TUNA LIFE (20 page)

It wasn’t only the garden of the house that stood out from the street. Most of the other surrounding houses looked brand new, or at least newly renovated, and they all had expensive cars in their driveways. Ashmore Street number 17 had a wreck of a car in its driveway, and the house itself looked like it had been constructed in the early 1960s, by someone on a very tight budget. It was the last cheap house in a street of new million-dollar homes.

Mark Moss pressed the doorbell, but stepped back when he heard the barking.

A woman in her late forties opened the door, and Mark introduced himself.

“I called earlier,” he said, when the woman didn’t seem to understand why he was there.

“Oh yes, please come in,” Ann Jones said, and opened the security locks on the door. “Tea or coffee?” she asked, leading Mark into the living room.

“Coffee please,” Mark answered, inspecting the living room.

Based on the look of the garden he had half expected to walk into a dirty living room, occupied by a hoarder with terrible taste. Instead he found himself walking into a beautifully decorated house, with a flat-screen TV on the wall, and a designer couch.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” he said.

Ann Jones smiled. “We only intended to live here for a short while. Renovate and flip it. But then the market crashed, and we got stuck. Whoever ends up buying it will bulldoze it anyway. No point in wasting money on the exterior. But we still gotta live.”

They sat down at the dining table, and Ann poured them both a cup of coffee. Ann Jones told Mark she was a single mother after having lost her husband to melanoma a few years back. She had used the insurance payout to buy the house, and had hoped to use it to launch her new career as a property investor. She had now resigned to the fact that it wasn’t that easy, and had taken up part-time work again. Ann’s daughter, Kylie, had been missing for four days now. She lived by herself, but it was unusual for her not to tell her mum where she went. It had actually never happened before, and Ann was of course worried.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “The police aren’t even looking. They say they don’t have any indication something criminal has happened. But I know. I can feel it in my gut; something has happened.”

“When did you last speak to your daughter?”

“I spoke with her the day she disappeared. She said she was going to meet a friend, and then maybe stop by a party afterwards.”

“Did she say what sort of party she was going to?”

“Yes, she was very proud. Had been invited to some sort of prize gala. She called it the Oscars for companies.”

The Gold Coast Tech Awards?” Mark asked.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Mark made a quick note on his iPad. He had the same feeling as Ann Jones. Something was not right. He didn’t want to scare her, but he was almost certain that Kylie had become a victim of the same person or persons responsible for all these other missing girls. He knew he didn’t have any evidence, but he had this feeling, this feeling that refused to go away. Something terrible had happened to these girls, and no one even bothered to look into it.

It was now up to him. He needed to take responsibility. He needed to find out what had happened to them all.

Kylie Jones was like a mirror image of the other missing girls. Beautiful, blonde, into clothes and partying – and according to her mother, a bit of a gold digger. She hadn’t said it in a negative way, just explained that Kylie enjoyed hanging out with affluent people. Maybe that was the connection? All the missing girls had been somewhat gold diggers. They hadn’t held down the best jobs, but they had still spent small fortunes on clothing and their looks. How had they been able to afford their lifestyles? Some of them had worked as strippers, and had probably made a fair bit of money not reflected in their tax returns, but almost all of them had spent much more than they made. Mark knew how expensive it was to go out clubbing. These girls had been going out several nights a week. Who paid for their drinks? Who paid for their outfits? Had it been random men picking up the tab, or had it been a more specific group of people these girls had in common? Kylie’s mum had mentioned Gold Coast Tech Awards. There was a lot of money involved in the new tech companies. Wealthy investors and lawyers probably frequented those parties. Was one of them involved? Mark had already checked out the other most promising lead – the Russian gentlemen parties with hostesses carrying the same Henna tattoo. It had turned out to be a false clue, a dead-end. The parties had only been arranged for less than two years, and the organiser, a Russian by the name of Mikhail, had let Mark review the name list of his hostesses. It was correct that Marissa had worked a few evenings, but she was also the only one of the missing girls who had ever had any connection to the parties. None of the other girls had ever been to the parties. It was a dead-end. And that meant that he had to speak to Scott Davis.

