The Heat by Garry Disher Read Free Book Online

Photographs, a tourist map of Noosa and two typed A4 pages of notes. He arranged them with his fingernail, an old habit. Don’t leave prints.
    Minto took the adjacent chair, a psychologically determined distance from Wyatt. He reached across once, tapping a manicured finger onto a photograph. ‘Ormerod’s house.’
    Wyatt sifted and tapped at all of the photographs until he had a clearer idea of the house and its environs. The structure itself was bulky, two storeys, white. Vaguely Mediterranean. Canal water with a tiny floating dock in the foreground, a slope of lawn in the middle ground. Other shots gave a wide-angle view of the house in relation to its neighbours, all just as big and costly, all with lawns sloping down to the water and floating docks.
    He shoved them to one side and examined the map. It showed the greater Noosa area—Noosa Heads, the Junction, Noosaville, Tewantin—and the stretches of water around it. The ocean to the east, Laguna Bay to the north, Noosa River and a network of creeks and waterways. Good. A working knowledge of the wider environs was important. If it all went wrong for him, Wyatt needed to know where to run, where to stand, where to hide. He noted the national park: hills, trees, tucked-away groves and beaches, all potential boltholes. Water everywhere: either a barrier, or offering him boats and a way out.
    ‘Iluka Islet.’ Minto leaned across and indicated a knob of land close to Noosa Parade and the bridge leading to the main beach and shopping precinct. ‘Ormerod’s place.’
    ‘Not exactly tucked away.’
    Crammed in with others, in fact. Minto shrugged. Not his problem.
    Wyatt examined the photographs again. He was guessing that some of the shots had been taken from the Noosa Parade bridge—the perspective was elevated—but others had clearly been taken from the water.
    ‘Who took these?’
    ‘My niece, Leah. Leah Quarrell.’
    He handed Wyatt a business card embossed with the words RiverRun Realty . Quarrell’s name and a business address on Gympie Terrace in Noosaville.
    ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Minto said. ‘Is she reliable? She’s my niece. I raised her. She learned at my knee. And among other things, she sells real estate. That means she can go wherever she likes and no one asks questions. See that?’
    His finger stabbed a photograph that showed Ormerod’s house and the ones on either side. A house two doors to the right was for sale, a stake in the lawn with a sign. Wyatt peered at the words: RiverRun Realty .
    ‘Quoting two point five million, if you’re interested,’ Minto said.
    Wyatt would never have been interested. He wasn’t ambitious in that way. Didn’t surround himself with the trappings of wealth. If he’d been asked why he broke into banks and payroll vans and rich men’s houses he’d have blinked and said, ‘The money.’ As if it were both self-evident and perfectly simple.
    He picked up the typed notes and read them closely.
    Ormerod. Born in a village south of London in 1955, migrated to Australia with his parents in 1956. His father died in 1987, his mother in 1995. He inherited ten million dollars when his father died, but was already wealthy from banking and investments. Married and divorced, estranged from his children, two adult sons.
    ‘I know some of this information is extraneous,’ Minto said, ‘but I asked my people to be thorough.’
    ‘So your niece didn’t write this.’
    ‘She did. Using her own research, and what my private detective dug up.’
    The people who worked for Minto were probably like Wyatt himself. Accomplished within a narrow range of expertise, not given to talking about it. But Wyatt didn’t know them. He didn’t know the niece.
    ‘You’ve asked a lot of people to think about one man all at once,’ he said.
    ‘I’ve asked two people to look at Ormerod from different directions, that’s all. I’m a businessman. It’s not unusual for me to do my homework before a deal.’
    Wyatt