Chapter Twenty-eight
Twenty-eight
It was nearing five o’clock when Billie made it back to her roadster and put the top up against a gale that had begun in the late afternoon, a summer wind whipping up from the valley.
In the far distance a smoky haze rose into the sky, silhouetting Katoomba in ombré tones from blue to charcoal.
A faint scent of cinders carried across the miles.
Hot, windy days were a bushfire hazard in these parts.
It was perhaps too much to hope for rain, she decided, noticing the clouds were white and moving fast across an otherwise blue sky.
The grass beside the road was dry, waiting to ignite.
Things had moved so fast the day before, she’d barely noticed.
Detective Inspector Cooper crossed the road, having finished his discussions with the hospital staff, and she noted the length of his stride and his military bearing. His motorcar was parked just behind hers and he joined her, helping her fasten the roadster’s roof.
“Thank you for assisting with our inquiries,” the inspector said, speaking first. He slid his hands into his trench coat pockets.
It had been a long but profitable day for his active investigation and her closed one, puzzle pieces coming together thanks to the boy’s gradual recovery and efforts to recall what had happened to him.
The auction house had not been a red herring, after all.
But where had he been taken? To what end and by whom?
Moretti himself? It was clear Adin’s captors had not expected him to live, and it was a stroke of luck that hikers saw him before he perished of his wounds or exposure.
The inscrutable inspector knew more than he was telling her, Billie was sure of it, and she watched him with a mind to unlocking that invisible wall of his, the wall that seemed to come up at the slightest nudge.
“I think I’ll have some refreshments before the long drive back,” she said casually, holding her tilt hat against the rising summer wind. “Would you care to join me, Inspector?”
He took a step forward, as if he might lean past her and open her door for her, perhaps, or, she thought fleetingly, kiss her.
She didn’t move. They locked eyes, she tilting her head up slightly to match his gaze.
Billie’s green-blue eyes were steady, his hazel eyes warm and liquid for a moment, then unreadable again.
“I should head back,” he said, breaking away to look down at his polished, well-worn leather shoes.
After a long silence, he added, “Off the record, you seem to have saved me a lot of trouble, Ms. Walker. Those two are unlikely to be missed. Everyone in that hospital seems to have witnessed the attack. If they’d got away . . .”
“They’d still be a menace,” she commented, and he nodded.
“It’s a long drive back,” she added, giving it one more try.
“Can’t I tempt you with some refreshments first?
You do need sustenance, surely?” She wasn’t about to let him go if she could help it, now that she had him away from his desk, away from the likes of Dennison, and the discussion with Adin Brown had been so productive.
Trust was building between them. If she could keep him open . . .
“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline,” he responded, and gave her a look she couldn’t read.
“Thank you for your assistance today, especially with the boy.” He paused and she did not interject, instead waiting the silence out.
He had not walked back to his motorcar, had not forced the issue by opening her door.
She crossed one ankle over the other, and leaned back against her black motorcar.
“The local police haven’t seen such excitement for a while,” he finally added.
“As you may know, one of the men has been positively identified, but the other is so badly mangled it will take a while longer to confirm.” She hadn’t known, in fact.
She waited for more. “But they think we have an ID as they were a pair who always worked together. Known to police,” he went on.
“And yes, they were known to consort with Moretti, among others.”
“Ah,” she said, victorious at last, smiling.
He’d have known that information back in his office, and he hadn’t let on.
She’d thought it unlikely that one of them had lied when faced with the working end of her pistol.
Why pull Moretti’s name into it if he wasn’t the one who’d hired them?
That wouldn’t make sense. So Vincenzo Moretti or whoever he was working for didn’t want Adin Brown talking.
Where was Moretti now? And where were the other two men from the alley?
Not at the bottom of the escarpment. Somewhere else, possibly still with orders to put an end to Adin’s memories of what had happened to him.
“You think the boy is safe now, in there?” Billie asked, pointing across the street. “If Moretti or others want him dead?”
