The Bat (33 page)

“I’m a bit tied up now, Birgitta. Don’t ring here again, please.”

“Wait! I can … I know a few things. I know what you like.”

“Like?”

“What you … really like. What your kick is.”

…

…

“Sorry, I just had to get someone out of the room. This is a real pain in the arse. So. What do you think I like, Birgitta?”

“I can’t say it on the phone, but … but I have blonde hair, and I … I like it, too.”

“Jeez. Girlfriends! You never cease to amaze me. I thought Inger would’ve kept her mouth shut about that sort of thing.”

“When can I meet you, Evans? This is urgent.”

…

“I’ll be in Sydney day after tomorrow, but perhaps I should consider an earlier flight …?”

“Yes!”

“Hm.”

“When can we—?”

“Shh, Birgitta, I’m thinking.”

…

“OK, listen carefully. Walk down Darlinghurst Road tomorrow evening at eight. Stop by Hungry Jack’s on the left. Look for a black Holden with tinted glass. If it isn’t there before half past eight you can go. And make sure I can see your hair.”

“The last time? Well, Kristin rang me out of the blue one night. She was a bit drunk, I think. She gave me an ear-bashing for something, don’t remember what. For destroying her life, probably. She had a tendency to think people around her were always destroying things she had planned so carefully.”

“That’s how it is with girls who have spent too much time growing up alone and playing with dolls, you know.”

“Maybe. But, as I said, I don’t remember. I was hardly ever sober myself.”

Harry sat up in the sand on his elbows and scanned the sea. The waves rose, the tips went white and the foam hung in the air for a second before it fell, glittering in the sun like crushed glass, and crashed against the cliffs beyond Bondi Beach.

“But I saw her once more. She visited me at the hospital after the accident. Initially, when I opened my eyes, I thought I was dreaming, seeing her beside my bed, pale, almost transparent. She was just as beautiful as the first time I saw her.”

Birgitta pinched him in the side.

“Am I laying it on too thick?”

“Not at all, just go on.” She was lying on her stomach and giggling.

“What is this? You’re supposed to get a bit jealous when I’m talking about an old flame. But the more I go into details about my romantic past the more you seem to like it.”

Birgitta peered at him over her sunglasses.

“I like finding out that my macho cop has had an emotional life. Even though it was some time ago.”

“Some time ago? What do you call this then?”

She laughed. “This is the mature, carefully considered holiday romance which doesn’t become too intense but has enough sex for it to be worth the effort.”

Harry shook his head. “That’s not true, Birgitta, and you know it.”

“Yes, it is, but it’s fine, Harry. It’s fine for
now
. Continue the story. If the details become too intimate, I’ll tell you. Anyway, I’ll get my own back when I tell you about my ex-boyfriend.” She wriggled in the hot sand with a contented expression. “Ex-boyfriends, I mean.”

Harry brushed the sand off her white back.

“Are you sure you don’t get sunburned? With this sun and your skin—”

“You’re the one who rubbed in the suntan lotion, herr Hole!”

“I was just wondering if it was a high enough factor. OK, forget it. I just didn’t want you to get burned.”

Harry stared at her light-sensitive skin. When he had asked for a favor she had said yes straightaway—without any hesitation.

“Relax, Daddy, and tell the story.”

The fan wasn’t working.

“Shit, it was brand bloody new!” said Watkins, hitting the back as he switched it on and off. To no avail. It was
no more than a piece of silent aluminum and dead electricity.

McCormack growled.

“Forget it, Larry. Ask Laura for a new one. It’s D-Day today and we have more important things on our minds. Larry?”

Watkins, irritated, moved the fan away.

“Everything’s ready, sir. We’ll have three cars in the area. Miss Enquist will be equipped with a radio transmitter so that we can plot where she is at any given moment, as well as a microphone, so that we can hear and assess the situation. The plan is she takes him home to her flat where Holy, Lebie and myself are positioned in the bedroom wardrobe, on the balcony and in the corridor respectively. If anything happens in the car, or they drive somewhere else, the three cars will follow.”

“Tactics?”

