‘I don’t know. We consider every possibility and then start eliminating them. I still think the strongest possibility is that Errol organized his own kidnapping and it all went wrong when the maid was killed. Maybe the woman is in on the scam with him –’
‘Bastard!’ said Kylie.
Malone had been thinking aloud, something no cop should ever do. He realized it and tried to get his thoughts and his tongue under control. He looked at Caroline: ‘Did he ever mention another woman to you?’
‘Only Miss Doolan,’ said Caroline and made it sound as if Miss Doolan were no more than graffiti on a wall.
Malone swallowed his smile, turned back to Cragg. ‘I want a list of everyone who’s worked here in the past twelve months.’
‘Everyone?’
‘Everyone. It shouldn’t be any problem, Mr Cragg.’ He nodded at the deserted work-stations, every one with its own computer. ‘Not with Information Technology.’
He spoke with the sarcasm of a troglodyte who still scratched sketches on the wall of his cave. Cragg and Smith looked at him as if they saw him exactly like that.
‘Can we help?’ asked Smith.
‘Just see no money goes out, five million or even a dollar. No ransom, unless you talk to us first. We’ll be in touch.’
He walked down the long room to where Sheryl waited for him at the reception desk.
‘They’ve started the trace,’ she said. ‘But they’re not hopeful.’
‘Good,’ said Malone, but entertained no hope. ‘Have you got Louise’s full name?’
‘Louise Cobcroft.’
‘Why do you want my name?’ Louise was standing at her desk, antagonism in every line of her slim body. She had drawn her hair back, holding it in place with a headband, and it improved her looks, showing the fine bonework in her face. Her eyes were almost glassy in their severity. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Louise, you stayed on the phone when that call came through for Mr Cragg. I saw you, you listened to every word. Do you usually do that on your boss’ calls?’
‘No-o.’ She backed down, but only an inch.
‘Did you recognize that woman’s voice? One of your workmates, for instance?’
‘No, I didn’t.
‘Why were you so interested in the call? Did the woman mention Mr Magee when she first came on the line?’
‘No-o.’ She was looking less and less confident.
‘How well did you know Mr Magee? Did you work closely with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘How close?’ said Sheryl, coming in at the other end of the pitch. She’s learning, thought Malone, she’s going to be a good change bowler.
‘We’d work at night together –’
‘That all?’
Suddenly all the stiffness went out of Louise. She glanced down towards the far end of the room. The group there were looking in the direction of Malone and the two women. Louise sighed and turned back to Malone and Sheryl. ‘Okay, sometimes we’d hold hands –’
Malone grinned. ‘How tightly?’
Unexpectedly she smiled; it changed her whole face, made her very attractive. ‘It was nothing serious … He had Kylie. But now and again one thing would lead to another … You know how it is –’ She looked at Sheryl, not at the old man beside her. ‘Basically, just one-night stands.’
‘Here amongst the work-stations?’ said Malone.
‘No. Up till yesterday the work-stations were in operation twenty-four hours a day. He’d take me home …
‘Did he hold hands with any of the other women on the staff?’
‘I don’t know. He might have … And that’s all I’m going to tell you. Here comes Kylie. Don’t tell her.’
‘You talking about me?’ said Kylie as she reached them.
‘Only sympathetically,’ said Sheryl, reacting quicker than Malone. ‘You must be terribly hurt by what’s happened to Errol.’
‘Oh, I am,’ said Kylie, and sounded as if she might also be pleased. ‘What’s going to happen to you, Louise?’
‘Oh, I’ll be okay,’ said Louise, settling back into her chair. ‘In this game you’re always ready to jump. It’s the nature of it.’
‘Basically,’ said Malone and then from another age asked, ‘Don’t you ever think of long-service leave and superannuation?’
‘What are they?’ she said, but gave him the pleasant smile again.
4
Darlene hung up the phone and stepped out of the phone-box into the glare of the Sutherland street. She put on her dark glasses and stepped under the shade of a shop awning. She only knew this southern suburb from passing through it on the way down to the bush cottage. She was a stranger here.
‘We’ve got to get right away from where we usually are,’ her mum had said. ‘We don’t make any calls from anywhere near home. I dunno whether they can trace phone calls, but we’re not gunna take any chances. Don’t use your mobile.’
Shirlee had organized them all, right after breakfast. First, she had spoken to Phoenix, who always wanted to argue: ‘You go back up to Hurstville and check in at Centrelink, tell ‘em you’re still looking for a job. Then go and bank your dole cheque –’
‘Ah shit, Mum –’
‘Wash your mouth out,’ she said, washing dishes.
‘Well, for Crissakes, Mum, we’re gunna be rich – why the fuck – why the hell’ve I gotta worry about my dole cheque? Or fuck -or Centrelink? I’m not innarested in a job now.’
‘We don’t arouse suspicion, that’s why. So none of the nosy neighbours back in Hurstville can talk –’
‘Mum,’ said Corey, lolling back in a chair at the breakfast table, ‘why d’you think anyone’s gunna suspect us? You think they got guys out there, watching Pheeny don’t turn up at Centrelink?’
‘As for you,’ said his mum, the general, ‘you be certain, you go back to town, you walk around like you got a sore back. Men on workers’ compo, the insurance companies, they got private investigators watching you like hawks. I seen it on TV a coupla months ago.’
Corey worked for a haulage company as its chief mechanic. A week ago he had conveniently strained his back and had gone to a doctor, recommended by one of his workmates, who, for the right consideration, would give a death certificate to a glowing-with-health gymnast.
‘How long we gunna give ‘em to make up their minds to pay the ransom?’
‘Four, five days, a week at the most. They’re gunna bargain. I been reading about Big Business, them takeover deals. They bargain for weeks. They do something, I dunno what it means, it’s called due diligence.’
‘Mum,’ said Darlene, putting on her face, looking at it in her vanity mirror, wondering what she would look like when she was a million dollars richer, ‘this isn’t big business. It’s a ransom, five million dollars. Petty cash to them.’
‘You been working too long at that bank,’ said Corey. ‘You dunno what real money means.’
She put away her mirror