The cabin was empty. There was a light switch but he drew open the curtains rather than turn it on.
It was clear at once that De Lisle was intending to flee. The first thing Wyatt found was the original name-plate, Pegasus, home port Coffs Harbour.
The second thing he found was a Very pistol and a box of signal flares. He loaded one flare and stuck a further two into his waistband and went looking for a knife.
The galley offered some cheap alloy cutlery but nothing sharper than a bread knife. Wyatt felt there had to be a decent knife somewhere. How did De Lisle cut rope or sailcloth? How would he clean fish?
Wyatt went through the boat quickly and systematically, tapping the bulkhead, checking inside sail lockers, cupboards, the space under the benches. The knife showed up in a door rack, along with a small axe and a handsaw. It had a thick rubber grip and a broad flat tempered steel blade with a short, curved, slicing edge and a sharp stabbing tip. But Wyatt felt that there had to be a handgun, too. He kept looking.
And that’s how he found the safe. He tugged on the black glass door of a small wall oven, the whole unit slid out, and he found himself looking into the open space behind it. De Lisle had left the safe unlocked. That could mean he was still packing to go and didn’t want to bother with unlocking the oven every time he came down to the yacht with a handful of whatever he was running with.
Wyatt rocked back on his heels. Rings, bracelets, necklaces, tiaras; diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls; platinum, gold. That was on the lower shelf. On the top shelf were a number of files and Wyatt saw that De Lisle had kept a record of every robbery bis team had pulled, together with dirt on the men who had worked for him.
There was a garbage compactor under the sink in the galley. Wyatt fed the files into it, piece by piece, then left the yacht. He didn’t lock the safe, just pushed the oven home so that it wouldn’t excite attention. The jewels could wait: he didn’t want to go up against De Lisle with his pockets weighing him down. And later, when he left on the run, he didn’t want to waste time trying to force the safe open to get at what he now considered to be his property.
The final problem solved itself. De Lisle hadn’t locked the gate. Wyatt propped it open with a rock, then ran up the steps to the house. There were no dogs. If there were guards, none came at him from the seaward side of the house.
The steps stopped at a coral-chip path that made a lazy loop left then right through the final stretch of terraced garden. It ended at a long, low verandah. The path wound through a ground cover of fleshy-leafed plants and Wyatt cut across that way, avoiding the noisy coral.
There were two doors and several windows along the verandah. Wyatt didn’t go in but circled the house a couple of times quickly, once to locate other doors and windows, the second time to come back to a well-lighted room where he’d heard a voice that was pitched on the wrong side of reason.
Forty-one
The window was open. He looked in. Liz Redding had reached De Lisle before he had but it hadn’t done her any good at all. She sat slumped in a chair, blood clogging her nose, while the magistrate quivered on the carpet a metre in front of her. There was more blood on her shirt, a spill of it that had none of the sheen of blood recently spilled. Her head lolled and once or twice she tipped it back and shuddered.
‘Again, how did you get in?’
‘Walked in.’
De Lisle reddened, a fat, easily aggravated man who welcomed anger as a natural condition. He sucked on an asthma spray and said: ‘I haven’t got time for this.’ He darted forward, punching her inexpertly in the stomach and darting back out of reach.
Wyatt felt his hands clench. He wanted to slice through the flywire and wade among the fussy antiques between the window and where De Lisle was ranting, shove the flare pistol down the man’s throat. The feeling came naturally, surprising him with its intensity.
He fought down the impulse and watched De Lisle slap at the cop’s upper arms. It puzzled Wyatt. De Lisle had the vicious tendencies of a torturer but none of the technique.
‘Tell me.’
Liz Redding controlled the slackness in her neck for long enough to say, ‘The gate was open,’ and spit blood at a point near De Lisle’s shoes.
‘Open? Grace, that bloody cow.’
De Lisle paced up and down. He looked at his watch. ‘Why did you have to come here? Look what it’s got you.’
‘Mr De Lisle, if you cooperate, if you fly back with me now, I’ll see to it that the court takes it into account.’
De Lisle put his face close to hers. “There’s no underestimating the stupidity of people like you, is there? Missy, you’re in no position to bargain.’
She went on doggedly: ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life running and hiding?’
De Lisle was growing tired of playing with her. He looked at his watch, glanced at the window, seemed to listen for something. Suddenly he tipped back his head and bellowed: ‘Come on, Springett. What’s going on out there?’
Too late, Wyatt understood. He began to back away from the window. He stopped when the man whom De Lisle had been calling said softly: ‘That’ll do.’
Wyatt began to turn. The voice grew harsher. ‘No you don’t. Drop whatever it is you’ve got there, then straighten up and walk slowly around the corner. I don’t want to discuss it, I don’t want to see your face, just go on ahead of me into the house. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you, and there’s a suppressor on the barrel, so I’m not worrying about noise.’
Wyatt dropped the flare pistol. Springett snorted. ‘What good was that going to do you? Go on, get moving.’
Wyatt took three crushing steps along the coral-grit path before he heard the start of footsteps behind him. That put Springett three metres back, out of range for a spin and kick, in range for getting a bullet in the spine.
He did as he’d been told and walked around the corner and onto a verandah, ducking under latticework choked with bougainvillea.
In along a broad, dark hallway, toward an open door spilling light at the end. Springett was moving stealthily; Wyatt listened but could not place him in the geography of floorboards, carpet runner and hallstand behind him.
Into the room where De Lisle was waiting. De Lisle looked at him with satisfaction, then past him to Springett. ‘I told you I heard something.’
‘Also your gate’s open. The alarm system’s off.’
‘My servant, bloody cow. She thinks the local cops are coming for me, only I’ve paid them off for twenty-four hours.’
‘You’re a fuckup, De Lisle.’
Wyatt felt the gun for the first time, prodding him across the room. De Lisle danced out of his way. He stopped next to Liz Redding. He gazed curiously at her. It would look suspicious if he ignored her. She was breathing through her mouth; he saw a plug of blood in each nostril. The nose itself didn’t look broken. ‘Can I turn around?’
‘Yeah, let’s look at you.’
Wyatt had discounted De Lisle as the immediate threat. His eyes went straight to Springett. The gun was a Glock, mostly ceramic, maybe smuggled past the metal detectors. Springett himself stared back, full of forbearance and contemplation, taking Wyatt’s measure. He made no movement, and Wyatt began to ready himself for a pointless contest of wills, but it was over before it had begun. Springett wore the ease of a man in charge. He said, ‘All paths lead to Rome.’
Wyatt stayed neutral, limber, putting his weight on the balls of his feet. De Lisle said abruptly, jerking his head at Springett, ‘Come on, mate. Help me get rid of them.’
Springett snarled, ‘Fuckups like you, you invoke mateship whenever it suits, but you’d shop your own mother to stay out of gaol.’
The differences and tension between the two men became palpable to Wyatt. Some things united them- they were about to go on the run, there was desperation underneath the swagger, they’d swipe at threats-but they didn’t trust each other and Springett clearly thought that De Lisle had been cheating him.