Terror Stash (4 page)

“But there was no official law enforcement in the area.”

“So why didn’t someone, anyone, shut them down? You just said they all drove out to round up Cunningham. They were happy enough to step in then. What’s the difference?”

“Let me tell you something else, then. Richard Hay, old Mr. Hay’s son, got married when I was about twelve. A year later, my dad, old Mr. Hay and a couple of the lead ringers went over to Dick Hay’s house, hauled him out of bed and drove him three hundred kilometers to the police station in Carnarvon because that one had a lock up.”

“Why?”

“Because the night before he beat his wife into a miscarriage.”

Chris shook his head slowly. “I still don’t get it. They’re all criminal offenses.”

“Stop thinking like a lawyer. All that education of yours is getting in the way.”

“But why one and not the other...?”

“Harm to others,” Steve said. He shrugged. “That was the only law that counted. It was the only one they’d apply. Sure, you could send yourself broke gambling, you could drink yourself into a brain embolism whenever you wanted. No one would stop you. It was your cash, your brain cells, your life.”

“But Cunningham was killing people and the Hay fellow, the son, he hurt...” Chris considered this for a moment, and his lip curled a little. “I suppose it’s a fair enough system if you don’t mind people killing themselves off.”

“They were all adults. If they were stupid enough to kill themselves off, people regretted the loss and moved on. They were probably doing the gene pool a favor anyway.”

“That’s...unreal.”

“It’s more realistic than comfortable, is the problem. Pragmatism always is.” Steve shrugged again. “You know you’re applying the principle right now, right?”

For the first time Chris took his eyes off the road to glance at Steve, completely unnerved. “We’re responding to a complaint about a neighbor. How the hell is that the same thing?”

“Why is she complaining?”

Chris shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t matter is that she’s rich and lives on The Hill. What doesn’t matter is that it could be a waste of time. If she’s being harmed in some way
does
matter. It’s all that matters. Which is why I wish you’d develop some lead in your foot, Chris. Christmas will arrive faster than we will.”

Chris didn’t immediately goose the accelerator, but Steve was content when he saw the speedometer creeping slowly higher.

They were driving through Yallingup proper, heading for The Hill, when Chris spoke again. “You liked living on the station?”

“Hated it.” Steve watched the main street float by, taking note of faces, appearances, activities. It was purely automatic.

“Then why didn’t you move to Perth? That’s the complete opposite, right? Huge numbers of people. Lots of organized law.”

Steve could feel the mental brakes go on. Even though Chris had been partnered up with him dozens of times over the last year since he’d been transferred to Margaret River, they’d rarely exchanged details about themselves. Chris was still a mystery to him. He knew he’d studied law but had chosen to join the police force instead of a better paying job as a solicitor. His was the second generation of his family to be born in Western Australia. His grandparents had emigrated from India just after the Second World War. He also knew Chris found the laid-back life in Margaret River stifling. He was already plotting his return to the city he loved and his plans were filled with success and glory. Chris was an idealist and just young enough to dream big.

It was because of that, and because Steve had been the one to start the subject, that he answered the question. “I tried it a couple of times. Once for basic training, of course. The other time, my second posting. I lasted a year before I figured out why the city is
exactly
like living on a station.”

Chris shook his head again.

“In the city, there’s so many people, so many strangers, that after a while, you just don’t see them anymore. You have to stop registering them, or your brain goes into overload. The people you do see, the ones you notice, are the people you mix with over and over again, day after day. After day.”

Chris’s mouth opened in a silent
ah!
“And on the station you saw the same people day after day after day,” he added. “But that’s no different than here. No, here’s even worse.” His expressive mouth curled down. “There’s only about a thousand people in the world that could point to Margaret River on a map and they’re all surfers. Shit, no one outside Australia even knows where
Perth
is, much less Margaret’s. Tourists always head for the bloody east coast and all the pretty islands there. Sometimes I’d like to shoot that crocodile hunter guy for crimes against his country.”

