Leopard Dreaming (14 page)

Freddie nodded, sobbing and all screamed-out after his matron had been taken away. Wretchedly exhausted now, he cowered deeper into his corner. He’d confessed how his tragic play had been dictated by voices from the future, including all the main events that led up to the matron’s abduction and Kitching’s involvement, but the one thing that still baffled the colonel was his brother’s foreknowledge of the Chinese commander who spoke with a Russian accent.

‘How could you possibly hear that much from a rubber room five hundred nautical miles away?’

Staff will talk. Little grapes on a vine.
He shook his head slowly with leaden eyelids …
They talk, talk, talked … about her dying.
With a final sob, he fell unconscious.

Kitching slammed down the pile of pages, unable to shake him awake again.

‘Sleep then,’ he said, knowing his words couldn’t be wasted. Anything he said now had already been heard, processed and produced the desired level of fear; enough to make him pass out. ‘In four hours she’ll need fresh air and we’ll talk then, brother.’

T
hirty minutes down the freeway Lockman took the first turn east into another maze of cane fields where the strip of bitumen narrowed to a single lane with earthen drains either side, full of water.

Traffic thinned to nothing, but haphazard corners kept them braking and leaning together for at least another ten minutes. Mira didn’t dare admit it to Lockman but riding along behind him, and feeling every twitch of his body as he controlled their speed and direction, she grew confident of the simple motions involved and began to wonder if it might ever be possible for her to ride all by herself one day. The only challenge would be finding a strip of road with no other traffic or obstacles.

As they rounded the final corner, she caught a glimpse of the ghostly yester-bridge to Likiba Isle, and regret struck her like a brick wall. There, to her right, was the small grotty beach where Kitching’s money launderers had used snipers to ambush her and abduct Ben. She opened her mouth to tell Lockman she’d changed her mind again, but by then they’d made it halfway across to Serenity.

The road forked almost immediately at the far end of the bridge; signs offering land for sale to their right
at the new canal development that now also shared the island, but as planned, Lockman leaned for the left fork onto much rougher and older bitumen.

Mira braced herself for the bumps until she realised she was hugging him tighter. ‘This thing could do with a handle back here. I can’t let go or the road will throw me.’

‘There’s one behind you. Sorry, I meant to show you where to find it when I offered to put you on first.’

He didn’t sound sorry. She pouted and reached back to find it herself, but as soon as she took hold of the metal grip with both hands, she lost all sense of which way Lockman was going to lean while he was playing dodgems with the biggest holes and bumps in the road.

Too late, she noticed him leaning and grabbed hold of him again, surprised by just how much she’d become attuned to him in so short a time. Such minor movements he made in controlling the bike, all connected through the toned skin and muscles of his chest, back and stomach. Unlike Ben, who was well-defined but considerably softer and harder to read. Not that she’d ever had this much of a chance with him. Her surfing lessons had never progressed any further than buying the board and wax.

She sensed Lockman glancing down at her hands around him, but he didn’t say anything. She wondered if she’d amused or annoyed him, since he was much harder to read emotionally. He rarely gave her enough clues to interpret. Today being the marked exception now that she could read him so intimately — not only through her hands around his stomach, but also from her body being hugged up so snugly behind him. It made her feel connected to him in a way that far outweighed her shyness of needing to touch him so much.

Sweeping around a tidal swamp of paper bark trees, the road crossed over the derelict tracks for a cane
tram — remnants of a harsher century when Serenity had been a gaol and later an asylum where prisoners and patients had to grow hemp or sugar cane to earn their meat, fruit and other foods from the mainland. Now, under the professional care of Matron Sanchez, the ‘patients’ had become ‘clients’ and the facility itself had been made over into a tropical paradise. Still high security, but far more like a private health sanctuary.

If she’d been able to see it that way from the beginning, Mira knew she would have had a much better time here on the island.

The bus stop at the end of the road stood like a shiny soldier guarding the long cobbled driveway, sloping up, with the real security checkpoint at the top. Yet through the purple haze of yesterday it no longer seemed so intimidating. Even the rusted curls of razor wire atop the old stone fences looked almost pretty now that they were overgrowing with flowering hedges and vines.

To the right of the bus stop, Mira saw the start of the side road that curled up and around to the supply entrance. And to the left she saw a makeshift car park with a sign that apologised for the lack of visitor parking inside. Still under renovation. The ink cried like cheap mascara after rain.

