by Garry Disher
Youd be surprised, Scobie thought. Even so, she clearly made enemies, Beth.
It was all hearsay, I shouldnt even be telling you this, his wife said, and gathered her things to go.
What about lovers?
Oh, Scobie, how would I know a thing like that?
Ask around, could you, love? Discreetly? Who she kept company with. Anyone heard making threats, anyone harmed by one of her decisions...We need their names, even if only to cross them off the list.
Beths face twisted in anguish but she gave him a hurried peck goodbye. Id better call on the Cobbs, she said, and a moment later was hurrying out to her car.
Scobie sighed and returned to the reception desk. A minute later he was shown to a corner room where the afternoon light struggled to reach a high, narrow bed and the woman in it, who was observing him with sly good humour, as if shed never had an operation in her life. Police, eh?
She was a down-to-earth, big-boned woman aged in her seventies, and Scobie hated to think of those bones failing her. He sat, mustering a knockabout look on his face to suit her canny, expectant expression. Mrs Humphreys, I understand you live at 283 Lofty Ridge Road in Penzance North?
Call me Joy. And out with it, no beating about the bush.
So he told her.
Good lord. You think those jokers were after me?
Were they?
Blameless, son, a blameless life, she said, twinkling. All of my enemies are too old and tired to do me in, or Ive outlasted them. Whos the dead woman?
Her names Janine McQuarrie.
Never heard of her.
You werent expecting any visitors to the house today?
No.
Scobie showed her the photograph of Janine McQuarrie from the Bayside Counselling brochure. Have you seen this woman before?
No.
He sighed. Its possible she was lost and went to your house by mistake.
Followed, Mrs Humphreys said, or ambushed? If ambushed, why at my place?
Scobie grinned. Youre trying to do my job for me. He paused. Reporters will want to talk to you.
Let them, Mrs Humphreys said.
She was tiring now, winced once in pain, and struggled to muster a return grin. I dont have a soul in the world but my goddaughter.
Scobie stiffened. God-daughter?
She was staying with me a couple of months ago but shes in London now.
Scobie uncapped his pen. I think youd better tell me all about her.
* * * *
17
Mead showed Tessa around the detention centre, a tour that avoided any contact with the detainees, and took her back along an exposed path to the administration wing. Coffee before you go? Tea?
We havent finished, Mr Mead.
Call me Charlie, he said automatically. What else do you need?
A chilly wind was blowing from the southwest, right off the bay. Tess shivered, as much from Meads indifference as the wind. Some grave allegations have been made.
There are always allegations. There always will be. But spit it out: what allegations?
According to a nurse, a guard and a section manager who once worked for you, ANZCOR systematically defrauded the Department of Immigration to the tune of millions of dollars.
Prove it.
For example, you and your staff created artificial riot situations in which equipment and buildings were damaged, in order to submit inflated repair bills.
Is that a question or an opinion?
If any of your section managers raised concerns, they were threatened with the sack and their reports were censored or conveniently lost.
Lady, Mead said, leaning towards her menacingly, put up or shut up.
Do you care to comment on these allegations, Mr Mead?
Call me Charlie, Mead said, swinging around to face her again. Will that be all? Good, he said, opening a side door. Someone will show you out.
As Tessa left the main building, a guard, bored and scowling, ran his metal detector over a steel door idly, listening to it squawk. He did it over and over again. No one else seemed to notice. In fact, a vicious kind of indifference was the pervasive atmosphere of the place, and Tessa wondered if that was all down to Charlie Mead: who he was and who he had been.
She stopped dead in her tracks. Why continue to look at who he was now? Hed be leaving soon, and she continued to run into brick walls. Why not look at who he had been and where hed come from?
* * * *
Andy Asche was driving: Natalie Cobb back from the city. He marvelled at how great she looked, despite being stuck in court all morning holding the hand of her fucked-up mother, followed by an afternoon ripping off gear in South Yarra. He told her so.
Thank you, kind sir.
Straight, Andy continued, but sexy.
Eighteen years old, still at school, but she could pass for a yuppie chick out shopping for her yuppie pad in Southgate, where all the yuppies lived, and thats what mattered to Andy and Natalie.
It went like this: the people they worked for owned pawnshops in the city and a discounted homewares outlet on the Peninsula, which made for a two-way flow of stolen gear. Andy liked the neatness of it: goods from the city ended up on the Peninsula, goods from the Peninsula ended up in the city. The Chasseur frying pan that he and Natalie might shoplift in South Yarra went straight to Savoury Seconds (frying pan, savouries, get it?) in Somerville. The cops werent likely to venture outside of the city to look for a stolen frying pan, even if it did cost $300. Meanwhile the pawnbroking stores in the city sold gear burgled from homes on the Peninsula. A retiree down in Penzance Beach isnt going to stumble by chance on her VCR in a barred shop window in Footscray. The people that Andy and Natalie worked for werent too worried by tax audits or CIU inquiries either. They had paperwork to prove that the new Chasseur frying pan in Savoury Seconds had come from a bankrupted shop in Cairns, the VCR in Footscray pawned by a waitress in Abbotsford.
