The Heat by Garry Disher Page B

to look at him twice. All-new gear was something someone might notice, if they were bored or curious. They might construct a little drama around it—hapless tourist taken clothes-shopping by his wife on the first day of his holiday. Then later there’s something in the news and their imagination goes into overdrive. They remember. Make connections. Better not to be noticed at all.
    He returned to his holiday apartment, changed into the op-shop clothing and walked along Noosa Parade to the access road leading to Iluka Islet. Crossing the narrow bridge, he discovered how deceptive the little knob of land was. Viewed from a boat, or from Lions Park, it was a tiny island. Full of water-view houses shoulder-to-shoulder around the rim, with road access via a stubby bridge at the end of a little street that intersected with Noosa Parade. But when Wyatt did his harmless tourist stroll across the bridge, he found a narrow circular road within, separating the waterfront houses from an inner clump of less pricey dwellings.
    Houses, potential witnesses.
    He walked on, his face concealed by the hat and sunglasses, and began to realise that many of the houses were rentals and holiday homes. A fair percentage of the cars had interstate plates, and the twenty or so pedestrians he encountered had the look of holidaymakers. A knot of teenage girls passed him, bright as ribbons, trailing perfume, flashing their vivid teeth, carrying purses and bags, talking of the beach, the shops. Smaller kids splashed around unseen in backyard swimming pools. A man from Tasmania washed his car; a Victorian family piled into a people mover. A private clean-up crew was sweeping and blowing leaves, collecting palm fronds, trimming hedges. Electric gates slid open and shut, tennis balls bocked, birds called and dipped in the air: benign sounds in a benign setting.
    Wyatt circled the island a second time. The houses—inner and outer circle alike—were close together. Some were divided by fences, most were not. Some had high, concealing, street-side fences and lockable entryways, others no fence or gate at all. Plenty of trees. Palms, Norfolk Island pines, jacarandas, pointy-leaf tropical. But everything was new here, even the trees. Most wouldn’t bear a man’s weight, and you’d need skill and callused feet to shimmy up a palm tree.
    All the while, he was checking out the upper-floor windows. It was a reflex, for a thief. Clerestory windows, wind-out windows, louvres, shutters, dormers. You could make short work of a louvred window with a pair of pliers. Jimmy a shutter, glasscutter a hole in a sash window. Bolt cutters for a wind-out. Others, like Ormerod’s dormer—which he could not see from the road—he’d simply shove open.
    He glanced at the house next to Ormerod’s. Viewed from the road instead of the water, the scaffolding was more evident, the builders apparently working on a first-floor extension. Linked iron pipes, boards, ladders, blue tarpaulin flapping in the breeze from the river. He heard an angry clatter as he passed, and ducked, heart hammering, thinking he’d been shot at. But it was only the builders tipping rubble into a dumpbin. Dust rose from the little explosion, drifted, settled.
    Wyatt left the island, lingering a while on the bridge, needing a closer look at the water frontage. Most of the houses were built close to the shoreline, limiting them to a strip of pale sand and a narrow lawn with a retaining wall. Some had crammed a swimming pool in there, too. He could see what he’d only heard before, kids splashing.
    Every house had a dock: fixed wooden docks reached by wooden walkways, or metal floating docks that rose and fell with the movement of the water, secured by concrete pylon inserts, each with a white pointed top. A pelican would be hard pressed to roost there.
    So: would you go in by water or by road?
    He spent the afternoon on his balcony, thinking. Below and to his right was the tennis court, two women hitting