Signal Loss

by Garry Disher

  The pantomime continued, Ellen providing dialogue and voices: ‘Mitch, mate, fancy meeting you here! Have you met the wife? Mitch, Celica. Celica, Mitch. And this young man is my son, Camry, and this is my daughter, Corolla. Hey, you had lunch yet? Care to join us?’

  Challis snorted, dug her with his elbow, and even Judd cracked a smile before turning serious again. ‘Do we know who he is? Or who she is?’

  Challis said no, Ellen shook her head.

  ‘I’ll follow them out, get a plate number,’ Judd said.

  ‘Let’s hope they’re not here for hours, then.’

  Now the other man was asking Pyne to carry the cane basket while he scooped up one of the children, and the little group walked on, to a patch of shaded grass.

  Ellen said, ‘Keep a close eye on Pyne and the basket.’

  They watched as the adults and the children settled onto the blanket. Pyne, sprawling on the outer edge, began removing plates, cups, a Thermos and packaged sandwiches from the cane basket, his hand dipping in and out, in and out.

  Ellen saying tensely: ‘Did you see that?’

  They nodded. Pyne, coordinating his movements seamlessly with unpacking the picnic basket, had fished a small, rectangular object from his breast pocket and slipped it into the basket. A few seconds later, his hand brought out an envelope, which vanished into the same pocket.

  Judd said, ‘Cash?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘In return for Karen Robards’ iPhone? The only thing stolen, and it was a new one: worth a bit.’

  ‘Can we prove it’s her phone?’ Ellen said. ‘No doubt Pyne did a reset.’

  ‘We could match the IMEI number.’

  Ellen shook her head. ‘Karen didn’t keep the box or the receipt.’

  ‘Question everyone,’ Challis said. ‘Account for this phone. Account for this cash.’

  ‘But what if it wasn’t a phone? What if it wasn’t cash in the envelope? We have no grounds to question or search.’

  THEY WATCHED FOR A FURTHER five minutes, until Pyne stood and stared at his watch face in a pantomime of regret, shook hands and took his leave.

  ‘Sorry, guys, time got away from me, got to run,’ Ellen muttered. ‘Lovely to see you again, mate, but I better rush. Catch you later, all right?’

  Pyne drifted back up the hill and out to the car park. Ellen said, ‘Ian, can you take Pyne? Hal and I will tail the father of the year.’

  ‘Got it,’ Judd said.

  ‘What now?’ Challis said, when they were alone.

  Ellen glanced at Pyne’s friends, still munching on their sandwiches, and snuggled against him. ‘Wanna fool around?’

  ‘Is that allowed?’

  THE FATHER OF THE YEAR packed his family into a Honda Odyssey at 3 p.m. and led Challis and Destry to a narrow cul-de-sac in South Frankston and a small 1980s house of burnished-turd bricks and mossy terracotta tiles. Parked in the open carport was a Falcon ute, and on the lawn a Green Thumbs franchise trailer.

  The house of a man who might not want to attract attention to himself, Ellen thought, and ran both sets of numberplates. She was looking at the home and vehicles of Clay and Anita Bernard. Ellen smiled in satisfaction. She recognised Clay Bernard’s name from the Mitchell Pyne file. Two convictions for the handling and possession of stolen goods, and back when Pyne was nineteen, he’d been questioned in relation to his association with Bernard.

  Old dogs, new tricks, she thought. Mitchell Pyne was using the same fence, all these years later.

  What other tricks hadn’t he changed?

  39

  MONDAY MORNING, ELLEN was in her office finalising the briefing agenda when Scobie Sutton called.

  ‘I’ve just given Inspector Challis good DNA news, but I’m afraid your DNA news is inconclusive—sorry, Ellen.’

  She waited. She’d had years of experience, gleaning information from Sutton one crumb at a time.

  And years of experience giving up the wait and prodding him. ‘What news is that, Scobie?’

  If Sutton heard the hard vibration in her voice he didn’t bow to it. ‘Ellen, I tested that bandage as a favour. No job number, and you say it was fished out of a rubbish bin…?’

  ‘Sorry Scobie. Just tell me what you found.’

  ‘Give me a clean, legal sample, no contaminants, no soap or ointment, no secondary transfer from other people, and I’ll give you a result that will stand up in court.’

  ‘Scobie,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, yes, a partial match.’

