Dark Country (36 page)

Gil shook hands with Phil, beckoned to Kris, and strapped on his helmet. With a quick farewell to Simon, she joined Gil on
the bike, and they rode cautiously out on to the lane, pausing to check for anything suspicious before turning on to the road.

A few suburbs away, in a main shopping street, Gil found a parking space in front of a café, across the road from the bank.

‘Wait in the café and keep a lookout,’ he suggested. ‘This will take me ten minutes or more.’

Half a dozen tables in the café were already occupied, but there was still a vacant table by the large, open window, with
a good view of the front of the bank. She sat there and watched the people going into and coming out of the bank, the people
on the street, all the activity around, anything for signs of a threat.

Other than a couple of men engaged in a lively conversation on the corner, she could see no-one who appeared as though they
could be keeping an eye on anything, and when the guys in the corner moved off she relaxed a little.

The waiter brought the coffee she’d ordered, and she was stirring in sugar when footsteps stopped beside her, two hands leant
on the vacant chair, and Craig Macklin said, ‘Hi, Kris. In town to do a little banking, hey?’

Every sense went on full alert.

‘Hello, Craig,’ she said coolly. ‘What brings you here?’

Macklin sat down at the table, nodded towards the bank. ‘We thought we’d better keep an eye on the place. Make sure that if
Gillespie turned up, nobody else did. I didn’t know you were coming down with him. It’s good to see you again.’

Thoughts flitted through her mind as she assessed his words. Too many unanswered questions. ‘We’ – who was ‘we’? Joe and him?
His unit? How had they known Gil had a safety deposit box? How did they know it was at this bank? And how did they know Gil
was in Sydney?

Okay, the last might have been a good guess, but the other questions needed answering, so she asked point-blank, ‘How did
you know Gil uses this bank?’

‘His lawyer told us. When it became clear what they’d killed the other lawyer for, we figured we’d better put some protection
on the bank. Don’t want any more mob hits, in broad daylight or otherwise.’

That sounded reasonable, but she still had an inkling of doubt. It was … too neat. Perfectly logical … assuming that Gil’s
lawyer had been convinced that he or others were in such danger that he had to divulge confidential client information.

‘So, what are you doing here with Gillespie?’ Craig asked. ‘Steve Fraser said you were off having a long weekend with your
boyfriend.’

‘Change of plans,’ she replied, determined to keep any information she gave him to a minimum. Maybe she was catching Gil’s
distrust, but the inkling of doubt scraped in her head like fingernails on a chalkboard, too loud to be ignored.

‘Where are you going to go? Gillespie needs protection – they want both him and the will. We can organise a safe house for
him.’

‘Thanks, Craig, but no. We’ll make our own plans.’

He leaned forward, spoke low and urgently. ‘Look, Kris, you need to be careful. The people after Gillespie – it’s not just
the old local mafia now. The new guys – Sergio Russo and co. – they’re big players internationally. They’ve got access to
resources we can only dream about, including all the cutting-edge technology. They eat cops like us for breakfast.’

A warning or a threat? Impossible to tell.

‘Or they bend them. So we’re going to fly under the radar for a while.’ She stood, dug in her pocket for money, and
dropped a five-dollar note on the table to cover the coffee she’d scarcely sipped.

He followed her out. ‘You’re not suggesting …?’

She put her helmet on, started the bike. ‘I’m not taking chances, Craig. Too much doesn’t add up.’

She didn’t wait for his response. Gil emerged from the bank, and she caught a break in the traffic, did a U-turn, and picked
him up. As she glanced back to pull out into the traffic, she saw Craig already talking on his phone.

The road they were on led into the city, but Kris didn’t stay on it. Gil held on, the large manila envelope tucked inside
his jacket, as Kris wove through inner-suburban streets, taking many twists and turns until they were sure they weren’t being
followed.

Gil had seen Macklin with her, had held back inside the bank to keep from distracting her, only leaving when she’d started
the bike to make the pick-up smooth. He’d known something wasn’t quite right when the manager of the safety deposit area showed
definite nerves around him. But it took time to go through the procedures, unlock the box, and check the contents.

The cardboard box he’d put there, almost fourteen years ago, was still there, apparently untouched, underneath the document
envelope Simon had deposited. With no use for the box now that Vince was dead, he left it there, taking only the envelope.
He hadn’t opened it in the presence of the manager. He didn’t particularly
want
to open it. Whatever it contained couldn’t be good news, irrespective of Vince’s assurances to Simon. And Macklin’s presence
near the bank was unlikely to be good news, either.

Close to the city, Kris drove into a multi-storey parking lot, and up the ramps to the roof. No-one followed them in. She
parked near the exit ramp, but with a view of the ramp leading onto the roof.

She pushed up her visor. ‘Do you think this is safe enough, for now?’

He dismounted, yanked off his helmet. ‘Yes. What was Macklin doing there?’

She hung her helmet on the handlebar, shook out her hair. ‘Making sure there was no trouble if you turned up at the bank.
That’s his story, anyway.’

A good cover story, except for one fact. ‘No-one but Simon knew which bank.’

That didn’t surprise her. ‘I asked how he knew. He said your lawyer told them.’

‘Bullshit. He didn’t know. More likely they accessed my bank accounts, tracked the payments for the box.’

‘That’s what I wondered. I got a definite whiff of week-old fish. I don’t know whether it’s Craig himself, or Joe Petric,
or someone else manipulating them, feeding them information, but I refused Craig’s offer of a safe house for you.’

