Challis - 03 - Snapshot (41 page)

Its a long way down here. Plus the
traffic

She peered past him at the Magna,
opened her mouth, thought better of it and ushered him inside. It cant be
traced to me, he assured her.

Trevor, its bright yellow.

He followed her through to a sitting
room, where vast leather sofas faced off across a busy Turkish rug on polished
boards. A fire crackled, faintly smoky. There were African masks, shields,
spears and art on all of the walls. Vyner had lived most of his life confined,
personal gear at a minimum, and hated the room at first sight. Whos the
target this time? he asked.

My husband.

He was shocked. Charlie?

Uh oh, hed set her off. Her face
transformed itself in an eyeblink, from timid mouse to feral cat, and she began
to pace and snarl, little fists tight. After all Ive done for him.

I know, said Vyner
commiseratively, but without a clue.

She whirled on him. Hed be nothing
without me, and how does he repay me? Says hes going to dump me for someone
else.

Things made sense now. Janine
McQuarrie? Vyner asked, double-checking.

Who do you think? said Lottie. And
she wasnt even a good therapist.

Charlie needed therapy? Vyner
asked. The idea amazed him.

Dont be stupid. I was checking her
out.

Ah. So how did Charlie

He met her at the detention centre
a couple of months ago. She was relieving for another therapist who had the flu.

Vyner nodded. Why a bunch of
ragheads and sand niggers should need therapy, he didnt know.

Ive been with him twenty years,
and he wants to leave me for someone hes known only a few weeks! Lottie said.
She paused. Five minutes with her and I knew she was incompetent, but love is
blind, right, Trevor?

Right, said Vyner stoutly. He
looked around, locating all of the potential weapons in the room: poker,
spears, vases, lamp, a wooden chair at a writing desk.

He actually
grieved
for her,
as if he didnt care Id be hurt by that.

Charlie had betrayed Lottie, Vyner
understood that. Didnt he suspect you?

Never.

And right in front of his eyes, she
reverted again to the little brown wispy mouse. Right, he said. Then,
treading carefully, he went on, You could have divorced him, left him, got a
good lawyer and screwed him for everything hes got.

But he would have her, and I couldnt
allow that. I had to act fast.

Right. He watched her while she
paced again. How do you want to play this? he asked eventually. Accident?
Home invasion? What?

She turned on him lashingly. Accident?
Like you did with Tessa Kane?

She subsided, muttering.

Vyner had to know. Kane asked me
all these questions, he began cautiously. Like, Was it something I
published? and Who are you working for?

Nosy bitch.

Vyner waited. He felt restless. A
drink would be nice.

She was getting too close, Lottie
said, coming right up to him and shouting in his face, spraying him.

Right.

I get a phone call from
Johannesburg, yelled Lottie. Middle of the night.

She turned inwards darkly, her face
mottled and fists tight. Uh-huh, said Vyner encouragingly.

Lottie blinked. Someone I used to
work with. Hes a private investigator now.

Vyner nodded to keep her going.

He wanted to warn me. Tessa Kane
had hired him to dig around in my past, mine and Charlies. I couldnt allow
that.

And a lot of dark stuff in your
past, too, Vyner thought, gazing at Lottie. Getting back to Charlie: how about
half of the fifteen grand you owe me up front?

I dont think so, said Lottie, and
somehow she had a little automatic pistol in her hand, no bigger than a .25,
pretty quiet, unlikely to be heard next door, given the thickness of the walls and
the intervening blanket of trees outside, and she shot him in the face with it.

Vyner reeled for a bit, clutching
his blasted jaw and frothing. At one point she shot him again, a punching
sensation between his shoulder blades. He went down gratefully, curling up on
the rug, which had been Scotchguarded recently, unless his senses were
deceiving him. She fired another shot into the wall.

Time passed and he bled and his
heart and lungs laboured. He was dimly aware of someonehad to be
Lottiedigging around in his parka and finding his new gun, which had cost him
$650 in an alley behind a pub in Collingwood.

