‘Dump the body,’ Wyatt said simply, ‘and get our money back.’
She drank deeply from the glass. ‘Just like that.’
‘Did the neighbours see Letterman?’
‘No.’
‘All the same, you’d better have a story ready in case they ask about him or his car or the noise tonight. Meanwhile help me put him in the boot. I’ll dump him and the car in the city somewhere.’
Leah had the look of someone who knows that the relaxing is still a long way off. ‘What if they ask me about you? What if they recognise your picture?’
‘I look different now and I kept out of sight whenever I stayed here. But the short answer is, distract them. Don’t just say I’m a brother or something, you have to make them feel embarrassed for asking. Tell them I’m your Jesuit priest brother, your detective cousin.’ He put down his glass. ‘I’d better be going. Help me with Letterman.’
They loaded the body into the boot of the Valiant. The wind-tossed street was dark; no one saw them.
‘Let me go with you,’ Leah said.
The coldness grew in Wyatt again. ‘No. Wait here.’
‘You think I’ll get in the way,’ she said. ‘You think I’ll get hurt.’
He was uncomprehending. He hadn’t been considering her at all. He knew only that he’d been crossed and he had to do something about it and he could best do it alone. ‘Get some rest,’ he said. ‘Air the house. Reassure the neighbours.’
He got into the driver’s seat of Letterman’s car and wound down the window. Leah put her face to the gap and clasped the top of the glass. ‘Are you going to Tobin’s?’
He started the engine. ‘It’s the only link we have.’ He looked at her strained face. He was unused to smiling. He touched her wrist briefly. ‘Okay?’
She stood back. ‘Good luck.’
Luck wouldn’t come into it but he said thanks and started the engine.
He drove out of the hills and down into the centre of Adelaide. It was midnight when he passed through Enfield and the streets were quiet. The industrial estate was deserted. Cheerless lights were burning outside most of the buildings, throwing shadows into the door and window recesses. He turned off the headlights and drove once around the perimeter. There was no sign of security guards but he knew a patrol would be along later. He remembered seeing the Mayne Nickless calling cards in Tobin’s doorframe.
Wyatt parked the Valiant behind a stack of empty crates. Tobin’s office and shed were in darkness but he approached quietly, keeping to the shadows. He got to the side wall and waited, listening for two minutes. The side window was locked. He checked the front door. It was also locked. A thumbtacked note said, ‘Back next week.’ Scribbled under it were the words, ‘No cash on premises.’
There were no external indications that Tobin had fitted an alarm system. Wyatt cast back in his mind to the day when he and Leah had first met him. He was sure there were no wires, cameras or electric eyes.
The glass in the side window was fused to wire netting, and he didn’t want to be spotted at the front of the building, so he broke in through the back door.
Tobin wasn’t there. The air was stale, as if no one had been in the place for several days.
Wyatt began a search of the office. There was nothing else he could do. Checking that no headlights had appeared outside, he turned on Tobin’s planet lamp and adjusted the shade until it was an inch from the desktop. In the muted light he began to go through the drawers and files.
He didn’t know what he was looking for but he knew he’d found it when he opened the grubby ruled desk diary and learned what kind of company Tobin had been keeping.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The car was legitimate so there was no point in stealing one. His face and clothing were different so he wasn’t expecting second looks from nosy cops and civilians. But he’d be put away for life if he was found with a body in the boot. Checking again for Mayne Nickless patrols, Wyatt dragged Letterman inside and dumped him in a back room.
It turned midnight as he drove away from the industrial estate. He went left at Gepps Cross and settled in for the two-hour haul to Goyder. The traffic was light-a lonely taxi, a couple of panel vans drag-racing away from the lights, a big semitrailer with Western Australian plates. If Wyatt were an ordinary citizen he might have been tempted to put his foot down. He didn’t. He slowed for yellow lights, used his indicators, sat just under the posted speed limits. He turned on the heater and set the radio to an all-night jazz program. Thirty minutes after dumping Letterman he had left the city lights behind and was driving through orchard country lit by the stars in the black sky.
Trigg must have thought all his Christmases had come at once when Tobin came to pick up his regular consignment of bootleg videos, booze and cigarettes and told him about the Steelgard hit. Trigg was already linked to Steelgard: Wyatt remembered seeing the Steelgard vans refuelling in Goyder, remembered the day he saw Venables talking to Trigg in Belcowie.
He pushed on through the dark farmland, fitting the pieces together. Now and then he passed through small towns At night they appeared to flatten their bellies to the ground. The shopfronts seemed to hide under drooping verandahs. Dewy cars turned their backs away and the street lamps were meek and blanketed. It was all depressing. Wyatt preferred the open road, where he had the sensation of riding across the roof of the world.
He reached Goyder at two o’clock in the morning. Trigg Motors was lit up like a strip of pinball parlours. The big Ford sign glowed blue and white like a sail above the entrance and someone had been liberal with fluorescent paint on the showroom windows. The cars bared their chrome teeth at Wyatt as he cruised slowly along the front of the building. He turned right, and right twice again, circling the block. There was no sign of life-no security guards, cranky Alsatians or randy teenagers.
A couple of cars were parked outside the service bay. Wyatt guessed they’d been left there for a service or a tune-up in the morning. He parked Letterman’s Valiant next to them and got out, quietly closing the driver’s door behind him.
He ignored the administration block. The money might be stashed away there but first he wanted to satisfy himself that he was right about what had happened a day and a half ago.
He started with the buildings at the rear of the block-two corrugated iron sheds, each large enough to hold a truck, and a small prefab hut next to an iron shipping container. The prefab building was raised a foot off the ground. It had aluminium frame doors and windows and two cement steps leading to the front door. The windows were curtained in some frilly domestic material. It puzzled Wyatt until he heard the unmistakable squeak of bedsprings. Someone was asleep in there.
It wasn’t the sort of place Trigg would live in. A guard mechanic or odd job man, Wyatt thought.
It told him to go slow and quiet. He crossed to the first of the long sheds. There were several windows high off the ground, and a roller door and a small metal door, both padlocked.
He tried the second shed. It was the same as the first. He knew both sheds would have a legitimate purpose-major mechanical repairs, panel-beating, spray painting-but there were no signs up.
He circled the second shed, looking at the ground. He rejected the first piece of wire as being too thick. The second seemed about right. He was fashioning it into a hooked shape when the sky seemed to fall on him. Strong hands grabbed him by the collar and belt and ran him head-on into the wall of the shed. He collapsed onto his knees and toppled over. Someone searched his pockets and found the.38. A boot thudded hard into his stomach and stamped on his fingers.
Wyatt looked up, feeling pain tug inside him. Blood ran from his scalp into his eyes. He coughed and focused on the figure who had hit him.
The man had no neck. His head was like a knob squeezed from a piece of rock. He was tall and watched Wyatt in a loose-muscled way. Despite his size he looked fast and flexible. He wore overalls and had the unhappiest expression Wyatt had ever seen on anybody.