by Dave Warner
It had been gone by the time Taylor arrived.
‘It’s a matter of time. There are only so many roads up here. Are you alright to drive back?’
Taylor had organised his mate to drive my car back to Derby while I rode with him to the hospital but now I was on my own.
‘In two hours I’ll be cherry ripe. Thank Jared for me. I hope I haven’t ruined your time with your kid.’
‘No, your timing was perfect. I’d just dropped her home when I got the call. Listen, I’ve got a place just outside of Derby. You could stay there.’
‘I’ll be fine, truly. I’ve had a lot worse.’
‘You tell Feister about the body?’
I explained I had communicated the situation. Dee Vee had left three messages to call her when I had a chance. I should be ringing her now but why make my headache worse?
‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning,’ I said. ‘Thanks for checking in.’
He told me to take it easy and reaffirmed they would find the car soon. I wished I could curl up in Tash’s arms but she was on the other side of the world and all I had for companionship was a silent television and torn, out-of-date magazines.
Clement hung up, thinking it was stupid of Lane to have gone in alone. But perhaps he was stupid too, allowing a civilian this kind of access. On the other hand, there was no guarantee Jared would have made it in time to clock the Feister car. At least this way they had confirmation on the vehicle and surely it couldn’t get too far now. Taylor had radioed ahead for people on the Tanami Track to keep an eye out. All the other major towns had been informed. He’d informed Risely who said tomorrow they would get aerial support. As to why Lane had been attacked, he could only surmise it was somebody who had committed a criminal act already, either Coldwell on Ingrid Feister, or a third party who at the very least had stolen the car. Clement was standing on the dock outside the chandler’s place. The breeze was pleasantly cool. His hope of seeing Marilyn when he returned Phoebe home had been dashed. There had been no sign of her and he had been forced to deal with his mother-in-law, Geraldine, to whom he ascribed a lot of responsibility for the marriage break-up. In spite of this setback, he was on the verge of digging in his heels and waiting for Marilyn but then got Taylor’s call informing him he was on his way to Derby with a bleeding Snowy Lane. Clement had then driven back through town and stopped in on Turner’s aunt, Olive Pickering, just in case she’d heard anything. She was very upset. She’d heard nothing from her nephew and was sure something bad had happened.
‘He wouldn’t do that to me,’ she kept saying.
She was worried now about losing her house. Clement tried to reassure her but in truth he had little idea how these things worked. Sidney Turner was a foolish young man but not, Clement believed, an evil one. And yet in his wake he had left physical and emotional destruction. Clement rechecked with her there were no friends of Sidney’s she had not already mentioned. There weren’t. He promised Olive Pickering they would keep looking.
‘He was a good boy,’ she said, ‘until he went to Perth.’
The sound of a small outboard reached out to Clement from the black. He remembered nights like this when he was young, anonymous out the back of the campground his parents ran, music from a cassette radio hanging thick as fruit in the warm air. On impulse he dialled Louise. The phone rang and rang. He was about to hang up, chiding himself she was probably already in bed, when she answered.
‘Hi, it’s me.’
‘Hello stranger.’
He could detect no reproach, she seemed relaxed. He stared out at the dark water. There was hardly any moon.
‘I know. Things have been crazy.’ He did not tell her he had sat out in front of her house last night, and then wondered why not. His own motivations were as hidden from him as the water out there.
‘Have you found Sidney Turner?’ she asked.
‘No. We’ve checked his friends. We’re chasing down a couple of things. I dropped in on his aunt. She’s very worried about her house. Could she lose it?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Could you talk to her? I think she needs some guidance.’
‘Of course. Do you want to come over?’
Yes he did. ‘I had better not. There’s a lot going on at the moment and I have to be up really early.’ He wondered if he had blown it. ‘I’d like to, I really would.’
‘That’s okay.’
For the first time there was a hint of wound in her voice.
‘Did Turner say anything to you?’ He had to be careful here. This would have been so much simpler if he’d seen her in the interim.
