Challis - 03 - Snapshot (36 page)

Robert McQuarrie also had motives
to kill both women, Ellen pointed out, but theres no Navy link.

Hes still in the frame, Challis
said, but until new evidence comes to light on him, we dig deeply into Nathan
Gent. The shooter hooked up with him somehow. He paused. Unfortunately, hes
been on a pension since leaving the Navy, meaning no workmates, and no one
knows anything about his social life.

Ellen was tapping the end of her pen
against her teeth. All we seem to be doing is answering the how, she said, when
we need to answer the why. We still dont know why Janine was targeted, or even
if she was the intended target, and we dont know if Tessa Kane was murdered by
the same man or not.

Challis nodded. Back to first
principles: look long and hard at Janine. At the same time, dig around in Gents
Navy and civilian activities, and see if we can find a link to our dead
armourer.

* * * *

55

And
there both investigations stalled. A search of Nathan Gents house uncovered
evidence only of an arid life. No diary or personal letters, no computer, and
neighbours who were indifferent and unobservant. Gent seemed to have been
entirely jobless and friendless. Of the man himself there was no sign. If he
had been the driver, and had gone on the runas seemed probable, given the
empty fridge and the hold on his mailthen he had a pretty unbeatable head
start on the police.

There was one recent photograph, but
it showed Gent with a full head of hair, and Georgia McQuarrie couldnt be
certain that he was the man shed seen behind the steering wheel of the
Commodore. She was more confident about the likeness generated by Scobie Sutton
and Joseph Ovens.

As a second, then a third week
passed since the murder of Janine McQuarrie, the investigation concentrated on
Gents and Lowrys Navy records.

Nothing tied either man to the
murder of Tessa Kane.

Meanwhile, there were no further
blackmail demands and gradually Superintendent McQuarrie receded as a thorn in
Challiss side. A warrant to examine Janine McQuarries files was finally
granted, but Janine had kept minimal records and no warning bells sounded when
Challis read through them. Dominic OBrien, only barely helpful, said, Janine
was a true professional. If any of her clients had failed the three-threats
testi.e., they were a threat to themselves, another person or the criminal
codeshe would have reported it immediately. Challis nodded, ignoring him,
jotting down names, dates and addresses.

Then came news that Blight had been
knifed in the showers of Long Bay prison. Dead. But while there was still a
faint chance that Blight had put out a contract on Christina Traynor, and it
was still active, Challis thought it best that she remain overseas, and so he
kept the news from Mrs Humphreys.

The only relief for Challis came
when he spent two days in Shepparton with the Homicide Squad, short-staffed
owing to a strain of Hong Kong flu. A market gardener had been shot dead,
execution style. The man sold his produce to the Victoria Market, in Melbourne,
and that pointed to organised crime. Either the man had belonged to the wrong
side in a dispute, or he hadnt paid protection, or he owed money, or hed been
skimming off the top. The murder was unlikely to be solved, so Challis was
released from the investigation.

Otherwise, he spent hours trawling
through the written material that had accumulated since the murder: reports of
attending officers; preliminary CIU and autopsy reports; investigation and
crime-scene worksheets; witness lists and statements; canvass field notes;
crime-scene sketches, photographs and videos; taped interviews; the ongoing
investigative narrative, consisting of terse updates provided from time to time
by himself, Ellen Destry, Scobie Sutton and other officers. There was also a
folder of clippings from the metropolitan newspapers, and finally Georgias
drawings and Janine McQuarries phone records.

Nothing clarified for him, and he
tried not to think of Tessa Kane or Ellen Destry. The
Progress
came out
under a new editor and, as expected, it was utterly lacking in character. He
saw his parents a couple of times. He managed to talk them out of investing,
sight unseen, in a housing development on the coast of Queensland.

One night the phone rang. It was the
man from the aircraft museum in San Diego. Mr Challis, sir, he said, gravely
courteous. We got your e-mail. Im afraid well have to pass on your fine
airplane at this time. But keep us in mind, sir, keep us in mind.

