The Heat (16 page)

‘Do you want a serviette?'

‘No, I do not want a serviette. I want you to piss off.'

The girl slumped off, looking wounded. No people skills.

23

When Leah had driven away from Ormerod's house, Trask slipped back inside. A radio played somewhere nearby. A sprinkler stuttered. Birds went about their business.

The plan was he'd call to say Wyatt was breaking in, and Leah would return with the van. Then she'd wait for the follow-up call, ‘
It's done
,' and help drag the body out.

He looked at his watch: 8 a.m. He doubted Wyatt would appear before noon. He slipped outside, keeping within the screen of greenery surrounding the house, and installed the infra-red sensors front and rear. Each sensor field described a five-metre arc, and normally anyone, or anything, crossing it would trigger a dedicated alarm, but Cherub had wired it to signal Trask's phone, a unique soft tone.

Now it was a waiting game. Trask returned to the main room, dragged a chair to the curtain and sat, the pistol in his lap. Only eight-thirty. Hours to go. The idea, once lodged, was inescapable: Leah would rip him off somehow.

What did he really know about her? She was waspish, cute-looking, nasty, gutsy, ambitious, corrupt. Enthusiastic in bed, if a little disengaged. Hated to be questioned or criticised…

Trask had dropped out of university to become a cop. In first-year criminology they'd studied personality types and how some types—like sociopaths—were more prone to criminal behaviour than others. Of course, not every sociopath was going to commit a crime, and sociopathic ruthlessness was usually an advantage in running companies or governments. Trask didn't know what type he was. He didn't like rules all that much, but he had feelings, so that probably meant he wasn't a sociopath. I just like to steal things, he thought.

Now, thinking back to those half-absorbed lectures, Trask wondered if Leah's thing was narcissistic personality disorder. Take her hatred of criticism. Didn't quibble about it, just lashed out. Anger dialled up to ten. And she was utterly without doubts about her abilities. More able, more intelligent and effective—more capable of success than other people. In her mind, she'd go far. And she'd do what it took to get there, with no compunction about using other people. For Leah, their needs, thoughts and feelings were immaterial.

She'll have been plotting a few moves ahead in this Ormerod business, Trask thought. What did she have in mind for him, a few moves ahead? All that bullshit about Wyatt trying it on with her; it was much more likely she'd wiggled her butt at
him
.

Standing gloomily by the curtained window of the big room, he realised that he was taking Leah's word for it that she'd be stowing the painting in the Tewantin self-storage. What if she hid it somewhere else? Handed it on to someone?

He tried to map out her morning. First, she'd go home to shower. He could picture that all right, water streaming over her body. Then she'd put on her cute real estate agent gear and attend to her appointments for a few hours. Tracking to and fro across Noosa and surrounds, meeting clients at house showings, attending auctions, grabbing a coffee.

Where did the painting figure in all that?

A related idea: this was a set-up. Wyatt was already on the premises.

Feeling spooked in the silent, cavernous house, Trask crept from room to room, searching behind doors and under beds, his gun in his hand. Nothing. Nothing in the front, rear or side yards either. Only the cat.

The cat. Trask headed for the kitchen and found a huge bowl of water, huge bowl of dry food. Kitty litter in the laundry. Enough for Friday to Monday? What if Ormerod intended to come home sooner?

Not today, though. Trask returned to the main room and opened a small gap in the curtains. Here he had a clear, though narrow, view down the front lawn to the dock and the water, yet could also cover the hallway. He stood loosely, the Glock in his hand, the cat sidewinding around his ankle.

He lasted about an hour. Couldn't sit still. No interesting books in Ormerod's study, the desktop computer password secured. Pity: he couldn't shake off the image of the child he'd seen with Ormerod earlier in the week. He'd half hoped he'd find images of her.

He went looking. Cupboards, wardrobes, under beds. He'd carried out this kind of search when he was a policeman. He knew what tricks your typical pervert got up to. At one well-heeled place in Kenmore they'd found a windowless spa room painted in pastelly blues and pinks, nursery-rhyme wallpaper, half-a-dozen soft rubber bath toys. Except the man living there had no children, grandchildren or nieces and nephews. The kids who splashed around in his spa—were posed, photographed and raped in it—belonged to an ice addict and her circle of friends. They'd found the proof easy enough: a box of DVDs ready for shipping. Marked
Wimbledon Tennis Highlights 2000–2014
. And invoices, email correspondence, witness statements, semen.

