by Garry Disher
‘So you’ve talked to this bozo.’
Sutton tensed in his chair and said, ‘I tried to talk to him about Beth.’
Challis went cold. ‘Where were you last night, Scobie?’
Sutton jumped. ‘At home with Roslyn.’
His twelve-year-old daughter. ‘Where was your wife?’
‘At the Chillout Zone, handing pamphlets to schoolies.’
Challis guessed that these alibis could be verified pretty easily. Meanwhile he was starting to wonder how many other Scobie Suttons were out there, men and women who had the inclination to harm Lachlan Roe for taking away their loved ones. ‘Scobie, I’ll ask again, did you assault him?’
Sutton was so appalled that Challis believed it. ‘Me? How could you say that? How could you even think it?’
‘All right, settle down. But you did try to talk to him about your wife. When was that?’
‘A few weeks ago.’
‘So Roe’s a preacher, but how the hell did he become school chaplain at a place like Landseer?’
Sutton shrugged. ‘The Ascensionists are pretty low profile. And respectable—doctors, teachers, local business people...’
‘How does Dirk fit into all this?’
‘He’s less fanatical than Lachlan, but they are brothers,’ Sutton said.
That wasn’t what Challis meant. ‘Maybe it suits these people for Lachlan to be based at that school, and Dirk in Ollie Hindmarsh’s electoral office.’
Scobie Sutton looked all at sea. His take on the situation was small, personal and domestic, and here was his boss floating a conspiracy theory. ‘Don’t know, boss,’ he muttered.
Challis jack-knifed forward. ‘All right. So what are they doing with your e-mail address?’
‘It’s Beth. She’s trying to get me to come across to the Ascensionists, and so now I keep getting all these awful e-mails.’
Challis shook his head slowly. ‘Mate, you’re in a pickle.’
Scobie Sutton began to weep. ‘I’m at my wits’ end.’
‘What I don’t understand is why you called Dirk to the scene this morning.’
Scobie was mildly astonished. ‘But his brother was hurt. Naturally he’d want to help him.’
Challis breathed in and out. God save him from good people. ‘Scobie, I hope you can see that I can’t have you working this case. Your judgment is shot, and you’re a potential suspect.’
‘Boss, please.’
‘We’ve plenty of other cases that need attention.’
‘Yeah, right, a serious spate of ride-on mower theft.’
‘Constable,’ Challis barked.
‘Sir. But sir, can’t I continue the doorknock, work on the periphery?’
‘No. I can’t rely on you to be neutral and alert. And cancel that e-mail address, get yourself another one.’
‘Boss,’ said Sutton miserably.
‘What happens to the congregation if Lachlan dies?’
Scobie blinked and said ‘Don’t know,’ but his gaze also flickered, indicating that he’d thought about it. Challis read his mind. Scobie hoped that Lachlan would die so that the Ascensionists would fall apart and he’d get his wife back. He felt guilty about that desire—but not too guilty.
‘I mean it, Scobie. You stay out of this.’
‘Boss.’
* * * *
By now it was noon. Challis called Ellen Destry at the Landseer School and told her about finding the White Pride e-mail and Dirk Roe’s blog. ‘Couple of sweethearts, the Roe brothers,’ he said.
‘That concurs with what I’m finding here,’ Ellen replied. ‘I’m still interviewing but the feedback’s pretty consistent: Lachlan Roe was loathed by pretty much everyone. The kids who did go to see him said he didn’t give guidance or advice, just made them get down on their knees and pray for forgiveness—when he wasn’t making sexual innuendoes, that is. The staff are convinced he was hired to please Ollie Hindmarsh. Do you think Hindmarsh knows what the guy was like?’
‘I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Briefing in the pub at six o’clock?’
‘Count me in.’
Challis mused for a while on the notion of blogs, Dirk Roe’s in particular. What had happened to privacy? Dignity, restraint—none of that had meaning to the cyberspace generation. Anyone could run a blog, every half-baked, boring or vicious thought, feeling or grievance out there for all to see. Maybe you don’t feel the normal human restraints of self-consciousness and embarrassment sitting alone at a keyboard in a dark corner. Maybe it all seems instantaneous, ephemeral. But their words could come back to bite them and anyone associated with them.
Like Ollie Hindmarsh, thought Challis with a grin.
He checked with the hospital, learned that Dirk was still at his brother’s bedside, and headed there in his rattly Triumph.
‘No change?’
‘None,’ said Dirk, sounding like a man oddly pleased to find himself at centre stage for a while.
Challis decided to wipe the smug look from the young man’s face. ‘This material,’ he said, ‘originating from you, was found on your brother’s computer.’
One by one he dropped the printouts into Roe’s lap. Roe grew panicky, first recoiling as if he’d been soiled, then scrunching the pages together.
‘Go ahead,’ Challis said, ‘I’ve made copies.’
