Disappear (32 page)

Jennifer showed disappointment he couldn’t have a drink. ‘You don’t mind if I have some wine. I need a nightcap after a night like this.’

‘Go ahead. Coffee will be fine for me.’

It was hard to believe that only a few hours earlier a violent rainstorm had raged outside and Lachlan had chased a killer through the streets. The storm had passed and now all was calm. The wall length glass door at the rear allowed a panoramic view of the surrounding garden showing that the night clouds had passed overhead to reveal a full, bright moon. Its light glinted in magical slivers off the shiny wet leaves of the trees. A chorus of approval came from the night birds now that the rain had gone. Their chirpy, melodic warble filled the air like the evensong of a church choir.

Jennifer set the drinks down on the coffee table. ‘I often sit out here and listen to them,’ she said of the birds.

‘I could happily listen to them all night,’ Lachlan remarked. ‘You could forget there’s a world of crime and criminals out there.’

‘Does the job get you down, detective?’

‘You know what, I think it would be a hell of a lot more comfortable for both us if you just called me Neil.’

‘Okay.’ She smiled warmly at him. She liked this man a great deal, and for the first time, and despite everything that was happening around them, it felt good to admit that to herself and just go with the flow.

‘It’s like any job. There are times when it gets you down, there are times when it doesn’t. On the best days there’s a feeling of satisfaction, of having done something useful.’

He asked about her fashion business and was intrigued to learn about the garden rockery wishing pool Brian had built, the tradition of the five cent coins, and how years later Jennifer had called on that memory when naming her company.

She told him about Brian. ‘He was a whizz with figures. It came naturally to him and he worked hard. But away from work he became your ordinary, average guy. He played squash a couple of times a week. Loved dining out and movies and building and renovating around the house.’ She took a sip from the wine. ‘What about you? You know, I’ve never known a policeman before.’

‘Then we’re even because I’ve never known a fashion designer. Believe it or not, detectives are just ordinary people too. I’m separated. I have a ten year old boy named Todd who I see every second weekend.’

‘That must be hard.’

‘Incredibly hard.’

‘You know, you’re different when you’re alone with someone like this.’

‘Am I?’

‘You’re usually so intense. Which is normal, I guess, when you’re on the job. I hadn’t pictured you with your feet up, relaxing with a coffee.’

‘Like I said, some of us are just normal people.’ He returned the smile.

‘I’m sorry. I’m probably being very naive with such inane comments. Of course policemen are normal people. I guess it’s difficult though, switching off from the job when you do go home?’

Lachlan’s drug squad days flashed before his eyes. He’d lived, breathed and slept the job. It was the nature of the narcotics division. And he’d lost his real life. ‘It’s something you have to learn to do,’ he admitted, ‘sometimes it’s a hard lesson.’

‘I’m glad you’re here tonight, Neil. Thanks for staying.’

‘Least I could do. I should never have assumed the killer wouldn’t see you as a threat if he thought you didn’t know enough. Clearly, even the chance you’d get suspicious about the file was too much for him.’

‘At least it showed us how desperate he is.’

‘You should try and get some rest.’

Jennifer frowned. ‘Won’t be easy. But you’re right.’

‘I’d like to see you again when this is all over,’ Lachlan said, surprising himself. ‘Perhaps we could get together for dinner. I could keep showing you how normal I really am.’

‘Sounds good.’ They exchanged tentative smiles.

Jennifer had been laying awake in bed for over an hour.

She couldn’t switch off.

And she was feeling ridiculously horny.

She hadn’t stopped thinking about Neil Lachlan. She hadn’t been attracted to a man in this way for a long time, so why now? The timing sucked.

There was something about his strong but laid-back command of things. And that partly raffish, partly amiable smile that offered a glimpse of another side.

She got up, padded through to the kitchen to pour a cool drink, and then stepped out onto the back balcony. Insomnia wasn’t new to her and when she couldn’t sleep, for whatever reason, this was her routine.

She was still in her negligee.

Lachlan was supposed to have retired to the guest room.

But he was also on the balcony, unable to sleep, sitting in the easy wicker chair and watching the stars.