The Gold Coast Tech Awards was now the only lead they had.

Mark closed the door to the Jones family’s house, and squinted at the sky. Kylie’s mum had said Kylie was a diamond in the rough – she was smart, good looking and kind –but she just didn’t have any patience. She wanted everything in life, but she wasn’t willing to sacrifice anything. She wanted everything, and she felt entitled to it. Perhaps that was why she hung around all those rich people? Perhaps she thought one of them could provide her the life she craved? The life she felt she deserved. She wasn’t a prostitute, far from, but she paid these men with her presence. She used her body to get what she wanted.

Mark hung his Oakley sunglasses on the tip of his nose and pondered the dilemma. Was it right to use men that way? To pretend you enjoyed their company because they were wealthy, because they could provide you with the lifestyle you wanted? Perhaps that was one of the advantages of being poor? At least you knew who your real friends were.

“Hi Scott,” Mark kept his mobile squeezed between his shoulder and his cheek, as he attempted to insert the car key in the door lock. “I think I may have a lead. A good lead.”

“I’m listening,” Scott replied.

“Have you ever heard about the Gold Coast Tech Awards?”

“I’m the business reporter in the paper, Mark. Of course I’ve heard about it.”

Mark turned silent for a moment, before continuing. “I think I’ve found the connection. All the missing girls were somewhat gold diggers, they hung around wealthy sugar daddies who would buy them everything from drinks to luxury holidays.”

“Yes?” Scott Davis said.

“Another blonde girl has gone missing. She attended the Gold Coast Tech Awards the night she disappeared. I believe our man was there too. I believe that the person responsible for all the missing girls was there that night.”

“And you base this on?”

“As I said; all the missing girls were gold diggers. They hung out where gold diggers hang out – in places where you have wealthy middle aged men. Men who are willing to buy drinks and nice presents. Marissa Soo had twenty thousand dollars hidden under her bed. Where did she get that sort of money from? I believe our serial killer is a sugar daddy.”

“We don’t have a serial killer,” Scott replied, with a solemn voice. “It’s not a bad theory, that all these girls have had some sort of association with the rich and powerful of the Gold Coast. But I’m afraid you’re jumping to conclusions. You have absolutely no evidence there is any connection between these so-called sugar daddies and the missing girls. In fact you don’t even have evidence that something criminal has happened to any of the girls. Marissa’s cause of death is still up in the air, and all of the other girls are still just missing, something they have in common with a couple of hundred other persons. Because that’s the reality – there are several hundred missing persons on the Gold Coast, and we have no idea whether any of those disappearances are voluntary or not.

“I can feel it,” Mark said. “Kylie Jones, the last girl reported missing, she’s still out there. She’s alive and we have an opportunity to do something, to save her.

Scott sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

“We need to investigate the investor groups on the coast. Find out whether anyone has been seen with these girls. Find out whether there is someone with a special predilection for young busty blondes. That’s what we have to do. And we have to do it soon.”

“Ok, I’ll see what I can find out,” Scott said. He liked Mark Moss. Sometimes Mark even reminded him of how he had been himself, when he just started out. How naïve he had been. Thinking he could influence things, thinking he could make a difference. He now, of course, knew that it had all been an illusion. He was a small cog in a big machinery. And spare parts came cheap. The Gold Coast Times wouldn’t stop the day he clocked out for the last time. Nobody would miss him and say: That Scott Davis was a good journo, he really made a difference. That era had passed. Nobody mattered anymore. Workplaces were designed to commoditize jobs, so that a new recruit could step straight into the job when you left. Mark Moss had done that with Scott’s job; stepped straight into it, been handed all his contacts, all his electronic notes, on a silver plate. More than thirty years on the paper’s crime desk had been reduced to a few bits and bytes, all his experience loaded onto a memory stick, thousands of hours of relationship-building reduced to a half a megabyte of Microsoft Outlook notes. Scott regretted he had made it so easy for them. He should have erased it all when he was transferred to the business desk. Made it more difficult for them to replace him.

