Signal Loss

by Garry Disher

  ‘The agreement is, they can have you for two to three hours. After that, it’s back here.’

  ‘Boss.’

  She dismissed them, and before going home herself, cleaned up her e-mails. There was a new one from Scobie Sutton. The travel brochures she’d scooped into her bag from Allie’s coffee table had been handled by four persons not in the system and one who was.

  She logged on, keyed in the name Wayne Hall and found herself staring at a mug shot of the man calling himself Clive Mieckle.

  Hall had a history of dishonesty offences going back almost twenty years. In the late 1990s he’d been charged with receiving unemployment benefits while working, operating as an unlicensed private investigator and obtaining loans using false names and addresses. In 2001, and again in 2007, he’d obtained bank loans to set up fake churches using forged divinity degrees and a letterhead stolen from a judge of the Family Court. Meanwhile he’d also been charged with cashing valueless cheques and claiming insurance for fires at his furniture renovation and computer-repair businesses. Then he disappeared for several years after marrying a widow and cleaning out her savings.

  Ellen made a phone call. The widow had since died.

  So he thinks it’s safe to come back?

  Ellen made further calls, and reached the widow’s daughter, an Adelaide nurse named Tina Cannon.

  ‘That bastard!’ Cannon said. ‘He killed my mother.’

  Ellen went very still. ‘You mean—’

  ‘I mean he ruined her life. He stole all her savings and left her with nothing. She fell into a deep depression and eventually she wouldn’t even leave the house.’ Cannon paused. ‘I think she died of low self-esteem and a broken heart. She never recovered from the blow, the hurt.’

  ‘He disappeared after stealing from her?’

  ‘That’s right. He spun her this story of working for the American government, the Australian agent of Homeland Security, can you believe it. My mother did, unfortunately. Anyway, he swore her to secrecy, something about his identity had been compromised and his life was in danger from Muslim extremists and he’d better leave the country for a while. He said he’d call for her to meet him overseas but of course he never did.’

  ‘Did you inform the police?’

  ‘I did, Mum wouldn’t.’

  ‘Any hard evidence?’

  ‘They said they’d prosecute if he ever cropped up again but they weren’t going to bust a gut looking for him.’

  ‘Any letters, e-mails, postcards…?’

  ‘Not much. Listen, has he come back?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Just get him. I don’t care how, just get him.’

  ‘Forgive me for asking this, but did your mother ever say anything about her, ah, intimate relations with him?’

  ‘You mean sex, right? He kept telling her he’d been wounded in Afghanistan and any strain on his back could cripple him. He looked all right to me. But now you mention it, I don’t think they had sex at all.’

  ‘Did he ever mention family?’

  According to the records, Hall’s parents were dead and he had no siblings. ‘He talked about a sister,’ Cannon said.

  ‘You didn’t meet her?’

  ‘No. Nor did Mum. She lived in Brisbane and couldn’t get away because her kid had leukaemia.’

  Ellen said carefully, ‘Did your mother help with the doctor’s or hospital bills, by any chance?’

  ‘Sure,’ Cannon said, ‘that was my mother all over. Are you going to find him through the sister?’ And then she groaned. ‘Wait. That was part of the con, right? To squeeze money out of my mother?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Mum cried to think of this little kid with leukaemia. You really have to get this guy.’

  Ellen muttered the usual things and finished the call.

  She thought she might find Mieckle/Hall by finding Allie’s car.

  Then the phone rang and it was Ian Judd, saying they had another rape victim. ‘She’s in hospital, boss. Can’t talk to her until tomorrow.’

  29

  ON TUESDAY MORNING, CHALLIS slid a copy of Colin Hauser’s scribbled notes across Serena Coolidge’s desk. ‘I think the men he’s describing are Lovelock and Pym.’

  The drug-squad senior sergeant seemed bright, forceful, her colour high—a complicated look, Challis thought, as if she was still interested in him and commensurately cranky because he’d rebuffed her. She pulled the note closer to her and placed her head in her hands to read it.

  She looked up. ‘Where’s the original?’

  ‘At the lab.’

