Whispering Death (27 page)

It was the kind of thing an innocent man might say.

41

The bullet, when it came, was disguised as an e-mail from Human Resources.

It has come to our attention, etcetera. Three months' long-service leave, to be taken forthwith, etcetera.

Late Friday afternoon, and Challis checked the calendar. The bastards were giving him less than a fortnight to clear his desk.

He propped his feet on the open bottom drawer and swivelled in his chair. The chair screeched for want of lubrication but he didn't hear it. The view from his window, the books on his shelves, the photographs on his desk.

The photographs. His sister and niece in outback South Australia— it was time he saw them again. And there was Ellen Destry with a wide grin that tugged at his heart and made him feel shy. More photos on a pinboard beside the window, a record of his history with his old aeroplane: the Dragon in bits, and on the back of a truck for the journey down from Queensland, and being offloaded in Tyabb, and having a new tailplane fitted, a hole repaired. Finally, sitting on the tarmac, a strangely beautiful insect.

He'd put out feelers to museums and collectors. Now it was a waiting game.

There was another photograph in the room: his dead wife, face down on the top shelf, gathering dust. Guilt was a strange thing, he'd never been quite ready to throw her out.

Meanwhile, he had work to do. Calling an impromptu briefing a short time later, he leaned against the whiteboard while Murphy and Sutton took their positions at the long table and said, ‘I don't like coincidences.'

He was in shirtsleeves, the long room holding the day's accumulated heat. As he peeled his shoulder from the whiteboard, it came away imprinted with blue marker, a reversal of a question mark scrawled there. Craning his head to examine it, plucking at the cotton, he said, ‘I guess that will teach me.'

‘New police insignia, boss,' Scobie Sutton suggested.

Challis blinked. It was rare for Sutton to make a quip about anything.

‘Our new slogan,' Pam Murphy said. ‘“CIU: we get things the wrong way around”.'

It was the time of the day for weary humour and, grinning tiredly, Challis slumped at the head of the table. ‘Coincidences,' he repeated, and explained, for Scobie Sutton's benefit, about his two encounters with the Niekirks.

‘You think they're bent?'

‘I honestly don't know. On the surface, they seem to be the victims of two quite different crimes: cheated by a man who sold them an iffy aeroplane, and broken into by a burglar who didn't steal anything.'

‘But?'

In answer, Challis dialled a number on his mobile phone. ‘John? Come on up.'

They waited. John Tankard edged into the room, gazing about. ‘Wow, is this where the action is?'

Challis sighed. ‘Cut it out Tank.'

‘Sorry sir.'

‘The Niekirks' intruder.'

‘What about him? Her?'

Challis paused. ‘Her?'

Tankard screwed up his pouchy face in concentration. ‘It's just, you know, a feeling I had. Could've been a bloke, could've been a woman. Something about the what do you call it, body language.'

‘You didn't mention this in your report.'

‘Wasn't sure, to be honest.'

Challis didn't pursue it. ‘But this
person
was holding something?'

‘Kind of a gym bag.'

‘Full? Empty?'

‘I had the feeling it was full.'

‘How long between the call to triple zero and your arrival at the scene?'

‘Dunno. Twenty minutes? Half an hour? We were busy.'

‘Thanks, John.'

Tankard went out, looking short-changed, trying to catch Pam Murphy's eye.

‘So,' said Challis, ‘we have an intruder on the premises for up to thirty minutes, seen leaving with a bag that appeared to have certain items in it. Tools? Stolen goods? We don't know. The Niekirks claim nothing was stolen, but something about all this bothers me. Don't be proactive, just continue working your usual cases, but keep your eyes and ears open, maybe you'll hear something about other break-ins or about the Niekirks.'

‘Boss.'

Scobie Sutton got to his feet first, then hesitated. ‘Something on your mind?' said Challis.

In a rush, Sutton said, ‘Are either of you doing anything on Sunday afternoon?'

Challis and Murphy went very still and their minds raced. ‘I have a buyer lined up for my car,' Challis said. ‘Why?'

‘Roslyn's school concert, if you're interested. The tickets are cheap.'

‘Sorry, Scobe.'

