Counter Attack

Chapter 42

Getting the room number for Jenny’s suite was simple but finding the courage to knock on the door was not so easy.

Standing in the hallway of the New World as a family of four Indonesians walked past on their way to dinner, Mac thought about what he was going to say.

He raised his fist to the door and knocked.

A female voice sounded from behind the door. ‘Yes?’

‘Book delivery,’ said Mac. ‘Southern Scholastic books.’

The door flung open and there was Jenny in a hotel bathrobe, patting at her wet hair with a towel.

‘I’m going to make a guess and say you didn’t call Sarah, right?’ said Jenny.

‘Not yet, I’ve been —’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ said Jenny, walking away from him.

Following her into the suite, he noticed the two laptops running on the desk and a collection of maps on the wall, red thumb tacks pushed into various parts of Indochina and Saigon.

‘When you’re away, she lives for your calls,’ said Jenny. ‘She’s three years old — she knows the difference between you being around and you being away.’

‘She told me she misses my snoring,’ said Mac, trying to lighten it.

Throwing the towel on a sofa, Jenny crossed her arms and stared at her husband.

‘Look, I can’t ring up and lie to my daughter about where I am,’ said Mac.

‘But you can lie to your wife?’

‘I can create dissonance with my wife, who knows the basics of what I do and why it’s safer for all of us —’

‘Dissonance?’ said Jenny, eyes like saucers. ‘Fuck, Macca — get your hand off it.’

Dry-gulping, Mac tried to get past the sofa for a glass of water, but Jenny stepped in his way.

‘Actually, I’m glad you showed,’ she said.

‘Yeah?’

‘I was looking at a circular today, it came into my secure email.’

‘Okay,’ said Mac.

‘Australian nationals missing in foreign countries,’ she said, crossing her arms and resting her weight on her left hip. ‘Which includes Singapore — you may have heard of it?’

‘Sure,’ said Mac, ice in his gut.

‘And the name on this file was Hu — Liesl. Aussie citizen, Singapore resident. So I had a look, Macca, and she’s missing.’

‘I see.’

‘Since the thirteenth, Macca.’

‘Interesting,’ said Mac.

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Jenny, her face hardening. ‘So I gave Lindsay a call — you know Lindsay Hung? Senior investigator at Singapore Police?’

‘Heard of him,’ said Mac.

‘We go through the file and most of it’s got a Singaporean D-notice on it.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Mac.

‘It’s when their intelligence services classify the details, Macca. They share the basics with other countries, but some things are held back.’

‘Like what?’ said Mac.

‘Like the security footage from Liesl’s next-door neighbour,’ she said, facetious. ‘He’s a retired vice-admiral from the Singapore navy. There’s footage of the comings and goings at Ray and Liesl’s house.’

‘I see.’

‘Yes, Macca,’ she said, inching closer. ‘But there’s also Liesl’s phone logs.’

‘Right.’

‘So I’m having a general gander and then I’m seeing our phone number, Macca. At Broadbeach.’

Mac nodded at his shoes. ‘Okay.’

‘Two of them — on the thirteenth.’

‘Look,’ said Mac, wanting to be out of that room, maybe out of the country.

‘And they’re within forty minutes of each other; one goes for twelve seconds, and the other for twenty-four seconds. Sounds like she left a couple of voicemails, eh, mate?’

Mac felt like a wombat caught in the high beams.

‘But it gets better, Macca, ’cos on the night of the thirteenth you asked me not to call Liesl, remember?’

‘Yep.’

‘And on the morning you leave for Auckland you left me a message about our new phone number.’

‘That’s a standard operating —’

‘Shut up,’ said Jenny.

Mac shut his mouth.

‘Tell me right now,’ said Jen, raising her finger and shaking it at Mac. ‘Did my friend try to contact us the day she went missing?’

‘I don’t know for sure…’ said Mac feebly.

‘Did. She. Leave. A. Message?’ Jenny’s eyes were like hot coals.

‘Yeah, she did,’ said Mac.

The slap came fast and hard, loud on Mac’s left cheek. She was a little punchy because of her violent father, but Mac decided this outburst might be more to do with her cycle.

‘I thought we had a deal,’ she said, a low cop-tone in her voice. ‘I don’t mess with your world, and you don’t mess with mine.’

Mac nodded. ‘We did — sorry, we do.’

‘An Australian whose husband has just been murdered, calling us — that’s not my job? She goes missing, and you don’t tell me there were phone calls from her? Are you high? Liesl’s an Australian and I’m a fucking cop, Macca.’

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ said Mac, the left side of his face on fire.

‘Okay, so what were Liesl’s messages?’ said Jenny.

‘She thought there was Aussie involvement in the murder,’ said Mac. ‘The impression I got was Aussie government.’

‘And she wanted you to do something for her?’ said Jenny, looking through him.

‘Actually…’ said Mac quietly.

‘Yes?’

