The Petticoat Gang E-Book

Gary Gregor

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Young, beautiful and deadly, best friends Amber, Ebony and Anna are on a mission to leave a past littered with tragedy behind them. With a determination spurred by the promise of a future free of financial hardship, they travel to Alice Springs, in the heart of the Australian continent, to rob banks and kill their way to a better life. Their plan is bold, daring, and meticulously executed; what could go wrong?

As the body count rises fast, Major Crime investigators Russell Foley and Sam Rose are assigned to the case. They pursue the three desperate, determined women north, first on the famous Ghan passenger train packed with tourists and heading to Darwin, then across rough, isolated, outback roads. This was never going to be easy.

Foley and Rose find themselves in a frantic chase to catch the killers and save lives - including their own - but can they catch them before more innocent people become victims of the Petticoat Gang?

Leseprobe

THE PETTICOAT GANG

BOOK NO. 4 – FOLEY & ROSE SERIES

GARY S. GREGOR

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Next in the Series

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2017 Gary S. Gregor

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A number of people play a role in getting an author's story from an initial idea to a published book. For some of them, that role is small, for others it is significant. All who contribute in some way, regardless the level of input, are important to me, and although it might be cliché, it is true that this book would never have seen the light of day without each of them.

If I must nominate just a few, I would start with my former colleagues in the Northern Territory Police Force. You wonderful folk are the inspiration for my characters and, while those characters are fictional, I occasionally draw on the personality traits of some of those I have met in the job. If you recognise yourself in any of them, please remember that you are there because you inspire me.

My beautiful wife, Lesley, who tolerates my long hours in front of the computer without complaint, I love you and I thank you, although I still insist my love of writing is not an obsession.

Last, but by no means least, I thank all at Next Chapter Publishing. The Next Chapter team took a punt on an unknown, and that's rare in this business. I hope I can justify your gamble. I know I'll never stop trying to honor that leap of faith; thank you.

This book is respectfully dedicated to the memory of police officers everywhere who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their communities.

1

The woman entered the bank, paused for a moment and glanced at the lone teller behind the counter. She shifted her gaze and smiled briefly at the internal security camera mounted on the wall of the customer area, routinely albeit discreetly filming everyone who entered. Nothing about her demeanor or her general appearance, other than being quite beautiful, distinguished her from other customers. Relaxed and confident, her body moving like a runway models, she crossed the short distance to the service counter.

Thomas Freeling, the only staff member working in the front service area of the bank, was preparing for the end of trading for the day and the long weekend ahead. He glanced up from his workstation as the woman entered. Thomas noticed immediately how pretty the lady was. No, she was more than pretty, he decided; she was stunning. Her hair, soft and glossy, like she’d just stepped out from an up-market salon, hung in long, cascading, auburn tresses to her shoulders. Thomas thought he knew most of the customers who came into the bank, especially the regulars, but he was sure he had not seen this woman before; she was not someone he would easily forget.

As he watched her approach his service point, his eyes took on a life of their own. They scanned the woman from the top of her head to her elegantly clad feet. Any desire to appear discreet in his appraisal of the woman disappeared. Thomas was, after all, a twenty-three-year-old, testosterone-charged, Aussie male — he was not dead.

She wore a light, almost transparent white blouse, tucked neatly into a figure-hugging black skirt that fell several inches short of her knees, displaying long, smooth, tanned legs. The top three buttons of her blouse, unbuttoned to a point just above the tantalising swell of her cleavage, offered something else that did not escape Thomas’s attention; the woman carried herself with a stylish elegance and confidence demanding admiration.

Thomas watched the woman glance briefly at the security camera. Then she smiled and fixed him with a look indicating, “I’m yours, take me right here on the floor of the bank.”— or so he wished.

She stepped up to the counter, ran the very tip of her tongue across her top lip, and smiled seductively at Thomas. “Hi,” she said throatily.

Not usually one driven to distraction, Thomas immediately and involuntarily adapted the persona of a blithering, stuttering, pimply-faced adolescent, faced with his very first sexual experience with a member of the opposite sex.

“H… h… hi,” he stammered. “H… how may I help you?”

“I would like some money,” the woman purred.

“You would like to m… make a wi… withdrawal?” Thomas managed to ask, albeit with embarrassing difficulty. Positive he was dribbling down his chin, and thereby making a complete ass of himself, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Yes, I would like to make a withdrawal,” the woman smiled.

“Excellent,” said Thomas. “If you would like to swi… swipe your card,” he indicated the card reader on the woman’s side of the counter.

“I don’t have a card,” she said.

“Oh… oh… you don’t have a card?”

“No, I don’t have a card.”

“Do you have an account at this bank, Ma… ma’am?”

“No, I don’t have an account, either.”

“I… I’m sorry, but you need an account with the bank before you can withdraw money.” Beautiful but dumb; a bloody shame, Thomas decided.

