‘I tell you we didn’t know about your Northcote place. As for being at Ounsted’s, about an hour ago we got a tip-off. What have you done to her?’
Wyatt said levelly, ‘What do you think?’ Then, ‘Was it Kepler’s idea to send Rose in to knock us off?’
Towns craned his head around again. He was clearly frustrated. ‘I keep telling you, we haven’t got your money, and Rose wasn’t acting alone. You’ve got a fucking nerve, sending us into a trap, then accusing us of taking your lousy money.’
Wyatt frowned. ‘What do you mean, a trap?’
Towns said heavily, ‘Aah, knock it off, Wyatt. You killed the Mesic brothers and tried to set us up for it.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Luckily we were still outside the compound when the cops showed. We came back here, got the tip-off you’d be at Ounsted’s, and I sent Rose to knock both of you. She hasn’t come back, she hasn’t contacted us, meaning you got her first, so we’re heading back to Sydney. Fucking end of story.’
Wyatt sat on the end of the bed. He kept clear of Towns and Drew, but he wasn’t being so zealous with the.38 in his hand. ‘Something’s going on. The Mesics were alive when we left the compound. Tell me what you saw.’
‘After you gave the signal, we waited while you got clear. No one was tailing you, so we got ready to move in. Then this cop car shows up.’
‘How do you know the brothers are dead?’
‘It’s on the news already.’ Towns looked at his watch. ‘Five to twelve. Check for yourself if you don’t believe me.’
Wyatt took them into the main room. At midnight he turned on the television set and channel hunted with the remote control. The Mesic raid headed the bulletin on Nine. He saw a pool of darkness, the compound lights weak in it, police cars, their flashing red and blue lights spelling alarm and disaster. Then a policeman waved back the cameras and a reporter filled the screen, a microphone at her throat: ‘An armed robbery went terribly wrong in this house in Templestowe earlier this evening, leaving two brothers dead, shot in cold blood as they lay handcuffed on the floor, unable to defend themselves. A third occupant, a woman claimed to be the wife of one of the brothers, is unharmed and said to be staying with friends. Police are searching for two men, believed to be driving a white Toyota van and a Saab. They are armed and dangerous and should not be approached. Back to the studio.’
Towns said, ‘See it from our point of view, Wyatt. You got your money, killed the Mesics, set us up for it.’
‘Then why would I have left the woman alive? Why would I have come here looking for my money? I made a deal and I kept it.’
Wyatt watched the screen as he spoke. There was more about the Mesic raid on another channel. The victims were named, and police and neighbours talked to the camera. Earlier footage was repeated: ambulances, Stella Mesic being driven away, torches and dogs roaming the grounds.
Then, if it were possible to freeze-frame the picture, Wyatt would have done it: among the men grouped on the house steps, barely touched by camera lights, was the stranger he’d seen on the first day of his operation against the Mesics. The man was a cop and suddenly a lot of things made sense to Wyatt.
He pressed a button and the picture gulped and died. He said to Towns, ‘I can still give you the Mesics.’
Thirty-eight
Those early days, when she’d first started seeing Bax, had been great. They’d watch each other’s striving bodies in the ceiling and wall mirrors of her bedroom, their skin gleaming in the curtained afternoon light while Leo was out somewhere. Once she’d even tried a champagne bath; Bax liked to watch oysters slide down her throat; sometimes she splashed brandy around his groin. She’d laugh deep in her throat at times like that and Bax would grow hot-eyed, claiming it turned him on. There’d been no guilt or regret, only appetite. Bax would go home and she would shower and dress, feeling pleasantly battered, glad to be by herself for a few hours, disappointed if Leo came home.
But then it began to lose its spark. She watched the old man die, watched Victor come on the scene and work a hold over Leo, saw that she might lose everything. Also, where Bax had once seemed appealingly dangerous-something to do with his job, his corruption by the family, his wolfish looks-in the end he was just weak. She liked him enough when he was in a sharp frame of mind, working out the angles, but somehow, after the old man’s death and Victor’s appearance on the scene, Bax seemed to become less capable of following through with anything.
He’d seen easily enough how the raid by the man called Wyatt could be used to their advantage, but then at the last minute he had lost his nerve. He said Wyatt was too dangerous-Wyatt would want to shoot it out and everyone could get hurt. He said that if he shot or arrested Wyatt, there was no guarantee that Victor would be impressed. If anything, Bax said, Victor would argue that a raid on the compound showed up the family’s vulnerability and he’d be in a position to talk Leo around to his way of thinking, leaving Stella and Bax out in the cold. And there was still Coulthart breathing down Bax’s neck.
That’s how Bax saw it. As Stella saw it, the entire Mesic operation was up for grabs and just two things stood in her way-Victor Mesic on the inside, cops eager to break up the Mesics on the outside. The raid by Wyatt and Jardine could still be used. The firm could withstand the loss of two hundred thousand dollars. If Wyatt and Jardine were as good as Bax said they were, they’d never be found, never come forward, never say what state the household was really in when they left it.
The gun was a.22 target pistol. Bax had confiscated it when he’d worked with the Drug Squad, thinking he’d need it as a throwdown one day, something to cover himself with if he ever happened to shoot an unarmed man.
Wyatt and Jardine had come in, stripped the place, left again, and it had gone as Napper said it would go. Stella was alone with Leo and Victor for about two minutes, Victor spitting chips, Leo silent, then through the glass of the front door she had seen headlights. It was Bax. He came in through the front door, leaving his police car in the drive. He had a cover story ready to explain his presence in the house. He’d been following up a stolen car lead, had seen that something was wrong, had let himself into the house to investigate.
Bax had come in and Victor had said instantly, sharply, ‘Look who’s here.’ Stella knew from his voice that he was beginning to put it all together.
Bax crouched with keys and released her wrists. She stood, rubbing them. The strain showed in Bax’s face. She thought he might lose his nerve again, or change plans on her, so she’d put her hand on his wrist. Her grip was warm and strong, and for Bax everything in the world was reduced to a manageable size. She saw him begin to relax. ‘The gun,’ she said quietly.
His lean, handsome face wrestled with the notion of what she was about to do. He didn’t say anything, just reached inside the coat of his costly suit and drew out the pistol. He wore gloves. He gave her a large thick handkerchief to wrap around the gun. She jacked a round into the firing chamber. He’d already explained how the gun worked.
Leo hadn’t wanted to believe it was happening. He jerked the cuffs against the radiator and tried to stand. ‘Come on, Bax, Stel, undo the cuffs, will ya.’
‘Save your breath,’ Victor said.
‘You need me, Stel,’ Leo said.
‘Moron,’ Victor said, ‘can’t you see?’
Bax had turned away for the next stage. She shot each brother twice in the head and centrally in the chest, then dropped the gun on the floor and gave Bax his handkerchief back. ‘It’s done,’ she said, touching his arm. Then she’d sat on the floor and Bax, avoiding the bodies, the tremors passing through them, had cuffed her to the radiator again.
‘Bax,’ she said quietly, holding his eyes, ‘it’s working, all right? All you have to do now is call it in and have your story ready.’