Private eyes had no official access to the Police intelligence system to get details of cars and people. The department’s internal controls had tightened up considerably and the days of ringing up a contact and getting them to run a check were long gone.
Still, there was more than one way to skin a cat, and Dan was an expert skinner. Rather than waiting a few days to get a response through the official channels, he rang a contact at a vehicle testing station. Authorised agents had limited access compared to the cops, but all he needed was the registered owner’s details.
Within a couple of minutes he had the information he needed and the contact was mentally crossing one off the list of favours he owed Dan from a previous case. Petrina Melgrew was a twenty four year old resident of Titirangi, a scenic part of West Auckland that combined suburban village life with beautiful rural views. Despite the steep property prices it was known to be home to a number of gangsters, and fit with the picture they were building.
‘What still bothers me though,’ Dan said, as he took his seat at the head of the dining room table, ‘is that we don’t know how all this is connected to Stacey Burns.’
He dug a fork into the spaghetti Bolognese before him and twirled it round to get a load.
‘It has to be from her past,’ Molly said, taking the seat at the corner closest to him. ‘I just can’t see how else she’s stumbled across these guys.’
‘Yeah, obviously,’ Mike said, punching his cell phone off as he walked in from the lounge. ‘That was Stace.’
The Crowleys gave each other sideways glances, noting both his tone and the use of their client’s shortened name.
‘What did Stace want?’ Dan asked pointedly.
Mike took a seat at the other end of the table. ‘Just an update on how things are,’ he replied vaguely, digging in.
‘On things or you?’ Dan asked through a mouthful.
Mike paused with his fork loaded. ‘The case,’ he said, ‘what else?’
‘You specifically.’ Dan caught Mike’s sharp look. ‘Well she never rang to ask how I was after being thrown from a car, but she was definitely concerned about your welfare, big guy.’
Mike took the mouthful and his hackles went down again. Molly couldn’t help but admire her husband’s ability to diplomatically make the point that perhaps the client was more interested in his partner than could be expected.
‘She was pretty concerned when I told her about today,’ Mike conceded. ‘She thought maybe we’d want to call it quits.’
Dan tilted his head and gave an indifferent grunt.
‘I assured her that wasn’t the case,’ Mike told him bluntly. He glanced to Molly. ‘And yes Mol, she’s authorised another payment. The money will be in the account tonight for twenty hours work.’
Molly nodded and smiled. The spag Bol was good.
‘You always grate carrots in it?’ Mike enquired, wiping sauce from his chin with a thick finger.
‘Mmm-hmm. And zucchini and chopped mushrooms.’
‘It’s good,’ he said appreciatively. ‘Wholemeal spaghetti too.’
‘And it’s not obvious, y’know,’ Dan said.
Molly raised her eyebrows at him. ‘What, the food splatter on your shirt?’
‘I was hoping you didn’t see that.’ He smiled deprecatingly. ‘No, the connection between Stacey Burns and the knuckleheads.’
Mike frowned. ‘What, you think she’s not telling us something?’
‘Maybe, but I think she’s been fairly straight up with us. I mean, she’s admitted being a stripper, which can’t be too easy. I’m more wondering “why now?” She left that life behind her more than twenty years ago, and she says it has never reared its head since then, so why now? What’s changed?’
The table fell silent as they ate and thought.
‘One way to find out, I guess,’ Molly said finally, pushing her bowl away. ‘You’ve got one end of the rope. Just keep following it to the other end.’
Dan nodded, chewing as he considered her solution. He swallowed and wiped his mouth.
‘And just hope it doesn’t hang us,’ he said.
Petrina Melgrew’s house was a two bedroom fibrolite affair on a small section down a shared driveway.
The house in front had a late model SS Commodore ute parked up by the garage and a lowered and tinted early model Commodore wagon in the drive. Nobody was around.
A Rottweiler, only slightly smaller than a battleship, lay in the open door to the garage. Maybe peacefully asleep, or maybe dreaming of eating babies. Dan was more inclined towards the latter option and elected to play safe, so they drove down the driveway instead of walking.
The Rotty raised its huge head and looked at them, giving a deep bark before realising they weren’t intruding on its turf. The driveway was empty and the house looked all locked up. Mike parked the Subaru and they sat for a moment.
‘Camera under the eaves,’ Dan noted, scanning the front of the house. ‘My investigator’s nose tells me that young Petrina Melgrew does more than work at a dirty girl’s parlour.’
‘Could just be security conscious,’ Mike grinned. ‘Maybe they’ve had a lot of burglaries round here.’
‘Maybe.’ Dan shrugged and his moustache twitched. ‘Or not.’
He got out and knocked on the front door. No reply. He peered through the tatty net curtains over the ranch slider at the front of the house. No sign of life.
He went back to the Subaru and Mike joined him, coming from the garage.
‘That was a red Falcon you took a ride on?’ Mike asked over the roof of the Subaru.
Dan nodded. ‘About a mid-nineties model.’
‘It’s in the garage.’ Mike nodded before Dan could speak. ‘And yes, I got the rego.’
Dan grinned and cast a look around them. ‘Let’s get going.’
They got part way down the drive before Mike hit the brakes sharply, his eyes locked on the rear view mirror.
‘Heads up,’ he said softly.
Dan looked round and saw two big guys standing in the drive behind them. One had a baseball bat in his hand, the other a length of steel pipe. A third guy approached Mike’s window and rapped his knuckles on it.
Mike buzzed it half down. ‘Yeah?’ he said.