  ‘A partial match to who?’

  ‘An unsolved rape from earlier in the year,’ said Sutton hurriedly, and read her the case number. Jess Guthrie.

  ‘I could run a low-copy-number analysis,’ he went on, ‘but that takes time and I’d probably have to send it off to a specialist lab, and for something that’s inadmissible anyway…’

  ‘Thanks Scobie, let’s leave it as it is then. You’ve been a great help,’ Ellen said, and headed for the briefing room.

  SHE BEGAN WITH THE DNA results.

  ‘Pyne’s our man but we can’t pick him up yet. We need a clean arrest.’

  She saw a cops’ kind of disappointment on their faces. It said that nothing surprised them and setbacks were to be borne and the system was fucked, but they’d just roll up their sleeves and start again.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ she went on, ‘something interesting happened yesterday. Pyne was observed meeting with a known receiver of stolen goods.’

  She described Judd’s tailing of Pyne and the events at the Arthurs Seat maze.

  Katsoulas brightened. ‘Okay, so we get him on burglary, obtain his DNA, charge him with rape.’

  Rykert curled his lip. ‘Like bring in a CIU burglary team to get all the glory.’

  ‘Shut up, Jared.’

  ‘Children, children,’ Ellen said, ‘just do your jobs—which will include looking closely at Pyne’s friends and family and acquaintances. Ian’s done some checking.’

  Judd read from a sheet of paper, head tilted back to focus his glasses. ‘Pyne’s thirty-one, lives alone, never been married. No hint of girlfriends in recent times, according to his landlord and his neighbours—who don’t particularly like him and were happy to talk. He’s been a part-time taxi driver for the past five years, a courier driver before that, so he knows his way around the Peninsula. Never been arrested, but he was questioned in relation to a handling and receiving investigation when he was nineteen.’ He looked up. ‘At the time of Clay Bernard’s first arrest.’

  ‘Go on,’ Ellen said.

  ‘Other than that, he was expelled from school when he was sixteen for spying on the girls’ toilets.’

  ‘That’s where it all began,’ Katsoulas said with satisfaction. ‘Next step, burglary and rape. What about friends and family?’

  ‘Still a few holes in my knowledge,’ Judd said, ‘but his father died in a car smash when he was ten. His mother lives in Pakenham, but he rarely sees her, and he has a married sister over in Perth and a brother in the navy. Essentially, he’s a loner.’

  ‘People know to steer clear of him,’ Katsoulas said, a nasty gleam in her eye.

  ‘Here’s what we do,’ Ellen said. ‘Shadow Pyne around the clock, look more closely into his past, look more closely into his present, and dig into his recent association with Clay Bernard.’

  ‘But without DNA…’ Rykert said.

  ‘Without DNA we need to catch Pyne in the act. Or get him on something else and hope he coughs,’ Ellen said.

  THE TASKS ASSIGNED—JUDD ON deeper research, Katsoulas and Rykert on surveillance—Ellen drove to the Bernard home in South Frankston. Parked across the road and down from his house, she settled into the back seat with a pair of binoculars. The Green Thumbs trailer had not moved from its position on the front lawn and the Falcon ute was still in the carport; the Honda people-mover was missing. She didn’t know what that meant. The whole family was out? The wife was out with the kids? The husband ditto? Two children under five: d
id they go to kindergarten? Day care?

  A partial answer to her musings: Clay Bernard emerged from the carport half an hour later, unshaven, tousled, wearing only shorts, as if he’d just got out of bed. Yawning, scratching his balls and carrying a five-litre fuel can, he walked around to the rear of the trailer. Now he was partly invisible to Ellen, but then she saw the wire gate swing open and guessed he was refuelling something, a lawnmower or leaf blower. A short time later, he closed the gate and shuffled, as though deeply fatigued, back through the carport and into the house.

  Ellen thought about the mowing job. People would see the Green Thumbs trailer and think nothing of it. There were Green Thumbs mowing and garden maintenance franchisees all over the suburbs of the city. No one would question their presence. Good way to collect or deliver stolen goods, too.

