by Garry Disher
Challis pushed the file across the desk to Wurfel. ‘Thanks, sergeant. I appreciate it.’
Wurfel grunted. ‘We gave the kid a verbal warning.’
Challis blinked, then understood. ‘Mark Finucane?’
‘He’s not a bad kid, considering the family he belongs to.’
‘I know all about the Finucanes,’ Challis said.
He returned to the main street and wandered, his mind drifting, but after a while the town began to impinge on him. People kept stopping to say hello, ask after his father and reminisce about the old days, when he’d been just another town kid and later, for a short time, one of the town’s three policemen. They didn’t dwell on this latter aspect of his past, and Challis was thankful for that, but, as he walked, he wondered what he’d gained and lost by moving away. Professional advancement, sure, broader horizons, but at a cost. Did he have a family now, or a community? He was remote from the former, and despite his years on the Peninsula, and in the police force, he inhabited the margins, not the centre. How much that owed to his not fitting in, and how much to not wanting to, he really couldn’t say.
He walked on. Small things-a voice, a gait, the hot-wood smell of a verandah post in the bright springtime sun-aroused in him powerful memories of his school days and weekends in Mawson’s Bluff, a time of idle, harmless vandalism, boredom and longing. He even found himself feeling the same hostility or indifference toward some people, the same affection for others.
And the same desire. He’d slipped into the Copper Kettle for coffee, and was standing at the cash register, when a lithe shape pressed against his back, arms encircled him from behind, and a voice breathed, ‘Guess who, handsome?’
He knew at once. He felt his body yielding, arching, his head tipping back and inclining toward her mouth, which reached up and pecked him on the hinge of his jaw. He turned around then. ‘Lisa.’
She grinned and released him.
‘Lovely to see you,’ he said.
She continued to grin. He was a little discomposed. A part of him meant what he’d said, for she was as lovely as he’d remembered, still slight, nimble, direct, her dark hair cropped short, her dark eyes bright with affection. Another part of him remembered her directness and how uncomplicated and selfish her ambitions had been.
‘Join me?’ he said.
‘What are you having?’
‘Coffee and a muffin.’
Another customer was already waiting, but Lisa, smiling apologetically, called to the counter hand, ‘I’ll have the same. Strong coffee.’
‘Yes, Mrs Joyce.’
‘You have to tell them to make it strong, Hal.’
Challis forked out more money and they found a table beside a window. There had been nothing like the Copper Kettle when they were growing up. The decor suggested sidewalk cafй bohemia, and you could consume anything from a soy latte to a smoked salmon baguette. It was evident that the locals patronised it, too: he saw shopkeepers, farmers, housewives, visiting salesmen, kids on their way home from school.
‘Sorry to hear about your dad,’ Lisa said.
‘Thanks.’
‘Is he, you know…’
‘Meg thinks he’ll go soon, but he’s so pigheaded he could rally for a few weeks or months, or even go on like this forever.’
Lisa nodded. ‘My parents are still going strong. Rex’s are barely hanging on.’
Her wealthy husband’s parents had retired to the town, signing everything over to their son. Challis wondered if Lisa had been behind that. Rex Joyce’s parents had seemed old and frail twenty years ago. As Lisa said, they must barely be hanging on now.
‘How is Rex?’
Lisa told him. He scarcely took it in, finding attractive-all over again-her fine, animated features and gestures. She was very alive there, on the other side of the little table. Their knees touched, and their shoes, once or twice. But he did take in the fact that Lisa was disgruntled. Rex Joyce was a drinker. He remembered that Meg had told him that.
‘And you?’ she asked. She gave him a lopsided look. ‘Are you over all that…business?’
She meant the fact that Angela, his late wife, had tried to have him killed. Lisa’s voice and manner suggested that despite everything else she had or might have done to him, she would never have wanted to kill him. He nodded, feeling tired suddenly. It was as if he was being confronted by past mistakes-mistakes in matters of the heart, first with Lisa and then with Angela. He said bluntly, ‘It would never have worked, you and me.’
She wasn’t disconcerted. She patted his wrist. ‘In fact, it didn’t work. But it was fun.’
