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  'I fucked her.'

  'You what?'

  'I fucked her, Vance. Just a couple of times. Then she . . .'

  Belfante's roar made Frost step back and took the force out of the roundhouse swing that would have flattened his nose. The punch took him on the left cheekbone, rocked him and he covered up. Belfante bullocked forward, throwing punches and yelling, wasting energy. Frost, the street fighter, took most of the blows on his forearms. A kick, aimed at his knee but landing lower, stung him into action. He backed away, then let Belfante come at him. The bigger man was poorly balanced and undecided whether to kick or punch. Frost drove his knee into Belfante's crotch and brought his doubled fists down on the back of his neck when Belfante sagged forward.

  It was all over inside a minute, too quick for an appreciative crowd to gather or for the guards to take action. The few prisoners who had heard Belfante's shouts and seen the action kept their distance. No business of theirs. Frost propped Belfante against the wall and squatted down beside him. 'You want a smoke, Vance?'

  'Fuck you.'

  'Get real, mate. I'm trying to help.'

  'I didn't need any help with fucking my wife.'

  Privately, George Frost had his doubts on that score. He didn't flatter himself that he was the only player on Ava's team, but she had seemed upset when he broke off with her. But was that enough to make her frame him for murder? He needed to talk to Vance about it and had only held back until now because of what Vance might do. He could be a nutter at times. Well, they should be past that now. They needed to talk.

  'Look, Vance, I gave Ava the flick. I didn't want to go on . . . you know, putting it over on you, and I was finding her a bit of a handful. Look, I'm sorry. But we've got to work out why she's screwing us like this. We can't stay in this fuckin' hole doing nothing. It's a heavy number.'

  Belfante felt gas rise in his stomach and sear his throat. He fought the urge to throw up and tried to draw some satisfaction from the red swelling that was growing on Frost's face. And he'd admitted he couldn't handle Ava. That was no surprise. Anyhow, he'd suspected it all along. Ava and George—why not? And the prick was talking sense now. If Ava had found out that the kid Shelley was having was his—that'd stir her up. But there was no way for Ava to know about that. No way at all. Still, George was right. They had to do something.

  'Do you know who knocked Rankin, George?'

  'I don't have a fuckin' clue. All I know is it wasn't me. I might have done it if you'd propositioned me. I don't know. I'll tell you this much. They wouldn't have found the fuckin' body.'

  'I don't know what she's playing at,' Belfante said. 'Ava turning dog. I still can't believe it.'

  'Was everything . . . all right between you and her?'

  Belfante nodded and accepted a cigarette. Both men lit up. 'Same as ever. Both going our own ways. No problems.'

  'There has to be something behind it. I thought it'd just blow over, you know. Like she was getting at you for something. Or the jacks had her tits in a wringer. It couldn't be that, could it?'

  Belfante shrugged. 'I don't know. I thought it'd go away, too. I didn't believe it at first. I was like in shock. I thought maybe the jacks had fitted us up and we'd have to roll over on something else. Some fucking thing. But nothing like that's happened. And no bloody bail! Reuben says it's all going ahead. Real tight.'

  'Is he all right, Reuben?'

  'Yeah. He's good. Plus, I've got him by the balls.'

  'Someone's got to have a word with Ava.'

  'They've put her in the witness protection program. Federal.'

  'I thought you said this Reuben was good.'

  'He is, but I might have to give his nuts a tug.'

  Dennis Tate was very puzzled. He had done the hit on Rankin. Nice clean job. A skinny bloke. His neck had snapped like a carrot. Disposal had been messy. Something to be ashamed of. But it was bad luck, that ranger coming along just then. What was he supposed to do—whack out the ranger as well? He knew what he should have done—checked carefully to make sure the road wasn't patrolled at that hour of the morning. But who had the time to follow park rangers all over the place? They probably didn't even have regular patrol runs.

  Still, Tate felt bad about the body being discovered so soon. But this business of Belfante and Frost being charged was a real worry. Especially Frost. A hard man with hard friends. And Belfante wasn't exactly friendless either, or short of money. It all added up to trouble. It had seemed like such an easy one—wait for the guy in his car, knock him off, put him in the ground and get rid of the car. Easy. But now the second payment was slow in coming through and Tate was beginning to wonder if he'd get it at all. He could understand the client's unhappiness, but he needed the money.

