Challis - 03 - Snapshot (24 page)

He heard a car beyond his kitchen
window and spotted Ellen arriving. The next stage would be routine: shed
assess the situation and then call for crime-scene technicians. He waited:
there was a knock, and then she was standing in the kitchen doorway, concern on
her face. You poor thing, she said, making to cross the floor to where he
stood by the window. He wanted her to, and wanted to cross to her, but things
held them back.

She glanced about the kitchen, and
then peered through the door into his sitting room. When you said damage, I
was expecting to see a real mess, she said.

He was puzzled. Minor damage, he
said, about what youd expect in a burglary.

So it is a simple burglary?

Looks like it.

But you asked for me especially. I
thought

What?

In a rush she said, I thought it
might have been personal: you know, someone who had it in for you and wanted to
cause major damage.

He frowned, shook his head. Well,
theres always someone, but no, this is a simple burglary, more or less. He
saw relief on her face then, as she shrugged out of her coat and swung it over
the back of a chair. He said carefully, Did you think it was Alan?

She flushed. Alan? No. Well, he can
be jealous.

Challis decided to let it go, but
she seemed to fill the room and his senses, and oddly to make him feel less
violated by the burglary. He pulled out a chair for himself and motioned for
her to sit.

When she was settled she took out
her notebook and headed an empty page with the date, time and location. But
then, apparently in no hurry, she pushed the notebook aside. Id really like
one of your coffees.

With relief he busied himself at the
sink and cupboards. At times he passed quite close to her. Then he poured, set
biscuits on a plate and sat with her again.

So, Hal, burgled.

Uh-huh.

He gave her a rundown on the damage
and what had been stolen. Plaster casts of the tyre tracks on my lawn might
help.

Will do, she said.

He reached for her hand without
thinking about it. Theres a reason why I asked for you.

She raised her eyebrows, but didnt
withdraw her hand, which felt taut, bony but warm in his. Suddenly
self-conscious, he jerked back. Was his neediness too apparent? Was he the
subject of smirks and raised eyebrows among the female officers and civilians
in the Waterloo police station? He saw himself as a clumsy man.

This has to be low profile, he
said. Im in trouble.

He saw that hed discomposed her. To
cure it she reached for her notebook, all business now. In what way?

He told her about his laptop.

Oh dear.

I know.

She stared at him through the steam
from her mug. No password protection at all?

He shook his head. I couldnt
figure out how to set it up.

Dinosaur, she said. Have you told
anyone else?

My insurance company.

You didnt tell them what was on
the laptop?

No.

Youll have to tell the super.

Challis pushed his coffee away as if
it were sour. How can I? He doesnt know about the photos.

But youve got case notes stored on
it as well.

Yes.

He wont be pleased.

Hes already pissed off with me.
This will reinforce it.

Ellen sighed. It was a sigh that
said she commiserated with Challis, that she wasnt so different from him, that
shed stuffed up on occasion, too.

Damage limitation. Hell want
damage limitation.

Challis nodded, and they were both
silent for a time, picturing McQuarrie, the mans prim mouth, Rotary and
golfing cronies, and air of satisfaction.

Will you tell him, or will I?

Challis was startled. I will, of
course.

Into the breach.

He nodded.

How do I play it at the station?
she asked.

Straightforward burglary, for now.
Dont mention that the laptop contained sensitive material until Ive squared
it away with the super.

But if he wants it in my report, Ill
have to

Amend it. Dont worry, Ill cover
your back.

After a pause, Challis went on: Any
other break-ins reported in the area today?

She shook her head. There was one
in Penzance Beach yesterday. An empty holiday house, but the next-door
neighbour spotted a broken window.

One burglary among many.

She glanced at him a little coldly. Youll
get the full crime-scene treatment, Hal, dont worry.

Thanks. He knew that simple
burglaries generally didnt attract a concerted level of investigation. Have
you any ideas? Does this fit a pattern?

She shrugged. There are always
break-ins, Hal, you know that. Town and rural.

Challis nodded bleakly. I know.

Look at what was stolen. Small
items, easily shifted and stored. We dont even know if its the same gang or
individual. A pattern only becomes apparent when specialist goods are taken and
we can track where they end up. She finished her coffee. Better make a start.

They went from room to room, Challis
indicating the location of each of the stolen possessions, Ellen taking notes
for the crime-scene techs who would dust for prints.

Perhaps it was a combination of
sensations, images and memories, and the conjunction of the homely with the
erotica bedroom, the half light, a beautiful woman watching and listening, the
particular arrangement of the bones and tendons at her throat and neck, his own
months of deprivationbut Challis found himself reaching for Ellen. She reached
for him. Out of their clumsy collision came a long kiss and then they parted
sufficiently to look each other in the eye, slightly awed.

I want you, Ellen said simply.

Me too.

You want yourself?

It was the kind of dumb thing you
said when the ground was slippery. Challis found the bare skin at her waist and
spine, and they continued to stare at each other. Your hands are cold, Ellen
said, her skin seeming to crawl at his touch and absorb him at the same time.
He leaned towards her again, and thats when a car growled over the gravel
outside his window and Ellen said, Crime-scene techs.

With a ragged sigh Challis said, You
called them out before you came here?

Biggest mistake of my life.

He planted a hungering, regretful
kiss and looked at his watch. Id better get it over and done with.

The super?

With any luck, Challis said, Ill
interrupt his golf.

* * * *

36

A
bummer, Andy thought, getting bogged this morning.

