by Garry Disher
And the damage, of course-the 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. ‘Don’t know.’
Scobie watched him for a while. ‘Are you telling me everything, Mr Clode?’
Signs of anal penetration, according to the doctor who’d examined Clode. No semen present. ‘Were you raped?’
Clode’s 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 didn’t recognise them?’
‘Happened too quickly, plus I covered my face to protect it.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘About midnight.’
‘Yet you didn’t report it until six this morning?’
‘Unconscious.’
‘I don’t understand why they didn’t take anything else-your DVD player, for example.’
Scobie watched Clode. The man’s face was bruised and swollen, but evasiveness underlay it. ‘Don’t 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?’
‘Don’t know. Youngish,’
‘You’re almost sixty?’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘What about their voices. Did you recognise anyone? Anything distinguishable, like an accent?’
‘They didn’t say much. Didn’t 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. I’m 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 she’d 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 salt-human and marine-and the sounds of the seagulls, the offshore winds, the snap of wetsuits, kids waxing their boards. Desire flickered in her. The guy who’d 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 hadn’t, and they’d both moved on and no hearts had been broken or psyches damaged. It had been a tonic to her, that summer. She’d never been desired quite like that before. She’d 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; surfers-tiny patient dots-rose 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 it’s Sunday, and you’ve all clocked up a lot of overtime, but we can’t 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, ‘Let’s 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.’
He’d 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 bewildered-and so he took it out on them. More so, if a female officer was calling the shots. He was the kind of man who’d 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 didn’t 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, they’d 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. ‘We’ve interviewed many of these people before,’ she said, ‘but I want you to do it again, and given that it’s 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, everyone’s 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 don’t rule out other children: check Children’s 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, there’s just too much of it on the Peninsula. It’s eyewitnesses we want. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon’s 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 al
l right, John?’
His eyes were bloodshot. He’d 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 don’t 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 couldn’t afford to ignore a big local story. ‘I have a child of my own,’ the reporter said, when they were seated. ‘I’ve been walking around the town, listening to what people are saying. There’s 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.
‘You’ll 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, there’s Superintendent McQuarrie. He’ll 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 we’re hopeful.’
‘I feel I should be doing something.’
You’re doing 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 daughter’s. And Justin’s,’ she added. ‘I understand why you wanted to come in for an update, but we all need you to be strong, at home.’
‘It’s hard,’ Donna Blasko said.
In an office just along the corridor, van Alphen and Kellock were looking out at Superintendent McQuarrie, who was standing on the forecourt of the police station, talking to a reporter. A photographer was snapping away discreetly. Kellock exchanged a wry grin with van Alphen and returned to his seat. ‘Close the door,’ Kellock said.
Van Alphen complied and sat too, resting his heels on the edge of Kellock’s desk, ‘Destry got what it takes, you reckon?’
Kellock shrugged. ‘She’s all right. Covering all the bases.’ It was almost lunch time. They had a few minutes before getting back to Katie Blasko. ‘I saw Nick Jarrett in the street yesterday,’ van Alphen said.
Kellock gazed at him bleakly. ‘And?’
‘The prick grinned at me.’
They thought back to Jarrett in the Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon, the crime that had put him there, the fact that he was a killer and roaming free again. ‘I wanted to wipe it off him,’ van Alphen continued.
Kellock nodded. He and van Alphen went back a long way. ‘The Jarrett name cropped up last night. John Tankard ran a plate number.’
Van Alphen stared at him. ‘The Jarretts were out and about, committing burglaries.’
‘Probably.’
‘Let’s get Tank’s version.’
John Tankard had almost fallen asleep over a pile of folders when Senior Sergeant Kellock called him. He made his way downstairs to Kellock’s office, the bad feelings of last night’s creepy encounter on the back roads still on his mind. Kellock’s door was wide open, Sergeant van Alphen sprawled in the office chair across from him. Tank could tell from the way their faces shut down that they were cooking up something.
Kellock spotted him. ‘Come in, John.’
‘Sir?’
‘You were on duty last night?’
Where was this going? Tank hadn’t made a formal report of his encounter with the Jarrett clan. He darted his gaze from Kellock to van Alphen and back again. ‘Sir.’
