Double Take (16 page)

“According to Tiffany the deserted shed was the designated rendezvous point to divide up the money. This made it the most obvious place to start.”

“Maybe one of the fools actually owns it.” Eden's lips danced as he said it.

“Or failing that,” Steel piped in, “maybe they left something behind that we can use to identify them, or at the very least use as evidence later.”

“True. Okay, the boatshed is at Norman Park and hasn't been used since it was damaged in the flood of '74,” Thomas said. “Tiffany said it's at the end of a cul-de-sac with only twelve or so houses in the first half of the street. Apparently the second stretch of the road is just weeds and giant fig trees.”

“Can we find out who owns the shed?” Steel asked.

Thomas shook his head. “The Titles Office is closed now, and even when they open in the morning, we'll have Buckley's chance of finding the owner before showdown.”

Steel figured as much. “What do we know about the six people in the photos then?” He pointed at the wall behind Thomas.

Thomas turned towards the corkboard. He had pinned up the six photographs and above each was a slip of paper with a name.

“Again, we don't know a hell of a lot. I had hoped to find some details on this one at least. He'd certainly stand out in a crowd.” Thomas pointed to the photo of the tattooed man they knew as Pete. “But so far, nothing.” He shook his head.

Steel eyeballed Eden. “How'd you go with the prison?”

“I faxed all the photos over to the prison, like you instructed, but by the time they got it, it would've been well into the night shift. I don't expect anybody to look at them until morning.”

“Even then,” Thomas said, “the chance of someone over there recognising one of the robbers from a black and white facsimile would be a bloody miracle.”

“It doesn't matter,” Steel said. “We'll go with the names we have. Let's recap what we
do
know about these guys.”

Thomas pointed at the photo of the woman. “Let's start with her. Rachel. She's an intriguing kettle of fish.”

“She looks so familiar to me,” Steel said. “It's killing me.”

“Really?” Thomas collected the photo from the corkboard. “I got nothing.” He then shook his head and handed it on to Parker.

“Don't worry. It'll come to me,” Steel said.

“Hopefully sooner rather than later.” Parker gave Steel a lopsided grin as he handed the photo to Shearer.

Steel pushed his fingers through his thinly cropped hair and, like he'd done hundreds of times, he felt for the ugly fault line above his temple. The plastic surgeon had called it keloid scarring. The purple defect was apparently impossible to predict and just as impossible to remove; he was stuck with it for the rest of his life. Not that he minded. It kept him grounded—reminded him to be grateful for every day he woke up breathing.

“I think these guys go back a long way,” Steel said. “Take a look at them. They're all about the same age. We know Jack and Jimmy are brothers. If I were a gambling man, which I bloody well am, I'd bet these guys have some serious history together, probably all grew up in the same neighbourhood.”

“I'm going to play devil's advocate.” Parker looked a tad uncomfortable with what he was about to say. “But this all sounds too good to be true. How do we know this Tiffany isn't setting us up?”

“I hear what you're saying,” said Steel. “However, we don't have any choice but to follow this through. If a bank gets robbed tomorrow and it comes out that we knew about it beforehand, imagine the repercussions. If we do something, though, and it turns out it was a stupid hoax, then Miss Tiffany Black will shoot to the top of my most-wanted list. Hey, Eden, where's the copy of her driver's licence? Show these guys what she looks like.”

Eden fished through a bundle of paperwork on the desk and pulled out one sheet. He handed the photocopy to Shearer.

“What was your take on her, sir?” Eden's lip was actually still as he asked the question. That was unusual.

“Tell me what you think first.” Within a flash of Steel asking, Eden's lip was back to twitching. “Okay. For starters, I don't think her hair was real. Nor the eyelashes, nails and,
ahem
…breasts. Her voice didn't seem right, either. It was like she was putting on some kind of show.” He swallowed again. “But even with all that, I believe she knows something.”

