Vivienne. Just an ordinary suburban housewife… no more

It had taken them almost an hour to down pack the pantech. Even then it had been a rush job, risky to sensitive equipment but Foster Barnes considered the risk worthwhile. Just like almost forty-eight hours previously, their arrival at the Broadbeach Police Station, the Police Headquarters on Queenslands’ Gold Coast, had been less than cordial. The Constable on the front desk proved reluctant to provide any assistance. Up until this point, Peter Gallagher had been extremely mild mannered. He’d coped with the ten hour drive from Sydney, the lack of parking for the rig, the poor reception on arrival, their shunting out to the Federal Police building, and now again the total lack of cooperation from this junior pup. Peter Gallagher had not slept in nearly two days. He was no longer the easy going, laid back offsider. He was the craggy faced hairy human dynamo who was not going to let the lack of courtesy or the time of day affect what he required right now. The Constable let his hand edge toward the phone, his hesitation drawing a further tirade.

“Pick it up and dial the number sonny boy, or I’ll have the whole Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet wanting your name in less than hour. And an hour after that you’ll be looking for a new career. Do it!”

“Um, er, who shall I say is calling sir.”

“I’m not a fucking sir, I’m a Federal Police Officer, and you know who this is so stop wasting time and ring that number.”

Foster Barnes looked at Pete appreciably and not a little surprised. He’d even had to suppress a chuckle when Pete waved an arm at him during mid tirade. He had turned to look at Foster and winked. Barnes turned away and composed himself, looking suitably professional, and a tad sorry for the young Constable. He nodded at the boy when he too had glanced at him. The telephone was proffered to Pete who before taking it cocked his head to one side. The Constable finally realised what he was waiting for.

“It’s ah, it’s Superintendent Bailey sir, um, sir.”

It was the Constables’ turn to look surprised as Peter returned to his normal laid back charm when he took the receiver. The voice changed as he spoke into the phone.

“Why thankyou Constable, you have been most helpful. Hey Rob you old barstard, sorry to get you up mate, yeah, long time no see.” Peter covered the receiver with his hand and whispered to Barnes, “an old mate, we went to school together, only found out he was in charge here couple of hours ago meself,” and then back into the phone, “uhuh, yeah look ol’ mate, I’ve brought this here septic up, yeah that one, no, no he’s okay for one of them, yeah, seems like this Vivienne Curtis may have called triple 0 and asked for Barnes by name but she hung up before anyone had a chance to talk to her. No more than two hours ago. That’s okay with you? Excellent! Uhuh. Yep. You got it mate, okay, see you later, what was that? Yeah same to you ya old fuck. Here Constable, he wants to talk to you.”

Peter turned and stood beside Foster Barnes, both of them laughing hysterically yet managing not to let a snicker to pass their blank facades as they watched the humiliation of the Constable.

“Yes sir, of course sir, no sir, yes sir, yes sir.” Finally he put the phone down and both men saw him gulp before lifting his head to look at them. “Sir, sirs, if you’ll please go to that door and I’ll buzz you in.” Even his arm trembled as he pointed.

“Thankyou Constable.” Pete lobbed a set of keys before entering the door. “And park the rig for us will you? We had to double park out front.”

Chapter Eleven. “Lost and Alone”

Vivienne seethed. She felt like shouting, screaming at the top of her lungs “I am no murderer.” The cop had been fine. Nobody had been hurt. He hadn’t been hurt – she didn’t kill anybody. Anybody, I didn’t kill anybody she wanted to yell so the world knew she was innocent. She was just a mother with a baby daughter and a loving husband at home in the suburbs. Normal like everyone else – like everybody. Except for this heat. She looked at her arms, a fine sheen of perspiration making them shine like an oiled body on the beach. The beach. She looked at the surf as it crashed into the sand, and at first didn’t recognise it, wondering how the beach could be this far inland. Shocked, she realised that she was almost at Surfers Paradise. She had walked nearly five miles, power walked she guessed by her arms, and in less than half an hour judging by her watch. It said four-thirty, not too long before the light of dawn hit the horizon and bringing with it sunshine. Sunshine, the warmth of the sun – and people. Her picture had been spread across the newspapers and she was the talk of the town. She was labelled a killer and here she was in the centre of the waking tourist population, waiting for someone to walk past during their morning constitutional, or on their way home from a nightclub, and recognise her. She dashed across the road and saw a blue phone outside of a newsagency. The owner was disappearing into the doorway with a bundle of papers dangling from both hands. She hoped briefly that her picture wasn’t on the front of those too. Her trembling fingers pushed triple 0 again.