‘I'm having lunch with my parents,' Pam said.

‘Oh well, next time,' Sutton said, and he left the room.

Watching him leave, they exchanged small, guilty smiles. Sutton had talked about every stage of his daughter's progress over the years, inviting everyone to share in it.

‘Are you really selling your car on Sunday?'

‘I am, in fact. Are you really going to see your parents?'

‘I am now.'

Challis grinned, gathering his papers together, and saw a sudden alteration in Pam Murphy. Her eyes lost focus, she gave a tiny, involuntary body spasm. Realising he'd seen her do it before, he said, ‘Are you okay?'

Her eyes spilled a couple of tears.

‘Hey, hey,' he said, moving towards her but stopping short.

‘I did something stupid.'

‘We all do that.'

She blinked at him, a look of fury on her face, but directed inwards, and he remembered the love bite and guessed that she'd entangled herself with the wrong person. Who, though? He was only human; he'd like to know.

‘Want to talk about it?'

She didn't hesitate or prevaricate. ‘Nope.'

So they went their separate ways and Challis thought
Lost
opportunity,
and so did Murphy.

‘I'd rather discuss your breasts,' Challis informed the webcam.

‘Not going to happen,' Ellen Destry said in her no-nonsense way. ‘McQuarrie's
forcing
you to take long-service leave?'

‘Yes.'

A pause and she said, ‘Starting when?'

‘End of next week.'

‘The alternatives?'

‘They sack me, demote me, send me to a station way out in the Mallee somewhere.'

‘Put your thinking cap on,' Ellen said.

42

On Saturday Ian Galt drove out through Gippsland to Lakes Entrance and the Autumn Years Retirement Village.

The little town and the coastal waters were vivid in the sunlight, and another man might have drawn an appreciative breath after his long drive and admired the gumtree leaves, variously dun-coloured, olive toned and silvery, the municipal flowerbeds splashed yellow, red and blue. Another man might have stopped for coffee, sat at a sidewalk café to sip and watch the locals buying the Saturday papers, the women in their springtime dresses, but Galt had no interest at all in the beauty of his surroundings.

He found the retirement village along a leafy side road behind the main street. The lakeside charm was absent here, away from the tourist beat. The houses were pale brick scabs from the 1970s, mute and disappointed, as if ashamed of the men who'd designed them. The admin building and cottages of the retirement village were in keeping with the neighbouring houses. Everything was pink and grey inside the foyer and the air was stale, redolent of industrial solvents and urine.

This time he kept his Andrew Towne ID in his pocket, unable to think of a good reason for a federal policeman to pay a formal visit to a retirement home in a small coastal town. During the long drive from Melbourne, he'd settled on an honest-citizen story, and with his teeth bared in a smile, eyes crinkled, explained to the receptionist that he'd been overseas for twenty years, returning recently because his last surviving relative, his aunt, had died. ‘The thing is, among her effects there was this photo.'

An elderly couple standing with a young woman outside Autumn Years. ‘That's my half sister,' he said, tapping the image. ‘We lost contact a long time ago, and I don't know how to find her, and thought maybe the old people standing with her could help me, whoever they are.'

The receptionist was delighted to help, but had bad news: Mr Ingles had died. ‘But Mrs Ingles is still here, bless her.'

Galt glanced down the corridor, at the rows of doors, old men and women inside them, pissing their beds. ‘Well, that is good news.'

‘Mind sharp as a tack, too.'

To Galt's relief, he was shown to a cottage in the grounds. The receptionist knocked on a glossy red door. The woman who answered was frail, stooped over a walking stick, but recognisably the woman in the photograph. Her gaze spent very little time on the receptionist and even less on the spring sunshine, but fixed hard on Galt.

What are you staring at, you old bag? he thought.

The receptionist said, ‘Eileen, this young man has come a long way to see you, isn't that exciting? He needs help finding his sister.'

Eileen's face seemed to say, I'm not a child. ‘Is that so?'

Sensing that the ruse was going to unravel, Galt said, very quickly, ‘Thank you, I can take it from here,' and when the receptionist was gone, said, ‘I'm trying to get hold of your daughter, Mrs Ingles. This is Susan, I believe?'