As though it might somehow be magically aimed directly at him, an almost imperceptible waft of perfume drifted across the counter in his direction. Suddenly, it became a momentous struggle for him to keep his eyes focused on a point, any point, above her silky-smooth neck.

“Perhaps I can use this.” The woman lifted her handbag onto the counter and reached inside.

The momentary distraction as the woman fished in her handbag, offered the perfect opportunity for Thomas to lower his eyes briefly to her breasts. The gentle swell of her bosom was the last thing Thomas Freeling saw before a 9mm slug crashed through the centre of his forehead.

Separated from the front-of-house customer service area by a prefabricated wall, the staff room of the bank came equipped with facilities enabling staff members to relax during their lunch breaks. It was also where, from time to time, management conducted staff meetings to update bank personnel with the latest banking news and procedural changes.

A door at the rear of the staff room opened into a narrow, single-vehicle, one-way service lane running the length of the rear of the Yeperenye Shopping Centre. It provided access to service vehicles delivering merchandise to the various stores plying their respective trades inside the centre.

It was also the door all bank staff members entered and exited through when arriving and leaving work. For security purposes, it was always locked. Staff gained access with secure key-cards embedded with security software unique to each member.

Alerted by one of his staff members, bank manager Luke Watson peeked through the spy hole in the door and saw black smoke rolling up the outside surface of the door. He immediately reached out, turned the internal dead-lock knob and swung the door inwards.

They came through the door fast. There were two of them, and although heavily disguised, it was obvious from their body shapes that they were women. The first woman through the door swung at Watson with the butt of a short-barreled 12 gauge shotgun, hitting him high on the side of his head. Watson’s knees folded beneath him and he collapsed to the floor. She stood over him and pointed the barrel at his head. She wore a full-face ugly witch mask complete with nose warts and sporting long strands of bright pink hair hanging limply over a soft rubber face.

The second woman kicked a smoldering bundle of rags into the room, slammed the door behind her and stepped over the bank manager’s prone form. Dressed in large, baggy, bright green coveralls, she also wore a full-face mask, this one of a clown’s face topped with a shoulder-length iridescent-purple wig. In one hand she carried a large sports bag, the type a cricketer might use to carry all his sporting equipment to and from a game. In her other hand she brandished a heavy tyre iron.

She waved the tyre iron menacingly at the remaining two staff members. “One sound from either one of you and you die. Right here, right now!” she hissed.

Carly Preston, nineteen years old, and the youngest and newest employee, sobbed loudly.

The woman in the clown mask quickly crossed the room and stepped in close to Carly. “Shut up!” she growled. “You start that hysterical shit and my friend is going to shoot you. Do you understand me?”

Carly stifled a sob.

“Do you understand me?” the clown lady spat.

“Ye… yes, I understand,” Carly stammered.

“Good girl,” The clown said. “Sit down on the floor.”

“Wha… what?”

“Sit… down… on… the… floor!” the clown ordered.

Carly leaned back against the wall, and with no regard for personal modesty, she slid-awkwardly down into a sitting position on the floor, her skirt rising high around her thighs.

The woman turned to the remaining staff member, thirty-seven-year-old Rochelle Browning. “You, too. On the floor!” she ordered.

Rochelle sat next to Carly and took the younger woman’s hand. Their eyes, wide with fear, oscillated back and forth between the two women in the horrible masks and their boss lying semi-conscious on the floor with blood running freely from a deep cut on his head.

The woman with the shotgun knelt on the floor next to the bank manager. “Luke, right?”

Luke Watson’s eyes fluttered open. He felt dampness trickle down his face and wiped at it. His hand came away covered in blood. He blinked a couple of times and looked up at the woman, her face just centimetres from his own.

“Luke Watson, right?” The woman asked again, her voice muffled and indistinct from behind the mask.

“Ye… yes,” Watson answered

“Where’s the tape, Luke?” the woman asked.

“Wha… what tape?”

“Don’t play dumb, Luke. The CCTV tape filming the front counter, where is it?”

“Th… there’s no tape,” Watson stammered, unconvincingly.

The witch woman stood, and placed the barrel of the shotgun centimetres from the bank manager’s mouth.

“You’ve worked for the bank a long time, Luke. You know the bank’s policy regarding armed holdups. Don’t resist. Give the robbers what they want. Remember? Now, I’m going to ask one more time, and if I get the ‘there’s no tape’ shit again, I’m gonna blow your face all across the room. Are we clear on that?”

Luke Watson’s eyes crossed as he looked into the cavernous barrel of the shotgun. “It’s in my office,” he offered submissively.

“Thank you, Luke. You might just have saved your life. Now slide over there and sit next to the ladies.”

Watson was slow to move, and the witch moved the shotgun closer until the end of the barrel touched the manager’s lips. “You need to start co-operating with me, Luke. I’m sure you don’t want to die, and I’m sure the ladies don’t want to see you die. Now, move your arse and sit next to the ladies.”