  ‘How did you come by it?’

  ‘He’d slipped it among the paperwork on his desk,’ Challis said. Coolidge didn’t need to know about Janine Quine.

  ‘Your theory is…?’

  He settled back in the visitor’s chair and crossed his legs. ‘If we assume it’s Lovelock and Pym—and I think we can, given the descriptions, the plate number, the rifle—Hauser saw them at the entrance to a laneway leading through farmland to Devilbend Reservoir. Anyone on foot or horseback can use the track, but vehicles are barred by a locked gate.’

  ‘The local farmers have keys?’

  ‘Yes. Now, Hauser walked there every day. He’d know the type of people who typically use the lane and the types of vehicles they drive. Something about Lovelock and Pym—well, everything about them—aroused his suspicions so he raced home and wrote it all down. They realised he was a witness, so they followed and shot him.’

  ‘Witness to what? Are we thinking they buried something?’

  Challis made a gesture that said the supposition was reasonable. ‘Drugs? Owen Valentine’s body? Anyhow, I’ve ordered a handler and a couple of cadaver dogs. They’re coming down from Melbourne, won’t get here till sometime this afternoon. And it’s a longish stretch between the road and the reservoir, so the search itself could take a while.’

  ‘You didn’t think to consult me first?’

  Coolidge’s colour was higher now, and Challis hunted around for a way to make things right. That was his habit. But could every little thing be made right?

  His tone harder, a chilly politeness, he said, ‘I’m consulting you now. Look, I only received the note this morning. I needed to check the location and Mr Hauser’s reason for being there. Cadaver dogs and trained handlers are not thick on the ground, so I had to move fast. Remember, I’m investigating a murder and a suspicious disappearance. I’m having trouble seeing either as drug-related. Hauser was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And Owen Valentine? Small fry. So who would bring in experienced outsiders, and why? Have your Sydney colleagues questioned Hector Kaye about what his men were up to?’

  Coolidge grimaced. ‘Lawyered up. He denies even knowing Lovelock and Pym, let alone what they were doing down here.’

  ‘I don’t see Christine Penford hiring them—although she’d have a motive for killing Valentine. He sold her daughter to drug dealers, after all.’

  Coolidge snorted. ‘She’d do it herself with a kitchen knife.’

  ‘Slatter also had a motive, but not much of one. And I can’t see him doing anything about it.’

  Coolidge was looking shifty. ‘It’s a mystery.’

  ‘Unless he’s your ice king.’

  Coolidge’s smile was like a cat’s. ‘No.’

  ANXIOUS NOW TO MOVE ON THE Hauser note, Challis headed downstairs to the general office.

  Before he reached the door, Janine Quine and two of her colleagues emerged, heading for the canteen, so Challis lingered a while in the corridor, ostensibly browsing the flyers and FOR SALE notices pinned to a long corkboard between the rear doors and the staff pigeonholes stuffed with unwanted and unnecessary mail. When he was satisfied, he poked his head in. The office was empty but for Lily, one of the collators. Annette Tranh’s small corner office was dark behind the glass door.

  At once Lily said to him, ‘Yes, I’m busy; no, I won’t drop everything.’

  He’d kno
wn her for years. ‘I don’t ask you to do that, do I?’

  She grinned. ‘You and everyone else around here.’

  ‘Just thought I’d say hello.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘Where is everybody?’

  ‘Morning tea. I should be so lucky.’

  He glanced at the pair of photocopiers in the corner. ‘Lily, how often do you run out of paper and toner?’

  ‘Hardly ever.’

  ‘The last time?’

  ‘Oh, weeks ago.’

  ‘When it does happen, do you take the material down to the library at the end of High Street?’

  ‘Well, a couple of times, but never anything sensitive.’

  Challis tried a disarming smile. It didn’t work. Lily cocked her head. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I thought I’d put in a request for more funding for you.’

  ‘Bullshit, excuse my French.’

  At that moment the phone rang in the darkened corner office. Lily gave him an apologetic look, crossed the room to the glassed-in cubicle, flicked on the light and lifted the handset. He saw her speak, scribble a note, hang up.

