Disappear (40 page)

She was worried about Henry. He had so much blood on him and he lay so still. Despite the pain searing through her limbs she pushed herself over to where he lay. ‘Henry.’

Slowly, he tilted his head to face her. ‘Thank God … you’re okay.’ His voice was a croak, his face distorted by pain. ‘… My fault.’

‘You can’t blame yourself for Roger.’ Their eyes connected and Jennifer read the anguish in his expression.

‘I should’ve … stopped…’ he paused. Coughed. ‘ … him.’

Jennifer’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. ‘Don’t talk. Rest. The medics will-’

‘I have to explain.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Eighteen years ago I took a call from Brian. He told me … Roger was interfering with funds. Wanted me to talk to Roger- about …’

‘You knew?’ Tears stung the corners of Jennifer’s eyes. Her hand withdrew from the shoulder.

Kaplan’s voice wavered, his breath coming in short gasps. ‘Before I had a chance to confront Roger … Brian vanished.’

‘Oh, my God.’ Jennifer buried her face in her hands. She felt a sinking sensation deep inside - the gut wrenching anguish of knowing that the world as she knew it had gone - a lie, smashed now by the brute force of a secret revealed.

‘I followed Roger to that blasted warehouse one night. After he left I went in. Found the equipment. The bodies…’ His voice cracked. His eyes searched hers for understanding. ‘He was my son, Jennifer. My heir. All I could think to do was to keep him safe … and to stop him …’

‘How?’

Haltingly, he told her about Falkstog’s surveillance teams.

‘But Roger started again.’

‘The blasted bankruptcy. Couldn’t pay Falkstog … I hoped Roger wouldn’t realise …’

‘He knew you were behind it?’

Kaplan groaned and clutched his chest. His body rocked with a spasm, then slowly calmed. ‘He must’ve known … towards the end.’

Jennifer looked to the burning house, then back again. ‘I don’t understand - how Roger could have done all this.
And you knew
…’ A chill swept through her with unexpected force. She’d always thought of Henry and Roger as part of her family. But who - or what - were they? Monsters? Nothing seemed real …

Kaplan’s hand reached feebly for hers. ‘My son, Jennifer … still my son.’ His eyes pleaded for forgiveness from her. ‘Can you..?’ All of a sudden he coughed up blood. Another spasm shook his body, sucking the air from his lungs. He went limp, his head lolling to the side.

Jennifer heard the ambulance siren approaching rapidly. She was numb with shock, unable to bring herself to touch the body. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks. Then, her shoulders sagged and she lay her head down on the grass.

At first he felt a terrible panic as his lungs screamed for air. He was sure his body was going to burst.

Then, slowly, a strange dream-like state descended on him. He saw faces in the shadowy depths, floating, staring. One of the faces bobbed closer. It was Vinnie. His first victim. What was he doing here? Waiting? Waiting for his vengeance?

Then the faces blurred to nothingness and the myriad blue-green colours swirled about him in slow motion. He knew what was happening…He wasn’t going to join his victims, that had never been his destiny. The light faded and he could feel the ice cold liquid surging through him.

His time had come. He was being prepared for suspension, and he would lay in wait alongside his mother. Together they would sleep, preserved, until they were re-awakened in the world of the future.

The newsbreak cut into the programs of all channels Australia-wide. On the Twelve Network, Racine Gordon, an elegant brunette who spoke in crisp, clear tones, appeared on the screen. ‘In an extraordinary series of events, police today discovered that the bombing this morning of Southern Star Mines was the work of one man, the same man now believed to be responsible for the garrote killings that panicked the city of Sydney this past week.

‘Police have yet to identify the killer, but our sources indicate that a special unit, reporting directly to the police commissioner and led by Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Lachlan, has identified the killer at the scene of yet another bombing.’

In his grandparents’ home in Brisbane, Todd Lachlan lay on the floor in front of the television. He sprang to his feet and looked for his mother. She was moving their packed suitcases into the hallway, ready to leave.

‘Mum! Didja hear that? They said Dad’s name on the tele. He caught that bad man!’

Marcia stopped. Leaning against the sofa, she placed her hands on Todd’s shoulders. ‘Shoosh. Listen. There’s more.’