‘You boys lookin’ for something?’ the guy said, leaning down into the open window. He was a stocky white guy with a crew cut. The forearm leaning on the doorframe was heavily tattooed.
‘It’s all good,’ Mike said coolly, ‘wrong house.’
‘Yeah,’ the guy agreed, ‘must be the wrong house alright. Who ya lookin’ for?’
‘Nobody you’d know mate.’
The guy didn’t flinch. ‘I know everyone round here, pal. I don’t know you, though.’
‘No reason you would,’ Mike said reasonably.
The guy stared at him, each man waiting the other one out. Dan’s eyes were locked on his wing mirror, studying the guy on his side behind them. He was solid and clean shaven, and he had a wide grin on his face as he listened to his mate-obviously the leader-talk to Mike. He was white and dressed in dirty jeans. He was the one with the baseball bat. His black T-shirt had some kind of logo on the front, but he couldn’t quite make it out.
Dan wasn’t certain, but the guy’s big grin brought back memories of the Falcon’s passenger.
‘You got a problem?’ the guy at the window said, finally losing patience. ‘You wanna go?’
Mike opened his mouth to retort, the muscles in his neck and shoulders bunching in anticipation.
‘Na, we’re all good mate,’ Dan interjected, ‘we’ll get going aye?’
The guy lowered his head down and looked past Mike to him. Both investigators saw the look of recognition in the guy’s eyes as he saw Dan’s face. The guy started to call out to his mates at the same time as Dan snapped ‘Go!’
Mike gunned it backwards, the baseball bat and pipe each slamming a side of the car as it shot past them. Mike cursed but didn’t stop. He reached the road and threw a quick J-turn, accelerating away hard.
Dan stopped recording on his phone and buckled up. ‘They’re coming after us,’ he said calmly. ‘Better make tracks.’
Mike pointed the nose back towards Waitakere City and wound it up, but within seconds there were two sets of headlights coming up fast behind them. He gave it more gas and Dan dialled triple-one. While his mate tried to explain the situation to the Police call taker, Mike barrelled through Titirangi village centre and onto the country road back towards the city.
The car immediately behind him was the station wagon, with its high beams on. It got close enough to kiss his rear bumper, jolting them forward.
‘They’ve just tried ramming us,’ Dan said matter-of-factly to the call taker. ‘No, I can’t see the rego sorry.’
Mike gave it more gas and pulled away, feeling the raw power of the Subaru’s turbo kick in. He took a corner fast enough for the tyres to scream and threaten to let go.
‘A singing tyre is a happy tyre,’ he muttered, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
The wagon got right up on him again and they felt a second jolt. Mike cursed again and floored it. He was pulling away and thought they had made it, when he saw a black shape screaming up on the outside. It was the SS ute with the lights off, going at Mach 3. An oncoming car swerved and sprayed up gravel from the shoulder as the darkened ute hogged the centre of the road.
‘How far away is a unit?’ Dan asked as calmly as he could. He cocked an eyebrow at the answer. ‘Four minutes is probably a bit far. These guys are driving like psychos. We’ll be lucky if they don’t kill someone.’
Mike saw a road sign indicating a 45k corner coming up and he hit the picks, rapidly bleeding off speed as he chopped down gears, the engine howling in protest. The SS cut in front of him and hit the brakes, too fast for Mike to stop in time. The Subaru’s nose smashed into the rear bull bar of the ute and they were both thrown forward. The SS cut away to the left shoulder leaving the Subaru suddenly entering the sharp left hand bend, a high bank looming on the right and a steep drop on the left into native bush.
The wagon shot up again and shunted them from behind, just at the moment that Mike took his foot off the brake and started into the turn. The Subaru was flicked round and slid across the oncoming lane towards the ditch and the bank beyond it.
Dan grabbed the dash and held on as they slid off the road into the ditch and hit the bank with a loud crash. The car bounced and stalled, half out of the ditch into the oncoming lane. The wagon came forward again, its beams blindingly bright. It went past them and stopped. The ute came up too, stopping short of the stranded Subaru.
Mike desperately cranked over the ignition but it wouldn’t start.
Two guys got out of the wagon, each armed with a pole or bat. Two more came from the ute, one with a length of chain, the other with a wheel brace.
Mike cranked it again. Still nothing. The four guys walked towards them, weapons ready.
‘Time to go bush,’ Dan snapped, throwing off the seatbelt and kicking the door open.
They burst from the car and the four thugs started to run forward, but too late. Dan and Mike ducked swinging objects as they dashed to the side of the road and leaped, sailing over the edge and dropping into the inky darkness below. They hit the ground and bounced, limbs flailing and unseen obstacles grabbing and whacking at them until they finally tumbled to a stop in the undergrowth, winded and sore. As they lay there and tried to catch their breath, they could hear smashing sounds from above as the thugs set to the Subaru.
Mike groaned and sat up. ‘How do I explain this to the insurance company?’ he growled.
Dan stayed where he was. He hurt too much to move. His body had taken a hell of a battering the last couple of days and he was feeling his age. He heard the smashing stop and lifted his head.
‘Maybe it’s just the windows,’ he said. ‘It’s not too bad if it’s just the windows.’
A second later they heard a dull whoosh followed by the crackle of flames and a pop of exploding glass. Both cars moved away, heading west.
Another window exploded up on the road.
Dan forced himself to sit up and rested his arms on his knees. He could sense Mike staring at him in the darkness.
‘It might not be just the windows,’ Dan conceded.