Private Sydney (Private 12)

‘And we know Louise wasn’t pregnant.’ Johnny flicked through his notes. ‘The Wallaces said they met the surrogate and paid a hefty deposit at Queenscliff. Which is …’

‘Adjacent to Manly,’ Darlene added. ‘Chances are, the woman posing as Louise Simpson lives nearby.’

Chapter 63

I PARKED AT Bankstown airport with Mary and entered the small grey building with the blue passenger terminal sign. It was smaller than that of many regional airports.

Inside, the sole check-in counter was unattended. A couple near the exit was uninhibited about displaying affection. The septuagenarian would have been twice, possibly three times the woman’s age, with a wispy comb-over.

A man dressed all in white entered from

the airfield side, greeted the couple and collected their luggage. They headed to a Cessna on the tarmac outside. The woman struggled up the stairs in her six-inch heels.

‘How long do you give it?’ Mary asked.

‘Not much longer than the trip,’ I guessed.

‘Hard to believe cynics like us are single,’ she said as a thin gentleman in his fifties approached us.

‘Ms Clarke?’ He reached out his hand, first to Mary then me. ‘Geoff Andren.’

‘This is my boss, Craig Gisto,’ Mary said. ‘Thanks for seeing us.’

The pilot’s silver hair was cropped short, nothing out of place. A white epaulet shirt bearing the Contigo logo was immaculately pressed, as were the navy belted trousers. Attention to detail was something I respected, especially in people who controlled the cockpit of a plane.

He escorted us through a security gate on to the tarmac. ‘Bankstown specialises in charters, cargo and flight training,’ he said, as if taking a tourist group for the hundredth time.

A plane landed on a distant runway as we approached a hangar. Sitting outside was a scaled-down version of Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose.

Mary stopped to admire it. ‘Is that a Grumman Goose B49?’

Arms folded, Geoff paused and rocked on his heels. ‘Yep. She’s a beauty. Been here since it was built, in 1944.’

As we walked on, Johnny rang and I excused myself to answer. He said that Collette had agreed to meet the new boyfriend at her home tonight, with Darlene and Johnny outside monitoring the situation. I told him to keep me informed and get Collette out at the first hint of trouble. He also said he had a lead about the Simpson imposter he’d follow up first.

The pilot had become more animated.

‘The hangars on this side are all original. They housed bombers in World War Two. In fact, when General Macarthur visited, this was the airport used by the US Army Air Forces.’

The enormity of the airport became apparent. It was amazing all this existed in the middle of suburbia. ‘Did civilians object to having a military target so close to their homes in wartime?’

Geoff’s eyes beamed. ‘They disguised this place to look like farmland. Fake houses, fake roads, dummy roofs to hide the hangars.’

I thought it sounded a lot like Eric Moss. Something hidden in full sight.

A helicopter’s rotorblades started up.

‘Robinson R44?’ Mary asked.

‘You’d get on well with Eric. He loves military history and flying.’ Our host pointed to a helicopter that landed on a pad in front of another hangar. ‘Eric pilots the one we have at Contigo.’

I knew Eliza hadn’t mentioned that skill. Maybe she didn’t know. She had said that her father didn’t like flying that much.

If Moss had access to a helicopter, the odds of us locating him just got a whole lot worse.

Chapter 64

ANY INFORMATION GEOFF Andren could give us was critical. He had vital knowledge no one else at Contigo was willing or able to share.