Get Charlie Noah

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

She kept the underwater scooter at low power and moved slowly across the sand and around rocks and along the edge of the beds of bright green seaweed. She searched back and forth. Tears glistened in her electric blue eyes behind the diving mask and she blinked constantly. Blue coloured contact lenses often caused that problem but combined with tears, things were worse and her vision had to be spot on just now. She had to find it. She would be devastated if she couldn't find it. Her mother had given it to her and it was worth more to her than anything else in the world. How stupid of her to not have replaced the safety chain. How damn bloody stupid.

Her long black hair streamed out behind her as the scooter pulled what could only be described as an amazingly shaped body slowly through the crystal clear water. The depth gauge read 20 metres (65 feet). She had only been down the sheer rock face festooned with coral and sponges to that depth once. It couldn't be down here. The sandy bottom sloped away into the dark blue depths. She hadn't gone deeper. It had to be up on the shallow ledges stretching the length of the cove in around 10 metres of water. Perhaps sand being shifted by the tide had covered it. She would have to get hold of an underwater metal detector. Rick could get one for her. She would visit the dive shop first thing tomorrow. Two small reef sharks followed her up the rock face but moved away once she went over the upper edge and across the pure white sand towards the beach. She had around 15 minutes of air left as she turned the underwater scooter onto high power, swung around a huge sponge garden and headed north, parallel to the beach at around 6 metres from the surface.

Ben struggled up the timber stairs to the deck at the rear of the pole house with two large bags of shopping in each hand. There was more to retrieve from the boot of the hire car. He dropped the bags and fished the door keys from his pocket. The huge timber door swung inward. 6931. He punched the numbers into the keypad. The foyer offered a view across a mezzanine level with polished timber flooring to heavy blue ceiling to floor curtains in the huge lounge area below. Ceiling lights in the foyer had automatically illuminated as Ben entered the house. He returned to the car and picked up another three bags of supermarket supplies. Ben loved to cook and he was going to treat himself to feast after feast while he soaked up the opulence of his surroundings and the ocean which he knew lay just beyond the curtained windows of this magnificent house.

The kitchen was spacious and contained gas as well as electric cooking appliances, a huge fridge and freezer and every type of pot, pan and utensil that would satisfy even the most fastidious chef. The Frenchman had done well. He had great taste and as Ben wandered through the upper section of the house and then descended the wide timber stair case to the lounge below, he marvelled at the craftsmanship and attention to detail.

A remote control lying on a black marble coffee table in the lounge area electrically opened the curtains to reveal through panoramic windows one of the most magnificent views over the ocean that Ben had ever seen. He poured himself a light scotch over ice with a dash of diet coke, sat back in a plush lounge chair and looked at the ocean. Small waves made it to the white beach and the water was turquoise blue. This would do nicely for a month. Very nicely indeed.

Stephen Pope wasn't about to give up easily. He called in favours from various sources and spent hours on the Internet. He had obtained access to sources of data and information that were supposed to be secure. Nothing on the Internet is secure if you know how to hack. He had a 30 point check list relating to Charlie Noah...her preferences, hobbies, holiday destinations, likes, dislikes, restaurants, sports, favourite shops, favourite airlines, and he went through each point and relevant available data with meticulous detail.

As far as Charlie's friends were concerned, she had taken an extended holiday in Europe. They had no idea what was really happening. The police had not been involved in her disappearance and that was just the way Reginald Noah wanted it...for the moment anyway. Charlie had always been rather impulsive and eccentric so no one questioned the fact that she had just taken off. She had done it before and successfully hidden away for weeks. This time she wasn't hiding because of an eccentric impulse. This time she was fully aware that her husband would seek revenge because she had broken a cardinal rule of their relationship. She had managed to extract over a million dollars from his special account and transfer the money into an off shore account which he could not track. It could have been in Switzerland or Vanuatu or anywhere in the world. It was her small way of getting even with him for his sexual indiscretion. No one took money from Reginald Noah. No one. At the same time, no one who had vowed to be faithful to Charlie Noah and then started screwing with another woman, walked away unscathed. The motivator for Charlie to run rather than face him and fight was one small text message from him late one evening two weeks after she had moved into a plush hotel in Sydney. "Get back home and start behaving like a proper wife or I'll have you bashed and killed. Return the money you stole from me or I'll have you bashed and killed." Charlie knew her husband well enough to understand that he would follow through with those threats. She withdrew one hundred and fifty thousand dollars out of her own bank account in cash during a period of one week, changed her identity and dropped off the face of the earth. That was plan 'A' for her. Charlie knew she would have to do more to stop her husband from carrying out his threats. She would have to expose him for what he was and if possible, very publicly break him. She would sort out plan 'B' later. Right now she just needed time out. She would need help with plan 'B' and that could be a problem. Good, trusted help was extremely hard to find. This time she wasn't just having a hissy fit over relatively nothing and then run back home when it was over. This time her safety and probably her life were on the line and she was in no doubt whatsoever this was the case.

Stephen Pope found her at 8.10 pm after almost 12 hours of searching. It was point number 18 that exposed her whereabouts. Her love of SCUBA diving and her PADI membership. PADI kept track of its members online as to their certification status and their use of certification cards. The only card that Charlie wasn't able to quickly change into another name was her PADI open water certification card and she had been forced to use it in order to obtain diving equipment from Rick Turner. She didn't dream for a moment that anyone could track the use of her SCUBA diving card. The name she had initially given to Rick wasn't Charlie Noah but she covered this by explaining that she had officially changed her name and just hadn't had the time to adjust details on her PADI membership. She was clearly recognisable from the photo ID on her dive certification card. Rick, without her knowledge, checked her out online before he would allow her to hire diving equipment. Rick knew people changed their names from time to time for a variety of reasons and plastic cards always took time to alter. He wasn't one to pry but it was in his interests from a liability point of view to make the necessary checks on the PADI website.

Pope booked a flight from Sydney to Cairns online. He wouldn't tell Reginald Noah just yet. That would be a surprise he would keep for later. The smell of success was sweet in his nostrils. The thrill of finding and attacking the target was just a short time away. Rick Turner would know where Charlie Noah was staying and Rick Turner would reveal that information or choke in his own blood.

"****"