Wyatt - 05 - Port Vila Blues (18 page)

She guessed shed taken this latest
assignment as far as it would go. Springett had arranged crash courses for her
in fencing jewellery and assessing the weight and worth and provenance of
precious stones and metals, and had told her to go around the pawnshops,
certain pubs and clubs, seeing who was flash, who had money, cars, clothes, who
the party animals were. All it had got her were a couple of small busts until
finally a whisper that Frank Jardine, poor, sick sod, was the man to see.

It occurred to Liz then that she
might be making a bad mistake about Wyatt and Jardine. Never romanticise these
bastards: shed had that drummed into her at briefing sessions often enough. It
was entirely possible that Wyatt had ripped off Jardine and Jardine had sent a
killer after him. Or that Jardine had discovered who she was, sent a killer to
get both of them and keep the Tiffany and the reward money for himself.

She glanced at her watch. Three oclock.
Still a lot of the afternoon left.

She took her own car this time.
First, she called on Pardoe, her contact in the insurance company. He was
pleased to get the Tiffany back. He smiled at her attentively across his desk,
a pale, watery man with red lips and fingers he liked to steeple beneath his
chin.

Were very pleased. The question
remains, is this gang getting its information from one of our employees? Have
you been able to establish that one way or the other?

Liz didnt return the smile. She
felt jumpy and trusted no one. Your people are clean. As far as anyone
knowsin here and out in the streetI am a fence who can be trusted, so Id
have heard something by now. Besides, the Asahi Collection wasnt insured by
your firm.

Pardoe nodded gravely. Fortunately.
That little lot wont be seen again. So, who? Im not asking for police
secrets, you understand. Im merely curious.

Her expression neutral, Liz rose to
leave. Were still working on that.

She left the building. According to
the files, a crowd using an electromagnet and a drill had been active in
Victoria way back in the seventies, hitting office safes, banks, jewellers and
credit unions. Those men would be almost twenty years older now. Maybe they
were back in action. Maybe theyd passed on their know-how to a younger crowd.
Even so, they were getting their information from someone with inside knowledge
of the alarm systems, holdings and security weaknesses of a range of places.

Her second visit was to Jardines
house in Coburg. The skinny, harrowed, bitter sister opened the door and told
her that she was too late. A hard man had come calling at about the time Wyatt
was gliding inside her. The sister had been visiting the house across the road,
sitting in the front room drinking tea, and seen the man leave her house. The
thing was, she hadnt seen him go in, so shed excused herself and hurried
across.

I found my brother dead, she said.
Stroke. He had this look of fear on his face you wouldnt believe. He was
literally frightened to death, I dont care what anyone thinks.

Liz was prepared to believe her. She
asked for a description of the man.

Sort of tall, neat, wore a suit,
had this smile on his face.

Not Wyatt, Liz muttered, half to
herself.

Jardines sister sniffed bitterly. Ultimately
Wyatt, she said, slamming the door.

Next stop, headquarters.

* * * *

Twenty-six

Wyatt
had gone looking for Frank Jardine first, on the premise that even a trusted
friend, a child, or a nun in a habit could do him harm. If it had been Jardine
whod sent the hired gun to the caf in the hills, Wyatt was prepared to kill
him.

But it hadnt been Jardine. Instead,
Wyatt found the grieving, angry sister, who talked about a visitor, about a
stranger whod literally frightened Jardine to death. All Wyatt could do now to
find the man behind all this was backtrack the Tiffany, see what names he came
up with. He grieved a little, felt a twinge of guilt, gave the twenty-five
thousand dollars to Nettie, and flew to Sydney.

He didnt tackle Cassandra
Wintergreen at her house, knowing how spooked shed be there after the
burglary. Using information supplied in Jardines original briefing notes, he
staked out her electoral office, half a groundfloor shop, Cassandra
Wintergreen, Member for Broughton in a broad, thick-lettered arc across the
window glass. Between it and the other ground-floor tenant, a Radio Shack
outlet, was a foyer sealed from the street by sliding glass doors.

