Challis - 03 - Snapshot (21 page)

Trusted? Tessa Kane? Thats a
laugh.

Not Tessa Kane. We obtained these
from someone rather closer to you than that.

McQuarries face grew desolate for a
moment as he looked down an empty, unpromising road. Who?

We think you know.

I dont, I swear I dont.

We think you do.

Shouldnt you be looking for
whoever killed my wife instead of hassling me about my private life?

Mr McQuarrie, Ellen said
pitilessly, what do you
think
were doing, showing you these
photographs, asking these questions, if not investigating the murder of your
wife?

A pause while he took this in. A
coincidence, he said.

Is it?

You cant honestly believe she was
shot because she took part in some harmless... Hed scattered the photographs
across a coffee table but now grabbed and scrutinised them. These dont even
show
Janine.

Think about it, sir.

I dont know, he wailed. Maybe
someones wife or girlfriend arranged to have her shot out of jealousy, but
whats that got to do with these photos?

Or maybe her own husband got
jealous and arranged to have her shot.

No! That didnt happen.

Then what did happen? Challis
said, putting plenty of whiplash into it; he was tired of Robert McQuarrie.

In a distant room the television
continued to murmur and the wind blew around the house, Look, I dont know
anything about these photos. I didnt see anyone with a camera, and Janines
not even in He froze, and Ellen saw the shock as he realised. Oh God, he
muttered.

Exactly, Robert, Challis said, the
familiarity offending the superintendents son, these photographs were found
stored on your wifes mobile phone, the phone you were so anxious for me to
return to you.

McQuarrie looked stricken. I didnt
know that! How could I have known that? Dad simply told me to make sure I got
all of Janines things back!

Did he?

Ellen cut in. Did Janine enjoy the
sex parties, Rob?

McQuarrie gave her a look full of
hate but said nothing.

She didnt, did she?

McQuarrie swallowed and looked about
the room. She didnt really enjoy that side of our marriage.

So you thought youd kickstart her
erotic life?

Youre demeaning her, youre
demeaning me.

Or was it that you could have sex
with as many women as you liked without feeling guilty, because it was all open
and your wife was having sex with other men?

I dont expect you to understand.
When youre highly sexed you

Anyone less highly sexed than you I
have yet to meet, Ellen snarled. With these photographs, Janine had a hold
over you. Youd be ruined if they were made public. A laughing-stock. A
disappointment to your parents, especially your law-and-order father. Janine
showed them to you, told you to be faithful or shed ruin you, but misjudged
you badly and she lost her life as a result.

I was in Sydney!

So who did you hire, Rob? Ellen
demanded.

Challis eyed her warily. She was
tense with anger, disgust and disappointment. Their closeness of early in the
day was quite gone. She wasnt a prude, but hated the dishonesty and sly
tawdriness of the sex parties, the photographs and the actions of husbands like
Robert McQuarrie. He wondered if she were thinking of deceit, illicit love and
empty marriages.

Meanwhile McQuarrie was outraged. Do
you think I know people like that, hired killers, hitmen, or whatever theyre
called?

A fair question, Challis thought. He
didnt answer it. Then McQuarrie followed it with another fair question. Besides,
how do you arrange something like this in just a few hours?

Ellen pounced. Meaning?

McQuarrie saw the trap he was in and
tried to backpedal. I mean, the killers obviously needed time to learn her
movements, where she lived, where she worked, that kind of thing.

Robert, you said a few hours.
Janine showed you the photographs, didnt she? And you made a few phone calls
and

No! He gave them a hunted look and
shrank in his chair. She didnt show them to me. They arrived in the post.

The post?

In a plain envelope. I assumed
Tessa Kane or someone at her office had sent them.

When was this?

Monday.

Was there anything in the envelope
besides the photos?

No.

No blackmail demand?

No.

Did you keep the envelope and the
photos?

Yes. I hid them. I wanted to hold
onto them in case there
was
a blackmail attempt.

Wise man, Challis said, his tone
disbelieving.

If Id known Janine had taken the
photos and sent them to me I would have tried to talk to her about it, I swear.

They watched him.

Have you talked to the other three
men? Ellen demanded.

No.

But you know them?

Yes.

And he gave them the names of a
surgeon, an accountant and a funds manager.

I dont want you alerting these
characters, Challis warned.

Of course not, Robert McQuarrie
said, relieved now to think that Challis was letting him off the hook, if only
for a while.

* * * *

31

Tessa
Kane worked late, stewing about the tone of her interview with Ellen Destry.
Interview? Interrogation was more like it. Destry had been clearly hostile. Now
it was after ten oclock and she was locking up for the night, and had just
returned the keys to her bag when a voice growled, Stay out of my private
life.

She jumped, convinced that her
stalker had waited for her. He was escalating, making personal contact and not
relying on hate mail and stones through windows any more. Swallowing, she
forced herself to turn around. Mr Mead, she said, oddly relieved.

It was short-lived.

You called on my wife unannounced.

He wore a heavy overcoat, his shoes
gleamed, and drops of misty rain dotted his face, granting him a look of
powerful emotions held barely in check. He took a step towards her, passing out
of the range of the nearby streetlight. She glanced past him, seeking helpful
passersby or escape routes, but the entrance to the
Progress
building
was at the side, not the front, and screened by bushes. There was no comfort
from the steady stream of traffic on the main road, and at that moment no
pedestrians on the footpath.

