Cross Off (3 page)

The hotel had been the brainchild of one of the 'eighties entrepreneurs, now a bankrupt. Currently, it was operated by his Japanese former partners in a somewhat less flamboyant style.

'Now you know what a million buys you in the way
of palm trees,' Dunlop said. 'I wonder what they do with all the nuts.'

'I know that.' Ava waved the pamphlet. 'Says here they are collected regularly and guests need have no fear of being hit by falling coconuts.'

'That means someone was, sometime. I meant, what happens to them in the long run?'

'Who cares?'

That was typical of Ava. Her interest in things ran out early. It was another reason why Dunlop had been able to resist her advances. What would they talk about afterwards—menthol versus virginia, Beefeater versus Gordon's, Charles Jourdan versus Gucci? He surveyed the golf course with a player's eye. The couple of holes he could see looked good—wide fairways, big bunkers, sloping greens. Getting a round in was going to be a problem. He couldn't see Ava caddying for him. The sky was showing blue around the edges as the bus pulled up at the hotel entrance.

'Be fine tomorrow,' the driver said.

Ava, hips swaying in the tight skirt, stepped carefully from the bus. 'I bet you say that to all the customers. Still, it's a nice thought. Tip the man, darling.'

Their reservations were in order. Dunlop and Ava booked, he under his own name, she as 'Mrs Margaret Browning', into two adjoining rooms in the Caribbean wing. The lobby was moderately busy, with Asian faces predominating. They stood on their respective palm-fringed balconies looking out across the impossibly clear, light-blue water. The view was towards the ocean and Dunlop could hear the sound of the waves over the music being piped to the nearest outdoor bar.

Ava yawned. 'Me for a nap. Join me, sweetie?'

Dunlop grinned. 'Feeling your age?'

'Watch me tonight. I'll run you ragged, sport.'

Dunlop lay on his double bed and thought about Ava. In his three years with the WPU he had never seen a client more coddled and cosseted. More heavily protected, yes, but none had had whims and caprices so readily satisfied. In Sydney, Ava had been housed in style in Balmain. The rent was high but the security was good, with the house backing onto the harbour and watch being easily maintained at the front and sides. She was paid a substantial allowance which she spent freely on clothes and other pleasures.

'The problem with this game,' Burton, one of Dunlop's Canberra superiors, had said, 'is that the client has too many privileges and too few responsibilities.'

Dunlop, who had been about to come on board as Ava's chief minder, shook his head. 'That's not the way they see it. They're putting their lives on the line so they reckon they're entitled to a few toys. That's the bargain as far as they're concerned.'

'You might change your mind after some time with this woman,' Burton said. 'From what they tell me, she's damn near impossible to satisfy.'

'In what way?'

'In every bloody way.'

'Why me?'

'She got two of our chaps so worked up they came to blows over her. We tried her with women but she wouldn't have it. Hates women. The thinking is that you might be able to handle her.'

'I'm not sure how to take that.'

'Take it any way you like, but keep her sweet until she can sing her song.'

That was to be in a month, at the trial of Belfante and Frost. Ava had proved surprisingly compliant before coming up with the idea of the Port Douglas trip. Her mind had run on a single track ever since she had spotted the brochures in a Darling Street travel agent's display.

'Out of the question,' Dunlop said. 'Ridiculous. Go shopping. Buy a new coat.'

'I've got enough fucking coats and I'm sick of winter. I want to go to Queensland. Come on.'

It was the first time Dunlop had heard her complain about anything. The lifestyle of the protected witness was calculated to cause nervous breakdowns and tantrums. Suicide was not unknown. But Ava had been unfailingly cheerful, albeit demanding. Dunlop had resisted, wanting to see how she behaved under pressure. From others, he had experienced wheedling, sulking, violence. Ava simply pointed to the telephone.

'Get Col Brown on the blower.'

'Why?'

'Deal's off. I made a mistake. Better to go up on a public mischief charge than perjure myself.'

'Ava.'

Ava lit a cigarette and stared through the window towards Balls Head across the water. 'I'm serious. Call Col.'

Impressed, Dunlop relented. 'Brisbane—maybe.'

'Brisbane be buggered. Port Douglas or nothing. The Oasis Resort. Two weeks in the sun.'

Dunlop picked up the phone. Knowing he was looking, Ava tightened her skirt across her bottom. Dunlop laughed. 'One week, Ava. That's it.'

'Ten days.'

'All right.'

'Great. Let's have a drink.'

So here they were, at the taxpayers' expense. Dunlop remained alert and resisted the lulling comfort and soothing atmospherics. At the best of times he found it difficult to relax. His ex-wife, Katarina, had once hauled out the thesaurus and run through a list of words—suspicious, distrustful, leery, doubting, sceptical. 'That's you,' she said.

