Challis - 03 - Snapshot (9 page)

Poor woman. Had she struggled to be
seen and heard by the family?

Did Janine ever mention particular
clients who were threatening or abusive?

Challis watched the superintendent
absorb the implications. No, but thats a promising avenue, Hal, very
promising. Follow it up.

Challis nodded, despite his
reservations. Would Mrs McQuarrie have anything to add, do you think? Not now,
perhaps tomorrow?

You keep my wife out of this.

Sir, I have no desire to upset
anybody, but isnt it possible that she knows things you dont? Youre very
busy, after all. Were they close?

Janine was like a daughter to both
of us.

Yes, sir. How about her parents?
Have they been told?

Theyre both dead, Im
afraidkilled in an accident some years ago. But there is a sister, Meg. Now,
will that be all?

Thank you sir, Ellen said.

They were halfway to the car when
McQuarrie caught up with them, taking Challis by the arm and saying, Its time
I spoke to the media.

Challis exchanged glances with Ellen
and they followed the superintendent up the driveway to the street and the
reporters, who were standing with hunched shoulders against the driving wind.
McQuarrie lifted a hand and said, I wish to make a brief statement, and
confirmed that his daughter-in-law had been shot dead at approximately 9.30
that morning. Challis and Ellen endured; cameras flashed at them. Meanwhile
McQuarrie had apparently cast off his grief and strain; this was the McQuarrie
who wore a costly suit and carried himself with a military mans brisk snap and
fearless gaze, like a British Army officer in a stiff-upper-lip film from the
1950s. He impressed the cameras, but it seemed to Challis that the man knew
more about golf than crime, more about wealthy Rotarians than criminals or the
police officers under his command. Tessa Kane arrived halfway through, earning
a frown from McQuarrie, but he didnt falter, talking at length, answering
questions, and finally clapping a hand on Challiss back, saying, This is the
man who will find my daughter-in-laws murderer.

The cameras and microphones turned
questingly to Challis but he declined politely and returned to the car with
Ellen. While she drove, heading across to the Nepean Highway, Challis sat
slumped against the passenger door full of thoughts and with Georgias drawings
clasped in his lap.

Ellen broke the silence. I notice
you didnt tell the super were going to his sons place of work.

He stirred and grinned. I didnt,
did I?

First impressions of the son?

Smooth, a charmer, in a private
school kind of way.

Professionally charming, not
personally charming. Did you notice that he didnt once look at or talk to me?

I did.

And it had nothing to do with rank.
Im a woman, ergo I dont have a brain. She paused. Be interesting to know
what his relationship with Janine was like.

Yes.

After a pause she said, as if
testing the waters, Hal, what did you make of the super and his wife?

Challis cocked his eyebrow at her. Not
exactly heartbroken.

No.

They praise Janine, but secretly
didnt like her, or thought her unworthy of their son.

Ellen nodded. Thats the impression
I got.

And if youre asking should we
consider the super, or even Mrs Super, a suspect, the answers yes.

There, it was out in the open. With
anyone other than Ellen, hed have kept his suspicions to himself. He saw her
nod. And your reasons are...? she said.

Little things: lack of grief, being
protective of his son and granddaughter, being faintly obstructive and wanting
to guide the investigation. All explicable, but we cant rule him out, or not
entirely, and we cant rule out the possibility that he suspects his son and is
protecting him.

Yes, said Ellen simply, confirming
that shed come to the same conclusions. He cant take over the investigation,
can he?

Challis shook his head. Regulations
wont allow it.

But hell meddle?

Yes.

Then a little Mazda sports car was
beside them, tooting. Ellen tooted back and the Mazda shot away along the
rain-slicked highway. Challis stirred. Who was that?

Pam Murphy and John Tankard.

Challis frowned, then twigged. Kellocks
safe driving campaign.

* * * *

12

Constables
Pam Murphy and John Tankard, dressed as if they belonged to the Special
Operations Group or the FBI, with peaked caps, waisted jackets and pants tucked
into their boots, promptly began discussing Challis and Destry. Tankard thought
they had a thing going.

No way.

Theyre always together.

Tank,
we
re always together.

He subsided, muttering, but it was
short-lived. What about the newspaper chick?

What about her?

Is he still giving her one?

I dont know and I dont care. Its
none of my business.

Then, with his old nudge nudge, wink
wink: Has he given you one yet?

Tank, grow up, okay?

It was no joke, cooped up with John
Tankard in the little sports car. It was bad enough that he was a big, fleshy
man, but ever since coming back from six months stress leave for shooting dead
a deranged and armed farmer, hed been a little unstable. His mood today was
pretty typical of the Tankard she remembered, the racist and bully whod been
called a storm trooper by the locals, the partner who was more interested in
her tits than police work, but he was also given to moments of moody
daydreaming and insecuritywhich she attributed to counselling that hadnt
taken very well.

She could sense him looking at her,
and confirmed it with a quick, sideways glance, disturbed to see and feel a
queer, sulky heat coming from him as he asked, Could you do it?

Do what?

What that newspaper chick did, have
sex with a lot of guys, everyone watching. He cocked his head at her
assessingly. Nah, cant see you doing that.

As if throwing her a crude challenge,
hoping shed rise to it and come across for him. She didnt have sex with
anyone. She was there as a reporter.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. Bet Challis
was pissed off. But if you cant keep your chick in line, what do you expect?

She ignored him.

I mean, he went on, he couldnt
even control his wife. She sleeps around on him and tries to have him killed.

Tank, Pam snarled, only
Neanderthals feel the need to keep their women in line.

He sniggered to see her riled. She
drove on, cross with herself. Early afternoon, and still the fog persisted. As
they approached a roundabout, she said, Mornington, Tyabb or straight ahead?

