Signal Loss

by Garry Disher

  Challis looked at her with interest. She’s not going to leave me any cases to run, he thought. ‘Are these men known to use firearms?’

  ‘Not really. Knives, fists, blunt instruments.’ She tapped at her iPad and swung it around in a slow semicircle. ‘Their mugshots.’

  She finished at John Tankard, who took a moment before saying, ‘That’s them.’

  ‘To be clear: these are the two men you saw at the house in Moonta last Friday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She swung the screen back to Pam Murphy. ‘And neither man is Owen Valentine?’

  ‘Correct.’

  Coolidge turned to Sutton. ‘Their names are Stephen Pym and Elliot Lovelock. Their DNA is on file, so we need the profiles from the dead men as soon as possible to see if there’s a match.’

  Pam Murphy said, ‘Scobie, you didn’t find a body in the boot of the car by any faint chance?’

  ‘No.’

  She said to the room, ‘A lot of unanswered questions. If Owen Valentine isn’t one of the dead men, we still need to find him. And where does Hauser fit in? Were our heroes hired to kill both of them?’

  ‘I’m strongly inclined to take over both investigations,’ Coolidge said, ‘but my team is stretched enough as it is and we have a big surveillance operation this weekend, so for now I suggest we continue to run parallel investigations: the drug angle from our end, the murder et cetera from your end.’

  No promise that she would share information, Challis noticed. He said, ‘Meanwhile we don’t know that these men did anything to Valentine. He might already have cleared out when they arrived. After all, they killed Hauser at his house and left his body there, so why not Valentine?’

  ‘We need a thorough search of that house,’ Coolidge said. ‘Senior Constable Tankard, describe exactly what you saw when you answered the disturbance call.’

  Tank inclined his head at Coolidge’s iPad. ‘I saw those two men, Pym and Lovelock, in the garage at the side of the house.’

  ‘And their car was there? The Mercedes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you search the car?’

  Still uncomfortable and looking around the room for assistance, John Tankard said, ‘There was no reason to.’

  ‘Nothing that you could see inside the car? Nothing in the boot?’

  ‘The boot was closed. Tinted windows, but I wasn’t really looking, sorry.’

  Coolidge’s look scorched him. ‘What were the men doing?’

  ‘Like I said, it looked like they’d spilled some paint. I got the impression it was a do-it-yourself gone wrong, hence the yelling and swearing the neighbour complained about.’

  Challis said, ‘Which neighbour?’

  ‘Forgotten her name. Elderly, from Melbourne, comes down most weekends. Her house backs onto Valentine’s.’

  ‘So she wouldn’t have seen anything, just heard shouting?’

  Tankard shrugged.

  Challis was decisive. ‘We get a warrant and search the house, the shed, the yard and any vehicle from top to bottom. We want anything that will tell us more about the whereabouts of Owen Valentine, but bear in mind that we also need to find Christine Penford’s daughter. He turned to Sutton. ‘Scobie, concentrate on the garage, and if possible obtain DNA for the dog, the missing girl and Owen Valentine.’

  ‘The girl?’ said Sutton, appalled.

  Challis didn’t have time for his feelings. ‘DNA, fingerprints and/or photographs.’

  ‘You think…’ said Sutton.

  Coolidge leaned forward to stare at him pityingly. ‘He thinks she’s dead, okay?’

  Then she stood, gathering her files. ‘I’ll meet you at the house.’

  18

  TOLD THAT THE WARRANT would be ready by mid-morning, Pam Murphy clattered downstairs, signed out the ring of car and house keys in the possession of Christine Penford at the time of the arrest, then grabbed coffee and an apple from the canteen, and returned to CIU. Passing Challis’s office, she saw Coolidge there, leaning towards him, animated and sparkling, Challis leaning back from her, hands laced behind his head. A half-smile on his face, but Pam read strain in it. ‘Don’t like your chances, Serena,’ she sang, unheard by anybody.

  She caught up on e-mails, wrote some notes and an action list based on the briefing, and then Serena Coolidge was standing before her desk, some kind of tension under the cynicism and amusement. ‘When you’re ready, Constable.’

  ‘We have our warrant?’