Watson slid awkwardly across the floor on his backside and joined his two staff members.

The woman turned to her accomplice, the clown lady, and handed her the shotgun. “Watch them,” she ordered, as she stepped over to a closed door at one end of the room, opened it and disappeared inside.

She returned less than two minutes later. In her free hand, she carried a small cassette-type tape. She waved it at her colleague. “Got it,” she announced.

The clown handed the sports bag to the witch, who dropped the tape into the bag and turned to the three terrified bank employees. Her eyes darted from Watson to Rochelle, to Carly and then back to Watson.

“I’m going into the strong-room, folks.” She indicated her colleague. “My friend, Crackers the clown, is going to stay right here. If any of you try anything stupid, she will shoot you. Are we clear on that?”

“Yes, we’re clear,” Watson answered.

The witch looked at the girls. “Are we clear, ladies?”

Rochelle and Carly nodded in unison. “Yes.”

“Excellent,” the witch said.

Built into the rear wall of the staff room, adjacent to the rear exit door, a heavy steel-reinforced door stood slightly ajar. The witch lady hurried across the room and heaved on the door. Inside was a small windowless strong-room lined with shelves on both sides. A bank of safety deposit boxes occupied most of the rear wall.

In one corner, below the shelves, a large, bulky free-standing floor safe, approximately two metres tall, stood with its door invitingly open. The last of the day’s monies from the front service area would be stored and secured in the safe for the coming weekend. On each of the three shelves inside the safe sat bundles of cash. Hundred-dollar notes on the top shelf, fifties on the second, twenties, tens, and fives on the third. The base of the safe contained a large number of coin trays, stacked three high, containing coins of every denomination.

Behind her witch mask, the lady smiled widely, dropped to her knees in front of the safe, and began filling the sports bag with money. She started with bundles of hundred-dollar notes. When the shelf was empty, she moved to the fifties, then the twenties and continued in descending order down through the face value of the notes until the sports bag was bulging.

With difficulty, she pushed down on the contents, stuffing as much as possible into the bag, zipped it closed and glanced at her watch. Less than five minutes had elapsed since they’d burst into the staff room.

“Perfect,” she murmured to herself. She got to her feet, hitched the bag over her shoulder and hurried from the strong room.

“Time to go,” she announced to Crackers, the clown.

Both women quickly crossed to the back door of the staff room and stepped outside into the rear access lane. The clown lady pulled the door closed behind them and, as was meticulously planned, they climbed into the waiting car, driven by the very pretty lady with the long auburn hair.

One minute ahead of schedule and they were gone, a million dollars richer than they were six minutes ago.

2

Glistening soapy-white bubbles generated by a softly humming motor and multiplying quickly, rose and spilled over the rim of the spa bath. Sarah Collins laid her head against Sam Rose’s shoulder, nestled in closer to him, and murmured softly, “Mmm… this is nice.”

Sam pulled her closer to him and kissed the top of her head.

Sarah reached to the edge of the spa, where two glasses of wine sat amidst the bubbles flowing gently over the side. She passed Sam his glass, raised her own and lightly touched it against Sam’s. “This is such a lovely way to end what has been a wonderful day,” Sarah smiled. “What is it about a bubble bath that’s so nice?”

Sam shrugged. “You can fart and no one knows?”

Sarah laughed. She turned her head and looked up at him. “You didn’t… did you?”

“No, I didn’t, but the look on your face right now is priceless,” Sam said.

“That’s what I love about you, Sergeant Rose. You are such a romantic.”

“It’s a gift,” Sam smiled. He sipped his wine and kissed her.

“Where are you taking me for dinner?”

“Dinner?” Sam exclaimed. “We’ve had the best sex either of us has had in a month, I buy you an incredibly expensive bottle of wine, run you a lovely spa bath… and you want dinner, too?” He looked suitably miffed.

“Firstly,” Sarah began, “the sex was the best we’ve had in a month because it’s been that long since I was last in Alice Springs. Secondly, the price sticker is still on the wine bottle, and twenty dollars does not constitute incredible expense. Lastly, we had sex again when you climbed in the spa with me.”

“And your point is?”

“My point is that I want dinner, too,” Sarah kissed him again.

“You have expensive tastes. Do I have to mortgage my house?”

“This is not your house, as I recall. It’s supplied by the department.”

“It’s my spa bath,” Sam said pointedly.

Sarah shrugged. “So you can mortgage your spa bath. Or rob a bank. Either way, I expect something a little classier than McDonalds.”

“Oh, alright then,” Sam frowned. “But, just so you know, Maccas has some really good stuff.”

“Then you can go to Maccas three times a day when I go back to Yulara. You can clog up your arteries, get all fat and puffy, drop dead before you’re fifty, and they can take your bloated, diseased body out of here on a fork-lift. But tonight, while you are still reasonably fit, healthy and mildly attractive, you can take me somewhere nice.” Sarah stood to climb out of the spa.

