Pay Dirt

THIRTY-SIX

Wyatt knew that he was being unfair. He knew how his coldness discouraged people and coloured the way he saw the world. He pocketed the gun as a way of saying that he was disarming himself, then slumped back against the wall to wait, knowing it was too soon to touch her.

Leah shivered, her arms wrapped around her chest. The hand-cuffs swung on her left wrist. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute.’

‘I doubted you,’ Wyatt said. ‘I shouldn’t have.’

She didn’t approach him but let go of her arms and seemed to notice him properly. ‘You’ve changed your appearance,’ she said. She shivered. ‘Everything’s weird.’

Wyatt sat on the bed and pointed at the body. ‘Did he tell you anything?’

‘He said his name was Letterman and he was hired to kill you. Apparently you trod on somebody’s toes.’

Wyatt gestured in frustration. ‘A Sydney mob. It’s so stupid. Clearly they’re not going to let go of it, so now I’ll have to talk to them.’

Leah sat next to him on the bed. ‘Talk to them? Will they listen?’

‘They’ll listen.’

‘Do you know who?’

‘I’ll find out.’

They were silent, looking at the body. ‘He was waiting at the farm,’ Leah said. ‘Snyder had been in contact with him.’

‘That figures. It’s my guess Letterman put the word out offering big bucks to anyone who knew where to find me.’

‘He must have followed Snyder from Melbourne.’

Wyatt nodded. ‘And he wouldn’t have paid Snyder the full amount until he was sure he’d found me. That’s why Snyder was so keen for us to go back to the farm instead of running. He’d missed out on the payroll-he didn’t want to miss out completely.’

By now their shoulders were touching. It calmed Wyatt and seemed to calm Leah. She rested more heavily against him. ‘What went wrong?’ she asked. ‘Judging by the way Snyder and Letterman acted, they were just as surprised as we were.’

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.