by Garry Disher
Murph shot him a frown. He gave her one of his old looks, from back when they were partners in a patrol car, a look that said, ‘Bite me.’
Irritated, she returned her attention to Brownlee. ‘Did Ms Moon drug you and take away your clothes one night this week, Josh?’
The lawyer gaped and looked at her client, who shook his head carelessly. He’d recovered some of his cockiness. ‘Nah,’ he said coarsely. ‘Got drunk, that’s all, decided to have a swim in the nuddie and forgot where I put my clothes.’
‘Traces of the date-rape drug GHB were found in your system.’
That’s how she got his DNA, Tank thought.
‘I was partying. Must have taken it by mistake.’
‘It’s not shameful to admit you were taken advantage of, Josh.’
‘Wasn’t taken advantage of.’
‘I put it to you, Josh, that you intended to accost or even shoot Ms Moon, that you wanted to pay her back. What do you have to say to that?’
‘Bullshit.’
Josh had folded his arms stubbornly, the powerful emotions long gone. He seemed to have some control over this new issue being raised. The other matter, his brother, he’d had no control over.
‘The question is, Josh, why did she take advantage of you?’
‘She didn’t.’
‘Was it revenge? Revenge for something that happened to her?’
The solicitor said, ‘Where is this leading?’
‘It is alleged that Josh and his little pals raped one or more of the young townswomen last year. They considered these women to be an easy target—working class, uneducated, therefore of loose morals and no account. Except that Caz Moon surprised you, didn’t she, Josh?’
‘Constable, please,’ the lawyer said.
Josh said, ‘Where’s the evidence?’
‘So you’re not denying it?’ Pam demanded.
‘Where’s your evidence?’
That was a good question, and there it ended, with Josh Brownlee charged and bailed and likely to plead to mitigating circumstances for his rampage that morning.
* * * *
‘You okay, Murph?’ said Tank later. He’d tracked her down to the canteen, where she was drinking fucking peppermint tea with Cree. ‘Good job in there,’ he added, conscious that Cree was watching him.
She said, very distinctly, ‘Tank, when I am conducting an interview, kindly butt out, okay?’
Cree smiled then, nothing and everything in it, and edged his chair closer to Murph. Tank couldn’t bear to watch it. He couldn’t think of anything clever to say. Finally he asked, ‘Does his DNA tie him to any of the sex stuff?’
She sighed and pushed her mug of tea away. ‘Afraid not. But he was involved, I know he was.’
‘But you got him on the assault,’ Cree said. ‘It was brilliant, Pam, absolutely brilliant.’
Tank wanted to thump him. More so when Murph bumped shoulders with the prick and said, ‘Win some, lose some.’
* * * *
42
They thought she’d gone to search Josh Brownlee’s bedroom but Ellen Destry was knocking on the door of a house on the Seaview Estate in Waterloo, a small sign on the fence behind her, ‘Grant’s Gardening Services’.
‘Mr Grant?’
He was a generic blue-collar guy, with a shaven skull, face ruddy from beer and the sun’s rays, still dressed in his work wear of shorts and a T-shirt. The voice was metallic: ‘You got him.’
‘My name is Sergeant Destry, Waterloo police station.’
He looked alarmed. ‘Is it Tina?’
She smiled. ‘Nothing to be alarmed about, sir. I understand that you did gardening work for Mrs Ludmilla Wishart?’
The voice was less metallic as emotion gripped it. ‘Christ that was awful.’
Ellen fished inside her jacket. ‘This was found during a search of Mrs Wishart’s possessions.’
He took the envelope from her, opened it, peered at the invoice and the cash. ‘Well, I’ll be buggered.’
‘Sir?’
‘Didn’t think I’d ever get paid. The husband’s a prick, no offence, but his wife’s also been killed, so no way was I going to hassle him.’
Ellen nodded, sizing him up. A woman with a child on her cocked hip appeared behind Grant, smiled pleasantly, disappeared again, cooing to the child. The yard and garden beds were tidy, the work van clean. But appearances weren’t everything. ‘Who’s Tina?’
‘My oldest daughter. She’s at netball practice.’
Ellen nodded. ‘Sorry about this, Mr Grant, but may I ask your movements on Wednesday afternoon? It’s routine, we’re questioning everyone who came into contact with Mrs Wishart.’
‘No worries.’ He jerked his head. ‘Our youngest needs a cochlear implant. We were up in the city, five o’clock appointment.’ He gave her the details.
Ellen beamed. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Hey, no, thank you,’ Grant said.
Feeling marginally better, Ellen drove to Oliver’s Hill and searched Josh Brownlee’s bedroom fruitlessly in the waning light of late afternoon.
* * * *
As evening settled, Scobie Sutton took his daughter to the Jubilee Park netball courts in Frankston. The indoor courts this time, the stored-up air still and sweltering, the huge building having baked in the sun all day.
