The Dragon Man ic-1

by Garry Disher

  ‘We can check with the Department of Motor Vehicles.’

  ‘Check all you like,’ Ledwich said. He turned back to them. ‘You going to tell me what this is about?’

  ‘You’re well set up, aren’t you, Lance? Roomy set of wheels, the freedom to move around at night.’

  Ledwich muttered, ‘Lost my licence a while back.’

  ‘That doesn’t stop you from driving, though.’

  Ledwich folded his arms. ‘I suppose if I sit here long enough you’ll tell me what this is all about.’

  Ellen said softly, into his face, ‘Abduction, rape and murder.’

  He jerked back. ‘Me? No way.’

  ‘You can’t get sex the normal way, you have to con women and force yourself on them. We know that. It’s a matter of record. But you began to get more violent toward the end, didn’t you? You started to use your fists.’

  ‘That charge was dropped.’

  ‘So what? Doesn’t mean you didn’t do it.’

  ‘You know what we think, Lance?’ Sutton said. ‘We think you’ve graduated. We think you now realise what hard work it is conning women to get a root. Much easier just to use force.’

  ‘Subdue them,’ Ellen said, ‘drag them into the rear of your station wagon, rape and strangle them.’

  Ledwich swallowed. ‘I’m not into that. I’m married now.’

  ‘Poor woman,’ Ellen said.

  That, more than the badgering, seemed to anger Ledwich the most. ‘You lousy slag. I’ll get you for that. Somewhere dark, no backup to look after you, then we’ll see how tough you are.’

  ‘You’re threatening me, Lance? Or is that an admission of how you operate? A woman alone at night, defenceless…’

  ‘You’re putting words in my mouth.’

  ‘Kymbly Abbott,’ Sutton said, ‘Jane Gideon. You forced them into the rear compartment of your Volvo, raped and killed them, then dumped their bodies.’

  ‘I bet I was working. Check with my boss.’

  ‘I did, Lance.’ Ellen numbered her fingers: ‘Late to work, finishing early, slipping away sometimes for an hour or more at a time. You aren’t up for Employee of the Year, Lance.’

  Ledwich looked hunted. ‘I never fucking killed no-one. Prove I did.’

  ‘We will.’

  ‘I’ve put the sex stuff behind me.’

  ‘Lance,’ Ellen said, examining his perspiring face, smelling the fear, ‘you were sick back in 1991, you’re sick now, you’ll always be sick.’

  ‘Two days in a row,’ Clara told him. ‘That’s nice.’ She held him tight on the doorstep, then led him into the house. Incense, already lit. Curtains already drawn.

  ‘Just passing,’ Kees van Alphen said.

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  She unbuckled his belt. He groaned. He was so hungry for her. Afterwards he said, ‘Did you sleep all right last night?’

  It was the question she needed. ‘No,’ she said, with a laugh of real pain. ‘It’s been awful, just awful.’

  ‘You should get something to help you sleep.’

  ‘Having you there would help me sleep, big boy.’

  He was pleased and embarrassed. ‘Maybe soon. I’m on nights a lot at this time of the year. What about sleeping pills?’

  ‘They make me hazy in the head the next day. Look, don’t be upset with me, but the only thing that would relax me is dope or coke.’ She stopped. ‘Now you’re disappointed. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  He’d gone tense in her arms. She held on, willing him to relax.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve clearly said the wrong thing.’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s just, I don’t understand it, that’s all. I don’t mind so much if people are private users, it’s the scumbags who traffic in the stuff, to schoolkids, that really gets to me.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.’

  She turned away from him and began to get dressed. She was cutting him out, and she saw that it scared him a little. He pulled her back down to him. ‘Look, when you’re in the job you forget that most people are basically okay. You must’ve thought I was judging you. I wasn’t.’

  ‘It’s just my nerves at the moment,’ she said. ‘I’m not what you’d call a user. I used to smoke a bit of dope, do a line or two of coke, but that was years ago. I was hardly twenty. I’m clean now. It’s just, I’m so jittery, so bloody scared at night, if I had some dope or coke I think it would help straighten out my nerves.’

