Get Charlie Noah

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER NINE

Stephen Pope had never been shot with a spear gun before. It took him quite by surprise and hurt like hell. He was only two steps up to the rear deck of her pole house when she suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs and just shot him. It was such a tiny weapon. There was a sharp hiss when she pulled the trigger and the stainless steel dart launched in his direction. He had tried to step out of the way but the dart penetrated his left arm. He fell back to the ground. She had stepped around him and driven off in her car at high speed. Pope had crawled to his own car and attempted to follow her but he didn't get very far. He was bleeding profusely. He needed to get the tiny steel spear out of his arm and stop the bleeding. Going to the hospital was out of the question. The bitch would pay for this. Now it was very personal. He would make her pay for his pain and he would do this independently of instructions from Reginald Noah. He drove to his hotel in Port Douglas; wrapped his left arm in a beach towel and stumbled to his room.

The spear was around 30 centimetres in length with a tiny barb at the tip. He cut away his left arm shirt sleeve, gritting his teeth against the pain. The steel shaft was almost half way through the muscle of his upper arm. The barb on the end would make it impossible to pull backwards. Pope gritted his teeth, took hold of the barbed end of the shaft and wrenched it through his arm. He cried out in pain. The sound of his own voice in agony made him very angry. Antiseptic liquid burnt as he splashed it on the entry and exit wounds. He pushed wads of white toilet paper into each wound and held them in place with strips of torn bed sheet. Pope ground his teeth together as he tied off the ends of the torn sheet. He vowed to find her and make her die slowly. No one shot Stephen Pope...especially a woman. He had totally underestimated this woman's capabilities but he wouldn't make that mistake again.

'So you can appreciate,' said Ben, 'I need to try and find Charlie Noah before her husband has her killed. He will stop at nothing to silence her before she starts publishing anything about him.'

'I'm afraid it's a bit too late for that,' said Detective Inspector Croft. 'She's already dropped the bomb shell.' He slid a copy of the Financial Review newspaper across the desk. Ben leaned forward and picked it up. Page 2 and in large bold print. "REGINALD NOAH RIPS OFF NATIONAL INSURER" The writer of the article was Charlie Noah. Ben read the first paragraph. It appears that Charlie's husband had access to what is known amongst some insurers as the "Lost Fund". This is money which is sent to the insurer by way of premiums or other payments but the sender is not clearly identified. The money is therefore sent into the Lost Fund until someone can work out where it came from. This process often takes months or even years and is usually not successful so the insurer ends up with millions of dollars in a fund which just sort of sits there. They can't spend because it may be subject at some later stage to a recovery application. In this case however, the insurer allowed Reginald Noah, at his instigation as Head of Internal Management, total control over the Lost Fund and he went wild. Reginald's problem however is that he bragged to his wife over this huge windfall and his ability to cover his tracks. Oh dear.

Ben put the newspaper back on Inspector Croft's desk. 'Have you contacted the newspaper?'

'Yes. She sent the article to them yesterday.'

'And now his hired goons have her.'

'Apparently not,' said Croft. 'Not unless she can drive and fly while severely wounded.'

'What?'

'Pamela Naughton returned her hire car to the Cairns Domestic Airport at 10 am this morning and caught a flight to Brisbane.'

'Where did she go from there?' asked Ben.

'Pamela didn't go anywhere from Brisbane airport that we could track.'