Lockman decelerated smoothly and turned into the car park. Imported gravel mixed with sand well enough to provide a base that sounded little different to bitumen.

He turned into the nearest row but pulled up short of pulling into any of the spaces.

‘Which one was empty yesterday?’ he asked.

‘Does it matter?’ She appreciated him asking her anyway. ‘There are three down there on the end.’

‘Good view of the gate. And the middle one’s empty today, so we’re lucky.’ He overshot a little at slow speed, and angled to reverse in. ‘I suggest you rethink
going inside. You’re dead to them and it’s probably best if you leave it that way.’

She glanced up to the security gate, knowing he was right. The guard up there on day shifts had been more of a nemesis than Freddie at times. He’d had his face stuck behind a giant newspaper yesterday, as always, but she could tell it was him today too from the buzz of a radio announcer calling a horse race.

‘I’ll try here first,’ she agreed. Much more appealing to be sitting down when she switched shades again anyway, and with a little more of the good luck they’d been having it shouldn’t take long to see if the matron came out this way. And if so, under what circumstances. Mira could even brace herself against Lockman’s back now without all the extra awkwardness that went with facing him.

He rolled back into the parking space and cut the engine.

‘Lieutenant Lockman?’ asked a surprised male voice beside Mira. She heard an electric window winding down and recognised the voice in the same instant that he announced himself. ‘Senior Detective Sydney Symes, Federal Police.’

Mira pinched Lockman’s ribs, making him flinch. ‘You didn’t see him?’

‘Stay on behind me.’

‘No such thing as coincidence,’ she said, using his own words as a warning.

‘Remember me?’ asked the senior detective as he clunked open his car door.

‘Symes?’ Lockman replied. ‘New wheels or just darker windows?’

Mira stiffened, trying not to panic. She gripped the seat of his bike tighter with her thighs and with both hands on his sides, in case he needed to race off again.

She remembered slimy Symes all right; a weedy, creepy little man with a tattoo of Daffy Duck hanging
from his right nipple. Last time she’d seen him, or rather his yester-ghost, he’d worn a dark flecked suit and matching hat, so that’s how she pictured him again. However, she’d only been loaned to him — and his partner Detective Clyde Moser — by General Garland for a ‘one-off deal’ to help hunt down a civilian money launderer who’d been working for Kitching. So the most they knew about her ability to gain insights from a crime scene was that her blindness had caused her other senses to develop to an extraordinary level of sensory perception. Or ‘bloody ESP’, as Moser called it.

As for their talent as investigators, she had no idea, since she’d provided them with all the missing details to shut down the whole scam, and then they had been forced to part company by an explosion and fire.

Moser grunted a gruffer greeting, making all the sounds of climbing out the other side of their vehicle.

‘Detectives?’ Lockman asked, as if he wasn’t sure what to expect either. Mira felt his back stiffen and his hip shift slightly, repositioning his muscles in preparation to speed away. ‘What brings you here?’

‘Now that’s the big question, son. Please tell me that little lady behind you isn’t Miss X?’

‘Sorry, sir. In regards to that particular asset, I’m not authorised to confirm or deny either way.’

‘We can see she’s right there,’ Moser argued. ‘Take off her helmet.’

‘And compromise road safety? Tsk, tsk, Detective. I might lose my licence.’

Symes sighed heavily. ‘Don’t be like that. I heard you were discharged recently as a lieutenant?’

‘That’s the rumour.’

‘Commendation for bravery?’

Lockman shrugged. ‘Medal Mondays, they seem to hand them out to anybody. If you have something to say, Detective, just say it.’

Mira smiled inside her helmet. As much as she feared Lockman’s ties to the military and resented the strict institutionalisation that went with it, at least it gave them one thing in common; a desire to face the worst of a situation and be done with it. Cops or not, she wasn’t sure how much she could trust them, since they’d been obligated to report every word of their encounters with her to General Garland. And they wouldn’t want to see Mira anywhere near a civilian investigation, or else her presence would imply a military activity from which they’d need to step back.

‘Look, son. Commendation or not, we’ve worked together once, so I know what you’re made of. You’ll answer a few questions honourably, without needing to be dragged in for questioning. Am I right?’

‘On any other subject, sure, no problem. But the oath I took when I joined the army has the same clause about national security as yours, Detective. It perpetuates beyond our terms of service, so I shouldn’t need to remind you of clause one-one-three, point-two of section —’

‘Cut the crap,’ Moser snapped. ‘If it’s not her, there’d be no argument.’