Jennifer was startled when she saw him. ‘Oh…I…’ She blushed.

‘Sorry. I’m not supposed to be out here.’

‘I guess you couldn’t sleep either.’

‘No.’

‘Head full of the case?’

‘Yes.’ Actually, that was a lie. His head was full of her but he kept that point private.

They made small talk for a while, and then Jennifer turned to leave. ‘I know I said this before, but I really do appreciate your staying over tonight and the personal interest you’ve taken in the case. So, you know what, I’m going to let you have the balcony for as long as you need it, and I’ll head back in.’

‘No-’

‘No, really Neil, it’s absolutely fine. Try and get some rest, after all, you have your guys stationed outside…’

He realized, sheepishly, that he was staring at her curves through the flimsy cotton of her negligee, and she’d noticed. ‘Sorry, I’m…’

She made light of it. ‘It’s okay. Actually, I’m flattered.’

‘You are?’

Their eyes locked on one another. And that was the exact moment when everything changed, when something electrifying passed between them.

Lachlan rose. ‘Your balcony, all yours. I’m going to hit the bed again, see if I can get at least a few hours, big day again tomorrow.’

She eased back as he squeezed by.

Her heart thudded at the closeness of him. Once again their eyes fixed on each other’s, and then, impulsively, Lachlan leaned in and gave her a light kiss on the lips.

She didn’t kiss him back. Contained herself. The old restraints kicking in.

He pulled away. ‘Sorry…that was unprofessional.’

‘I’m not complaining.’ She felt herself opening up, allowing her bottled-up emotions to run free.

She placed her hand to the back of his neck, eased in closer and returned the kiss.

There was a sudden thundering crash and the two of them pulled apart and whipped their heads around in alarm, Lachlan positioning himself into a protective stance in front of her.

The next-door cat had leapt from the fence onto the fibreglass roof of the balcony. It ambled along and then jumped down onto the opposite fence.

Jennifer laughed nervously. ‘Talk about tension.’

Lachlan followed her back into the house. She locked the back door behind them and then they headed to their rooms.

Outside the door to her room she said, ‘Thanks.’

‘Try and get some sleep.’ Lachlan turned toward the guest room.

There are moments in all our lives, Jennifer conceded to herself later, when we throw aside our inhibitions and act in the heat of the moment.

She reached out, took Lachlan’s arm and turned him back toward her. ‘Permission granted to stop being so damn professional,’ she said.

Lachlan’s head told him to turn away. He was a detective on the job. But for once he threw all caution to the wind and responded to the ache that he felt for this beautiful woman.

Their mouths came together, exploring.

Lachlan didn’t even recall slipping the negligee from her body as he cast his shirt aside.

The next thing her knew he was in her room, the door pushed shut behind them, both naked now, clinging to one another as they eased onto the bed. Everything about her was soft and sweet and intoxicating and under her caresses he felt every inch of his body exploding with new life.

Jennifer tingled and shivered from head to foot at the natural, husky aroma of him. His tongue and his fingers traced her neck and her breasts, moving lower, and she felt a liberating freedom and an ecstasy that she hadn’t felt for a long, long time.

Later, in the afterglow, they lay on the bed facing one another, fingers entwined.

‘You can go and start being professional again,’ Jennifer said, grinning.

‘Yes. I think I should.’

‘I do have one favour to ask, though,’ Jennifer added. ‘I don’t want to be stuck here, a prisoner in my own home, until this killer is caught. There’s something in particular I want to do.’

‘I’m listening,’ Lachlan said.

Jennifer was pleased that Lachlan agreed to the idea and accompanied her the following morning to the home of Thomas Brayson. She spent an hour with the old man whose daughter had been missing eighteen years, the two of them exchanging their memories of the loved ones they’d lost.

Lachlan marvelled at the depth of compassion with which Jennifer reached out to the old man, and her commitment to keep in touch, to look in on him on a regular basis.

That was the moment he knew he was in love with Jennifer Parkes.

