Challis - 03 - Snapshot

by Garry Disher

  * * * *

  8

  Ellen and Scobie were in Mount Eliza, where Bayside Counselling Services occupied a new but nondescript two-storey building in the main street. The bistro and the delicatessen on either side of it might have been lifted from one of the lifestyle magazines, and were inhabited, so far as Ellen could tell, by people whod stepped from the pages of a lifestyle magazine. She wondered if they ever made independent decisions, and said so.

  Sorry? said Scobie.

  Never mind, Ellen said. Scobie Sutton liked to think the best of people. There wasnt a sour bone in his body.

  They went in, finding an unoccupied reception desk. Ellen picked up a glossy brochure and showed it to Scobie: Janine McQuarrie was a good-looking woman, if surfaces counted for anything. The face in the brochure was contained and humourless.

  Just then a man approached the reception desk, looking furious. He was about fifty, balding and as neat as a pin. Ellen disliked him immediately. Excuse me, sir, she began.

  Yes? he snapped. He didnt meet her gaze but addressed a point several centimetres above her head.

  We need to see

  Make an appointmentwhen our esteemed receptionist returns from wherever she is.

  Its important, Ellen said. We need to see someone in authority.

  And you are?

  They showed their warrant cards. Well, Im Dominic OBrien, one of the senior partners, the man said, still refusingor unableto make eye contact.

  Mr OBrien, Im afraid I have some bad news. Your colleague, Janine McQuarrie, was found murdered in Penzance North earlier this morning.

  There was a moment of silence, a throat-clearing cough, and OBrien said, Sorry? Who did you say you were? What are you saying?

  Ellen repeated herself. OBriens voice gained in strength and passion. And you thought youd just bowl up and drop this little bombshell on me?

  Oh God. Ellen said gently, Im terribly sorry, Mr OBrien, of course youre right, but theres no easy way to break this kind of news, and we need to act swiftly. Do you know why Mrs McQuarrie was in Penzance North this morning?

  No idea.

  Was she seeing a client? I understand that she was a psychologist, a counsellor.

  She was. Are you suggesting one of her clients murdered her?

  I dont know. Do you think that might have happened?

  Youd better come into my office, OBrien said.

  He took them upstairs to a vast, oppressive corner room. God help the poor soul who seeks solace here, thought Ellen. We need to see Mrs McQuarries files, she said.

  OBrien was on firm ground now; resistant ground. Janine appointed me to look after her records in the event of anything happening to her. Its standard practice, he said, to forestall any objections that the police might like to make.

  May we see those records? We need to identify anyone who has a volatile background and rule out everyone else.

  A fishing expedition? Request denied. Youll need a warrant, and even then youll need a good reason, and well challenge it.

  Ellen sighed. She knew that a magistrate would grant a subpoena without hassle, for this was a murder inquiry, but only if the police could present a compelling case for the murderer being one of the dead womans clients rather than anyone else. All right, then perhaps you can tell me the sorts of people Mrs McQuarrie counselled.

  OBrien breathed out heavily. Childrenbedwetting kids and troubled teenagers. People grieving the death of a loved one. Women finding the strength to leave unhappy marriages. All kinds of ordinary afflictions, and none that might give rise to the impulse to murder, I wouldnt have thought.

  Ellen agreed privately. According to Challiss descriptions of the circumstances, Janine McQuarries murder had been a carefully arranged contract killing, not the product of impulsive or skewed reasoning. Her mind drifted. Women finding the strength to leave unhappy marriages, she thought. Is that what I need?

  Scobie Sutton broke in. Well need to see her desk calendar, and talk to everyone in the clinic, before the press do.

  OBrien rolled his eyes. Ill see what I can do.

  He showed them to the conference room and for the next hour they interviewed the staff: OBrien, three other therapists, the office manager and the receptionist, all of whom had solid alibis for earlier than morning. The office manager, a vigorous, no-nonsense woman named Iris, was the most helpful, but her information merely bore out in clearer terms what everyone was saying: that Janine McQuarrie had been a real piece of work, not only considered a poor therapist but also reviled. A woman whose bitter personality had permeated the building, she had minions, not friends. She was manipulative, a gossip, and would spread rumours against those whom she believed had wronged her. At staff meetings she liked to chuckle over her clients sad secrets and off-the-wall phobias. She wasnt motivated to help, Iris said, but to bring down people and institutions, and she was obsessed with money: accumulating it, not spending it.

  Scobie Sutton stirred, as if money, or all of this dirt being spread about Janine McQuarrie, was distasteful to him. Was she a gambler?

  Not her, Iris said. Gambling is a sign of weakness, quote unquote.

  Any irregularities in the firms bookkeeping?

  Iris bristled. I keep the books.

  Scobie back-pedalled. I mean, did she have access to the books? Was she keeping income back from the firm? Anything like that?

  Not that Im aware of

  Her clients, said Ellen. Were any of them unstable enough to murder her? Did she offend any of them?