‘We cross now, live, to the Vaucluse home of fallen entrepreneur Henry Kaplan. Rory McConnell, the investigative reporter whose exposé on Kaplan appeared today in an independent newspaper, has joined the Network Twelve team for this report. He joins us from the scene. Rory …’

The studio set dissolved quickly and Rory McConnell’s face filled the screen. Behind him, emergency service personnel raced around the burning ruin of the two-storey mansion. ‘Thank you, Racine. As you can see, bedlam has broken loose here. There are two fatalities at the house - Henry Kaplan and his female companion, Helen Shawcross.

‘The big news, though, is the identity of the bomber, also believed to be the notorious garrote killer. We’ve just been notified that it is Henry Kaplan’s son and erstwhile heir - Roger Kaplan - who drowned in the harbour while trying to escape police.’

‘Wow!’ said Todd.

Marcia squeezed his shoulder, glad the killer had finally been stopped. And she felt good that Neil had played a part. She couldn’t deny he was a committed, hard-working cop - he deserved this.

The amazing thing about the trip to Brisbane was that it had cleared her mind, freed her from the anger and the guilt she felt about the past. She’d read that distance from your troubles could do that, but she hadn’t expected the sudden, gratifying feeling of release. It had helped her make a very clear decision. She was going to spend more of her time on weekends with the man she’d been seeing, give herself a chance to find out how she really felt about him.

Todd could spend more weekends with Neil. Both would like that, and they deserved it. For the first time she felt they could all get on with the next phase in their lives. She determined that there would be no more hurt, no more recrimination.

‘We are still waiting for the official line from police,’ Rory continued, ‘but I believe the police commissioner will hold a press conference within the hour …’

In the waiting room of Sydney’s North Shore Hospital, Meg Tanner watched the news broadcast.
Roger Kaplan?
The facts refused to settle in her mind. They stayed just out of reach, circling like a plane without a clear place to land. She hadn’t slept all night and she was like a zombie. How could Roger Kaplan be responsible for all this? He was Jennifer’s friend. He’d been Brian’s best friend.

Doctor Susan Chan approached her. ‘Mrs Tanner, you daughter is awake and, she’s off the critical list.’

‘Oh, thank God.’

‘She’s going to be fine. And she’s asking for you.’

Meg breathed a sigh of relief as she followed the doctor into the emergency ward.

The raid took place at six a.m. the following morning, while the city slept, and the sun’s first light crept across the skyline.

Armed with a warrant and the full backing of the police commissioner, Lachlan had assembled a team of six men, Bryant and Aroney among them.

Lachlan felt certain Hans Falkstog had been fully aware, all those years, that the subject of his firm’s surveillance was a cold-blooded killer. Lachlan was also certain Falkstog had operated equipment outlawed for commercial enterprises, and that many of his practices were illegal. And it followed that if Henry Kaplan had employed Falkstog to watch his son, then he would have used the same resources to blackmail and use John Rosen.

Just hours before Lachlan had confirmed that suspicion. He’d obtained the phone records for Falkstog’s address and found that several calls had been made to John Rosen’s number.

Less than twenty-four hours had elapsed, since Lachlan had been in the two storey beachside house, but what he found on the raid came as a complete shock.

When they received no response at the front door, they broke in. Inside they found an empty shell. All the interiors were gone. Falkstog’s huge office was bare.

Lachlan led the way to the electronics control room at the rear. Empty, stripped of its bank of sophisticated hardware. There was no indication -
nothing
- that such an operation had ever been housed there.

‘Clearly you were right about Falkstog,’ Ron Aroney said. ‘And he wasn’t takin’ any chances on you coming back here with a search party.’

‘But to have moved everything out,’ said Lachlan, ‘all the house contents, the heavy duty gear set up down here, literally overnight - in a matter of hours…’

‘Practically physically impossible, unless you have massive help.’ Aroney scratched at his short, unruly mop of hair. ‘This guy wasn’t just your average security executive. Who the hell was he?’

That question burned in Lachlan’s mind as they moved back through the house. It would have taken a highly professional group, trained in speed and stealth and with far reaching resources, to have moved in so quickly and erased all sign of Falkstog’s activities. It reeked of government, but legitimate authorities wouldn’t get involved to that extent with a man like Falkstog. Would they?

