Hindsight (19 page)

M
ira hurried forward with Ben close on her heels. Two of the uniformed cops held position at the rear of the building near the loading bay, which was truckless and still locked down, while the other two headed for the far side of the building. Moser and Symes made their way up through the car park, escorting Chloe to the main customer entrance. As they reached the front corner, a ghostly limo sped into the driveway, jumping the kerb and skidding to a halt in front of them. Out leapt a male chauffeur, but not in time to open the rear passenger door as it burst open and ejected the balding passenger. He rushed at Chloe, waving hands and cigar, as if swatting flies from the air.

What’s the trouble this week?
Mira read from his lips.
You’re not evicting my customers again, Detective?

Mr Greppia, so glad you could meet us,
Moser said.

Never a problem, Detective, but can you please explain why you have dragged my niece into this?

I dragged myself, Uncle Gregan! Someone’s been using our shops to launder counterfeit money, and I think you know about it!

I’ve heard the rumours, child, of course I have. I’ve assisted this investigation at every step, but not at the cost of our customers. Come, detectives, can’t we please attend to any fresh issues without frightening off the local families?

As if to prove his point, Mira saw another ghostly woman appear through the door with a shopping trolley that seemed to overflow with as many children as groceries.

I frunnen told you,
Chloe ranted, oblivious to the mother approaching.

Language!
Greppia scolded.

The ghostly mother frowned sternly at Chloe too as she rolled past them with her children to her station wagon.

Detective, please?
Greppia pleaded, tugging at fistfuls of his remaining hair.
Can we not take this discussion inside to a back room?

Symes nodded.
So long as you don’t mind if Clyde takes a closer look at those cash registers.

Greppia tugged at his hair again and seemed to wail, open mouthed, like a gulping goldfish.
If that’s what it takes
,
so be it. Leave your jackets in your car so you look like service repairmen. I’ll have my staff close the aisles and bring the cash trays in to us, or you can search wherever you need to satisfy yourselves there are no hidden compartments.

Most gracious,
Symes replied.

‘What’s going on?’ Ben whispered.

Mira motioned him to follow again. ‘Chloe’s Uncle Gregan is here — bald guy, cigar.’

‘Yeah, that sounds like Gregan. He has a son, Greggie, who works here too as the assistant floor manager. Pushing brooms, mostly. Much taller, though, and more hair.’

‘No sign of him yet, but Gregan’s certainly upset. He doesn’t like conducting business in public, and I have to agree. Chloe needs anger management or maybe some time at Serenity in a straitjacket.’

‘Or maybe she has reason to be upset with two friends dead, two in custody and a bunch of cops who can’t protect her father’s businesses from criminals?’

‘That’s most gracious of you,’ Mira replied, as she led him through the front door of the shop that had ruined his life, ‘considering what’s been done to you.’

‘Most gracious?’

‘I learned it from Detective Symes just now. I used it correctly, didn’t I? You’re being kinder than expected?’

‘Sure, I guess, but I’m only trying to understand what really happened — to see things from Chloe’s perspective, same as I’ve always tried to do with you. What’s unexpected about that?’

‘Nothing, I guess.’ Mira stopped with a huff inside the door and asked if he wanted to grab a trolley so they didn’t look too out of place. From the sounds around her, the store was growing busier with more women and school-aged children.

While Ben fetched the trolley from the racks nearby, she kept her eyes on Chloe’s ghostly group as they diverted to the two furthest checkout aisles, each of which supported two cash registers. All four registers were painted white and adorned with plastic flowers and a faded memorial photograph of a fuzz-ball-headed man, while the other ten registers nearby were painted in store colours, which Ben soon confirmed to be black and green. To Mira, though, the whole scene was hazy shades of purple.

Is this where your brother died?
asked Moser.

Mira couldn’t read Greppia’s reply because his back had turned to her, but she saw him tug his hair and usher customers through the four ‘suspect’ checkouts by providing their unchecked items for free. He also sent the remaining queued customers aside to other aisles with a promise of ten per cent discounts for their inconvenience, and as he chained off all four registers personally, he hung up the signs ‘for servicing’.

‘I wish I could see what you see,’ Ben whispered. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Not much, but I sure hope he’s guilty of something, because this mess just cost him a small fortune. The store was full of the usual morning school traffic.’

Glancing to the four end registers again, and to the seven-year-old memorial photo of Theo Greppia, she realised that Ben’s life had fallen apart right there — in that spot — whether he’d been there at the time of the robbery or not. Beyond them, she saw a tall man sweeping floors, who fit the description of Gregan’s son, Greggie, who watched with interest as his father led the detectives and Chloe past him into an aisle and deeper, towards the fridge section and warehouse.

Mira took a step to follow, but noticed a stand of daily newspapers, and temptation overwhelmed her to glance back through time to witness the robbery itself — so long ago, counting the time it had taken to convict and release Ben, but she didn’t need to ask him about the date. She could read it clearly enough from the ghostly memorial.

Behind her, she heard the glass doors slide open and felt a gust of warmer air sweep in, along with a new commotion as her hand reached inconspicuously to adjust the shade controls. She heard Ben cry her name, and the unmistakable sounds of a fist fight.

Cold hands seized her roughly from behind, and she caught the scent of whales humping. Somewhere nearby, she also heard a man laugh — like the cackle of a kookaburra.