Earlier that morning, at 3 a.m., the bomb exploded at the far end of Shaft Number Twelve. The force of the blast pulverized tonnes of coal, sending it drifting in clouds of black dust through the tunnels and galleries of the mine. The dust, mixing with the air, caused a second, even greater explosion that was heard throughout the entire Southern Star complex and into the townships beyond.

The blinding, deafening detonation sent a fireball screaming through hundreds of metres of tunnel. Everything in its path was incinerated.

In the shed at the entrance to the shaft, four men played cards and drank Tooheys beer. On any other night they wouldn’t have been there. Tonight was an exception.

These four men were about to take a couple of days leave for a fishing trip. At the end of their shift, they’d decided to celebrate and relax with a few drinks and a game of poker. Three hours later their impromptu get-together showed no sign of ending. They were merry with the beer, loud, jovial, and enjoying their game.

The instant the fireball leapt from the mouth of the shaft, like the fiery breath of some mythical dragon, the shed and its four occupants were blown to pieces. In the days that followed pieces of their bodies, meshed with metal and timber, were found in an area of up to three hundred metres away.

The resulting fires spread quickly to the cluster of buildings centred around the adjoining mineshafts.

Southern Star’s rescue and maintenance teams were on the site within ten minutes. They worked furiously to seal the shaft and fight the fires breaking out all over the complex, but they were driven back repeatedly by heat and fumes and exploding chemicals.

By 4.30 a.m. an eighty-strong group of firemen, local police, miners and rescue professionals joined the operation.

Arriving on the scene, Mines Manager, David Hansen, was confronted by an eerie, otherworldly landscape.

Piles of twisted metal, falling rods, intense heat and clouds of carbon monoxide, illuminated by the angry red glow of the flames.

On the perimeter of the disaster area, news vans rolled to a halt and crewmen set up their equipment. And as the first light of dawn crept over the horizon, the TV news helicopters swept overhead.

At 5 a.m. several men working for Fred Hargreaves phoned the news desks of every major metropolitan newspaper and television station across the east coast of Australia, claiming responsibility for the bomb. They identified themselves as members of a new activist group called AVO (Asbestos Victims Organisation).

The mission to sabotage the sale of Southern Star Mining was complete.

News of the disaster coincided with the publication, that same morning, of the People Power edition with its exposé of Henry Kaplan, the man, and his corporation.

Rory McConnell expected to attract attention to his journalistic talents with the article. He’d arranged to send copies of the article to the editors of the major papers and websites. Whatever attention the article might have generated was now increased tenfold. His phone didn’t stop ringing. One editor after another asked for Rory’s input regarding Kaplan’s knowledge of the asbestos issue. The current affairs TV programs lined up to interview him.

At 9.15 that morning Conrad Becker called an urgent meeting with his senior advisors. He fumed with anger that Southern Star Mining had been the target of terrorist attacks by an activist group. All were alarmed by the inference that Kaplan had used his influence to stop the asbestos inquiry.

During the first hour of trading that morning on the Australian Stock Exchange the value of Southern Star shares dived by a whopping forty percent.

Flanked by aides, Becker stormed into Henry Kaplan’s office. Kaplan, shattered by the news, sat helpless and listened to the tirade of abuse from Becker. The Canadian tycoon made it clear, there was now no chance whatsoever of the sale going through. For Henry Kaplan, it became the final nail in the coffin of his life’s work.

‘Hey, Neil, two visits in one week, I’ve never been so popular.’

‘It’s one of those “can you do me a favour” visits again,’ Lachlan said as he took a seat alongside Teddy Vanda.

‘I’m wounded,’ Vanda deadpanned. ‘And you still haven’t spilled the full story behind your last visit.’

‘You’ll have to put up with my silence on that a little longer.’

‘You’re just no fun anymore.’

‘Maybe I can be. I’m looking for something pretty unusual.’

‘So what else is new?’

‘There’s a link between those missing persons and the recent garrotte killings. But as you know there’s an unexplained gap of eighteen years. I want to establish if this garrotte killer was involved with those disappearances - and where he’s been since.’

‘And here I was thinking you were going to ask something difficult for a change.’

‘I want you to run a search for garrotte murders, or attempted garrotte attacks, Australia wide.’