“You think I’m attractive?” Sam asked.

Sarah leaned back and looked at him studiously. “Hmm… mildly… like in a leading-man-in-a-horror-movie kind of way.”

Sam grabbed her by the leg. “Well, at least you have me as the leading man. No small bit parts for this boy. Why don’t you get back in here and I’ll show you my best part?”

Sarah smiled down at him. “You’ve shown me that twice today already.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Impressive?”

“Amazing. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.” Sarah lowered herself back into the spa bath. “You should send a photo to Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”

Sam’s phone rang shrilly. “Can you get that, Sarah?” he called from the bedroom where he was dressing for dinner.

Sarah grabbed his phone from the kitchen table and flipped it open. “Hello.”

“Sarah? Hi, Russell Foley here.”

“Hi, Russell, how are you?”

“I’m fine, Sarah. I didn’t realise you were in town,” Foley said. “I was looking for Sam.”

“He’s in the other room, dressing for dinner,” Sarah explained. “I’ve got a week off, and I thought I better come to the big smoke and catch up on his housework.”

Foley laughed. “I’m so glad you did. He’s been unbearable to work with without you to straighten his tie for him.”

“Do you want to hold, or will I get him to call you back?” Sarah asked.

Foley paused. “Unfortunately, this is not a social call. I’m afraid you’re going to have to put your dinner plans on hold.”

“Sounds serious,” Sarah said.

“Yeah, it is,” Foley said.

“I’ll tell him to go straight in,” Sarah promised.

“Sorry about dinner,” Foley apologised.

“Forget about it,” Sarah said. “I’ve been on the job long enough to know how it works.”

“Thank you,” Foley responded. “Oh, I just had a thought… “

“Yes?”

“We’re short on man-power with the Finke Desert Race this weekend. I know you’re here on a break, but how do you feel about going on the clock?”

“You want me to come in with Sam?”

“Only if you want to,” Foley said. “We could use all the help we can get.”

“Okay,” Sarah agreed. “Gotta be better than eating alone and waiting for Sam to get home.”

“Great,” Foley said. “Commonwealth Bank, Yeperenye Shopping Centre, ASAP.”

“A robbery?” Sarah speculated.

“Yeah… and more. I’ll see you both soon.”

“We’re on our way,” Sarah said.

Sam Rose never considered himself to be a particularly handsome individual. He knew, however, that such an opinion was at odds with those who considered his looks to be well above average. He also knew that those who took such a view were, in the main — at least he hoped they were in the main — members of the opposite sex. The topic embarrassed Sam, and many times in his life, he wished people didn’t judge him by his looks.

Sam vehemently believed he had much more to offer than his physical appearance. While his record as a police officer substantiated that belief, it was a source of concern to him that there were those who found it difficult to look beyond the facade. It was not something Sam stressed over; it was much more a case of mild irritation than it was the catalyst for sleepless nights. He had been on the job for more years than he was ever out of it, over twenty, in fact, and he had long ago become inured to the insecurities of others.

He ran a comb through his hair one last time and stepped away from the mirror.

“That was Russell,” Sarah announced as Sam entered the lounge room.

Sam stopped and looked at Sarah. “Wow! You look lovely.”

“Thank you,” Sarah smiled. “That was Russell,” she repeated.

“I heard you,” Sam said. “Okay, are you ready… let’s go to dinner.”

“We’re not going to dinner,” Sarah announced.

Sam’s shoulders slumped visibly, and he adopted a grossly exaggerated, forlorn look. “He hates me,” he moaned.

“No, he doesn’t hate you,” Sarah smiled.

“What’s the job?” Sam asked.

“Bank robbery.”

“Where?”

“The Commonwealth Bank, in the Yeperenye Centre.”

“Bloody hell!” Sam cursed. “All my money’s in that bank.”

“Don’t worry, the bank will be insured, you’ll get your money back,” Sarah offered encouragement.

Sam shrugged indifferently. “Doesn’t matter. The bastards will never get rich on what I had in there.”

Sarah crossed to Sam, wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly. “There is some good news,” she announced.

“We’ve got time for another spa before I go?” Sam suggested hopefully.

“No, no spa,” Sarah said. “But I’m coming with you.”

“You are?”

“Yes, Russell wants me on the team.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. Most of the troops are deployed to the Finke Desert Race. I’m on the clock.”

“In that case, I feel better about going to work. It will be nice working together again.” Sam leaned down and kissed her. “Are you sure there’s not enough time… “

Sarah pushed away from him playfully. “No, there’s not. Let’s go.”

