I pointed back to the BMW.
‘He didn’t do such a flash job. I’m surprised she has him as her lawyer.’
I shrugged. ‘They get their claws in. Can we look at the… yacht?’
‘I guess so.’
There was one more bridge to cross. ‘Thanks. I suppose you’ve been busy, nice day like this, long weekend coming up?’
‘Flat tacked. Haven’t lifted my head.’
So with any luck she didn’t know about Master’s escape. ‘Okay. Thank you. We’ll go and take a look.’
She tapped her watch. ‘I’m off in a few minutes. I’ll tell the night guy.’
‘Don’t bother,’ I said. ‘We won’t be long.’
I went back to the car, opened the rear door and helped Master to sit up. I relieved him of the guns and he didn’t protest. ‘You’re going to have to make an effort, Stewie,’ I said. ‘Just a short walk and then you can lie down and sleep and with any luck you’ll be safe.’
His pupils were pinpricks and his pulse was racing. I opened O’Connor’s briefcase, retrieved his mobile phone and handed it to him. Then O’Connor and I got Master on his feet and moving. Luckily, he was light and even two-thirds spaced he was coordinated enough to make it possible for two big men to support him.
‘What’re we doing?’ O’Connor hissed.
‘We’re getting him onto Lorrie’s boat. When we reach the office you give the woman in there a smile. She knows you.’
He did it and we manoeuvred Master along the jetty and down onto the deck of the Merlot. I used the picks attached to my Swiss army knife to pick the lock on the door leading to the boat’s saloon. Master was almost out to it by the time we got him comfortable. I could feel O’Connor getting ready to be the super-professional again and that was the last thing I wanted.
‘Take off his shoes,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘You heard. Do it.’
Doing the menial task deflated him a bit, especially as he made a mess of it.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘This is the way I see it. You’ve harboured an escaped criminal, driven him and drugged him. Your prints’ll be all over the packet, and what you could be doing with a supply of the date-rape drug I hate to think. Your reputation’s about to take a nose-dive.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I’m very serious. I can put you deep in the shit or keep you out of it altogether. It’s up to you.’
‘W-what do you want me to do?’
‘Simple. Just stay here with Master until I contact you.’
‘How long will that be?’
‘Hard to say. If Starcevich’s not there it’ll be a matter of minutes. If he is it’ll be longer.’
‘What’re you going to do?’
I looked at Master lying stretched out on the seat in the saloon. His eyes were closed and his features had relaxed and he was breathing easily, innocent as a trout in a pool. In my estimation he’d handled himself pretty well through all this so far and might have continued to do so but for O’Connor’s intervention. Out of prison, with appropriate clothes, money and a gun, he’d had a lot of options, but he’d chosen to check on his kids and try to help his wife. I thought about the sterility and heartlessness of Avonlea and didn’t want to be a party to putting him back there if I could help it.
I had two pistols and I felt like throwing them overboard. Master’s, I certainly would. ‘What would you expect?’ I said to O’Connor. ‘You reckon I’m going to go over there with guns blazing?’
O’Connor nodded.
‘Forget it. I’m doing what you wanted me to do all along. I’m calling the police.’
27
I crossed on a pontoon that ran between the jetties and squinted in the gloom at the boats lined up along jetty one. They were all shapes and sizes but mostly big. A few people were still on board tidying away or preparing for tomorrow’s sail or whatever boaties do last thing. The Ballina Belle was one of the biggest-a long, two masted white thing that made Reg Penny’s boat look like a bathtub and the Merlot look very modest. I took up a position about thirty metres away, protected by a high-riding catamaran. Show yourselves, I pleaded silently. On cue, a man appeared from below with a bucket attached to a rope. He dropped the bucket into the water and hauled it up. He was big, bearded and dark, not Warren North. He handled the full bucket carefully, watching to make sure none of the water splashed on the deck. Couldn’t have that.
North’s appearance a few seconds later registered with me almost as a physical shock. Even at that distance and in that light he was recognisable from the photograph, and his movements were those of the gunman I’d glimpsed briefly- smooth, fluid. The two men spoke, then North stepped over the side and onto the jetty. That put paid to my plan to get the police. Had I ever really meant to play it that way or was I just comforting O’Connor? It wasn’t an option now with North on the move. He walked purposefully towards the entrance to the marina and I fell in discreetly behind him, moving across to the next jetty as soon as I could. He appeared relaxed and confident and I didn’t like the look of things. If he’d managed to work the situation out to his own advantage somehow, Lorrie was no longer of any value to him.
I gained on him, walking quietly, with traffic noise from the road above helping. It was dark in the section of the car park he was approaching and he pulled keys from his pocket as he neared a new-looking Volvo station wagon. He worked the remote and released the door. I didn’t have time to consider. I charged him, head down, and slammed the door into him. He was totally off guard and collapsed, hitting his head twice as he went down. He was unconscious and bleeding from a wound above his ear. I crouched in the shelter of the car and felt his pulse. Strong. I used my Swiss army knife to cut his T-shirt from his body and then used the strongest parts of it to strap his feet together and bind his hands behind his back. I tore a thin, well-stitched strip, and gagged him with it, pushing some of the material into his mouth. Not enough to choke him, but enough to keep him quiet. I bundled him into the back and collapsed the back seat rest onto him.
There was a packet of tissues on the front seat and I used one to prevent leaving a print as I opened the glove box. His pistol with the silencer detached sat there under a much-thumbed UBD. I closed the glove box and walked away, leaving the keys on the bonnet.
Things were quieter but not yet still at the marina and I strode in, giving a confident signal to the night watchman. ‘A quick word with Ray Starcevich.’
He nodded and I went back along the jetty towards the Ballina Belle. I didn’t know how much time I had so there was no room for subtlety. I stepped over the side and approached the steps leading below. ‘Ray,’ I said. ‘You there?’
Maybe he was expecting someone, maybe I sounded a little like North, but he climbed the steps and I waited until he was almost at the top before I jumped out and kicked him in the crotch. He tumbled down the steps and I went down after him with my. 38 in my hand and ready to punch or kick again if I had to. There was no need. Starcevich lay groaning at the bottom of the steps with his arm twisted at an impossible angle. He tried to lever himself up using both hands and screamed with pain.
‘Who the fuck’re you? Where’s Warren?’
‘Warren’s out of the picture. Where is she?’
I had the gun hard in his groin and I was very calm and he was very afraid. He jerked his head towards a short passageway.
‘In there.’
‘Show me.’
‘I can’t walk, you cunt.’
I jabbed hard. ‘Crawl.’
That’s what he did for a couple of metres before he managed to lever himself up and stagger to a cabin