  Dennis Tate was forty-two years of age. A Tasmanian farmboy, he had been taught to kill in Vietnam and had gone on killing after the war was over—mostly in Africa, briefly in South America. He had joined, and deserted, the French Foreign Legion and spent three years—under an assumed name—in a British prison having been convicted of training IRA saboteurs. If his trainees had ever managed to actually sabotage anything he would have got thirty years. Tate considered he'd overdrawn on his luck in other parts of the world and returned to Australia.

  David Rankin was his eleventh hit in seven years. His price had risen from twenty to thirty thousand dollars over that time. He had an escalating scale of charges for other services which included non-fatal wounding, limb-breaking, damage to property and arson. Commissions came to him in a variety of highly secure ways—through coded classified advertisements, frequently changed post office boxes and dead letter drops and calls from public telephones. Tate never met his clients personally, but dealt through intermediaries he trusted or had a hold over.

  He regarded himself as a skilled professional, methodical and uninvolved. He had only one scruple—he would not kill children. Tate was the eldest in a large family and he had been fond of his younger brothers and sisters. Overheads were high for some jobs which might involve travel and the purchase of vehicles and other equipment, but payment was in cash and tax-free. Tate lived modestly, with hunting and fishing as his only nonprofessional activities and fast vehicles his only hobby. For sex, he used prostitutes; he changed flats, cars, hair and clothing styles regularly.

  Six months before the Rankin assignment he had begun to lose weight, feel unwell and urinate excessively. Diabetes was diagnosed and he was hospitalised, put on a diet and introduced to the procedures he would have to follow for the rest of his life: insulin injections before each meal and daily testing of his blood sugar.

  'You will experience changes in your eyesight and you will have to live a disciplined, regular life,' the doctor had told him. 'It's greatly to your advantage that you're in good physical condition. Your height and weight are . . .?'

  Tate was of the old school. 'Six foot. Twelve stone.'

  'Excellent. Maintain that weight. What is your line of work, Mr Tate?'

  'I'm in the pest control business.'

  'That sounds all right. Nice and quiet.'

  'Yeah.'

  'Cheer up. There are many worse things than diabetes, and don't believe what you might hear about impotence. No reason for a problem if you stick to the rules.'

  Tate had experienced almost no illness in his life and the only medical attention he had ever had was for battle wounds. He took the news hard. Whoever heard of a hit man with dodgy eyesight eating three healthy meals a day? It was all over. After a month of depression and ignoring the medical advice, during which he experienced his first serious low blood sugar episode, termed a 'hypo' by diabetics, he convinced himself that his body had given him an important signal. Tate trusted his body. He began to follow the diabetic regime scrupulously and he formed a plan—do two more jobs and buy a house and some land in Tasmania. Retirement.

  The mess he'd made of the Rankin job represented a serious setback to his scheme. He needed the rest of the money and another assignment. For that he n
eeded a sound reputation, not flaky stories circulating about botched burials and fancy frame-ups. He had to find out what was behind the Belfante-Frost business. Or who.

  4

  The Oasis Resort at Port Douglas occupied 300 acres. The brochures kept to the old measurement scale because it sounded bigger than the equivalent in hectares. The gently undulating land with its half kilometre of beach had been a dairy farm and the original cottage was preserved as a quaint feature in the middle of a great deal of aggressive modernity. The hotel was a series of three-storey buildings linked by pathways and boardwalks, set amid huge chlorinated swimming pools, some of which had white sand beaches. Most of the rooms had balconies over their own private 'lagoons'. The building style, Dunlop was surprised to find, was harmonious—a sort of North Queensland local with plenty of timber and woven cane and shutters.

  'Jee-zus,' Ava said as the bus drove up the avenue of palms, 'this is really something.'

  The hotel had been the brainchild of one of the 'eighties entrepreneurs, now a bankrupt. Currently, it was operated by his Japanese former partners in a somewhat less flamboyant style.

  'Now you know what a million buys you in the way of palm trees,' Dunlop said. 'I wonder what they do with all the nuts.'

  'I know that.' Ava waved the pamphlet. 'Says here they are collected regularly and guests need have no fear of being hit by falling coconuts.'