3

In the front customer area of the bank, behind the counter where the body of Thomas Freeling lay in a pool of rapidly-congealing blood, Sergeant John Singh, a senior forensic officer, clad from head-to-feet in protective clothing, carefully stepped around the body, taking photographs from various angles. Another similarly clad member stood on the customer side of the counter, carefully studying the floor and the countertop for clues. Outside the bank, in the mall complex, several uniformed officers kept a rapidly growing throng of curious onlookers outside a cordoned off area. Murder, despite its ugliness, seemed to have an element of the curious to it that attracted onlookers like moths to a flame.

The forensic examination of any crime scene was a critical component of any subsequent investigation. More often than not, the successful prosecution of an offender depended on forensic evidence collected at the scene of the crime. Detective Inspector Russell Foley knew that, perhaps better than most, but he was also particular, some believed overly so, about the methodology of evidence collection.

When the forensic members were done, Foley ordered everyone present to leave the crime scene. Those on the staff side of the counter and in the rear area of the bank were to wait in the service lane behind the bank. Those on the customer side were ordered to assemble outside the front doors, in the shopping mall.

Russell Foley was a meticulous cop, one of the few on the job who seemed to take an inordinate amount of time standing alone in a crime scene taking everything in, absorbing the ambience, he called it. Perhaps it was an idiosyncrasy, perhaps not. Either way, Foley didn’t care how others might view his methods. There was something he found helpful about standing alone in a crime scene and examining it minutely with his trained eye. If anything was going to be overlooked, any clue, any tiny piece of evidence, he was not going to be the one that overlooked it. He was not going to allow his crime scene to be contaminated by an overzealous cop trampling all over it before he had the opportunity to examine it himself.

Like Sam Rose, Russell Foley had been on the job a long time, and as unorthodox as his routine might be seen by others, it was the way he had always operated. Particularly at scenes where an unfortunate soul had lost his, or her, life.

Whenever a criminal investigation involving the death of an innocent victim arose, and that was way too often for Foley’s liking, he almost always assumed the role of Officer in Charge. It came with the responsibility of being OIC of Major Crime. Only an absence due to personal illness or annual leave would change that position. He had long ago concluded that he had a personal obligation to the family of the deceased to leave no stone unturned in finding the person or persons responsible for the death of their loved one.

That was not to say that others involved in the investigation didn’t give their utmost to solving the crime; he knew everyone did. It was just that he had a particular way of doing things that worked for him, and that was all that concerned him. If others found that pragmatic, or even problematic, so be it.

Foley squatted on his haunches and looked at the body of Thomas Freeling. The bullet had entered the young man’s forehead almost dead centre. He looked up at the counter and mentally calculated the distance between where Freeling would have been standing and the shooter on the opposite side of the counter. It was a guesstimate at best, but it was a start.

A strong, clear, shatter-proof security panel fixed to the ceiling and the counter top separated the staff member from the customer. Neatly cut into the panel, two conveniently placed gaps, one running vertically from the ceiling down, and one horizontal at counter-top level, allowed for ease of communication between the teller and the customer. They also allowed for the passing back and forth of cash, deposit and withdrawal slips, receipts and any other official bank correspondence transferred between customer and bank staff member.

The distance between shooter and victim and the narrowness of the gaps in the security panel notwithstanding, it would have taken a very good shot to hit the unfortunate young teller in the middle of his forehead through one of those gaps, Foley decided. He stood and stepped back several paces, away from the body.

Earlier he had asked one of the two female staff members to unlock the door separating the customer area from the staff area. Foley stepped through the door and stood in front of the counter, approximately where he figured the perpetrator would have stood. He focused on the gap in the security screen. The gap was easily wide enough to accommodate the barrel of a weapon, he thought. Even so, the shooter still had to be a damn good shot.

Slowly and studiously he ran his eyes back and forth across the floor around where he stood. He was looking for a shell casing. A casing ejected would indicate the murder weapon was an automatic. No shell casing would indicate either that the offender took the time to retrieve it or had used a revolver.

While not definitive, any bullets retrieved during an autopsy may determine what calibre of weapon was used. However, autopsies took time, and Foley knew that the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours of any investigation more often than not proved to be crucial in regards to a quick resolution.

There was no shell casing.

Sam and Sarah stood together on the threshold of the rear door of the bank. Behind them, the forensics cop John Singh and his colleague waited patiently. Russell Foley had moved from the front service area, separated from the private staff area by a prefabricated floor to ceiling partition, and now stood outside the manager’s office at one end of the staff room. His back to the office doorway, he stared fixedly at the staff room in front of him.

In the middle of the room stood a table with four chairs neatly placed around it. Immediately next to the manager’s office, a bench top with sink, microwave oven and the makings for tea and coffee ran along the wall. On the opposite side of the room, another door led to a small interview room where the manager, or perhaps a member of his staff, might discuss the many varied opportunities offered by the bank to a potential investor.

Sarah inclined her head close to Sam. “What is he doing?” Sarah asked softly.

“Absorbing the ambience,” Sam answered.

Sarah leaned back and looked at Sam. “What?”