Suddenly, Challis no longer wanted
to sell. He felt obscurely that Tessa would have been disappointed in him if he
had.

* * * *

Ellen
Destry used the hiatus to leave her husband, making a clean break of it. Why
postpone the inevitable with marriage guidance and endless recriminations,
breast-beatings and blame-laying? She told Alan that she was leaving, and
simply left.

He was stunned. He was hurt, he was
suspicious and he was nasty. Is it Challis?

No.

I dont believe you.

Believe what you like. The answer
is no.

Sure, Hal Challis had been a
catalyst, but she wasnt leaving Alan to be with Hal, or make herself available
to Hal. She was leaving to be with herself, for herself. Shed waited until she
was damn sure of that.

Her new place was a house in
Mornington, sharing with another woman, a recently divorced DS from the
Community Policing squad. When she gave Challis the address and phone number,
he gave her a searching look but then simply nodded. It was his way of saying
that he understood how things would be.

Larrayne was furious, no sisterhood
there. Are you having an affair or something?

No.

Dads really upset.

I know.

Youre a selfish bitch sometimes,
Mum.

Ellens hand went to her neck, still
faintly puckered from where the bullet had grazed her.

* * * *

One
day Scobie Sutton came home to find his daughter, Roslyn, mute and scared in
front of The Simpsons and his wife in the kitchen, in semi-darkness, still
wearing her overcoat. She must have been sitting like that for over two hours. Sweetheart,
whats wrong?

She thrust a crumpled sheet of paper
at him. It was a print copy of an e-mail, addressed to her at work. He scanned
it rapidly, then looked at her in dismay. They
sacked you?

By
e-mail,
Scobie, Beth
said furiously. Seven of us on the Peninsula. Were run by managers who are
too scared, contemptuous or ignorant to tell us to our faces.

In that moment, Scobie Suttons
politics shifted minutely to the left. The world is getting more callous, he
thought. Goodwill doesnt work any more. The needs of business now outweigh
ordinary human needs. The heroes of business are those who can cut costs rather
than create jobs and add to happiness. Cutting costs means cutting staff, and
its an abstract exercise for those faceless people and their MBA degrees.
Nothing messy and human like gently taking someone aside to apologise, explain
and praise. Bad enough that it should infect the business world, but to bring
that same heartlessness to bear against public servants, especially thoselike
Bethwho helped the disadvantaged, really sucked as far as he was concerned.

One day its going to rebound on
the bastards, he said.

But what am I going to do? wailed
his wife.

He rocked her, thinking about it and
not getting very far.

* * * *

One
day in late July, Senior Sergeant Kellock called Pam Murphy and John Tankard
into his office and said, staring at each of them in turn, swinging his huge,
bull-like head, Youll be pleased to know that the accident investigation boys
have completed their inquiry and dont intend to take further action against
you.

Relief surged through Pam; her body
felt looser suddenly, and she realised how tense shed been for the past weeks.
Even her daily jogging and training had been painful. Maybe now shed enjoy the
easy articulation of her joints and limbs again.

Tank asked, Sir, what will our
records show?

Nothing, Kellock assured them. No
black marks, no long memories.

The civil suit, sir, Pam said. The
dead womans family wants to sue us.

The Federation will support you,
theres a fighting fund to cover legal expenses.

That was good to know, but what Pam
wanted was for the lawsuit to go away. No one elses put in a complaint about
us? she asked, thinking of Lottie Mead.

No. Meanwhile, Kellock said,
smiling as if doing them a huge favour, theres a forty grand sports car
sitting in the yard.

Sir, have you
driven
the thing?Tankard
protested. Its

Kellock went still and dark. Constable...

Sorry, sir.

Get on with it.

Sir, they said, and took to the
roads again, looking for polite driversa contradiction in terms, as they well
knew.