“Police. I’m Vivienne Curtis.”

Chapter Twelve. “First Contact”

Staffing was minimal at this time of night but suddenly Barnes and Gallagher were being feted, celebrated, patronised. Foster Barnes knew if he’d requested a lobster salad or a bottle of Bollinger, every effort would have been made to procure them. He knew the contrast was only because of Peters’ school buddy.

“If you’d done your homework correctly you would have known this friend of yours was in charge here beforehand,” he chided. “Might have saved us a lot of work.”

“Sorry boss, I thought I had. I was misinformed,” Pete grinned back. “Rob was in Townsville last I knew, but the old boy net failed me as badly as the formal staff lists forwarded three days ago.”

Foster Barnes knew Pete had not reacted to his gentle chiding and was only repeating the facts. Seems like professional courtesies were the same the world over, not what you know, but who. The young constable returned with the current working file on Vivienne, and pot of coffee as Barnes had requested. The file was very thin, surprising Barnes, but it was the coffee the Constable was most apologetic about.

“It was, is, it’s the best I could do sir, don’t, we don’t normally make “em by the pot.”

“It’s fine son – this is the only file?”

“Ah, yes sir, everything is on floppy, most things. I’ll log you on to the computer so you can open it.”

They were in a small cubicle of an almost deserted open plan office that Barnes knew would turn into a hive of activity in a few short hours. He wished to be well clear by then and nodded at the Constable to proceed. He looked over the short partition and wished he could hear into the operator’s room adjacent – there was something gentle and soothing about the flashing lights of their computer switchboard. He would read the reports first, then take a seat in that room with the suitably dim lighting and continuously flashing banks of switches and panels. In there he would think – and wait.

He firstly read the complaint levelled by Dudley William Wallace about his noisy neighbours across the road, Mr and Mrs Curtis. Wallace had thought the domestic dispute had risen to a level that required Police intervention. There had been no action recommended on the complaint as Wallace had reported the same neighbour on three previous occasions in the past year, the first two discredited after local patrols from the northern Police Station at Coomera carried out limited investigations. More importantly was the reference in the report to many other complaints Wallace had made in the last six years about almost every single one of his neighbours – they were cross referenced so that Barnes could access them if he wished, but he did not. He knew he would find nothing but the spurious ramblings of a serial whinger, and that if he bothered to check Wallace’s previous address, that local Police station would have many more.

Barnes read on, the report of the initial Police pursuit of Mrs Curtis after Wallace had rung in again and reported the damage inflicted to his car by Mrs Curtis. He grinned when he noticed the description Wallace provided of the vehicle Vivienne had driven away in. After further shouting in the street between her and her husband, she had left in a green 1994 Hyundai four door. Wallace even knew the complete registration number. Barnes knew Wallace probably had the make, model and registration number of every vehicle in his street, for those people that had come to his attention anyway.

The first Police pursuit had ended innocently enough with the pursuing car involved in an MVA, no injuries. Dispatch then advised an APB on Mrs Curtis, picked up almost immediately by a motorcycle cop who gave chase, the report citing a further MVA by both of them at a crowded intersection. Vivienne had run from the scene chased by the motorcycle cop on foot. The reports then cited several eyewitness accounts. Barnes glossed over the identity of the witnesses, as they all agreed that Mrs Curtis had pushed a stationary vehicle out of her way and disappeared into the large adjacent shopping centre car park. Unfortunately for the chasing cop, Mrs Curtis had pushed the car into the far left lane, the only moving traffic lane, and the ensuing havoc of vehicles taking evasive action saw several of them plough into the stationary lanes of cars waiting at the lights.