  ANITA BERNARD RETURNED IN the Honda and parked it in the driveway rather than in the carport, as though she intended to go out again. She was alone. Ellen watched her get out, walk around to the rear of the car and grab a couple of supermarket bags. Groceries, by the looks of it: the leafy heads of celery stalks, the end of a baguette. And the bags were heavy. Ellen could see tension in the woman’s arms, tendons and muscles clenched under the skin. A pretty woman, her skin softly golden, as though she spent time outdoors. It seemed likely: apart from the battered gardening franchise trailer, everything else at the front of the house, lawns, shrubs and garden beds, was neat but busy with spills of colour: green, red, yellow, blue.

  But what really caught Ellen’s eye was not a plant or an item of shopping or even a shapely, sun-golden arm. It was a Pandora bracelet very like Marilyn Sligo’s.

  THEN THE WOMAN WAS DISAPPEARING into the carport—maybe there was a side door to the kitchen. Ellen left the car swiftly and crossed the road, full of tension. Passing the Honda, she saw more shopping bags on the back seat.

  Just then, Bernard’s wife reappeared, stepping into the carport and heading towards Ellen. But she didn’t see Ellen. Her husband was behind her and she was sniping at him. ‘Not my fault. I had to drop the kids off and do a shop and the traffic was hell, okay? So get off my case, Clay, all right?’

  She came on, into the sunlight, and froze. ‘Who are you?’

  But Ellen was watching Clay Bernard, still back in the shadows. Homing in on his wife with a look of sulky determination, he saw Ellen and faltered. Opened and closed his mouth.

  Wondering if she should have brought backup, Ellen held up her ID. Still watching Clay Bernard, she said to Anita, ‘Nice bracelet.’

  The husband closed his eyes and seemed to crumple. Ellen relaxed minutely. She doubted she’d need backup.

  Anita Bernard seemed confused. She peered at the bracelet. ‘What?’

  ‘Did your husband give you that bracelet, Mrs Bernard?’

  Anita went very still. Looking older, tireder, she turned to her husband. ‘You bastard. You promised me.’

  ‘Anita, wait—’

  ‘I can’t hack it anymore, Clay. I warned you.’

  Her husband stared at her miserably, marriage, fatherhood and his cushy bent life unravelling. ‘Please, love—’

  ‘Don’t you “love” me, you dickhead.’

  Then Anita was turning back to Ellen. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I can show you pictures if you don’t believe me, but your bracelet is an exact match for one belonging to a woman in Somerville.’

  Anita turned to her husband, wailing, ‘You said you got it specially for our anniversary.’

  ‘I did, love. The business was struggling, that’s all. You mean everything to me.’

  There were emotional sub-tones to their voices that Ellen didn’t like. They’ll start forgiving each other in a minute, she thought.

  ‘Mrs Bernard.’

  Anita jumped. She turned back to Ellen. ‘What?’

  ‘The bracelet was stolen in the commission of a serious sexual assault, a rape, and now it’s on the end of your arm.’

  That tipped the balance. Anita flew at her husband. ‘Rape? You raped someone?’

  He went white, put up a forearm protectively. ‘What? No. Never. You know me.’

  ‘We’re finished, finished.’

  ‘Sweetheart, I swear, I don’t do rape.’

  ‘That is so not the point. You betrayed me. You’re handling again, for someone who does do rape.’

  ‘I didn’t know—I swear I didn’t know,’ Bernard said.

  Ellen waited. She let the drama play out.

  ‘Tell this policewoman who it is,’ stormed Anita.

  ‘Pardon?’

  Anita started tearing off the bracelet as though it were noxious. ‘Who gave you this?’

  Finally: ‘Mitch Pyne.’

  Anita turned to Ellen triumphantly. ‘There, satisfied? I knew nothing about it. I am not involved in anything my husband’s involved in. I thought he was going straight. Now I know he’s going straight to jail, and I’m glad.’

  ‘Anita, please.’

  ‘Our sixth wedding anniversary,’ the woman told Ellen. ‘September the nineteenth.’

  Clay moved towards his wife. Reached out an arm, completely failing to read her anger, and she kneed him in the groin.

  40

  MEANWHILE SCOBIE SUTTON had called Challis with the good-news DNA result.

  ‘I’ll e-mail you the details, but the dead man’s DNA is tied to an unsolved murder dating back almost twenty years.’

  Challis was in his office with Murphy and Coolidge, explaining the nature of the Loeb–Hauser operation, Coolidge wanting to be absolutely sure drugs weren’t involved. The sun streamed in, warming his back. With a half-consumed croissant and mug of coffee at his elbow, all was right with the world. But then Sutton called with his bombshell and he came alive, tilting back in his chair, propping his feet on his open bottom drawer, his thinking pose.

