Dead Heat (8 page)

“Bri told me his flight was fully booked, but with the weather being so bad, he wasn’t sure if anyone would turn up, so he
told me to come anyway.”

“So, Ronnie Chen didn’t arrive, and you took his place.”

“It looks that way.”

“Hmm.”

He refilled their cups and brought them over. She took a sip and attempted to hide her grimace. The man sure liked his caffeine.
This cup was even stronger than the first.

“If Lee gets in touch with you, could you call me direct?” He withdrew a card from his jeans pocket and pushed it across the
table. It showed his name and rank and a mobile number. “Would you do that for me?”

Ten years ago she would have walked over burning coals for him, but today all she said was, “Sure.”

He seemed to relax at that, and smiled. She smiled back. “God,” she said impulsively, “it’s been so
long
since Nulgarra High.”

He flinched, and for a second she wondered if it was the mention of their old school, but he was pulling out a mobile phone
the size of a cigarette packet from his front pocket and snapping it open.

“Carter,” he barked, then his face softened. “Well, hello to you too, pussycat . . . Oh, you’ve been drawing, have you? A
princess? And she’s got black hair?” Daniel got to his feet and went and leaned against the fridge, expression absorbed. “Yes,
I’m sure she’s very beautiful, but is she as beautiful as you? No, I thought not . . . Oh, hi, Gran. Yes, sounds like you’ve
everything under control . . . Yes, I’ll be back for Wednesday, Riggs is covering for me . . . Yes, I’ll pick up the cake
. . . A pink-frosted Barbie cake, right . . . I’d better go. I’ll call you usual time, before Tabby goes to bed. Yeah . .
. Bye.”

Clicking the phone together, he came and sat back down again. He was smiling.

“Tabby?” Georgia asked.

“Tabitha. My daughter. She’s four this Wednesday, and we’re having a party with all her friends. Twelve of them! God, I hope
the cake’s big enough. And that the clown turns up on time.”

He hadn’t mentioned a wife or girlfriend. Georgia threw caution to the winds. “And Tabby’s mother?”

The smile immediately vanished and she saw a flash of grief cross his face.

“I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

Head bowed, Daniel rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Lucy died three years ago. My wife . . . she was only twenty-eight.”

Horrified, Georgia filled in the awkward silence. “I’m sorry, it must have been awful.” She didn’t dare ask how his wife had
died. She racked her brains to think whether there’d been a Lucy at Nulgarra High but couldn’t remember one. He’d obviously
met Lucy later.

“Tabby and Gran live with me in Canberra, which works fine at the moment, but . . .” He sighed, ran a finger around his coffee
cup.

Georgia changed the subject. “So what are you doing all the way up here if you live in Canberra?”

Leaning back in his chair, he said, “We travel wherever required. Gathering intelligence, conducting investigations. I’m on
the PST. The People Smuggling Strike Team. We decided to drop an ‘S’ to avoid being nicknamed
psst.
” He gave a wry smile. “We work from the federal office in Canberra, trying to bust illegal immigration.”

She’d never heard of the PST and said so.

“We’ve only been going a couple of years. The penalties for people-smuggling used to carry a maximum of two years in jail,
but now they get twenty years or fined a quarter of a million bucks. The stakes have been upped so much that the amateurs
have dropped out and now it’s run by professional criminal enterprises. Lots of bribery and official corruption. Hence the
creation of PST.”

“Why Nulgarra?”

“I got intelligence from our Chinese counterparts that the head honchos of a particular gang we’re after, the RBG, Red Bamboo
Gang, might be up here. The RBG were responsible for the container ship that disembarked three hundred illegals in Cairns
a couple of years back.”

She remembered reading about that in the newspaper. The police had managed to catch only forty of them. The rest had been
smartly trucked off to urban centers around Australia to melt into the general population.

“It’s big business for the RBG,” he added. “Twenty grand or so a person.”

She did the sums. Six million dollars for a single shipment of people. Not bad.

“I’ve been working with the Brisbane police and we flew here this morning, hoping to track them down. Make some arrests. Your
intruder, we thought, might be connected. We’ll see.”

She recalled the figure she thought she had recognized as they taxied for takeoff. “I saw you,” she said, her voice surprised.
“I saw you on the SunAir steps.”

He looked startled. “You did?”

