Chapter Three

Mike Manning lived in a secure apartment complex in Mount Wellington, one of those ones full of first home buyers, young urban professionals (or what had previously been called Yuppies, except no one called them that anymore, just accepted they were what they were and tried to ignore them), and even the occasional hooker or small time crook.

He was on the ground floor in the corner, which allowed him to check the whole place out as he walked to his door. He liked that, knowing what was going on, who was about and who shouldn’t be there. The caretaker liked him knowing that too, because Mike tended to keep things in order around the place, helping him clean the pool or deal with noisy parties.

Mike had been to the gym on the way home and was sweaty and wired, his arms still quivering from the punishment they’d received. He got to the door and slid the key in the lock. He felt eyes on him and snapped a quick look over his shoulder. Nothing.

He paused, his eyes searching the darkness beyond the shimmering blue of the pool, where the outdoor furniture sat in the shadows with yukkas and palms behind it. Nothing.

He turned back to the door and pushed it open, stepping across the threshold as he heard a noise behind him, like the scrape of a chair leg on concrete. He spun again, seeing it this time. Movement, a shadow within the shadows, moving from near the pool furniture towards the far side gate.

Mike paused again, watching. The person moved into the ambient light from the closest apartments, and he recognised one of the neighbours with a poodle on a leash.

He let out his breath, not even realising he’d been holding it, and discarded the activity from his mind. For a moment there he’d thought it might have been her. He moved inside and shut the door, tossing his bag into the bedroom as he walked past to the kitchen.

The fridge was looking Spartan, so he checked the pantry instead. Rice risotto and tuna it was then.

The knock on the door caught him by surprise and he answered it with a bottle of sweet chilli sauce in his hand. His neighbour, Simon the sparky, stood on the welcome mat with a large brown envelope in his hand.

‘Hey Simon.’

‘I saw your light on, this came for you today so I signed for it ‘cause you weren’t home. I hope that’s alright.’

‘Yeah, no worries mate.’ He took it from the other man. ‘Thanks.’

‘Not a problem Mike.’

Mike wasn’t much of a small talker and he shut the door quickly while Simon was still there. It wasn’t that he wanted to be rude-Simon was a nice guy-but he already knew what the envelope was going to be and he didn’t want to share it with the neighbour.

He took the envelope into the kitchen, put down the sauce bottle, and broke the seal. The envelope was addressed to him with a printed label, and had a courier sticker on the front.

He opened the envelope and checked the contents.

No doubt about it. It was her.

 

Molly’s morning started the usual way, clearing email and phone messages, making a couple of calls and tidying up the coffee table. She gathered up the post, including John Standen’s invoice and a couple of others, and popped down to the Post Office. She dropped the mail in the box, cleared the company’s PO box, and picked up a Herald from the dairy.

On the way back to the office she stopped by Mutual Insurance, two doors down from Chase, and spent a couple of minutes with the branch manager, Julie. A mousy woman in her 40’s who wore grey every day of the week, except for summer when she occasionally broke out into deafening pink or yellow, Julie was on medication for her nerves and it was Molly’s job to keep her calm and onside.

Chase did all Mutual’s investigative work in this region and intended for it to stay that way, so a bit of schmoozing always helped.

Molly dropped off a couple of files to Julie and picked up three more, chatted briefly about how busy Julie was, sympathised about how Julie’s neighbour’s cat kept digging up her petunias, then gave a cheery goodbye and headed back to her own office.

As she opened the door she stood on a piece of paper, lifted her foot and stepped back, staring at it.

It was a plain piece of white A4.

Printed on it were the words YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE.

Molly spun to look behind her, expecting some psycho to be standing behind her with a knife and evil grin.

There was no one.

She went inside and banged the door shut behind her, locking it with trembling fingers. She put the piece of paper, the files, the post and the newspaper on her desk and moved around to take her seat. The thought suddenly hit her that maybe locking the door behind her was exactly what the sender of the message wanted, so he could jump out from behind a pot plant.

Molly snatched up the stapler off her desk and prowled the office, throwing open the door to the bathroom and checking the kitchen.

Nothing.

She moved on to the other desks, checking that nobody was hiding behind them.

Nobody was.

She went back to her desk and put the stapler down. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she told herself aloud, ‘you’re being paranoid. Get a grip.’

She glanced behind herself again just to be sure and repeated again, ‘Get a grip!’

The phone rang beside her and she let out an involuntary shriek, jumping back and staring at it for a moment. She snatched the handpiece and almost shouted into it.

‘What?!’

‘Mol?’

It was Dan.

‘Oh. It’s you.’

The feeling of relief swept over her and she felt her knees go weak. She eased herself into her chair and held the receiver with both hands.

‘Uh, yeah...is something up?’

Molly felt her eyes starting to prickle and she paused, gathering herself to speak.

‘Honey? What’s up? Are you okay?’

The phone receiver trembled in her hand as she told him, and within minutes he was there.