‘She was looking for you,’ he said.

Mac barely saw the second slap.

It was just after two in the morning when Mac awoke to a noise. A pillow hit the coffee table beside his sofa bed, knocking over a bottle of water and a pile of loose change.

Mac lifted his head. ‘That you?’

‘You going to lie there all night sulking?’ said Jenny from the bedroom.

‘I was sleeping.’

‘Sleep here,’ said Jenny.

‘Thought I was banned?’ said Mac.

‘Shut up and get in.’

Slipping in beside her, Mac cuddled in and she recoiled. ‘I said get in — I didn’t say you could touch me.’

Mac lay there in the dark, wanting to sleep but knowing he had to endure a lecture. He’d always known his wife had a temper, and he forgave her for it. Mac didn’t speak about her past, but when she lost it at him he was always reminded that in her heart she didn’t think highly of men.

‘Have you ever thought what it must have been like for Frank?’

‘Sorry?’ said Mac.

‘For your father, a senior cop in the Queensland police, having to introduce you as someone who works in a book company?’

‘I might have thought —’

‘I’m not asking has it occurred to you briefly; I mean, have you considered what it must have been like for a trusted man in the public eye to know he was telling pork pies about his own son?’

‘No, not really,’ said Mac.

‘What about your wife?’

‘I’ve given that some thought,’ said Mac.

‘And?’

‘And I’ve tried to do things in a way that doesn’t affect what you’re doing or embarrass you in —’

‘No, Macca,’ said Jenny. ‘I don’t want the Firm’s mission statement for wives and other unfortunates. I’m asking you, have you put yourself in my position, asked yourself what it must be like for a federal cop having to tell her friends and colleagues that her husband sells books for a living?’

‘It can’t be easy,’ said Mac.

‘And now Sarah’s at preschool,’ said Jenny. ‘You want her standing in front of the class, helping you with your cover?’

‘Yeah, look,’ said Mac. ‘When we first got you pregnant, I decided to quit the Firm for just this reason. I didn’t want this burden on you.’

‘Okay,’ said Jenny.

‘But, you know, part-time lecturing wasn’t that great, we wanted to move up from that apartment to the house, we needed the money and so I went back,’ said Mac.

‘What happened to the office job, the nine to five?’

‘The Commonwealth has plenty of office guys,’ said Mac, not wanting to verbalise where his career was going. ‘It’s field guys they’re short on — people who can work their guts out for a couple of months without a day off.’

‘But you’ve just turned forty, mate,’ said Jenny. ‘Where’re the youngsters who want to be in the field? Don’t they watch James Bond movies?’

‘The youngsters don’t have jobs anymore,’ said Mac. ‘They have careers — they’re encouraged to hang around senior office guys because that’s how you get ahead.’

‘I thought we could at least drop the salesman act,’ said Jenny. ‘Back office at Foreign Affairs? Promotions at Austrade?’

‘That was Plan B,’ said Mac, not wanting to admit that Tobin had offered him that on re-entry. ‘Things happened quickly, I was straight into the old game and it seemed easier to resume an old identity.’

‘So?’

‘So when this is done I might turn into a communications officer at Austrade,’ said Mac, meaning it this time. ‘It’ll be plain Alan McQueen, pumping out press releases from around Asia, writing speeches for the DG and the minister — that shit.’

‘That would suit us fine,’ said Jenny, snuggling in.

‘And by the way,’ said Mac, raising his arm so she could move in, ‘it’s no carousel ride living with a cop, either.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yeah. I remember Mum trying to hide the newspaper from Dad on his days off — he’d be reading a story, then jumping on the phone to the detectives’ room, carrying on about some important connection, or an incorrect detail that the police prosecutor had laid down in depositions. It never ended.’

‘I’m not that bad,’ she said.

‘No, at least you don’t go through the births and deaths, and the auctions — Christ, the bloody auctions.’

‘Frank did?’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Mac. ‘Dad would go through the auction notices, reading out the lots. If he thought some stolen machinery was coming up for sale, or a consignment had a fishy owner, he’d go take a butcher’s. He was a nutcase, and the crims hated him.’

‘Just as well you married me, eh, Macca?’ she said, bringing her lips closer.

‘Yeah, mate,’ said Mac. ‘And just as well I got that iPod player for the car.’

‘Why?’ said Jenny.

‘No more radio news,’ he said, as Jenny took a playful swipe at him. ‘So there’s no excuse to work the phone on your days off.’

‘It hasn’t happened that often,’ she said, getting serious again. ‘The Haneef thing doesn’t happen every day.’

‘Yeah, but when it does…’

‘Okay, Macca,’ she said, pulling his face to hers. ‘That would be you in the dog box, remember?’

‘How could I forget?’ said Mac.

‘Watch it.’ Jenny kissed him.

‘Oh, I watch it all right,’ said Mac. ‘But your hands are too fast.’