  He was silent. She began to trace circles on his stomach with her tongue. He was so sensitive! She heard him groan as she took him in her mouth. She knew what she was doing, but even so there was a part of her that was immersing herself in physical pleasure and comfort. She lost herself for a while.

  When he was finished, she wriggled to get close to his body, working her mouth to clear the thick saltiness away.

  She heard the rumble of his voice in her ear: ‘I could get you what you want.’

  She was very still. ‘Come again?’

  ‘Some grass, if that’s what you want. A couple of grams of coke maybe.’

  She sat up and said earnestly, ‘That’s really all I want, Van. I don’t need much. How-’

  ‘Don’t ask. And if you repeat any of this, I’ll deny it.’

  She moved away from him. ‘Don’t be like that. Don’t get angry with me.’

  He pulled her against him. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’d never dob you in.’

  ‘Sorry, Clara, honestly, forget I said it.’

  ‘I mean, we’d both go down, Van. Ruin both our lives.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘When?’ she said. ‘When can you get the stuff?’

  ‘I’ll come around some time tonight.’

  ‘What about your wife?’

  ‘Her?’ He laughed. ‘We separated long ago.’

  She realised that she knew nothing about him. ‘Kids?’

  ‘One. I don’t see her any more.’

  McQuarrie turned up that afternoon. ‘This letter, Hal. Any joy?’

  ‘We’re looking for a Canon printer, but the technicians doubt that the actual printer can be identified.’

  McQuarrie swivelled in his chair. He seemed to be mulling over the dimensions of the incident room and the aptitude of Challis and his detectives. Wall map, half-a-dozen desks, files, telephones, computers, and three officers, heads well down because the super was in the room.

  ‘Two murders, with the likelihood of a third to come.’

  ‘More than two, sir, if he’s hot a local and done this kind of thing before. There’s a series up around Newcastle we’re looking at.’

  ‘I’m tempted to bring in the Homicide Squad, Hal.’

  There were times when Challis used McQuarrie’s first name. Usually during social occasions. This wasn’t a social occasion, but McQuarrie’s voice had been tinged with doubt, as if he saw the case ballooning out of control-Challis’s, his, the force’s in general. He was a politician, essentially. He wanted reassurance, so Challis said, confidently, ‘That’s not strictly necessary at this stage, Mark.’

  McQuarrie looked around helplessly. ‘You’ve got enough support?’

  ‘No. I could do with more detectives. See if you can get them assigned from two or three different stations so that no-one’s left short-staffed. I’ve already requisitioned more desks, phones and computers.’

  McQuarrie sighed. ‘Fair enough. But the minute-’

  ‘The minute it threatens to fall apart, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘I mean, this isn’t exactly a case of a husband doing in his wife, Hal. This is different. This is big. I had the London Daily Telegraph on the line last night.’

  Challis, to amuse himself, said, ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘Oh, it was well under control, and nothing like the Belanglo Forest killings. I hope I said the right thing.’

  ‘Sir, we’ve got some solid forensic evidence with Jane Gideon. Tyre tracks in the mud, so we have
some idea of the kind of vehicle we’re looking for. Apart from the blow to the head, her death resembles Kymbly Abbott’s. I think we can rule out coincidence. We’re putting warnings over the media. With any luck, our man’s supply will run out.’

  McQuarrie screwed his mouth up. ‘Nice way of putting it.’

  ‘To him, sir, young women are a source of supply, they’re not real.’

  ‘Point taken.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes.’ McQuarrie got to his feet. He tilted back his head. ‘Listen up, everybody.’

  Ellen Destry threw down her pen. What did the fool want now? She had work to do. Ledwich had taken up most of the morning, and she was still waiting for the forensic technicians to identify the brand of tyre from the plaster casts they’d taken. So far, all they could tell her was that it was an off-road tyre, only slightly worn-ten, maybe fifteen thousand k’s-and distinctive because it had a round shoulder and a very deep tread. No other distinguishing marks, such as chips, burrs or uneven wear in the rubber. ‘But find me the tyre, and I’ll see if I can match it,’ the technicians said. ‘Yeah, sure, piece of cake,’ she’d told them. As for the cast matching the tyres on Lance Ledwich’s Volvo, that seemed very unlikely, even to her untrained eye. Quite a different ‘footprint’, as the technicians put it. She really was not inclined to listen to some crap or other from McQuarrie.

