Whispering Death

9

Pam Murphy had noticed these things about the woman: a slight, ill-defined foreign accent, as though she spoke English at work but another language at home, or had lived for long periods in different English-speaking countries; a beautiful face, once you looked past the dark glasses and showy purple; a trace of fear under the bewilderment and indignation.

Now, in the VineTrust foyer, she jotted time, date, location and Corso’s name, description and New South Wales registration number in her notebook, together with a short narrative of the incident. Then she pocketed the notebook, showed her ID to a teller and was taken to a partitioned office. The sign on the door said: ROWAN ELY: MANAGER.

‘Take a seat,’ Ely said with an amused frown, shutting the flimsy door on them. In fact, all of the fittings looked cheap to Pam, prefabricated out of artificial materials of a pastelly nothing-colour, possibly grey.

‘Now,’ said Ely, ‘what can I do for the police?’ He paused, winked roguishly. ‘I can assure you I paid that parking fine.’

Pam smiled. Ely was the kind of town politician who knew whose hands to shake. When Waterloo had become more popular as an end-of-school-year party destination, he’d cajoled her into addressing the town council on safety and security measures, and had even invited her to a Christmas barbecue last year. ‘It’s not the speeding fine,’ she said, ‘it’s the embezzlement.’

At the expression on Ely’s face, Pam grinned and held up a placating hand. ‘Joke, sorry. I’ve come about this.’

She handed Ely the Force Command e-mail, explaining about the bank robber’s inexorable move south and west.

The manager listened, frowning. He was about fifty, soft-looking, face and forehead smooth and gleaming. Crisp white cuffs, a thin gold watch strapped around one narrow wrist by a strip of black calfskin. His clean fingers played a tune on the pristine desk blotter.

‘Naturally we’re always advised of recent holdups,’ he said, when Pam finished, ‘but never in terms of-’ he rolled one wrist, searching for the words ‘-of mapping one fellow’s movements. I can see why you think he’s headed this way.’

‘We’re advising local banks to take extra precautions,’ Pam said. She glanced about her as if taking the measure of the VineTrust’s corner location, on High Street’s main roundabout. Too exposed to tempt a hard man with a sawn-off shotgun?

‘I’ll certainly warn my staff to be on the lookout,’ Ely said.

Pam nodded, staring past Ely’s shoulder to the louvred window and High Street beyond the darkened glass, traffic and pedestrians passing by, unconcerned. ‘We’ll see if we can provide extra uniformed patrols. Meanwhile you could empty the tills more regularly during working hours, or whatever it is you do.’

‘Well,’ said Ely, the jokester, ‘that would be in the order of secret banker business.’

Pam gave him an empty smile, shook his hand goodbye, and stepped out on to High Street. A late afternoon in September, a warm wind and cloud wisps above, shoppers parting around her, some even saying hello. She visited each of the other banks, then began her walk back to the police station, passing the Thai restaurant, the women’s fitness centre, the new bookshop.

As she drew alongside the father-and-daughter barbershop, Janis spotted her through the glass and clacked her scissors inquisitively. Pam pantomimed maybe next time, and continued past the welfare office and over the railway line, her thoughts returning to the attack on Chloe Holst. She recited an old police mantra: What do I know? What don’t I know yet? How can I find out?