‘I can’t go into our conversations, you know that though.’
‘Of course. But did you get a sense of his mood?’
‘He was scared of somebody, a dealer I think, but I can’t say any more than that.’
Clement wondered how far he could go in touching on the Autostrada case.
‘There was a critical piece of evidence pertaining to another case, something Turner stole …’
‘Is accused of stealing, I think you mean.’
He didn’t blame her for coming on all lawyer-like but it irked him. ‘Yes, found in his possession. We desperately need to know where it came from. Did he give you …’
‘He never went into any detail. There wasn’t time for that. I was looking at his good record and an argument to get him bail.’
Which has been the cause of this whole problem, thought Clement. But he had the will to hold his tongue. They dithered for a minute longer but the body had slipped from the conversation and left them only with garments intended for decency. Clement ended the call promising to catch up soon. He’d made a hash of it.
Hubris comes at a price. It wasn’t bad enough I’d tried to act like I was still twenty-five and copped a whack on my head for my trouble. I also rejected out of hand Clement’s offer of the use of his house. Not satisfied with those errors, I resisted the doctors’ suggestions I take a room at the hospital, insisting I could ride it out in casualty until they cleared me. They didn’t. They told me I was grounded until 8.00 am. I tried to sleep across seats. A nurse took pity on me and offered me a pillow. Finally they allowed me to go. The drive back to Broome was interminable and I felt nauseous, from the hit or lack of sleep or both. Twice I had to pull over thinking I was going to throw up. It must have been around 11.00 in the morning when I stumbled into my room at the Mimosa. After talking with Clement I’d turned my phone off and did not turn it back on. I fell on the bed and slept. A knock on my door finally woke me a little after 3.00 pm.
Clement stood there.
‘Hi there, champ,’ he said. ‘You weren’t answering your phone. I thought you might be dead.’
‘Dead to the world.’ I stepped back to let him in. ‘Please tell me we have something.’
‘I wish. The word is out. Jared Taylor is checking every one of the gorges with the Parks and Wildlife people. We have a plane up but it’s Sunday, so it’s tricky. Also means no autopsy but I spoke to Rhino. He’s checked the beetles from the body. He puts date of death close to August nineteenth.’
The day after Ingrid and her boyfriend Coldwell were last seen at Sandfire.
‘You want a coffee?’
‘That,’ I said, ‘is an excellent suggestion.’
We availed ourselves of the café at the Mimosa. It was expensive but worth it. Not just because the coffee was good but because my legs still were rubbery and my hip sore where I must have hit the dirt hard. It took me back to my famous game when South Fremantle’s Timmy Wittenoom cleaned me up. As if by some mutual truce we didn’t talk the case, or cases as they may have been.
‘So, you had a good day with your daughter?’
‘It was great. Sometimes it’s the only thing I can keep hold of. You know what I mean?’
I did and told him so.
‘How many times have you been married?’ he asked.
‘Once.’
He scraped away the fern p
attern on his cappuccino froth. ‘You’re lucky, then. It makes you feel like a failure you couldn’t get it done, see it through.’
‘I know plenty about that: Autostrada being one example.’ I thought back to the Gruesome case. I got it right in the end but I missed what was under my nose too. In the spirit of bonhomie I took a stab in the dusk.
‘The night at the Pearl. That wasn’t with your ex?’
He shook his head. ‘She’s got a fella. Getting married in a few weeks.’
‘The lawyer?’
He looked up sharply. ‘Somebody talk, or you figure that out yourself?’
‘I picked up the vibe when we called around. She’s beautiful, you don’t mind me saying so.’
He shrugged, no objection.
‘Love of my life looked like that, back when I was a young man and video players were the newest thing on the block. Guess that’s ancient history for you?’
He smirked. ‘We didn’t have a video player. I had to rely on friends. And up here there was never anything new to watch.’