Dunlop had agreed at the time and he knew that his subsequent training and experience had made him even more so. He got off the bed and quietly opened the door between the two rooms. Ava had already managed to strew clothes, shoes and other items over the floor, bed and other surfaces. The smell of her cigarettes was warring with the scent of flowers in the room. She lay on her back, faintly snoring. She was naked and the sheet had ridden down around her hips. Her big, soft breasts spread across her chest and there was spare flesh on her waist, belly and hips. She was pale-skinned, although there were faint signs of last summer's tan. Relaxed, her face was softer, almost motherly. Dunlop didn't think she would like the word. It was another thing they shared—childlessness. It had been a sadness to him and one of the reasons for the failure of his marriage.

Ava stirred, muttered something and rolled over. She dragged the sheet up over one pink, soft shoulder. Dunlop closed the door and wondered whether not having had children was a sadness to Ava. The subject had never come up. He realised that, after spending a couple of weeks almost
continually in her company, he had not the faintest idea what made her tick.

Vance Belfante lit a Camel from the pack Grant Reuben had brought him. He puffed luxuriously. 'Thanks, Grant. Can't get a decent smoke in here. All bloody filters. Bloody wimps.'

Reuben, sleek in a dark double-breasted suit, blue shirt and red tie, shifted uncomfortably on the hard chair in the visitors' room of the remand section. 'I wish I had some good news for you, Vance, but . . .'

Belfante waved his hand magnanimously. 'Doesn't matter. I've had a little talk with George.'

Reuben touched the tight knot into which his hair was drawn at the back. He wore an earring and a heavy signet ring and he played with these accoutrements continually as he spoke. 'I heard.'

'Yeah, well, I came off second best. But you should see the mouse under George's eye. Anyway, I'm sure he didn't set me up and I want you to act for him, too.'

Reuben touched the earring. 'Is that wise? I was thinking of a defence along the lines of maybe Frost and Ava . . .'

'No way. George is solid.' Belfante leaned closer. 'Someone's got to have a talk to Ava.'

'A talk?'

'A serious talk. Maybe very serious.'

Reuben twisted the signet ring between thumb and forefinger. 'I don't know, Vance.'

'Yes you do, Grant. You know. And you know what'll happen to you if you don't do what I say.' Belfante snapped his fingers with a crack that rose above the hum of conversation in the room. Heads
turned. Reuben started as if he'd been shot. Belfante smiled apologetically as he spoke. 'I wouldn't like to see you struck off, Grant. Not in your prime like you are.'

Reuben's dealings with Vance Belfante had made him prosperous—conveyancing, drawing up contracts, introductions to accountants and investors, not all of which could stand the light of day. He knew how much Belfante had on him and how readily he would use it in any way that suited him. Privately, he'd been hoping that this lucrative but troublesome client might go away for a time to allow him to extricate himself and go legitimate. In fact, his plans to achieve this and more were well advanced. This new firmness of purpose in Belfante was a set-back. Reuben tugged at his hair knot.

'I might be able to contact someone who could help.'

'I'm sure you can,' Belfante said.

Dennis Tate had to laugh. He rarely laughed, but this was too much. Too much. The commission had come to him through one of his most reliable contacts. The package, sent care of the Poste Restante at the GPO, contained a photograph, a full description and the edited transcript of a record of interview of the subject, now a client of the Federal Witness Protection Unit, by the police. Tate would destroy it all as soon as he had committed the important ingredients to memory, but he had immediately formed some conclusions. One, the source of this commission was not the same as for Rankin. Two, this stuff had 'lawyer' written all over it.

Tate tested his blood sugar by pricking his finger, dabbing the blood on a reagent strip, waiting, rinsing the strip and putting it into the computerised meter for a reading. It was 3.3—very satisfactory. Normal range. He had grown used to the routines and quite enjoyed them. Blood and sharp things had never worried him. He made a cup of coffee, poured in the artificial sweetener and read what had passed between Ava Belfante and Detective Colin Brown.

Sections of the transcript were marked with a pink highlighter pen and 'to be retracted' was written opposite these in the margin.

Tate was more than intrigued. He would be interested to hear the woman's explanation for her testimony, but his client, apparently, had no such interest.

'She needs to be frightened,' the intermediary had said. 'Very badly frightened, so that anything else she might be worried about becomes less important. Follow?'

'And if she's not the frightened type?'

'She disappears, or if she doesn't disappear she dies by accident or natural causes.'

Tate stipulated a fee of ten thousand for the milder option, thirty thousand for the hit. The terms were acceptable. A strict adherer to contracts, he resolved to attempt persuasion initially as specified. But it would be a matter for his judgement to determine whether or not persuasion had worked. With a sizeable amount of cash in a safety deposit box, plus what he was owed for the Rankin job and the maximum return on Ava Belfante, Tate calculated that he would have enough to buy his retreat on the Apple Isle. It was a pleasing prospect. The money would have to be earned, though. He'd have to exert some pressure to get the Rankin contract concluded successfully and he'd never before gone after someone under the wing of the Federal WPU. Two
challenges. Tate injected himself, prepared his midday meal of salad, wholemeal bread, fruit and diet cola and settled down to eat, think and plan.