamiliar grief. Still didn’t.
He sat beside Frankie and laid a tentative hand on her arm. She buried her face in his shoulder. Arms around her, holding her tight, his b
ody shuddering with her sobs.
26.
Awake. A figure leaning over him, shaking his shoulder. Kat bleeding, needing an ambulance. He shot upright. Not Kat: Frankie. On a couch in the bare-brick motel. He dropped his head into his hands and tried to remember how to breathe. A blaze of light as Frankie switched on a lamp. He raised his head.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Wake up.’
‘I’m awake.’ A strong possibility he’d never sleep again. It had been a deep and strangely dreamless sleep while it lasted, the kind usually reserved for the drugged or guilt-free. He checked the clock: 5.12 a.m.
‘Tilda?’ he asked quickly.
‘No. I got … Jacklin … morning.’
‘What?’
‘I got onto … mate in remand … Jacklin … morning.’
‘Um.’ He put the words together, had a stab at their meaning. ‘You called a mate in remand and we can see Jacklin this morning?’
‘Yes.’
Nice to know he wasn’t the only person she’d woken in the middle of the night. A glimpse of her rumpled bed through the bedroom door, a laptop on the pillow. A laptop?
‘Where’d the computer come from?’
‘Junkie … thirty bucks. Jacklin’s …’
‘Wait. Let me put my aids in.’ His brain too, hopefully – he could usually read Frankie without them.
He eased himself up, head and body protesting. A bit of a shuffle as he crossed the room. Frankie tailed him, talking as he grabbed his phone from the bed and went into the bathroom. He shut the door in her face, locked it to be on the safe side.
A grim image in the mirror: bloodshot eyes and a dark two-day beard, a puffy bruise on his forehead, blood crusted where the skin had split. He cleaned the worst of it, then unwrapped the phone. Kat had the motel’s number, but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling of that waking dream. Nineteen weeks today, a milestone they’d never quite reached before. Only five more and they’d reach the phrase ‘possibly viable’.
The phone lit up: eight texts. Eight texts in the middle of the night. Oh God.
He swiped through them without reading the contents. Tedesco and Alberto; nothing from Kat. He lowered himself onto the toilet and closed his eyes. Two different futures lived in the space of seconds. When he’d got his pulse back under a hundred, he read the texts. Tedesco’s first.