  She whisked them in and out, or met them elsewhere, so I wouldnt know, Iris said.

  What about her private life? Anyone in the background? Friends? Enemies?

  Look, said Iris. We pitied her more than anything. We avoided her. She was most probably lonely, but everything about her said back off. I wonder how on earth she found herself a husband and mothered a child, frankly.

  Do you know who she was seeing this morning? Ellen had examined Janine McQuarries desk calendar, and the days entry was typically cryptic: Penzance North 9.30.

  No.

  That was all they could get. Ellen called Challiss mobile number. Were on our way back to Waterloo.

  Good. I want a quick briefing before we talk to the supers granddaughter.

  Be there in twenty minutes, said Ellen.

  * * * *

  9

  Scobie drove, with Ellen sitting tensely in the passenger seat, her hands braced on the dash, her foot on a phantom brake pedal. Suttons driving style was full of fits and starts, swivel necking, and hand gestures as he talked, punctuated with occasional swigs from a bottle of mineral water.

  You know the Cobb family? Scobie said. From one of the estates?

  One of the kids took a marijuana plant to school for show-and-tell, gasped Ellen.

  Correct.

  What about them?

  My wifes had dealings with them.

  Ellen knew that Scobie would get to the point eventually. Shed met Beth Sutton a few times, at police picnics and Christmas parties. A plain, good, churchgoing woman who worked for Community Health and was given to helping the unfortunates of the Peninsula. Nothing wrong with that, except that people involved in good works often seemed to wear an air of piety and satisfaction, which often grated on Ellen. She waited, said Really? to prompt Scobie.

  When I was in court this morning I let slip that I was married to Beth. Now Natalies going to be suspicious of her.

  Scobie, suspicion of the police is inbred on those housing estates.

  I know, but it neednt be. Beth keeps her work and mine completely separate.

  They lapsed into silence. The road was wide and flat now and Ellen relaxed fractionally. Her mind drifted. There was a possibility that one of Janine McQuarries clients was the killer, but getting access to her records was going to be a headache. At the same time, all of the circumstances of the murder indicated a degree of planning and professionalism, as if the killers had been hired.

  The woman
s finances would have to be examined minutely. Did everything come back to money? Ellen wondered, thinking about her husbands own futile rants centred on money. They were struggling, despite their combined salariesone of their cars was for the scrap heap, and their daughters rent and university tuition fees were cripplingbut Alans resentment sometimes took strange turnings. Only last night hed said, with a sidelong glance, Dont you think its interesting that its always plainclothed police who go up on theft or corruption charges?

  Plainclothed police like her, he meant. Your point being?

  They bring decent police into disrepute.

  Guys like him, he meant. Rarely was the Ethical Standards department of the police force obliged to investigate the guys who worked in the Traffic and Accident Investigation squads.

  Alan was full of undercurrents. It was very possible that he was depressed. But, more than anything, Ellen was scared that hed found her out. Now and then over the years shed pocketed money at crime-scenes, $50 here, $500 there. Probably no more than $2000 in all, over a ten-year period, and shed even put one haul, of $500, into a church poor box. But the pathology was there in her and she was afraid. It had started with chewing gum at the corner shop when she was eight years old and although shed more or less stopped, the impulse hadnt. Maybe she needed a psychologist. Maybe she needed to make an appointment with Dominic OBrien.

  God, what would Challis think of her if he ever found out? She felt sick at heart at the thought. Her palms were damp. She dried them on her thighs, letting Scobie Sutton wander all over the road and talk and talk.

  * * * *

  They arrived to find that Challis had brought in two DCs from Mornington and, with their help, set up the first-floor conference room as an incident room: extra computers, phones, fax machines, whiteboards, photocopiers and scanners, and a TV set. But, more than anything as far as Ellen was concerned, hed brewed coffee and placed a box of pastries in the centre of the conference table. She sipped and nibbled as he introduced the Mornington detectives and outlined the case, reading from his laptop.

  Finally he turned to her. Ellen?

  She brushed flakes of pastry from her lapels and summarised the results of the Bayside Counselling interviews. We need to look at those files, Challis said. Meanwhile, I carried out a Google search on the husband. Hes a well-known hard case in the finance world, good at firing and downsizing, so no doubt hes got some enemies. When Ellen and I have finished talking to his daughter well head up to the city and check him out.

  Scobie Sutton had eschewed the pastries and was fastidiously peeling and slicing an apple. Will the daughter make a good witness, boss?

  Challis shrugged. We wont know until we talk to her, but she did tell the first officers at the scene that the killers came in an old car, white with a yellow door. That will be your job, he said to one of the Mornington DCs. Ive put in a request for lists of cars stolen, abandoned and burnt, so keep updating it and check with Traffic for cars caught speeding, the usual thing.

  Sir.

  The car could have come in from outside, Scobie said, or they were dumb enough to use their own car.