‘Anything out of the usual happen?’
‘Not really, sir.’
They watched him, expressionless but fully disbelieving and barely civil, a cop’s gaze. After a while, Kellock said, ‘The collators have been looking at a spate of recent burglaries.’
Tank nodded. The civilian collators charted chronologies, friendship networks, incident patterns. He knew where this was going. ‘Sir?’
Van Alphen spoke for the first time. ‘Look, John, don’t fuck us around, all right?’
Tank went wobbly inside. Of course his numberplate requests last night had been noted by Kellock and van Alphen. ‘Sir, the Jarretts.’
‘That’s better,’ Kellock said. ‘Where?’
Tank told them. ‘They weren’t doing anything at the time.’
‘That’s because they’d just done it,’ said van Alphen, ‘an aggravated burglary a couple of kilometres from where you saw them.’
‘Oh.’
‘It was only a matter of time,’ Kellock said. ‘The occupant was home, and they beat the shit out of him, older bloke, put him in hospital.’ He paused. ‘Was Nick Jarrett among these guys you encountered?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Van Alphen gave his sharkish smile. ‘You didn’t log it in.’
‘Sir, there was no crime being committed and-’
‘Our collators depend on that kind of intelligence gathering, John.’
‘Sorry, sir, won’t happen again.’
There was a pause, and then something happened, a silent communication between Kellock and van Alphen that John Tankard couldn’t decipher.
‘That will be all, constable,’ said Kellock. ‘Go home, put your feet up. Big day tomorrow.’
16
In Mawson’s Bluff, Hal Challis was feeling seriously housebound. At mid-afternoon, his father said gently, ‘Take yourself off for a walk, son.’
‘But what if-’
‘What if I die?’
‘Cut it out, Dad.’
‘Vital signs are in good shape. Heart, lungs, liver, bowels, bladder. Well, enough said about the bladder.’
Challis had heard him at night, slipper-shuffling to and from the bathroom. Several times.
‘If you’re sure.’
‘I’m sure.’
And so Challis walked around Mawson’s Bluff for a couple of hours. The town was laid out in a simple grid, with side streets branching off the main street, which was part of the highway. It felt good to get his legs and heart pumping. He was curious to see that no one was about. There were clues to the presence of humans-cars parked in driveways and out in the street-but everyone was inside, spending a dutiful Sunday with relatives. Curtains were drawn over every window. Here and there a lawn sprinkler hissed, a cat arched its back, a dog wandered out from a driveway. Challis heard TV sport at a couple of the houses. The town was low, flattened, almost asleep, and all along the drooping telephone and power lines were the small-town birds, waiting.
He wandered into the grounds of the primary school, crossing dry grass and red dirt, stopping long enough to try the hip-hugging playground slide with an antic joy before c
ontinuing among the gum and pepper trees, drawing in their scent. And then, pushing through a cypress hedge behind the school, taking a short cut he remembered from his childhood, he came to the town’s sportsground: football oval, tennis courts, lawn bowls rinks and a tiny enclosed swimming pool.
And there was his niece. Eve wasn’t doing anything, just watching four other teenagers as they hit a tennis ball on one of the courts, a raucous game of doubles without a net. Like Eve, they wore cargo pants, T-shirts and trainers. They called to him, ‘Hi, Hal!’ He had no idea who they were.
Eve spun around, startled. He’d last seen her at his mother’s funeral last year. Back then she’d been wearing a sombre dress, tall, slim and striking but utterly grief-stricken, her face raw with it. He saw that an underlying sadness still lingered, even as she ran at him like a delighted kid and hugged him fiercely.
‘Hi, gorgeous,’ he said.
She rested her jaw on his shoulder. ‘It’s so good to see you, Uncle Hal.’
‘Same here.’
She let him go. ‘I’ve been meaning to drop in. How’s Gramps?’
‘Cranky.’
She cocked her head, amused, but also half serious. ‘He’s never cranky with me.’
‘That’s because you’re perfect.’
‘True.’
They sat on a bench and watched her friends play. The sun washed over them and Chains felt easy, some of his cares evaporating.