Ros played for the Tyabb Allstars, their uniform a shapeless, pale blue sleeveless top over an unflattering dark blue skirt. It seemed to Scobie that the very dowdiness of the uniform affected their ability to play well. They plodded around the court and fumbled the ball. Meanwhile their opponents, the Somerville Silhouettes, who wore close-fitting scarlet outfits with pert short skirts, were swift and decisive. They were also coquettish preeners.
Not an observation I can share with the netball mothers, Scobie thought. They’ll think I’m a dirty old man.
Not a reflection he could share with Beth, either; she wasn’t there.
‘Please come,’ he’d said.
‘Next time,’ she told him.
That had been at four o’clock, two hours ago. To his dismay, she’d still been in bed. He saw the future, Beth spending her life replacing one faith with another, continuing her drift away from husband and daughter. What the hell was he going to do? Who could he talk to? Her mother and sister? What would they think? Would they help?
‘Where’s Beth this evening?’ said one of the netball mothers.
They were all sitting on the tiered wooden seats, surrounded by schoolbags, bits and pieces of clothing, older and younger sisters, grandparents, sole parents, both parents, bottles of water from which the netballers took gasping swigs between quarters. What could he say in reply? The netball mothers were at the same time school mothers and town mothers, and knew everyone’s business. ‘I think she’s coming down with something,’ he said.
‘There’s a bug going around.’
Heart bug, thought Scobie. Soul bug. At that moment Ros threw a goal, surprising herself, surprising everyone, and the little dance she gave, of unalloyed joy on her skinny legs, made everything better for Scobie, just for a little while.
* * * *
By now it was fully dark. With a Mediterranean and a margarita from Westernport Pizza, the latest Batman DVD from Blockbuster, and a red wine from the drive-through bottle shop, Pam Murphy and Andrew Cree were chilling out in Pam’s sitting room, Andy temporarily back in his boxer shorts, Pam in a thigh-length T-shirt. The pizzas had got cold; they’d lost interest in the film. Already the bed was beckoning again; or the sofa or the carpet. Andy yawned. His head was in Pam’s lap, his bare neck and shoulders against her bare thigh, a major distraction and a reminder that your senses matter. It seemed to Pam that for months, years, all she’d done was apply her brain to catching a crim or solving a crime. Yeah, she tested her body every day, but only in the sense that it was a machine, a police machine. Her sense of herself as a sensory being had atrophied. All those moist smells, textures and elasticities that she’d denied her
self for too long.
When the film credits came up, she pressed the eject button on the remote. She had her wine glass in her other hand. She wished that she had a third hand. She wanted to stroke the lock of fine hair away from Andy’s forehead or feel around inside his boxers. ‘Switch off? Watch some TV?’
‘You choose.’
He turned his head and kissed her stomach just as she switched over to the TV. It was the late news and Josh Brownlee’s arrest.
‘I wish I could get him on rape as well.’
‘Who?’ Andy murmured, nuzzling her, raising goosebumps. He glanced at the TV. ‘Oh, that guy. You got him for bashing Roe. Forget the rape.’
‘You can’t forget a rape.’
They were silent, lost in separate thoughts. Andy said, ‘I bet he was trying to prove himself.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘His brother’s a poofter, right? He’s scared he’s a poofter, too, so he tries it on with this Caz chick.’
Pam said mildly, ‘I think it was a bit more than that, Andy.’
‘Whatever.’
Pam chewed on the inside of her mouth, thinking about Josh Brownlee. She wanted someone to pay for the rapes. Caz Moon’s act of revenge wasn’t enough. At the same time, she wanted to hate Josh Brownlee more comprehensively, but Lachlan Roe, with his evil and harmful ideas, kept getting in the way of that. She wished that she could be more like Andy Cree and not care.
She switched off the TV, drained her wine glass and, with her free hand, started fooling around again, making up for lost time.
* * * *
John Tankard was manning the front desk that evening, and he was clock watching. ‘At dead on eight o’clock I’m out of here,’ he told a couple of the uniformed guys, who were hanging around, shooting the breeze. They were about to go on duty, which mostly meant ensuring that the schoolies didn’t drown in their own vomit.
‘You could come and ride with us, Tank.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘We know you’re up for it, Tank. When those schoolie chicks get on the piss they’re gasping for a screw.’
Not the ones Tank had encountered during the week—or not gasping to do it with him, anyway. ‘I need some shuteye,’ he said.
‘Mate, it’s Friday night.’
Eventually Tank was alone. The night looked smeared and half lit outside the glass entry doors. Shadows flickered past; he heard a hotted-up car lay down some rubber at the roundabout; someone whistled somewhere in the dim reaches of the building. He didn’t think he’d ever felt as lonely as he did right now, and he knew that a lot of it had to do with Andrew Cree and Pam Murphy. He flicked through Police Life tormentedly and then a guy came barging in, young, with pudgy hands and face, cropped hair, a soul patch under soft, moist lips. You looked at him and knew his voice would have a whine running through it.
