The Bat (37 page)

The mobile phone rang. It was McCormack. He had spoken to the phone company. To the argument that this was a life and death matter they had retorted that it could also be a life and death matter for neighbors ringing for an ambulance. But with a little help from the mayor’s office McCormack had managed to have the lines blocked until seven in the evening.

“Nothing to stop us smoking in here now,” Lebie said, plucking out a thin cigarillo. “Or dropping ash on the carpet and leaving big, fat footprints in the hall. Anyone got a light?”

Harry cast about for some matches and struck one. He sat staring at the box. And found his interest engaged.

“Do you know what’s special about this box?” he said.

The others dutifully shook their heads.

“It says it’s waterproof. And it says it’s for use in the mountains and at sea. Do any of you walk around with waterproof matchboxes?”

More head-shaking.

“Would I be wrong to say you can only buy these in specialist shops, and they cost a bit more than standard boxes?”

The others shrugged.

“They’re not standard anyway. I’ve never seen any like it,” Lebie said.

Watkins scrutinized the box closely. “I think my brother-in-law had boxes like that on board his boat,” he said.

“I was given this box by Toowoomba,” Harry said. “At the funeral.”

There was a silence.

Yong coughed. “There’s a picture of a yacht in the hall,” he said tentatively.

One o’clock.

“Thanks for your help, Liz,” Yong said, ending the call. “We’ve got it! It’s in the marina in Lady Bay where it’s registered to one Gert Van Hoos.”

“OK,” Watkins said. “Yong, you stay here in case Toowoomba turns up. Lebie, Harry and I will head out there now.”

The traffic was light and Lebie’s new Toyota purred with contentment doing 120 kph up New South Head Road.

“No backup, sir?” Lebie inquired.

“If he’s there three men are more than enough,” Watkins said. “According to Yong, there’s no arms license registered, and I have a feeling he’s not the type to brandish weapons.”

Harry was unable to restrain himself.

“What feeling is that, sir? The same one that told you it was a good idea to break into the flat? The same one that said she should keep the radio transmitter in her bag?”

“Holy, I—”

“I’m just asking, sir. If we have to use your
feeling
as a guide for anything, that will mean, in light of what’s happened so far, he’ll be brandishing a gun. Not that—”

Harry realized he’d raised his voice, and shut up. Not now, he told himself. Not yet. In a lower voice he finished the sentence.

“Not that I mind. It just means I can pepper him with lead.”

Watkins chose not to answer; instead he glared sulkily out of the window as they drove on in silence. In the mirror Harry saw Lebie’s cautious, inscrutable smile.

One thirty.

“Lady Bay Beach,” Lebie said, pointing. “Fitting name, as well. You see, this is Sydney’s number-one gay beach.”

They decided to park outside the fence to the marina, and walked down a grassy mound to the little harbor where the masts huddled together each side of narrow pontoons. At the gate was a sleepy guard wearing a sun-bleached, blue uniform shirt. He perked up when Watkins flashed his police badge and described to them where Gert Van Hoos’s boat was moored.

“Anyone on board?” Harry asked.

“Not as far as I know,” said the guard. “It’s a bit difficult to keep track of everything in the summer, but I don’t think there’s been anyone in the boat for a couple of days.”

“Has anyone been there at all recently?”

“Yes, if my memory serves me right. Mr. Van Hoos was here late Tuesday. He usually parks close by the water. He left again later that night.”

“And no one’s been on the boat since?” Watkins asked.

“Not on my watch. But, luckily, there are several of us.”

“Was he alone?”

“Far as I remember, yes.”

“Was he carrying anything to the boat?”

“Probably. I don’t remember. Most do.”

“Could you give us a description of Mr. Van Hoos?” Harry said.

The guard scratched his head. “Well, no, in fact I can’t.”

“Why not?” Watkins asked, surprised.

The guard looked sheepish. “To be quite honest, I think all Aborigines look the same.”

