Two-Way Cut

chapter 7

As they left Prospect, Leah decided they should exchange the stolen Kingswood for another set of wheels as soon as possible. But they were heading into the mid-west of the state, where the towns and farms were sparse, and the featureless landscape bleached and heat-stunned. Distant dust clouds indicated solitary vehicles on lonely dirt roads. They could lose themselves out there but those back roads could also stifle and trap them without food, water or shelter. No, it was better to stick to the bitumen roads and scout around the next town for another car.

She explained some of this to Tess, who was yawning, still struggling to face the day, and responded with a bored Whatever. Tess was useless to her, that was clear. Even a handicap. But they had to stick together for now. She tuned in the radio to the midday news: there was no follow-up story to Mitch’s death.

How did your brothers find you?

Tess frowned, as if shed been daydreaming or didn’t understand the question. What?

Would they have hired private detectives?

Dunno.

Leah shook her head in irritation and watched the unfolding road. She knew cops who’d become private eyes, and knew they were often better at finding missing people than the police, whose resources were overstretched, each officer working several cases at once. A private eye had time, resources and know-how to bear on each case. Leah found herself remembering some statistics from a lecture shed attended during her training: 26,000 Australians go missing every year, and 69 per cent of those were like Tess, aged eighteen or under. Most were found in the first day, 98 per cent within a year. Those least likely to be found were males aged between twenty-six and forty-five.

How would a private detective track Tess? Leah wondered. Open a file, first, listing the twelve key identifiers of a missing person: name, sex, race, age, height, weight, hair, eyes, complexion, blemishes or scars, habits, clothing/accessories. Then ascertain when and where she was last seen, and with whom. Contact morgues, hospitals, prisons and police stations in case the disappearance was involuntary or shed encountered the wrong person. Interview friends and enemies, for friends might lie in order to protect.

A certain predictability could be counted upon: those missing persons who deliberately cover their tracks (for Leah knew that a depressing number go missing involuntarily, the victim of opportunist killers) nevertheless tend to adopt a similar name, maintain their old habits and interests, wear the same clothes and hairstyles. The things they alter will be obvious: a blonde will dye her hair black, a Sydney resident head for Melbourne.

Finally, we all leave a trail. Vast bureaucracies keep track of births, deaths, marriages, money and property transactions, travel movements. Each time we rent a car, stay in a hotel, use a motel phone, buy a bus ticket, apply for a passport or use a credit card to pay for a taxi or withdraw cash from an automatic teller machine, we generate pieces of paper and electronic records. These map our movements and predict our habits and inclinations.

And overlying all of that, good private detectives try to think their ways into the heads of the people they’re tracking. A girl like Tess? Shes run off with her boyfriend; shes heading interstate; if shes not lying dead in a ditch somewhere, then shell die of an overdose in a scungy motel room or back alley.

And me? Leah thought. What can they predict about me? Thats what I need to keep in front of my eyes, so that I can outwit, anticipate, subvert.

Forty minutes later, she slowed for the outskirts of a prosperous-looking town called Leighton Wells. Tess stirred, pointed. Used car yard.

Leah shook her head. We don’t want to leave a trail. No pieces of paper, no phone calls, no e-mail. I told you that.

Are you for real?

Your brothers found you, didn’t they?

Tess wriggled in her seat and muttered, Whatever.

They cruised through the town. Suddenly Tess pointed. There!

What?

On the nature strip.

Leah braked and reversed the car until they were adjacent to an early model Holden panel van, painted white, standing in a collar of grass. A faded red For Sale sign was propped inside the windscreen, the words $2,500 apply within hand-written in black marker at the bottom. Leah got out for a closer look.

The panel van had clearly been a workhorse in the past, but it was unlikely to be pulled over for a road-worthy inspection: plenty of tread left on the tyres, no obvious rust or external damage beyond a couple of scratches and a small dent in the rear panel, no cracks or pitting in the glass. She glanced at the nearest house. An old man was watching her from a verandah chair.

Leah got back into the Kingswood and drove it into the first side street. Five doors down she found a house with a For Sale sign staked in the blighted front lawn. The place looked empty, neglected, empty soft-drink cans and scraps of paper and plastic collecting along the front fence and caught here and there in the grass around dead and dying shrubs. She parked in the open carport at the side of the house, yanked out the For Sale sign and shoved it under the car.

Then she opened Tess’s door. Come on.

Yeah, right, I just automatically do everything you tell me to do.

Leah said patiently, I’m glad you spotted that old panel van back there. It could save our necks. All we have to do now is spin a good story.

Somewhat mollified, Tess accompanied her back to the main street and the white panel van. They walked around it and a minute later the old man joined them.

Love, I havent got time for tyre kickers.

Leah shook her head. Ive been after one of these.

Tess swung into action. Youve taken good care of it.

The old man jerked his head in acknowledgment. Ive had the old girl for twenty-five years, regularly serviced, never any heavy carrying, just mailbags.

Mailbags?

Yep. I delivered to all the outlying farms.

Youve retired?

Getting too old.

Engine? Leah said. Gearbox, differential?

New engine about four years ago, reconditioned gearbox and diff about three years ago, new brakes last year, recently serviced. A good radio-cassette player no CD, sorry. And you have to admit the price is good. Id have sold her by now if it wasn’t for the flaming drought, although I have to advise you, a young mechanic is interested.

Leah doubted that, but wasn’t about to challenge the old guy and make herself more memorable to him. Id like a test drive.

The old man shot her a keen look. Didn’t I see you just now in a Kingswood?

Oh, thats a friends car, she said.

He cocked his head as if to say, So?