“I didn’t know it was you,” she added. “Until now.”

“Wish I’d had a crystal ball. I could have stopped the flight before disaster struck.” Small pause. “Are you planning to stay
long?”

“I’m leaving today.” She glanced at the clock. “After I’ve seen Bri.”

“You’ll be lucky. Becky’s closed the aerodrome and the roads are still impassable. I checked on my way here.”

“Then I’ll leave tomorrow, or the day after that. Soon as I can, actually.” She turned her cup around in her hands. “How long
are you up here for?”

He didn’t answer, just drained his coffee and pushed the cup away. Then he stretched, and stood up. “I’ll file the report
about your intruder. Thanks for the coffee.”

She followed him to the front door.

“Why don’t you wear a uniform?”

He turned and smiled at her. “My kind of cop doesn’t wear one.”

“Why not?”

“We’re supposed to be invisible.”

G
eorgia watched Daniel’s black-clad figure lope down the narrow concrete path, wondering how he’d come to be a policeman, and
then she remembered Mathew Larkins. Everyone in Nulgarra knew the story. Mathew Larkins had fleeced Daniel’s father of all
his savings in a get-rich-quick scheme, something to do with prawn farms.

Daniel’s father had died of a heart attack soon after he heard he’d lost all his money, and Daniel, aged sixteen, now head
of his poverty-stricken family, had blamed Larkins for his father’s death. When Larkins got off scot-free, Daniel had pestered
the courts and the police, and when he had no luck, swore retribution. Four years later, when her mother had visited her in
Sydney, she’d asked for news about old school friends and, eyes twinkling, Linette had said, “Daniel Carter, you mean?”

Embarrassed that her mother knew about her crush, she’d shrugged.

“He firebombed poor Mathew Larkins’s house,” her mother told her. “They didn’t find any evidence it was him, but I heard from
Angie at the Road House Café that his mother is sure her son did it.” Linette sighed. “I don’t understand him. Waiting all
that time, planning Mathew’s destruction. So unforgiving.”

Now, as Georgia caught a glimpse of a police car sweeping down Church Street and vanishing from sight, she thought it was
little wonder Daniel had joined the police. The boy may have exacted vengeance, but at least the man had a badge.

Still thinking about Daniel, she flinched when the phone rang. Since Mrs. Scutchings had gone to buy a newspaper—she was itching
to get the gossip on the murdered man, Ronnie Chen, at the beach—and there was a little pad of daisy-decorated paper beside
the phone, along with a pen, she decided she’d better do the right thing and take a message.

“Hello?”

“Georgia?”

“Mum?”

“Sweet, I heard from Katie at the general store this morning.” Her words were hurried, breathless. “How awful for you. And
poor old Bri. I’m bringing some hypericum. It’s meant to help injuries where the nerves are affected. Do you have some arnica?
And what about rescue remedy? You really should have a drop or two every hour or so. Jeremy and I were planning on heading
south this afternoon, stopping over with the Arlies in Lakeland, but we’ve already rung them . . .”

Georgia tuned out as soon as her mother mentioned Jeremy, her latest earring-toting, ponytailed boyfriend. They’d met for
the first time at Tom’s funeral, and just as she knew he wouldn’t want to see her again, she didn’t particularly wish to see
him either.

“Mum, I’m fine. You head on home.”

From the window by the phone she could see the top of an ornate crypt in the near corner of the cemetery. A stone angel stood
with its wings furled, hands clasped in front of its chest, head bowed. Rivulets of rain were running down its face. Oh, Tom,
she thought, her tears rising. That angel. He’s crying for you.

“Sweet, you shouldn’t be alone.”

Georgia swallowed her tears. “I’ve barely a scratch on me, I swear it. You go to Lakeland. I’m fine.”

“No, Georgia.”

Startled, Georgia started at the phone as if it had levitated. The only time she’d heard her mother use that tone of voice
was when, just outside their cabin, she had gone to pick up a centipede the size of a Havana cigar, which she hadn’t known
was poisonous.

“Jeremy’s going to make his own way south, so it’ll just be me. I’ll be leaving for Nulgarra the second I’ve put the phone
down.” Linette’s tone hadn’t changed. Hard, determined. “I want to see you. Make sure you’re really all right.”