Im not going to attack you, stupid
cow, Mead said. But Im warning you to stay away from my wife.

I merely

Well, dont, okay?

There was a spasm of something in
his face, not anger but doubt. Tessa felt her courage returning. Another
perspective, thats all I want.

Ask me, if youre so keen to know.

I have asked you. I get nothing
useful.

Now Mead was his old self again. His
lip curled. I dont do special favours. The information I give you is the same
as the information I give the Melbourne and national media.

Its public relations bullshit,
thats what it is. I write my own stories, not a rehash of some press release.
You still havent answered my specific allegations regarding falsified staffing
levels and falsified reports being filed by your section heads. There are lots
of irregularities that I intend to follow up on.

Go your hardest.

And what do you intend to do about
the self-mutilations?

Charlie Mead showed her his sharp
teeth as he turned and walked away. My officers have all been offered trauma
counselling.

That was enough for Tessa. When she
got home she fired up her laptop, a glass of red at her elbow, and began to
trawl through the internet for what it could tell her about Charlie Mead.

* * * *

Vyner
had driven back to Melbourne after burying Gent and stowing the shovel and his
outer clothing in builders skips on the Nepean Highway. He showered, caught a
movie, ate pasta at a sidewalk cafe on Southbank, and now was watching the late
news on TV. Thank Christ thered been no further developments, no more clues
found or anonymous callers to cause him a headache. He switched off and peered
out at the night through a gap in the curtains he kept permanently drawn. Tenth
floor, but he didnt have one of the river and cityscape views, just views of
wet streets and buildings reflecting light like panels of glass or ice. He
shivered. No one was out there, but he could feel the world closing in a
little. He got out his journal and wrote:
Sing out the names of the lost
ages. Uncover the warrior codes of the universe.

That was all the boost he needed. He
was ready when his mobile phone received a new text message.

Sorted?

Vyner sent back confirmation. Yes,
the anonymous caller was dead and buried.

* * * *

Andy
Asche knocked off a few beers in the main bar of the Fiddlers Creek pub after
footy training and got home late evening to find Natalie Cobb pacing up and
down in his sitting room, Jet blaring away on the CD player, pity the old
pensioner who lived in the adjoining flat. She must have found his spare keyon
top of the fuse box; hed have to re-think thatand let herself in. She was
still wearing a suggestion of her Waterloo Secondary College uniform and it was
clear to Andy that shed been choofing a weed or dosing herself with E or ice
or speed since the burglary theyd pulled that afternoon, and was pretty hyper
there in his sitting room.

And paranoid. I think this cops
wife is spying on me.

Who?

Sutton, a dee at Waterloo. Know
him?

Andy didnt know any of the
detectives, or any of the uniforms except John Tankard, his footy coach. He
went to the window and glanced out. Salmon Street was quiet, the bay dark and
still beyond the mangrove flats. What about him?

His wife works for Community
Health, looks in on me and my sister and my mum, but I know shes a spy.
Fucking cow.

Pacing up and down, beautiful and
agitated and stoned out of her brain. Listen, she went on, I need some dosh
really badly.

Already? What happened to the cash
I gave you earlier?

As if he didnt know.

She doubled over then straightened,
her fists tight against her breasts, beseeching him. Andy, please, cant we
knock over another house?

Not tonight we cant, he said
firmly. People are watching TV, tucking the kids into bed. Besides, its too
soon.

Please,
Andy. Ill pay ya back.

In the end he scrounged up $100 and
she slowed down enough to offer to do him with her mouth, her hands, even her
feet if thats what he wanted. He smiled sadly. Its okay, Nat. You dont owe
me anything. Listen, well pull another job tomorrow, okay?

* * * *

Where
have you been? her husband demanded, the moment she set foot in the house.

Ellen removed her scarf and jacket
unhurriedly and hung them on a hook beside the back door. She checked the time
on her watch, still drawing out her movements: almost 9.30. The interrogation
of Robert McQuarrie had taken an hour, the drive back to Waterloowhere shed
dropped Challisand then home had taken twenty minutes. She was in a severely
contestable mood anyway, without her husband setting her off. Shed badly
wanted to punish Robert McQuarrie, and didnt trust her feelings around
Challis, which made her mad. And now here was Alan, getting right in her face.

Interviewing a subject, she said,
moving around him.

I bet.

Whats that supposed to mean? she
said, stalking by him into the kitchen.

You gave you-know-who a lift home,
right? What, did he ask you in for a drink? Whip you up something to eat? Or
maybe you stopped off somewhere first.

Give it a rest.

Her dinner, a congealed Thai curry
from a can dolloped onto rice, sat mute and unloved on the table. The
kitchentable, benches, sinkwas spotless. Ellen knew at once that she was
expected to be full of praise and thanks. Instead, she wordlessly slid her
plate into the microwave, set the timer and poured herself a glass of wine.

So, were you?

Was I what?

Out with Challis, said Alan
tightly.

Yes.

What did you do?

I told you, we interviewed a subject.
In Mount Eliza, if you must know.

There was a pause, and into it Alan
said, Did you have to give him a lift home afterwards?

She enjoyed being obtuse. Who? The
subject?

His jaw and fists went tight, and it
occurred to her that hed hit her if she pushed hard enough. She felt neutral
about that right now, as though it were an unimportant hypothesis to be tested
one day.