Dead Point

42

The Cathexis carpark was in the basement, entered from a concrete driveway on the eastern side of the building. I found a park two blocks away and walked back, a cold wind opening my jacket, no-one in the streets.

I didn’t turn in when I reached the driveway. I walked to the far side, then turned right and stayed close to the wall as I made haste to cover the 50 metres to the carpark entrance. The camera above it was stationary, looking down on where drivers would activate the door-opening machinery by communicating with a steel pillar.

Robbie’s device was in my hand as I walked. At the carpark’s huge door, I did a right-angle turn, went up to the pillar, saw the eye set into it, pointed the small torch and pressed the button.

The carpark door made a noise and began its rise. I was inside long before it reached my height.

No more than two dozen cars were in the brightly lit chamber. Quality not number, all foreign: Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Saab, Audi, an Alfa, a yellow born-again VW Beetle in the corner.

I looked around. In the centre of the space, a glowing green arrow on a concrete shaft pointed upwards. I was there in seconds.

Another eye.

I pointed and pressed.

The lift door opened.

A big stainless-steel box, carpet on the floor, deep plum-coloured carpet. No ordinary lift. No floor buttons to press, just a keyboard, an eye and, above it, a green screen. Beside that, two large red rectangular buttons said ASSISTANCE and EMERGENCY.

The green screen had a message: Welcome to Cathexis. Please enter your code.

Point and press.

The screen said: Thank you. Please enter your password.

My password?

I hadn’t thought about a password. Ah, the numbers scratched on the torch. I managed to read them, typed them in: 2646.

The screen said: Error. Please re-enter password.

Time to leave. I was turning when I remembered. The apartment was in a company name. The woman at reception had said it. It had crossed my mind that it was an anagram of Rosalind.

Dalinsor Nominees.

It was worth a try. I typed in Dalinsor.

The screen said: Thank you.

The lift was moving. I breathed again. Numbers blipped on the screen, stopped at 12. The door opened.

A foyer with a pale rose carpet. Soft lighting came from wall sconces beside four doors. Number 12 was on my right, a security camera set into the wall above it. Plus another electronic eye, another keyboard. How did the residents put up with this? Better to risk burglary.

There was a button. I pressed it. If anyone was home, I had explaining to do.

No response. I pressed again, waited. Then I gave the eye a beam with the torch.

The keyboard lit up and a voice said: ‘Entry code, please.’

If the number scratched on the torch didn’t work I was going to be trapped up here on the twelfth floor, waiting for security to arrive.

I tapped in 2646.

The voice said: ‘Thank you.’

My shoulders sagged. Bolts slid.

I went into a long hallway, unfurnished, looked around for the alarm system. It was behind the door, a steel box with a green light glowing. The entry code had deactivated the alarm.

An open door from the hall led into a huge sitting room, empty except for two leather chairs and a sofa. Outside, on a balcony, the wind was whipping the bare branches of trees in pots. I walked through into a kitchen, stainless steel and granite, sleek, no visible appliances, no signs of habitation. From the sink, you could look out over the city, blurred by the wet glass.

I went back to the hall, found the main bedroom. The bed was the size of a Housing Commission bedroom, bedding on it, striped sheets stripped back.

Facing the bed, a home-cinema-size screen was built into a wall of cupboards, record and stereo equipment beneath it.

Was this where Susan Ayliss had seen herself on screen? Live in action with Marco.

A dressing-room led off the bedroom. I had a look in the cupboards. Two held women’s garments, after-dark wear at a glance, and there were underclothes in drawers and women’s shoes in a rack. Ros Cundall obviously used the place occasionally.

Beyond the dressing-room was a bathroom that was also a gym and spa and sauna, an antiseptic Nordic-looking place. In a glass-fronted cabinet, glass shelves held cosmetics — jars and tubes, bottles of all shapes and sizes containing pale liquids and golden vials — three perfumes, atomisers, cologne, cottonwool balls, ear buds, mouthwash, toothpaste.

Nothing. I was wasting my time.

I went back to the kitchen, sighted along the granite countertop, saw the faint trails. It took a while to find the fridge but it was empty except for a bottle of Perrier water.

I opened another door off the hallway. A study, built-in shelves along one wall, a modern desk and a chair, nothing in the desk drawers. Tall and narrow cabinets flanked the doorway. On the way out, I opened the door of the right-hand one. Empty. I tried the other one. Empty.

Time to go, to end this trespass.

But I was reluctant to leave. I went back to the sitting room, looked around, walked around the kitchen again opening doors, checked the other bedroom, the main bedroom again, the dressing-room, the bathroom/gym/sauna.

I was turning to leave, leave the room, the apartment, the building, when I saw, on a shelf behind a chrome-plated exercise bicycle, a bag, a leather-look bag, the size of a small toilet bag.

I went over and picked it up, opened it.

It held a camera. A small digital video camera.

The camera that filmed Susan Ayliss?

Now it was time to go.

Leaving Cathexis didn’t require any codes. In a few minutes, I was on the wintry street, curiously elated for someone who only hours before had been running for his life in a public park.

The woman at Vizionbanc in South Melbourne took the camera away and when she came back her tone was apologetic.

‘Only one image on it is retrievable,’ she said. ‘Sometimes everything isn’t completely wiped. A beach. Want to see?’

I followed her into a room lit by the glow from half-a-dozen monitors on one wall. She took me to the end one. It showed a beach, a featureless and windy beach by the look of it, sea to the left, low dunes to the right, scrubby vegetation. There were two sets of marks in the sand, possibly footprints. In the distance, at the right of the frame, on the dunes side, there was something solid, just a dark blob.

‘What’s that?’ I pointed.

‘Vehicle,’ she said. ‘Old Land Rover, Land Cruiser, something like that. The boxy shape.’

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘That’s a gift.’

‘Trained at huge expense by the Defence Department,’ she said. ‘We pass the savings on to our clients.’

She went to a work station and fiddled at a console. The dark blob now filled the screen. It was a fuzzy image but it was a vehicle, not quite side-on to the camera, definitely a four-wheel drive, grey.

‘Land Cruiser,’ she said. ‘Short wheelbase.’

‘Is that the date the picture was taken? On the bottom.’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I use a phone? Can someone ring me back here?’

She nodded, took me to the reception area.

I rang Eric the Cybergoth, told him what I wanted. Then I looked at the street, the passers-by, at the rain falling on the Stud where it stood in the loading zone. No beading was taking place on its blue-grey skin. The parking persecutor, the grey ghost who left the message for me around the corner from The Green Hill, he would take better care of the Stud. Love it more. Cherish it. Wax it. It would bead for him. I had his number. I should sell it to him.

On the other hand, if he waited a short time, he could buy it much cheaper from my deceased estate.

The phone on the desk rang.

‘Jack?’

Eric the Lawless, master of the cybersteppes.

‘Yes.’

‘There’s one.’

‘What is it?’

‘Land Cruiser. ’82. Want the rego?’

‘Yes.’