Chapter 46

Jess, Dave and Christine stood around Christine’s kitchen table as Harry rolled out a Quantity Surveying map of Brisbane. It was marked with little red crosses.

Harry flicked through the photos on his phone, until he found the one of Jess’s cardplayer.

‘It never made any sense, right? What sort of hand is this? What sort of game involves holding that many cards?’ Harry said.

Dave started to speak. Harry cut him off. ‘I know there are such games, but in tattoos?’

He zoomed in. ‘And see here, on the third card?’ he said.

Christine squinted. ‘It’s like a full stop.’

‘Exactly. Read the numbers out to me.’

Christine took the phone and read out the numbers. Harry looked up and down the side of the map, at the numbers written there. He picked up his red pencil and a ruler.

‘I’ll have to estimate a bit, because the scale doesn’t go down that far.’

Harry marked each side of the map at the right spot. ‘Grab that piece of string, Dave,’ he said.

He looked up at Christine and shook his head in admiration. Despite his arse-hattery on awards night, when he and Jess had rocked up on her doorstep on Sunday morning she didn’t bombard him with questions. She just said, ‘How can I help?’

Dave picked up the string, held it to the dot Harry had drawn. Harry did the same on the other side, bisecting the map about a third of the way down.

‘Rob was meant to get the other tattoo, the longitude. But they ran out of time. Kyla only managed to get hers because she escaped the bikie raid. It was the last tattoo she ever got. And it represents this line across Brisbane.’

Dave assessed. ‘That’s a lot of ground to cover.’

‘Yeah. Except, we don’t have to. We know that Cardinal devel­oped a penchant for property investment after Rob and Kyla went missing. He’s has been buying up little pieces of property all over the city. Places of significance.’

‘But why?’ Dave said.

‘Because of the last thing Rob said. He told them that the dossier was hidden somewhere…’

‘Somewhere special,’ Jess said.

Harry traced the line, until it intersected with one of the red crosses he’d drawn earlier. Dave squinted, trying to make sense of the map.

‘It’s Paddington water tower,’ Harry said.

‘Fuck me,’ Dave said.

‘Rob lived just over the other side from where Cardinal’s dad lived,’ Harry said. ‘It was close, convenient.’

‘Why not a safety deposit box?’ Jess asked.

‘He was worried about it falling into the wrong hands. He knew Cardinal had some powerful friends. Assumed police might be among those friends.’

‘Shit,’ Christine said. ‘Surely they would have searched it. Cardinal’s had his grubby little hands on it for long enough.’

Harry shrugged. ‘If they searched, they didn’t find it. I’m guessing that’s why the big push to restore the tower rather than knock it down. You knock something down, who knows what’s going to come tumbling out of it.’

Dave stood up. ‘Well then, let’s go, right?’

‘He’s got the place under surveillance,’ Harry said.

‘So what? We get the evidence and we take it to the police.’

‘If we get that far,’ Jess said.

‘What? They’ve got people waiting around the corner?’

Jess shrugged. ‘Maybe. Crow is still out there, right? Heathy’s probably checked himself out of hospital. They’re not exactly in Cardinal’s good books at the moment. They’d be looking to make amends.’

Harry took the string away, folded up the map. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be a case of opening up the water tower and “Ta-dah!” ’

‘And we don’t know exactly what’s in the dossier,’ Jess said. ‘We need to make sure we’ve got time to sort through it, without bikies after us.’

‘Vessel and Cardinal know that Heathy and Crow failed. They’re going to suspect I had something to do with the attack on the clubhouse.

‘Look, Saturday’s election day. They’re going to be extremely busy. They’ll think they’ve won. We can’t make a mistake with this. We’ve only got one shot. We just need to lie low until then.’