“He has a police guard,” the inspector said.
“Would he best be moved?” she pressed.
“Possibly,” he admitted.
“Is there anything that can be done about it?”
“Possibly,” he said again. “I’ll look into it.”
“And the auction house?”
“It’s not come across my radar before, but it might be of some interest now.
” He looked down at his shoes again, his chest rising with one deep breath.
“I should head back. If you learn anything more, please feel free to contact me. This is my private number,” he said, handing a card to her.
He’d written the number in pen on the back.
The writing was fresh. A corner of it had smudged.
Billie took the card, sensing that it was unusual for him to offer his private number. “Thank you, Detective Inspector Cooper,” she said, and they exchanged a look of unexpected intensity. She held it as long as she could before he broke away.
“And thank you again for your assistance today,” the inspector said again, a touch awkwardly.
“Of course. I’m happy to assist. You know where to find me,” Billie told him.
They shook hands, a courteous if formal gesture after the intimacy of Adin’s tiny hospital room, and she opened her driver’s-side door and slid inside.
He closed it for her, having been robbed of the opportunity to chivalrously help her into her motorcar himself, and stalked off.
Blast, she thought, having hoped to hold him longer.
Before she pulled away she watched him drive past, headed for Sydney’s Central Street and his cramped office.
She leaned back in her red leather seat and sighed.
Cooper might have had more to tell her if she’d been persuasive enough. She was losing her touch.
Billie had plenty of time to consider the inspector, and how to best approach him when they next met, as she ate a light meal in the Hydro Majestic’s Salon du Thé, served by the same waiter who had been in Cat’s Alley just the day before.
If he had seen the paper and recognized her, he was professional enough not to let on.
The establishment appeared busier today, with several gray-haired men gathered around one table, taking tea and appearing to discuss business.
What a full and eventful twenty-four hours it had been since her last visit.
And she would have a big week ahead, searching for Shyla, now that the boy was in good hands and under police guard, but for now she was spent.
She could do worse than relax at a scenic table at the Hydro, and on a day that was still reasonably clear, despite the growing haze of smoke farther down the mountain.
She ordered no champagne this time, but washed down her repast with black tea.
Drinking alone, to her mind, was a slippery slope and a common downfall of a private inquiry agent, and she’d seen it plenty of times.
Finally, refreshed, and with a full belly, she left the salon, noting that the wind had not died down.
The sun was still high—it was barely three weeks off the summer solstice—so she wouldn’t have to drive home in total darkness.
She had her eyes on the Great Western Highway, holding her hat and contemplating the long journey back to Cliffside Flats, when she walked past a dark motorcar parked near the hotel’s curved entrance.
She stopped and turned, then froze.
A black Packard stood beside the arches of the main building of the Hydro Majestic.
Billie blinked, checked the number plate against her memory, and looked around for its owner.
There was no one stepping out of the hotel just yet, no one standing nearby.
She turned on her stacked heels and made her way quickly to her roadster, parked on the Great Western Highway, and, after some consideration, reversed it and parked by the new, imposing Belgravia building, where she could watch the main entrance from her seat.
She pulled her French-made Lumière binoculars out of the glove box, adjusted the lenses, and waited.
As it turned out, she didn’t need to wait long.
There he is.
Even from a distance equivalent to a short city block, she was struck by the appearance of the driver when he stepped out of the hotel and was bade farewell by a uniformed staff member.
Through the round lenses of her binoculars she caught a thin smile before he turned and walked to his fine automobile.
Billie knew perfectly well, with a sickening turn of her stomach, that the man she had her lenses trained on would walk to that Packard, not to any other car.
The man was tall and slim and wore a suit of palest blue, perhaps linen, and wrinkled somewhat from the drive.
His hair was as white as snow and cut short at the back and sides in the military style, smoothed down at the front.
She couldn’t catch much more, as his head was tilted away from her, toward the far end of the hotel and the highway beyond.
He got into his motorcar and pulled out along the driveway.