“You’re wrong. But it took me a long time to figure out what made the difference, myself,” Steve admitted. “Margaret River’s a small town and yeah, there’s the same people day after day, but there’s also this huge ever-evolving visiting population that we have to deal with.”

“More strangers,” Chris pointed out. “Surfers.” He sniffed.

“Interesting strangers. Different strangers. Just different enough that they won’t automatically slide below the radar. You’re forced to deal with them on a conscious level.”

“Yeah, you got that right,” Chris growled. “Tourists. They all seem to be fifty IQ points short of a full deck. Remember that one the other day, the head-on collision out on the highway?”

The Canadian, when he had regained consciousness in hospital, had admitted that he’d been puzzled by how fast he had been catching up to the car in front of him. It was already too late when he’d realized that the car was really heading directly for him. He’d been driving on the wrong side of the road.

Steve frowned. “Yeah, they can be dumb, but that’s because they think just because Australia is also a westernized country, the only thing different here is the food. They get caught flat-footed.” He shook his head a little. “But if you talk to them, you figure out how different it really is. You see this place the way they do.”

Chris sighed. “You go right ahead and talk. I’m just glad that’s not part of the procedures. I’ve got enough to do.”

Steve cocked his head as a murmur of odd noise reached him through the open window. “What was that?”

“What?”

“Pull over and idle for a second, will you?”

They were just on the edge of area that was known as The Hill. Chris pulled the sedan over onto the gravel and dropped it into neutral.

The strange murmur became more distinct. Steve made out regular beats, then the higher tones. “Bloody hell,” he murmured, awed. “That’s AC/DC.”

Chris nodded his head in time to the familiar beat.
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
.

“Yeah, but to hear it from here...” Steve shook his head, amazed. “Bet that’s coming from the same street as our complaint.”

Chris put the car back into gear and tackled the roads that took them higher into the gently sloping hills area. The houses were luxury executive homes, many of them rented out to travelers at inflated prices, but a good number of them were home for year-round residents who valued their privacy and the peace and quiet to be found here. It was a sparse area. This close to the coast, there were big clumps of saltbushes, the spinifex that would grow anywhere, acres of pigweed and virtually no trees. The houses were well apart. A world-class cricket player could field a ball and maybe hit the side of the nearest house. Maybe.

They followed the music. Chris was more familiar with the winding bitumen ribbons than Steve and the sound gradually got louder and louder, until they were beside a two-story art deco-inspired house, featuring stainless steel and smoked glass balconies, perched at the top of a crest. Steve winced at the throbbing bass beat that boomed through the window. He could almost feel the displaced air pulsing around him.

The song ended and the total silence that replaced it was unnerving. From one of the cultivated garden trees across the road, a kookaburra rattled off an unexpected laugh.

Just as the next song kicked in, Steve heard surf from the other side of the hill. Then the B-52’s began to scream about roaming.

“At least whoever it is has some taste,” Steve said.

“
What
?” Chris was wincing.

Steve jerked his head toward the house, instead. They got out and looked up the steep drive at the house perched above. There were windows from one end to the other. Big, rolled-glass frames. Some of the frames were doors, for at least half of them had been slid open to coax the morning breeze in. Steve could see blue sky through a few, and knew that the other side of the long house would have corresponding windows looking over the ocean.

He put on his cap and briefly considered using the radio to check in with Borelli. No one would be able to hear him over the racket, though.

They strode up the sloping brick drive and climbed the steps to the front deck. The deck ran the length of the house. A third of the way along there were two big tubs of geraniums and a mat marking the official front door. They moved to the wide-open doorway and peered inside.

“Hello?” Chris called.

It wasn’t possible for anyone to hear them. The music, this close, was almost a physical pounding.

Steve took in the room beyond the door with a sweeping glance. The furniture was avant-guard eclectic, the expensive type that came with designers’ names. Lots of low-slung couches and chairs that looked less than comfortable, but probably weren’t. Glass tables, chrome, black leather and stonework.

