by Garry Disher
Ellen forked and poked at the blocked pipe, shovelled and prodded. Suddenly, with a great, gurgling rush, the stopper of matted leaves and mud washed free and drain water flowed unchecked toward the...
Toward the sea? Ellen realised that she knew very little about life out here on the back roads.
Finally she walked. She passed a little apple orchard, the trees heavy with blossom despite the storm. Onion weed, limp and yellowing at the end of its short life, lay densely on both sides of the road, and choking the fences was chest-high grass, going to seed. Sometimes her feet slipped treacherously where the dusty road had turned to mud. The blackberry bushes were sending out wicked new canes and the bracken was flourishing. Now and then she passed through air currents that didnt smell clean and new but heavy with the odours of rotting vegetation and stale mud revitalised by the rain. Everything;the sounds, the smells, the texturesserved to remind her of Katie Blasko, abandoned, buried, merging with the soil.
She walked slowly up the hill, stunned to see huge cylinders of hay in one of the paddocks, freshly mown and wrapped in pale green polythene. When had that happened? She rarely saw or heard vehicles, and yet here was evidence of the world going on without her.
Without warning she heard a sharp snap and felt a stunning pain in her scalp. Her heart jumped and she cried out in terror. Only a magpie, she realised soon afterwards, swooping her because it had a nest nearbybut shed hated and feared magpies ever since a long-ago spring day when shed been pecked and harried across a football field as shed taken a short cut home from school on her bicycle. Magpies sang like angels but were the devil.
Windmilling her arms wildly about her head, and trying to make eye contact with her tormentor, Ellen trotted home. She missed her morning walks on Penzance Beach with Pam Murphy, where the world was reduced to the sand, the sea, the sky and a few gulls. Out here on the back roads there was too much nature. All around her ducks sat like knuckly growths on the bare branches of dead gums, and other birds were busy, calling out, making nests, protecting their young, and in the paddocks ibis were feeding. A strip of bark fell on her, scratching her neck. Challiss ducklings were down to six, she noticed, as she entered his yard, and she wanted to cry.
* * * *
At nine that same Sunday morning, Scobie Sutton was at the little Waterloo hospital. He was entitled to a day at home with his wife and daughter, a quiet time, church and Sunday School, a spot of gardening after lunch, but the station was short staffed. Hed be working the Katie Blasko case laterand it was a case in Scobies mind: his own daughter was Katies age, and if she went missing for even thirty minutes hed be calling it a casebut right now he was the only CIU detective available to interview the victim of an aggravated burglary.
How are you feeling, Mr Clode?
Ill live, Neville Clode said.
Extensive bruising to the head and torso, a cut lip, cracked ribs. Clode was swaddled in bandages and lying very still in the bland, pastelly room. The place was overheated and so hed thrown off the covers, revealing skinny legs and the ugliest feet that Scobie had ever seen: yellowed nails and a blotchy birthmark. No flowers, fruit or books. Im possibly his first visitor, Scobie thought. You took quite a beating last night.
The voice came in a strained whisper, Yes.
Did you recognise the men who attacked you?
No.
Do you know if they took anything?
Cash, whispered Clode.
Cash. Do you know how much?
Six.. .seven hundred dollars.
Scobie whistled. It was a lot. It would also grow when Clode submitted his insurance claim. Do you always have that much cash on you?
Won it at the horses yesterday. Emu Plains.
It was the spring racing carnival everywhere, metropolitan racetracks and regional, including Emu Plains on Coolart Road, just a few kilometres from Waterloo. No security cameras, though. Do you think you were followed home from the track?
Could have been.
Were you alone?
Yes.
And nothing else was stolen?
No.
Clode hadnt once made eye contact but stared past Scobie at the TV set bolted high on the wall, so high it was a wonder hospitals didnt get sued for encouraging neck strain in their patients. Scobie dragged the visitors chair around; Clode slid his eyes to the beige door. Scobie said gently, Are you telling me everything, Mr Clode? Was this personal? Did you owe money to anyone? Is there anyone who would want to hurt you?
Scobie had visited the crime scene before coming to the hospital. Clode lived in a brick house along a secluded lane opposite the Seaview Park estate. Like its neighbours, it was comfortably large and barely visible from the road, a low, sprawling structure about ten years old, the kind of place where well-heeled tradesmen, teachers and shop owners might live, on largish blocks, screened by vigorous young gum trees, wattles and other native plants. Residents like Clode were several steps up from the battlers of Seaview Park estate, and several steps down from the doctors and real estate agents who lived in another nearby enclave, Waterloo Hill, which overlooked the town and the Bay. Clode himself was some kind of New Age healer, according to a sign on a post outside his house.
