AMY STASHES MIKE IN a half-finished skyscraper on the Surfers Paradise foreshore. The guy is some sort of political operative, but all Amy knows is that Colleen wants him kept alive and away from the police. ‘He didn’t kill Jamie,’ the boss says. ‘He was with me all night.’ And it must be true, because Jamie Leaver was a decent earner for Colleen. People are dispensable. Money-makers, less so.
The way Mike tells it, he’s into something bad with the cops. Claims he went to the wrong party and that the Deputy Commissioner of Police has a secret file room in a bunker under his tennis court. Mike says he bribed Jamie into letting him into the bunker. To cap it off, Mike has a piece of paper—a one-page ledger he’s lifted—that has dates, names and figures. ‘It’s got all sorts of people listed. Everyone’s on it.’ It sounds insane, and it is, but there are dark overlaps forming.
Bill Webber has stolen police files too. He’s hospitalising pedos. He’s got his own list.
He’s lurking outside her father’s house.
On the loose.
Has she been working for this same group of crooked cops chasing Mike? Ray Blintiff works up in the city with Arthur Sorensen. Blintiff is paying her to find these files Webber lifted.
Are they the same files?
Am I going to get beheaded like Jamie?
Am I next?
Amy helps Mike settle in, then leaves him be.
Back down on the street, she calls Colleen from a payphone. Colleen knows the details. She’s thinking the same way, except it’s not fear with Colleen. It’s fury. ‘These fucking dickheads are making a mess. Here’s what you’re going to do,’ and then she lays it out.
Jamie Leaver lived in a six-pack apartment building in Mermaid Beach. It’s one of Colleen’s investments, so it isn’t in Jamie’s name and the police haven’t arrived yet. They haven’t worked it out or someone is pulling on the reins. Either way, Amy has the head start.
She rolls on a pair of surgical gloves and cases the place by torchlight. Jamie wasn’t big on decorating. He’s got roadside furniture and zero kitchenware. He has a thing for clothes, but that’s it. Casing the place takes fifteen minutes flat.
She rolls the mattress.
She pulls out drawers and turns them out.
She searches the back of his closet.
Amy drags out shirts and jackets until she finds something.
A set of keys on a hook, at the back of the closet.
She shines the beam on them and lights them up. They’re freshly cut.
Amy exits, takes the stair to the building’s open carports. Jamie’s spot is empty, but there’s a bag of trash propped in the corner. Amy grabs it, drives to a deserted park a few streets over and sorts through the garbage on a picnic table.
A flattened shoebox.
Empty shampoo bottles.
A couple of spent condoms.
Finally, a bank statement smeared in dry coffee. It’s old, but there’s a transaction Amy knows well. Hamilton Storage. It’s an industrial park out by Coolangatta Airport. She has the key and the lock now.
Hamilton Storage is closed. The night guard is a pain in the arse, but he looks like an ex-crim so Amy drops Colleen’s name on him and he’s all ears after that. Amy slips him a fifty to get in the gate. Another fifty buys her Jamie Leaver’s shed number. It’s number thirty-six, one of the bigger units, a small warehouse rather than the usual single-car garage.
Amy rolls the door and hits the lights. There are two cars parked inside, both under tarpaulin covers. Nothing fancy: a silver Ford Falcon and a white Sigma. Amy writes down the plate numbers. She tries Jamie’s keys and they take. Clean inside, but the cars have been worked on. Mechanic’s tools line one side of the shed. On a hunch, Amy pops the bonnet of the Sigma. It has a new V8 engine installed. Definitely a custom job.
Amy gives the rest of the shed the once-over. There are two beds in a room partitioned off in the corner, something more like an office than a bedroom. One bed has clean sheets, the other looks slept in. There’s a few personal items—toothbrush and a glass of water on a paint-tin for a bedside table.
Amy returns to the main room. She studies the bench, the cabinets, a steel-frame shelving unit. It all looks pretty unremarkable except for a long timber box under a workbench. Amy drags it out. There’s a padlock and the last of Jamie’s keys snaps it open. Inside, she finds four pump-action shotguns.
She lifts one out and takes a long whiff.
Recently fired.
Amy calls it in to Colleen. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling.’
‘How bad?’
‘So bad I don’t want to say it on the phone. I think we’re into something even worse than the other stuff.’
‘What about Mike?’
‘Cut him loose. I don’t know how it all fits together, but the whole thing is going to rain down on us like a tonne of bricks if we keep going.’
Colleen thinks on it. ‘I don’t want to,’ she says. ‘I’m too close.’
‘Close to what?’
‘Just … stay on it.’
‘Stay on it? I should be leaving town.’
‘No, Amy. You’re going to do what I tell you to do.’
The line goes dead.