* * * *

Vyner
waited and waited, then sent an SMS:
U O me 15 thou.

He sent it again, and again.

Sometime later came the reply. Even
rendered in SMS symbols and abbreviations, the tone was blistering. Hed fucked
up. Hed shot Tessa Kane instead of staging an accident, and hed shot a cop in
the neck. You can whistle for your money. seemed to be the main thrust of the
message.

* * * *

56

The
case began to break open on a Sunday in early August, almost four weeks after
the murder of Janine McQuarrie. It started when Pam Murphy drove to Myers
Reserve and parked beside the road. She was a little spooked to recognise it as
the place where the Toyota van had killed the horsewoman, but it was a Bushrats
working bee this morning, clearing the reserve of new pittosporum shoots. She locked
her car and walked along the fenceline that divided the reserve from the
remnants of orchard and untended farmland beside it. A blustery wind was
blowing, cloud scraps scudding across a dismal sky, the ground spongy under her
feet. Ten oclock: the Bushrats would work until noon, and then retire to her
house for a barbecue, for it was her turn to have them all for lunch.

She found it a curious experience,
involving herself in the local communityeven if with a faintly obsessive
minority component of it. Most police members spent their leisure time out of
the public eye or with other police, for the very good reason that they tended
to unnerve the innocent and arouse the hatred of the guilty. But Pam felt
welcomed by the Bushrats; it made no difference to them that she was a police
officer. And it was a powerful antidote to the daily misery and pointlessness
of crime to see ordinary people placing a value on openness, collaboration and
benefiting the community without expectation of personal reward.

Last Friday shed attended a public
meeting held to discuss the fate of several stands and avenues of pine trees on
the outskirts of Penzance Beach. Some of the pines were immense, casting
permanent shadows over nearby houses. Others had died and looked ugly. All had
inhibited the growth of grasses and native trees. Some residents had been in
tears of fury and outrage that anyone should want to rid Penzance Beach of its
pines, but Pam had sided with those who believed the pines should be chopped
down and replaced with indigenous plants. A divided community, sure, but one in
which the factions were talking and listening.

Reaching a wooden gate, she perched
on the top rail and waited for the other Bushrats to arrive. The rail was damp
and mossy under her thighs but she wore old jeans and didnt care. She sat
staring out over the orchard where the stolen Toyota had come to rest, and then
glanced around at the reserve. The driver of the Toyota had fled towards it,
but then shed lost sight of him and he could easily have doubled back amongst
the clumps of old apple trees. Andy Asche was his name, according to Scobie
Sutton. Where had he been headed with the stolen gear?

Hello, there!

A voice, torn into ribbons of sound
by the wind. Pam turned her head. A fellow Bushrat, slogging across the paddock
towards her. He must have parked further down the road; probably feared getting
bogged, she thought. He was in his sixties and made heavy work of it. Partly
his weight, partly the sodden terrain, for the old orchard was full of
corrugations and drainage channels. He waved. She waved back.

Suddenly he stopped dead. Even from
a distance of fifty metres, she saw his jaw go slack, his face white. He stared
down at his feet, sunk in dead grass and tussocks.

His voice failed him on the first
attempt. He tried again. Theres a body in the drain.

* * * *

57

Ellen
Destry stared gloomily at the body, which lay face down in a reedy drainage
channel. Female, judging by the skirt, tights, smallish trainers, hair-tie and
ankle bracelet. She guessed that the face, which lay in water, would be too
decomposed to allow immediate identification, but she recognised the Waterloo
Secondary College uniform, and the hair was blonde, so this was probably Scobie
Suttons missing teenager, Natalie Cobb. Scobie Sutton had tied her boyfriend,
Andy Asche, to the stolen gear found in the Toyota, so it was reasonable to
suppose that shed been along for the ride. If so, she must have been thrown
out when the Toyota overturned, then dragged herself or stumbled for some
distance before collapsing into the drainage channel, which was partly obscured
by long grass and nearby apple trees.