Challis - 03 - Snapshot

by Garry Disher

  Trusted? Tessa Kane? Thats a laugh.

  Not Tessa Kane. We obtained these from someone rather closer to you than that.

  McQuarries face grew desolate for a moment as he looked down an empty, unpromising road. Who?

  We think you know.

  I dont, I swear I dont.

  We think you do.

  Shouldnt you be looking for whoever killed my wife instead of hassling me about my private life?

  Mr McQuarrie, Ellen said pitilessly, what do you think were doing, showing you these photographs, asking these questions, if not investigating the murder of your wife?

  A pause while he took this in. A coincidence, he said.

  Is it?

  You cant honestly believe she was shot because she took part in some harmless... Hed scattered the photographs across a coffee table but now grabbed and scrutinised them. These dont even show Janine.

  Think about it, sir.

  I dont know, he wailed. Maybe someones wife or girlfriend arranged to have her shot out of jealousy, but whats that got to do with these photos?

  Or maybe her own husband got jealous and arranged to have her shot.

  No! That didnt happen.

  Then what did happen? Challis said, putting plenty of whiplash into it; he was tired of Robert McQuarrie.

  In a distant room the television continued to murmur and the wind blew around the house, Look, I dont know anything about these photos. I didnt see anyone with a camera, and Janines not even in He froze, and Ellen saw the shock as he realised. Oh God, he muttered.

  Exactly, Robert, Challis said, the familiarity offending the superintendents son, these photographs were found stored on your wifes mobile phone, the phone you were so anxious for me to return to you.

  McQuarrie looked stricken. I didnt know that! How could I have known that? Dad simply told me to make sure I got all of Janines things back!

  Did he?

  Ellen cut in. Did Janine enjoy the sex parties, Rob?

  McQuarrie gave her a look full of hate but said nothing.

  She didnt, did she?

  McQuarrie swallowed and looked about the room. She didnt really enjoy that side of our marriage.

  So you thought youd kickstart her erotic life?

  Youre demeaning her, youre demeaning me.

  Or was it that you could have sex with as many women as you liked without feeling guilty, because it was all open and your wife was having sex with other men?

  I dont expect you to understand. When youre highly sexed you

  Anyone less highly sexed than you I have yet to meet, Ellen snarled. With these photographs, Janine had a hold over you. Youd be ruined if they were made public. A laughing-stock. A disappointment to your parents, especially your law-and-order father. Janine showed them to you, told you to be faithful or shed ruin you, but misjudged you badly and she lost her life as a result.

  I was in Sydney!

  So who did you hire, Rob? Ellen demanded.

  Challis eyed her warily. She was tense with anger, disgust and disappointment. Their closeness of early in the day was quite gone. She wasnt a prude, but hated the dishonesty and sly tawdriness of the sex parties, the photographs and the actions of husbands like Robert McQuarrie. He wondered if she were thinking of deceit, illicit love and empty marriages.

  Meanwhile McQuarrie was outraged. Do you think I know people like that, hired killers, hitmen, or whatever theyre called?

  A fair question, Challis thought. He didnt answer it. Then McQuarrie followed it with another fair question. Besides, how do you arrange something like this in just a few hours?

  Ellen pounced. Meaning?

  McQuarrie saw the trap he was in and tried to backpedal. I mean, the killers obviously needed time to learn her movements, where she lived, where she worked, that kind of thing.

  Robert, you said a few hours. Janine showed you the photographs, didnt she? And you made a few phone calls and

  No! He gave them a hunted look and shrank in his chair. She didnt show them to me. They arrived in the post.

  The post?

  In a plain envelope. I assumed Tessa Kane or someone at her office had sent them.

  When was this?

  Monday.

  Was there anything in the envelope besides the photos?

  No.

  No blackmail demand?

  No.

  Did you keep the envelope and the photos?

  Yes. I hid them. I wanted to hold onto them in case there was a blackmail attempt.

  Wise man, Challis said, his tone disbelieving.

  If Id known Janine had taken the photos and sent them to me I would have tried to talk to her about it, I swear.

  They watched him.

  Have you talked to the other three men? Ellen demanded.

  No.

  But you know them?

  Yes.

  And he gave them the names of a surgeon, an accountant and a funds manager.

  I dont want you alerting these characters, Challis warned.

  Of course not, Robert McQuarrie said, relieved now to think that Challis was letting him off the hook, if only for a while.

  * * * *

  31

  Tessa Kane worked late, stewing about the tone of her interview with Ellen Destry. Interview? Interrogation was more like it. Destry had been clearly hostile. Now it was after ten oclock and she was locking up for the night, and had just returned the keys to her bag when a voice growled, Stay out of my private life.