“I’m
fine.
”

“The more you say you’re fine, the more I want to make sure. I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

Click.

Georgia stood gazing at a straggly spider plant on the window sill. Mum to the rescue. Amazing. She didn’t think she had it
in her. But then she remembered the time not long after Dad had died, when a burglar had seen their unlatched windows in Glastonbury
and crept into their house. Her mother hadn’t hidden beneath the bedclothes; she’d ripped her bedside light free of its socket
and charged for the man. Then she’d chased him outside and along the street dressed in nothing but her flimsy nightie.

Back then she and Dawn hadn’t been astounded as much as impressed, and now she was going through the same emotions. Georgia
gave a small smile, and shook her head. Her mother could certainly pull a surprise when she wanted. Turning her mind to practicalities,
she decided to get some lunch in, rather than rely on Mrs. Scutchings cooking for them. She’d get some snapper or maybe some
bream. Her mum loved fish.

Promising to leave Mrs. Scutchings some money to cover her calls, Georgia rang India Kane. It was barely eight o’clock and
India was, she said sleepily, still in bed. Georgia told the reporter that the aerodrome was shut and some roads still impassable,
and they arranged to meet at the National Hotel for a drink in the evening. Then Georgia rang her housemate, Annie, and filled
her in.

“You mean your plane got trashed into a million pieces and I still don’t get to inherit your estate?”

Georgia laughed. “Better luck next time.”

After reassuring Annie she was okay, that she’d be back soon, Georgia hung up and redialed. The line was terrible, but she
could just make out Maggie’s voice shouting anxiously, “G? G, is that you?”

Now was definitely not the time to remind her boss not to call her G, which made her sound like a goddamn horse.

“Yes, it’s me!” she yelled back, and suddenly the line went crystal clear.

“Ah, that’s better.” Maggie sighed. “Bloody Harbour Bridge always interferes with reception. So, how was the funeral?”

“More’s happened since then,” she said, and quickly filled her in on the crash.

“Shouldn’t you be in the hospital?” Maggie sounded shocked and upset.

She reassured Maggie as she had her housemate, and was reminded of the run-up to Tom’s funeral, where she had spent an inordinate
amount of time reassuring everyone she was okay when all she wanted was to be left alone. Heavens, reassuring people was just
so
exhausting.

Eventually Maggie began to sound relieved, and resumed her normal brisk tone rather than sounding as though she was speaking
to someone lamebrained and on their deathbed.

“Well, obviously you won’t be back in time for the conference. We’ll miss you and, dammit, you’ll miss Alan McGary! I’ll get
him to sign one of his books for you, I know what a fan you are.”

“Only because he’s gorgeous!”

“And what would Charlie say about that?”

“It’s none of Charlie’s business.”

She heard Maggie’s sigh down the line. “Don’t tell me you two split up.”

“That’s right.”

“He proposed again?”

“For the last time, apparently.”

“And what’s wrong with being proposed to?”

“Why do we have to get
married
? What’s wrong with things as they are?” Georgia picked at a desiccated leaf on the spider plant.

“Some people like a bit of commitment. That’s all.”

“You sound like Charlie.”

“It’s not all balls and chains. You might even get to like it. Having someone to depend on, to help out when things get tough.”

“Now you’re definitely sounding like Charlie.”

She heard Maggie clear her throat. “Can I announce your promotion at the conference?”

“No” she said hurriedly. “Sorry, Maggie, but no, you can’t, not yet. I’m still thinking about it.”

Another sigh. “But what else will you do if you don’t take it? You’ve got to move on, Georgia. You can’t be a rep the rest
of your life.”

“But is a promotion the only option? Move up the publishing ladder like a good employee until I drop dead of exhaustion? I
don’t think I want that.”

“So what do you want?”

Georgia picked the dead leaf free and rolled it between her fingers. “I just want something to matter.”

Maggie gave an impatient snort.

“Maybe I should go into the desert and eat locusts and find God.”

This time Maggie laughed. “You’d be bored in two seconds, and if you weren’t, I’d send in the men in white coats. Look, let’s
discuss this over a meal when you get back. You need anything, call me.”

“Thanks.”

“And don’t rush back, Georgia, for God’s sake. There’s absolutely nothing that can’t wait. Take all the time you need. And
what about your poor friend? Will he be all right?”