And avoidable, too, if hed twigged
earlier that the day was going to turn out badly. First, Nat had been out of
her skull. Shed turned up on time, thanks to a rare good-parenting impulse on
the part of her mother, and was even dressed in her school uniform and carrying
a packed lunch, but shed turned up stoned.

Then, when timing and efficiency
mattered, shed been no use at all.

Andy had a special trailer for these
Peninsula burglaries, towed each time by a ute or van stolen especially for the
job. Andys Mowing, like Jims Mowing, that franchise operation you saw
everywhere these days. High steel mesh sides, the handles of rakes, shovels,
pruning shears and a lawnmower showing. A few padlocked aluminium lockers in
the well of the trailer: anyone would think they contained secateurs, sprinkler
nozzles, lengths of hose, weed poison, bags of blood-and-bone. They wouldnt
think portable TVs, laptops, DVD players, leather coats, jewellery boxes, CD
collections.

All that weight on board, he should
have thought twice about letting Natalie drive, especially given the rain theyd
been having lately. Before he could stop her shed cut across the lawn on the
way out, bogging the van. Shed then proceeded to cack herself laughing as she
revved the motor and he pushed, getting himself sprayed with watery mud and
grass in the process.

Then a tense moment when a guy
delivering leaflets in a big four-wheel-drive had pulled up at the front gate,
slipped a leaflet in the letterbox, and noticed their predicament. Need a hand
getting out?

Yeah, thanks, Andy had said,
prattling on nervously about gardening work being slow in winter, and you had
to be careful on these rural properties, three times hed been bogged in the
past month, and hed have to come back tomorrow, do the right thing and patch
the owners lawn.

Tell me about it, the guy said,
shoving a leaflet at him and hitching a towrope to the front of Andys stolen
Toyota van. Andy glanced at the leaflet as the guy pulled him out of the mud. Daves
Farm Drainage, with a mobile number at the bottom.

Thanks, Dave.

No problems, Dave said, and was
goneAndy and Natalie forgotten, with any luck.

Andy took charge after that,
grabbing the leaflet from the letterbox outside the gate, then removing copies
from every letterbox along the road, and finally driving home to his place.
With Natalies help he shifted the stolen goods to the back of the van and
unhitched and stored the trailer. Finally he did what he always did with
laptops: he transferred the contents of the hard drive to his PC with its 120
gig hard drive. Hed examine the files later. You got all kinds of stuff, porn,
bank account details, sensitive documents. You never knew when it might come in
useful.

And now it was mid afternoon and
they were heading up to the pawnshops in the city. Nat was bored, restless, so
he let her fiddle with the stolen laptop. She always got a kick out of
scrolling through the intimate aspects of some strangers life.

Boring, she said, her slender
fingers flashing over the keys and rolling the cursor ball. Wait a minute.

What?

Wicked, she said.

What?

Natalie was silent, her fingers
busy. I think, she said in a bright, wry, singsong voice, we hit a cop this
morning.

Fuck!

Some case hes working on.

Natalie continued to search the
contents of the laptop. Hello. Dirty pictures.

Andy thought a cop was as entitled
as anyone to visit porn sites. So?

Not what youre thinking. These
look like they might be evidence.

Evidence. Shit, Nat, I dont like
it.

Andy felt very tense suddenly. If
they
had
hit a cop, and were in possession of evidence pertaining to a
case, they were in deep shit. He wanted to put some distance in between the van
and the Peninsulaquickly. They were on Stumpy Gully Road, approaching Eramosa
Road, which would take them down to the highway. They could be out of the
district and well on the way up to the city in less than thirty minutes. But
should they hang onto the gear? He made the turn at Eramosa Road and headed
down towards the Coolstores.

He slowed for a tractor hauling a
trailer load of hay; he couldnt pass, too many cars coming the other way. Nat,
I dont like it, lets dump the gear. It feels unlucky.

She gazed at him, full of dope-head
empathy, reached across and stroked him between the legs. Poor baby, she
said.

Theres a dumpster at the
Coolstores.

She shrugged. Whatever, she said
in her sunny voice, the dope still singing in her.

And so Andy steered into the
Coolstores carpark, and a minute later there was a dinky little sports car
pulling up next to them, a cop saying, Excuse me, sir.

* * * *

37

That
Thursday afternoon it was Tanks turn to drive. As he steered the little Mazda
through Somerville and headed on down Eramosa Road to the Coolstores, Pam
Murphy gazed out at the roadside verges, noting how widespread pittosporum was
on the Peninsula. Shed begun to see the place with new eyes, now that she
belonged to the Bushrats. Did you know, she said, that pittosporum is
considered a weed?

Tank seemed to shake himself awake. What?

Nothing.

He glowered at the road ahead. That
woman in the Passat. Do you know if shes reported us?

So that was what hed been brooding
about. Lottie Mead? No. And I wouldnt worry about it if I were you.

They neared the roundabout on the
highway, stopping behind a build-up of traffic. Pam glanced at her watch:
another two hours before they could knock off work. Then she happened to glance
across at the Coolstores carpark, where a Toyota van with tinted windows was
about to dart into an empty slot. It had the right of way but at the last
minute stopped, the driver gesturing graciously to an elderly, panicked-looking
woman driving an ancient Morris Minor. With a thankful wave and relieved smile,
the old woman steered jerkily into the vacant spot. The van paused, idling, the
driver casting about for another parking place.