A loud cracking sound and its echo reverberated around the warehouse, making Kit and Alex both jump as if they'd been shot.
'Christ almighty, Andy! What are trying to do, cut your hand off?' It was Geoffrey's voice and it was coming from just the other side of the next, and last, row of crates.
'It wasn't my fault, it slipped,' said a voice which undoubtedly belonged to Andy.
'What the hell was that?' came a shout from the office.
'It's OK, Ian, it was just the top of the crate coming off.'
'Well, get a move on. The boat will be here any minute to collect tonight's load,' Dalkeith ordered.
'Yes squire,' Geoffrey replied, but only loud enough for those in the immediate vicinity to hear. 'Here, let me, Andy. Hold this other bit. No that bit. OK, lift! Oh god, where the fuck is Christo?'
'I'm over here,' came a third voice so close to where Kit and Alex were crouched that Kit held her breath and screwed one eye shut in anticipation of being caught, while she calculated their chances of being able to run like hell and get away with it.
'Well, I don't need you over there,' Geoffrey snapped. 'Get back here and help Andy load these.'
'I thought I heard something,' Christo explained.
Alex's fingers curled around Kit's arm as she edged back down the aisle to allow Kit to move further away from the corner.
'I don't give a shit, Christo. It was probably a rat, the place is infested with them.'
'Boat's here, boss,' someone called out from the back of the warehouse. Kit guessed it was probably the guard on the door.
'Wow,' Christo uttered. 'Look at them all. Top of the line merchandise, right Geoff?'
'Right Christo,' replied Geoffrey impatiently. 'Just get half of them out and onto the fork lift.'
It frustrated the hell out of Kit that she couldn't see anything but there was no way she was going to move any closer. She was still trying to make up her mind what she should do next when an ear-splitting screech of metal on metal helped her decide.
'It's the back door,' she whispered into Alex's ear, indicating they should make a run for it. Alex took off, with Kit close behind, weaving in and out of the aisles as they headed back into the dark. Any noises they may have made were completely drowned out by the sound of the metal door being hauled up.
They stopped running when they reached the shipping containers near the hallway they'd entered by. Kit could feel the adrenalin fairly pumping through her so she bent over and grabbed hold of her knees to steady her breathing. Then she made the mistake of looking at Alex who was leaning back against the container, with that heart-stopping smile of hers spreading from one ear to the other and a look in her grey eyes that was pure exhilaration.
Whoa, steady! Kit thought desperately, as she felt the whole universe take one step to the right, then leap back again and slam right into her.
'Are you OK?' Alex asked quietly, leaning close.
Kit nodded stupidly, thinking: there is no way this is ordinary lust. It has to be food poisoning or a heavy duty virus of some sort like the ones that get into your hard drive and send little munchkins out onto your screen to steal your cursor.
Trying to ignore the peculiar sensation of being knocked for a loop, she squeezed past Alex to finish what she'd come here to do. Which was what? Oh right. See what the bad guys are up to. Concentrate O'Malley!
She crouched down and cast a quick glance around the corner to her right before pulling back. Closing her eyes, she put all the images together in her mind: the back door to the loading bay was raised about half way, Dalkeith and Grainger were standing outside, Geoffrey was strolling in their direction, and Whitten and the red-head were still in the upstairs office.
Kit opened her eyes again when she heard the 'oh shit' that Alex muttered under her breath. She followed the invisible line from Alex's pointing finger, across the open space between them and the shipping container that was wedged up against the inside loading bay, to the idiot with a pony tail who was hiding amongst a jumble of crates and giving them a cheery royal wave.
Kit stood up slowly, put her hands on her hips and stared at him with her mouth open. She wondered for a moment if she was actually having a nightmare in which she was a tour guide employed to take amateur detectives on some sort of survival course through the underworld, then decided this scenario was too ridiculous to be a dream. She re-checked the relative positions of the bad guys, all of whom would probably shoot first and not even bother to ask questions later, before indicating in no uncertain terms that he should get his arse over here right now, if not sooner.
'I said just follow him,' Kit hissed, after Hector had darted across and side-stepped between her and Alex.
'I am. I did,' he whispered.