She screamed, but a hand clamped over her mouth and nose, making it hard enough just to breathe.

‘Let her go!’ Ben shouted, then she heard a thud and the wind knocked from him.

‘I’ll take those.’ Pobody stole her sunglasses.

Still struggling, Mira clenched her eyes shut against the painful flashback through time from purple haze to blue. She smelled the unmistakable zap of electricity through air into skin, and heard Ben hit the ground, shuddering.

‘Nothing to see here, folks,’ announced Patterson, ‘just escapees from Serenity.’

Mira kicked and screamed as they bundled her out of the store, across the street and up into their tall invisible vehicle, but with Ben incapacitated, she was no match for two strong men as they handcuffed her wrists and ankles. A century ago, the road had been a bullock track and the store little more than a hut, but to Mira, the road was as wide and sounded as empty then as it did now. It seemed as if everyone was inside the shop.

Pobody cuffed her wrists and secured them over her head to a hook, then they hefted Ben through the opposite door to land beside her. Groaning and weak, he seemed to be slumped on his injured shoulder with his head almost in her lap, but there was nothing she could do to help or comfort him. She kicked out with both feet, striking the back of the seat in front of her, judging that it was the driver’s seat and that she might be able to dislodge it, but a fist buried into her stomach, driving the wind out of her.

‘That’s enough of that,’ Pobody warned her. ‘Or we’ll light up your boyfriend again until his balls glow.’

‘Let her go,’ Ben croaked hoarsely. ‘She’s blind … No harm to … anybody.’

‘I disagree,’ Patterson said from the front passenger seat. ‘Next time you find one of our bugs, you’d better be sure to get all of them. It goes like this …’

Mira heard a button click, and then her own voice, replayed electronically: ‘They were in here yesterday. I saw Pobody put something under your mother’s car.’

‘That’s an interesting trick,’ Patterson said, ‘for someone who’s blind.’

Pobody clicked the ignition key, but the engine failed to kick over.

‘Get a move on!’ Patterson ordered.

‘It’s not me,’ Pobody argued, ‘it’s this bloody car! It won’t start!’

Tapping at Patterson’s window interrupted them and Mira heard an electric window winding down.

‘You’ll need a mechanic to fix that,’ Lockman said. ‘Need a ride, ma’am?’

‘Yes!’ Mira lashed out with both feet again, forcing a grunt out of Pobody.

‘Where’d you come from?’ Patterson demanded.

‘I was just about to ask you gentlemen the same thing. A little rough for taxi drivers?’

‘Military police, kid. Now hand over the toy before you hurt yourself.’

‘MPs, huh? So where’s your ID?’

‘Under my seat. If you let me bend forward …’

‘No point reaching for the Desert Eagle,’ Lockman said. ‘Saw it, swiped it, sold it on eBay. You should check your rear-vision mirror more often, grandpa.’

‘And young bucks like you need to learn when to keep your nose clean! Armed or not, there’s nowhere you can go we can’t find you.’

‘Ooh, I’m trembling — not a safe thing with my finger on a Glock trigger, and I’m a stickler for gun safety. So let’s just hand over the keys for the bracelets, or the rest of us might get to see precisely how few brains are in your head.’

Mira heard the tinkle of metal keys changing hands twice, then Ben cursing the size of his hands as he struggled to release himself.

‘Do her next, mate,’ Lockman said. ‘Then slide out this side. My Hilux is back there — with the muddy plates. Get in and buckle up tight.’

Ben coughed to catch his breath. ‘But my car is …’

‘Rigged. I saw them mess with it while I was messing with theirs. Look, trust me or nobody. Your decision.’

‘Trust him for now,’ Mira said as Ben leaned across to unlock her, and within seconds they were out of their abductors’ vehicle.

‘Mistake,’ Patterson said as Lockman slammed the door behind Mira. ‘There’s never going to be anywhere safer for you than with us, Miss Chambers.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ Lockman said. ‘It’s your turn for the bracelets.’

Lockman’s diesel engine jolted to life, soon followed by a rock version of Beethoven’s fifth symphony on electric guitar with drums and a synthesised orchestra. The beat caused Mira’s heart to race even more than it had been.

Cramped between the two solid men, she could not only smell the musky tension in the cab, she could also feel it through their invisible bodies, rubbing shoulder to shoulder on either side of her. Electric now, the beat of the music seemed to be driving them faster to get away. She wished there’d been a back seat but Ben described it as a single cab truck, loaded up with something big and bulging under a tarp in the back.

‘You followed us?’ Ben complained the moment Lockman skidded around the first turn.

‘Actually, I followed
them
.’ The calmness of his voice seemed in stark contrast to the racing melody, the volume of which switched down unexpectedly. ‘
They
followed you.’ He shifted up gears, bumping Mira’s thigh with his hand. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, as if the need to touch her thigh while changing gears made him feel awkward too. ‘I wasn’t expecting passengers.’

‘Tough luck,’ Ben said. ‘So they rigged my car? With what — a bomb or another bug?’

‘I didn’t have time to check, but I doubt it was anything you’d enjoy. They seemed prepared to take you dead or alive, ma’am. Now why would that be, do you think?’

‘Beats me,’ she replied. ‘You’d be surprised how many people do evil things when they think nobody is watching. Who can ever explain it?’