Tropic of Death Read online

  ‘Would it tell us,’ asked Jarrett, lowering his voice, ‘if we’re looking for a serial killer or a hit man?’

  Rita smiled as she shuffled the papers back into the file. ‘It would mean we’re looking for someone who’s both.’

  41

  Freddy had a horrible feeling he’d blown it. He’d been caught off-guard by the way the taskforce detectives had questioned him. They’d got him to say things he now regretted - such as yes, he’d witnessed Billy threatening the reporter over the phone, and no, he wasn’t convinced Billy was innocent of Rachel’s murder.

  The word had gone out: Freddy’s urgent presence was required at the Diamond, but that was the last place he intended to show his face.

  He’d spent the past twenty-four hours avoiding his home, the cyber cafe and the warehouse loft, instead living out of the back of his battered Land Rover. He’d parked it in a good hiding place

  - a corrugated-iron shed behind a supermarket loading bay - but even venturing out on foot was risky. More than once he’d ducked for cover after noticing a pair of Billy’s nightclub goons on the prowl. They’d cruised past in their red Porsche Turbo, scanning the pavements through their designer shades. Freddy had thought about calling Rita Van Hassel until it occurred to him that any further contact with the police, especially Billy’s sworn enemy, wasn’t exactly a good idea.

  The fried food smells along the seafront reminded Freddy he was hungry. He was walking along the lower promenade past shellfish bars and burger stalls, and gift shops selling toffee apples and fairy floss. He was heading for the Seahorse Fish Bar when, with another glance over his shoulder, he spotted Ice. She was strolling towards him like an exotic creature among the stands of beach hats, thongs and pink hula hoops. Freddy stopped and waited for her to catch up.

  It was a while since he’d last seen her. She was spending more time away from Whitley these days, jetting back mostly because of business obligations. She’d touch base with Billy, who’d financed her off the streets, and Stonefish, who managed her website. In return they enjoyed her sexual services for free. Freddy was envious.

  There were also her regular clients to satisfy. He remembered how Ice had started off as a fifteen-year-old street hooker down by the docks and how Stonefish picked her up one night and had instantly fallen in love - she had that effect - and got her onto the net. Now, six years later, she was extending her private market around the Pacific rim, with lucrative stopovers on the US West Coast and a growing fan base in Japan. And she didn’t look like an ordinary dockside girl anymore.

  When she saw Freddy she smiled and strolled towards him, her impressive breasts seeming to target him, like cruise missiles.

  ‘So you’re back in town,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Not for long,’ she said in her husky voice. ‘Just sorting out business as quickly as possible.’

  ‘In other words, slumming it.’

  She gave a soft laugh. It made her bust sway. Freddy swallowed.

  Her first round of cosmetic surgery had come when she’d turned seventeen - implants that gave her double-E breasts, a birthday present to herself. Next she’d had her upper eyelids done, followed by her lower eyelids. That’s when she’d told Freddy that she was modelling herself on Lara Croft. More bouts of plastic surgery re-sculpted her nose and cheekbones. She had a rib removed, then liposuction on her buttocks and thighs. Finally she’d spent thousands of dollars having her teeth done. Freddy didn’t think Ice much resembled the Tomb Raider heroine, but the effect was stunning as she sauntered with him past racks of flippers, goggles and inflatable ducks.

  ‘Have you managed to track down Stonefish?’ asked Freddy, trying to sound casual, but something in his tone must have betrayed him.

  ‘Why? Jealous?’

  ‘Because everyone’s looking for him and no one can find him.’

  ‘If Stonefish wants to stay hidden, I’m not going to give away his hiding place.’

  ‘So you have seen him,’ said Freddy. ‘A word of advice: don’t tell anyone, especially Billy.’

  ‘Do I look like I’m stupid?’

  ‘Actually,’ Freddy replied with an appraising glance, ‘you look like a million bucks.’