‘Supposedly we’re the envy of the world. We’ve had twenty years or something like that without a recession but I don’t see any improvement. People have to work harder now than ever to pay off a home: that’s two people working instead of one. You can’t get into a hospital or, if you do, you’ll get a worse infection than you started with. We used to leave bottles of beer for the garbos at Christmas. They’d know your street, know the women who were pregnant and if one wasn’t around when they called they’d ask: has she had it yet? Now it’s one guy you never see in a truck. Next it’ll be robot trucks.’
Clement was in step with me. ‘They’ve already got those up here for mining. What I miss most, everybody was pretty equal. Like holidays. When our caravan park first started you’d get businessmen, doctors and their families, right next door to a tradie with his kids. By the time my folks closed, it had all changed. I can’t see it’s for the better.’
‘We don’t make anything anymore,’ I said, like the curmudgeon I was. ‘Not even biscuits.’ Mind you, this didn’t stop me eating the tiny packaged Italian biscotti that came with my coffee.
‘Exactly.’
‘And yet,’ I said, unable to keep from saying it, ‘he’s still out there.’
I didn’t have to explain. Clement knew.
‘Not for much longer, right?’
He held out his cup and we clinked. I prayed that wasn’t more hubris.
CHAPTER 24
Because of the volume of things to do, Clement made sure he was at the station 5.30 Monday morning. He had slept well, which was surprising with so much running through his head. Sidney Turner was still missing but Earle and Shepherd were to follow that up, at least from the Mongoose Cole end. Lisa Keeble had said the autopsy would be first thing today. He guessed that might mean around 8.00 am. They’d got nothing on Jane Doe’s fingerprints. Jared Taylor and his posse of sorts were still searching for the Feister vehicle around the gorges. Getting more planes up would be Risely’s concern. Clement guessed they’d get started soon. Until proved otherwise, he was going to treat the Autostrada investigation as separate to the body-in-the-desert. The next stage would be to interview all those motel guests – particularly the four men of the right demographic – about their whereabouts back during 1999, 2000. Whether it was him who got to do that was moot, although …
His eyes fixed on the map: the dot that was Telfer out in the desert. He certainly could speak to Henderson. Graeme Earle arrived at 6.00. Clement filled him in about Snowy Lane. They talked about Mongoose Cole. Risely and the AFP were pursuing the drug-running end. Clement knew the AFP would not take kindly to him or his people muddying those waters. They’d want Cole to think he was in the clear while they monitored him. Josh Shepherd arrived in time to be the beneficiary of Clement’s distilled thoughts.
‘If Cole won’t crack, maybe somebody close to him will. Try and get one of his men busted in the act. Then we can offer a deal. He tells us what Cole did to Turner, we go easy on the charge.’
Both men had plenty of informants they could tap. No sooner had they left, than Risely arrived. Two planes were up covering the Gibb River Road to Wyndham.
‘It’s an enormous stretch. If he keeps the car covered, it will still be hard to spot.’
Right now Clement didn’t need Risely’s lack of faith, even if it was justified. On the other hand, his boss was optimistic about the Mongoose Cole situation and busting a major drug supply ring. The Feds, he said, were ‘very interested in our intel’.
Mal Gross arrived, clocked his superiors in discussion and went to his desk. Clement waited till Risely had left, then approached his sergeant. Gross was prepared. He had pulled records on all the known victims of Turner’s burglaries. The ancient and minor transgressions of Bruce Henderson were the only things he’d found in the way of a record. It was possible however that something might crop up from one of the other state police. He had asked them to check the backgrounds of people listed.
It was nearly 8.00 by the time Clement finished with Gross. A sense of unease seemed to have taken possession of him, his personal relationships, these cases, all seemed out of his control. After leaving Lane, he had driven to Louise’s but their last disastrous conversation pressed on him like an unwelcome hitchhiker and once again he had not found the courage to stop. Instead he’d gone home and intricately checked his bearings on every aspect of the two cases he was running in tandem. Despite his sound sleep none of his sense of powerlessness had dissipated. He made his way to the kitchenette, not so much needing a coffee as hoping it might provide a timeout, some breathing space. Manners was already there, his monster chalice in his mitt. He beat Clement to the punch.
