At that moment, Angela emerged from the back room. Her timing couldn’t have been worse. He couldn’t have reached her even if his mind had registered the split second whirl of movement. The boy lunged towards Angela, clasping her in front of him like a shield. With one hand clamped around her neck, the other reached into the folds of his jacket and pulled a machete from its hidden scabbard.
Wayne’s gut twisted with a painful lurch. He’d be paying for this later if he survived, damn his weak belly. Holding his hands up in supplication he said, ‘It’s okay, son, it’s okay. Put the knife down. You don’t have to do this. Let her go and we’ll have a talk.’
‘Stay there, stay there, I’ll kill her!’ the boy screeched through a spray of spittle.
The girl looked to be on the verge of fainting. Her eyes rolled and her knees sagged. In this state, without her mask of self-confidence, he realised how much younger she was than he’d first thought. Christ, he’d been bantering about aphrodisiacs with a girl who was only sixteen if she were a day. Now he understood Barry’s tasteless jibes.
The boy staggered back as he tried to support her, barked something in Vietnamese and placed the gleaming blade to her throat. She swallowed her scream and straightened, making herself several centimetres taller than her captor.
He’s a wild animal, Wayne thought. Any sudden move from me, and the girl’s throat will be slit from ear to ear.
‘Can I close the shop, mate?’ he said. ‘We don’t want anyone crashing our friendly little party, do we?’ He fought to keep his tone steady; he’d seen first hand the damage a machete could do to the human body when he was in Nam. Without waiting for an answer and keeping his movements slow, he moved to the front door and flicked the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’. Over his shoulder he said, ‘I’ll close it too,’ and slipped the bolts.
He took several steps towards the counter. The boy yelled at him to stay back, his eyes darting about the room.
Wayne stood and waited for the silence to do his work for him. He stared hard at the boy, saw him lick his dry lips, jacket moving in and out with rapid, shallow breaths. The fridge by the counter hummed, the sound of a leaking tap dripped from the back room. Eventually the machete began to tremble in the small white-knuckled hand. As the blade began to waver, Wayne could see the kid’s grip upon the girl weakening.
‘So, what’ll it be, boss?’ Wayne kept his voice soft and low to force the boy to listen closely. ‘The way I see it, you either let her go, take the money and run, or you let her go and have a nice friendly chat with me.’
There were other options too of course; one involved slicing and dicing them into stir-fry. ‘C’mon Sammy, I know you speak good English, I know all about you. Put the knife down so we can have a talk. You don’t really want to hurt your sister, do you? She’s the only family you’ve got.’
21
EXCERPT FROM CHAT ROOM TRANSCRIPT 081206
BETTYBO: I wagged scool agin 2day
HARUM SCARUM: Bad grl!
BETTYBO: I hate zoe carmkel
HARUM SCARUM: hate cn b good. Use it. I do
BETTYBO: I hate that pig he maks mum cry. I wish I was KE
HARUM SCARUM: let KE empowa u
BETTYBO: I wanna c u f2f
HARUM SCARUM: No sme
Stevie finally answered one of Monty’s missed calls while she was driving to Stella Webster’s house.
‘I’ve been trying to call you all day,’ he said.
‘And I called you back mid-morning and your phone was off—where were you?’
‘I had an appointment.’
She waited for him to offer something else. He didn’t. ‘Right then,’ she said. ‘What’s new? Other than you dobbing Tash and me in to Dolly, that is.’
‘Stevie, I had no choice. The complaint form was handed to me by mistake. I warned you about it, it should have gone straight to her anyway.’
‘She offered me a promotion.’
She thought she detected a sigh of relief from his end of the phone. ‘There you go then. No harm done.’
‘What were you ringing me for?’
‘There’s so much going on I don’t know where to start. Firstly, you’ll be pleased to know that none of the impounded Glocks matches the one that killed Kusak. Look, about Natasha...’ He hesitated. ‘About last night, I’m sorry; I got a bit carried away. I’ve not been feeling...’
‘Okay, apology accepted, what else?’ She was being overly curt, she knew, but didn’t seem able to help herself. What they both needed to do now was detach from their personal relationship and behave like professionals.
There was a long pause from Monty’s end of the phone; she heard the flick of a cigarette lighter, could imagine him taking a long drag. ‘The bullet was matched to the gun that killed our loan shark, Zhang Li,’ he said, his voice stronger again.
So much for her resolution. How the hell could they possibly work this? Two linked cases meant they’d be thrown even closer together. And what on earth could the cases have in common?
‘Any leads?’ she asked.
‘First we have to ask ourselves who’d want the two dead—a contract killer, some kind of vigilante? Someone they’ve both had business dealings with? Wayne and Angus seem to think they have a witness to Zhang Li’s murder. He’s a street kid and Wayne’s following a lead on him now. Seems pretty hopeful.’
Stevie thought for a moment, cautiously passing a school bus spilling out a group of jostling children. ‘Could Zhang Li and Kusak have been hit by the same contract killer hired by two different people for two different reasons?’ she asked.
‘Could be, they were both killed execution style with a single bullet to the head. Apparently Mrs Kusak withdrew six thousand dollars from her account a couple of weeks ago, Barry’s going to have a word with her about it. But everything’s just speculation until we can talk to that street kid and find out what he saw. What are you up to now?’
‘I’m visiting Stella Webster; want to show her the picture of Bianca we found on Kusak’s computer. I also want to have another look in Bianca’s room, see if there’s anything I missed the first time around.’
‘Good idea.’
Stevie’s voice softened. ‘Are you feeling better today?’
‘Great.’ He didn’t sound it. ‘Do you want to meet for fish and chips on the beach tonight?’ he asked with forced jocularity.
‘I have to go over some stuff with Tash after I’ve seen Stella.’
‘Natasha.’ He paused. ‘Ah.’
She counted to ten in her head. ‘But I should be able to meet you after that. I’ll bring food.’
From the balcony outside number 33, Stella’s sister pointed to the park and the lone figure sitting on the bench near the lake.
‘How’s she doing?’ Stevie asked. She could see the family resemblance despite Gail’s extra fifteen kilos and apple cheeked, outdoorsy complexion. Had she reached adulthood, Bianca might’ve looked like this.
‘Oh, up and down, you know. I’m hoping she’ll feel a bit better after the funeral.’ She gave Stevie a weak smile, not reflected in eyes that were deeply shadowed with sleeplessness.