‘Help you, sir?’
Then Tank recognised him. Dirk Roe. ‘Help you, Mr Roe?’
Roe said, ‘Check this out.’
He was the kind of guy who owns the latest electronic gizmo. He thrust a Blackberry at Tank, the screen showing that it was logged on to the Internet.
‘I’m going to do you cunts for this.’
Tank, peered, wondering—not for the first time—whether or not he needed glasses. Eventually he realised that he was looking at an image of Lachlan Roe, lying in a pool of blood.
‘That’s my brother,’ Dirk said. ‘That is a crime scene photo, splashed all over the Web.’
‘Not by us, sir,’ said Tank stoutly. ‘Not by the police.’
‘Bullshit! Who else could it be?’
‘A pedestrian walking by...’Tank said, going on to list some other plausible but unlikely culprits, all the time knowing exactly who.
* * * *
Bronte-Mae McBride was like, so wasted. She’d gone to Point Leo with a gang of other schoolies, partly because Waterloo was the pits, partly to try twilight surfing. So they’d got there, they’d staggered over the dunes, losing half their gear along the way, it felt like, but now all they wanted to do was chill out, swig bourbon and coke from a can, snuggle under blankets, pass a joint around. Bronte-Mae had to go home tomorrow. Her parents had lined up a summer job for her, starting Sunday, helping out at Rebel Sport in Frankston. If her Year 12 results were okay, she’d start at RMIT next year, Occupational Health. So this was her last night and she wanted it to be memorable, she wanted it to mean something.
She found herself kissing that guy Matt from Landseer. Given that she was perhaps the last eighteen-year-old virgin in the history of humankind, and this was her last night, and he was so nice and such a good kisser, and the moon was shining on the water, she shifted her body so that his hand could slip inside her pants. It felt so good. Then her hand was inside his pants and before she could properly explore what a cock felt like, and mark this milestone, he was breathing funnily and her hand was sticky. He gasped, ‘Sorry!’ and she hugged him for all she was worth.
The others might or might not have noticed. Either way, did she want an audience if this was going to go any further? ‘Let’s find a quieter spot,’ she whispered.
So they headed along the beach toward Shoreham, to a dark hollow, where he made love to her properly this time, and it was magical, not clinical, despite the condom business, there under the moon and stars.
‘What’s this?’ said Matt at one point.
‘Matt, it’s a breast.’
‘No, this.’
A small cloth bag half hidden by driftwood.
* * * *
43
Hal Challis hadn’t yet seen Ellen Destry in all of her phases. Their situation was too new for that. The things he did know about her he’d learned over the years and they were constant: she was beautiful; she was an efficient and creative work colleague; she was fearless, loyal, smart, quick and proud. And more recently he’d discovered the shifting contours of her bare skin, the little cries she uttered, and the swiftly changing moods and expressions when she was at her most intense and intimate: a kind of surrender, bawdiness, a delight in taking charge, selflessness...
But when he’d called her from his car late that Friday afternoon to suggest they eat at the Thai restaurant in Waterloo, she said no curtly, saying she had dinner under control, and when he arrived home she barely inclined her cheek for a kiss but continued to hack at chicken breasts and add them to a bowl of marinade. He’d scarcely seen her all day. He’d missed her. But the tension was palpable. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me.’
Instead she washed her hands and began to slice cloves of garlic, and within seconds her thumb was bleeding and she was shouting, ‘Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’
‘Wash it under the tap.’
She scowled furiously but complied.
‘What’s wrong, Ellen?’
‘Nothing.’ Then: ‘I never know where anything is in this place.’
Hovering in the doorway, he decided to take the reply at face value. ‘What are you looking for?’
She turned to him with a ragged expression. ‘What am I looking for?’
‘Yes.’
Whatever it was had nothing to do with where he kept his garlic crusher. He waited. She examined her thumb and said, ‘Forget it. Sorry I snapped.’
‘Did something happen today?’
‘Hal, forget it, okay?’
His heart said to cross the room and wrap his arms around her. His head told him to wait. He left the kitchen and found a bandaid in the medicine cabinet. While he pasted it over her thumb she stood stiff and mute, then returned to her chopping board. He sighed unconsciously, poured her a glass of Merricks Creek pinot and left it at her elbow. She glanced at the wine, sniffled, said nothing, but some tiny realignment of her body seemed to signal appreciation, and so Challis wandered through to the sitting room and tried to think his way into his CD collection. What would match her mood just then, her present needs? He settled on Eric Clapto
n Unplugged.
Anyhow, he needed it.
No protests from the kitchen.
He spread his Wishart case notes over the coffee table and flipped through them half-heartedly. It was no good, his mood was shot.
He wondered if she felt trapped. They hadn’t been together for long but she’d had some months of freedom between her divorce and setting up house with him. And she hadn’t actually chosen to set up house with him: she’d been minding his place while he tended to his dying father in South Australia last month, and had simply stayed on when he returned.