But Trask found nothing in Ormerod's study, sitting room or bedroom. The stuff in the DVD racks was innocuous. No little bathing costumes tucked away in drawers, no eye shadow or glitter or ribbons or brightly coloured bits of sheer cloth.

Trask went downstairs in a funk. He had no doubt Ormerod was a kiddy fiddler and he would have liked to do something about the sick fuck there and then. But he had to get rid of Wyatt first, so he tried to settle on his chair with a golfing magazine.

A bad funk. He felt restless, grubby. Conscious that he hadn't exercised that day.

He did fifty push-ups, stretched his hamstrings, tried chin-ups on a door lintel.

Ten a.m. now, maybe three hours before Wyatt was due. Did Leah really expect him to stay the whole while? He could be at the gym in fifteen minutes. He kept a change of work-out gear in his locker. An hour of exercise, a shower, back at Ormerod's before noon. Easy to re-enter the house, now the security system was disengaged.

He knew better than to leave the Glock. He stuffed it into an old Adidas bag from a junk room upstairs, walked around to Noosa Parade and caught a taxi.

Saturday morning, the gym was buzzing. Mindful of the time, Trask limited himself to forty-five minutes on weights and machines, then had a shower. Didn't spot Cherub anywhere. No Mongrels, in fact. Too early for those losers.

He stepped out of the shower, wrapped in his towel, came around the dividing wall, and encountered a pair of uniforms, all geared up. Boots, Kevlar jackets, helmets, assault rifles and itchy fingers. He halted. Spun around. More uniforms massing.

And, standing at his open locker, the skinny birthmark guy, gesturing with the Adidas bag Trask had found in Ormerod's house. For a weedy-looking guy he was in fighting form, dressed in sharply pressed trousers, a white shirt and a jacket with a tiny gold cross in the lapel. A tie pinched him around the throat.

Trask knew it was all over. ‘What's up?'

The guy said, ‘Detective Sergeant Batten, Mr Trask.'

‘So?'

‘I expect you're wondering if I have a warrant?'

Trask moistened his mouth and said, ‘Well, it's a start.'

‘Nice Glock,' mused the guy, fishing it out by the end of the barrel with a pale, gloved hand. ‘I suppose you got it from Cherub?'

‘Never seen it before. You planted it.'

Two classic errors, thought Trask: I should have worn gloves, and I should have tossed the pistol after shooting Wurlitzer. But he'd half thought if Wyatt's body were ever found, a ballistics match with Wurlitzer would pose a nice conundrum for the police—if Wurlitzer were ever found, and Trask was thinking he had been.

Batten confirmed it, saying, ‘Any objection to the lab comparing a test bullet to the one we found in Gavin Wurlitzer?'

Trask turned neatly, whipping off his towel and flicking a corner at the face of the closest uniform. It was futile. They all swarmed him, screaming, ‘
On the floor, hands behind your head.
'

Cold wet tiles squashing his balls, knees in his back. ‘Okay, okay,' he said.

They let him up, he got dressed. Buttoning his shirt, he said to Batten, ‘The way you eyed me during the week, I could have sworn you were a poofter.'

‘Hilarious.'

‘Sure you're not queer?'

Batten said, ‘You do know who owns and frequents this place, don't you, Al? May I call you Al?'

‘No, you may not.'

Batten stroked his fleshless cheeks. ‘You haven't wondered about those motorbikes parked out the back? The tattoos and leather gear? Lebanese and Islander thugs everywhere?'

‘Get off on that, do you?'

‘It's not unusual for serving and disgraced police officers to share certain interests with the meatheads who join bikie gangs. A big machine between your legs, pumping iron, body image, steroids…You don't think that's a little…queer?'

Trask tried to focus. He swiped at his nostril, wetness, and saw a smear of blood on his ring finger. He flexed his fists.

Batten bounced on his toes, flexed his pale Christian hands, ready for Trask, daring him. ‘Steady, Alan. All those steroids cooking away inside you, you might not be thinking clearly. Didn't Cherub warn you not to overdo it?'