Andys and Natalies first hit today had been Perfecto Coffee, in Chapel Street, the shelves stocked with coffee pots and machines, filters, ring seals, milk frothers, you name it; Bialetti, Gaggia and other big names. Coffee beans, too, but the order was for espresso machines, percolators and plungers. Natalie, in her long, loose woollen overcoat over tailored pants, leather shoulderbag and artfully tousled hair, browsed the shelves while Andy chatted up the shop assistant. No security cameras that he could see. Then Nat was at his elbow, doing her sulky lookCan we go now?as if shopping, and Andy, and this shop, made her dangerously bored, not something you wanted to see in a beautiful woman. Andy slipped the shop assistant a winkshe sympathisedand followed Natalie out of the shop, Natalies overcoat barely registering the spacious hidden pockets that were now full of top-end coffee making machines.
They hit a couple more places, had lunch in a bistro, and now, mid afternoon, were nearly home, Waterloo free of fog at last. Andy dropped Natalie outside the tattoo parlour next to the railway line. She had a fistful of money in her pocket: most would go to her mother, but she wanted a new tatt, a butterfly, high on the inside of her right thigh. Then she was going to score some dope. Andy didnt do dope, or booze, or anything else. Hed saved twelve grand so far, down payment on a BMW sports car.
Tomorrow, yeah? You up for it?
Yeah, she said.
He drove to the McDonalds on the roundabout for a Quarter Pounder, and read the local newspaper while he waited. Turned to Police Beat on page 10. He liked the irony: here he was, a thorough crook, reading about the work of other crooks while sitting just across the road from the cop shop. Unimaginative crimes, too. A ride-on mower stolen in Penzance Beach. A woman robbed at syringe point outside an ATM in Mornington. A purse snatched here in Waterloo.
Andy Asche glanced up from his paper. The noon-to-four shift cops coming off duty, heading across the road for their Big Macs. And fuck me, there was John Tankard, his footy coach, getting out of a Mazda sports car with some female cop.
* * * *
John Tankard and
Pam Murphy logged off, deeply fatigued with one another, the only distraction during the long afternoon having been their encounter with Lottie Mead. They separated, showered, changed, then happened to meet in the staff carpark afterwards, Tankard noticing the gear that Pam was wearing: black lycra shorts, sweater and trainers. Great legs, notwithstanding the goosebumps from the cold air. Great body.
Suddenly the elements of his personality, fractured after hed shot dead that farmer, were clashing inside him. Hed had counselling, and told himself he was a better person for it, but before he could stop himself he felt a carnal tug deep inside and was touching her smooth behind and pulling her towards him, and then he was crying wretchedly.
Im sorry, Im sorry, he gasped.
She pulled away angrily. Whats got into you?
Im sorry. Dont report me.
You deserve to be reported.
I know, Im sorry, I feel all...all...
She folded her arms and said, with vicious reasonableness, Yeah, I can see how that would work. Give me a quick grope, and if I object, you can blame it on stress. She unfolded her arms. Youre pathetic, John.
Pam, Im sorry, I dont know what got into me. His hands pressed against his cheeks. Ive stuffed up big time, havent I?
The look she gave him then was weary and disgusted, but not angry or vengeful. You came back to work too soon, she said.
Mate, I was going stir crazy at home.
If you touch me again, Ill flatten you, and then Ill report you.
I know, I know. Im really sorry. He made an effort and said, without looking at her thighs, smooth in their lycra sheaths: Wherere you going?
Training.
For what?
Triathlon.
When?
January.
Thats six months away.
Exactly.
The new Tankard struggled, finally remembering that shed been in a bad car smash at her last station, so maybe she was trying to get fit again.
What about you? she said, more out of politeness than actual interest.
Tankard said shyly, Im coaching footy this season.
Pam went slackjawed. Youre joking.
Nope.
Good for you.
Good for me, good for the kids, Tankard thought. He was a copper, so that gave him some clout to begin with, but he was trying to be more than copper and footy coach. Like hed intervened in this dispute between the club and the Fiddlers Creek pub. Some of the guys would get legless after training or a game on a Saturday and walk across the road from the clubrooms to the pub, where theyd get even more loaded, and brawl, swear, trash the bar or the mens room, reverse into patrons cars on the way home. It had got so bad, the pub withdrew sponsorship from the team and banned club members from drinking there. John Tankard had a quiet word with the pub management, and then with the players, and now everything was sweet again.
Well, gotta run, he said. See ya.
