Niekirk grinned. ‘Now we come down to the nitty-gritty. Yes, I know him.’
‘I thought so. De Lisle’s setup works in theory, separating your side of things from mine, separating the courier from both of us, like a circuit-breaker arrangement in case one of us takes a fall. But what happens when one of us starts acting solo, know what I mean?’
Niekirk watched him carefully. ‘You don’t like it that the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing. Nor do I. I especially don’t like it that you knew my name but I didn’t know yours. Did De Lisle give it to you?’
‘I insisted on knowing. I had to be ready to cover up if anything happened, like your name appearing on an arrest report.’
‘Fucking lovely. An imbalance of power between us right from me start. So, if I pull the jobs for him, what do you do?’
Reluctantly, Springett said: ‘I put the jobs together- identify the target, supply photos, floor plans, maps of the alarm system.’
Niekirk looked at him cannily. ‘For a fee?’
‘Now that’s the nitty-gritty,’ Springett said. ‘I get a cut of the action. Exactly a third.’
‘Same here. It’s my blokes who get a set fee.’
‘But have you been paid your third yet?’
‘A retainer.’
Springett nodded. ‘Sounds familiar.’
“The rest when the heat’s off and De Lisle’s moved the stuff.’
‘Trusting pair, aren’t we? A retainer to keep us sweet. Not many men would put up with that.’
‘Fucking spit it out, Springett. He’s got you over a barrel, same as he’s got me. If we don’t play ball he puts us away. If we do his dirty work, we stay out of jail and pocket a few hundred thou. Am I right or am I right?’
Both men relaxed, feeling a common ground between them. Lillecrapp continued to loll against the door, bored, too absorbed in cracking his knuckles to feel envy or interest in what they were saying.
Niekirk said suddenly: ‘What’s De Lisle got on you?’
Springett’s face shut down. ‘Now you’re stepping over the line.’
‘Suit yourself.’
‘It’s no longer a factor.’
‘Sure.’
‘It’s strictly business now.’
‘Sure. So you’ve told him the Tiffany’s shown up?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Meaning no. Going to tell him?’
‘What’s your feeling?’
‘Don’t. If there’s been a fuck up, a rip off from our end of the operation, I say we deal with it ourselves. We don’t want him pissed off. Or there’s another possibility: he’s moved all the stuff and is conveniently not paying us what he owes us.’
‘Using small-time fences? Unlikely,’ Springett said. ‘Plus he said he’d wait a few months.’
‘De Lisle hasn’t said anything about the Tiffany not showing up in the original haul?’
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ Springett said. ‘He didn’t know what was going to be in those safety-deposit boxes in the first place, so why would he be worried if it didn’t show up in the stuff the courier delivered? I didn’t know about the Tiffany myself until the owner and the insurance company provided my people with photos and a description. Either it was ripped off by the courier before Di Lisle took delivery, or De Lisle’s sold it already to someone who’s trying to sell it again. I like the first scenario, myself, and I say we deal with it ourselves. I’m not ready for De Lisle to get an attack of the nerves and shut us down. I can’t afford it.’
‘The mortgage,’ Niekirk said. ‘School fees.’
‘Exactly.’ Springett rubbed his jaw. ‘So I say we lean on the courier.’
‘You’ve convinced me.’
They were silent for a moment. Springett said: ‘I watched you watching him.’
Niekirk snorted. ‘And the rest, arsehole. You knew what the job was, and when, so you watched me and my blokes pull it and then you followed me, right? So much for De Lisle’s fail-safe method.’
Springett shrugged. ‘If the stolen Tiffany hadn’t shown up I wouldn’t have had to shadow you last night. You were watching the courier, don’t forget.’
‘So we’re all suspicious of one another. So what?’
Springett stretched tiredly. ‘Keep your shirt on. I’d’ve watched him in your shoes. What did you make of him?’
‘He probably works for an airline.’
Springett began to nod his narrow, well-tended head. ‘Travel all over the country, no questions asked.’
‘There’s another job going down in a couple of weeks’ time,’ Niekirk said.
‘The Asahi Collection. What of it?’
‘We grab the courier before he delivers to De Lisle. Put the hard word on him, see what he admits to.’ Niekirk paused, looking hard at Springett. ‘How did the Tiffany turn up, anyway?’
In reply, Springett took out a photograph. ‘This is from the files. This guy and another guy we know nothing about recently had a meeting with a local fence.’
‘Frank Jardine,’ Niekirk said at once.
Springett let some surprise show through the smiles. ‘You know him?’
‘He was never active and we never had anything on him in Sydney,’ Niekirk said, ‘but the whisper was he blueprinted the odd payroll snatch or townhouse burglary.’ He looked up. ‘He’s in Melbourne now?’
‘Turned up six months ago. Not a well man, from all accounts.’
‘But still working.’
‘A few weeks ago he handled some paintings stolen from a house in Sydney. The insurance company paid to get them back.’
Niekirk snorted. ‘Always do, piss-weak cunts. If they’d let us do our job…’
‘Same thing’s likely to happen with the Tiffany.’
‘So, lean on Jardine, find out who gave him the Tiffany. Save a lot of running around.’
Springett glanced away at a point on the wall. ‘Can’t do that. The Tiffany’s only just shown up, and I’d rather sniff around than risk scaring these people off.’
‘No pictures of this other guy?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You’re letting the deal go through?’
‘Yes.’
‘No questions asked.’
“That’s right. We can’t risk an official investigation. We don’t want the Tiffany being traced back to its source, because that could turn up your name, my name, De Lisle’s name. De Lisle would shop us to save his neck, count on it. I don’t fancy ending up in Pentridge. I put too many hard cases in there who’d love to have a crack at me. We need to let the Tiffany fall out of sight again but meanwhile ascertain how and why it showed up, and make sure we fill the hole in De Lisle’s operation, if there is one. That way, if there ever is an investigation it will come to a dead end.’
Niekirk grinned. ‘If you were to delete one or two of these characters, you’d have your dead end, no problem.’
‘Worth keeping in mind,’ Springett agreed.
Eleven
The tortoiseshell frame was fitted with broad, elliptical lenses which lightened the dark cast of Wyatt’s face and softened its hard edges. He wore grey trousers, black shoes, a sports coat over a white shirt and a tweedy, out-of-date tie. The ID card clipped to his belt suggested that he spent his life shuffling forms or drafting regulations that said no to everything.
So no one was looking twice at Wyatt, but Wyatt, pretematurally wary, was going home the long way. After leaving Liz Redding he had driven to Moorabbin Airport, on the flat lands south-east of the city. Cessnas, Pipers, a couple of helicopters and one Lear Jet were parked near the hangars, fuselages and wings reflecting the late-morning sun. There was a handful of student pilots in the air, circling the field, touch landing and taking off again. Wyatt watched for a couple of minutes then entered the terminal building.
Island Air was a desk front three metres long, staffed by a young woman wearing a polka-dot dress. According to her name tag she was called Nicole and she smiled at Wyatt. ‘I hope you’re Mr White.’
Wyatt agreed that he was.
‘We thought you weren’t going to make it. The others are just boarding now.’
Wyatt looked at his watch, then at the clock on the wall behind her. The difference in time was twenty minutes and that meant his watch was faulty.
Nicole was all smiles. ‘Battery?’
‘Must be,’ Wyatt agreed.