The sound of a small motor starting up was the only thing that saved Hector's nose from having a short, sharp introduction to Kit's fist. She glanced around the corner again in time to see Christo hooning up the ramp at the wheel of a large forklift, on the front of which was a pile of boxes, and on the back a guy with altogether too much testosterone. The latter was presumably the Andy that Geoffrey had been talking to.
'Computers,' Hector muttered in Kit's ear.
'What?' she asked turning back.
'The boxes. They're Toshiba laptops.'
Bloody hell, Kit thought. Why on earth are all these people skulking around in the middle of the night loading computers onto a boat? A boat!
Kit raised her hands and placed one on Hector's shoulder and the other on Alex's.
'Stay here,' she whispered forcefully. 'No matter what happens, do not move from this spot until I get back. OK?'
Alex and Hector looked at each other and then back at Kit before nodding.
Although Kit could hear voices coming from the loading bay, Davis Whitten and the red-head appeared to be the only two members of the opposing team left inside the warehouse. They were still in the office.
Kit headed off down the hall towards the lunch room, hoping to god that her own partners in crime would actually do as they were told this time. She turned the snib on the outside door into the unlocked position, so she could get back in easily, slipped carefully outside and crept back through the hole under the loading bay.
Through a gap in the corrugated iron in the south-west corner of the bay she had a perfect view of the lower section of the ramp and the front half of a large and luxurious-looking cabin cruiser, which was moored alongside the pontoon dock. The boat's name, painted in large letters on the bow, left Kit no doubts as to the identity of the tall, bespectacled man directing the loading operation.
Well, hello Malcolm Smith! It looks like the gang's all here, Kit thought as she watched the captain, hat and all, of the Shirley Too turn to say something to Geoffrey and Dalkeith.
A few minutes later Christo handed the last of the boxes to the muscle-bound Andy on the deck of the boat, then climbed into the forklift and drove it up the ramp. Kit did a double take as she took in the incongruous sight in the back of the Shirley Too. A striped canopy decorated with balloons hung over a table which was laden with food and surrounded by deck chairs which, in turn, were occupied by three blonde women, each holding champagne glasses and wearing nothing but g-strings.
The tock-tock-tock of high-heeled footsteps almost directly overhead made Kit jerk back from the peephole, even though she knew she couldn't be seen from above.
'They've finished,' the woman said. 'You'd better get on board Davis.'
'Sure thing babe. I'll see you tomorrow.'
'Davis...'
'What?
'Don't call me babe.'
That voice! Kit thought, trying to place it. There was no doubt in her mind that this red-head and Geoffrey's favourite crimson tart were one and the same person but it dawned on her that she'd never been close enough to see the woman's face.
Kit moved slightly to her left, trying to get a better view through the gaps in the decking above but it was too dark to see anything more than two pairs of legs.
Legs! That's it, she thought. The voice belonged to the owner of the legs she'd glimpsed in the back room at the Skintone Agency. Well of course it does, O'Malley! Now that you know she's in on whatever this is, that's hardly a revelation.
Oh shut up, she said to herself, cursing the shortness of her short-term memory. She couldn't remember whether the voice was familiar this time because she'd heard it at Skintone, or whether it had been familiar then as well, which would mean she'd heard it somewhere else. But where?
Kit turned her attention back to the dock. Captain Smith had started the engine and Andy was casting off the mooring line. Dalkeith and Geoffrey shook hands with Whitten who then clambered into the back of the boat where Grainger was already manhandling two sets of naked breasts.
As the Shirley Too pulled away from the dock a row of coloured lights sprang to life around the edge of the boat's canopy. Kit almost laughed but she had to hand it to them. They'd obviously decided that the best way to camouflage their nefarious nocturnal activities was to make a spectacle of themselves.
Geoffrey, Dalkeith, and Andy reached the top of the ramp before the boat was even out of sight.
'Right. That's it for tonight,' Dalkeith was saying. 'Malcolm says Friday night is still OK for the last load, but he wants to change the pickup time to 9 pm.'
'I don't understand why we didn't send it all in one go.'
'That's because you don't understand shit, Andy,' the woman said.