  She jumped, convinced that her stalker had waited for her. He was escalating, making personal contact and not relying on hate mail and stones through windows any more. Swallowing, she forced herself to turn around. Mr Mead, she said, oddly relieved.

  It was short-lived.

  You called on my wife unannounced.

  He wore a heavy overcoat, his shoes gleamed, and drops of misty rain dotted his face, granting him a look of powerful emotions held barely in check. He took a step towards her, passing out of the range of the nearby streetlight. She glanced past him, seeking helpful passersby or escape routes, but the entrance to the Progress building was at the side, not the front, and screened by bushes. There was no comfort from the steady stream of traffic on the main road, and at that moment no pedestrians on the footpath.

  Im not going to attack you, stupid cow, Mead said. But Im warning you to stay away from my wife.

  I merely

  Well, dont, okay?

  There was a spasm of something in his face, not anger but doubt. Tessa felt her courage returning. Another perspective, thats all I want.

  Ask me, if youre so keen to know.

  I have asked you. I get nothing useful.

  Now Mead was his old self again. His lip curled. I dont do special favours. The information I give you is the same as the information I give the Melbourne and national media.

  Its public relations bullshit, thats what it is. I write my own stories, not a rehash of some press release. You still havent answered my specific allegations regarding falsified staffing levels and falsified reports being filed by your section heads. There are lots of irregularities that I intend to follow up on.

  Go your hardest.

  And what do you intend to do about the self-mutilations?

  Charlie Mead showed her his sharp teeth as he turned and walked away. My officers have all been offered trauma counselling.

  That was enough for Tessa. When she got home she fired up her laptop, a glass of red at her elbow, and began to trawl through the internet for what it could tell her about Charlie Mead.

  * * * *

  Vyner had driven back to Melbourne after burying Gent and stowing the shovel and his outer clothing in builders skips on the Nepean Highway. He showered, caught a movie, ate pasta at a sidewalk cafe on Southbank, and now was watching the late news on TV. Thank Christ thered been no further developments, no more clues found or anonymous callers to cause him a headache. He switched off and peered out at the night through a gap in the curtains he kept p
ermanently drawn. Tenth floor, but he didnt have one of the river and cityscape views, just views of wet streets and buildings reflecting light like panels of glass or ice. He shivered. No one was out there, but he could feel the world closing in a little. He got out his journal and wrote: Sing out the names of the lost ages. Uncover the warrior codes of the universe.

  That was all the boost he needed. He was ready when his mobile phone received a new text message.

  Sorted?

  Vyner sent back confirmation. Yes, the anonymous caller was dead and buried.

  * * * *

  Andy Asche knocked off a few beers in the main bar of the Fiddlers Creek pub after footy training and got home late evening to find Natalie Cobb pacing up and down in his sitting room, Jet blaring away on the CD player, pity the old pensioner who lived in the adjoining flat. She must have found his spare keyon top of the fuse box; hed have to re-think thatand let herself in. She was still wearing a suggestion of her Waterloo Secondary College uniform and it was clear to Andy that shed been choofing a weed or dosing herself with E or ice or speed since the burglary theyd pulled that afternoon, and was pretty hyper there in his sitting room.

  And paranoid. I think this cops wife is spying on me.

  Who?

  Sutton, a dee at Waterloo. Know him?

  Andy didnt know any of the detectives, or any of the uniforms except John Tankard, his footy coach. He went to the window and glanced out. Salmon Street was quiet, the bay dark and still beyond the mangrove flats. What about him?

  His wife works for Community Health, looks in on me and my sister and my mum, but I know shes a spy. Fucking cow.

  Pacing up and down, beautiful and agitated and stoned out of her brain. Listen, she went on, I need some dosh really badly.

  Already? What happened to the cash I gave you earlier?

  As if he didnt know.

  She doubled over then straightened, her fists tight against her breasts, beseeching him. Andy, please, cant we knock over another house?

  Not tonight we cant, he said firmly. People are watching TV, tucking the kids into bed. Besides, its too soon.

  Please, Andy. Ill pay ya back.

  In the end he scrounged up $100 and she slowed down enough to offer to do him with her mouth, her hands, even her feet if thats what he wanted. He smiled sadly. Its okay, Nat. You dont owe me anything. Listen, well pull another job tomorrow, okay?

  * * * *

  Where have you been? her husband demanded, the moment she set foot in the house.

  Ellen removed her scarf and jacket unhurriedly and hung them on a hook beside the back door. She checked the time on her watch, still drawing out her movements: almost 9.30. The interrogation of Robert McQuarrie had taken an hour, the drive back to Waterloowhere shed dropped Challisand then home had taken twenty minutes. She was in a severely contestable mood anyway, without her husband setting her off. Shed badly wanted to punish Robert McQuarrie, and didnt trust her feelings around Challis, which made her mad. And now here was Alan, getting right in her face.

