Snapshot

23

‘Isolation brings purity and strength,’ Vyner wrote. ‘I am the custodian of the codes.’

He closed his notebook and settled deeper into the driver’s seat of the Falcon he’d stolen from the carpark at Moorabbin airport. Mid morning now, a chill in the air, the weak wintry sun barely reaching him through the windscreen. He could run the heater, but didn’t want to draw attention to himself. You don’t necessarily notice a parked car, but you do if there’s someone seated inside it, starting the engine every five or ten minutes.

He’d raced down to the Peninsula from the airport, but there was no one at home in the miserable weatherboard ruin that Nathan Gent had been renting for the past few months. Bayview Grove, Dromana, a defeated-looking collection of houses crammed close to each other and the sea nowhere in sight. Vyner, taking care of business, had been waiting for an hour. Had Gent followed up his anonymous call with a visit to the cop shop? Bayview Grove was dead; four vehicles in the past hour: the postman on a 100cc Suzuki, bouncing at low speed over kerbs and driveways, a couple of women strapping toddlers into shiny cheap Korean imports, a guy distributing leaflets and not giving a shit about the No Junk Mail notices.

Vyner gazed again at Gent’s house. A few untidy plants on the front porch, weeds in the overgrown lawn, and no vehicle in the driveway but indications of one: muddy tyre impressions, flattened grass, oil leaks. He’d knocked when he first arrived, checked the meter box, and listened at doors and windows, but clearly Gent wasn’t in. And he hadn’t wanted to spend too much time poking around, for the house was too exposed. The street seemed dead, but it was probably chock-a-block with young mothers behind closed doors. Maybe with all of that post-natal depression they’d not be capable of identifying him, but he didn’t want to chance it.

What was in it for Gent, contacting the police? Money? Get rid of the guilt? Treacherous little prick. Time passed; Vyner dozed.

Gent came home on a pushbike, of all fucking things, shopping bags swinging from the handlebars. Vyner ducked low in his seat, confident that the tinted glass would obscure him. He saw Gent swing into the driveway with a natty flourish, dismount, and prop the bike against the peeling front wall. Then Gent disappeared down the side of the house. Vyner checked the wing mirrors, checked the street ahead and behind, and swung the Falcon into the driveway at low speed and revs. He piled out, ran to the rear of the house, and charged through the door on the back porch just as Gent was about to elbow it closed. The shopping spilled all over the worn linoleum and Gent stumbled backwards and Vyner shot him in the heart with his second silenced Browning automatic.