Page 92 of The Meaning Of You

Samuel jumped onto his phone.

“There’s zero chance that name is legit,” I said grimly. “Look at the tax info he gave. He’d need to be formally registered in some way. And like I said, I’m sure these two are just muscle. The guy on the phone was running things.”

Samuel agreed. “But we have to start somewhere, and an address would be mighty helpful.”

Shirley cleared her throat. “He’s living on a boat.”

Everyone looked her way.

Ian stared in disbelief. “And you know this how?”

“Because he told me,” she announced smoothly, like it should’ve been obvious. “I’m not sure he meant to, when I think back on the conversation, but we were watching a regatta on television while he was making my bed, and I asked if he’d ever sailed. He told me his parents once owned a yacht, but he preferred something with an engine, the bigger the better. That’s when he said he was house-sitting on a friend’s motorboat while they were away. Said it had all the bells and whistles.”

Samuel pressed, “Did he mention where it was moored?”

Shirley grunted. “I would’ve led with that if he had, don’t you think? Keep up, sonny.”

Samuel shot me a look of disbelief and I shrugged. “Like Aunt, like nephew.”

Samuel’s phone rang and he walked off to answer it.

“But he always smelled like the sea.” Shirley was speaking to Gazza. “Didn’t you notice that about him?”

I wasn’t sure Gazza could look any more stunned. “I . . . no. I never . . . How did you . . . ?”

Shirley’s brow knotted. “How strange. It was one of the first things I noticed about him.”

Gazza groaned. “How did I miss all of this?”

He was hurting, I knew, but I was way too focused on what could be happening to Madigan while we were sitting around doing fuck-all to find him except look for a car. The second he finished decoding that notebook, his usefulness would be done. I felt sick at the thought, my stomach churning in bilious knots.

Samuel pocketed his phone and returned to the group. “He’s in the system. His full name is Ross Tobin Cleary. And heisactually a nurse, although he hadn’t worked as one for at least eight years before starting at Golden Oaks.” He looked to me. “Nothing in the system anyway, so how he was making money is anyone’s guess. Working with his brother seems likely. Unlike Ross, Norton Cleary is well known to the police. A nasty piece of work.”

I caught Samuel’s eye. “Could Norton be the other guy, the one with the gun?”

He answered, “Makes sense.”

Ian redirected to Shirley. “You said Tobin never told you where the boat was moored. Did he say anything at all that could help us find him?”

Shirley thought for a moment, then said, “He was always complaining about the traffic to and from work. Said all the work on the new light rail was a nightmare.”

Samuel’s gaze shot to mine. “That’s out Pakuranga way.”

“Phillip Bay Marina,” Ian and I said in unison.

“You have to drive through those road works to get there,” Ian finished.

Samuel gave a weighty sigh. “Even if we’re right, there are literally hundreds of boats moored in that marina.” He pulled his phone out again. “I’ll get my team to drum up a list of the current moorings.”

Ian nodded. “We can narrow it to a motorboat at least. And if it has all the bells and whistles, is it too much of a leap to assume it’s not gonna be a small one?” His phone buzzed and he took the call while we waited. When he was done, he gave a tight smile. “The CCTV turned up a ton of vehicles bearing some resemblance to your description. Some Ford Explorers, some not. Most were picked up from the north bound motorway on-ramp.”

My heart sank. It was all taking too much time.

Ian continued, “Don’t look so glum. We’ll go through them all if we need to, but when they narrowed the window of time, and focused on just Ford Explorers with two or three people inside, they got the list down to twenty, three of which exited east on the Southeastern Highway which would lead to?—”

“Phillip Bay Marina,” I finished. My heart perked up. We were finally getting somewhere.

Ian nodded. “But it gets better. Only one of those three had also been picked up on CCTV driving past the gas station about three kilometres from here, heading for the motorway. They ran the licence plate and it’s a rental. The name on the paperwork is James Harper. Familiar, anyone?” He looked around the group but everyone shook their head.

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