Yong straightened his glasses. “Her job is to get him to say something about the murders, sir. She’ll put him under pressure by saying she’ll go to the police with what Inger Holter told her about his sexual habits. If he feels secure that she can’t escape he may lift the lid.”

“How long can we wait before we go in?”

“Until we have substantial evidence on tape. In a worst-case scenario, until he lays his hands on her.”

“Risk?”

“This isn’t without risk, of course, but strangling someone isn’t a quick process. We’re only seconds away at any stage.”

“What if he’s got a weapon?”

Yong shrugged. “From what we know that would be uncharacteristic behavior, sir.”

McCormack had gotten up and started pacing to and fro in the small room. He reminded Harry of a fat old leopard he had seen in the zoo when he was young. The cage was
so small the front part of the body began to turn before the rear had finished the previous turn. Back and forth. Back and forth.

“What if he wants sex before anything is said or anything has happened?”

“She’ll refuse. Say she’s changed her mind, she only said it to persuade him to get her some morphine.”

“And then we let him go on his way?”

“We don’t do any splashing unless we know we can catch him, sir.”

McCormack sucked his top lip under his bottom lip. “Why’s she doing this?”

Silence.

“Because she doesn’t like rapists and murderers,” Harry said after a long pause.

“Apart from that.”

There was an even longer silence.

“Because I asked her to,” Harry said at length.

“Can I disturb you, Yong?”

Yong Sue looked up from his computer with a smile. “Sure, mate.”

Harry slumped onto a chair. The busy officer typed away, keeping one eye on the screen and one eye on him.

“Nice if this stayed between us, Yong, but I’ve lost my belief.”

Yong stopped typing.

“I think Evans White’s a wild goose chase,” Harry continued.

Yong looked bewildered. “Why?”

“It’s a bit difficult to explain, but there are a couple of things I can’t get out of my mind. Andrew was trying to tell me something at the hospital. And before, too.”

Harry broke off. Yong motioned him to go on.

“He was trying to tell me the solution was closer to home than I thought. I believe the guilty party is someone Andrew, for some reason, couldn’t arrest himself. He needed an outsider. Such as me—a Norwegian who drops in and has to catch the next flight back. I reckoned that was how it was when I thought Otto Rechtnagel was the murderer, that because he was a close friend, Andrew wanted someone else to stop him. There was something that grated though, for me, deep down. Now I realize he wasn’t the person Andrew wanted me to nab, it was someone else.”

Yong cleared his throat. “I haven’t mentioned this before, Harry, but I was surprised when Andrew came up with this witness who had seen Evans White in Nimbin on the same day Holter was murdered. Now, in retrospect, it’s struck me that Andrew might have had another motive for removing the focus from Evans White: the guy had a hold on him. Evans White knew Andrew was on heroin and could have had him kicked out of the force and put in prison. I don’t like the idea, but have you considered the possibility that Andrew and White may have struck a little deal? That Andrew would make sure we gave White a wide berth?”

“This is beginning to get complicated, Yong, but—well, yes, I have considered that possibility. And rejected it. Don’t forget it was Andrew who enabled us to identify and find Evans White from the photo.”

“Hm.” Yong scratched the back of his head with a pencil. “We would have managed that without him, but it would have taken longer. Do you know the chances of a murder victim’s partner being the culprit in any given case? Fifty-eight percent. Andrew knew we would invest substantial resources into finding Inger Holter’s secret lover after you’d translated that letter. So if he really wanted to protect White and keep him hidden at the same time he might just as well have helped. For appearances’ sake. You found it remarkable, for example, that he could immediately recognize a
few walls in a place he had been just the once, drugged up and a hundred years ago, didn’t you.”

“You might be right, Yong, I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t think there’s much point sowing too many seeds of doubt now that the guys know what to do. When it comes to the crunch, perhaps Evans White is our man after all. But if I really believed that, I would never have asked Birgitta to take part in this.”

“So who do you think is our man?”

“Who do I think it is
this
time, you mean?”

Yong smiled. “Something like that.”