He took the envelope out of his jacket, turned it over in his hands. The sun burned warm on the concrete around them. He flipped
the envelope again, reluctant to be drawn in to whatever Vince had planned.

She leaned against a concrete column, nodded at his hands. ‘You need to open it, find out what’s in it, and then we can decide
what to do from here,’ she said.

Yeah, he knew that. His pocket-knife made short work of the seal, revealing two smaller envelopes inside. His gut clenched,
and he was mightily tempted to tear them both into shreds, unopened.

He handed one to Kris. Opened the other himself. Unfolded several sheets of paper, headed ‘The Last Will and Testament of
Vincenzo Francesco Russo’. He skimmed the standard legalese, and focused on the bequests.

A bequest to the hostel Simon managed, and large gifts to several other charities.

An allowance for his ex-wife, for her lifetime.

An allowance for his former mistress.

A more generous allowance for his current mistress, plus the apartment she lived in.

Nothing too surprising in those – unless it was that there were only three women named. Maybe his other mistresses hadn’t
meant as much to him. Or maybe they’d already had enough gifts from him. Vince had been insanely wealthy, his legitimate investments
and development projects far exceeding the drug money that had originally seeded them.

Gil turned the page, and the next item leapt out at him:
‘To my natural daughter, Marcella Doonan
…’

Although Gil had already suspected, anger blurred the confirming words. How could Vince have watched her live the life she
had and have done nothing all those years? He’d let her be used by others, by just about everyone.
Her father
. Jesus, Gil wanted to throw up. He leaned over the parapet, sucked in some traffic-tainted air. All the generous bequests
in
the world couldn’t make good Vince’s sin – even if she’d lived. But Vince was too bloody late.

‘Gil? What’s wrong?’

She was by his side, her arm clasping him as if she thought he might fall.

He shoved the pages into her hand. ‘The bastard definitely was Marci’s father. He knew it all along.’

She skimmed the first page, slowed on the second, and whistled when she saw the sum of money Vince had bequeathed to his daughter.

As if five million dollars could have changed anything for Marci, Gil thought bitterly. She’d have gone through it in no time,
been preyed upon by others. And she would still have sold her body, because that was the only value she’d ever learned to
place on herself.

‘Gil.’ Kris clutched the pages, her hand shaking. ‘Gil, did you read on?’

He read it over her shoulder, and it wasn’t just the shaking of her hand that made the words hard to follow.

‘To Morgan Gillespie … the properties listed in schedule A appended to this will … all my shares in San Damiano Enterprises
… and the remainder of my estate after all bequests are distributed.’

He couldn’t get his head around it. The bastard had left property and shares to him.

‘He’s mad,’ he argued. ‘There has to be some catch. Maybe they’re derelict, or on a uranium dump.’

Kris flipped over the page, scanned it. ‘Gil, I don’t think there are many uranium dumps in Point Piper. Or Double Bay. There’s
got to be twenty or more properties listed here, and they all sound – well,
significant.’

He didn’t look at the list. The twisted truth was sinking in. Luxury apartment and housing developments had been Vince’s interests
these past ten years, and Gil could guess some of the addresses on the list – and some of the prices they’d be valued at.

He slammed a hand against a concrete pillar, the sting of the rough surface proof he wasn’t asleep, caught in some hellish
nightmare. He gave a harsh laugh. ‘No wonder Tony wants this, and wants me dead.’

‘Yes,’ Kris agreed. ‘If he’s seen a copy, or the solicitor told him its contents, he’ll be livid. Did you read this bit? “It
is my explicit wish and instruction that my son Antonio and my nephews” – he lists four including the Flanagan boys – “do
not benefit in any way, now or in the future, from my estate.”’

‘Fuck.’ There wasn’t much else to say. That clause on its own amounted to a death warrant.

She checked around for anyone in the vicinity, lowered her voice. ‘Gil – the other envelope. It’s dates, places, details of
cocaine shipments and distribution, ecstasy manufacture, money laundering. I didn’t read it all, but I’m betting it’s Tony’s
and Sergio’s operation. With this kind of information, we could put together enough evidence to arrest and charge them.’

He’d forgotten about the other envelope in the shock of reading the will – but it was almost as much of a bombshell.

‘Vince wanted his son convicted.’ Gil thought through the implications. ‘And he wanted me to be the one to carry the can for
it.’

‘Or maybe he trusted you, more than others, to do the right thing.’

Her interpretation didn’t make much difference. It still lumbered him with a huge responsibility, and a huge risk. Why the
hell couldn’t Vince have given the cops the information directly? Why involve him?

As the first angry reaction passed, two reasons occurred to him. Because he knew that Gil would follow it through – he’d find
a way to make sure the information got to uncorrupted cops and didn’t get buried. And secondly – Kris mightn’t approve
of this one – in Vince’s world, information could be leverage. And he might yet need that kind of leverage.

She tapped the documents with her knuckle. ‘We need to copy these. We need to know if the will is legal, if it will hold up
in court, and we need to know more about Vince’s estate, and San Damiano Enterprises. I know someone who can give us expert
advice.’

‘Listen, Blue, we have to be careful. I need to get you safe, away from me, until I work out how to handle this.’

‘Gil, the person I’m thinking of is my father. He’s a barrister. We can trust him completely. He won’t do anything that will
endanger me. And his chambers are here in the city.’