Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

no real reason to go there. Apart from Rispoli. Handsome, tall and distinguished. With a hint of charm. An honesty too in his eyes. But although a hook-up sounded good, it was not smart. She had few rules but one was – almost – sacred: never on the first day.

‘I’ll stay here.’

‘In Hurton? They’ve what they call a B&B, but it’s more a storage shed out the back of Miller’s place, the painter and decorator.’

‘No, here. I’ll kip in the car.’

‘You can’t.’

‘I’ve had worse.’

Emmaline wanted to stay. They had the phone and the panicked message but no bodies, no evidence of foul play other than the blood. She felt drawn to stay.

Rispoli glanced at his feet, then met her eyes again. ‘Give me an hour. I’ll see what I can do.’

With that he hopped in his car and drove off, the dust rising to meet the rapidly darkening sky. Emmaline was alone. She was used to being alone. Others weren’t, trying to scare her that some imaginary clock was ticking down on her chance to have a child. She wasn’t even in her thirties and yet all her aunts and uncles were waiting for ‘the good news’ at the beginning of every phone call. As if her becoming a detective in the MCS wasn’t good news. But for her relatives, the MCS was merely a precursor to her real job. Not to say there hadn’t been times when she had found herself alone at night looking into sperm donors and IVF and wondering if she could go it alone with a child. Given her previous relationships she might be better off going it alone. She needed a man to accept her. Who knew when to be close and also when to be distant. It was a tricky balance. Just like any baby she might one day conceive, she needed any long-term partner customized a little, not too much, just the edges rounded so that they didn’t grate on each other too much like a pair of tectonic plates. Not that there were too many of those around Australia. The earth didn’t move much around here. Which only got her thinking about sex again. And abandoning her rule of not sleeping with someone on the first day. If Rispoli ever returned. If he didn’t she would have to consider setting up house out here like the Maguire’s had.

In the end, he returned after an hour and a half, dragging a caravan that Emmaline was amazed had survived the haul. He parked it in a free space a few plots away from the Maguire house.

He exited with a smile. ‘It’s not the Ritz.’

Emmaline walked around the outside. It didn’t take long. There was room for one. Two at a squeeze.

‘Are we sharing?’ she asked, her instincts overruling common sense. A few hours and it would be midnight, so technically the second day. A loophole she had exploited before.

‘Do you want me to?’

She caught his eyes, dark like hers but with a hint of warming hazel. They held her stare. Long enough for common sense to regain control.

‘Let’s raincheck that. Once we find them.’

He smiled. ‘As an incentive.’

Emmaline smiled back. He knew how to play the game. It was better when they knew how to play the game.

With a wave and unhurried exit, in case either of them changed their mind, Rispoli left.

Taking a last look around, she entered the caravan. The revolting aroma of cigarettes hit her instantly, like the air itself had turned sour. That a smoker had lived there was further evidenced by the unnatural yellow of the roof and piss-coloured tinge to the cushion fabric. Emmaline cracked open the window – two inches before it caught on the latch – and settled on the narrow couch that encircled a chipped MDF table.

The caravan was stocked with a kettle, coffee and some packets of dry noodles. Enough for tonight at least. It’s what had taken Rispoli the extra half-hour, she supposed. She smiled. She could add thoughtful to the positives. He was putting forward a strong case. After making some chicken noodles that tasted like warm cardboard but filled her stomach, she settled in to read the file of documents on the Maguire family that she hadn’t got to on the plane.

Lorcan Maguire was up first. Perth born and bred. His most recent job was with a company called INK Tech which offered financial advice, investments, stock options, as well as a sideline in buying up companies in financial difficulties and asset-stripping them. Employed for eight years with a couple of promotions. And then suddenly, last month, he’d been made redundant. Streamlining. A disappointing tale but all too familiar. He had apparently received a reasonable redundancy payout. Which, she assumed, he was using to finance this move and the house repairs.

But there was something else. An add-on to the story. After he had left, a glut of information had been reported as missing from INK Tech’s system. Suspicion had been raised that Lorcan had taken the information to sell to a rival. Or to blackmail the company. A court case regarding criminal misconduct had loomed briefly but was dropped as it couldn’t be proved that he did it or that he did it maliciously.

Something else caught Emmaline’s eyes. The owners of INK Tech. Georgios and Nikos Iannis. Well-known in Perth circles. Both with a chequered past. Criminal records for fraud and extortion. They had used jail terms to gain qualifications in finance and cleaned up their act. But there was always a little dirt under the mudguard. Prison had made them smart. Emmaline wondered if it had removed their propensity for violence.

18

Naiyana

The house was done. Or at least she had done everything she could. You can’t polish a turd, she thought to herself, as she took a walk. Through her town, a thought which filled her with a strangely uplifting sense of importance. A broken kingdom was still a kingdom after all.

She would walk and vlog.