Steel cracked his neck. “Agreed. I think the yarn she spun was about as fishy as the Sydney seafood market. But we have no choice than to carry on as if it's all legitimate. We just need to keep on our toes.”

“Why don't you just go to her apartment?” said Parker.

“Tiffany said Jack moved out yesterday. Besides, we can't afford to split our manpower, we've got enough to do. Thomas, tell us what we have on the rest of the group.”

“Actually, I didn't finish with Rachel. She's the one who bought the weapons.”

Shearer pushed back on his chair. “Hang on a minute, you didn't mention guns were involved.”

Steel showed his palms in a “calm down” gesture. “From what we understand they're fake. On the first tape Jack was pretty insistent that they only have fake weapons. At least he's doing something right.”

Thomas pointed at the tattoo-clad Pete. “We know Pete's on one of the getaway cars, and Donny's on the other. Other than that we have no idea who's doing what.”

“Wait a minute. There are two getaway cars?” Shearer's eyebrows shot up to his fringe.

“There's six of them. They need two cars. After the hold-up, Jack and Pete will be in one car. The rest go in the other.”

“They must trust each other then. There's no way a crew would separate otherwise. Not before they divide up the money, anyway.”

“Agreed,” Steel said. “Let's spitball this for a moment. Say we get into that boatshed tonight and catch all six of them having a slumber party, then all good. Except they've done nothing wrong and we've got no evidence we can work with to convict them for conspiracy to commit an offence. Correct?” He scanned the guys at the table and everyone nodded.

“But what if we go in and there's only one of them there?” Eden said. “We could interrogate him until we get all the answers.”

“For starters, remember, he's done nothing wrong, and we have no evidence that we can use yet,” Thomas said. “Also the other five could still go ahead with the robbery. If that happened we'd have lost the only piece of the bloody puzzle that we can work with at the moment. The boatshed.”

“So.” Steel shrugged. “How do we get a look at the shed without them seeing us?” He pointed a finger at a page on the corkboard that had obviously been torn from a street directory.

“It's a dead-end street with houses here at the beginning.” Thomas snatched the map from the corkboard and tapped his finger at the start of the street. “We'd have to operate like stealth to get in that way. It's a risk. For all we know one of them could live in the street.”

They were all silent for a moment or two then Eden snapped his fingers. “How about the creek? See this road?” He pointed to a street that ran parallel to the opposite side of the creek. “We could park here and then cross the creek and come up at the back of the shed to take a look around.”

Steel did a quick assessment of their options. There were none. Eden's idea was about as good as it got. “What do you think, Thomas?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

S
teel shot a glance at the clock on the dashboard. Nearly midnight. He rubbed his eyes. The last few hours had been bedlam and there was still so much to do. They were on their way back from the boatshed. A quick drive-by with the headlights out had confirmed Miss Black's summary. The shed was right at the end of a cul-de-sac, the start of the street had fourteen houses, seven on each side. But after that there was nothing but enormous fig trees on either side of the road. The shed was not visible from the road, and they hadn't risked slowing down for a good look. They did, however, see a gravel driveway. It was enough to know Eden's plan of coming in via the creek was the only option.

Thomas eased the car to a stop at a red light and Steel glanced around the empty streets. This was exactly how he liked it. One thing he hated was sitting in traffic.

“So what's with the key ring anyway?” Thomas asked.

“Huh?” Steel hadn't realised he'd taken his lure from his pocket.

“I see you messing around with it all the time. What is it, a lucky charm or something?”

Steel noticed the incandescent pieces in the lure's rubber tail were reflecting small spots onto the car's vinyl roof. “It was a fishing lure. Not that I ever got around to using it for fishing. But it once saved my life.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“The day I bought it, I was called out to some nutter taking pot shots from his apartment window. Lucky for me, this little fish fell out of my pocket. Because the second I bent over to pick it up was the moment he had me in his crosshairs. If I hadn't moved when I did, my brains would've been plastered all over the squad car.”

“Holy shit, man. So that's how you got that scar. I always wondered.”