  She returned, saying, ‘Sorry about that. Now, where were we? Oh yes, you’re up to something.’

  ‘So Annette’s still away?’

  ‘She’s due back at work next week.’

  ‘You’ve had to field all her calls?’

  ‘Jan Quine usually does that. She seems to spend half her time answering Annette’s phone.’

  Challis glanced around the office as if to locate Quine. ‘She’s at morning tea?’

  ‘And so should I be, except someone has to keep this show on the road.’

  ‘You’re a trooper,’ Challis said, ‘a role model and an inspiration to us all.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to swear you to secrecy,’ Challis said.

  THAT DONE, HE WENT UPSTAIRS to his office, propped his feet on an open desk drawer, and began to plot.

  His phone rang. He was needed at the hospital in Mornington.

  30

  PETER MOORE, THIRTY-TWO, STAY-AT-HOME dad, divided his time between editing (actually, totally rewriting) technical manuals at his desk (actually, the dining-room table) and looking after his son, Jack, who was three. Jack’s morning needs were simple: breakfast, then the pirate ship playground at the beach end of Main Street, Mornington. It was a laid-back life, which might explain why Moore sometimes went a day or two without shaving and slopped around in tattered jeans and T-shirts.

  This Tuesday morning he sat on a bench, his face to the sun. Behind him, at the base of the cliff, the beach curved in one direction to the pier, boatsheds and a couple of cafes; up to Mt Eliza in the other. On his left was the pirate ship, on his right a massive gnarled tree with a huge canopy, and ranged before him, on an area of bark chips and grass, were swings, slides and small bucking creatures on stiff springs. Over on the grass, a pink plastic sandal. Moore didn’t think he’d ever been to a playground where kids’ shoes hadn’t been left behind.

  He closed his eyes, letting the sun seep in. Sometimes when he did this a client’s clunky sentence would pop into his head and he’d recast it until it was elegant and precise. Then he’d open his eyes, fish out his notebook and scribble it down. He felt left and right with his foot: the backpack was there, crammed with his notebook and Jack’s water bottle, snacks and change of clothes.

  He opened his eyes, flicked his gaze around until he’d isolated his son, closed them again. A gentle warm sun today. He was very tired. He’d got up to Jack during the night—Maddie slept through everything—and was wide awake until dawn. Then Maddie had gone to work and Jack was shaking his arm, ‘Daddy, wake up.’ He’d bathed, dressed and fed Jack, built Lego towers with him, snatched a few minutes here and there to correct some engineer’s grammatical howlers. Then the ride to the playground, Jack in a basket seat over the back wheel of Moore’s ancient bicycle.

  He opened his eyes again and groaned inwardly. Jack seemed interested in climbing onto the pirate ship, which would require a bit of supervision, and Moore just didn’t have the energy today. But a moment later Jack was crouching in that effortless elastic way of kids beside a girl who was sitting sullenly on the ground, a doll in one hand, throwing bark chips at the seagulls with the other. Jack reached out a pudgy hand and patted the girl. He put his arms around her and planted a kiss. Then he led her by the hand to one of the slides. It was an odd sight, the three-year-old boy leading the girl, who looked to be twice his age. They climbed the slide, slid one after the other down it, raced around to the steps and repeated the action.

  She wasn’t wearing underpants. Moore shrugged, none of his business, and closed his eyes again.

  A faint movement of the bench seat and a woman was sitting beside him, gazing at him with an odd, smiling fixation. No warmth in it, only intensity. A mother. The world was full of mothers at playgrounds and sometimes they were perplexed by him, as if the world hadn’t moved on but was stuck in the era where dads went out to work and mums stayed home with the kids.

  Moore managed a weak smile, located Jack—in one of the sandpits now—and ran his gaze over the other kids, trying to guess which one belonged to the woman. At least a dozen kids this morning, and across the way were other mothers and one other father on bench seats, a couple of mothers on a blanket on the grass, a woman approaching with a toddler in a stroller. The air was still and sweetly scented. Squeals and laughter and the distant murmur of the sea. It all lulled Moore into another dozing state.