Letting a forensic tech dust and scrape, Scobie had done a walk-through of the house. It was evident that a woman had once lived therea woman slightly haunted by life or by Clode, judging by the face she revealed to the world in the only photograph Scobie found, a small, forgotten portrait in a dusty cream frame, the woman unsmiling in the front garden of the house, Clode with his arm around her. No signs of her in the bathroom cabinet, bedside cupboard or wardrobe. The rooms themselves were sterile, a mix of mainly worn and some new items of furniture, in careful taste, neither cheap nor costly, with here and there an ornamental vase or forgettable framed print. A couple of fat paperbacks, several New Age magazines, some CDs of whale and waterfall music. It was the house of an empty man. The only oddity was a small room taken up with a spa bath, bright wall tiles and cuddly floating toys.
And the damage, of coursethe overturned TV set, rucked floor mats, splintered chair and broken glass. And blood.
Did you injure any of your assailants, do you think? Scobie asked now. There seemed to be a lot of blood in the sitting room.
Clode put a hand to his cut lip and winced. Dont know.
Scobie watched him for a while. Are you telling me everything, Mr Clode?
Signs of anal penetration, according to the doctor whod examined Clode. No semen present. Were you raped?
Clodes eyes leaked and he shook his head minutely. Scobie waited. Clode swallowed. A bottle.
There had been no bottles at the scene. Before or after they beat you?
It was part of the whole deal, Clode said.
You were also kicked?
Yes.
What were they wearing?
Jeans. T-shirts.
What about footwear?
Runners.
Scobie had scouted around the house: lawn right up to the verandah, so no shoe prints, and none in the blood. You didnt recognise them?
Happened too quickly, plus I covered my face to protect it.
When did it happen?
About midnight.
Yet you didnt report it until six this morning?
Unconscious.
I dont understand why they didnt take anything elseyour DVD player, for example.
Scobie watched Clode. The mans face was bruised and swollen, but evasiveness underlay it. Dont know.
I think this was personal, Mr Clode.
No. Never seen them before.
Are you married?
My wife died a couple of years ago. Cancer.
Grandchildren?
Yes.
That explained the spa bath and toys. How old were these men?
Dont know. Youngish,
Youre almost sixty?
Whats that got to do with it?
What about their voices. Did you recognise anyone? Anything di
stinguishable, like an accent?
They didnt say much. Didnt say anything.
What about names, did they let any names slip out?
Nup.
Did they address you by name?
No.
Have you got any enemies, Mr Clode?
No. Im in pain.
* * * *
Pam Murphy, conditioned by years of police duty and triathlon training, was also up and about.
According to the surf report, Gunnamatta Beach was too big and turbulent today, Portsea had messy onshore waves, Flinders onshore waves to 1.5 metres, and Point Leo a fair, one-metre-high tide surf, so she settled on Point Leo. The surfing conditions were right. It was also her closest surf beach and shed learnt to surf there.
It was uncanny the way certain memories and sense traces hit her the moment she drove past the kiosk and over the speed bumps. Sex, mainly, together with the taste of salthuman and marineand the sounds of the seagulls, the offshore winds, the snap of wetsuits, kids waxing their boards. Desire flickered in her. The guy whod taught her to surf had been scarcely seventeen years old, she in her mid twenties. A disciplinary offence, maybe even dismissal from the police force, if it had ever come out. But it hadnt, and theyd both moved on and no hearts had been broken or psyches damaged. It had been a tonic to her, that summer. Shed never been desired quite like that before. Shed scarcely felt desire herself, or desirous. Her body had always been a beautiful, flexible instrument whenever she swam, ran or hit a ball around, but sexual desire had been its untapped dimension. A male colleague like John Tankard, commenting on her tits in the confines of a police car, was hardly going to awaken her.
She parked on a grassy verge beside a cluster of familiar roof-racked panel vans and small cars, pulled on her wetsuit, and trudged over the dunes with her surfboard, passing the clubrooms, a poster of Katie Blasko pinned to a noticeboard. The beach curved slowly to the west; a few solitary people walked their dogs; gulls wheeled above the sea; surferstiny patient dotsrose and fell, rose and fell, as small waves rolled uneventfully to the shore. Pam felt a surge of feeling for the lost summers of her life and for the end of her years in uniform.
Unless she blew it. You have the right instincts, Ellen Destry would often tell her, but becoming a detective also means writing essays and passing exams.
Things that Pam had never been good at.
* * * *
15
Thank you for coming in, said Ellen Destry, late morning. I know its Sunday, and youve all clocked up a lot of overtime, but we cant afford to drop the ball.
They shrugged good-naturedly, all except John Tankard, who looked tired and edgy, and Superintendent McQuarrie, who glanced at his watch and said, Lets get on with it, Sergeant.
Why was he here? Ellen could sense his impatience. Maybe he was supposed to be meeting his pals on a golf course somewhere. Yes, sir.