Just what kind of covert connections did Hans Falkstog have?

The Winterstone warehouse was cordoned off and guarded by a police unit.

‘Good morning, detective.’ The constable nodded his head as Lachlan entered the dock area with Jennifer. She wore a silk scarf to cover the wounds on her throat. The only other signs of her ordeal were the gash on her face and a limp, the result of a badly bruised hip and thigh. They went through to the basement.

For several minutes Jennifer stood silently as she ran her gaze over the room: the imposing, alien looking metal caskets; the wires and tubes; the blood storage units; the cylinders of liquid nitrogen.

‘I had to see this,’ she said. ‘Just once.’

‘I understand.’

‘What will happen to it?’

‘Once the department’s finished with it, the equipment will be released to the receivers along with everything else. I expect it’s the first time cryonics units have been under the liquidator’s hammer anywhere in the world.’

‘I guess I’ve seen enough.’ They returned to the dock area, Lachlan falling into step beside her. She didn’t look back. She’d heard the police psychologist’s assessment of the case and she remembered his words now. ‘Of the male serial killers profiled by America’s FBI, many were eldest sons who had a strained relationship with their fathers. Theirs are disturbed minds, lacking self-esteem, and with a corresponding lack of courage. They kill for power, or sexual gratification, or both, and it becomes their drug.’

‘This isn’t going to be an easy thing to get over,’ Lachlan said to Jennifer after the warehouse visit. They were walking back to Lachlan’s car. ‘Have you given any thought to the psychologist’s suggestion?’

‘Counselling?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll be okay, Neil. I’ll never understand how Roger could’ve done the things he did, or how Henry could’ve known and said nothing. Neither of them were the men I thought they were - but it’s in the past and I’m damned well going to bury it and get on with my life.’

Lachlan took her hand in his. They were brave, determined words, exactly what he’d expect from the feisty Jennifer Parkes. But he intended to keep a close eye on her, and on Carly, for the immediate future.

Words were one thing. Living them was another matter entirely.

‘One thing I’ve wondered, though,’ said Jennifer, ‘is what I might’ve done if I’d been in Henry’s position, if Carly had been the one doing such … things? And I don’t know the answer. I really don’t know and it frightens me.’

‘Hard as it might be, nine out of ten parents would give in to common decency and go to the police. Especially when the lives of others are threatened. I know you well enough to know you’re one of the nine.’

They reached Lachlan’s car at the end of the double driveway.

‘I’m going to sell Wishing Pool Fashions.’

‘Why? Because of all this-’

‘ I want to start something new, something that doesn’t have a past connected to the Kaplans. Carly wants to be part of it.’

She flashed him a smile, the first he’d seen from her since the bombing ordeal three days earlier.

‘Although with Carly on board it’ll have to be something with a social conscience.’

‘Environmentally friendly fashions.’ Lachlan returned the smile.

‘If there’s one good thing that has come from all this,’ Jennifer observed, ‘it’s that it’s brought Carly and I close again. That’s something that Brian would’ve wanted.’

‘You and Carly are going to do just fine.’

‘Another good thing,’ she said, smiling again, ‘is…well, you and I. ‘ She gripped his hand.

‘I agree,’ he said. ‘In spades.’

The sun’s rays held a warm comfort. From the moment she’d walked out of that warehouse, Jennifer felt a weight lift.

She hadn’t felt this light of being for a long time.

In Queensland, in a fashionable suburb of Brisbane, Wim Vanderkirk, the man previously known as Hans Falkstog, stood with his arms folded as he watched the transmission coming from a hidden camera, far away.

The woman on the screen wasn’t known to him, neither was the young man she cavorted with in the expensive hotel suite. Falkstog knew this woman’s husband. He was a senior figure with a government agency. The man would be furious when Falkstog confirmed his client’s wife was being unfaithful.

This woman could not imagine how her life would be turned upside down. Falkstog knew the bizarre vengeance his client planned. He would cast his wife out of their home, cut her off financially, and ensure that this boyfriend, and any other men that she met, were scared off by threats from Falkstog’s menacing phantoms.