He grinned. She returned it, and said lightly, ‘Involved with anyone at the moment?’
Her gaze was direct, amused but merciless. He met it, thinking rapidly. Lisa was acting on him; the old chemistry was still there. But old instincts were kicking in, too. He remembered that Lisa Acres was not someone you confided in. If she listened it was to store information that she might use one day-against you, or to her advantage, or both.
‘Cat got your tongue, Hal?’
That tugged at his memory, too. He’d often been mute with her, back when he was eighteen, mainly out of simple astonishment: he’d never met anyone so vain, unreliable, bored and easily distracted. All those careless, shrugging explanations for missed appointments and unreturned phone calls. Reproaches never worked because she was unaccommodating, unconcerned about hurting him and unable to make concessions. But her sauntering walk, sleepy smile and softly rounded, flawless brown skin had made up for all of that, over and over again.
She saw all of this passing across his face and a brief, peevish expression flickered on hers, as if she was like everyone else and wanted to be loved. Her gaze slipped to the table.
He sipped his coffee and said inanely, ‘How’s the drought affecting you and Rex?’
‘The drought? For God’s sake.’
The tightness persisted between them. Presently Lisa said, ‘I see Eve in here sometimes. A whole gang of them. Nice kids.’
‘Yes,’ said Challis, relieved.
‘I feel sorry for her.’
‘Eve’s okay.’
Lisa reached across and placed her hand over his and it felt hot and alive there. ‘On the surface, maybe.’
He withdrew his hand. ‘Did you know Gavin?’
Lisa sipped her coffee. ‘This is all froth. Gavin? Not really. He was not someone you got close to.’
Challis had to acknowledge the truth of that.
‘Well, I’d better go,’ Lisa said, getting to her feet and bending over to kiss him. She swept out of the place as though she owned it, as she’d always done.
He sat for a while, reluctant to return to his father, and checked his phone, which had been turned off. One message. He dialled, mood lightening, and said, ‘Only me, returning your call.’
Last night Ellen had been elated: Katie Blasko had been found alive. Today the elation was still apparent in her voice, but Challis also heard resolve. She now knew what sort of crime and criminals she was investigating. ‘Hang on,’ he told her, ‘I’m in the local cafй, and I don’t want to upset the natives.’
Smiling thanks as he passed the front counter, he stepped outside. ‘I’m back,’ he said.
They talked for a while about the possibility that a paedophile ring operated on the Peninsula. Like her, he’d heard the rumours. ‘Or it was an isolated incident,’ he said.
‘Which makes it harder to investigate,’ Ellen said. She paused. ‘Such a brave little kid. I hated interviewing her, making her dredge it all up.’
‘I know.’
Challis did know. Sad, broken and fearful children walked through his dreams sometimes. In many cases he’d avenged the harm done to them, but not nearly often enough.
He walked, listened, made suggestions. Talking like this, about work, and its logical steps, was a blessing, an antidote to the fog he was feeling here in the Bluff. ‘You’re a tonic,’ he said, after she’d kidded hi
m about something.
There was a pause. ‘Am I?’
Then, as he was beginning to think he’d gone too far, she said, ‘You are, too, Hal.’
24
Operation Calling Card.
While Ellen Destry had been interviewing Katie Blasko, van Alphen and Kellock found their ambush site, a house behind the fitness centre. It belonged to Kellock’s wife’s cousin, who worked on a Bass Strait oil rig and was therefore away for several days at a time. They fed the details to Ivan Henniker, and he fed them to Nick Jarrett. To cover themselves, van Alphen and Kellock obtained three other addresses, of people who were genuinely away on holiday, and arranged for each location to be staked out that night. Ivan Henniker was not told those addresses. ‘We might get lucky and catch Nick Jarrett in the act,’ van Alphen and Kellock told the stakeout teams in one of the little briefing rooms behind the canteen, later that afternoon, ‘or we might sit on our arses all night. It could be weeks before we trap the bastard.’