He could be hit by a bus tomorrow, that’s what his old boss had used as an argument for Scott to record all his contacts and knowledge in electronic form. It had been easier than that. Scott had been thrown off a speeding bus. There was no longer any seat available for him. He was the one who had stood up and offered his seat to all the other passengers, the elderly, the young, the pregnant – everybody. And then he had ended up without any seat for himself.

He rang off.

Should he help Mark? The kid who had stolen his job?

Should he help Mark save the day?

45

“He’s dead. He’s dead,” the Indian programmer stammered.

“Who? Who’s dead?” Andrew asked, rising from the white leather chair in his fishbowl office.

“Fabian. Fabian is dead,” the Indian said.

Andrew Engels quickly walked around his desk, and aided his Indian programmer down in a chair.

“What are you saying? What’s happened?”

“He was hit by a car. Last night, on the way home from work.”

Andrew knew that Fabian used to bike to and from work, he was kind of a fitness freak. Only two weeks ago he had arrived at work with a black eye and a broken finger, after having taken a dive from his mountain bike at Mount Tamborine. Andrew opened the Gold Coast Times’ internet edition on his computer. Right on the top of the page it read that a cyclist had perished in a hit-and-run accident in Southport. Hit and run – it was as if Andrew’s blood froze to ice. Fabian had stopped by Andrew’s office yesterday and told him about his suspicions that Tuna Life had a virus. Andrew hadn’t told a single soul about their conversation. He had immediately considered calling Roman and Richard, but then he had thought about it: What if one of them was involved? Instead he had procrastinated the entire afternoon and evening, and now, the morning after, he had still not told anyone, still not made any conclusions.

He was still the only one who knew.

And now Fabian was dead.

Was there a connection? No, there couldn’t be. Andrew was the only one who knew what Fabian had discovered, or thought he had discovered.

“How do you know it’s Fabian?” Andrew asked Virat, the Indian programmer. His eyes were still fixed on the article.

“I called his mobile this morning. Wondered if he was going to be in early. His girlfriend answered the phone.”

Andrew cradled his head in his hands. “Ok, I’ll talk to HR. We need to get all the facts confirmed before we inform the rest of the office. I know this is probably very difficult for you, Virat. But could you wait discussing the matter until it has been verified?”

“Of course,” Virat replied, wiping a tear away from his bloodshot eyes. The other staff would probably think he’d been fired if they saw him like this, but there was little Andrew could do.

“If you want, you can take the rest of the day off, Virat. I know you and Fabian were close.”

“Thanks, but I would prefer to stay.” Virat wiped another tear away, and left the office. Andrew remained almost frozen next to his desk. If Fabian was dead, it meant that no one else knew about the possible virus in the Tuna Life software. Fabian had been an expert on computer viruses, he had been asked specifically by Frank to review the source code, line by line. What were the odds that someone else would make the same discovery? Microscopic, Andrew concluded. Maybe he didn’t have to disclose the security issue to Roman and Richard yet anyway.

He needed to find out why Frank had tasked Fabian with reviewing Tuna Life’s source code. Perhaps it was Frank’s code that was the virus? Or perhaps someone else had changed the original code, made amendments, created a virus? Until he had more information he couldn’t be sure whom to trust. Richard Smith was Roman Bezhrev’s man. Roman, who was a Russian with a rather vague background. Most of the world’s computer viruses originated from East Europe and Russia. Was it Roman who was behind it all? The thought made a shiver run down Andrew’s spine. If Roman was involved, it was quite possible that Fabian’s death was no accident. The paper had said it had been a hit-and-run accident. The perpetrator was still on the loose.

Andrew opened the drawer on his office desk. He stared at the box of pills. Did it say anything about not taking double doses?

“What’s happening?” Ken asked. It wasn’t unusual that he sat down for a coffee with Andrew, but normally they would have it in the canteen – they had after all splurged on a private chef and barista. There was no real reason for them to ever venture outside the office.