  ‘Twenty years ago? Owen was barely a teenager.’

  ‘I’m not saying he committed the murder,’ Sutton said.

  ‘But he was there?’

  Fat lot of good that was, if he was dead.

  Sutton said, ‘No, he wasn’t there.’

  ‘Scobie, so help me, I’ll wring your neck.’

  Sutton heard the snarl and said hurriedly, ‘What I mean is, the DNA isn’t a perfect match, it’s a familial match.’

  Challis took his feet off the bottom drawer and sat forward, his elbows on his desk, staring at Coolidge. She stared back, her green eyes searching. Full of intelligence, irony and a hint of scorn. No more sleepy, ambiguous looks. Of late, her expression seemed to say that his rejection of her was his loss.

  Echoing Sutton, he said, ‘A familial match.’

  ‘Mitochondrial DNA,’ Sutton said. ‘Owen Valentine and the murderer are related by blood. Half-brothers, maybe?’

  Challis locked eyes with Coolidge again. ‘Half-brothers.’

  He saw a shift in her then, her mind marshalling and ordering her thoughts and intentions to stay a step ahead of him. ‘Hang on, Scobie,’ he said, ‘I’m putting you on speaker.’

  He glanced at Pam Murphy as he did so. She looked suddenly more alert, aware of the undercurrents in the room.

  ‘Done,’ he told Sutton. ‘Now, tell us about the murder.’

  Sutton’s words sounded tinny and distant:

  ‘A strangulation murder dating from 1998. Annika Watanabe, aged nineteen, a New Zealander here on a working holiday. Four months pregnant, she was found strangled on the back beach at Rye. The DNA source was found under her fingernails: she scratched him.’

  ‘And the foetal DNA?’

  ‘Same as the killer’s,’ Sutton said.

  Challis thanked him and started to end the call when Sutton stopped him: ‘Wait, wait…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You remember we didn’t find any useable prints at the ice lab?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It occurred to me to test Clover Penford’s doll.’

  Sensing Challis’s impatience, he raced on. A
partial print, matching a Monash University chemistry dropout arrested for possession in 2013 and still living with his parents in an inner Melbourne suburb. ‘I passed it on to the child exploitation team.’

  ‘Thanks, Scobie,’ Challis said, ending the call.

  He shot a look at Serena Coolidge, knowing she’d wanted first shot at Clover Penford’s abusers. ‘Senior Sergeant?’

  Coolidge shrugged. ‘Win some, lose some.’

  Challis shook himself, irritated. ‘On that note,’ he said, ‘I intend to do Carl Bowie for murder. Now. Today.’

  Coolidge whipped her head back and forth. ‘No. Bowie’s ours. He’s central to a large-scale and ongoing drug-squad operation. As I said before, I want you two to back off.’

  ‘Three linked murders trumps that,’ Challis said, his tone hardening.

  ‘Three? What three?’

  Pam Murphy answered, deadly calm. ‘Four deaths, if you want to get technical. The New Zealand girl and her unborn child, murdered by Carl Bowie. Owen Valentine, murdered on Carl Bowie’s orders. Colin Hauser, murdered by the men hired by Carl Bowie. The link? Carl Bowie. What’s so hard to understand about that?’

  Coolidge sat, coiled and dangerous, ignoring her. ‘Motive?’

  Challis rocked back in his chair, propped his feet on the bottom drawer again. ‘Annika Watanabe was pregnant. Perhaps she wanted to marry him, or meet his parents. Perhaps she wanted an abortion and that was an affront to him.’

  Murphy leaned forward to strengthen the case. ‘He got away with it and felt safe, but at the back of his mind was the DNA.’

  ‘If he kept his nose clean,’ Challis said, ‘he’d be okay forever. What he didn’t count on was his half-brother.’

  Watching Coolidge stew on it, he added, ‘Owen didn’t have an arrest record. Carl would have been okay so long as Owen kept his nose clean. But Owen got hooked on ice and started dealing, breaking and entering. Meaning it was only a matter of time before he was arrested and his DNA made it onto the record.’

  ‘Why didn’t he get rid of Owen years ago?’

  Murphy said, ‘Perhaps he didn’t have the resources. Probably he didn’t know there was such a thing as mitochondrial DNA.’