  Interviewing a subject, she said, moving around him.

  I bet.

  Whats that supposed to mean? she said, stalking by him into the kitchen.

  You gave you-know-who a lift home, right? What, did he ask you in for a drink? Whip you up something to eat? Or maybe you stopped off somewhere first.

  Give it a rest.

  Her dinner, a congealed Thai curry from a can dolloped onto rice, sat mute and unloved on the table. The kitchentable, benches, sinkwas spotless. Ellen knew at once that she was expected to be full of praise and thanks. Instead, she wordlessly slid her plate into the microwave, set the timer and poured herself a glass of wine.

  So, were you?

  Was I what?

  Out with Challis, said Alan tightly.

  Yes.

  What did you do?

  I told you, we interviewed a subject. In Mount Eliza, if you must know.

  There was a pause, and into it Alan said, Did you have to give him a lift home afterwards?

  She enjoyed being obtuse. Who? The subject?

  His jaw and fists went tight, and it occurred to her that hed hit her if she pushed hard enough. She felt neutral about that right now, as though it were an unimportant hypothesis to be tested one day.

  Challis, he said in his strangled voice.

  She gave him a reprieve. Hes got a loan car.

  Unfortunately, she wanted to add.

  The microwave beeped and she fetched her plate, which hissed and steamed. Alan watched her eat. She wished he wouldnt.

  Like it?

  Not bad.

  I waited, but got hungry, he said innocently, and she reckoned that she was supposed to see him, in her minds eye, as boyish, vulnerable and uncomplicated again, the lad she married. She ate. She was ravenous.

  Saw the news. Still working the McQuarrie murder?

  Yes.

  Any contenders?

  A few.

  So no time off in the near future?

  No.

  I thought, he said, that we could go up to town, spend a night in the Windsor, catch up with Larrayne.

  In and of itself, this sounded like a pretty nice idea to Ellen, but her instincts told her that Alan was proposing it because he wanted to keep her away from Challis and remind her that she had family responsibilities. Wifely responsibilities. And because he didnt know her, or know her any more, he thought a romantic gesture would deflect her.

  Impossible at the moment, she said, draining her wine.

  Youre owed time off for yesterday. Ive got Friday off.

  Alan, were in the middle of a major inquiry.

  You and Challis.

  And the others, several others.

  He held up his hands placatingly. I just want you to look after yourself, thats allnot run yourself ragged.

  Yeah, right, Ellen thought.

  I mean, did you really have to rush off early this morning to pick up his highness? Why didnt he call for a taxi? Instead, you have to detour all that way and pick him up. Where does he live again?

  Ellen told him without thinking, then checked herself and eyed him closely. But her husband was a plausible man, a good actor, and was absentmindedly flicking through the cane basket of household accounts. God knew what fresh hell hed find there. She poured herself wine that she didnt really want but which would occupy her hands and mouth for a while.

  * * * *

  32

  They formed three teams and early on Thursday morning hit the surgeon, the accountant and the funds manager. Six oclock, no dawn light leaking into the sky yet, houses slumbering or only just stirring; an hour when heads are unclear and lips loose.

  Challis and Ellen heard later from Scobie Sutton and the Mornington detectives that the surgeon and the funds manager had displayed plenty of genuine shock, dismay and outrage, so it was clear they hadnt been tipped off by Robert McQuarrie. After the outrage had come shame and fear. They asked to be understood; they asked that their wives be spared the truth. The surgeon had attended the sex parties with his sister-in-law, the funds manager with his secretary. Their alibis were solid, and they confirmed that yes, theyd received photos of themselves in the post on Monday: no accompanying note, but, like Robert McQuarrie, theyd assumed someone at the Progress had sent the photographs and were fearful of blackmail and media exposure.

  The accountant was a different kettle of fish, nothing like Robert McQuarrie, the surgeon or the funds manager. His name was Hayden Coulter and he lived alone in a rammed-earth loft house on a slope above Penzance Beach. The driveway was narrow and the turning circle awkward, so Challis did what he always did in unfamiliar places and unknown circumstancesparked the car so that it faced the road and allowed him and Ellen an unimpeded escape route.

  Coulter greeted them at the door wearing a shirt and tie, trousers and carpet slippers. His face was clean and tight from the razor and there were comb tracks in his shower-wet hair. About forty, Challis guessed, and used to playi
ng his cards close to his chest. He regarded them expressionlessly, invited them in out of the cold.

  They followed him through to the kitchen, into the odours of fresh coffee and toast.

  Can I get you something?