‘I ran those phones for you.’
It was one of those little loose ends Clement had reminded himself of last evening: he had asked Manners to run the numbers called and received on all the phones Turner had stolen. He didn’t know what he was looking for really. If the Autostrada killer ran a double life maybe there might be some discrepancy: calls to bondage sites, a link to somebody from the original case. TV cops would so often look behind the book that didn’t sit quite right on the shelf and, lo and behold, discover an important clue hidden. Okay, nobody seemed to read these days, but it was not a bad metaphor, he thought.
‘Anything interesting?’
The idea that he may have been expected to analyse anything himself seemed to shock Manners. He muttered he’d just collated the data and dashed off to get it. It was just the interruption Clement didn’t need. His doubts came gushing back. How dumb was he? He should have stopped in at Louise’s last night, banished Marilyn with great sex. Now he’d not spoken to her since Saturday night and that absence of contact had amplified vague unease into something almost tangible. Would she even want to hear from him?
Manners returned with a bunch of pages. ‘I listed all the calls in and out: Who To, Who From.’
At least that was something.
‘What should I do with this?’ Manners held out a mobile phone still in its evidence bag.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It was one of Turner’s stolen phones but nobody claimed it.’
Clement fought to keep his anger under control. ‘That’s been sitting there?’
‘I guess.’
‘Why didn’t you tell somebody?’
It would have been so easy to take that silly mug out of his hand and dash it on the floor. The severity of the rebuke forced Manners to blink.
‘I told Josh.’
Still roiling, Clement dialled Shepherd. Soon as he answered, he went in hard, all the frustrations finding a focus.
‘Manners says he told you there was a spare phone in Turner’s haul.’
Shepherd sounded offended rather than chastened. ‘That’s right. Hey, if they’re not going to ask for it back, I’m not chasing it up. We’ve been flat out, and my shoulder’s still knackered.’
The hazard of keeping
Shepherd out of the loop now loomed big and clear. Shepherd had no idea of the significance. He thought it was just a piece of loot that had been retrieved from a burglar.
‘You should have told me.’ Clement stabbed the phone off with bitterness.
Manners had the look of a man fearing he was next for execution.
‘Do you know whose phone this is?’
Manners, edgy about giving a suitable reply, hesitated mid-sip. ‘I wrote it down.’
‘Could you go get it please?’
Manners put down his coffee cup and once again moved off in haste. Meg appeared, sensing something had gone down but not letting that affect her. Nothing much affected Meg.
‘The detective bloke’s here.’
‘Send him through.’
Lane arrived before Manners had returned. Clement’s gaze was drawn instantly to the right temple.
‘Some wag at the servo asked me if I was a Dockers supporter who’d forgotten to remove the facepaint.’
Clement couldn’t suppress a smile. Truth was it was almost as purple.
‘They’re not big on empathy up this way,’ Clement said and was surprised to see Lane offering him a takeaway coffee.
‘I saw the way you looked at me last time. Thought you might bushwhack me for this. I played the odds: flat white. I drank mine on the way.’
Clement thanked him and sipped as he gave a cursory run-down of what was in train to find the vehicle and hopefully the assailant.
Manners appeared with a list printed on A4.
‘Phone’s owner is Chelsea Lipton, Perth address, no landline.’
Clement scanned his memory. ‘There was no Lipton on the motel list was there?’
He directed the question at Snowy Lane rather than Manners, but they both answered ‘no’ in unison.
‘What about the earlier burglaries? Could it be from there?’
Clement could not recall a Chelsea Lipton being a victim.
Lane said, ‘He could have stolen it from a beach bag, or coffee shop.’
Manners jumped in. ‘It’s an old android. I could check for photos.’
