Stevie was the only person alive who could connect Dave to Al. To the robbery and the two dead guards. Now Dave was back in Sydney, waiting in the dark, getting ready to kill his best friend’s son. He was parked in the street behind Stevie’s, across the road from the apartment block that backed onto Stevie’s backyard. There were no lights in any of the windows.
His watch said 3:33 a.m.
He pulled on a pair of gloves and screwed the suppressor on the Smith & Wesson .38. The S&W had been his first gun; Al had given it to him after their first job together. “Nah, you hang on to it, pal,” he’d said when Dave had tried to give it back to him after they’d robbed a smack dealer in Ashfield. “If you’re going to make a living in this game, you’ll be needing a shooter.” And now he was visiting Al’s son with that same gun, because after all this time, he’d never had to fire it during a job. It was still clean. He tucked the gun into the pocket of his jacket and made sure the overhead light was off before he cracked open the car door. The air was cool now, the rest of the city just a distant hum. He crossed the road to the 1970s blond-brick apartment building and slipped through the shadows along the driveway to the parking area at the rear.
The money hadn’t shown up in his accounts when it should have. That was what made Dave wonder what Stevie was up to. Ever since the job on Burwood Road, Dave had been watching for any news reports out of Sydney, buying the Herald and the Telegraph every morning. In the first few days, there’d been plenty of stuff about the shooting, but after that, the stories were all about Christmas and the usual holiday-season crap. It had been days since there’d been any mention of Al or the robbery. Even the stories about the English connection, and links to previous unsolved robberies, had lasted only a couple of days. Dave needed to know what the cops were doing. And where his money was.
He and Al had trusted each other with their lives plenty of times, but Stephen Munro wasn’t Al. Not by a long shot. If the cops got hold of him…well, Stevie had only been the driver, hadn’t he? He hadn’t fired his gun; he’d been bullied into the job by the two older men… That had to be his play: give up Dave and the money. It could get a big chunk taken off the long stretch Stevie might be facing. He would cut a deal if the cops caught up to him; Dave was sure of it.
The police would eventually make the connection to Stevie. Someone would identify Al; in fact, they probably already had. It was bound to happen after all the publicity over the English bullion robbery, and then it wouldn’t take them long to find Stevie. And all Stevie had to bargain with was Dave. Stevie was still young, which meant he had plenty of incentive to dog on Dave, make a deal to reduce his own sentence. The bastard might already be talking to the robbery squad.
A low brick planter box at the rear of the apartment block made it easy for Dave to hoist himself over the fence. He landed silently in Stevie’s backyard and waited, listening. Dave knew there was no alarm and no dog. Stevie had a thing for cats. Something to do with his mother, Al had reckoned. They’d always had cats when Stevie was a boy. The back lawn was big and empty; the only thing between Dave and the back of the house was a clothes hoist.
The sliding door at the back of the house was partially open, a white cat sitting in the gap. It watched as Dave crossed the lawn, then disappeared into the dark of the house as he stepped up onto the deck. Dave pulled out the gun and a small flashlight, and stepped through the door into the living room. He crossed the room, quickly checking the dining room and kitchen. A hallway led the front of the house and the bedrooms. The carpet at the end of the hall glowed where the glass-panelled front door let in a pool of streetlight. Dave switched off the flashlight and moved slowly along the hall, keeping to the side, hoping to avoid any squeaks from the boards beneath the carpet. He followed his gun through the first door on the left. Computer room. Lots of green and white LED lights blinking from the shelves above a desk that held an enormous computer monitor and a complicated-looking joystick.
The next room was a bedroom: two unmade single beds, piled with boxes and magazines.
The door to the last bedroom was ajar. Dave nudged it open with his shoulder and moved quickly inside, the revolver held in both hands. The king-size bed was empty. Clothes hung on the back of a chair beside the window: jeans and a T-shirt. The belt in the jeans had a fancy metal buckle embossed with a scorpion design. It was the one Al had given Stevie for his birthday two years ago.
Dave made his way back through the house again, wondering where Stevie was and why he had left the house open. On the kitchen bench, he spotted a photo of Stevie, grinning because he’d just won a race. Stevie raced rally cars when he wasn’t driving for Al. Could have turned pro if he’d wanted, according to his father. Right now, Dave wished he had. The white cat meowed at him and wound itself around his ankles as Dave put the photo down and looked at the electricity bill next to it. Stevie had a workshop in Toongabbie. That was where he kept his cars.
The workshop was a low brick box in a light industrial area not far off Old Windsor Road. 4:09 shone from the dashboard clock as Dave drove past and pulled up beneath a big tree that shaded the streetlights. No one was around.
The workshop had a series of roller shutter doors opening onto a wide concrete apron. The first of the doors wasn’t quite closed. Dave looked around; everything was quiet except for the occasional sound of a car in the distance. He squatted in front of the door, his gun resting along his thigh. The air beyond the gap smelled of engine oil and paint. And something else, something burnt.
The door came open smoothly and quietly. Dave stayed down, hoping Stevie wasn’t waiting behind it with his Glock. A white Commodore was just inside, its hood up. A Mitsubishi rally car on a trailer and another car covered by a tarp were in the other workshop bays. Dave followed the flashlight beam towards the back of the workshop, squeezing between the cars, keeping his .38 clear and ready.
At the back of the workshop was a room that probably had once been an office. Now it was occupied by a narrow bed, a pool table, and Stevie’s corpse.
He hadn’t had a good death. He was naked, stretched out across the top of the pool table, his wrists and ankles tied to the corner pockets with electrical cables. His blood had soaked into the green fabric, turning it black. He’d been badly beaten, and his toes were black where they’d been burned. A butane torch lay on the floor next to the pool table. It looked like the killer had cut his throat at the end. Someone had found Stevie before the cops and had made sure he only talked to them.
Dave backed carefully out of the workshop and closed the roller shutter as quietly as he could.