They travelled in the opposite direction to the ferry. After fifteen minutes, the boat turned into a channel that backed on to the private properties of those wishing to live away from the suburbs—their sleepy urban village. It was almost like living on an island but with greater conveniences. They had the best of both worlds. They had fewer neighbours on the mainland than they had on the island.
Their private jetty jutted out from their backyard—a simple wooden platform, long and narrow and low. They tied the boat to the jetty. Seagulls scattered as they walked up to their house.
The boat was secure and they were gone from the island. They would be difficult to locate.
<°)))><
Jack and Catherine spent Tuesday doing detective things.
Locating Jill Winter wasn’t an easy task. Officers went to her last known address and found she left over twelve months ago.
Jack had a police issued promotional stress ball in his hand and contemplated annoying Catherine by throwing it at her as she looked intently at information on her computer monitor. Her eyes widened and she suddenly stood up and walked over to Jack’s work space. “I found something interesting while trying to locate Winter’s address.”
His attempt at annoyance had been sprung.
She gave him a ‘what are you up to’ look. He placed the stress ball on his desk, straightened up in his chair and leaned towards his monitor as Catherine brought up some information on the screen.
“Looks like Winter was involved in some legal proceedings.”
Jack leaned further forward.
“Stealing medication. Found guilty. Conviction recorded. Magistrate put her on a twelve-month good behaviour bond with some community service. She didn’t seem too pleased with the conviction. But the magistrate stated that in her line of work these things needed to be treated seriously.”
“Agree . . . Good behaviour didn’t last too long?” Jack asked.
“No. But it was some time back.”
“Wonder how Jill Winter felt about that? Looked like the conviction didn’t stop her getting other work in the industry.”
Catherine nodded. “That’s if her current employer knew about it. Maybe they did and she won them over.” She reached over and picked up the stress ball from Jack’s desk, Squeezed it. “Wonder what the connection to Ruby is?”
“I wonder, detective, I wonder.”
Catherine’s phone gave off her weird text message sound. She looked at her phone.
“I’ve got an address. Do you want to go for a drive?”
28 – Blocks and voices
JACK WAS SILENT while Catherine talked to the new voice-input navigation system. These new automated systems found addresses quicker—no typos. Catherine spoke clearly and the vehicle’s in-car navigation system processed the address.
It didn’t take long to get away from the populated metropolitan area. They were heading to the bay suburbs again—although this area was further south, more spacious, and closer to the water than Jill Spencer’s place. The drive to the bay suburbs always relaxed Jack. Was it the water or the breeze? The traffic thinned out. Catherine’s driving was more aggressive than Jack’s so he was happy the traffic was light and they were in an unmarked police vehicle.
Take second exit at roundabout.
“Why are these computerised voices mostly female?”
“Come on, Jack, you know our voices are more pleasing than men’s.”
“Maybe, but the way things are I’m surprised the politically correct crowd haven’t jumped up and down about it.”
“They did in Germany, apparently. Male drivers over there didn’t like taking instructions from a female.”
“I’m sure that’s some years ago,” Jack said.
“It would have been a culture thing. But there are options available to switch between voices now. It is also a biology thing.”
“Biology?”
“Yeah, something to do with the size of the vocal cords and the higher pitch. People generally find the female voice more pleasing and because of this disembodied voices always tend to be females. But maybe things are changing slowly.”
Continue on this road.
Disembodied voices. What did demons sound like—a voice of authority? Menacing? And what about his own thoughts? What voice did he hear them in? Were they gender neutral? He tried a quick google search on his phone, and all he found was information on gender neutral bathrooms—and hadn’t that caused problems. He’d thought it was common sense, about not upsetting people’s feelings, but the opposite was happening. Best to get focused on earthly things, the here and now. Jack tuned his thoughts to the countryside outside the vehicle. The trees swaying and the birds were flying. He thought of Erica. She had a lovely sweet voice. He must bring her out here for a drive.
In five hundred metres, turn left.
Jack came out of thoughtful mode and returned to reading a report summary on his phone. This lady had a background in health care.
Your destination is ahead.
Jack turned to Catherine and raised his eyebrows. There was no house, only an empty block of land.
<°)))><
Sometimes Jill Winter and her partner would cruise around the bay waters in their runabout. Returning from a brief excursion, and entering the channel leading up to their house, they saw two people standing out the front of their vacant block of land. It was a few blocks from their house and served as a good decoy.
“Looks like they’re on to us, dear,” Jill said.