“Getting a feel for the crime scene,” Sam explained.

“Why?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. He does it all the time.”

“Have you ever asked him why?”

“I did, once.”

“What did he say?”

Sam looked at Sarah. “He said he was ‘absorbing the ambience.’”

“That’s weird,” Sarah observed.

“You wanna tell him that?”

“No,” Sarah said adamantly. “You’re his friend; you tell him.”

“No, I’m not gonna tell him it’s weird.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s my friend,” Sam said.

Sarah paused for a moment. “You know what?”

“What?” Sam asked.

“You’re weird, too,” Sarah declared.

“Do you still like me anyway?”

“Sure,” Sarah nodded. “I like weird.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Weird is okay.” Sarah shrugged.

“You wanna go back home, I’ll show you weird.”

Sarah slapped him playfully. “Behave yourself.”

Russell Foley looked across at Sam and Sarah. “What are you two whispering about?”

“Nothing,” Sam answered.

Foley beckoned. “Come in.”

Sam stepped into the staff room, followed by Sarah. Foley crossed the room and hugged Sarah.

“It’s lovely to see you, Sarah. Welcome to the team.”

“Thanks for the opportunity,” Sarah smiled.

Sam extended his arms.

“What?” Foley asked.

“I don’t get a hug?” Sam sounded miffed.

“Grow tits, chop your weenie off and I might consider it,” Foley responded tartly.

Sam ignored the suggestion and looked around the room. “What have we got?”

Foley gestured to the front of the bank. “One dead bank teller, shot in the head at close range. Three traumatised staff members, including an injured bank manager.”

Sam moved to the front of the staff room and peeked into the front service area. “Head shot,” he observed.

“Yeah,” Foley said.

“How many offenders?” Sarah asked as she also glanced briefly into the front area.

“Looks like three,” Foley said. “At least two women… the witnesses never saw the offender out front. There may have been a fourth, outside in the service lane driving the getaway car. There were two here in this room.”

“Women?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, women,” Foley confirmed.

“Any descriptions?” Sam queried.

“Yeah. In here there was a clown and a witch.”

Sam furrowed his brow, considering the revelation. “A clown and a witch?”

“Face masks,” Foley explained.

“I figured as much,” Sam said. “I didn’t think for a moment that it was a real witch and a real clown.”

Foley ignored his friend’s sarcasm. “They wore coveralls and realistic face masks. All we’ve got is two women of average height and weight. That’s it.”

“And they were definitely women?” Sarah probed.

“The witnesses said both offenders spoke. They were women. No discernable accent.”

“What about the shooter?” Sam asked.

Foley shrugged. “No one saw the shooter,” he repeated. “Could have been male or female. The whole thing from start to finish took about five, maybe six minutes.”

“Did they get much?” Sam asked.

“We won’t know until the bank completes a full audit. The manager’s still in the care of the paramedics. He took a hit on the head with the butt of a shotgun. His ball-park guess is at least a million.”

“A million!” Sam exclaimed.

“Apparently this is the bank of choice for many of the big businesses in Alice Springs, including Lasseter’s Casino,” Foley explained. “The manager said it’s normal to have at least that much cash on hand on any given day. Also, it’s a long weekend. The Finke Desert Race is on and there are about ten thousand more people in town than there would normally be. The bank was cashed up to cater for all contingencies.”

“Sounds like a well-planned gig… in and out in five minutes, leaving one dead teller and a million bucks richer.”

“Well-planned and well-executed,” Foley agreed.

Sarah glanced around the room. “I don’t suppose they were careless enough to leave any evidence behind?”

“Haven’t found any yet,” Foley said. “The offenders in here, the clown and the witch, both wore surgical gloves. They took the CCTV tape from the manager’s office and carried a large sports bag that they filled with cash, notes only, from a safe in the strong room.”

Sam and Sarah stepped across to the strong room and looked inside. Sam turned back to Foley. “What time did all this happen?”

“Right on closing time,” Foley answered. “The manager hit the silent alarm in the front service area at eight minutes past five. According to the dispatcher in Communications, the first responders were here at 5.15 pm exactly. The offenders were gone.”

Sam looked at his watch. “It’s six-twenty now. They’ve got over an hour head start on us.”

“Road blocks?” Sarah asked.

Foley nodded. “I had the Watch Commander contact the chaps at Kulgera, down south, and Ti Tree up north. Road blocks at both sites should be in place now. I’ve ordered every vehicle, including trucks, to be stopped and searched. If the offenders are heading in either direction, they will not have reached the road blocks yet. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“This thing sounds like a very well-planned operation,” Sam said. “I expect the offenders will have considered the likelihood of road blocks.”

“There’s nowhere to go either east or west,” Sarah said. “Unless they take the desert route over rough four-wheel-drive-only tracks, they don’t have a lot of options other than north or south.”

“Or they could still be here,” Sam suggested.

“Here?” Sarah asked.

