“What did they say? asked Esmé, when he reached them
on the ground floor outside the flats.
“Nothing useful. What did the Mt Macedon policeman
say, Key?”
“They’re going to call out the police chopper. But they need to know the details of Lou’s
car to follow it.”
“We don’t have that.
But I s’pose they can get it from the computer records. I’m sure they have access.”
“What shall we do?”
asked Esmé.
“I want to drive up to Mt Macedon. I know we’ll get there too late, but I can’t,
I can’t, hang around here
helplessly.” Jason was anguished. “I
know we can’t save them, but I feel ….”
“… that we should be close,” answered Esmé. “Yes.
I feel that too.”
“Have you got a lecture or anything on this morning?”
“Nah. Nothing
important. This is more important. And anyway, how could I pay attention during
the lecture when all this is going on?”
Keith nodded.
“I’ll ring Tom and tell him what’s happened. Let’s go.”
They got into Keith’s car, and Keith drove towards the
freeway.
They didn’t speak.
Traffic was still light, but already much more than when they made their
mad dash though the darkened streets towards Luigi’s flat. Within 25 minutes, they were passing the BP
service station on the Calder Highway.
“That’s where Lou phoned from,” Keith observed as they
sped past.
“So we’re half an hour behind them.”
“Yes. But I’m
not going to speed. If we get stopped by
a police car we’ll be delayed.” He
looked at the speedo. They’d just passed
a speed sign which raised the limit to 110 kilometres per hour. He pressed down the accelerator, and the
car’s heater sped up as it did randomly and a gush of hot plastic-smelling air
poured into the car. Nobody complained.
They stared intently through the windscreen as if somehow they could by sheer
will make the journey time shorten.
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