‘So Jarrett’s been fed four potential locations to burgle?’ asked John Tankard, who was highly motivated. He’d spent a fruitless morning in De Soto Lane with Scobie Sutton, and still cringed inside at the memory of his fear last Saturday night, encountering the Jarretts on that back road behind Waterloo.
‘Yes,’ lied van Alphen. He glanced at his watch. ‘Take the rest of the afternoon off. Meet you back here at eight tonight.’
John Tankard hurried out of the station. Four o’clock. He was anxious to grab this small window of opportunity to do something about his new car. He’d shown it to a few mates at work, and their reactions had ranged from envy to ridicule (which Tank read as envy), but he’d not had a chick in the passenger seat yet-not counting his little sister- and the Northern Territory registration would run out soon.
And so he drove around to Waterloo Motors and booked it in for a roadworthy test. He wouldn’t be able to register the car in Victoria without it.
‘I can fit you in early next week,’ the head mechanic said, flipping through the grimy pages of his desk diary.
‘But the rego runs out on Friday,’ Tank said. He cursed that he’d changed out of his uniform. The uniform gave him authority. In jeans and a T-shirt he was merely bulky.
He’d had a shower though.
The mechanic made tsk sounds and ruminated on the problem. ‘Get it privately, did you?’
‘A dealer,’ Tank said.
‘Dealers are supposed to provide a roadworthy certificate.’
‘The car’s from Darwin, just traded in, not much registration left, so the guy discounted the price if I’d buy it as it is,’ said Tank in a defensive rush.
The mechanic said nothing but was unimpressed. Electric tools whirred and clattered beyond the door that led to the workshop area. Someone whistled, another dropped a spanner, and the air was laden with the odours of oil and grease. Everything was satisfying to John Tankard, except this hitch regarding the mechanic’s busy diary.
‘I could do it first thing tomorrow,’ the guy said eventually.
‘Awesome,’ said Tank.
‘Seven-thirty?’
Tank intended to be still in bed at seven-thirty tomorrow, what with working late tonight on Kellock’s and van Alphen’s operation to nab Nick Jarrett. ‘You couldn’t make it later?’
‘Nope.’
Tank thought about it. ‘How about I give you the car now, you lock it up overnight, and start on it first thing in the morning.’
‘No problem.’
‘Got a loan car?’
‘Sorry, mate, none available,’ said the mechanic glibly.
What he meant was, he didn’t intend to loan Tank a car to compensate for a measly thirty-minute roadworthy test. So Tank walked home to his flat. It didn’t feel right, walking. It put him too close to the populace, some of whom he’d arrested over the years, and all of whom knew him as a bully.
His mobile rang. ‘I’m waiting,’ said the producer from ‘Evening Update’.
That same afternoon, Pam Murphy was trying to do things by the book. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said.
Confronting a guy who looked young, about twenty, and indistinguishable from other guys his age: baseball cap, loose T-shirt, baggy jeans, bulky, expensive trainers on his feet. And hostile with it.
‘I’m Constable Murphy,’ Pam said. One day she’d be able to say Detective Constable, but not yet. She stood about four metres away from the kid, and to one side, the side he’d try for if he wanted to make a run for it. On his other side was a chain-link fence, behind him a brick wall.
‘So?’ said the guy, showing plenty of attitude, reminding her of a Jarrett hoon from the Seaview estate.
‘How long have you been standing here?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Answer the question, please, sir,’ Pam said.
‘Couple hours.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You haven’t moved from here in two hours?’
‘Nup. What’s this about?’
‘There’s been a report of a robbery near here.’
‘Yeah? So? You sayin’ I done it?’
‘Don’t you want to know what kind of robbery? Perhaps you already know?’
‘Listen, bitch, I done nothin’ to no one.’
‘You’re in the vicinity. We have a witness description that matches yours.’
The guy getting edgy now, looking for a way out, even prepared to use violence. ‘Yeah? Who?’
‘If I could see some ID please, sir.’
Last night’s seminar had involved conflict resolution, a visiting American lecturing to them for three hours on how to use speech to deflect or negate threatening situations. ‘The gun you’re carrying isn’t the most dangerous thing about you,’ he’d said. ‘Neither is your ability to use a baton or your fists or your boots. It’s your tongue.’