She shrugged and walked to her car. He got into his old station wagonchosen because he could cart a lot of kids and gear around in itand drove to the clubhouse, where he got kitted out before running a few gasping laps of the oval to warm up. Soon the kids were arriving, some straight from school, others driven by their parents, a few dropped by their girlfriends. And Andy Asche; that was a change. Half the time the guy failed to turn up. Tankard waited until they were all kitted out then called them to run a few laps of the oval.
* * * *
Nathan Gent had spent all day smoking joints and sinking cans of Melbourne Bitter, but his anxiety wouldnt go away. Yeah, thered been a heavy fog this morning, and no cars about, only that fucking taxi, but had the driver seen anything? Would he come forward when the shooting hit the TV news and tomorrows newspapers?
Nathan had been paid, and he intended to stay clear of Vyner, but hed crossed a divide this morning. Accomplice to a murder. Plus the kid had seen him. That little face, maybe six years old, sees her mum shot down in cold blood.
Nathan wanted to go, Whoa! Stop the world, I want to get off. But hed crossed the divide. He was no longer his old self, a simple sort of bloke, likes to sink a few beers at the pub, watch the footy, see if he can use his missing finger to pull a chick at the Krypton Klub in Frankston. Choof on a bit of weed occasionally.
Three things gnawing at him: murder, the look on the kids face, the car. Particularly the car. No worries, hed assured Vyner, its stolen, cant be traced to us. In fact, stealing a car had been harder than Nathan had expected, and hed left it too late, and so hed used his cousins Commodore. Except it wasnt really Noras; when she got the job in New Zealand shed sold him the car for $975, leaving the paperwork up to him, the roadworthy certificate and the registration and insurance and stuffwhich he hadnt got around to yet.
Fine, except when hed dropped Vyner off after the shooting this morning, Vyner had thumped the Commodore and said, Burn the fucker.
Nathan had driven away, saying No worries, his mind racing.
Even if he burnt the Commodore, didnt the cops have ways of tracing ownership? Even if he removed and destroyed the numberplates, wasnt there some number on the engine block or something? What if someone came along while he was trying to set fire to it? Hed have to get rid of it some other way. Besides, he was kind of sentimental about the Commodore. Hed borrowed it off Nora stacks of times, and Nora was a good sort, and he hated to think of her carhis caras a blackened ruin on some back road. Obviously he couldnt keep driving around in itVyner might see him, the vicious cuntso hed cleaned everything out of the car, wiped it down, and driven it to a wrecking yard in Baxter, still wearing his gloves (which hadnt raised any eyebrows because the weather was shithouse). What he did was, he drove past the yard for a few hundred metres, removed the oil filter and tossed it into a culvert at the side of the road, then drove back to the yard, by which time the engine had seized. He pushed the car into the yard, removed both plates, and walked out with $120 in his pocket, saying of the yellow door: Thats a good door, no rust.
But the kid, her little face.
Murder.
Nathan Gent went to the pub with his last ten dollars, downed a couple of pints, and fired up the jukebox beside the mens toilet, trying to decide what his next move should be.
* * * *
18
The incident room, 5 p.m.
McQuarrie was there, making it clear that hed be running the briefing. Challis acquiesced, vowing to hold another briefing as soon as McQuarrie left, to undo any damage or interference the man caused, intended or otherwise. Again he pondered the supers motives. Was he instinctively protecting his son? His daughter-in-law? His own reputation? Or was it obstruction of a more calculated kind? Challis waited for McQuarrie to sit at the head of the table, then stepped across to the wall and propped it up morosely. Ellen flashed him a grin.
The setting sun angled across the chipped table and McQuarries twitchy knuckles. Inspector? Well hear from you first.
Challis outlined his day. Then, true to form, McQuarrie double-checked every step of his account.
You talked to my son.
Said almost accusingly. I hadnt expected to see him, Challis replied.
Hes got important commitments, McQuarrie said. He made a racing visit up to the city, then came straight back to be with Georgia.
You dont have to apologise for him, Challis thought.
And you got nowhere, McQuarrie said. Hes well respected, well loved. No enemies.
Sir.
And no witnesses.
No.
This Lisa Welch woman didnt hear or see anything?
No.
But you think its possible she was the intended target?
Challis gave his head a brief,, impatient shake. No, sir, not really. Its just a precaution. I thought it best to advise her of the danger, but on the face of it shes not involved.
Still, I want you to dig a little deeper. You never know.
Sir.
Good, McQuarrie said briskly. Now, my daughter-in-law. Sergeant Destr
y?
Ellen flashed McQuarrie an alert, humourless smile. Sir?
You spoke to Janines work colleagues this morning, I believe?
Sir.
And?
Challis, unseen by McQuarrie, made a fleeting axe-murderer face at Ellen, who composed herself and reported that the office staff and other therapists at Bayside Counselling Services had alibis and were clearly baffled by Janines murder. Meanwhile, we still dont know who she was meeting this morning or why she was on Lofty Ridge Road. A note scribbled on her desk calendar simply says Penzance North, 9.30.