'Different customers, different delivery schedule that's all,' Dalkeith stated. 'Now, go and tell Bruce that you're taking over from him, so he can go home. Oh, and Andy, if you duck out for a hamburger like you did last night I will personally cut your balls off and then drown you in the river. You got that?'
'Yes Mr Dalkeith.'
'Good. Now piss off.'
'That cretin is a serious liability,' Geoffrey said, obviously after Andy was out of earshot.
'That cretin is too stupid to be a liability Geoff,' said Dalkeith walking away. 'I'm going home. You two can lock up tonight. I'll see you on Friday.'
Damn, thought Kit. All this conversation and no-one has directly addressed the woman yet. A name might be nice, come on Geoffrey.
'Let's go back to your place, babe,' Geoffrey said.
I don't think she likes being called that, Geoffrey, Kit thought. And it doesn't tell me who she is.
The woman laughed. 'I don't think you'll last that long Tiger.'
Wrong O'Malley, Kit thought. She obviously doesn't mind being called babe by her Tiger.
'It looks like those bare titties got Mr Big all excited,' she was saying. Geoffrey's inarticulate response was accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a zip being undone.
Oh my god! Kit thought. One half of her mind told her to get as far away from this unexpected development as possible, while the other half told her to stay put until she had a name to go with the red hair and the voice.
'You really want to do it here?' Geoffrey asked, somewhat breathlessly.
'I want you to do me, right here. Right now.'
Kit dropped to her knees and rolled sideways through the dirt when she realised that in their clumsy jostling for position, Geoffrey had rammed his 'babe' up against the fence directly above her.
'Take it, babe,' Geoffrey was saying.
'Oh yes, all the way,' was the response.
An incredible urge to laugh was Kit's reaction. This is way beyond the call of duty, she thought.
'Oh Maggie. Yes...Maggie,' Geoffrey groaned.
Oh-Maggie-yes-Maggie? Kit decided that was a good enough name, and made a run for the side door of the warehouse.
She found Alex and Hector just where she'd left them.
'I think Dalkeith and the guard have gone, and Christo and the other guy are upstairs in the office,' Alex whispered. 'We heard the boat leave. Where's everyone else?'
'Grainger, Whitten and Malcolm Smith took off with some naked bimbos in Smith's boat. And Geoffrey...' Kit hesitated, fixing Alex with what she hoped was a serious look.
'And Geoffrey what?'
'And Geoffrey and the red-head are out on the loading bay screwing each other's brains out.'
'You're kidding,' Alex said, her disbelieving tone slightly at odds with her amused expression. 'You're not kidding. Honestly, that man must be a walking erection.'
'Tell me about it,' Kit stated. 'I've followed his sexual assignations for weeks but getting that close was something I didn't need.'
'You're filthy O'Malley. What were you doing out there?' Alex queried, reaching out to pull a piece of dried grass from Kit's hair.
'I was rolling around in the dirt trying to avoid the fallout,' Kit replied, stepping awkwardly back from Alex who was trying to brush the dust off her T-shirt. 'I can manage,' she added, running her hands through her hair to get rid of the debris, before brushing her own clothes down.
'Christo! Andy!' It was Oh-Maggie-yes-Maggie doing a great impersonation of the wicked witch of the west, while Geoffrey yanked on the chains to pull the door closed.
'This job must be murder on your nerves,' muttered Alex who was clutching her throat.
Kit growled in frustration. She was still too far away from them to get a good look at Maggie's face. Not only had the light over the stairs been turned out, so she could barely make out Geoffrey's features, but he was walking on the wrong side of his babe for Kit to get a clear view.
Five minutes later Geoffrey, Maggie and Christo were gone, all the doors they'd thought about were closed and locked, and all the lights were off, except the one in the office where Andy was sitting with his feet up on the desk.
'OK,' Kit announced. 'It's time to find out what's left in that crate. If we can find it in the dark.' She led the way back, she hoped, to where they'd heard Geoffrey and his mates loading the forklift.
