Garry Disher - Pay Dirt

Wyatt told her what he’d found on the road. ‘They hijacked our job, copying it detail for detail.’

Leah looked closely at his face. ‘Because I brought in Tobin,’ she said, ‘you thought I was behind the whole thing?’

‘It’s happened before. Tell me about him.’

She rolled her shoulders in embarrassment. ‘You know that guy you got the bike from, the one who pissed you off? I got Tobin’s name from him. I thought you’d get mad if you knew I’d gone to him again.’

Wyatt didn’t push it. Tobin was a distributor of bootleg booze, videos and cigarettes. Maybe his supplier was behind it. He put his arm around Leah’s shoulders. She made a noise in her throat.

Then he felt her stiffen and jerk away from him. ‘I can’t stay in the room with him there.’

She got to her feet and went downstairs. Wyatt changed into his own clothes and shoes, the searched Letterman’s pockets until he’d found the keys to the handcuffs. But something about the big man’s shape bothered him. A minute later he was counting out thirty thousand dollars from Letterman’s moneybelt. He pocketed twenty thousand and went downstairs. The bottom half of the house was full of smoke. He gave Leah the keys and ten thousand dollars. ‘Take the cuffs off,’ he said. ‘Pour yourself a drink I’ll be back in a moment.’

Checking that no one was standing in the garden next-door, he climbed to the roof and removed the chimney cap. When he got back inside Leah had opened all the doors and windows. She handed him a glass of Scotch. It was fiery and reviving. ‘What do we do now?’ she asked.

‘Dump the body,’ Wyatt said simply, ‘and get our money back.’

She drank deeply from the glass. ‘Just like that.’

‘Did the neighbours see Letterman?’

‘No.’

‘All the same, you’d better have a story ready in case they ask about him or his car or the noise tonight. Meanwhile help me put him in the boot. I’ll dump him and the car in the city somewhere.’

Leah had the look of someone who knows that the relaxing is still a long way off. ‘What if they ask me about you? What if they recognise your picture?’

‘I look different now and I kept out of sight whenever I stayed here. But the short answer is, distract them. Don’t just say I’m a brother or something, you have to make them feel embarrassed for asking. Tell them I’m your Jesuit priest brother, your detective cousin.’ He put down his glass. ‘I’d better be going. Help me with Letterman.’

They loaded the body into the boot of the Valiant. The wind-tossed street was dark; no one saw them.

‘Let me go with you,’ Leah said.

The coldness grew in Wyatt again. ‘No. Wait here.’

‘You think I’ll get in the way,’ she said. ‘You think I’ll get hurt.’

He was uncomprehending. He hadn’t been considering her at all. He knew only that he’d been crossed and he had to do something about it and he could best do it alone. ‘Get some rest,’ he said. ‘Air the house. Reassure the neighbours.’

He got into the driver’s seat of Letterman’s car and wound down the window. Leah put her face to the gap and clasped the top of the glass. ‘Are you going to Tobin’s?’

He started the engine. ‘It’s the only link we have.’ He looked at her strained face. He was unused to smiling. He touched her wrist briefly. ‘Okay?’

She stood back. ‘Good luck.’

Luck wouldn’t come into it but he said thanks and started the engine.

He drove out of the hills and down into the centre of Adelaide. It was midnight when he passed through Enfield and the streets were quiet. The industrial estate was deserted. Cheerless lights were burning outside most of the buildings, throwing shadows into the door and window recesses. He turned off the headlights and drove once around the perimeter. There was no sign of security guards but he knew a patrol would be along later. He remembered seeing the Mayne Nickless calling cards in Tobin’s doorframe.

Wyatt parked the Valiant behind a stack of empty crates. Tobin’s office and shed were in darkness but he approached quietly, keeping to the shadows. He got to the side wall and waited, listening for two minutes. The side window was locked. He checked the front door. It was also locked. A thumbtacked note said, ‘Back next week.’ Scribbled under it were the words, ‘No cash on premises.’

There were no external indications that Tobin had fitted an alarm system. Wyatt cast back in his mind to the day when he and Leah had first met him. He was sure there were no wires, cameras or electric eyes.

The glass in the side window was fused to wire netting, and he didn’t want to be spotted at the front of the building, so he broke in through the back door.

Tobin wasn’t there. The air was stale, as if no one had been in the place for several days.

Wyatt began a search of the office. There was nothing else he could do. Checking that no headlights had appeared outside, he turned on Tobin’s planet lamp and adjusted the shade until it was an inch from the desktop. In the muted light he began to go through the drawers and files.

He didn’t know what he was looking for but he knew he’d found it when he opened the grubby ruled desk diary and learned what kind of company Tobin had been keeping.

The car was legitimate so there was no point in stealing one. His face and clothing were different so he wasn’t expecting second looks from nosy cops and civilians. But he’d be put away for life if he was found with a body in the boot. Checking again for Mayne Nickless patrols, Wyatt dragged Letterman inside and dumped him in a back room.

It turned midnight as he drove away from the industrial estate. He went left at Gepps Cross and settled in for the two-hour haul to Goyder. The traffic was light-a lonely taxi, a couple of panel vans drag-racing away from the lights, a big semitrailer with Western Australian plates. If Wyatt were an ordinary citizen he might have been tempted to put his foot down. He didn’t. He slowed for yellow lights, used his indicators, sat just under the posted speed limits. He turned on the heater and set the radio to an all-night jazz program. Thirty minutes after dumping Letterman he had left the city lights behind and was driving through orchard country lit by the stars in the black sky.

Trigg must have thought all his Christmases had come at once when Tobin came to pick up his regular consignment of bootleg videos, booze and cigarettes and told him about the Steelgard hit. Trigg was already linked to Steelgard: Wyatt remembered seeing the Steelgard vans refuelling in Goyder, remembered the day he saw Venables talking to Trigg in Belcowie.

He pushed on through the dark farmland, fitting the pieces together. Now and then he passed through small towns At night they appeared to flatten their bellies to the ground. The shopfronts seemed to hide under drooping verandahs. Dewy cars turned their backs away and the street lamps were meek and blanketed. It was all depressing. Wyatt preferred the open road, where he had the sensation of riding across the roof of the world.

He reached Goyder at two o’clock in the morning. Trigg Motors was lit up like a strip of pinball parlours. The big Ford sign glowed blue and white like a sail above the entrance and someone had been liberal with fluorescent paint on the showroom windows. The cars bared their chrome teeth at Wyatt as he cruised slowly along the front of the building. He turned right, and right twice again, circling the block. There was no sign of life-no security guards, cranky Alsatians or randy teenagers.

A couple of cars were parked outside the service bay. Wyatt guessed they’d been left there for a service or a tune-up in the morning. He parked Letterman’s Valiant next to them and got out, quietly closing the driver’s door behind him.