  ‘We do,’ Coolidge said. ‘Lead the way. My team will follow.’

  PAM SIGNED FOR THE CIU car and walked past John Tankard and Janine Quine outside the door leading to the car park, surrounded by cigarette butts. Snatching a lungful, Tank was saying, ‘Jan, he needs counselling.’

  ‘I know,’ Quine replied, jetting smoke from her slash of a mouth as if she had seconds to live.

  Tank took another drag. ‘He’s got to get his act together.’

  ‘I know,’ Quine muttered.

  Pam looked around for the CIU car, which was never parked in its allotted space. She could see Scobie Sutton and his assistant waiting beside the crime-scene van and Coolidge and a drug-squad senior constable heading for their unmarked Commodore as though they had countries to invade. She pressed the unlock button on the ignition key. A chirping sound came from the hidden side of a rubbish skip. It all seemed to sum up her day.

  MURPHY LED THE LITTLE POLICE cavalcade out of Waterloo and north-east around Westernport Bay towards Moonta and its huddled dwellings. Only the Penford–Valentine house was out of place, with its parched lawn, dead pot plants and peeling paint. The car shed door yawned open, further adding to the sense of desertion and desolation.

  Murphy parked, the drug-squad car pulling in to the kerb behind her, the crime-scene van into the driveway. When they’d assembled and dragged on crime-scene suits and footwear, Coolidge marched across the miserable grass and onto the concrete front step. She hammered on the door.

  Waste of time, thought Pam. Penford’s in the lockup, Valentine’s in the wind. She jangled the keys. ‘Senior Sergeant? Keys?’

  That earned her a scowl. Coolidge stepped back onto the lawn, strode towards Murphy and grabbed the keys. Then she was letting herself into the house and Sutton was calling after her, ‘Please don’t touch anything.’

  Coolidge’s voice floated back, ‘I know my job.’

  Sutton muttered, ‘And so do I.’

  He was overheard by Coolidge’s offsider, who sauntered after his boss, giving them an apologetic shrug.

  Pam touched Sutton’s sleeve. ‘I’ll keep an eye on them, Scobie. Maybe you could start with the garage?’

  They walked in and eyed the paint spill, thick, white, puckered. Sutton’s assistant said, ‘It doesn’t look like anyone tried to clean it up.’

  ‘True, and you have to ask what use a tin of paint would be to two hit-men who’ve driven here all the way from Sydney.’

  Pam crouched at the spill, keeping half a metre back from the ragged edges. It seemed to her that very little of the original floor showed after years of tracked-in beach sand, oil and grease spills, dust and dirt, drifts of dead leaves and pine needles, old wood and iron shavings…And now spilt—or poured—paint. A few more days, she thought, and the paint spill would have grown its own patina of filth and not have warranted anyone’s attention.

  ‘Covering evidence is one logical answer.’

  Sutton crouched with her, poked experimentally at the paint spill with a gloved finger, then looked up at his crime-scene technician. ‘Kristen, I’ll deal with this. I want you to find anything that will give us DNA for the dog, Owen Valentine and a six-year-old girl.’

  ‘Boss.’

  Pam followed the technician into the house. Ignoring the drug-squad officers, who were sifting through bills, letters and receipts in the kitchen and the sitting room, she did a quick walk-through. The house seemed unchanged from her earlier visit, but with an overlay of desperation that she couldn’t i
dentify. It was the house of people who’d struggled and failed.

  The children’s bedroom contained two single beds, one blue, one pink, each with a little bedside cupboard, and a thin wardrobe crammed with dresses, jeans and T-shirts. Footwear on the bottom, one tiny pair of blue trainers, a larger pair of pink; tiny blue gumboots, slightly larger pink gumboots. Kristen the crime-scene tech was there, a crackly, plump shape in her forensic suit, slipping a hairbrush into an evidence bag. ‘The girl’s?’ Pam said.

  ‘In this drawer,’ the woman replied, pointing to a little cupboard beside the pink bed.

  ‘Toothbrush?’

  ‘I’ll look, don’t worry.’

  ‘Sorry, you know your job.’