  She looked up to see that McQuarrie was watching her, waiting for her to pay attention. ‘First, I want to say that I think you’re doing a fine job under difficult circumstances. For that reason, I will arrange for extra detectives to be assigned to the case from Rosebud and Mornington. Sergeant Destry, you will continue to be in charge on the ground, answerable to Inspector Challis.’

  She gave him a tight little smile. He washed his palms together. ‘Now, clearly this is the work of one man. Our priorities are to find him before he kills again. Equally, we need to provide a safe environment here on the Peninsula. We also need to find the vehicle used to dump Jane Gideon’s body. Finally, we need to think about the mindset of the person behind these killings.’

  Mindset, Ellen thought. God.

  ‘Similarities between the victims,’ McQuarrie went on. ‘Differences. Did they know one another.’

  Now he’s telling us how to do our job, Ellen thought.

  ‘Kymbly Abbott, Jane Gideon,’ McQuarrie went on. He shook his head and laughed, and it was a laugh that went wrong, even as he uttered it and said, ‘Kymbly. Where do these people get their names from?’

  No-one shared the laughter. He was speaking ill of the dead. Meanwhile Ellen Destry felt herself blush, for she’d named her daughter Larrayne, not Lorraine, so what did that say about her? McQuarrie was a prick.

  It was with relief that she went to her car at the end of the day and was able to snatch a moment with Rhys Hartnett. She wasn’t sure, but there was something there, in the way he looked at her. ‘Are we still on for twelve o’clock Saturday?’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘If you like, stay on and have some lunch with us,’ she said.

  Challis worked until six-thirty that evening. As he was leaving the station, the prison called. Apparently his wife had tried to saw across her wrists with a plastic knife and had written a note that said, ‘Forgive me.’ They’d assumed that the note was for him. Maybe it was. Challis had long forgiven her, he was past making judgments about her, and had even told himself that she wasn’t his responsibility any more, but it was always him they called whenever she went off the rails. The call depressed him. He slumped back in his chair and stared at the wall maps.

  Then the front desk buzzed him. ‘Tessa Kane to see you, sir.’

  He put his hand to his forehead briefly. ‘Show her up.’

  He stepped into the corridor and waited. He was alone on the first floor. When Tessa appeared with a young constable, he sent the constable back downstairs. Tessa’s eyes were bright and searching. She was pleased with herself, but also gauging what he thought of her now. ‘Hal, don’t be mad at me.’

  ‘I thought you agreed you wouldn’t publish.’

  ‘No, I said I’d consider not publishing. Your finding Jane Gideon made it imperative, Hal. This was a scoop. It meant a lot to me, and I think it was in the public interest.’

  ‘I’ve never heard a more cynical-’

  ‘Hal,’ she said, and reached up and kissed him. He closed his eyes.

  In her low voice, she said, ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for ages.’

  He was surprised to find that his anger was gone, and made a sound in his throat that might have been assent and pleasure.

  ‘Hal, would you have dinner with me tonight?’

  Challis thought about it. He felt better about Tessa Kane, but doubted that he had energy and selflessness enough to be pleasant company for her. All he wanted to do was drive to the aerodrome and work on the Dragon.

  ‘Not tonight. Tomorrow?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Somewhere out of the public eye,’ he said.

  ‘That’s easy.’

  When he let himself into the hangar, twenty minutes later, he saw that Kitty had left the new issue of Vintage Aircraft on his tailplane, open at the centre spread. It showed a restored Dragon at Bankstown airport, full colour, the red and silver livery of an airline that had folded in 1936. Challis didn’t think he’d ever seen a more beautiful aeroplane. The rounded nose reminded him of a tentative, questing snake, but in all other respects the Dragon Rapide was nothing like a snake. An insect? It suggested delicacy, restraint, grace, and the atmosphere of England-to-Australia races and records as the world came out of the 1930s Great Depression, before it all went wrong again.