The preceding accident that left Vivienne’s car on the centre traffic island and the abandoned Police motorcycle between the lanes meant many cars were sitting unattended, engines still running or the drivers having placed them into neutral as they looked around at what was happening. The car striking the end vehicle began a massive domino effect as cars concertinaed into each other. The motorcycle cop had just moved in front of one car, looking up in time to see firstly, Vivienne disappearing into the car park, and then turning his head as the cars began their long nose to tail crashing. He made his one fatal decision – he stopped. Seconds later he was crushed by the bullbar of the small 4wd he stopped in front of, then impaled on the pushbike rack mounted on the tow ball of the car in front. Energy dissipated, the car with the pushbike rack only moved a couple of feet before gently kissing the bumper of the car in front of it. The impaled body of the cop dropped to a bloody mass on the road. His helmet had done its job and his face was unscathed, except for the silent scream of terror and pain permanently etched onto its features.

“She didn’t kill the cop,” he whispered to Pete. “She’s out there terrified thinking she’s a cop killer, and she didn’t do it,” he added more to himself, with not a little relief. “We’ve got to find her soon.”

Before Pete could answer, they both turned as the sound of knocking on a window drew their excited attention. The operator behind the glass mouthed something unintelligible. They recognised the gesture that there was a phone call – the call from the only person that would come through the triple 0 operator for them. Barnes ran into the room and was handed a headset, the operator nodding at him.

“It’s her,” he said unnecessarily. He pushed a button on the console and the sound of the ocean came through the headsets.

“Mrs Curtis, are you there?”

“Yes. Who are you? I asked for a specific person, who are you?”

“This is Foster Barnes speaking Maam, I’m a Special Agent of the FBI. Mrs Curtis, we need to meet, I need to talk to you.”

“You don’t sound like an American, much. How do I know you really are this Foster Barnes guy?”

“Mrs Curtis, you didn’t kill that Policeman…”

“I know I didn’t. I haven’t killed anyone. What I don’t know is who you are – you could be anybody pretending to be this Foster Barnes.”

“Mrs Curtis, how are you handling it, the heat I mean, the heat I know you’re feeling inside, the heat that makes you feel invincible doesn’t it? But Mrs Curtis, I want to, need to warn you, whatever you do, do not… Mrs Curtis? Mrs Curtis, are you there? Vivienne? Damn it, she’s gone. What the hell happened?”

Pete was standing beside the operator who nodded at him.

“She hung up boss.”

Chapter Thirteen. “Hidden Treasure”

Vivienne recalled the words – they still echoed around her head. “…how are you handling it, the heat I mean, the heat I know you’re feeling inside, the heat that makes you feel invincible…?” There was no doubt in her mind that it had been Foster Barnes she had spoken to. But how did he know? How could he know what she felt? She still held the receiver in her hand, and replaced it slowly, noticing the false dawn and knowing she needed to find another hidey-hole for the day. She remembered the council van park further down the esplanade. She would find something there, somewhere cool and out of sight. She began to run, ignoring the looks of the pre-dawn risers walking the dog or the more enthusiastic surfers changing into wetsuits. One of them even wolf whistled at her as she sprinted past, dress caught up around her upper thighs and hair sailing in the breeze of her making.

She ran and ran, and only slowed as she neared the van park itself as she thought about where the entry gates were. To her amazement she found herself jumping the two-metre high chain mail fence and then and only then did she stop, from surprise. She glanced around quickly, recalling that van parks were notorious for early risers, but remembering this was a council park and there should be no permanents. It was not holiday season – there wasn’t a soul in sight. She located a small cabin with attached ensuite, the cabins on either side and opposite all looked unoccupied. The door opened easily after she softly knocked a few times, and she closed and applied the safety hook once inside. She sunk to the floor of the little cabin, a floor thankfully of linoleum over cool concrete, and heard those words again in her head.

“… how are you handling it, the heat I mean, the heat I know you’re feeling inside, the heat that makes you feel invincible …?”

“How could he know?” she whispered.

Chapter Fourteen. “Closing In”

“What was all that about boss?”

“A stab in the dark Pete, just a stab in the dark.”

“I hope it wasn’t a fatal one.”

“No, I think I may have surprised her is all, shocked her maybe. Did we get a trace?”

Pete glanced again at the operator who responded.