  The woman smiled. ‘That’s okay. I used to be in CIU too, same as Scobie. It’s impatience. You’re on the scent.’

  Pam returned the smile. ‘I’ll see if I can find any photos.’

  She wandered through to the main bedroom. The covers had been carelessly pulled over the bottom sheet and pillows. She flung them back, seeing grimy cotton flecked with blood and what she guessed was semen. She’d seen it before, blood on bedding. Addicts injecting their inner thighs. Or scratching at tormented arms and legs.

  Nothing under the mattress or the pillows. Nothing of note in the wardrobe or bedside cupboards.

  Coolidge was in the doorway, her trademark silent materialisation. ‘Find anything?’

  ‘Not yet. You?’

  ‘We found a little dope in a freezer bag.’

  Pam nodded. ‘The thing is, would an addict who decided to go on the run leave anything behind?’

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’

  Pam turned for a final glance around the room. A shelf had been bolted to the wall above the terrible bed. It was crammed with tiny framed photographs, brightly painted dishes the size of doll-set saucers, a couple of cheap glass necklaces piled untidily with ribbons and hair scrunchies. She reached behind the worst of the clutter and retrieved a photograph. It showed a small girl, a big grin and a missing tooth.

  She proffered it to Coolidge. ‘If I’m not mistaken, she’s wearing the clothes we found at the meth lab.’

  An expression passed over Coolidge’s face. Pity? Anger? Anguish? It was there and gone and Coolidge said, ‘Well, good luck finding her.’

  Then Kristen called, ‘Got something.’

  They found her in the bathroom, sealing toothbrushes in separate evidence bags. She pointed to the floor, showing that she’d removed the cheap patterned vinyl bath surround. Nestled into the cavity under the bath’s curved underside were two shotguns.

  Coolidge rounded on Pam. ‘What do you really know about Valentine. You sure he doesn’t go armed?’

  Pam flushed. ‘He doesn’t have a record. Until he assaulted a local man several days ago, he hadn’t come to our attention at all.’

  Coolidge scowled at the guns. ‘Maybe he’s made a career change.’

  ‘Maybe, but I think he’s just a junkie burglar with a sideline, stealing firearms from rural properties.’

  Coolidge glared at her, glared at the shotguns. ‘Let’s hope you’re right.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ Pam said.

  When Coolidge had wandered off, she noted the serial numbers before slipping each shotgun into an evidence bag. Logged them into evidence and went outside to breathe the briny air briefly before following up on possible sightings of Christine Penford’s daughter.

  19

  AT FRIDAY MORNING’S SEX-CRIMES briefing, Ellen Destry said, ‘This is what we know so far,’ and wrote average height on the board. Turning back to her crew she said, ‘What else?’

  They fed her the identifiers one by one and she listed them:

  Slim build

  Manual labourer?

  Age—30s

  Balaclava

  Jeans, T-shirt, dirty running shoes

  Uses material to hand

  Graduated from burglary?

  That done, she said, ‘Not much to go on, but I think a picture is emerging. We’ve found a rape and burglary victim case from six months ago in which the attacker supplied his own tape and knife from a bag that probably contained break-and-enter tools. If the same man was responsible for the rapes of Wreidt and Sligo, then he seems to have evolved, no longer bringing a weapon or tape with him but threatening his victims with their own kitchen knives and binding them with their own scarves or tights.’

  Katsoulas put up her hand. ‘Convenience, or he doesn’t want to explain a knife and gaffer tape if he gets pulled over by the police.’

  Ellen shrugged. ‘Or both.’

  ‘But he’s still a burglar; he does steal from these women.’

  ‘Yes, small items.’

  ‘So he goes equipped with burglary tools.’

  ‘But not necessarily specialist burglary tools. No one’s going to view an ordinary pry bar in a toolbox in the back of a work vehicle as suspicious.’

  They pondered that, trying to picture the man. Judd said, ‘He is evolving, though. The rape has become the primary objective, not the thieving.’

  Ellen nodded. ‘I imagine he still gets a kick out of breaking in and stealing, but now there’s the waiting, the anticipation, and finally the rape itself.’

  ‘And the stalking, if that’s what he’s doing,’ Judd said.

  ‘Good point.’