  She gave him a raunchy smile. It went with the outfit. Ice was wearing a metallic tank top and hot pants with matching boots. Her exposed midriff revealed the diamond stud in her navel. The gem was real. So were the jewelled studs in her ears, nose and tongue. More diamonds were set in the rings she wore through her pierced nipples and clitoris. Freddy had only seen them once - she’d flaunted them on a dope-fuelled night further north - but the image was imprinted on his memory. Somehow the diamonds whet the appetite, just as they did in the explicit pictures displayed on the net, advertising her wares and her trade name, Ice for Spice.

  Freddy stopped outside the Seahorse Fish Bar. ‘Join me for lunch?’

  ‘In there?’ she asked distastefully.

  ‘Why not? You ate there as a kid.’

  The point seemed to hit home.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, and strode in ahead of him.

  The hubbub of conversation died for a moment as she entered; a pause in the clink of cutlery, eyes staring, then whispers and some snide laughter. Then the chatter resumed.

  ‘Satisfied?’ she said as they sat at a window table.

  She gazed glumly through the glass at the amusement park on the far side of the esplanade. A Ferris wheel revolved sluggishly above the thud and grate of dodgems. The ghost train wobbled past players prodding at mini golf. Further along was the pool hall and bowling alley, shabby buildings with darkened doorways.

  Freddy was aware that as a teenager Ice knew them all, her jaw held open, her knees grazed as she knelt on the asphalt. And the cheap arcades with video games and pinball machines, providing curtained little rooms at the back where she’d earn fifty dollars an hour under sweating drunks. Scenes from her adolescence.

  She sighed. ‘Sometimes I hate this place.’

  ‘Then why come back?’ he asked.

  ‘Commitments. And it reminds me what I’ve escaped from.’

  But there was a false note in her voice.

  ‘Maybe you can’t get away,’ said Freddy. ‘Maybe you carry it with you.’

  She looked across sharply but the waitress arrived. Ice glared at him. ‘You buying?’ she demanded.

  When Freddy nodded she ordered a plate of oysters. He had to check his wallet. It contained one ten-dollar note.

  ‘Cash was never your strong point,’ she said. ‘That’s the only reason you never had me. Now you can’t afford my rates.’

  ‘At least I got to check out the merchandise.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘The night we got zonked on hash up at Port Douglas. You did the full strip. Even flashed the sparkler in your clit.’

  ‘I’d forgotten.’

  ‘I never will.’ He plucked a credit card from his wallet. ‘This one’s healthy.’

  He ordered flounder and chips in batter.

  ‘Anyway, this dump can go to hell,’ she resumed. ‘I’ve asked Stonefish to flog my penthouse. So I might not come back again.’

  ‘Where will you live?’

  ‘I’ve got pads in Santa Barbara and Vancouver. And a suite in Yokohama - they can’t get enough of me there.’

  ‘Have you told Billy?’

  ‘Not yet. Billy’s got a lot on his mind at the moment - too much even for a blowjob.’ Ice pushed back her hair and gave him a cold smile. ‘And he’s really pissed off with you, Freddy, among others. Have you been talking behind his back?’

  ‘No! I’m being used to get at him.’

  ‘Well, he thinks you’ve been squealing to the cops and his boys are out looking for you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So if you want to stay healthy, keep your head down.’

  ‘What the fuck do you think I’m doing?’

  ‘What you’re best at - getting yourself in the shit.’

  Her oysters arrived.<
br />
  ‘Pity there’s no fizz to go with them,’ she said. ‘But you were never one for a champagne lifestyle.’

  Freddy folded his arms in a huff. ‘Unlike you, I suppose.’

  ‘Bloody right. I’m making a stash since I’ve gone corporate.

  Ice for Spice Online International - want one of my cards?’ He shrugged and she gave a harsh chuckle. ‘Male instinct is the safest bet there is.’

  She squeezed lemon over the oysters and sprinkled on Worcestershire sauce. Then she lifted a shell, tilted back her head and slid the soft pulp down her throat. She licked her lips and gazed at him through lustreless eyes.

  ‘So in future, if you want me, it’ll cost you international rates.’

  Her husky voice mocked him. ‘Plus the price of an airfare.’

