Wyatt - 06 - The Fallout Read Online Free PDF

supposed they would. They found the cafeteria essentially
unchanged. There were husbands and fathers among the diners and one of them was
Wyatt. They faded away again.

    Wyatt got to his feet, showing
reluctance. Afraid I have to go.

    Yes.

    He took the escalators to the
bargain basement, alert for trained moves and involuntary gestures, anything
that promised troublehands curling near pockets, eyes flicking with
recognition, mouths turned away to lapel microphones or radios. He was in a
crowded space but moved through it as though along a deserted street,
jettisoning the clutter in his mind and limbering his body for the moment hed
need to think and act faster than those who were going up against him.

    He saw cops on the way down. They
didnt see him. They were abandoning the search. The hard scrutiny had gone out
of their faces.

    At the bottom he filled two logoed
shopping bags with cheap, bulky kitchen goods. Bit by bit he was building up
his credibility. On the way out he bought sunglasses and a straw hat. On the
streets of the city he was one among the thronging thousands.

    The city offered trains, buses and
planes that would take him out of the state, but he knew that the police would
be watching the major terminals. He had to take a less direct and obvious route
out. There were flights across Bass Strait from Tyabb, near Westernport Bay.
Westernport was also where all this had started, so no-one would be looking for
him there.

    He walked to Flinders Street
station, stopping from time to time to listen to the spruikers spilling onto
the footpath outside the discount stores. Wyatt had no interest in the cheap
and useless bargains. He was looking for gestures and movements again.

    He took the express to Frankston.
Thirty minutes later he was on the train to Westernport Bay. When he got out at
Hastings it was late morning and he did not look out of place among the handful
of other shoppers returning from the city.

    Wyatt wandered down the main street.
There was an opportunity shop opposite the new library. He went in, stacked the
kitchenware on the counter, nodded, went out again, toward the jetty.

    As Wyatt saw it, Liz Redding would
be questioning Heneker by now. It wouldnt occur to her that the jewels were
still on the yacht. It was a long shot, but maybe they hadnt got around to
impounding it yet. Maybe it still sat at anchor.

    A long shot. What Wyatt found was
the yacht tied to a jetty inside the marina with a yellow crime-scene tape all
around it.

    He walked back up the main street.
At the library door he veered to avoid colliding with one of the librarians.
She was young, fair, ready to smile, and glanced at him as he edged past her
into the foyer and put coins in the public phone. Wyatt asked about flights to
King Island. There was one at 4 p.m. He booked a seat, looked at his watch, and
saw that he had four hours to kill.

    * * * *

    Six

    Liz
Redding hurried from the staff room at the police complex, coffee slopping over
her fingers. They had Heneker in the interview room.

    There were two men with himher superintendent,
Montgomery, looking slightly out of his depth, and Gosse, her new inspector.
She didnt like Gosse. Shed never seen him smile; he reduced the civilian
typists and filing clerks to tears three or four times a week; hed look past
you as though you were nothing to him while he spoke to you.

    Montgomery climbed to his feet. Come
in, Sergeant Redding.

    Gosse frowned, as though to argue,
but then he shrugged and turned away from her. Its already started, Liz
thought. Gosse will freeze me out and soon have Montgomery doing it too.

    The room was small and bare. Liz
glanced at Heneker. Hed been the last person to see or speak to Wyatt, and she
felt a surprising need to be alone with him, ask him if Wyatt looked okay, even
though Wyatt had doped her coffee last night and run from her. Shed awoken
feeling thick in the head but known at once what had happened. Shed alerted
Montgomery from a pay