  Ellen told them more about Jess Guthrie. ‘There may be earlier victims, or others around the same time, but in this case the victim was home alone one workday afternoon recovering from a dental procedure, and was woken by a sound that she believes was her attacker prising open a sliding glass door at the back of the house. She was groggy, she was easily overcome. We have the DNA profile, but as yet there’s no match in the system.’

  ‘Normally she would have been at work?’ said Rykert.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, an opportunistic rape. He was there to burgle the house.’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘He got a kick out of it and wanted to do it again.’

  ‘If it’s the same man, yes. And in the more recent attacks, and might-have-been incidents, we have him waiting inside for the victim to come home. And threatening her with her own kitchen knife and tying her up with her own clothing.’

  ‘Or it’s not the same man,’ Rykert said.

  Ellen nodded. ‘Naturally we have to consider that. But I haven’t finished detailing the similarities.’

  She turned to the whiteboard and added:

  Bad smell

  Bathed the victims

  Cosy chat

  ‘Body odour?’ said Katsoulas.

  ‘Bad breath.’

  ‘Washing away his DNA?’

  ‘Yes, but it also goes further than that, as if he thinks he’s showing care and consideration. Similarly with the chat afterwards. One victim said he warned her to be more careful in future, another that he suggested they could meet up again.’

  Ellen turned to the whiteboard and added:

  Fantasises about a relationship

  Her writing hand fell to her thigh as if weighed by a brick. ‘But don’t be fooled by the nurturing. He’s still aware that he’s done something wrong and could be caught for it.’

  Returning to the board she wrote:

  ‘Count to one hundred after I leave’

  They were scribbling down their own versions of her list, and she watched them, their bent heads, almost with fondness. ‘Now, his MO,’ she said. ‘He seems to have perfected this method: break in, bag up a few valuables, wait in hiding for his victim to come home, grab her from behind, threaten her with a knife, bind and gag her, cut off her clothes, rape or attempt to rape her.’

  Judd cocked his head. ‘Attempt?’

  ‘It’s possible he has difficulty obtaining or keeping an erection.’

  Katsoulas said, ‘Heroin user?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘One day,’ Katsoulas said, ‘his failure to perform will turn him vicious. He’ll hit or stab someone,
maybe even kill them.’

  ‘Which could become a new thrill on top of the old one,’ Ellen said.

  Judd had been sitting there with his arms folded. ‘That’s all well and good, but what we need to know is not what drives him, but how he chooses his victims. Whether or not they have anything or anyone in common. So far all we have is a handful of actual and might-have-been incidents over a six-month period. It’s not enough to go on with.’

  Katsoulas snorted. ‘Knowing what drives him is important, surely?’

  Judd dismissed the objection with a brief, indifferent glance at her over his glasses, perched on the end of his nose. He turned his attention back to Ellen. ‘Look, we’re police, not shrinks. We detect, we find evidence, we do trace and elimination work.’

  ‘Policing has moved on a little since your day, Ian,’ Katsoulas said.

  Ellen stepped in, her hand up. ‘You’re both right. We have to keep in mind what kind of man this guy is, and we also need to know how he operates on a practical level. So, we look at local traffic and parking infringements around the time of each attack. We continue to look—with some tact—at burglaries where the victim is a young or youngish woman living alone.

  ‘Which leads me to the victims,’ she added, turning to the whiteboard and scrawling a heading: Victimology.

  ‘Single, female, young,’ suggested Katsoulas.

  Ellen listed these. ‘What else?’

  ‘Home at a certain time of the day,’ Judd said.

  Ellen went very still. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Mid- to late-afternoon.’

  ‘Meaning if he has a job, he’s either not at work then, or his job gives him the freedom to act then.’

  Ellen summarised this. ‘Anything else?’

  Judd continued to prove that experience and old-style thinking mattered. ‘I’ve been visiting each location, and studying the maps. These women all live in quiet locations. Suburban, but with easy access to escape routes like the Nepean Highway or Frankston-Flinders Road. Wreidt, and the woman who got spooked and didn’t go in, and the woman who found signs someone had made himself at home—they all lived in ground-floor flats backing onto laneways.’