He waited until late afternoon, went
in, looked at the list of tenants: five floors of accountants, dentists,
osteopaths and firms with names like Allied Exports Inc.

He looked at his watch: 5.45 p.m.
According to Jardines notes, the nightwatchman would be locking the sliding
doors at six-thirty, and Wintergreen always worked late and would let herself
outsmall pieces of knowledge, but Wyatt and Jardine had built all of their
jobs on an accumulation of small details. Wyatt crossed to the stairwell,
climbed to the fourth level, found a mens room and prepared to wait.

After the groundwork there was
always the waiting for Wyatt a kind of self-hypnosis in which his senses
registered only the essential: the foreseeable dangers, the wild cards, the
variables, the job at hand. He knew how to let part of himself disengage while
the other part remained wound tight and watchful. He knew how to sit, rest his
limbs, and still keep a part of his mind sufficiently stimulated to stop
himself from shutting down.

Not that his tooth would have let
him drift into sleep. Hed swallowed painkillers and had others in his pocket.
According to the pharmacist at the airport, they wouldnt make him feel drowsy,
but, just in case, hed also swallowed a five-grain, heart-shaped Benzedrine.
Now he was on edge a little, but he figured that was better than the searing
pain in the rotting stump of his tooth.

At six-forty-five Wyatt turned off
the power to the ground floor, let himself in the rear passageway door to
Cassandra Wintergreens suite, and went straight to the inner office.
Wintergreen, fiddling with the light bulb on her desk lamp, looked up,
startled, mouth opening to cry out.

Wyatt clamped his hard, dry palm
over her mouth. I wont hurt you, I want information, he said softly, staring
fixedly at her until something in him convinced her to nod and go slack.

He removed his hand.

About what? she asked.

The Tiffany butterfly stashed with
your fifty thousand.

She jerked against him. She smelt
musty, stale with old perfume. You lousy bastard. Give it back. It was a gift,
great sentimental value. And it might interest you to know that that money
represents the hard work of my constituents, a downpayment for a shelter for

There was only one way to reach a
mind like hers. He slapped her left and right and told her that he didnt have
the time or the patience for this. You are bent, he said slowly, his face
close to hers. The Tiffany was stolen from a Melbourne bank in February and
theres no way you can account for it legitimately. Your only choice is to tell
me who gave it to you. If you dont, Ill hurt you and later tell the media
where the kickback came from. Someone will listen.

He knew that much about how her
world worked. He watched her, saw the rapid calculations behind her eyes, still
caked with mascara, and finally learned about De Lisles apartment in
Woollahra, his house on the northern New South Wales coast, his yacht, his work
in Fiji and Vanuatu.

* * * *

Twenty-seven

After
leaving Nettie Jardine, Liz drove back to her flat in Parkville. 3LO had the
Emerald shooting on their four oclock update. She locked the car and took the
Elizabeth Street tram to headquarters, staring out at Daimaru on one side, then
the Vic Market on the other. It came down to one thing: who knew she was
meeting Wyatt? Pardoe at the insurance company, but he didnt know where or
whenunless hed had a tail on her for the past few days. And why do that if it
meant hed risk losing the Tiffany?

Wyatt and Jardine, but it was clear
that theyd had nothing to do with the shooter.

Her skin began to creep. That left
someone she worked with in the Armed Robbers. They were often asked to advise
on security in banks and building societies.

Superintendent Montgomery? Somehow
she couldnt see it. Hed moved to Burglary from Traffic and was dotty about
his grandkids. It was with a great deal of reluctance that he sanctioned
undercover work, its grey areas, the necessarily blind-eye approach. He would
have been entirely happy for his officers to pull in a series of small fish,
not hang out for the big ones.