Hed always treated Challis with impatience, too. McQuarrie was a pen-pusher, a man who resented the competence and usefulness of street cops, for they made the kinds of decisions and intuitive leaps that left him bewilderedand so he took it out on them. More so, if a female officer was calling the shots. He was the kind of man whod want her to fail so that he, or a male appointee, could step in. Sure, he probably wanted Katie Blasko found, but a corner of him didnt want Ellen to do it. Meanwhile the other men in the briefing room, particularly Kellock and van Alphen, were reserving judgement. If she revealed emotions or doubts, theyd roll their eyes, put their arms around her bracingly, and tell her how things should be done.
So she acted hard and fast, assigning tasks to the CIU detectives and to the uniforms. Weve interviewed many of these people before, she said, but I want you to do it again, and given that its a Sunday, you should be able to catch up on those who were not at home yesterday or on Friday. Teachers, shopkeepers, neighbours, school friends, enemies. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. The Show finishes today, everyones packing up and moving on to another town, so I want ticket sellers, roustabouts, drivers and hangers-on interviewed and checked before they disappear into the never-never. Search their vehicles. She paused. Public transport. Did Katie take a train to the city? Dump her bike and hail a taxi? Go into a shop, accompanied by someone, a friend or a stranger? Check security camera footage again. Re-interview everyone on the sex offenders register. And dont rule out other children: check Childrens Services for local kids who have a record of violence and inappropriate sexual behaviour.
The acknowledgement, Boss, went raggedly around the room.
Justin Pedder. So far he checks out, but keep an open mind. All of the open land in and around Waterloo has now been searched, without result, but broadening the perimeter is not warranted yet, theres just too much of it on the Peninsula. Its eyewitnesses we want. Hopefully tomorrow afternoons bike re-enactment will help.
Boss.
Has Katie turned up in Sydney or Brisbane or Adelaide, giving a false name? Is she sleeping rough somewhere? Is she in a homeless shelter? Check empty and condemned buildings. Make sure every detail is entered in the computer for cross-checking.
She let her gaze settle on each of them in turn, encouraging but firm. McQuarrie stirred, looking irritable. I hope you realise how much all this is costing, Sergeant Destry.
Ellen flushed. He had no right to carp and criticise her in front of her colleagues. I think a missing child warrants it, sir.
He seemed to realise that he might make enemies here rather than be admired for leadership qualities. Very good, carry on.
Thank you, sir.
They all began to file out. McQuarrie went first, John Tankard last. She stopped him. Everything all right, John?
His eyes were bloodshot. Hed shaved badly. When he answered, she caught a whiff of negligence and carelessness in his life: Just a bit tired, Sarge. I was on patrol last night.
Ellen regarded him carefully, then smiled. Why dont you help Scobie manage the incident room today? Let others do the door-to-door.
He managed a smile. Thanks, Sarge.
With a nod, Ellen gathered her notes and returned to her office. The phone rang immediately; a reporter from the local newspaper was in the foyer. Ellen trudged down the stairs and out through the security door beside the front desk. The reporter was aged about thirty, jittery looking, hectically dressed in a swirling peasant skirt, purple singlet top, ropes of coloured beads and clanging bangles. Her smile was vivid. Hi! Thanks for seeing me!
Ellen nodded non-committally and took her through to an interview room. The Progress was pretty much a weekly broadsheet of advertising, sporting results and flower-show photographs, but it couldnt afford to ignore a big local story. I have a child of my own, the reporter said, when they were seated. Ive been walking around the town, listening to what people are saying. Theres a lot of concern out there, a lot of fear.
Into the expectant pause, Ellen said, The police are doing everything possible. Search parties...
The word is, she was taken by a paedophile.
We have no evidence of that.
Come on, give me a decent quote.
The police are doing everything possible and welcome any information the public can give us, said Ellen flatly.
The reporter rolled her eyes.
Youll be at our re-enactment tomorrow? Ellen asked.
For what good it will do.
They went to and fro for several more minutes, and then Ellen showed the woman out. Donna Blasko was there, sitting forlornly in the foyer. The reporter leapt on her. A quick word, Mrs Blasko?
Leave her alone, please, Ellen said. Have some decency. She happened to glance through the glass doors to the street outside. Look, theres Superintendent McQuarrie. Hell give you a statement.
The reporter hurried out with small cries. Ellen turned to Donna, who was wringing her hands, and said gently, Donna, can I help you?
Any news?
Not yet, but were hopeful.
I feel I should be doing something.
Youre doi
ng more than enough, spreading alarm about abductions and paedophile gangs. Ellen took her to a quiet corner of the canteen. They sipped the awful coffee. The best thing you can do is maintain things at home, Donna. For your sake and your other daughters. And Justins, she added. I understand why you wanted to come in for an update, but we all need you to be strong, at home.
Its hard, Donna Blasko said.