The light from the office cast a glow down the stairs and for about twenty feet out from the corner it was in, but beyond that the warehouse was almost in pitch darkness. Kit found the crate by accident, after walking blindly into the forklift that was parked next to it. The crate was about five feet square. Christo and Andy had put the lid back on but had, quite considerately Kit thought, not nailed it shut again.
'Hector,' she whispered. 'Give me a hand, please.'
Together they lifted the lid and lowered it to the ground. The clack it made when it met the floor echoed around the warehouse. Kit, Alex and Hector dived back into the cover of the stacks as Andy flung open the door to the office.
'Shut up you bastard rats,' he bellowed.
Oh Geoffrey, Kit thought. You should have challenged Dalkeith's opinion that this cretin was too stupid to be a liability.
'And fuck you, Mis-ter Dalkeith,' Andy added, pulling a set of keys from his pocket as he stomped down the stairs. He unlocked the side door and slammed it on his way out.
'What do you suppose that was all about?' Alex asked.
'I think Andy's gone to get a hamburger,' Kit replied. 'Come on, let's get this over with.'
Kit climbed up on the side of the fork lift, pulled a small torch from her pocket and shone the light into the crate. It was about half-full with tightly-packed boxes bearing the Toshiba logo.
'There's got to be something other than computers in these boxes,' she said.
'I could climb in and open one up,' Hector suggested.
'In you go then,' Kit agreed.
Hector clambered over the side of the crate and, dropping to his knees, pulled one of the boxes free. A charming-looking flick knife appeared in his hand as if by magic and he set to work on the sealing tape.
'You could get arrested for carrying one of those things these days,' Kit said.
'We could get arrested for just about everything we've done tonight, O'Malley,' said Alex.
'Nah, it's more likely we'd get cut into little pieces for everything we've done tonight,' Hector stated, grinning into the torch light. 'I hope your gun's got a full clip boss, just in case that guy comes back.'
'I don't carry a gun, Hector.'
'What? Are you crazy? All private detectives have guns.'
'Not in the State of Victoria they don't. It's against the law,' Kit explained, waving her hand to indicate he should stop yacking and get on with things.
'Oh great. What are you going to do O'Malley, dazzle him with your little pen light?' Hector folded the flaps of the box back and pulled out the bubble-plastic packing, then a power cord, then a sleek black Toshiba laptop, which he opened.
'Everything seems in order boss. It looks like a computer to me. What were you hoping for?'
'Oh, I don't know. Something, anything to justify all their slinking around in the middle of the goddamn night,' Kit replied, throwing her hands up and nearly throwing herself off the forklift in the process. 'You'd better put all that stuff back, then try another box. Please,' she added, handing the torch to Hector so she could climb down and get her feet back on level ground.
'I'm going to search the office, Alex. Please stay right here with Hector.'
Kit had just crossed the fifty or so feet of empty warehouse and reached the bottom of the staircase when she heard a key sliding into the lock of the side door.
Uh oh, she thought, as she grabbed the handrail and used it to help her swing into the space under the stairs.
Andy, whistling tunelessly, stepped inside and dumped an esky on the ground so he could lock the door. He was having trouble with that simple task till he realised it would be easier if he also put down the beer he was drinking so he could concentrate on one thing at a time.
Alex, Hector, for goodness sake pay attention! That's not me whistling, Kit wanted to shout, when she realised she could still see the thin beam of the torch flicking faintly from the other end of the building.
Oh shit! Too late, she groaned to herself as she watched Andy turn from the door and freeze, his attention fixed on what was obviously an extremely puzzling phenomenon. It took a few seconds but it finally must have clicked with him that even 'bastard' rats don't have headlights. Kit watched in astonishment as the world's oldest Ninja Turtle dropped to a crouch and executed a very neat sideways roll that put him back in the same balanced crouching position, four whole feet from where he'd started.
Well that achieved a lot, Andy, she thought. What's your next move?
She immediately wished she hadn't asked that question, even silently, because Andy's idea of a next move was to produce a very large torch from his jacket pocket, which he didn't turn on, and a hand gun from the waist band of his trousers. Still hunched down, he began moving in the direction of the mysterious light.
Kit looked about for some kind of weapon. As there were no handy AK-47s just lying around she had to settle for a slim, three-foot length of pipe.
