Headhunters

Chapter Thirty-Three

They had jumped from the train a few miles north of Gisborne. Matilda drove them south, along the C705 through Toolern Vale and into Melton. They reached the interchange with the M8 and merged into the gentle flow of traffic, following the road east toward Caroline Springs.

They were on the outskirts of Deer Park when Milton saw what he wanted.

“Pull in there.”

Milton pointed out the strip mall as they approached. There was a business that groomed pets, a hairdresser’s, a dry cleaner’s, an insurance office, a small supermarket and a bank. Victoria Savings & Loans. It was a local operation with branches around the Melbourne area.

“Why?”

“I need a bottle of water.”

“Get me one, too,” she said.

Milton had found a baseball cap inside the glovebox and a pair of sunglasses in the holder behind the rear-view mirror. He put them on as he stepped outside.

Matilda leaned out of the broken window. “And a sandwich. Cheese and something.”

“Okay.”

Milton made his way across the lot to the entrance of the supermarket. There was a telephone in a booth next to the wall, and inside was a directory. He flipped through the pages until he got to H and then tore out two pages with listings for local hotels. He folded the pages and stuffed them into his pocket.

He paused, looked back to check that Matilda was distracted and, seeing that she was, he continued past the supermarket and made his way to the bank. He had been thinking about what they were going to do for money on the train. There was no other way around it. Something like this was going to be necessary.

He pretended to busy himself with a leaflet that advertised a new savings product. It offered five per cent on savings if the saver didn’t touch the cash through the course of the year. Whoever wrote the leaflet seemed to think that was a pretty good deal judging by the enthusiastic copy and the eager young couple who were beaming out from a big photo on the front. Milton turned the leaflet over and made a good show of reading it.

But he wasn’t reading it. His attention was on the room.

It was small. He had entered through an automatic glass door. Beyond that was a thin counter that ran down the centre of the room, separating the space so that customers at the glass-fronted counters had privacy from those waiting behind. The counter bore several collections of leaflets offering the bank’s products. Behind it were two offices carved out of the space by a glass wall. Milton saw stylised pictures of the Australian landscape on the walls inside the offices. There were two cashier windows, and only one was staffed. The cashier was talking airily with the customer before him. The man had asked for a transfer to be made between two accounts, and the cashier was trying to upsell him a new product.

Milton checked again and saw the cameras mounted on the walls and behind the counter. There would be no way to escape being photographed, but he would worry about that later. It was impetuous, but he had to do something. They were out of money, and they needed funds to keep Bachman at arm’s reach.

The man finally disentangled himself from the cashier’s attention and walked away.

“Next, please.”

Milton put the leaflet back and went forward. The clerk was a middle-aged man with ginger hair and a beard that needed a little attention. He had a half-eaten sandwich on the desk. Milton looked down at the badge attached to the man’s lapel. It said his name was George.

“How can I help you, sir?”

“I’m very sorry about this, George.”

“About what?”

Milton reached behind his back and removed the Glock. “You see this?” Milton said, giving the gun a little jerk. “It’s a Glock. It fires 9mm rounds. The bank probably told you that that glass is bulletproof. Trust me, it’s not. This close, the bullet is going to go through the glass and then it’s going to go into your head.” He nodded down at the man’s right hand, which was slowly crawling across his side of the counter towards his lap. “No alarms, George, okay? We do this nice and quickly and I’ll be on my way, no harm done. But if you give me any problems, any attitude, then I’m going to pull the trigger. Do you understand me?”

Milton spoke with calm, easy confidence. The clerk looked back at him, transfixed by the Glock, his eyes wide and a nervous tic suddenly twitching in his cheek.

“George?”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Good. Now, nice and quickly, I want you to put all of your high-denomination bills into an envelope for me. Can you do that?”

“Y-y-y-yes,” he forced out.

“Start with the bills from the top of the drawer. Hundreds first, then fifties, and twenties last if you have room. Come on, George, let’s go. The sooner you finish, the sooner I’m gone and the sooner you can enjoy the rest of that sandwich.” Milton nodded that he should get to it, and then trained the gun on him as he started. “That’s it. Keep going. Fill it up all the way.”

Milton looked over his shoulder. The branch was still empty and, in the lot outside, he could see the car with Matilda inside. He didn’t know how long it would take the police to respond to the alarm that George was going to press as soon as he was out of the branch, but he didn’t expect he would have much more than five minutes. He needed her to stay where she was. If he was left outside with no transportation in a town that he didn’t know, he knew it would be difficult to make it away. And if he was caught, Bachman would find out. And if he was in custody, he would be a sitting duck.

“It’s full,” George said, shoving the bulging envelope through the opening at the bottom of the window.

Milton took it and pushed it into his pocket.

“Well done, George. No alarms, okay? If I hear police, I might have to come back in here again. You wouldn’t want that.”

“No alarms.”

“That’s great. Enjoy your lunch.”

He turned and went outside. Matilda had the engine running.

She saw him coming out of the bank, the gun in his hand. He opened the door and slid inside, putting the gun and the envelope on the dash.

“You fucking didn’t…”

“Shall we talk on the road?”

“Seriously, Milton. You’re turning me into an accessory to a bank robbery now?”

The hum of rush-hour traffic was split by the up and down shriek of an alarm.

“Matty — drive, please.”

She threw the car into drive and they lurched out of the parking lot and onto the empty road. In the distance, Milton heard sirens.

Matilda gave him a hard time for the first mile and then, with a weary shake of her head, she let it go and concentrated on the road ahead. Milton didn’t know what he thought of that. He had expected worse. But, he reminded himself, robbing a bank was merely the latest in a series of unfortunate incidents for her. Her abduction. Being drugged. The things that she had learned about him.

She drove with a determined set to her face. Milton knew better than to push his luck, so he said nothing until ten minutes had passed and they were away from the bank. He reached into his pocket and snagged the edges of the pages he had torn out of the directory. He unfolded them and skimmed the details. There was an old satnav in the glovebox. He plugged it into the cigarette lighter and tapped in the details of the hotel that looked most promising.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Hotel.”

“We’re staying?”

“We need a base. There are some things we need to sort out.”

“Like?”

“Like passports.”

Milton had six fakes, but they were all in his pack, and that was back at the sheep station. Matilda didn’t have hers. Perhaps it was at Boolanga, too. There was no way they were going to be able to return — he knew Bachman would have left a team there in the event that they did something as stupid as that — so they were going to have to improvise.