The sun glittered on the water inside the marina, but further out the breakers rolled in off the sea, big and heavy. Harry could feel the wind was fresher here as they made a cautious approach along the pontoon. He recognized the name of the boat,
Adelaide
, and its registration number painted on the side.
Adelaide
wasn’t one of the biggest boats at the marina, but it looked well kept. Yong had explained to them that only boats with engines over a certain size had to be registered, so actually they’d had more than their share of luck. So much more that Harry had an unpleasant feeling their luck had been used up. The notion that Birgitta might be on board the boat made his heart throb.

Watkins motioned for Lebie to enter first. Harry took the safety catch off his gun and pointed it at the lounge hatch as Lebie circumspectly placed his feet on the aft deck. Watkins tripped over the anchor rope as he went on board and landed on the deck with a thump. They stopped and listened, but all they could hear was the wind and the waves lapping and gurgling against the hull. Both the hatch to the lounge and the aft cabin were secured with padlocks. Lebie took out his picklock and got to work. After a few minutes both had been removed.

Lebie opened the lounge hatch and Harry clambered in first. It was dark down below and Harry crouched with his gun in front of him until Watkins descended and drew the curtains aside. It was a plain but tastefully furnished boat. The lounge was made of mahogany but otherwise the interior bore no signs of excess. A sea chart lay rolled up on the table. Above it hung a picture of a young boxer.

“Birgitta!” Harry shouted. “Birgitta!”

Watkins patted his shoulder.

*   *   *

“She’s not here,” Lebie confirmed after they had been through the boat from prow to stern.

Watkins stood with his head buried in one of the boxes on the aft deck.

“She might have
been
here,” Harry said, scanning the sea. The wind was up and the tips of the waves beyond frothed white.

“We’d better get Forensics over here and see what they can find,” Watkins said, straightening. “This can only mean he has somewhere we don’t know about.”

“Or—” Harry said.

“Rubbish! He’s got her hidden somewhere. It’s just a question of finding her.”

Harry sat down. The wind ruffled and teased his hair. Lebie tried to light a cigarillo, but gave up after a couple of attempts.

“So what do we do now?” Harry asked.

“Get out of his boat quick,” Watkins said. “He can see us from the road if he drives this way.”

They got up, locked the hatches and Watkins took a high step over the anchor rope so as not to trip again.

Lebie stood still.

“What is it?” Harry asked.

“Well,” Lebie said, “I’m no expert on boats, but is this normal?”

“What?”

“Dropping the anchor when you’re moored fore and aft?”

They exchanged glances.

“Help me to pull it up,” Harry said.

Three o’clock.

They raced down the road. The clouds raced across the sky. The trees beside the road swayed and waved them on. The grass lay flat at the roadside and the radio crackled. The sun had paled and fleeting shadows rushed across the sea.

Harry was sitting at the back, but saw nothing of the storm blowing up around them. He saw only the slimy green rope they had dragged from the sea in spasmodic jerks. The drops of water had fallen into the sea like glistening crystals, and deep below they had glimpsed a white outline slowly rising toward them.

One summer holiday his father had taken him out in a rowing boat and they had caught a halibut. It had been white and unimaginably large and even then Harry’s mouth had gone dry and his hands had begun to tremble. His mother and grandmother had clapped their hands with excitement as they entered the kitchen with their catch and straightaway began to cut up the cold, bleeding fish with big, shiny knives. For the rest of the summer Harry had dreamed about the huge halibut in the boat with its protruding eyes and expression frozen with shock, as though it could not believe it was actually dying. The following Christmas
Harry had been given some jelly-like pieces on his plate, and his father had proudly told everyone how he and Harry had been fishing for halibut in Isfjorden. “We thought we would try something new this Christmas,” his mother had said. It had tasted of death and depravity, and Harry had left the table with tears in his eyes, furious with indignation.

And now Harry was sitting in the back of a car as it sped along; he closed his eyes and saw himself staring down into the water where something resembling a sea nettle jellyfish gathered its red tentacles alongside at every heave of the rope, stopped and spread them out into a new swimming stroke. As it approached the surface it spread them into a fan shape trying to conceal the naked white body beneath. The rope was wound around her neck, and the lifeless corpse seemed strangely alien and extraneous to Harry.