‘What’s it to you if I’m here privately?’ Mira tugged off her helmet, removing all doubt as well as lifting all the heat off Lockman.

The chin strap caught on her hues, bumping the controls and time flipped backwards, from yesterday-violet to a muddier shade of purple. Storm clouds appeared over the bay, and day switched to night with floodlights blazing like stars atop all of the buildings. Inside Serenity, the gardens also lit up like a fairyland, while the forest outside fell darker and spookier.

Dizzy from the change, Mira swayed and gripped onto Lockman’s shoulder. She had no idea what date she was looking at, but from the colour she’d switched to, and the extent of renovations on the
nearest building, she guessed it had to be some time within the last fortnight. Not long after Ben had escorted her out.

She didn’t dare to adjust the hues again with two detectives watching her.

‘Are you okay?’ Symes asked.

‘Hey, did her shades just change?’

Lockman turned sideways on the Blackbird, as if to check her, but she read his movement in time and caught him part way by tightening her grip on his shoulder.

‘I’m okay.’ She rubbed her temples to ease the pain of changing too quickly, and straightened, hoping to disguise her weakness. ‘What business is it of yours what I do or where I go on my own time?’

‘Plenty, if you’re still working for General Garland. National secrets are twenty-four/seven and as feds, you know we’ve got strict guidelines preventing us from any involvement in military cases, so if we have to rub shoulders on surveillance here, off-duty or not, we need to know in advance. The dance around the political minefield is too treacherous otherwise. More to the point, this island isn’t big enough for two federal investigations at once. Statistically, it’s also highly unlikely. And thirdly, if there’s any kind of link to the military, it also means someone around here isn’t telling us the whole truth yet.’

Mira gulped, keeping her mouth shut. He didn’t need to know that she’d severed all ties with the military any more than he needed to know that she’d once been a patient here.

Client.

Her life was starting today, just as soon as she cleaned up the mess from yesterday. And that meant finding Matron Sanchez, even if she had to go back in there and tear the old dungeons apart to find which way she’d left.

Lockman sighed. ‘Relax, Detective. We’re only sightseeing.’

‘Is that so? Because I just assumed you came for insights into the disappearance of the matron here.’

‘Federal Police handle that now?’ Mira asked, surprised.

‘Assume anything you like,’ Lockman interrupted. ‘Repeat it to anyone else, though, and you’ll have Garland down on your arse. You know how touchy she is about Miss X and her whereabouts. On duty or not.’

‘And yet I can’t help noticing you’re here with her alone. No air support or SAS team this time. Smack me if that doesn’t smell like a game of hooky, ex-lieutenant?’

‘A private project then, for a friend of a friend. That doesn’t change the fact that the existence of Miss X is a national secret, lifelong plus fifty years, at least.’

‘By nature, son, I can’t help being curious about that too.’

‘Keep wondering, sir. We can’t elaborate.’

Pockets wriggled inside her pouch, and Mira shifted her arm, hoping to disguise the movement, but too late. The joey reacted to the bump and shifted again.

‘So what’s in the bag?’ Symes asked. ‘Or is that a national secret too?’

‘Indirectly,’ Lockman replied. ‘Work, home and play are all taboo subjects.’

Symes sucked in a long breath through his lips, making it sound like a straw. ‘Fine, so you’re sightseeing,’ he said, finally. ‘Our paths never crossed. Unofficially, though, can we still talk, or can’t we?’

‘About what?’ asked Mira. ‘A missing matron? I thought you two only handled major crime, like fraud, trafficking and money laundering?’

‘Ordinarily that’s true, but the task force for missing persons is right down the hall, and certain evidence came to light suggesting we should take an interest.’

‘What evidence was that?’ The only link she could think of between the matron and Colonel Kitching was his crackpot brother, Freddie Leopard.

‘Unfortunately, I can’t be more specific unless you’re an official consultant,’ Symes said. ‘Unless you’re a suspect?’

Mira’s heart pounded harder. ‘Is that a threat?’

‘A statement of fact. Our investigation hit a wall today, so we’d certainly value your input as an anonymous informant, but if we have to escort you to the nearest station for a formal discussion, we’re prepared to do that too.’

‘On what grounds?’ Lockman argued. ‘And how long do you think you’d have us in custody before General Garland finds out?’

‘Not you, son. We only need her.’

Mira heard movement, felt Lockman’s shoulder jerk and heard a flurry of clicks as if he’d beaten them to the draw.