Harry rubbed his chin. “I’ve already rung the alarm bells twice, Yong. Wasn’t it the third time the boy cried ‘Wolf’ that they stopped reacting? That’s why I have to be a hundred percent sure this time.”

“Why have you come to me with this, Harry? Why not one of the bosses?”

“Because you can do a couple of things for me, make discreet inquiries and find some data I need, without anyone else in the building getting wind of it.”

“No one else should know?”

“I know it sounds dodgy. And I know you have more to lose than most, but you’re the only person who can help me, Yong. What do you say?”

Yong sent Harry a long stare.

“Will it help to find the murderer, Harry?”

“I hope so.”

“Bravo, come in.”

The radio crackled.

“Radio works as it should,” Lebie said. “How’s it going in there?”

“Fine,” Harry answered.

He was sitting on the made bed studying a photograph of Birgitta on the bedside table. It was a confirmation photo. She looked young, serious and strange, with curls in her hair and no freckles because the picture was overexposed. She didn’t look good. Birgitta had said she kept the photo there for encouragement on bad days, as proof that she had progressed despite everything.

“What’s the timetable?” Lebie called.

“She finishes work in fifteen minutes. They’re at the Albury attaching the mike and transmitter now.”

“Are they driving her to Darlinghurst Road?”

“Nope. We don’t know where White is in the area. He might see her alighting from a car and get suspicious. She’s going to walk from the Albury.”

Watkins came in from the corridor.

“Seems great. I can stand round the corner behind the gateway without them seeing me and follow them. We’ll
have visual contact with her the whole way, Holy. Where are you, Holy?”

“In here, sir. I heard you. Good to hear that, sir.”

“Radio, Lebie?”

“I’ve got contact, sir. Everyone’s in position. Just waiting.”

Harry had gone through it over and over again. From all sides. Argued with himself, tried every angle and in the end decided he didn’t care whether she might interpret it as an awful cliché, a childish form of expression or an easy way out. He unpacked the wild rose he had bought and put it in the glass of water beside the photo on the bedside table.

He hesitated. Perhaps it would distract her? Perhaps Evans White would start asking questions if he saw a rose beside her bed? He ran a forefinger over one of the thorns. No. Birgitta would appreciate the encouragement; the sight of the rose would make her feel stronger.

He checked his watch. It was eight o’clock.

“Hey, let’s get this over with!” he shouted to the sitting room.

Something was wrong. Harry couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could hear the crackle of the radio from the sitting room. And there was too much of it. Everyone knew exactly what they had to do in advance, so if it was all going to plan it shouldn’t be necessary to talk so much on the radio.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Watkins said. Lebie removed the headphones and turned to Harry.

“She didn’t show up,” he said.

“What?”

“She left the Albury at exactly quarter past eight. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to walk from there to King’s Cross. That was twenty-five minutes ago.”

“I thought you said she would be under surveillance the whole time!”

“From the meeting place, yes. Why would anyone—?”

“What about the mike? She was wired up when she left, wasn’t she?”

“They lost contact. They had it and then there was nothing. Not a peep.”

“Have we got a map? Which route did she take?” He spoke softly and quickly. Lebie took the street atlas from his
bag and gave it to Harry, who found the page showing Paddington and King’s Cross.

“Which way would she have gone?” Lebie asked on the radio.

“The simplest. Down Victoria Street.”

“Here it is,” Harry said. “Round the corner of Oxford Street and down Victoria Street, past St. Vincent’s Hospital, across Green Park on the left, to the crossroads, up to where Darlinghurst Road starts and two hundred meters along to where Hungry Jack’s is. Couldn’t be any bloody simpler!”

Watkins took the radio mike. “Smith, send two cars up Victoria Street to find the girl. Tell the people at the Albury to lend a hand. One car stays outside Hungry Jack’s in case she appears. Be quick and don’t make any fuss. Report back as soon as you know anything.” He threw the mike down. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! What the hell is going on? Has she been run over? Robbed? Raped? Shit, shit, shit!”

Lebie and Harry exchanged glances.

“Could White possibly have driven up Victoria Street, spotted her and picked her up there?” Lebie suggested. “He has seen her before after all, at the Albury, and may have recognized her.”