AMY FOLLOWS BILL WEBBER at a distance. They’re out on the highway, heading north, 3.30 am. She picked up his trail two hours back, coming out of the Surfers Paradise police station. Amy was expecting him to head home, but Webber came out of the carpark and walked around the block to a payphone. The moment she saw him in the booth, she knew something was up. The scene had an edge to it.
The rest is a repeat of his last mission.
Webber heads home for a change of clothes.
Grabs his sports bag.
The personal car.
Then back out onto the highway and into the night.
Webber takes the Gaven exit and brings his car into the undulating hill country behind the coast. He drives until he reaches a fancy estate: a two-storey house behind a tall brick fence.
Webber parks but leaves the car running.
He climbs the fence and disappears.
No following him this time. Too risky. Instead, Amy pulls her car in close, snaps photos with the flash, getting Webber’s licence plates and the gate and the postbox all in the same shot. Then she immediately kills her headlights and slowly reverses back down the road to a secluded spot.
She doesn’t wait long.
Webber is back out in five minutes.
Running.
The interior lights of his car blink on.
Sports bag thrown in.
The engine fires and he pulls a fast U-turn.
Amy stays with him this time. Back down the Pacific Highway and into the coastal backstreets. She’s surprised to see him steer away from his home. Is it a second stop? Webber pulls into a late-night servo in Palm Beach and eats a packet of chips. He refuels his car and heads north, past the Strip and up along the Esplanade. In Southport, he turns into the residential streets and snakes his way through to a dark place on Pohlman Drive.
Amy recognises the house.
It’s the place she ran surveillance on only a week ago.
The house she photographed.
The photographs she gave to that cop.
How does this fit together?
The interior lights of Webber’s car show him leaning over into the passenger seat, checking something. He steps out, slips down the side of the house.
Amy watches on, but nothing happens. She winds her window down and listens.
A quiet night on a quiet street.
A few minutes later, Webber reappears, but he’s not in a hurry this time. He walks back to his car and drives away, bearing south through the suburbs rather than out onto the main drag.
But these are familiar roads, too.
A familiar vector.
Don’t be crazy, she thinks.
But Webber keeps moving closer and closer to another place she knows.
The route becomes undeniable.
He turns onto Campbell Street, running down the centre of the Bundall canal estates, and moves along Freyburg Street.
It’s a coincidence.
Webber indicates right at the next intersection.
Amy breathes out.
But then Webber turns left.
No.
Around onto the waterfront and along Marseille Court and from there it’s a given, for Amy knows exactly where Webber is heading—knows it in her guts—and there he is, slowly checking street numbers, creeping along until his car pulls up in front of a particular mansion. Webber sits there waiting and watching, his car idling.
Amy is too close to him, but there’s very little keeping her together. Her nerves are so fried she’s shaking. Hands on the steering wheel, willing him, mentally pushing him to get out.
Go on, you fuck.
Do it.
Get out and go inside.
Webber steps out, walks up the drive of the house and looks around. He fusses with something near the gate.
He looks at the intercom keypad.
Checks the gate.
Then he walks back to his car and drives away.
Amy doesn’t follow this time.
It’s too much.
She stays in her car and huffs small breaths.
There are tears in her eyes.
A headache washing through.
Fuck.
This is the house of her father, Victor Owens.
Her childhood home.