‘Yes, Martin Scarsden,’ Zelda scoffs. ‘Your latest lover. Who shares your wealth, your palace up there on the cliffs. No bushfires for you, no viruses, no recessions.’ She shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so.’
Mandy looks at the enforcer with his masked face, still rocking from foot to foot.
‘Truth serum,’ says the man, suddenly enthusiastic. ‘We can try truth serum.’
‘Quiet, mate. Quiet. We’ll be done soon.’ Now Zelda’s voice is surprisingly soft.
Mandy looks at the man. There is something not quite right there, something askew, his voice childish, not threatening. Maybe she can appeal to him, convince him of her innocence, of her ignorance. Maybe she can simply buy her freedom. ‘How much money is it?’
‘Tarquin told me ten million,’ says Zelda. ‘What did he tell you?’
‘I told you: he never said anything to me. Not about money.’
Zelda’s eyes are boring into hers. ‘What did he tell you, then?’
Mandy blinks, doesn’t know what to say, opts for truth. ‘That he loved me.’ And to her surprise she feels a rising emotion. It must be the lingering effect of the drugs.
‘You think you were the only one?’ says Zelda contemptuously.
‘We were engaged. We were getting married. He didn’t have to offer me money.’
‘But you knew what he was planning?’
‘No. He told me nothing. Made sure I wasn’t around to interfere. He sent me to the Gold Coast. A romantic weekend away—that’s what he said.’ Again, the rising of residual emotion, this time of distress, of betrayal. ‘But he never showed. By the time I got back to Sydney, he was gone. Then Mollisons called in the cops.’
There is a change in Zelda’s face; the hardness is joined by an intensity, a concentration. ‘So what did you think happened?’ Her voice is lower, engaged, no longer dismissive.
‘Same as everyone else, once I heard the rumours. I thought he’d scarpered, taken the bank’s money, played me for a fool.’ A sob escapes from somewhere, catching Mandy unawares. Surely she is beyond this, beyond Tarquin Molloy. ‘I heard he’d embezzled it and fled overseas.’ Now she can no longer meet her jailer’s gaze. ‘I was interrogated by the security people. Clarity Sparkes and Harry Sweetwater. They cleared me.’
‘They sacked you,’ says Zelda. ‘They must have suspected you of something.’
‘They sacked my whole team. And …’ Her voice trails off.
‘And what?’
Mandy looks back at Zelda Forshaw. ‘And they charged you. Convicted you. I figured it must be true, that you were in it together, you and Tarquin—that you stole the money.’ She swallows. ‘And I knew about the two of you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I knew that he was screwing you.’
‘Is that what you told the cops?’
‘I didn’t have to.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Cried. I cried a lot. We were engaged, I loved him. But he used me and then pissed off with the money. What do you think I should have done?’
For a moment, there is no reaction. For a moment, it seems as if their mutual gaze might connect the two women. But then it breaks, and Zelda laughs, a brittle and uncertain sound. ‘Yeah, right.’
Mandy just stares. There is nothing left to say.
‘Zel, can we go?’ asks the man, sounding almost plaintive.
The impasse holds. And then, from somewhere beyond the storeroom, comes the sound of breaking glass. Once, twice, thrice. Shattering glass, cascading.
‘Shit.’ Zelda Forshaw turns to the man. ‘Check it out. Fast.’
Mandy is holding her breath. By the look of her, her captor is doing the same. Now Zelda brings a single finger to her lips, signalling for her to remain silent. Mandy considers yelling. Should she risk it? Zelda removes her finger, appears about to whisper something, when they hear it: a single gunshot. It crackles through the air, electric, like bottled lightning. Close by. The next room.
‘Shit,’ whispers Zelda. And she’s off, past Mandy and away.
Mandy cranes her neck, straining against her bonds: there must be a second door at the back of the storeroom. She squirms, the ties cutting into her wrists, but there is no getting away. Seconds pass. She can hear the sound of feet grinding across the top of broken glass.
The door opens, the door through which the ski-masked minion passed, and a tall man enters, his face long and sallow, his thin body slightly stooped. He’s wearing a three-piece suit, navy with pinstripes. And he’s holding a large handgun, some sort of antique. From her position on the floor, she can see he’s wearing polished riding boots. He looks like Doc Holliday without the spurs and the handlebar moustache.
Mandy doesn’t move, can’t move. Only her bladder screams its insistence.
‘Well, hello,’ says the man. ‘What have we here?’
He stalks past her, gun before him. His hair is long and greasy. No, not greasy: oiled. For a minute or more he’s gone, out the same door as Zelda. And then he’s back, moving easily, unhurried.
He gets the chair from the end of the mattress, the one Zelda had been sitting on, moves it closer to Mandy, so he’s next to her. He places his gun in a holster beneath his coat and sits. He extends his hand, large and bony-fingered, yellow-stained, and rests it on her shoulder. Mandy can smell nicotine. ‘It’s okay, love. You’re safe now.’ He looks about forty, but something about him seems much older; not his age so much as his appearance, his demeanour borrowed from a past century.
‘Who are you?’ she asks.
‘Police.’
‘Police?’
‘Yes. You’re safe now.’
‘Can you release me?’
‘Of course.’ The man reaches out, lifts her bound wrists. He turns to the door. ‘Sergeant!’ he calls. ‘In here. Now!’
A man appears, short and powerful, with a shaven head, dressed in a black t-shirt, grimy jeans and industrial boots. There is a spider-web tattoo crawling up his neck, vivid blues and reds. His eyes are like pebbles: small and hard and perceptive.
‘Cable ties. A prisoner,’ explains the policeman, gesturing towards Mandy. ‘The constable. Get him to cut her free.’ The man nods and disappears back the way he came.