“Yes sir, she was at a public phone on the Esplanade at Surfers.”

“Do we want to go there boss?”

Foster Barnes considered this for a moment. “How far is it?”

“No more than seven or eight minutes tops at this time of morning.”

“No, she’ll be miles away by then. Can we have a map, a tourist type map not just a road map?”

“Yeah sure, any of the service stations should have one. I’ll get the Constable to get us one.”

“Service station?”

“Yeah, roadhouse.”

“Oh, uhuh, yeah that’d be great – no hurry.”

“You don’t think we can catch up with her?”

“I don’t think she’s mobile, you know, she wouldn’t be using public transport for fear of being recognised. She doesn’t have her car anymore, and what, she’s moved less than five or six miles in three days? And finally, her husband and her daughter are still only just up the road, close enough to run home to, turn to if she gets desperate enough. She’s scared, scared about what’s happening to her and scared at what’s happening around her – and she’s scared for her husband and baby. That’s the reason she ran, not because she got uppity with a neighbour.”

“What did you mean about the heat, what you said to her about that?”

“You’re persistent Pete! Like I said, just a stab in the dark – we’ll have to wait and see. When does this school chum of yours arrive? We need to ask him a really big favour.”

“Said he should be in by seven-thirty, about two hours from now.”

“We got a place to kip, beside the truck I mean?”

Pete looked at Barnes with surprise. “You actually want to sleep? I’ve been waiting to see if you did or not. Unless you slept on the plane over, I ain’t seen you put your head down yet.”

“Not for me, for you. Go on, rustle up that map and find yourself a place to lie down for a while. I’ll need you rested tonight understand?”

“Don’t need to understand boss, if that’s what you say that’s fine by me. What you gonna do then?”

“As you say, I’m gonna study the file and that map when it gets here, send out a few enquiries and see what turns up.”

Peter screwed up his already screwed up face. “You know something, you know where she is don’t you?”

“No, no, I wish I did, but I’ll have a better idea by tonight so go on, stop wasting time and go grab a kip.”

“Okay, you’re the boss, boss.”

Barnes pored over the report again, memorising every little detail and ignoring the increasing bustle around him. The breaking morning brought Policemen in from patrols and their replacements ready for another day. He knew they’d be looking at him as word spread he was now based with them, not to mention the big black rig blocking most of their car parks. They probably knew nothing about him other than he was an FBI Agent, and that made him a curiosity. All manner of local, interstate and commonwealth authorities had tread the boards here at one time or another, but an actual Special Agent of the FBI was a rarity indeed. He recalled Viviennes’ voice and frowned.

“She ain’t scared anymore, confused is all, and a mite angry too,” he muttered.

“Sir?”

It was the young constable from the front desk. Barnes looked up at him.

“Nothing. What is it son.”

“Sir, the Super is here asking for you and Mr Gallagher.”

“Where, where is Pete?”

“Ah, he’s in the truck sir, it’s parked out back in the compound.”

“Don’t disturb him.” Barnes stood up. “Can I leave these…”

“Yes, they’ll be right there sir, I’ll look after them. This way.”

Chapter Fifteen. “Rise and Shine”

Barnes punched in the door code and pressed his eye to the scanner. He and Gallagher were the only ones programmed to be accepted by the retina scanner and it was a good backup for the security-coded door. He stepped quietly into the pantech and noted the subdued lights. Most of the equipment was either shut down or in low power mode awaiting their call to action again. The sleeper cab could be accessed from the pantech but he could see the little hatchway was closed and secure so he strove to remain as silent as possible.

Two steps from his work station at the front of the pantech, he froze as the hatchway sprung open and a blaze of light struck him in the eyes.

“Morning boss.”

Barnes immediately saw Petes’ craggy smile when he switched off the torch, and lowered the Browning 9mm pistol he held in the other hand.

“It’s afternoon.”

Pete looked surprised. “I was tired. Didn’t hear nothing until you came through that door. First time I slept in this damn thing and it was worth waiting for.”

“If it was beauty sleep you were hoping for I hate to tell you it didn’t work.”