  Freddy didn’t say anything. He just looked into the plate of fish and chips being shoved in front of him and thought about the smooth, winking diamond in her clitoris, and how he’d never get to see it again.

  Thoughts of Ice and her custom-made body filled Freddy’s head as he walked from the seafront down an alley by a supermarket to where his Land Rover was discreetly parked in a shed behind the delivery trucks. He was about to get in when he was grabbed from behind, his arm twisted against his back and a gloved hand clamped over his mouth. His muffled cries went unnoticed as he was lifted bodily into the back of a van, convinced that Billy’s goons had finally caught up with him.

  But it was even worse.

  As the van’s rear door was slammed behind him, he found himself being dragged in front of the man who’d already inflicted manual torture on him, the man who’d threatened to go all the way and carry out castration. The American, Kurt, sat on a bench with a big metal nutcracker in his meaty hand, nonchalantly crunching walnut shells and eating the nuts. The symbolism wasn’t lost on Freddy as he was manhandled onto a stool between Kurt’s knees.

  ‘You haven’t phoned me, Freddy,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve been looking for Stonefish, believe me! But I can’t find him.’

  ‘Should I believe him?’ Demchak asked his two assistants, who were holding Freddy from behind. ‘No? Okay, yank his pants off.’

  ‘No!’ screamed Freddy, trying to resist. But he was helpless.

  His jeans and underpants were tugged from his legs and flung on the floor of the van as he thrashed around, until Kurt laid a calming slap on the side of his face that half stunned him. Freddy squatted on the stool, naked from the waist down, with his cheek burning and a ringing in his ear, feeling dizzy. A sharp pain in his groin helped him refocus as he realised his scrotum was being squeezed in the metal jaws of the nutcracker.

  ‘It’s truth time, Freddy,’ said Demchak, breathing into his face.

  ‘Tell me where Stonefish is hiding or your balls come off.’

  ‘Please, you’ve got to believe me!’ begged Freddy, bursting into tears. ‘I just don’t know. I swear.’

  Demchak, his eyes unblinking, stared at Freddy.

  ‘Okay,’ he said at last, removing the nutcracker.

  ‘Thank you,’ blubbered Freddy, grateful for the reprieve.

  Because that’s all it was.

  ‘You’ve got one last chance to find him,’ warned Demchak.

  ‘The next time we meet, if you’ve got nothing to tell me, your nuts are mine. Three strikes and they’re out. Understand?’

  Freddy nodded. Then he was picked up and hurled from the back of the van, grazing his knees and elbows as he landed on the concrete surface of the loading bay. His jeans and underpants were flung into his face as the van screeched off and disappeared down the alley.

  In the sudden silence, he looked around. No one had witnessed his humiliation. He pulled his clothes back on, feeling pathetic, but at least it had clarified one thing. With two sets of thugs coming after him - both criminal and official - he desperately needed help. There was only one person he could think of who might come to his rescue, and he no longer cared that she was a cop.

  42

  Rita followed the route that she’d taken on the night of her visit to Paul Giles. She drove up the same steep road to where the US satellite tracking station dominated the plateau. Even in daylight it had an eerie presence, its facilities glowing like great white bulbs under the midday sun. From there the road climbed into the dense greenery beneath the canopy of the rainforest.

  When she swung onto The Ridgeway - this time taking in the views on a clear, sunny day - she realised why Billy’s resort would have seemed a sure-fire winner. It combined the forest setting with a magnificent prospect over cliffs, gorges and river valleys winding to the coast. Beyond the ribbon of beaches, the Whitsunday Islands dotted the seascape stretching to the Great Barrier Reef on the horizon.

  She pulled up beside the tourist development in time to observe an ugly mood among people milling around the gates.

  Council inspectors were there, having served the order that revoked planning permission, effective immediately. They were herding builders from the site, witnessed by a band of environmental protesters a couple of dozen strong. Verbal abuse was being freely exchanged.

  Rita got out of the car and showed her ID to the inspectors.

  They let her enter through the chain-link gates, which were pulled shut behind her when the last of the builders was escorted out.

  As she walked towards the rising steel structures across an expanse of mud and landscaped concrete, she had the Whitley Ridgeway site to herself.