“Why not?” Sam said. “There are ten thousand extra people in town for the desert race. All they have to do is lay low in town for a few days and then leave when all the race visitors leave.”

“I tend to agree with Sam,” Foley said to Sarah. “Keep a low profile and don’t do anything to draw undue attention. Do the tourist thing and leave town next week.”

“What’s the plan?” Sam asked.

“The plan is to have John Singh go over this place with a fine-tooth comb. I want a Command Centre set up at headquarters, and I want to rattle a few cages, have our people lean on their informants. Somebody has to know something.”

4

Amber Martin looked different. The long shoulder-length auburn wig had been replaced by her natural hair: an attractive, light brown bob trimmed neatly at the nape of her neck and falling to a point halfway down her ears. To the casual observer, this was not the same woman who, a few hours earlier, casually and deliberately shot and killed a young bank teller while in the process of robbing the bank of a million dollars in cash.

In a booth tucked away in a secluded corner of Tempo, a newly-opened wine and cocktail bar in Lasseters Casino Resort, Amber sipped at her mango martini and surreptitiously studied the other patrons in the bar. She had been in the wine bar for only thirty minutes and had already been hit on twice. The first time had been by a grossly intoxicated, overweight slob with a heavy Greek accent, who had quite obviously been munching on garlic for God knows how long.

He introduced himself as Stavros, or at least it sounded like ‘Stavros;’ it was hard to tell, given his state of inebriation. He was also persistent. Amber, however, was used to the persistence of male suitors hell-bent on sleazing their way into her pants. She had long ago come to accept that she was an unwilling target for every would-be lothario who came within fifty feet of her. Eventually her impatience with the drunken, slobbering idiot reached its limit and she smiled up at the grinning, incoherent pig. “I see you are married,” she indicated a wedding band on a chubby, hairy finger on the man’s left hand.

“Doesh’nt madda,” the drooling drunk slurred.

“Why don’t you take your fat, drunken arse home to your wife and tell her it doesn’t matter?”

The lecherous smile disappeared, the man turned away, almost falling over in the process, and staggered away towards the bar, mumbling obscenities as he went.

The second time was much more pleasant but just as keenly unsolicited by Amber as had been the rejected Greek God of Amour.

Tony, as he gave his name, was a nice looking, sober, clean-cut, well-dressed Aussie male, somewhat of an anomaly these days, Amber thought. He was tanned, probably worked outside, she figured, and he had the body of a man who obviously spent a lot of time in the gym, or at the very least working at hard physical labour.

He was polite, respectful, had a lovely smile and, on any other occasion, Amber felt she might even be interested, but not today. Today was not about meeting someone new and getting laid, regardless of how appealing the prospect might be. Today was about meeting up with her friends and sharing a drink while they discussed the day’s events.

With a polite apology for disturbing her and a slight, respectful nod of his head, Tony left her on her own and returned to the bar on the far side of the room. As Amber watched him walk away, a tiny hint of regret fluttered through her mind.

Ebony Aitken and Anna Blaine entered the wine bar together. They paused inside the door and peered around the dimly lit room. Several male heads at the bar turned, almost as one, and eyed the two newcomers appreciatively. It was coincidental, of course, but it was almost as though a hush fell over the room when they walked in.

They were quite beautiful; both were impeccably dressed in light summer dresses that fell to a point just above their respective knees, displaying long, shapely tanned legs. Both ladies had long flowing blond hair, neatly coiffured and styled in such a way as to frame and showcase their respective very pretty faces. To the unknowing, Ebony and Anna might have been sisters.

It was not unusual to see attractive women enjoying the ambience offered by Tempo. Although a relatively new addition to Lasseters Casino’s bar options, Tempo had already earned a reputation as being considerably more up-market than many of the pubs and bars around Alice Springs.

Good looking women and men had become as much a part of the ambience in the wine bar as the dim romantic lighting and the Tony Bennett-Frank Sinatra style music playing softly, unimposingly, through the in-house sound system. For the moment, and that could change at any time given the competition in the hospitality trade, Tempo was the “in” place to be and to be seen.

Then, of course, the quality of the clientele was also enhanced by the strict dress regulations imposed by the casino management that prohibited the wearing of anything other than neat casual attire, at the very least. You either left the quintessential, Northern Territory preferred attire of singlet and flip-flops at home or you patronised one of a handful of establishments in town with less-stringent dress codes.

Ebony and Anna were never going to be disallowed entry to Tempo for being inappropriately attired. Both women carried an indefinable quality about them suggesting they would both look good should they be clad in the dusty, soiled work wear more commonly associated with the tough, rugged Aussie road worker.

Anna spotted Amber across the room. “There she is,” she announced to Ebony. Both girls hurried across the room and slid into the booth, one of them on each side of Amber.

“Hi,” Ebony and Anna said in unison.

“Have you been waiting long?” Anna asked.

