Free Wyatt - 05 - Port Vila Blues by Garry Disher Page B

years hed
felt hunted, on edge. But now he had a chance to regain the things hed lost
and control the strings that had pulled him into risks he should never have
taken. He had sufficient money to live on, no one in Tasmania knew who he was
and, once hed paid his debt to Jardine, he would buy an end to his running.

    He crossed the Derwent at five oclock.
Traffic was mounting up but that didnt mean anything in Hobart. He followed a
minibus past the Government House lawns and looped down through the streets of
the city. Tomorrow hed go back there and find himself a small downtown dentist
who ran a busy practice and get his tooth filled. The old sandstone buildings
looked soft-edged and warm, glowing softly in the last hour before the sun
settled behind the mountain. Below him, on the left, there were the same masts
in the yacht basin, the same timber workers vigil outside the Parliament
building. Then he was climbing again, curving up and left into Battery Point.

    The apartment block was a
squared-off, three-storey beige brick construction from the 1960s, set into a
steeply pitched part of the Battery Point hillside overlooking the Derwent.
According to tourists, environmentalists and people living on the hill behind
it, the building was a blight on the landscape, but it suited the tenants, who
could see the water and the mountain. Wyatt had a one-year lease on a
street-level flatstreet level to cut down on his escape time if anyone with
arrest or death in mind for him came snooping around. The rent was low, he
could walk everywhere, the neighbours left him alone. There was no one to
notice or care if he should slip away for a day, a week, a month. No letters
came, the phone never rang, no one looked at him with interest or emotion.

    In fact, if any of those things were to happen, Wyatt would hit the ground running.

    * * * *

    Twelve

    Two
weeks after his meeting with Springett, Niekirk was back in Melbourne. Riggs
arrived that evening, Mansell the following morning. Both had taken rostered
days off work. They made it a rule never to fly in together. They met in a
motel room in St Kilda Road, and Niekirk had to wait while Mansell gabbled away
about his flight down from Sydney. Mansell was like most people, governed by a
set of conventions that said you wasted a few minutes kicking pleasantries
around before you got down to work.

    When Mansell was finished, it was
Riggs who spoke first. Whats the target?

    Niekirk wordlessly tipped floor
plans, photographs, a security-system map and a page from a street directory
onto the double bed. Mansell bent to pick up a photograph, then straightened,
groaning, stretching his back, making a show of it.

    Riggs, as stolid and featureless as
a slab of rock, crossed to look at the plans. Jewellery heist?

    Mansell peered again at the
photograph. Lovely bit of rock.

    Niekirk picked up a second
photograph, a necklace, white gold catching the light softly, emeralds, rubies
and sapphires hard and sharp against the gold, like ice splinters in the
morning sun. The Asahi Collection, he said, on loan from Japan.

    Valued at $750,000, according to the
newspapers. Niekirk had calculated his return if he were to try fencing the
stones himself. Ten cents in the dollar? He knew he wouldnt do it. There was
no one he could trust, and De Lisle had a long reach.

    He watched Riggs and Mansell. Riggs
was examining the plans now, giving them a grave scrutiny as if he were putting
the hit together himself. He had still, capable, long-fingered hands, his body
loose in grey cords, a check shirt and a heavy yachting pullover. He could have
been anyonethief, cop, car mechanicbut someone who kept himself calm and
ready, and someone with an unpredictable, vicious streak. Sensing Niekirks
scrutiny, Riggs said, Where?

    Were going there now.

    Niekirk took them into the city, to
a region of tiny arcades bounded by major streets. Satisfied that they hadnt
been tailed, he led them into a snack bar. They sat on stools