  Any chance of finding evidence of murder was extremely slim.

  The construction zone was extensive and cluttered with work in progress. As well as being trampled over by scores of builders in recent weeks it had been thoroughly doused by rain. But as a profiler she needed to take a look anyway, even if there was only a remote chance of catching a hint of insight, a vibe.

  The clamour at the gates subsided, with the protesters dispersing and the builders leaning on their vehicles, grumbling to each other, smoking. The noise receded the further she went. Instead a hush descended on the site, pierced by the shrill cries of rainforest birds. Around her the cement mixers had ground to a halt, the cranes towered motionless, and the bulldozers and trucks stood abandoned against the gash clawed in the mountainside.

  Rita walked around the tiled rims of empty swimming pools, past builders’ cabins, discarded pneumatic drills and terraces of flattened earth. Further on were the unfinished hulks of apartment buildings, seven of them, partly clad, with their upper storeys nothing more than exposed metal beams and struts. She strolled the length of them, peering inside the frameworks and the shells of rooms, without finding anything that resonated with her, nothing that helped with the investigation.

  She returned to the main courtyard and was about to leave when she noticed a sealed road curving behind the central high-rise block. She followed it and found it ended in a broad ramp that led under the building. The tap of her heels echoed from the concrete walls as she headed down the slope. It was the entrance to a basement garage that was structurally complete and was obviously being used as the site workshop. Just a couple of bare light bulbs were glowing in the dim interior among stacks of wooden beams, rolls of wire, crates of glass and tiles, and rows of work benches.

  Smells of paint and sawdust were heavy in the air. As she moved through the clutter a feeling crept over her, a tingling down her spine, and a moment later she knew why.

  She stopped when she came to a long wooden table, surrounded by folding chairs, that must have served as a canteen. The surface, chipped and notched from overuse, bore a scattering of coffee mugs and takeaway food containers. Next to it was a tool bench with a rack of power tools. They included drills, saws and a collection of nail guns, some with electrical leads, some cordless. Beside the bench were shelves lined with bags of cement. Rita bent down and ran her fingertips over the floor, then rubbed them together.

  They were coated with powder - cement powder. The floor was covered with it.

  She was co
nvinced that she’d found a crime scene. This was where the man in the mud must have been murdered, shot through the head with a nail gun then dismembered. It was an impromptu killing, the weapon grabbed from among the items at hand. Yet the killer, or killers, had chosen the location well.

  Remote from habitation and deserted, as it was now, this was a perfect place to carry out the worst acts - intimidation, torture, execution - without being discovered.

  Rita had wanted the vibe and now she felt it with all its vivid possibilities, one scenario after another flashing through her mind.

  But why had the victim come here? Perhaps he’d been forced? If not, was he stupid or desperate? Maybe overconfident? Or had he simply been tricked? With his identity a blank, there was no way of guessing.

  As she crouched there, a shadow passed in front of one of the lights and a voice said, ‘I thought the cop must be you.’

  She looked up to find Billy Bowers standing over her.

  With a gasp, she stood up and moved back against the shelves of cement, her hand reaching to the holster on her hip, unclipping it.

  Billy sneered. ‘So you’re packing?’

  ‘Don’t come any closer,’ she warned him, her fingers gripping the handle of the gun. ‘And don’t try anything.’

  ‘Why? Would you shoot me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered unhesitatingly.

  ‘I believe you,’ he said, holding up the flats of his huge hands and taking a step closer. ‘But I’m completely unarmed.’

  ‘Don’t let that encourage you,’ she told him, whipping out the Glock 22, flipping the safety catch and pointing it at his chest with an outstretched double grip. ‘I’ll shoot you anyway.’

  Billy stopped there, barely three metres away, a fighter’s concentration in his eyes. He was big, but agile, his reflexes very fast, and she could see he was calculating whether he could get to her before she pulled the trigger.

  ‘I promise you, Bowers. Take one more step and I’ll fire. It’s all the excuse I need.’

  ‘So you’d shoot me in cold blood?’