‘What do you want?' Trask said, gazing around for a way out.

‘I want you for murder. I
have
you for murder. Whether or not you go down for it alone is up to you.'

Trask collapsed onto the bench that ran between the banks of lockers. Batten remained standing but rested one shoe on the bench a couple of metres away, looking down on Trask like a vengeful priest, his trouser leg riding up, revealing a bony, hairless shin, cheap socks, a shiny black shoe.

‘Did Leah Quarrell ask you to kill Wurlitzer? Or was it your idea?'

‘Lawyer,' said Trask, tying his shoes.

‘You do know Wurlitzer was talking to us, Al?'

Trask could feel the walls and ceiling moving in on him. ‘Don't know what you're talking about.'

‘He told us how it worked: your girlfriend would spot the target house, you'd provide police intel, he'd do the break-in. Then the nasty little prick became a liability.'

‘You've lost me,' Trask said.

‘
He taped his last meeting with you
,' Batten said, hissing the words, his prim mouth a slash, his teeth small and sharp.

Trask rubbed his nose again, knuckles coming away sticky with blood. ‘I need a doctor. I need a lawyer.'

‘Nose bleed. It's nothing.'

‘Police brutality.'

Trask stood to help himself think, felt dizzy, and placed his palm over his eyes briefly.

‘Quit faking it and start talking,' Batten said.

‘I could be hurt internally.'

‘You
are
hurt internally,' Batten said, rapping a pebbly knuckle on Trask's skull.

Trask blanched, wondering if Batten had spotted an actual symptom, maybe the pupil of one eye wider than the other. Then he realised it was simple nastiness. ‘Maybe you could tell me,' he said, ‘why Christians always act less Christian than the bulk of the population?'

On the ride to the station, Batten in the front passenger seat, Trask in the back, between a pair of uniforms, a yellow VW sped past.

Leah Quarrell, running between appointments? That's what Trask thought every time he saw a yellow Beetle. He stared gloomily at houses, cars, pedestrians. The police car, caught between Quamby Place and the bridge to Lions Park, was travelling at a walking pace in stop-start traffic, and he wondered if he had a fighting chance of escape. Punch the guy on his left, scramble over his lap, run off down the street.

Except that his hands were cuffed together, and then Batten turned around and said, ‘You know how it's going to look, Al. When we put your girlfriend on the witness stand, a little wisp of a thing, tears in her eyes, who's going to believe your version of events?'

Jesus, that routine? thought Trask. Get Leah to talk, get me to talk, lie to both of us, promise nothing concrete.

Nevertheless, when it came to trial, who was going to believe him over her?

Better to get in first.

24

Wyatt started the morning with surveillance on his apartment building, where the Mazda was parked underneath.

Nothing excited his interest. He breakfasted at a nearby backpacker hostel, seated at an outside table shaded by vines. Stillness, mildness in the air. He ate and drank sparingly. He'd become irritable if he denied himself food and drink before the job, sluggish if he overdid it.

A radio played behind the bar. He listened with half an ear and caught one item of local interest: police searching heavy bushland near Eumundi in search of a missing toddler had found a shallow grave. It contained the body of a man who'd been shot in the head. Known to police. Convictions for burglary, aggravated burglary and sexual assault. There were no leads.

Now Wyatt walked along the river. With four hours until the centre bounce at the football final two thousand kilometres away, Noosa was gearing up for the game. Wyatt had little interest in sport of any type, but did understand the herd instinct in people. A car went by, a black and white scarf flying from the window. Collingwood colours. Reminding him of his childhood in the Melbourne suburb. Before gentrification, a limp football and loyalty to your home team was pretty much all you had in life. A pedestrian wearing a Lions jersey jeered at the car.

That's what the day would boil down to: the Victorian holidaymakers barracking for Collingwood—if they could bring themselves to. The locals cheering the Queensland team, radios broadcasting a sub-literate analysis.

Wyatt cared nothing for the outcome. Collingwood was his birthplace, where he'd struggled and learnt to wait and think before he acted. Where nothing was given him, and so he'd taken it. But it was only an early stage of his existence, not a chapter in some story. He had no story, unless you could conjure one out of the fact that he now existed, and once hadn't. And one day wouldn't.