I promise, Leah said, conscious that Tess was smirking at her.
The transaction completed, Leah and Tess drove down the street and into the side street, aware that the man was watching and waving goodbye. Leah braked outside the empty house. We wipe our prints off the Kingswood.
Tess rolled her eyes.
You wouldn’t survive five minutes without me, Leah snapped, feeling mean and small.
Yeah, yeah.
To mend bridges, Leah said, I was very impressed with the way you handled that old guy back there.
Whatever.
But Tess did help and five minutes later they were driving further down the side street and onto a cross street. Back into the wide open spaces, Tess said.
Ive been thinking about that.
I bet you have, Tess muttered.
Whoever is chasing you, whoever is chasing me, will expect us to put in huge distances. They’re not expecting us to stay inside the general area.
Tess had a mobile face. It readily expressed all of her emotions, but displeasure seemed to be her normal condition. Yeah, right, in a motel where they can find us, or do you intend to luck out on another empty flat?
A bed-and-breakfast would be good, Leah said.
Shed seen signs for them. Apparently there was a deep gorge and watercourse east of the town, and some of the locals were making a buck out of the tourist trade.
Tess folded her arms stubbornly. I want a place with air-con. I’m sick of this heat.
Leah wondered if she should simply dump the girl and move on. Head north to Queensland or north west to Darwin. Tess was an absolute pain, a real burden. But Tess was sixteen. Shed never make it alone, Leah thought, remembering herself at sixteen, how little shed known.
I cant guarantee air-con.
Yeah, yeah. Look, I need tampons and stuff. Theres a shopping-centre on the edge of this dump.
How do you know that?
We came through here on a school camp once, Tess said vaguely.
Leah didn’t pursue it. She drove for some distance along the street parallel to the main road, and then turned right, joining the main road at the edge of the town, and saw the shopping-centre, just as Tess had stated. Leah badly wanted to get out of the town, but it made sense to stock up on supplies. A newspaper, for a start, and she hadn’t found any decent backpacks or sleeping-bags in Prospect. In the carpark of the shopping-centre she said, Well split up, that will be quicker. Ill meet you at the entrance in thirty minutes, okay?
Yes, Mum.
Tess hoisted the leather daypack over her shoulder and hurried toward the main doors, saying, I’m busting. Leah followed, strolling unconcernedly but alert for the Range Rover or anything else that didn’t belong in this corner of globe.
Then she was inside. There was no sign of Tess. The shopping-centre was laid out like wheel spokes radiating from a central hub. It looked, smelt and sounded like any shopping-centre anywhere in the Western world. She bought a newspaper and rolls and mineral water for lunch, then found a well-stocked camping store.
And just as she was paying for a new pack and sleeping-bag, she saw Tess. Tess spotted her at the same instant and spoke urgently to the young man with her. Tess slapped him on the back and waved cheerily as she walked away from him. He looked to be in his early twenties, dressed in an elegant black shirt, dark trousers and shiny black shoes, hair short and tipped with blonde highlights, a small ring in one ear. He glanced once at Leah and turned away and she lost him amongst the shoppers.
Whos the boyfriend? demanded Leah a few seconds later.
Him? Tess looked flushed. Oh, thats the brother of a kid at school. Hes got the music shop.
Bit of a coincidence.
What do you mean?
Running into the brother of someone you go to school with. Here, of all places.
Tess shrugged. Come on, lets go.
Leah sighed. Leave it until another time, she thought. Whats in the shopping-bags?
Tess showed her. Leah frowned, trying to get a handle on Tess. A couple of glossy magazines, a lipstick, chewing-gum, postcards.
Ditch the postcards, Tess.
I knew you’d say that.
There was also a Paul Kelly cassette. Good choice.
Tess shrugged. He sings about solitary people and places, just right for the road.
It was a perceptive comment. They walked to the main exit, Leah wondering how long they had before it all went wrong again.
chapter 8
Van Wyk didn’t want the client to know which motel he was staying in and refused to let the client nominate the meeting place. These were basic precautions, as necessary to van Wyk as breathing. So he suggested a cheap motel on the Nepean Highway in Highton and arrived an hour before the meeting. This was also precautionary. If the client was part of a sting then the place would be crammed with coppers posing as guests, reservation clerks, gardeners and delivery drivers in vans parked in the street outside the motel. If there was a contract out on him for any reason, then he wanted to know in advance if he was walking into an ambush.
He watched from a takeaway joint across the street from the motel. It was a sterile place, solitary diners at many of the tables, so nobody looked twice at him. He chewed a few french fries, took a couple of bites from a pile of chicken nuggetshed never tasted anything less like chickenand sipped a Coke slushy with ice. Van Wyk saw a delivery van stop long enough to toss a bundle of newspapers to the ground. A handful of guests left in ones and twos, some wearing suits, as if going off to meetings, some in T-shirts and jeans and carrying daypacks and cameras. A desk clerk loitered outside, pulling hungrily on a cigarette. An elderly man appeared with clippers and snipped at a fraying hedge for twenty minutes. Otherwise there was no apparent danger to van Wyk, and he began to relax.
Then a man carrying a briefcase got out of a taxi and walked along the row of rooms facing the street and tapped on the door at the end. Van Wyk wiped his fingers and left the restaurant and sauntered across the road, one hand against his chest, ready to pull the .22 in the holster under his arm. He never used the same gun twice. This pistol had been stolen from the secretary of a Sydney gun club.
He came up behind the client and said, I have a key, startling the man.
They went in. Van Wyk crossed immediately to the bed and sat facing the window, obliging the client to sit in the chair beside the window in order to face him. He put the .22 beside him on the bedspread, a way of cutting through the crap, of focusing the client.
You have photos?
The client opened the briefcase, van Wyk going tense and placing his hands on the .22. Take your hands out, turn the briefcase around very slowly so I can see in.
The client obliged.
Van Wyk peered into the briefcase. Photographs and a couple of sheets of typed notes. Van Wyk plucked them out, spread the photographs across the bedspread, and scanned the notes. He looked up. I trust youve deleted the file?
Yes.
Where is she?
Somewhere in the bush, out west.
Not in the city?