  And the woman beside him said, ‘Let’s make this easy, shall we?’

  Some kind of pick-up line? Moore didn’t consider himself much of a catch, but the woman had shuffled closer to him and suddenly he didn’t have room to move.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Let’s just walk out of here without a fuss and across the road to the police station for a little chat, shall we? Or we can make it dramatic. Your choice.’

  An attractive woman with strong Mediterranean features, black hair and dark, unappeasable eyes. She wore black pants and a tan linen jacket over a white top and now she was showing him her ID. ‘My name is Constable Katsoulas of the sex-crimes unit and I should advise you that here and there in the immediate area are other plain-clothed officers, so please don’t run or make a scene.’

  Badly frightened, Moore shot to his feet, yelling, ‘Jack! Jack!’

  His voice communicated the panic. Jack, about to mount one of the slides with his friend, froze and said, ‘Dadda?’

  Then he was running for his father, trailed by the little girl, emitting brutal, explosive sobs.

  Everyone looked up, everyone froze, apart from Moore’s son and the little girl, who herself began sobbing wretchedly.

  And apart from the man on a bench on the other side of the slides and swings. He stood, turned, and scurried away across the grass, heading for the Esplanade and the houses on the other side. ‘Scurried’ was the word that popped into Moore’s head. Words did that to him. This one was apt. It denoted guilt.

  The woman named Katsoulas said, ‘Oh, bugger,’ and murmured into a lapel microphone. The women on the blanket leapt to their feet and began to chase the fleeing man.

  Katsoulas turned to Moore, touched his forearm briefly, unconsciously, and said, ‘My apologies, sir, but we’ve had reports of a man paying untoward attention to the children who play here.’

  She began to edge away, one eye on Moore, the other on the hunters and the hunted at the other side of the park.

  ‘Go,’ Moore urged her. ‘I understand. I’m fine. No complaints.’

  She flashed him a smile and then was running. He watched her. A fast sprinter, her figure diminishing across the grass and out onto the street.

  Something to tell Maddie tonight. Something other than bowel movements and scraped knees and the price of avocados, which for some reason Jack loved eating, mashed on toast.

  Moore glanced down at his son, who was claspi
ng his legs tightly, a child sensitive to everything around him and whose instinct was to make things better. Moore did feel better in the grip of those tight little arms, and ruffled his son’s hair.

  The girl was gazing at them solemnly. She was filthy, Moore realised. Clutching a little plastic-faced doll, she looked dazed, deeply fatigued and quite lost and abandoned. And no pants on.

  Moore searched wildly for her mother, but the women nearby were occupied with gossip and keeping an eagle eye on their kids, so he crouched and said, ‘Hello, what’s your name?’

  This close, she shied away, but recovered enough to say, ‘Clover.’

  ‘Is your mum here—or your dad?’

  The question seemed beyond the child. She sat abruptly, all energy spent, and Moore gathered her with his son and walked the short distance out of the park and up Main Street to the police station.

  31

  ELLEN DESTRY AND IAN JUDD had driven to a pocket of side streets running off the Nepean Highway between Mornington and the industrial estate. The housing here dated from the 1960s, modest brick-veneer places with tiled roofs and a handful of eight-unit apartment blocks, two up, two down, four facing the street, four at the rear. It was outside one of these that Judd stopped the car.

  ‘Ground level, rear?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Forensics?’

  ‘Been and gone. Nothing useable.’

  Ellen didn’t get out. She could see well enough from the car. A high fence and dense shrubbery shielded the flats from the houses on either side and behind it. And if disturbed, their rapist had his choice of escape routes: the highway, a tangle of side streets and a road leading east to the Peninsula Link freeway.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Judd accelerated wordlessly out of the street and back to the highway, turning north to Frankston.

  KAREN ROBARDS HAD BEEN admitted to the Frankston Hospital and kept overnight. Destry and Judd found her dressed and sitting on a chair beside her bed in a small ward on the first floor. Eight beds, either empty or occupied by women who appeared to be asleep.