Then later, as he bled out, there
were voices. Vyner recognised Charlie Meads, in argument with Lottie, who
sounded deranged. Who shot who, then? There was more than one shot. He dreamed.
By the time hed regained consciousness again, and was on his hands and knees,
his gun was in his right hand. How had that happened? He swung his poor head
and saw Charlie Mead on his back, one finger caught in the trigger-guard of
Lotties little pistol. There was no sign of her.

Vyner crawled out to his car,
uttering frightful sounds from his ravaged mouth, thinking about gunshot
residue.

* * * *

64

They
were not the first on the scene. The first were two uniformed constables from
Rosebud, requested as back-up by Challis. He arrived with Ellen to find both
officers crouching behind their patrol car, guns drawn. Challis soon saw why:
at the end of the Meads densely hedged driveway was a scene that seemed poised
for grief: a yellow Magna stood on the gravelled turning circle, motor running,
drivers door open, a figure sitting behind the wheel; the main door of the
house was ajar; and bright security spots cast a harsh light over everything.

Go around to the rear, Challis
told one of the officers, via the next-door garden. Check it out, report back
by radio, but stay there. Arrest anyone who tries to run.

Sir.

They waited. A couple of minutes
later, the radio crackled. The doors locked. No lights on. I cant see or
hear anyone.

Challis thanked him. Just then the
car outside the Meads front door shook and the engine coughed, ran raggedly
and died. Badly tuned, or run out of fuel, said the Rosebud officer. The
smell of poorly burnt exhaust drifted towards them.

Have you called in the plate
number? Ellen asked.

Stolen in Southbank this afternoon.

Vyner, said Challis.

A minute passed. Sir, the guys
just sitting there.

He could be hurt, said Challis, dead
or waiting for us to show ourselves.

The figure seemed to move then, his
shadowy form slipping, and suddenly the horn blasted and wouldnt stop.

Ellen, come with me. Constable,
stay here. Dont let anyone in or out.

Sir.

They ran at a crouch to the waiting
car. The man in the drivers seat had slumped over the steering wheel. There
was blood on the ground, the door, the seat, the mans back and neck. Challis
was reluctant to interfere with a body at a crime-scene, but the horn was
insistent and unnerving. Besides, the man might still be alive. He grabbed the
collar and pulled. The racket blessedly ceased and a bloodied mobile phone fell
to the floor pan of the car. There was a pistol on the passenger seat. He
stared at the ruined face and guessed that he was looking at Vyner. Been shot twice.
In the back and in the jaw.

Ellen reached past and touched Vyners
neck. Theres a pulse.

Call it in.

Then they advanced on the house,
keeping to either side of the open door, and entered together, making a swift,
silent sweep of all the rooms, Challis feeling faintly ridiculous, as though he
were watching himself in a training video. There was no one alive, only blood
slicks in the hallway, leading all the way to the front door, a pool of blood
on the sitting room rug, and a body, Charlie Mead, shot in the chest. But Mead
had also got off a few shots: into Vyner, apparently, and into a wall of the
sitting room. A small-calibre pistol lay beside his hand.

Their hearts hammering, Challis and
Ellen stood for a while, willing stillness. They edged closer to each other. It
was unconscious. Eventually Ellen murmured, Why would Vyner want to shoot the
man whod hired him?

The knuckles of Challiss gun hand
brushed her thigh. He holstered the gun, unwilling to step away from her. Revenge,
fear of discovery, money, the usual, he said.

Outside, dying behind the wheel of
the car hed stolen in Southbank that afternoon, Vyner wanted the woman with
the gentle voice, the woman whod placed her cool fingers on his neck and found
his pulse, to come back so that he could apologise for panicking that time on
the boardwalk, for almost shooting her dead. He didnt feel like a rocky shoal,
doom-maker, custodian of the codes or any other fine thing right now. He felt
like a mere mortal, and a pretty dumb one at that.

But Lottie had always been several
moves ahead of everyone else, he reminded himself, as he died.

Always several moves ahead.

He had a few moves of his own. Dying
moves. Hed barely been able to operate the keys of his mobile phone, barely
been able to spell it out for the cop with the gentle hands, given that his own
hands were so slippery with the last of his blood.

But able enough.