‘Please.’
‘Please what?’
‘I can explain.’
Dirk was young, soft-looking, still unformed. As if he had no character traits, only impulses. ‘So, explain,’ said Challis.
‘It doesn’t mean anything. It’s only a joke.’
‘Not everyone would think so.’
‘I shut down the blog this morning, honest.’
‘How long has it been running?’
‘Only a month.’
‘Long enough to offend people.’
Roe tried to muster principles and dignity in the antiseptic air. ‘Look, I was expressing a few home truths, that’s all—nothing wrong with that.’
‘Did you receive any threats in return?’
‘No.’
‘Angry posts to your blog, phone calls, letters, knocks on the door?’
‘Nothing like that.’
‘How involved was Lachlan?’
They both looked at the blanched, wasted face of the brother. ‘Not very.’
‘I saw at least one post from him on your blog.’
Dirk shrugged his soft, round shoulders. ‘Now and then, when he had something important to add.’
‘Important,’ said Challis, his face, voice and eyes as flat and hard as stones. ‘This e-mail—’
‘I didn’t write it! It was sent to me!’
‘But you forwarded it to dozens of others.’
Roe slumped. His face under the gelled spikes was pink and rounded, like a boy’s. Sweat beaded his upper lip and forehead. ‘Leave me alone. I didn’t do anything.’
‘Where were you last night?’
‘Kaos, in Frankston, ask anybody.’
Kaos was a club where twenty-somethings like Dirk Roe ruined their livers and eardrums. It also had excellent camera surveillance of the dance floors, bars and inner and outer doors. ‘What time did you get home?’
Dirk shifted. ‘I went home with someone, stayed the night.’
‘I’ll need name, address and phone number.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Your parents. They were strict, weren’t they?’ said Challis, guessing.
Dirk’s jaw dropped. ‘How did you know?’
‘Strict, devout, everything regimented...’
Roe shifted in his seat. ‘I don’t see what...’
‘Did your father beat you and your brother?’
Challis saw from Roe’s face that it was true. ‘What about your mother?’
‘They were strict, so what?’
‘What did you and your brother fall out over?’
‘Fall out? Who told you that? Over what?’
C
hallis shrugged. ‘His new church. The fact that he had a following. The fact that he’s older and more successful.’
‘I’m successful.’
Challis always looked for the chinks and opened them up. ‘You’re a jumped-up office manager.’
‘Yeah—for the Leader of the Opposition, who gave you a hard time on the phone this morning.’
‘Who would sack you in a heartbeat if he knew about your blog.’
At least, Challis hoped that were true. There were men and women in Hindmarsh’s party who would probably like to adopt it as the official party position.
‘Please, I closed it down.’
Challis shook his head wearily. ‘You didn’t think, did you?’ he said as he left the room and returned to the station.
* * * *
11
Tankard’s and Cree’s first call-out after the Lachlan Roe assault scene was a suspicious car in Somerville. ‘The Hoon Hotline called it in,’ said the dispatcher.
‘Wow,’ said Cree. ‘A car parked across some old biddy’s driveway, driver and passenger asleep inside. I mean, can I stand the excitement?’
‘They could be casing the joint,’ Tank said, replacing the handset and settling back in the passenger seat of the divisional van.
‘What’s this Hoon Hotline anyway?’
Tank decided not to let Cree get to him. ‘The guys in Traffic Management set it up. We had hoons running riot every night. Speeding, drag racing, burnouts, generally terrorising everyone. Now all the locals have to do is call the hotline. We show up and lay down the law, on-the-spot fines, driving charges. Confiscate the car sometimes,’ he said. ‘It works.’
The Somerville address was a cul-de-sac. They found a red Holden SS Crewman parked across the driveway of number 7, the tattooed and shaven-headed driver and passenger asleep or stoned. Tank called in the plate number, listened, and beamed at Cree. The vehicle was stolen.
The cameras, mobile phones and laptops inside it proved to be stolen, too. You have to laugh sometimes, thought Tank as he made the arrests. In his experience, most criminals were like the guys in the red Crewman: complete morons. They thought they could lose the police helicopter if they drove faster. They’d cruise around with a broken taillight, and a dead body or a kilo of heroin in the boot. They’d assume the police surrounding their house at 5 a.m. would go away if they ignored the doorbell. They didn’t seem to understand that there were good reasons why the family next door owned a plasma TV and they didn’t; or that actions had consequences.
‘I wonder how their minds work sometimes,’ he said, as he and Cree returned to Waterloo and booked the hungover duo.
Cree gave him a cryptic look and smile. ‘Exactly.’
Stopping for coffee in the canteen they saw Pam Murphy in the distance, sitting with other female officers. Cree said over the steam from his cup, ‘You ever noticed how this joint’s crawling with women?’
‘Not really.’