The floor was black slate and littered with six partly empty beer jugs that Steve could see, dozens more used glasses and at least five comatose bodies—all male—sprawled in the completely relaxed limbs-anywhere state that only the truly drunk could manage. With this noise, it was a fair bet they were passed out and not simply sleeping.

Plates of abandoned party food dotted the glass tabletops and a striped tomcat hunched over one of them, licking at a slice of Pavlova. He blinked at Steve and went back to his treat, shuffling around so that he could keep an eye on the newcomers at the same time.

The big room stretched across the full width of the house. The doors on the other side were also open, and the moisture-ladened breeze that wafted through was highlighted with stale beer, cigarette smoke and the unmistakably rich, musky green smell of pot.

Chris jerked his head backwards, coughing a little and waving his hand across his nose.

The music was coming from the other side of the house and Steve carefully stepped his way over to the doors there. The balcony on this side was deck-width, and the wreckage out here equaled the carnage inside. On two corners of the deck railings were bolted two black, professional concert hall-sized speakers, madly vibrating. In the third corner was a chin-high Wurlitzer jukebox. There was a good chance the thing wasn’t a replica.

Chris strode over to it and started hitting buttons, pounding hard.

Instead, Steve bent over and flicked the on/off rocker switch on the power plate imbedded in the wall beside the door.

The silence that cut in was almost surreal.

As Steve’s hearing adjusted, he picked up distant cheering and clapping and looked around. The next house on the hill was thirty yards away and there were five people out on the deck, leaning over the railings towards them. They were waving and virtually dancing on the spot.

Steve hid his grin. “First standing ovation I’ve ever got for police work.”

“You’ve had standing ovations for other things?” Chris asked, digging his forefinger into his ear and wriggling his jaw to restore his hearing.

“Well, there was a thing with a wallaby and a bottle of week-old one hundred proof, but—”

“Bloody hell!” The exclamation came from behind him. He whirled, to find a huge man standing in the doorway, a bowl of Coco-Pops and milk in one giant hand. Steve judged him to be in his mid-thirties, even though he looked older than that right then. The booze had left the man’s eyes completely bloodshot. His shirt was stained down one side with what looked like tomato sauce. He held a spoon in his free fist, in mid-air, as if he’d been about to scoop up the cereal where he stood.

Chris gave a low curse, surprised into it.

“You were in the house all this time?” Steve asked.

“Uh...bathroom.” The man looked sheepish. “Think I drank too much last night.”

Steve could almost feel Chris’s quiver of silent laughter.

“You didn’t hear us call?” Steve asked.

“I was listening to the music,” the man said. “I came out to the kitchen to get something to eat, then heard the music stop, so...” He frowned. “Is there a reason you came around?”

“A neighbor complained about the noise,” Chris said.

“Noise?” His frown deepened. “We turned it down after midnight and we invited all the neighbors, anyway.”

Steve didn’t bother explaining that the neighbor was nearly a kilometer away. “This is your house, then?”

“Yeah.” Then the guy blinked and shoved his spoon into his cereal, brushed his palm off on his jeans and held it out. “I’m Patrick O’Neil.”

Chris folded his arms, refusing the offered hand, but Steve shook it. “Quite a do you’ve thrown. Bachelor party?” It was an easy guess. There were only male bodies to be seen.

“Yeah! Hey, that’s good!”

“You have a permit for the kegs, right?” He nodded his head toward the tapped barrels in the other corner of the deck. The wooden decking around them was dark with the spilled beer it had soaked up.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Patrick frowned. “Somewhere around here. Bought it last week in Marg’s. Hey, am I in trouble for somethin’?”

“Only with your neighbors.” Steve adjusted his hat. “Just don’t turn the music on again, okay?”

“Yessir.”

Patrick escorted them to the front door, the obliging host, shoveling spoonfuls of the cereal into his mouth as he went. Milky drops trailed after him, but he didn’t seem to notice. Neither did the sleeping bodies on the floor.

When they reached the car, Chris chucked his hat onto the back seat and leaned his arm against the roof, sniffing the air. “Fresh!” he said, pleased.