Chapter Sixty

Caitlin was pleased to see Zoe had already arrived when they returned to the apartment. It would have been so difficult to get through the last couple of weeks without her. They hugged long and hard, burying their heads in each other’s shoulders.

Zoe gave a shorter hug to Jack. When they separated, Zoe said, ‘One of my clients owns the servo at Suffolk Park. Jack, was it a black van seen in the carpark on the night Patrick went missing?’

Jack nodded.

‘She said they have a few black vans fill up every day and so she copied me the camera footage. It could be nothing, but worth a look.’ Zoe held up a memory stick.

Caitlin let out an involuntary groan. ‘I hope that’s not password protected.’

They copied across the surveillance footage to each of their laptops. It was a slow process.

‘These are huge files,” said Caitlin.

‘It’s open twenty-four hours,’ said Zoe.

‘Of course it is,’ said Caitlin. It was going to be a long afternoon.

The footage stretched over three days, and they took a day each, agreeing to quickly scan through and record the time any black vans appeared, after which they would review each sighting together.

Caitlin opened her file, and her screen filled with the video from four cameras – one positioned inside behind the counter, another facing outwards across the forecourt to the road beyond, the others positioned on each side facing towards the petrol pumps. Impressive. And the resolution was good.

The video app allowed her to speed up the footage and soon cars were zooming in and out. It was easy to spot vans, but they were mostly white. The work was strangely mesmerising. After half an hour, she’d scrubbed through eight hours. No black vans.

Caitlin pulled herself out of her trance and stood and stretched. She put on the kettle and soon they were all back at the mind-numbing work, each with a steaming cup of tea untouched and growing cold beside them. An hour later she was done, her bum sore from sitting. She rubbed her weary eyes. ‘I saw five,’ she said.

In total, they had twelve.

They gathered around Caitlin’s laptop and started working through Jack’s list. The first hit was a large black van with no side windows. It pulled up to the petrol pump and a male driver in his thirties wearing nothing but board shorts climbed out and filled the tank. The inside camera provided a clear view of his face. He approached the counter, smiled at the attendant as he paid, walked back to his van and drove away.

‘Shit,’ said Caitlin. ‘How do we identify a murdering bastard?’

Jack shrugged. ‘Dark sunnies, black clothes, looking shifty. Just like in the movies.’

Zoe said, ‘So we’re looking for Chopper Read?’

‘Yes,’ said Jack, ‘although our man probably won’t have his ears cut off.’

They moved methodically through each sighting. They quickly crossed off the first six – their drivers were wearing thongs, had a dog or were hobbling on crutches. The first female driver had caused an argument. Jack wanted to cross her off, Caitlin accused him of being sexist, and the argument was only settled when the driver collected her baby before going inside to pay. That left one possible suspect on the basis of nothing particularly scientific. Caitlin was losing hope; the van they were looking for could have stopped at any of the petrol stations in town, or none at all.

She loaded her footage and skipped to her first van. The driver was a big unit in black jeans, black T-shirt and dark sunglasses.

Zoe whacked Caitlin on the arm. ‘Here comes Chopper now.’

As the man walked inside to pay, Caitlin felt an ice-cold constriction around her chest. Her breath seemed to be trapped inside her. She said, ‘I recognise that man.’

‘Who is he?’ asked Zoe.

‘I do too,’ said Jack. He grabbed the laptop and rewound the footage for another look.

Zoe asked again. ‘Who, Caitlin? Who is it?’

Caitlin said, ‘Jack, Jack.’ She shook his arm and he looked at her. ‘He’s the man that was hanging around outside my apartment in Sydney before the police raid.’

Jack’s face blanched. ‘Jesus. Fuck.’

Zoe was more insistent this time. ‘Who is he?’ she said loudly.

Jack just stared straight at Caitlin. He didn’t answer.

‘Jack?’ Caitlin prodded.

‘His name is Fidel.’

‘And?’

He couldn’t hold her gaze, and looked at his hands. ‘He used to be my father’s head of security.’

‘What?’

‘He’s bad news. Very bad.’

Caitlin’s mind raced. She thought of the tumultuous last couple of months, the drug raid on her house, of her arrest and dismissal from her job. But mostly she thought about her father. Were all of these things linked? This man was at her apartment and then here when her father died – and he used to work for Malcolm Harris.

He killed her father. He must have.

All her suppressed rage erupted. She let out a howl and jumped to her feet, grabbed her teacup from the table and hurled it at Jack. He ducked, but it struck him on the shoulder, cold tea spraying everywhere. She threw Zoe’s cup and it collected him on the elbow. She charged at him. Jack backed away, tripped over a chair and fell heavily.

Zoe yelled, ‘Caitlin!’

Caitlin leaped onto Jack and screamed, ‘You bastard!’ She punched him in the cheek and he put his hands up to cover his face. ‘Your father killed my father.’ She pummelled her fists into his chest and abdomen until Zoe dragged her onto the floor where she curled up into a ball, sobbing.

She felt Jack’s hand on her shoulder. He spoke quietly to her. ‘Fidel doesn’t work for my father anymore.’

Caitlin called out through her hands, ‘Why didn’t you stop him?’

She felt Zoe lie on the floor behind her and wrap an arm around her shoulders. They lay together until her tears eventually dried up and her breathing settled. When at last Zoe helped her up from the floor, Jack was nowhere to be seen. She couldn’t blame him.

Zoe helped Caitlin onto the lounge and fetched her a blanket, then sat and held her hand.

Jack returned from the bathroom, a large red mark on his cheek.

‘I’m so sorry, Jack,’ said Caitlin. She could feel burning in her hands where she’d struck him.

‘I would have lost it too,’ said Jack. ‘Although I’m not sure I could have punched as hard as you.’ He tried to smile, winced and put his hand to his face.

Zoe asked, ‘Should we call Begley?’

‘Fidel could just say he was holidaying in the area,’ said Jack. ‘We need some evidence he was involved.’

‘And holidaying out the front of my house in Sydney?’

Jack returned to the table and the laptop. He centred the image of Fidel and the black van on the laptop screen, then took photos with his phone. He then reloaded a different video and started searching again.

Caitlin said, ‘So the drugs in my freezer were a warning to Dad, from whoever hired Fidel to kill him? Who does Fidel work for now?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jack. ‘It could be anyone – he sells himself to the highest bidder.’ He returned his attention to the computer screen. After a few more minutes he said, ‘There it is.’ He turned the laptop to Caitlin and replayed a video for her. ‘This was around dawn on the morning of the murder.’

A black van could be seen driving along the road past the service station.

‘But it could be any van,’ she said.

‘Maybe. But as we’ve seen, they’re uncommon. And it’s head­ing south.’

‘And?’ asked Caitlin.

‘I think they were using our old house as a base. I normally stay there, but I was told some guests were using it. And Fidel sometimes stayed there when he worked for Dad. Maybe he still has a key.’ Jack stood up from the table. His clothes were covered in tea stains, his cheek growing redder all the time. ‘I’m going to take a look. And find Don – he knows everything that comes and goes at the house. I want to know if Fidel really was staying there.’ He headed to the door.

Caitlin called after him, ‘Jack, be careful.’

He nodded at her, and was gone.

Caitlin felt remorse creeping in. Why had she hit out at Jack? A few hours earlier she was admiring his abs, then she was hitting them. Maybe the stress was getting to her, making her irrational.

‘Tea?’ asked Zoe.