Eileen Ingles regarded him for so long that Galt wanted to snatch away her walking stick and beat her with it. ‘Mrs Ingles?'

‘I don't have a daughter.'

Galt shook the photograph under the old bag's face. ‘Explain this.'

‘That is certainly me, and that is my late husband, but who the young woman is I couldn't tell you.'

‘So why the hell is she in the photo with you?'

‘Don't you get narky with me. As I recall, she simply materialised one day, claiming she was writing an article on regional facilities for the aged, and wanted her photograph taken with us. If I remember correctly, she said her name was Grace.'

Galt curled his lip. ‘If you remember correctly.'

Mrs Ingles cocked her head. ‘There's grace,' she said, ‘and there is the absence of grace.'

Galt didn't say, ‘Break a hip', but he thought it.

43

On Saturday, Grace nailed a hook to her sitting-room wall and positioned the icon and stepped back and tried to flow into it, as if it might tell her something about herself. Deep peace, she thought, losing herself in the gold leaf virgin and baby. Healing light.

But she didn't have the patience for too much of that. She scrolled through her Niekirk photographs again. Perhaps the little Klee painting might tell her something about the Niekirks that would fill in the gaps.

She drove to Torquay, found an Internet café, and logged into a couple of stolen artworks sites: Art Loss, on which galleries and individuals listed stolen and lost works of art, and Trace It, which aimed to trap thieves offering stolen paintings to auction houses and dealers.

She ruminated as she searched. There'd been enough dodgy invoices and other documents in the Niekirks' study to indicate they were crooked, so what was the story with the Klee? Stolen, presumably. From a collector? A gallery? Here? Europe or America? She knew that small galleries were notoriously under-protected. Even if they could afford first rate security systems, they couldn't afford the staff to monitor them. Or they switched their systems on only at night. Meanwhile, art thieves were often well organised. They stole to order, or had buyers in mind, and were able to forge impressive pedigrees— provenance papers, sales and auction records, catalogue entries.

She froze.

She'd found the Klee.

Felsen in der Blumenbeet
, stolen from a gallery in the Swiss town of Liestal, in 1995.

How had it found its way to Australia? Where had it been since 1995? Had the Niekirks commissioned the theft? Did Mara drool over it in private every night? Maybe the Niekirks were intermediaries. Or the Klee was a means to an end—collateral in a loan, for example, or finance for a drug deal. Or a ransom was being sought from the gallery or the insurance company. But so many years later? And would the Niekirks risk auctioning the painting in Australia? If it came with convincing papers, would anyone check? Maybe they had a Japanese collector in mind. Grace had sometimes sold small paintings and art deco jewellery to collectors in Japan, where it was possible to claim legal title to stolen works after only two years of possession.

It was pointless to speculate. The beautiful little Klee was hers now.

In a safe-deposit box on the other side of Port Phillip Bay.

Perhaps she could ransom it back to the Niekirks?

No. It was beautiful. She wanted it.

Out of curiosity, she Googled ‘theft of Russian icons' and learned that customs officers at Sheremetyevo Airport seize 6000 icons each year—maybe only a tenth of those being smuggled out of Russia in suitcases, diplomatic bags and general cargo. The Russian Mafia was involved, too. In the upheavals of the 1990s it wasn't only nuclear arms that were stolen but also icons and paintings from the country's galleries.

But Grace knew that her icon had been stolen four or five decades earlier than that, from her family in Harbin.

Before returning to Breamlea, she checked her e-mail.

One message. Steve Finch.

‘
You hit the wrong people Wed night. Got you on camera. Flashing your
pic around. No cops involved yet, but not nice people. Give us a call, urgent
.'

She closed down immediately, left the café and walked along the beach, gnawing at the inside of her cheek. She needed to think about Finch and the Niekirks, but Galt was there in her head.

One day he'd got a phone call. She was with him on the sofa with the Harbour view, and he had one hand inside her pants—lovely slender fingers, really, for such a cruel man—and her head was resting against his, so she heard quite clearly the voice in his ear saying: ‘Woof, woof.'