I drank the coffee and Hank didn’t. He played around some more but he couldn’t have found out anything I wouldn’t have wanted him to know. I haven’t had the computer long enough to put many case files on it and from what I’d seen I was beginning to think I wouldn’t in future. There still seemed to be something to say for folders and a strong, locked filing cabinet, maybe with a noxious anti-theft device.
We picked up a pizza and some beer and went to my house where Hank repeated the debugging procedure with similar results. Like any good young entrepreneur he had his own company and was under contract to the security firm O’Connor had employed. He said he’d send me an invoice online.
‘You’ll get a cheque in the mail.’
‘You can pay me online.’
I looked at him as I opened the pizza and handed him a beer.
‘Okay, okay,’ he said, ‘ a cheque it is. But you should move with the times, Cliff.’
We were sitting at the breakfast bench in my kitchen. I waved a slice of pizza at him. ‘I have, and look where it’s got me. Any arsehole who wants to can know my business. I suppose my mobile’s insecure as well.’
He chewed, drank and swallowed, then used one of the paper napkins that came with the pizza. Good manners. ‘Unlikely, and you need some pretty high-tech equipment to intercept cell phone calls, especially if it’s digital. Where is it?’
‘It is digital and it’s in my car at the garage. The NRMA had to tow it for me after the tyres got slashed.’
He was about to take another bite but he stopped and his jaw fell. ‘No shit? What’s this all about? Hey, dumb question. You can’t tell me.’
‘No. Sorry, it’s complicated and I don’t really know what it’s all about myself.’
I used his mobile to leave messages for O’Connor and Lorrie via the guard at the hospital that my office and home phones were insecure and my mobile not available, then we sat and ate and drank for a while. He knew when to keep quiet and when to talk. He inspected my CD, vinyl and cassette collection without throwing up and took an intelligent interest in the books. I was glad of his company and an idea was forming in my mind. We tidied away the remains of the meal and the cans and I put a pot of real coffee on to perc.
‘Are you working tomorrow?’
He nodded. ‘Evening shift. Free in the day.’
‘How’re you in boats?’ I said.
It was barely light the next morning when Hank and I lowered the aluminium dinghy I’d borrowed from Clive, my fishing fanatic neighbour, into the water at Birchgrove after making sure Penny’s yacht was still where it had been. We’d transported the dinghy on the top of Hank’s Patrol and the only thing that dampened his enthusiasm was the set of oars.
‘I can get us an outboard, Cliff.’
‘So could I. I want to be quiet. Element of surprise.’
‘I’ve got the tazer. You reckon that shooter’s going to be there?’
‘Do you think I’d go unarmed and take you along if I did?’
‘I guess not.’
‘Right. No, I suppose you could say I’m just fishing.’
I was wearing jeans and sneakers and they got wet, as I expected, but we got underway and I pointed out the direction. Hank’s strong oar strokes were irregular but better than mine. The few times I’ve tried to row I’ve sent the boat in circles. The harbour water was smooth and we made good time. The You Beaut was bobbing gently at its mooring.
‘Nice boat,’ Hank said.
‘The owner says it’s a yacht.’
‘Whatever. You’ve been on it?’
‘In Noumea.’
‘Wow. Okay, we come alongside and then what?’
I pointed. ‘We go up that ladder, if that’s what they call it.’
Hank brought the dinghy to where the ladder reached down almost to the water level and I tied it to the bottom rung. The dinghy bumped against the yacht a few times before it settled into place and I wondered how the sound would carry. We waited a few seconds but no reaction came from above so we went up onto the deck, me first. Hank had the stun gun on his belt and I gestured for him to keep it there.
Up close, the yacht showed signs of wear and tear. The spick and span appearance I’d noticed at Noumea was long gone. The woodwork was salt spattered and the metal fittings were dull. There were seagull droppings in various places and the sails lashed to the masts were stained and tired-looking. I moved forward towards the hatch. The yacht rocked a little, reacting to a slight wake from some other boat. I reached for the handrail and snatched my hand away.
Hank saw it at the same time as me. The handrail was smeared for a couple of metres with something brown and sticky. A couple of flies had been caught in it as it dried and others were buzzing around it now.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ I said.
The hatch was open and I went down the steps keeping my hands to my sides.
It’s always the same-you can hear it and smell it before you see it. The flies buzzed like mini chainsaws and the blood gave off that stink that comes when it meets the air and dries. Add in the emptied bowels. Reg Penny lay on the floor of the saloon where we’d had our uneasy conversation those few weeks ago. No neat kill this. He’d been stabbed several times and the blood had flowed until one of the stabs hit his heart. He was bare-chested, the only way I’d ever seen him, and the wounds were dark on his tanned skin, with dried blood over his torso where the flies were taking off and landing and fighting over the spoils.
Blood was spattered over a fair distance, presumably from when the knife had been thrust home, retracted and thrust again, and again. The floor of the saloon between the body and the door wasn’t bloodied, which was why there were no footprints, but blood-smeared fingers had clutched the rail beside the hatch steps and beyond. I tried to block Hank but he leaned over me and got a full view of the scene.
‘Jee-zus!’
‘Don’t throw up. The SOC guys don’t like bagging it.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Was. The bloke we came to see.’
‘What do we do?’
I was feeling shaky. This had been a vigorous man, considerably younger than me, dabbling in dangerous matters but alive just twenty-four hours ago and probably for longer than that. I recalled the careless way he’d tossed the beer bottle into the water and sauntered away with his young companion. A moment frozen in time for me and caught on my camera. The weirdness of it made me short-tempered.
‘What do you think? What would they tell you in the TAFE course. To split?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Of course you don’t.’ I sucked in a breath and almost gagged myself. Some mentor. ‘Sorry, Hank,’ I said. ‘This is my third body in two days. It’s getting to me. What you do is you go back up on deck, get in a few breaths of fresh air, and call the police.’
‘You?’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
19
The saloon-cum-kitchen wasn’t hard to search, because there was very little in it and what there was Penny had arranged pretty neatly-the books and magazines, technical manuals about the yacht’s equipment, eating and cooking utensils, maps and charts, tools, playing cards, board games. I picked through it as quickly as I could, disturbing it as little as possible. I was looking for anything that might give me a lead on the Noumea mystery man