Steel reached up and ran his finger along the threaded ribbon of skin. “Makes you appreciate every day.”

* * *

They finally arrived at the street that ran parallel to the creek. Wattle Street was lined each side with identical weatherboard houses. It was as if one builder had a monopoly on the home designs in the whole street. They even had the same fences: all white picket, hip height. If you came home drunk, you'd have trouble knowing which house was yours.

What Steel was looking for was a house situated directly across the creek from the boathouse, as the crow flies. Thomas made a guess at which house and pulled in to the curb. Steel watched through the side mirror as Parker pulled his car right up behind them. He hoped no-one was watching because right now they stood out like a pimple on a tart's tit.

He really didn't expect anyone around at this time of night, but five men stepping out of two matching Commodores was bound to get someone's attention. They needed to get off the street, and quickly.

Steel heard a television on somewhere and let his ears guide him to its origin. Six houses down from their parked car, he stopped at a house where the occupants were either night owls or had fallen asleep with the television on. “You boys stay here for a moment. Thomas and I'll go and see who's awake.”

He pushed through the rusted metal gate and the damn thing screeched louder than a cockatoo at feeding time. He hoped like hell these people didn't have a dog, but he didn't wait to find out. He stepped onto the wooden stairs and clenched his teeth with each noisy footstep he made.

At the top, Thomas knocked on the door and stepped back. Moments later the door opened, and they were greeted by a little old lady with rollers in her hair and crusty remnants of bright pink lipstick on her lips. She looked up at them and then looked past them to scan up and down the street. Thomas showed his badge and was about to speak but she beat him to it.

“Oh bugger,” she said. “Who's been complaining this time?”

She was loud, way too loud for a woman of her stature and way too loud for this time of the night.

“It's okay, ma'am. No-one is complaining. I'm Superintendent Montgomery Steel and this is Senior Detective Daniel Thomas. Could we talk to you inside for a minute, please?” He wanted to get her inside before she woke up the whole damn neighbourhood.

“What's the matter, has someone been robbed?”

“No, ma'am. Let's go inside, shall we.” Steel waited for her to move aside and then stepped into her overcrowded lounge room. He did a quick scan. When the 1950s came to this home they never left. It was like looking at a page from a history book. The combined smell of mothballs and some kind of roasted meat was not pleasant.

“Ma'am, we have a very important police matter and we'd like your help.” Thomas went to the television and dialled down the volume.

She touched the rollers in her hair. “Oh, what do you want me to do?”

Wow, she was loud. “Ma'am, have—”

“Please don't call me that, it makes me feel old.”

Steel stifled a laugh. The old duck had to be eighty, at least. “I'm sorry,” he said. “May I ask your name?”

“Mrs Ethel Hinchinbrook. But you can call me Ethel.” She ran her tongue over her lips, but failed to remove any of the pink residue still caked there.

“Is there a Mr Hinchinbrook?” Thomas asked.

She tugged her dressing gown across her chest. “That's a bit forward, Detective Thomas.”

Thomas flushed red and Steel decided to save him. “We don't want to disturb anyone else in the house.”

When she frowned, Steel realised she had no eyebrows. “No, Superintendent Steel, my husband passed away in 1987.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“It's been five years…” She shook her head. “I still miss him. He was a good man.”

“Ethel.” He attempted his most becoming smile. “Have you ever noticed the shed over the other side of the creek?”

“The old boatshed.”

Steel sat forward. “Yes, ma'am. I mean, Ethel.”

“Superintendent Steel, I'm not blind, nor am I stupid. I've lived here for forty-seven years, so of course I've seen the shed across the creek. I can remember how they hauled the boats up out of the creek to repair them.”

Steel felt like he was being admonished by his grandmother. He raised an eyebrow at Thomas. It was his turn to stifle a laugh.

It appeared pointless to dance around the subject. She seemed to prefer the more direct approach. “Have you noticed any unusual activity over there in the last couple of weeks?”