Garry Disher - Port Vila Blues

On the way out Wyatt went through the pockets of the stranger in the grass. He found an Ansett ticket in the name of Terence Baker. The name meant nothing to him at all.

The initial search had failed to find him, and so had a more thorough sweep of the building. Liz had felt time slipping through their hands. Springett had got out somehow, had got himself onto the street and away unobserved. She’d sent a divisional van to his house, waited impatiently for them to call back. ‘Not here,’ they said. “The place is shut up.’

She shrugged. It had been a long shot. She went home. Nothing more she could do.

The next morning she gathered all the paperwork there was on Springett and read it in Montgomery’s office, drumming her fingers on his desk as she read. Montgomery came in at nine, sporting a bandage and a black eye. ‘Make yourself at home, Ms Redding.’

Said with a half smile. She blushed, gathered her files together. ‘I think we’ve lost him, sir.’

Montgomery eased himself into his chair. ‘If you were him, where would you go?’

‘I wouldn’t stay in Australia.’

‘You’ve alerted the airlines?’

‘For what good it will do. Rudimentary disguise, false passport, what’s to stop him? He’ll have an indirect route mapped out as well. France via New Zealand, for example.’

Montgomery nodded for a long time. ‘I shouldn’t have doubted you.’

‘Boss, I want to search his house.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Montgomery said, enlivened suddenly.

Thirty minutes later, they stood looking around at the walls and furniture in Springett’s Glen Iris house. ‘No obvious signs that he’s bent,’ Montgomery said. ‘No Merc in the carport, nothing funny inside.’

Liz ignored him. She didn’t want Montgomery here with her. It was as though he wanted to atone somehow, be supportive, but he was ineffectual and he was in her way. She sat on the carpet and began to sort through paper scraps from Springett’s rubbish bin and documents from drawers in his study, kitchen and sitting room.

His telephone bills seemed to be worth a closer look, several monthly bills from Optus, a quarterly from Telecom. Why the separate Optus account? As far as she could tell, it listed only a handful of interstate numbers. The same numbers cropped up on each bill, except for the most recent, which listed a new number. Liz went to the Touchfone on Springett’s desk, called the most frequently called number. A recorded message told her that she had reached the residence of Vincent De Lisle and that he wasn’t in right now. She was offered the choice of leaving a message or trying him at the North Sydney Magistrates’ Court.

She tried the other number. A harsh, clipped, recorded voice said: ‘Niekirk. Leave a message.’

So she had the names of the people Springett was dealing with but not where he was hiding himself. She sighed, glanced around the room. There was something about the floorboards behind Springett’s desk chair. One of them was a poor fit.

Then Montgomery broke in upon her thoughts. A heavy smoker, he was fidgeting. ‘I’ll see you back at the car.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Liz stood for a moment. Then, on an impulse, she pressed the redial key and, as Niekirk’s cruel voice unwound, pressed the #1 key. If Niekirk’s answering machine had a remote access function, one of the keys would activate the messages his callers had recorded. She went through the numbers and it was the #6 key that switched the machine over. There were a couple of hangups, then this: ‘It’s all falling apart here, better make yourself scarce. I’m going after De Lisle in Vila, collect what’s owing, if you want to meet me there.’

Liz grinned to herself. She didn’t leave immediately but probed experimentally around the edge of the offending floorboard.

Wyatt caught a Pacific Rim flight originating in Brisbane. He could have made the connection in Sydney, but he wanted to minimise all risks, and the advantage of flight 204 was that Brisbane passengers were not required to disembark at Sydney while connecting passengers boarded the plane. If the authorities were circulating his description they’d be circulating it at Sydney airport.

He had a seat in first class, the only seat available on Pacific Rim. It had been a while since he’d been able to afford first class. There had been a time when he always flew first class, a time when the big jobs had been easier, netting him first-class spending power.

Twenty minutes later they were still sitting on the ground at Sydney. Maybe he’d been spotted flying to Brisbane from Coffs Harbour? He flipped through the in-flight magazine, unconsciously running the tip of his tongue over the hole in his tooth. He had a sudden sensation of himself as an ordinary man after all, small and afraid, trapped inside a thin metal skin. Then the pilot announced another fifteen minutes, saying that air traffic above Sydney was clogged and they were waiting for it to clear, and Wyatt felt the tension ebb a little.

In Port Vila Wyatt joined the passengers making for the front exit door of the Pacific Rim 747, stepped out into the air of Vanuatu, and was engulfed by old sensations. They were a compound of remembered people, places, sounds and bitter risks, encouraged into life by the smells of the tropics, the warm, moist, humid air blanketing his skin. He was in Indo-China again, a knife-edge time, on the run after snatching a base payroll in Long Tan, ten months before the Prime Minister brought the troops home. It was another four years before Wyatt had gone home. He had a new identity by then, his skills were sharper, and he was even less inclined to lead a straight life.

The passengers straggled across the tarmac to the immigration hall. Three queues formed, a small one for local residents returning to Vanuatu, two longer ones for the visitors, Australian and New Zealand tourists mostly, with a handful of others there on business of some kind.

Wyatt passed through immigration after ten minutes in the queue and collected his luggage. It was a collapsible leather suitcase which he’d bought at Melbourne airport and stuffed with T-shirts, paperbacks and pharmacy items from the shops scattered through the international and domestic terminals. He hoped it would pass inspection. He had nothing to declare but plenty to hide. The customs official who tried to imagine a life from the contents of Wyatt’s case would end up with more questions than answers.

But he was waved through to the arrivals lounge. He stood uncertainly near the main terminal exits. It was a small place, consisting of no more than a bank, a dutyfree shop and tourist information counter. Well, he’d need money before he could do anything. He crossed to the bank, changed a hundred dollars for small denomination vatu notes, and went in search of a telephone. De Lisle was listed: a number in the high thousands on Kumul Highway.

Wyatt left the terminal. Overhead signs listed various resort destinations: Le Lagon, White Sands, Radisson, Royal Palms, Reriki Island. He began to queue for a minibus but noticed the people ahead of him giving vouchers to the driver. He slipped away from the queue, walked back down the line of waiting buses, and caught a taxi.

It was a battered, newish blue Datsun. Left-hand drive, he noticed. He climbed into the back seat with his case and gave the driver an address twenty houses beyond De Lisle’s.

The driver nodded. He didn’t speak and Wyatt didn’t try to encourage him. There was a small child in the front seat. She had coppery skin and a short, tight furze of red-blond hair. She wore a blue and yellow cotton dress and gazed at Wyatt solemnly as her father drove out of the airport and along the narrow, pitted six-kilometre stretch to Port Vila.