GRACE’S MIND RACED. Playing for time, she put on a little frown.
‘What is it?’
‘A tracking device.’
‘Tracking device?’
Dinakis nodded. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve found one, but this one’s slightly more sophisticated. It was plugged into the OBD.’
‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘It’s a port under the dash, near the steering column. It’s where we plug in a diagnostics gizmo when we service or repair a car.’
‘Perhaps it was fitted when the car was made,’ Grace said, still playing dumb—but thinking: it was Adam or the police in the Barossa. Or just about anyone from her past.
‘Absolutely not,’ Dinakis said. He grew uncomfortable, as if regretting what he was about to say. ‘I have to ask, is there a controlling boyfriend in the picture? Husband, partner? Someone keeping tabs on you for whatever reason?’
‘No,’ Grace said, thinking: I have to get out of here.
‘It’s just that I had a young woman in that situation late last year and we contacted the police. They did the right thing by her.’
Grace smacked her forehead with the heel of her palm. ‘I know what it is! It’s not my car, it’s a work car—Mandel’s Collectibles, up on the main street?’
Dinakis nodded that he knew it.
‘We’re always out and about, deliveries, auctions, clearing sales, sometimes for days at a time, with valuable things in the back. Erin—Ms Mandel—must’ve had the tracker installed to keep tabs on the car.’
Dinakis seemed doubtful. ‘Okay.’
‘Would you be able to put it back, please?’
‘Sure.’ He paused. ‘I can show you if you like.’
She paid the bill, followed him out to the car and watched him open the driver’s door and reach under the dash. ‘It goes up in here, see?’
‘Okay.’
Then he was uncoiling and she was stepping back to let him out.
‘Good to go.’
‘Thank you.’
Aware of the other mechanics’ continued attention—either Dinakis had told them about the tracker, or one of them had brought it to his attention—Grace stowed the bike in the rear of the Subaru. She drove out onto the road sedately, her mind still racing, and headed back up to the roundabout as if returning to the main street. When she was confident that she couldn’t be seen she turned right, not left, and followed the intersecting road down towards the little park adjacent to the town’s leisure centre.
Parking beneath a massive gum tree next to the skateboard ramps, she got out and stood back from the car, contemplating it gloomily, first speculating that Erin had, in fact, fitted a tracker and not told her—but that only seemed feasible if Erin didn’t trust her, in which case Erin wouldn’t have let her drive off on buying trips with a credit card and cash. Or someone was tracking Erin? Doubtful. Erin barely ever drove the car. Adam, the cops, or someone else from her past.
Other questions arose now. When and where had the bug been installed? She recalled the sudden onset of signal interference when she was in the Barossa Valley a few days ago: Erin’s calls dropping out; scratchy sounds on the line. The car was bugged recently, she thought. Here in town? At home? That first night at the motel in Angaston?
Then she recalled the day she’d delivered the Whiteley to be cleaned. It hadn’t bothered her at the time—she wasn’t used to the car—but she hadn’t heard the snap of the door locks when she pressed the key fob’s lock and unlock buttons. She’d never met Gaynor Bernard; it couldn’t have anything to do with her…Had she been followed?
Dinakis had found only one bug. But if there’s one, there could be another, Grace thought, glancing about uneasily. The sky seemed far away, remote from her. No skateboarders until school got out. The air was mild and magpies warbled and nest-builders were busy as she went over the Forester.
Under the bonnet, every corner of the boot, inside the wheel arches. The chassis. In the glovebox and under the seats. She found nothing. She brushed herself down and began to weigh her options.
The car, first. She could simply drive off in it. Chuck the tracker into the Onkaparinga River and just go. Whoever was monitoring her movements wouldn’t necessarily be alarmed: the Subaru was always being used for shop business. And right now, lunchtime, they wouldn’t necessarily be alarmed that she’d driven it to the little park beside the leisure centre.
She felt foggy in the head, as if she’d used up all of her smarts in the Barossa Valley. But she did know she should go: run and not look back. It was entirely possible that two surveillance teams were on her, one keeping tabs at Mandel’s Collectibles, the other at Landau Street. She couldn’t return to either place. Goodbye granny flat, goodbye job, goodbye both sets of treasures and her safe-deposit stash.
Goodbye Erin.
She unplugged the tracker from the OBD port, turned off her phone, removed the sim card and headed back to the main road, then through to the highway that would take her down into the city. Dump the car at the airport; rent or buy another, or take a train or a bus to Western Australia or the Northern Territory.
Five minutes later, approaching the M1, she cursed her brain again. She had no money with her. She had the business credit card, but, if the Battendorf Motors mechanic happened to follow up with Erin, there would soon be a stop on the card and an alert issued for the Subaru. Meanwhile, whoever was monitoring the tracking device would have thrown themselves into action when the signal vanished. For all she knew, someone was on her tail right now. She braked suddenly, shot to the kerb without indicating, and checked her mirrors. An angry toot as the car immediately behind her swerved to pass, the driver waving his fist, but the subsequent cars sailed on by.
She was a mess; she couldn’t think straight.
Keep the Subaru, but fit it with new plates? But she’d jettisoned her remaining two sets.
I’m stuffed, she thought.
Then she found herself thinking about her haul from Jason Britton’s house. There was no reason why anyone would be watching the bank. A quick in and out. And so she turned around and headed back to Battendorf and the park beside the leisure centre. Reinstalling the tracking device, she dug out the change of clothes she kept permanently in the Subaru’s lockbox—loose cream pants and a pale blue shirt—and entered the leisure centre’s women’s changeroom, in a corridor next to a yoga class. Working quickly, before she could be seen, she redressed, trashed the clothes she’d removed, then washed her hands and flicked her hair into shape.
Before returning to the car, she stood inside the centre’s main door for a while. Nothing out there that bothered her. Getting behind the wheel finally, she drove up to the main part of town and into the laneway behind the shop. Cruised along it from one end to the other: no strangers or strange cars. She went around and came in again, parked in her regular spot and unloaded the bike, then pedalled across to the carpark behind the main-street shops. Here she locked the bike to a pole, stuck her helmet on the saddle and, shouldering one of the panniers, crossed to the side street that would take her up to the town’s main drag. Still she could not shake off the sensation of being observed.
At the corner, she darted a look along the main street, taking in the bank, Erin’s shop, the other shops. She waited a moment, risked another look—at cars and pedestrians this time. A couple of figures in the distance, walking away from her. Parked cars, all apparently empty. She left the security of the side wall and headed along the footpath to the bank, feeling exposed.
Up the steps, through the heavy wood and brass main doors, and into a dimly lit tiled foyer decorated with an old vase—bought from Erin’s shop—for umbrellas, and a second set of glass doors leading into the main section of the bank. Grace had her shoulder to one of the doors and was part-way through when she spotted Erin in there, arms braced on the counter, a couple of small weekender bags at her feet, speaking urgently to a teller.
Standing next to her was a uniformed policeman. Grace stiffened, began to back out again. And bumped into the mechanic, Mark Dinakis. He was with a woman wearing plain clothes and the flat, unimpressed look of the law.