But Tankard was in a reverie beside
her and failed to answer. Maybe he was looking inwards again, at his sorrows.
Pam was suspicious of Tanks new-found introspection, wondering if it would
slow his response times, blunt his survival instincts. Well, she wasnt put on
earth to cure him. Still, shed always known where she stood with the old
Tankard. Hed been reliably suspicious of everyone, confrontational but not
unsteady, with the instincts of a cop driven by self-preservation rather than
ambition. In fact, hed been entirely lacking in ambition, relying on the
police force for a sense of brotherhood and security, even as he distrusted or
despised his fellow cops.

She chose to drive straight ahead,
which would take them to Penzance Beach and Waterloo.

He stirred. Did you say something?

Forget it.

Tankard struggled like a dim
schoolboy caught staring out of the window. Finally he said, in the faintly
lost manner of the new John Tankard, Do you see the point of this? Spending
four hours a day on the roads thanking people for the one time in a thousand
they happen to show courtesy to another motorist or signal before turning a
corner? This is bullshit.

True, Pam said.

They were passing the detention
centre near Waterloo when she was forced onto the gravel verge by an oncoming
Subaru, which veered across in front of her and onto the centres main
driveway, narrowly missing a silver Passat that had emerged to wait for a gap
in traffic. Tessa Kane, who clearly didnt deserve a showbag. Pam tooted, and
so did the Passat.

* * * *

13

Whoops,
shed cut off those cops in their sports car and nearly collected a Passat.
Tessa Kane grinned ruefully, shrugging an apology at Pam Murphy and John
Tankard. Pam returned the grin, her cap at a rakish angle. A tough little
broad, Tessa thought, heading towards the main gate.

The detention centre was a cheerless
expanse of chilly cement-block huts behind razor wire. Originally intended for
350 inmates, it had held almost 500 asylum seekers at one stage, in a
concentrated knot of misery. Now the flood of asylum seekers had dried up and
most of the detainees had been shipped back and a few granted residence visas.
Eighty were left: a handful of asylum seekers from the Middle East, and people
who had breached or overstayed their tourist visas. Soon all would be deported.

The centre had delivered no benefits
to Waterloo that Tessa had seen. Most of the locals had been apathetic, a
handful angry and ashamed, and the remainder rubbed their hands together at
this God-given opportunity to relish their prejudices. They seemed to applaud
the perimeter guard whod shouted at a detainee: You are one ugly fucking
Arab. There had been plenty of letters to the editor after Tessa had published
that quote, objecting to the word fucking; none objecting to the matter of
detention itself, of course, or the centre, or the mindset of the guard. It had
beenstill wasan unhappy place. Last week there had been a riottermed a disturbance
by corrections staffand today Tessa could see men and children on the flat
roof of the gymnasium, displaying banners:
We Are Human Not Animal.
In
the first six weeks of operation, two men had been trapped on the razor wire;
over a ten-month period in the second year, seven inmates had sewn their lips
together; and most had gone on a hunger strike at one time or another. Fires
had been lit, rocks thrown, tear gas used.

That had been the public face of
almost all of Australias detention centres, the one you saw on commercial
televisions current affairs programs. Tessa had been interested in the hidden
stories: mental illness; treatment refused for sexually abused children; the
dubious backgrounds and qualifications of the guards; the attitudes of the
Refugee Review Tribunal and Department of Immigration staff. There had also
been whispers of corruption. Apparently Charlie Mead and his section heads had
routinely defrauded the federal, state and local governments by artificially
inflating the cost of repairs, provisions, services and wages, the benefit
flowing to their employer, ANZCOR, an American company that managed prisons and
detention centres under contract to the governments of Australia and New
Zealand. They operated out of Utah and had branches in Canada and the UK.

And soon the detention centre would
close its doors. Tessa wanted one last opportunity to nail the detention system
itself, and Charlie Meads role in it, to the wall.

Why had Mead agreed to see her? For
the past three years hed been typically contemptuous of the media seeking
interviews, and do-gooders befriending the inmates. Perhaps hed got sick of
the way she always concluded her articles with the words Centre management
declined to comment, or he simply didnt care, now that hed be moving on.

Tessa ran through her mental notes
on him. Born in Durban, South Africa, fifty-five years ago; served in the army
for ten years before completing a law degree in Johannesburg and an MBA in
London. Worked in prison management in the UK, then successfully applied for
the position of deputy managerand later managerof a maximum-security prison
in Brisbane. There his tough line had alienated guards and inmates alike, but
that had been no handicap to his being hired to manage the Waterloo Detention
Centre. Arrived Waterloo, January 2002. Married to Lottie, about whom Tessas
research had found no information. No children.

She was obliged to wait outside the
main gate while the guard confirmed with the administration building by
telephone, then was directed to an adjacent carpark. She got out, locked her
car, and was turning towards the gate, tucking her keys in her briefcase, when
a guard materialised in front of her. Shed not heard his approach. He jerked
his head and she followed him, a solid, swaggering figure, through the outer
and inner razor-wire perimeter fences and across a paved area to the
administration block. It was separated from the other buildings by high,
tubular steel railings. A child smiled at her through the bars; two women
appeared to be painting the doors to a dormitory; several men stared at her,
cigarettes in their hands, while others booted a soccer ball from one side of a
stretch of cracked asphalt to the other.

Tessa closed her coat more
thoroughly at her throat, as if to dispel the dense fog and the air of
hopelessness. No one glanced at her in curiosity or hope: she no doubt
represented another branch of an unfeeling government. Shed been to plenty of
prisons over the years as a reporter and newspaper editor. This was worse than
a prison because, for many of these inmates, further abuseeven death awaited
them on their repatriation to home countries.