I gained on him, walking quietly, with traffic noise from the road above helping. It was dark in the section of the car park he was approaching and he pulled keys from his pocket as he neared a new-looking Volvo station wagon. He worked the remote and released the door. I didn’t have time to consider. I charged him, head down, and slammed the door into him. He was totally off guard and collapsed, hitting his head twice as he went down. He was unconscious and bleeding from a wound above his ear. I crouched in the shelter of the car and felt his pulse. Strong. I used my Swiss army knife to cut his T-shirt from his body and then used the strongest parts of it to strap his feet together and bind his hands behind his back. I tore a thin, well-stitched strip, and gagged him with it, pushing some of the material into his mouth. Not enough to choke him, but enough to keep him quiet. I bundled him into the back and collapsed the back seat rest onto him.
There was a packet of tissues on the front seat and I used one to prevent leaving a print as I opened the glove box. His pistol with the silencer detached sat there under a much-thumbed UBD. I closed the glove box and walked away, leaving the keys on the bonnet.
Things were quieter but not yet still at the marina and I strode in, giving a confident signal to the night watchman. ‘A quick word with Ray Starcevich.’
He nodded and I went back along the jetty towards the Ballina Belle. I didn’t know how much time I had so there was no room for subtlety. I stepped over the side and approached the steps leading below. ‘Ray,’ I said. ‘You there?’
Maybe he was expecting someone, maybe I sounded a little like North, but he climbed the steps and I waited until he was almost at the top before I jumped out and kicked him in the crotch. He tumbled down the steps and I went down after him with my. 38 in my hand and ready to punch or kick again if I had to. There was no need. Starcevich lay groaning at the bottom of the steps with his arm twisted at an impossible angle. He tried to lever himself up using both hands and screamed with pain.
‘Who the fuck’re you? Where’s Warren?’
‘Warren’s out of the picture. Where is she?’
I had the gun hard in his groin and I was very calm and he was very afraid. He jerked his head towards a short passageway.
‘In there.’
‘Show me.’
‘I can’t walk, you cunt.’
I jabbed hard. ‘Crawl.’
That’s what he did for a couple of metres before he managed to lever himself up and stagger to a cabin door. He was big and strong and although he was in pain he was still dangerous.
‘Lie down,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Lie down!’
He looked at me and then at the gun and lowered himself into the narrow space. I rested my foot lightly on the crook of his damaged arm. ‘You give me any trouble and I’ll fuck it completely. Likely you’d lose it. Understand.’
He nodded and I opened the cabin door. Lorrie Master lay on a bunk with plastic restraints tying her to the frame at the wrists and ankles. Some sort of ball with strings attached had been forced into her mouth and tied around her head. Her eyes were wide open and she looked at me as if I was some kind of apparition, a stress-induced fantasy.
‘It’s okay, Lorrie,’ I said.
I turned back to Starcevich. ‘If I go in there to get her loose, do you think you could get away before I could shoot you?’
‘No.’
‘D’you want to get out of this alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve got a chance. Just a chance. Lie perfectly still and your chances go up.’
I felt him flop and took away the pressure. I stepped into the cabin and used the shorter, sharper blade to cut Lorrie free. She used her hands to remove the gag.
‘Oh, Cliff. How-?’
‘There’s no time. Can you walk?’
She eased herself upright and groaned. I flashed a quick look at Starcevich. Still compliant.
Lorrie stretched and massaged her leg muscles. ‘I think so. I wasn’t trussed up like that all the time.’
‘Okay. You have to go up and go across to your boat.’
‘Jesus, are we…?’
‘Yes. Coincidence. Just go across quietly and say I’ll be contacting them in a minute.’
‘Who?’
‘No names. Just go, Lorrie. I’ve got business with this guy.’
She was dressed in the clothes Fiona had bought her and wouldn’t look out of place. She scrambled to her feet and glanced down at Starcevich.
‘He wasn’t too bad, Cliff. It was the other one.’
‘Good. He’s in luck then. Go!’
She blew me a kiss and took off. I gave her time to get there and then called O’Connor’s mobile.
‘Hardy?’
‘Right. No names. How is he?’
‘Coming around. Couldn’t have taken more than one. Either that or he’s got a high tolerance.’
‘Good. I want all three of you out of there inside ten minutes. There’s going to be a lot of activity. Don’t argue. Take them anywhere you like, just do it.’
‘But-’
‘Do it. D’you want the bloody cops to find you with them?’
‘God, no.’
I cut the call and turned my attention back to Starcevich, who’d lifted himself up into a sitting position, cradling his arm and awkwardly massaging his crotch. I’d forgotten about the kick and was almost sympathetic. ‘She put in a good word for you or I’d be inclined to give you a very hard time.’
‘You’ve done enough, you cunt. Me arm’s broken for sure and my balls’re-’
‘Spare me. Tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you, let’s say twenty minutes, before I phone Black Andy Piper and tell him where you are.’
He tried for indifference but terrified alarm won.
‘If you can cast off, or whatever you call it, and get the engine started and steer with one wing, you should be all right. But cops’re going to be here first and then Andy, and I don’t know… Up to you.’
He had some guts. He pushed back and slid up against the wall until he was on his feet. ‘You’re that prick Warren was worried about-Hardy.’
‘No names, Ray. Better get going.’
I retreated to the steps, climbed them and left the boat. Master’s pistol went into the water with barely a splash. I looked towards the car park and saw brake lights come on and off and headlights swing away in roughly the spot where we’d left the BMW. I walked along the jetty and heard an engine surge into life behind me.
I went through the gate. The car park was almost empty and the Volvo was lying quietly in the shadow of a tree with no other car parked close. I walked up a path away from the car park and found a public phone where I rang Carmichael’s number. If he checked back on the source of the call, that’s all he’d get. Then I moved a bit higher and to the left, further away, and sat on a bench.
The Ballina Belle had pulled away from the jetty and was headed out into the dark water of the harbour. Two cars approached the marina. One cruised the car park while the other stood off at a distance. When they were satisfied, Carmichael and Hammond got out of the first car, drew their weapons and approached the Volvo. Then it was lights, camera, action. More vehicles streamed down into the car park and the officers of the law went into their practised routines. They sealed the area, talked to the night guy at the marina and the few other boaties still around, walked along the three jetties, but they paid no attention to me up on the hill.
I watched them pull North from the Volvo, untie and de-gag him and transfer him to a car. Carmichael, wearing gloves, took the pistol and silencer from the glove box and put them in a paper bag. Contrary to popular opinion, cops don’t always take items away from the scene of a crime in plastic bags. Sometimes they use paper. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s special paper, less contaminating. I’d have to ask Frank Parker.