Her creeping flesh would not let her
alone. How could she go to Montgomery with her suspicions? Shed shot a man
dead and left the scene without reporting it or declaring who she was. Even
soft Grandpa Montgomery wouldnt save her from the toecutters once he knew
that. Shed be stripped of all rank, suspended, maybe face charges. It wouldnt
help that the man shed shot was probably a hired gun, a potential cop killer.
Shed killed him
and
fled the scene, and that just wasnt on.

She mused about the risks involved
in this job. There was always plenty to bring you down when you worked deep
cover, submerged in a role for weeks at a time. Liz had known young male cops
to confuse their roles, get hooked and start sleeping with the women who were
always on the fringe of the drug scene, even fall in love with them.

Alcohol. It always flowed freely
when crims were putting a deal together.

Money. Pocket a bit on the sly? Tell
the Departments paper pushers that your buy money got lost between the crime
scene and the evidence safe, blew away in the wind, got unaccountably soaked in
blood?

And the danger itself, getting your
kicks out of walking a knife edge day after day after night.

And there were plenty of other risks
beyond your control: cover blown by a corrupt colleague, cover blown by an
incompetent colleague, cover blown by little old ladies who, recognising you,
inquired after your mother and asked why you werent in uniform today.

Liz stepped down from the tram and
dodged blatting horns to cross the lanes of traffic and enter the police
complex at the top end of the city. She made her way to Homicide, waited for
Ellie Shaw to catch her eye, then mouthed: Coffee?

Ellie was looking harassed. She
glanced worriedly at her watch, the clock on the wall. The detectives around
her were doing a lot of murmuring into telephones. They looked harassed, too.

It will have to be quick, Ellie
said, joining her in the corridor. Weve got a real flap on this afternoon.

They took the elevator to the cafeteria.
Liz paid for coffees and danish and for a vivid moment pictured Wyatt, his
hawkish face and his dismay when his tooth fell out.

You do look a bit tense. What kind
of flap?

Ellie leaned forward. That shooting
in the hills.

Well, this was falling into her lap.
Liz said casually, What about it?

Ellie leaned forward. It was a cop.

Liz froze, believing her friend was
saying that a cop had done the shooting. Her voice caught: How do you know?

We ran the guys prints. Lo and
behold, hes known to the police, only not as a crim, as a cop. Can you believe
it?

It wasnt difficult for Liz to say
wow and widen her eyes. What was he doing there?

Ellie shrugged. You tell me. I
assumed he was working Burglary because your boss came in to our department to
ask about him.

Montgomery?

Ellie shook her head. DI Springett.
Youre on his team, arent you?

Huh, Liz said.

She hadnt wanted his name to crawl
into her mind. He was too close. Springett, a man she didnt like but admired
all the same, cold as a fish, utterly detached, a man who asked questions for a
living and expected nothing back but lies and evasions. He hadnt seemed to
hold her youth, her sex or her education against her. Rather, hed promoted
her, put her in charge of the challenging cases.

Like the magnetic drill gang,
guiding and encouraging her every step of the way.

Guiding,
that was the key word. Guiding her
so that shed never find them, and if she did get too close he was in a
position to head her off or give warning.

Ten minutes later, Liz was watching
Montgomery reddening behind his desk. Youre kidding me.

No, sir, I checked. Lillecrapp used
to work with Springett on the Vice Squad and

You actually shot him dead and left
the scene without reporting it?

Boss, listen, theres only one way
Lillecrapp could have known about the meeting, and thats if Springett told him
and he tailed me.

But Montgomery was still overcome,
holding his plump cheeks between plump, desk-work hands. Christ Almighty. How
the fuck do I explain this?

Liz paused, a little puzzled. Explain
it as it is, sir. A senior officers been feeding information to crims, sending
a killer after a fellow officer.

Montgomery snarled, looking ugly
now, no longer kindly: Fuck that. Im talking about the shooting. The press
are going to have a field day when they hear how it happened. You say this
Lillecrapp character was about to shoot you? I suppose we can say it looked as
if hed gone off the rails.