  Or Georgia was quite wrong about the car. Either way, well release details to the media, Challis said. Someone might recognise the description.

  They looked doubtful. Cars with mismatched doors, boot lids, bonnets and panels were common in a country where the poor were getting poorer.

  Challis glanced at the other Mornington detective. Go back to Lofty Ridge Road and talk to any of the neighbours who werent at home this morning. Find out who delivers the mail and the newspapers, supermarket orders, the usual.

  Boss.

  Scobie, I want you to check Robert McQuarries flight movements and find out what you can about Mrs Humphreys and whoever else might have lived at that address. When shes recovered from her hip operation, interview her. We need to establish if she knows Janine McQuarrie or if she herself has any enemies.

  Boss.

  Ellen, the superintendent awaits.

  Whoopee-do, said Ellen, immediately regretting it, for surely the super was grieving.

  * * * *

  10

  They signed out an unmarked Falcon from the motor pool and drove to Mornington in intermittent sunshine that was hard and bright on the wetness all around. Above them a high, scudding wind blew scraps of cloud across the sky. Normally they chatted when they were together, settling quickly into comfortable patterns with each other, but Ellen was withdrawn, a heavy presence in the passenger seat. Anything wrong? said Challis.

  Nup.

  He wondered if it was her husband again, remembering the mans brusqueness on the phone that morning. Ellen was loyal and private by nature, but had revealed enough over the years to indicate that the marriage was under strain. Challis had never liked Alan Destry. The man was chronically surly, and so tightly wound that he might one day do something violent. Were a fine pair, he thought, me morose about my wife this morning, Ellen about her husband now.

  Everything okay at home?

  Peachy, said Ellen, her eyes fixed on the road.

  Time to change the subject. So this Dominic OBrien character is going to be obstructive?

  Ellen seemed to bristle at the wheel. What happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force?

  He grinned. Hed always liked looking at her, a woman full of coiled energy and every muscle expressive, her beautiful eyes now taking on their familiar tuck of suspicion and anticipation. She was ready for business.

  Uh oh, she said presently. Weve got company.

  Theyd reached a hilly street behind the Esplanade in Mornington. No fog on this side of the Peninsula, but a rainsquall had come in across Port Phillip Bay, causing movement in a huddle of reporters and camera crews camped on a nearby nature strip. Be friendly, Challis said.

  Shouted questions reached them through the windows of the car, but Ellen didnt stop, easing the CIU Falcon off the street, onto a gravelled driveway and past dense shrubbery and slender gum trees, to park nose-up to a railway sleeper barrier. They got out, locked the car and Challis followed Ellen down the steps to the front door, careful on the slicks of moss.

  McQuarrie greeted them, holding his granddaughters hand. Shed been crying, but glanced up at them solemnly, as if shy but also aware that she was at the centre of something momentous. She wore jeans, a pink long-sleeved top, pink socks, pink clips holding back unruly blonde hair. Her grandfather looked faintly lost, a slightly built senior policeman whod seen the underside only from behind a desk. He didnt make introductions but stood back, saying, Come in, come in, before glancing at their feet. Would you mind...

  There were shoes and gumboots heaped on both sides of the door. Challis and Ellen slipped off their shoes, curling their toes on the cold concrete of the verandah, waiting for McQuarrie to stop dithering on the doorstep.

  Finally they were in a hallway, pale green carpet expensively thick beneath their feet, a phone off the hook on an antique hallstand. McQuarrie led them to a sitting room: a red leather sofa and armchairs, massive antique sideboards, two small Turkish rugs. A huge window looked out onto a barbecue pit, a brick courtyard, a rose arbour and shrubs in bulky terracotta pots. McQuarries wife Barbaraoften called Mrs Superstood beside an open fire, as neatly put together as her husband but snootier, more readily offended. Challis tried a commiserative nod and smile and got a scowl in return. He introduced Ellen, who earned only a flickering glance.

  Have you found out who did this?

  McQuarrie said hastily, Its too soon, dear. Hal is here for information.

  Barbara McQuarrie came forward a few centimetres, the strain apparent in her face. I dont want you upsetting Georgia.

  Some tea, love, we could all do with a cup of tea.

  Ill help you, Ellen said, expertly shepherding McQuarries wife out of the room, piling on admiring comments about the decor, the house, the landscaping. Challis and McQuarrie watched them go, Challis appreciating her tact and her instincts.

&
nbsp; McQuarrie said, Hal, this is Georgia. Georgia, this is Inspector Challis.

  Challis put out his hand and the child shook with him gravely, her palm moist, her bones like a tiny birds inside his grip. Pleased to meet you.

  Pleased to meet you.

  Challis didnt know what McQuarrie had said to his granddaughter. Hed hoped to be briefed before meeting and questioning her. Did Georgia know that her mother was dead? If so, what did she, a six-year-old, understand that to mean? Perhaps we should all sit down, he said.

  Grampa, can I have a hot chocolate?