  'That means someone was, sometime. I meant, what happens to them in the long run?'

  'Who cares?'

  That was typical of Ava. Her interest in things ran out early. It was another reason why Dunlop had been able to resist her advances. What would they talk about afterwards—menthol versus virginia, Beefeater versus Gordon's, Charles Jourdan versus Gucci? He surveyed the golf course with a player's eye. The couple of holes he could see looked good—wide fairways, big bunkers, sloping greens. Getting a round in was going to be a problem. He couldn't see Ava caddying for him. The sky was showing blue around the edges as the bus pulled up at the hotel entrance.

  'Be fine tomorrow,' the driver said.

  Ava, hips swaying in the tight skirt, stepped carefully from the bus. 'I bet you say that to all the customers. Still, it's a nice thought. Tip the man, darling.'

  Their reservations were in order. Dunlop and Ava booked, he under his own name, she as 'Mrs Margaret Browning', into two adjoining rooms in the Caribbean wing. The lobby was moderately busy, with Asian faces predominating. They stood on their respective palm-fringed balconies looking out across the impossibly clear, light-blue water. The view was towards the ocean and Dunlop could hear the sound of the waves over the music being piped to the nearest outdoor bar.

  Ava yawned. 'Me for a nap. Join me, sweetie?'

  Dunlop grinned. 'Feeling your age?'

  'Watch me tonight. I'll run you ragged, sport.'

  Dunlop lay on his double bed and thought about Ava. In his three years with the WPU he had never seen a client more coddled and cosseted. More heavily protected, yes, but none had had whims and caprices so readily satisfied. In Sydney, Ava had been housed in style in Balmain. The rent was high but the security was good, with the house backing onto the harbour and watch being easily maintained at the front and sides. She was paid a substantial allowance which she spent freely on clothes and other pleasures.

  'The problem with this game,' Burton, one of Dunlop's Canberra superiors, had said, 'is that the client has too many privileges and too few responsibilities.'

  Dunlop, who had been about to come on board as Ava's chief minder, shook his head. 'That's not the way they see it. They're putting their lives on the line so they reckon they're entitled to a few toys. That's the bargain as far as they're concerned.'

  'You might change your mind after some time with this woman,' Burton said. 'From what they tell me, she's damn near impossible to satisfy.'

  'In what way?'

  'In every bloody way.'

  'Why me?'

  'She got two of our chaps so worked up they came to blows over her. We tried her with women but she wouldn't have it. Hates women. The thinking is that you might be able to handle her.'

  'I'm not sure how to take that.'

  'Take it any way you like, but keep her sweet until she can sing her song.'

  That was to be in a month, at the trial of Belfante and Frost. Ava had proved surprisingly compliant before coming up with the idea of the Port Douglas trip. Her mind had run on a single track ever since she had spotted the brochures in a Darling Street travel agent's display.

  'Out of the question,' Dunlop said. 'Ridiculous. Go shopping. Buy a new coat.'

  'I've got enough fucking coats and I'm sick of winter. I want to go to Queensland. Come on.'

  It was the first time Dunlop had heard her complain about anything. The lifestyle of the protected witness was calculated to cause nervous breakdowns and tantrums. Suicide was not unknown. But Ava had been unfailingly cheerful, albeit demanding. Dunlop had resisted, wanting to see how she behaved under pressure. From others, he had experienced wheedling, sulking, violence. Ava simply pointed to the telephone.

  'Get Col Brown on the blower.'

  'Why?'

  'Deal's off. I made a mistake. Better to go up on a public mischief charge than perjure myself.'

  'Ava.'

  Ava lit a cigarette and stared through the window towards Balls Head across the water. 'I'm serious. Call Col.'

  Impressed, Dunlop relented. 'Brisbane—maybe.'

  'Brisbane be buggered. Port Douglas or nothing. The Oasis Resort. Two weeks in the sun.'

  Dunlop picked up the phone. Knowing he was looking, Ava tightened her skirt across her bottom. Dunlop laughed. 'One week, Ava. That's it.'

  'Ten days.'

  'All right.'

  'Great. Let's have a drink.'

