~25~

THUNDER GRUMBLED IN THE DISTANCE.

Jack pressed the buzzer set beneath an eyeball video camera on the left of the barred front gate. No answer. Through the bars he could see a brick-paved path that swung away to the left. He could hear something bubbling, too: no doubt some kind of water feature. He buzzed again, looking into the lens as though he might see somebody at the other end. No answer again.

More thunder. Jack walked down to the garage entrance. It had not closed after the Maserati zoomed off. He looked at a couple of the neighbours’ houses. Only their security lights showed. All was quiet and empty along Vaucluse Road. Jack felt like a loud noise as he walked down the curved concrete driveway and slipped in under the house.

No cars, but enough room to park four or five. No shelves, boxes or benches, either, no usual garage crap pushed up against the walls: just a spotless, well-lit rectangle that could have been leased out as a showroom floor. Two cream-painted doors at the rear wall. Jack chose the right. Behind it, leading up into the house, wide, black-veined white marble stairs. He started to climb. He called out: ‘De Groot?’ The house threw silence back at him.

At the top of the stairs, a long, cool hallway: Persian-style runner over more tiled floor, a couple of pieces of brushed steel and glass furniture, some artwork over the white walls.

‘Hello? Anybody here?’

Jack listened. Still nothing. He wondered what he would say to the cops.

Cautiously down the hall, glancing at the stuff on display: a series of half-a-dozen watercolours, about forty centimetres square and box framed in blonde wood. Interesting subject matter — plucked chickens and roasted chickens and headless chickens and chickens on fire and gutted chickens hanging from hooks. Jack could not figure out if the de Groots liked chickens or if they were maybe vegetarians making a political statement. Probably just de rigueur. It reminded him of Kablunak eating in his office with his sleeves rolled up.

After all the poultry, a large, airy, cream-carpeted lounge room with high ceilings and lots of mirrors; on the Vaucluse Road side, a complete wall of double-glazed glass, the better to take in the harbour. Placed precisely around the room, sleek white-leather couches, beige shagpile rugs, ultra-modern lamps and chairs, and a couple of glass-top tables with nothing on them. A large Aboriginal dot painting was the featured artwork, taking up almost the entire right-hand-side wall, warm and luminous under subtle, professionally set-up lighting. Ancient Greek-style columns framed two doorways out of the room. The place was like a cross between a Mediterranean villa and a hotel lobby. The couches and seats looked ironed, the shagpile combed. Jack wondered if anybody had ever breathed in the place, let alone sat on anything.

He took the second doorway out of the lounge room. Another hall, not as grand as the first, but carpeted and quiet. An air-conditioning panel indicated a pleasant twenty-two degrees Celsius on its digital display.

Two more doors open on the right. Jack looked into a couple of large bedrooms, empty and so neat and unslept in they could have been mock-ups for a furniture catalogue shoot. At the end of the hallway, he turned right. First door, another neat white room with a great view out over the harbour. Somebody’s study: large, modern executive desk; black leather executive chair; bookshelves; another smaller, ergonomic desk in the corner with a computer set up on it; a couple of oil paintings on the walls; and a vase on a stand with flowers blooming out of it.

Jack stepped inside. The flowers were arum lilies: hard to get in Sydney but kind of appropriate in their funereal way. Especially considering there was a dead body in the room.