Andy, who was still moving rapidly away from her, hadn't checked his back once. After easing out from under the stairs Kit leapt up and down and waved her arms about wildly hoping that Alex, at least, was looking in her direction. Then she made a beeline for the nearest aisle, ran like hell down to the other end and skidded to a stop when she heard Andy shouting.
'Get em up. Get your hands in the air.'
Kit crept along the cross aisle and peered around the corner, blinking in the backwash of the high beam that was being directed straight into Alex's understandably startled face. With the light in her eyes there was no way that Alex could see Kit standing about six feet behind the maniac who was pointing the gun at her. In fact Alex probably couldn't even see the maniac who was pointing the gun at her.
Don't do anything silly Alex. Please, Kit prayed, wondering vaguely where Hector was.
Alex, with her arms held very sensibly above her head, squinted into the light and smiled ever-so-sweetly. 'Would you mind lowering the torch a bit, Andy, you're blinding me. It's OK, really,' she said.
'What do you mean it's OK? What are you doing here? And how do you know my name?' Andy asked, waving the gun around.
'I'm a friend of Geoffrey's, of Mr Robinson. He left me here to keep you company.'
Oh, good one Alex! Kit thought. This woman must be awesome in court, she is so gorgeously cool.
'What?' Andy stopped shining the torch in Alex's eyes, and played the light over the rest of her body instead.
'What do you mean what? Didn't he tell you, Andy?'
'He didn't tell me nothin. I never saw you with Mr Robinson. How'd you get here anyway?'
'I came on the boat with the others. He said I should stick around to keep you from getting bored.'
'Yeah?'
Andy really wanted to believe this but Kit doubted even he was that stupid. She'd also caught the flicker of fear that had crossed Alex's face. She had obviously just noticed the gun.
Kit stared at the pipe in her hand and then looked back at Andy, debating whether or not to race out and belt him over the back of the head with it. He was about the same height as her, but he was built like a brick shithouse and she had no idea how hard she'd have to hit him to do any damage. And the gun might go off accidentally. She looked at the pipe again. It still wasn't an AK-47. But Andy didn't know that.
Edging out of her hiding place, she moved silently up behind him.
'Drop the gun arsehole,' she growled, shoving the open end of the pipe against the back of his neck.
Andy went rigid but apart from that didn't move a muscle.
Kit took a deep breath and, in the best Dirty Harry voice she could muster, shouted: 'Do it! Or I'll splatter your brains all over this nice lady.'
That worked. Andy dropped the gun. And the torch.
'Pick them up Alex,' Kit urged, jabbing the pipe hard into Andy's kidneys to talk him out of making a run for it.
Alex did as she was told, then just stood there staring at the gun in her hand and looking more than a little bewildered.
'Alex honey, point the gun at the bad guy,' Kit said softly.
'Oh, right,' Alex said, aiming the weapon in the general direction of Andy's head, crutch, chest, knee, crutch.
'Far out!' exclaimed Hector, popping up from his hiding place in the crate like a jack-in-the-box.
'Christ Hector! You scared the shit out of me!' Kit snapped.
'Sorry boss.'
'And stop calling me boss.'
'Who the fuck are you people?' Andy demanded.
'I don't think the answer to ask that question is really going to help you much while your boss, Mis-ter Dalkeith, is cutting your balls off. Do you?' Kit asked.
'I guess not,' Andy muttered, as if he'd just recognised the gravity of his situation. 'What are you going to do with me?'
'Nothing Andy. Personally I've yet to come across a good use for balls, so I thought I'd maybe just tie you up and leave you to explain all this mess to you-know-who.'
'Hey O'Malley, I thought you said you didn't carry a gun,' Hector said, as he swung one leg over the edge of the crate.
'Shut up Hector,' Kit ordered, a split second before Andy, his brain suddenly functioning at almost the same speed as his body, twisted around and said: 'What?'
In two swift moves, Andy kicked the torch from Alex's hand and slugged Kit in the jaw, sending her flying out of his way as he barged past into the dark.
Kit had just enough time to register an odd smacking sound before she crashed head-first into the stack of crates. Then the lights went out.