But when they turned her onto her back, Harry felt it again. It was the expression from that summer. Dimmed eyes with a surprised, accusatory final question: Is this all there is? Is the purpose really that it should all end like this? Is life, and death, really so banal?

“Is that her?” Watkins had asked, and Harry had answered in the negative.

When he repeated the question Harry spotted her shoulder blades sticking out, showing red skin next to a white strip where her bikini top had been.

“She was sunburned,” he answered in astonishment. “She asked me to put sun cream on her back. She said she trusted me. But she was burned.”

Watkins stood in front of him and placed his hands on Harry’s shoulders. “It’s not your fault, Harry. Do you hear me? It would have happened anyway. It’s not your fault.”

It had become noticeably darker now, and gusts of wind tore in with such force that the eucalyptus trees shook and waved
their branches, seemingly intending to detach themselves from the ground and lumber around like John Wyndham’s triffids, brought to life by the storm that was on its way.

“The lizards are singing,” Harry said suddenly from the backseat. They were the first words that had been spoken since they’d got into the car. Watkins turned and Lebie watched him in the mirror. Harry coughed.

“Andrew said that once. That lizards and humans from the lizard family had the power to create rain and storms by singing. He told me the Great Flood was created by the lizard family singing and cutting themselves with flint knives to drown the platypus.” He smiled weakly. “Almost all the platypuses died. But a few survived. Do you know what they did? They taught themselves to breathe underwater.”

The first large drops of rain landed with a shiver on the windscreen.

“We haven’t got much time,” Harry said. “Toowoomba will soon realize we’re after him, and then he’ll disappear like a rat into the ground. I’m the only link we have with him, and now you’re wondering whether I can handle it. Well, what can I say? I think I loved the girl.”

Watkins looked uneasy. Lebie nodded slowly.

“But I’m going to breathe underwater,” Harry said.

Three thirty.

No one in the conference room took any notice of the fan’s lament.

“OK, we know who our man is,” Harry said. “And we know he thinks the police
don’t
know. He’s probably thinking that I’m trying to falsify evidence against Evans White. But I’m afraid this is a very temporary situation. We can’t keep households without a phone for much longer, and besides it will soon start to look suspicious if the alleged fault isn’t fixed.

“We have officers in position if he should appear at his home. Ditto the boat. But personally I’m convinced he’s much too careful to do anything stupid without being one hundred percent sure that the coast is clear. It’s probably realistic to assume that at some point this evening he’ll know we’ve been in his flat. That gives us two options. We can sound the alarm bells, go out live on TV and hope we find him before he disappears. The counterargument is that anyone who’s rigged up a system like the one he has is certain to have planned ahead. As soon as he sees his picture on the screen we risk him going underground. The second option is, therefore, to use the little time we have before he feels us breathing down his neck, to catch him while he is relatively unsuspecting.”

“I vote we go for him,” Lebie said, removing a hair from his shoulder.

“
Catch
him?” Watkins said. “Sydney has over four million inhabitants and we don’t have the slightest idea where he could be. We don’t even bloody know if he
is
in Sydney!”

“No question about that,” Harry said. “He’s definitely been in Sydney for the last one and a half hours.”

“What? Are you saying he’s been seen?”

“Yong.” Harry gave the floor to the ever-smiling officer.

“The mobile phone!” he began. As though he had been asked to read his essay aloud to the class.

“All mobile-phone conversations are linked via what are known as base stations, which receive and transmit signals. A phone company can see which subscriber’s signals the various base stations receive. Every one covers a radius of about ten kilometers. Where there is good coverage, i.e., in built-up areas, your phone is generally covered by two or more stations at once, a bit like with radio transmitters. That means that when you’re talking on the phone a phone company can locate your position to within ten kilometers. If the conversation can be picked up by two stations at once,
that will reduce the area to the zone where the coverage of the two stations overlaps. If your signals are picked up by three stations, the zone is even smaller, and so on. Thus, mobile phones cannot be traced to a single address like a standard phone, but we do have a pointer.