“No,” Amber said. She lifted her glass. “This is my first drink.”

A waitress approached the booth and smiled at the three women. “Can I get you a drink?” she asked.

“Chardonnay, please,” Anna said.

“I’ll have the same,” announced Ebony. She dropped a fifty dollar note on the waitress’s tray.

The waitress looked at Amber. “Can I get you another?”

“No, thank you; this will be fine.” Amber returned the smile.

Two men, like predators poised to swoop on unsuspecting prey, appeared at the table immediately after the waitress left. Although not yet drunk, they both appeared as though they were rapidly heading in that direction. While they conformed to Tempo’s dress code, both were in need of a haircut. One of them, the shorter of the two, definitely needed to run an iron over his shirt, since it looked like he had just pulled it from the bottom of a duffle bag.

The man in the wrinkled shirt leaned down close to Anna. “Can we buy you lovely ladies a drink?”

With a well-manicured finger, Anna beckoned wrinkled shirt closer. He smiled widely, perhaps thinking he was about to strike it lucky, and leaned down, his face just centimetres from Anna’s.

Anna moved her head, so her lips almost touched his ear. “Thank you,” she whispered seductively. “But we’ve already ordered a drink. So, here’s a suggestion. Why don’t you take your limp-dick friend and fuck off?”

Wrinkled shirt started and pulled back quickly, spilling his beer down the front of his un-ironed shirt. He nudged his mate. “Let’s get out of here,” he mumbled.

“Why, what’s wrong?” his mate asked.

“Nothin’, come on,” he grabbed his friend by the arm and steered him away from the booth. “Fuckin’ lesbians!” he murmured, just loud enough to ensure the three women heard him.

“Where are all the nice guys?” Anna asked as she watched the two men retreating to the bar.

“This is the Northern Territory,” Amber explained. “Supposedly, the men up here work hard, play hard and drink way too much.”

“Good job we’re not here looking for love,” Ebony suggested.

When the waitress returned with the drinks, she handed Ebony her change and left to attend to the needs of other guests. Amber raised her glass. “A toast, girls,” she announced. “Well done today. Everything went like clockwork, just as we planned. Here’s to a successful beginning to a whole new career for us.”

All three girls touched the rims of their glasses together and sipped their drinks. “Any questions?” Amber continued.

“How are you?” Anna asked. She reached out and lightly grasped Amber’s hand.

“I’m fine,” Amber nodded. “Someone was always going to die; we knew that going in. Fortunately, your people out the back decided to co-operate. If they hadn’t, one or both of you, would have had to do the same. I’m satisfied that, had it come to that, both of you would have been able to do what had to be done.”

Anna and Ebony nodded.

“Let’s finish our drinks, order another and then have a nice dinner together,” Amber suggested. “Today’s work is done. We need to go over our plans… there’s more to do before we leave Alice Springs.”

They clinked glasses again. “This is exciting, isn’t it?” Ebony said.

“And going to get even more so,” Amber acknowledged with a smile.

5

Ahmad Farrokhzad was an Iranian-born Australian citizen who came to Australia on a leaky boat as a teenager, seeking asylum along with sixty-two other would-be refugees fleeing their respective homelands and the alleged persecution they faced therein. Openly Muslim by faith, Ahmad remained a devout follower of Islam. As he matured into adulthood, a disturbing transformation embraced his life: he embraced the ancient, barbaric teachings of Sharia law.

Considered a bastardised adoption of modern-day criminal law by most nations of the western world, including Australia, Ahmad was never going to advance his career opportunities through his public support of Sharia. Having learned his adoptive country had laws of its own, laws far removed from those of Sharia, his obsessive devotion to the teachings was conducted covertly and confined primarily to his domestic situation. What happened in the privacy of his home had absolutely no bearing on what happened or how he conducted himself outside the home, he reasoned.

Ahmad Farrokhzad was wealthy, not in the sense of being mega-rich, but wealthy by standards accepted by the general population. Exactly how he’d made his modest fortune was unclear to most of the people he mixed with, but then, the type of people he associated with knew better than to ask. Suffice it to say that the unspoken belief was that none of his wealth was obtained by legitimate means. Ahmad lived by a code that dictated to Ahmad, even if to no one else, the distorted ethic: He who has the most money wins.

At home, Ahmad never gave his wife money of her own. She was forbidden to work and he insisted she wear only clothing and makeup he chose and which he paid for. She was never to wear makeup outside the home, she could only leave the house when accompanied by him and only then when clad in clothing he deemed appropriate. In fact, Ahmad’s preference was that his wife should never leave the house, but he knew that was impossible to enforce. Australia was not ancient Iran; people would ask questions regarding her whereabouts he was not prepared to answer. Any concessions Ahmad made, he made with reluctance. He was aware that there were some things, regardless of how distasteful they may be to him, he simply had to abide, particularly if he was going to appear to fit into the widely-accepted Australian way of living.