  He turned the pages to the ‘Help Wanted’ column. His letter was there. Somewhere in the world there might be a man or a woman who knew a little of the history of his aeroplane.

  Kees van Alphen sat in the window of Pizza Hut. They were used to him in there; he often ate there. He saw Tessa Kane leave the station. At seven-fifteen, Challis’s car pulled out of the station car park. Van Alphen waited for the 8 p.m. shift to get under way before he walked back across the road and into the station.

  Thursday night, a bit of action in town, what with people spending their pay cheques and gearing up for Christmas and the summer break. But quiet in the station itself. Van Alphen prowled about the building, opening and closing doors, chatting to the young constable on the front desk, the probationers in the tearoom, a couple of other sergeants writing up reports. In effect, he was mentally mapping the station, placing everyone, anticipating where they might accidentally wander. When he was satisfied, he walked into the office of Senior Sergeant Kellock-he who said his door was always open-and located the key to the evidence safe.

  The drugs were on the top shelf, just a handful of small plastic sealables of coke and hashish, some pill bottles of ecstasy, some amphetamines from a garden-shed laboratory in a twist of paper. Van Alphen substituted two of the cocaine baggies for baggies of castor sugar, double checked the paperwork-they’d not be needed in trial for another six weeks yet-and left the office, locking the safe behind him.

  ‘I’ll be out for a couple of hours,’ he told the constable on the front desk.

  ‘Okay, Sarge.’

  ‘Our pyromaniacs might decide on return visits.’

  ‘Good one, boss.’

  The constable seemed to be assessing him.

  ‘What are you looking at, Sunshine?’

  ‘Sorry, nothing, Sarge. I mean, you’re not on night shift tonight.’

  ‘Things hot up before Christmas, you know that. Plus we got members down with a stomach bug. I like to keep on top of things. It’s what makes a cop, that little bit extra.’

  ‘Yes, Sarge.’

  ‘All right then.’

  Van Alphen took an unmarked Commodore from the car pool and drove to Clara’s house with the radio dispatcher’s voice scratching in the darkness and all of his heartaches on his mind. Fucking
Tessa Kane and her editorials. What was she doing at the station? Trying to get more dirt?

  Three strikes and you’re out. He’d been warned for over-enthusiastic policing in his previous two districts, and now it was happening again. No-one understood that you had to start hard and carry through on it, or the scumbags won. But the top brass were hypersensitive to the image the press gave the force, and the civil libertarians were always making a noise about police brutality. Fuck them. He knew his methods got results. He’d had the highest arrest record in each of his districts, which proved that crime was always there, under the surface, and had been allowed to tick over unchecked.

  It was a pity the women in his life hadn’t been able to hack it. His wife and daughter had walked out, finally, saying they couldn’t stand the stares, the whispers, the aggravation. He felt sorry they’d had to suffer, but the fact that they hadn’t stuck by him left a sour taste in his mouth.

  Then Clara wrapped herself around him like a cat, and his cares flew out of the window.

  Eight

  Challis rose at six on Friday morning and, dressed in trousers, shirt and tie, sat on the decking at the rear of his house to watch the lightening sky and the swallows as they caught mosquitoes and other insects on the wing. The garden, such as it was, showed signs of cracked soil: even the weeds were dying. We were lucky to get that tyre track, he thought. The rest of the Peninsula is bone dry. But the tyre was all they had. No semen traces, for the killer had used a condom. No prints, for he’d worn gloves. What he’d left on his victims were absences, including the absence of life.

  So, what did his victims leave on him?

  Challis was expecting the additional detectives from Rosebud and Mornington to be at the early briefing. He drained the dregs of his coffee and walked the boundary again. Just as he reached the road gate, the council garbage truck slowed, saw that Challis had forgotten to wheel out his bin, and accelerated away again, leaving Challis a taste of dust and diesel exhaust. That’s what happened during the long cases- Challis forgot his life.