‘How to get ahead in the Victoria Police,’ Cree said, watching him. ‘Grow a pair of tits.’
Suspecting a trap, Tankard ignored the remark. He knew he could be a bit of a dinosaur, but the women he worked with—his old partner Murph, bosses like Ellen Destry—they’d earned some respect over the years.
Maybe all Cree saw was the dinosaur? Tank sighed. The day stretched miserably ahead. At least I’m not scared of the dark, he thought.
They were scarcely out of the station, Cree driving again, when the dispatcher directed them to a disturbance at the Benton Square shopping centre on the other side of the Peninsula.
‘Yeah, that makes sense,’ Cree said, ‘sending Waterloo cops to fight crime in Mornington. The Mornington boys are sent to Waterloo, I suppose.’
Tank continued to ignore him, but the guy had a point. Police resources hadn’t kept pace with change on the Peninsula. The population levels had soared, but not police staffing levels or budgets. The result was abysmal response times, with some minor crimes like burglaries attended to days late or not at all, and no money to buy, maintain or upgrade equipment. You couldn’t even go to the supply room and expect to find a ballpoint pen or a set of batteries for a crime scene camera. The twelve detectives stationed at Rosebud and Mornington had the use of only two unmarked cars between them, complicated by the fact that each shift employed four or five detectives, each working his or her own caseload, or needing to attend court. No wonder follow-up visits, surveillance and evidence-gathering suffered. Tank, eyes closed, let the mild spring sunshine warm him through the glass.
But Cree never shut up for long. ‘Mickey Mouse policing.’
Tank opened his eyes. In profile, Cree’s features were perfectly proportioned, probably heart-stopping to the women. ‘Not like the big city, right?’
‘You said it.’
Tank slumped gloomily against his door, missing Pam Murphy. But it was early days. Maybe Cree’s larrikin grin would grow on him. Maybe the guy would pull his finger out. Not that Tank himself was the kind of copper to go above and beyond the call of duty, but at ten minutes to knockoff yesterday afternoon Cree had refused to book a guy for public drunkenness, saying the paperwork would eat into their leisure time. Tank didn’t want to get into the habit of letting his new partner take shortcuts like that.
He directed Cree off the Peninsula freeway and east toward Mount Martha, through farmland that was being gobbled up by housing estates, all of the new houses breathing over each other, robbing the air, breeding domestic misery and truancy. Like the kids who terrorised shoppers at Benton Square. This wasn’t the first time Tank had encountered them. They roamed in packs and liked to surround drivers attempting to enter or leave the carpark. Anyone who remonstrated was punched and abused or had their headlights smashed.
Tank wound his window down as Cree steered into the shopping centre. He could hear shouting. ‘There,’ he said, pointing.
A clump of people, some of them shaking fists and pushing and shoving each other near a car that had stalled at an awkward angle, one wheel up on the kerb outside the plate glass window of a bakery. An elderly man sat on the kerb nearby, holding his head in his hands.
Cree braked sharply and piled out, pushing through, sending bystanders reeling. Tank followed; he was a big man, overweight, and getting in and out of the divisional van always slowed him down. He elbowed his way to where two men held a teenage boy to the ground, one on his legs, the other on his shoulders.
‘Okay,’ Cree shouted, ‘what gives?’
His right hand was on the holster of his .38 revolver. His mobile phone was in his left. Jesus, Tank thought, and nudged him aside.
‘Thank you, gentlemen, we’ll take it from here.’
‘The little bastard almost caused an accident,’ said one of the men. ‘We made a citizens’ arrest.’
‘Yeah,’ said the other man.
The people milling about them shouted, ‘Doing your job for you,’ amongst other things.
Then a woman came barrelling through, screaming, ‘I’ll have the lot of you up for assaulting my boy.’
Tank closed his eyes. The paperwork when all of this was sorted would take hours. With any luck, no one would press charges. With any luck, the boy would get a fright, start attending school again, become a model citizen.
And so the morning progressed. Next up was a broken shop window back in Waterloo. Apparently a nineteen-year-old had been ejected from the Waterloo Arms the previous night and taken it out on the neighbouring hairdressing salon. ‘Go figure,’ Tank murmured. The hairdresser was less sanguine. ‘This is the third time in eighteen months, four grand each time to replace the glass, who’s going to insure me now? Why the hell can’t you patrol High Street regularly? Why can’t you install CCTV?’
Good point, Tank thought, scribbling in his notebook while Cree chatted up a young redhead who was cutting an old woman’s hair.
After that, a burglary in Penzance Beach, no signs of forced entry. ‘It has me baffled,’ the homeowner said. She was old, t
rembly, distressed.
It didn’t baffle Tank for long. He took one look at the dog—a huge, ancient Labrador, and another at the big dog flap on the back door and informed Cree that the man they wanted was Ricky DaSilva.
‘How do you know?’