We’ve just rented that house around the corner.

The old man waited.

I’m a new teacher at the high school, Leah said, hoping that there was a high school.

She saw the old man relax a little, and went on: A friend loaned us the Kingswood so we could move out here

And now you’re getting a pay cheque, you want a car of your own.

Exactly.

His amused but keen gaze switched to Tess, who said, I’m her sister.

He seemed to abandon his scrutiny and fished in his pocket, bringing out an ignition key. Take her for a good spin if you like. But maybe if you could leave me your license for security?

Better still, Tess said, moving close to the old man, who seemed to blush and find her bewitching, why don’t I stay and keep you company?

He grinned. Right you are. If your sister doesn’t come back I can always sell you to the white slave trade or set you to work in my kitchen.

Tess poked him. He giggled. Leah smiled and drove off in the panel van.

Ten minutes later she was saying to the old man, Drives well. Why are you selling?

I told you, too old to deliver mail any more.

But not too old to drive?

Its me eyes and me age and me kids, all conspiring against me.

Leah nodded. She liked the man and felt sorry for him. But meanwhile she had to stay in character. He would expect her to make a bid. Two thousand dollars, she said. Cash.

He pursed his lips. Twenty-four hundred.

A minute later they agreed on $2250. I cant accept a personal cheque, you know. No offense, the old man said.

Cash, Leah said, turning away from him and extracting the money. I went to the bank this morning, she explained, turning back to him. We were going to do the rounds of all the car yards this afternoon. I don’t usually carry this much cash around.

Apparently satisfied, he said, Ill do you a receipt.

Leah had no use for a receipt but didn’t want to raise the old mans suspicions. Thanks, she said, giving a false name and address.

He wrote in laborious capitals on a sheet of note-paper. You’ll hand in all the forms?

I promise, Leah said, conscious that Tess was smirking at her.

The transaction completed, Leah and Tess drove down the street and into the side street, aware that the man was watching and waving goodbye. Leah braked outside the empty house. We wipe our prints off the Kingswood.

Tess rolled her eyes.

You wouldn’t survive five minutes without me, Leah snapped, feeling mean and small.

Yeah, yeah.

To mend bridges, Leah said, I was very impressed with the way you handled that old guy back there.

Whatever.

But Tess did help and five minutes later they were driving further down the side street and onto a cross street. Back into the wide open spaces, Tess said.

Ive been thinking about that.

I bet you have, Tess muttered.

Whoever is chasing you, whoever is chasing me, will expect us to put in huge distances. They’re not expecting us to stay inside the general area.

Tess had a mobile face. It readily expressed all of her emotions, but displeasure seemed to be her normal condition. Yeah, right, in a motel where they can find us, or do you intend to luck out on another empty flat?

A bed-and-breakfast would be good, Leah said.

Shed seen signs for them. Apparently there was a deep gorge and watercourse east of the town, and some of the locals were making a buck out of the tourist trade.

Tess folded her arms stubbornly. I want a place with air-con. I’m sick of this heat.

Leah wondered if she should simply dump the girl and move on. Head north to Queensland or north west to Darwin. Tess was an absolute pain, a real burden. But Tess was sixteen. Shed never make it alone, Leah thought, remembering herself at sixteen, how little shed known.

I cant guarantee air-con.

Yeah, yeah. Look, I need tampons and stuff. Theres a shopping-centre on the edge of this dump.

How do you know that?

We came through here on a school camp once, Tess said vaguely.

Leah didn’t pursue it. She drove for some distance along the street parallel to the main road, and then turned right, joining the main road at the edge of the town, and saw the shopping-centre, just as Tess had stated. Leah badly wanted to get out of the town, but it made sense to stock up on supplies. A newspaper, for a start, and she hadn’t found any decent backpacks or sleeping-bags in Prospect. In the carpark of the shopping-centre she said, Well split up, that will be quicker. Ill meet you at the entrance in thirty minutes, okay?

Yes, Mum.

Tess hoisted the leather daypack over her shoulder and hurried toward the main doors, saying, I’m busting. Leah followed, strolling unconcernedly but alert for the Range Rover or anything else that didn’t belong in this corner of globe.

Then she was inside. There was no sign of Tess. The shopping-centre was laid out like wheel spokes radiating from a central hub. It looked, smelt and sounded like any shopping-centre anywhere in the Western world. She bought a newspaper and rolls and mineral water for lunch, then found a well-stocked camping store.

And just as she was paying for a new pack and sleeping-bag, she saw Tess. Tess spotted her at the same instant and spoke urgently to the young man with her. Tess slapped him on the back and waved cheerily as she walked away from him. He looked to be in his early twenties, dressed in an elegant black shirt, dark trousers and shiny black shoes, hair short and tipped with blonde highlights, a small ring in one ear. He glanced once at Leah and turned away and she lost him amongst the shoppers.

Who’s the boyfriend? demanded Leah a few seconds later.

Him? Tess looked flushed. Oh, thats the brother of a kid at school. Hes got the music shop.

Bit of a coincidence.

What do you mean?

Running into the brother of someone you go to school with. Here, of all places.

Tess shrugged. Come on, lets go.

Leah sighed. Leave it until another time, she thought. Whats in the shopping-bags?

Tess showed her. Leah frowned, trying to get a handle on Tess. A couple of glossy magazines, a lipstick, chewing-gum, postcards.

Ditch the postcards, Tess.

I knew you’d say that.

There was also a Paul Kelly cassette. Good choice.

Tess shrugged. He sings about solitary people and places, just right for the road.

It was a perceptive comment. They walked to the main exit, Leah wondering how long they had before it all went wrong again.