‘Tongue = danger,’ Pam had written on her A4 writing pad, feeling a little absurd.
‘It’s your tongue and how quickly you use it to show anger or contempt,’ the lecturer continued, ‘how quickly you use it to say the wrong thing or take the wrong tone. In certain situations it can be like throwing a match into a gas tank.’
John Tankard’s approach, Pam had thought, listening to the lecturer drone away. He’d gone on to explain how you should avoid ‘conflict phrases’ such as ‘What’s your problem, pal?’ and use ‘peace phrases’ like ‘May I help you, sir?’
Pam had scribbled dutifully: conflict phrases, peace phrases.
‘It’s all about sublimating ego and anger,’ the lecturer continued. ‘Try to read your customers. What they say and what they mean can be two entirely different things.’
Customers? Jesus Christ. Sometimes Pam could sympathise with the likes of John Tankard. She’d raised her hand last night, the lecturer giving her plenty of lecture-circuit teeth. ‘Yes, young lady?’
‘And when words fail?’
‘Then you kick ass,’ the lecturer said.
So now Pam was trying the softly, softly approach with this twenty-year-old would-be gangster. ‘Perhaps you have a driver’s licence you can show me, sir?’
‘Got no pockets.’
‘You don’t carry a wallet?’
‘Nah.’
‘Your name and address, then, sir.’
‘Why should I tell you my fucking name? This is bullshit. I done nothin’ wrong.’
‘Sir, I’m obliged to investigate. I’d like to be able to eliminate you from our inquiries, let you be on your way, so if you could just give me a name…’
‘Fuck you!’ the kid screamed.
He had a knife. It seemed to materialise in his hand. He was wild-eyed, waving it around, there in that alley that smelt of cat piss and mouldering cardboard.
Just as suddenly, Pam had her.38 centred on his chest. ‘Sir, put the knife down, please. I don’t want anybody to get hurt.’
‘I’m not goin’ back to jail! I didn’t steal nothin’!’
<
br /> ‘Then you have nothing to worry about. Just put the knife down, please, sir.’
The tension left the kid’s face. It was gone in an eyeblink. He tossed the knife aside, said cockily, ‘There. Satisfied?’
Pam bolstered her.38 warily. ‘Thank you, sir. Now, if you could just step away from the knife.
The kid snatched the knife from the ground. He lunged, the blade winking in the dim light, flicking cruelly past her unprotected stomach. Any closer and her guts would have spilt out. She’d relaxed too soon. She might fumble getting her revolver out again, drop it, have it snatched by this quicksilver kid, something she’d never live down-if she lived.
She had a fallback position, her capsicum spray. Before the kid could take another swipe at her, she let him have it full in the face.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, overkill,’ he said, wiping water from his eyes.
She grinned, handed him her handkerchief commiseratively.
‘Not bad, Constable Murphy,’ the training officer said. Behind him the other trainees applauded ironically.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘But you know where you went wrong?’
‘Yes, sir. Didn’t shoot him, sir.’
The other trainees cheered, and the ‘kid’, a senior constable, gave her the finger.
Scobie Sutton got home at six that evening to a house full of cooking smells, but something else registered in his senses, too, an atmosphere. Maybe Beth had been yelling at Roslyn. She did that sometimes. She hadn’t used to, before she was retrenched from her job with the shire-via e-mail. Scobie came to the back door, as usual, removed his shoes in the little space they called the mud room, as usual, and walked in his socks to the kitchen, where the fluorescent light was merciless, showing up the essential tackiness of their out-of-date cabinets and bench tops. They’d had plans to renovate the kitchen, back when Beth still had her job. The atmosphere: it wasn’t frustration or anger, it was guilt.
‘Hello, my darlings,’ Scobie said, wondering if his tone alone would tip the balance toward harmony.
Beth was brushing oil over an uncooked chicken. Cubes of potato and pumpkin ringed it. She hardly dared to glance at him but kept her face and eyes averted as she accepted his kiss. She felt stiff in his arms.