  So here they were, at the taxpayers' expense. Dunlop remained alert and resisted the lulling comfort and soothing atmospherics. At the best of times he found it difficult to relax. His ex-wife, Katarina, had once hauled out the thesaurus and run through a list of words—suspicious, distrustful, leery, doubting, sceptical. 'That's you,' she said.

  Dunlop had agreed at the time and he knew that his subsequent training and experience had made him even more so. He got off the bed and quietly opened the door between the two rooms. Ava had already managed to strew clothes, shoes and other items over the floor, bed and other surfaces. The smell of her cigarettes was warring with the scent of flowers in the room. She lay on her back, faintly snoring. She was naked and the sheet had ridden down around her hips. Her big, soft breasts spread across her chest and there was spare flesh on her waist, belly and hips. She was pale-skinned, although there were faint signs of last summer's tan. Relaxed, her face was softer, almost motherly. Dunlop didn't think she would like the word. It was another thing they shared—childlessness. It had been a sadness to him and one of the reasons for the failure of his marriage.

  Ava stirred, muttered something and rolled over. She dragged the sheet up over one pink, soft shoulder. Dunlop closed the door and wondered whether not having had children was a sadness to Ava. The subject had never come up. He realised that, after spending a couple of weeks almost continually in her company, he had not the faintest idea what made her tick.

  Vance Belfante lit a Camel from the pack Grant Reuben had brought him. He puffed luxuriously. 'Thanks, Grant. Can't get a decent smoke in here. All bloody filters. Bloody wimps.'

  Reuben, sleek in a dark double-breasted suit, blue shirt and red tie, shifted uncomfortably on the hard chair in the visitors' room of the remand section. 'I wish I had some good news for you, Vance, but . . .'

  Belfante waved his hand magnanimously. 'Doesn't matter. I've had a little talk with George.'

  Reuben touched the tight knot into which his hair was drawn at the back. He wore an earring and a heavy signet ring and he played with these accoutrements continually as he spoke. 'I heard.'

  'Yeah, well, I came off second best. But you should see the mouse under Geo
rge's eye. Anyway, I'm sure he didn't set me up and I want you to act for him, too.'

  Reuben touched the earring. 'Is that wise? I was thinking of a defence along the lines of maybe Frost and Ava . . .'

  'No way. George is solid.' Belfante leaned closer. 'Someone's got to have a talk to Ava.'

  'A talk?'

  'A serious talk. Maybe very serious.'

  Reuben twisted the signet ring between thumb and forefinger. 'I don't know, Vance.'

  'Yes you do, Grant. You know. And you know what'll happen to you if you don't do what I say.' Belfante snapped his fingers with a crack that rose above the hum of conversation in the room. Heads turned. Reuben started as if he'd been shot. Belfante smiled apologetically as he spoke. 'I wouldn't like to see you struck off, Grant. Not in your prime like you are.'

  Reuben's dealings with Vance Belfante had made him prosperous—conveyancing, drawing up contracts, introductions to accountants and investors, not all of which could stand the light of day. He knew how much Belfante had on him and how readily he would use it in any way that suited him. Privately, he'd been hoping that this lucrative but troublesome client might go away for a time to allow him to extricate himself and go legitimate. In fact, his plans to achieve this and more were well advanced. This new firmness of purpose in Belfante was a set-back. Reuben tugged at his hair knot.

  'I might be able to contact someone who could help.'

  'I'm sure you can,' Belfante said.

  Dennis Tate had to laugh. He rarely laughed, but this was too much. Too much. The commission had come to him through one of his most reliable contacts. The package, sent care of the Poste Restante at the GPO, contained a photograph, a full description and the edited transcript of a record of interview of the subject, now a client of the Federal Witness Protection Unit, by the police. Tate would destroy it all as soon as he had committed the important ingredients to memory, but he had immediately formed some conclusions. One, the source of this commission was not the same as for Rankin. Two, this stuff had 'lawyer' written all over it.

  Tate tested his blood sugar by pricking his finger, dabbing the blood on a reagent strip, waiting, rinsing the strip and putting it into the computerised meter for a reading. It was 3.3—very satisfactory. Normal range. He had grown used to the routines and quite enjoyed them. Blood and sharp things had never worried him. He made a cup of coffee, poured in the artificial sweetener and read what had passed between Ava Belfante and Detective Colin Brown.