“It’d take more than sleep to fix this cranium of mine boss. Don’t I know it. So what’s the go, what’s happening?” Pete levered himself through the hatch and took the proffered coffee out of Barnes hand. “Weren’t testing me now were you?”

Barnes ignored the latter. Of course he had been. He unfolded the tourist map and placed it down onto his cluttered work desk, pointing at a small red X.

“That’s where she called us from.” He pointed at another red mark, a circle. “That’s where I thought she’d gone to ground.”

“A caravan park?”

“Inside,” he gestured at the police station “they tell me that the entire area is full of holiday apartments and high rises, predominantly empty this time of year. So she could be anywhere. She could be almost next door to us and we wouldn’t have a clue.”

“But …?”

Barnes pulled another larger map from his jacket and overlaid it on the desk. There were two red Xs and three red circles on this map. He pointed to the Xs first.

“This is her house at Helensvale. This is the shopping centre she disappeared from three days ago. I sent out requests asking for any unusual reports of break-ins in the area immediately around the shopping centre, and after sifting through them, Barnes rolled his eyes, I came up with these three possibilities. First, a council trailer park at Southport, a Chinese Takeout in Biggera Waters, and the trailer park here almost beside the shopping centre. I dismissed reports if things had been stolen or damaged, not the MO of our girl.”

“And …?”

“And we are jumping into a car and going to check them out now, before dark.”

“Before dark?”

“Yeah, it’s nearly three, you slept a full eight hours sleeping beauty!”

“You, you met Rob then?”

“Yep, and a good thing too, but c’mon, we’ll talk in the car – you’re driving. I don’t think I’m up to this driving on the wrong side of the road yet.”

Pete drove straight up the highway through the Surfers Paradise tourist strip and into Southport, a pretty if less than developed calm water area, as distinct from the more popular beach suburbs immediately south and along the remainder of the Coast. Barnes told him that if this were mainland USA the houses and high-rise apartments would have been overlapping the water. He filled him in on the discussions with Superintendent Bailey, and passed on the message that he would catch up with Pete tomorrow, on his return from a meeting at the State Police Headquarters in Brisbane. Meanwhile, the search and overt activity for Vivienne would be scaled down to support for themselves only, as requested. This had been an excellent response and Barnes had appreciated the lateral thinking of Peter’s friend.

They arrived at the Council Van Park on the edge of the water. It was a stunning setting as the sun low in the sky behind them making the calm estuary sparkle. The Manager showed them several vans that had been broken into and vandalised in the past week, and Barnes shook his hand and thank him profusely, promising action by local Police as he hurried back to the car. Pete gave him a quizzical look as he closed the door on the still ranting Manager.

“Not our girl?”

“No.”

“You wanna tell me why boss?”

“The Chinese Takeout, they’re waiting for us.” He looked at Pete and grinned. “I told them not to touch anything until we got there, and that was eleven o’clock this morning. They might be getting a mite touchy by now.”

“Takeaway.”

“What?”

“Takeaway, we call them takeaways not takeouts. Now tell me why this wasn’t our girl?”

“She wouldn’t have vandalised anything Pete, perhaps breaking a lock to get in would be all, but she doesn’t want anyone to know where she is. So why would she draw attention to herself by damaging her hideout? Besides, the vandalism began before she came onto the scene.”

“She could have done it to make it look like the vandals.”

“No. She’s smarter than even she thinks she is. If she’d seen the damage she wouldn’t have felt safe enough to stay here in the first place – she would have moved on.”

“Ah, the other caravan park you circled on the other map?”

“Yep. There, the Asian takeout, takeaway,” he pointed. “Damn it, they didn’t wait.”

Pete parked in front of the little restaurant and Barnes raced inside. Happily he noticed the boxes of supplies piled on tables in the restaurant. He apologised profusely to the little man waiting in the kitchen doorway, the small face of a child peering around his legs. The owner confirmed what he reported on the phone this morning. Someone had broken in through the back door, and after stealing or consuming almost every morsel of food, had cleaned up afterward. The only food left were the top leaves of a celery stalk sitting beside the fridges, the teeth marks evident on the stalk. Barnes deposited the celery into a small plastic bag. He apologised again and walked out the front door, trailed by Pete who had remained totally silent during the five minutes in the shop.