by Garry Disher
‘It’s as good a theory as any I’ve heard recently.’
And so the next morning Pam was called to Sergeant Destry’s office and told, ‘Since you’re so keen, I’ve arranged for you to do some legwork for CIB on this aggravated burglary. I’m told you found the remains of a car phone where the Pajero was burnt?’
‘Yes, I-’
‘Contact Ledwich, get the number of the car phone, see what calls were made on it between, say, early afternoon and midnight on Saturday.’
She was okay, Destry, but, like anyone with rank, a bit short on pleasantries. Already she was turning away to open one of the files on her desk. If Pam didn’t turn and leave now, Destry would likely look up and ask, ‘Was there anything else?’
There was something else, Marion Nunn and the photographs, but Pam stepped out into the corridor and went in search of an unoccupied desk phone.
Lance Ledwich wasn’t overjoyed to hear from her. ‘The number? Why? I’ve seen what’s left of my vehicle-sweet bugger-all. What good’s the phone number to you?’
‘Mr Ledwich, whoever stole it may have used the car phone to call someone.’
‘I don’t like this. I don’t see that it’s necessary.’
‘Mr Ledwich, who are you fooling? You used to drive the Pajero despite being banned, is that it? Right now I don’t care about that and I can’t prove it. I just want the car phone number. We’re hoping that whoever stole your car made some calls.’
Ledwich thought about it for a long time. Perhaps he doesn’t want us to find out who he had been calling, she thought. Finally he said, ‘Fair enough,’ and after a minute’s rummaging came back on line to recite the number. ‘Got that?’
‘Got it.’
‘It’ll all be straightforward, won’t it?’
‘How do you mean, sir?’
‘The insurance and that. The vehicle was stolen from me fair dinkum. I mean, I don’t know who, or why.’
‘We’re looking into it, sir,’ was all the satisfaction that Pam felt inclined to give him. If the job developed instincts, then hers were setting off bells.
But she put that aside and called the phone company. By lunchtime she’d ascertained that three calls had been made on Ledwich’s car phone before midnight on Saturday. The first two, made between 9 a.m. and midday, were to small video libraries. Pam dialled the third number. It rang for some time. The voice that answered was surly, hurried, bitten off, and Pam asked it to repeat itself.
‘Refinery Hotel, I said. Look, you called me, remember?’
Pam explained who she was and said, ‘I wonder if you can help me with a call that was made to this number late Saturday evening.’
The man laughed. ‘You must be joking. This is the main bar. You know how many calls we get here?’
‘Were you working the bar on Saturday, sir?’
‘Me? No way. Right now it’s morning, right? Well, I work mornings.’
‘Could you tell me who was working the bar that night?’
‘Hang on, hang on,’ and Pam flinched as the handset at the other end clattered on to a hard surface, probably the bar.
She waited for several minutes. The man came back with the names of two women and one man.
‘Do you have home phone numbers for them, sir?’
‘Can’t help you, sorry. Try the book, but bear in mind they were working last night, so they’ll be asleep now.’
Pam matched names and phone numbers with the phone book listings and found addresses for all three. She waited until early afternoon before knocking on doors.
At the first address, a ground-floor flat in a small block behind the shopping centre in Waterloo, a cheerful-looking woman told her, ‘Love, we’re generally too busy to pay attention. Sure, sometimes someone wants to speak to one of the regulars.’
‘Do you recall if any of your regulars took a call that night?’
‘No.’
At the next address, a weatherboard house set in weeds behind the Waterloo aerodrome, she learned even less. ‘Wouldn’t know, sorry,’ the barman said.
‘This would be late evening, around eleven.’
The barman yawned and scratched his belly. ‘I always let someone else answer it.’
‘A man-probably a man-wanting to talk to one of your regulars.’
‘Look, try the girls working with me. Maybe one of them took it, Liz or Rina.’
‘I’ve talked to Rina. No go.’
The door began to shut. ‘Try Liz.’
Pam put her foot in the gap. ‘Did you receive a personal call, sir?’
‘Me? Nobody’d call me.’
And the door shut and Pam looked at the weeds and thought that the barman was probably right.
Liz, at the front door of her house in the Seaview Estate, said, ‘Late evening?’
‘Four past eleven.’
‘We don’t get that many calls. Let’s see…’
‘A call either to hotel staff or to one of your patrons,’ Pam said. ‘More than likely a man.’
‘There were two or three like that.’
‘To your patrons?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you remember who?’
Liz laughed. ‘On a Saturday night we get the hard-core regulars, holiday people, locals out for a meal and a drink, plus visiting tennis and cricket teams. Give me a day or two. It’ll come to me.’
As Pam turned away, Liz said, ‘Those other two have quietened down a lot.’
Confused, Pam stopped and said, ‘The people you work with?’
‘No, no, those two coppers, Tankard and that other one. They’ve been keeping their heads down.’
Pam didn’t want her offside, but a cosy chat about van Alphen and Tankard would amount to a betrayal of the line she’d drawn when she was posted to Waterloo, so she said nothing, just nodded and smiled non-committally, and walked to the van.
‘It’s good knowing you’re around, Pam,’ the woman shouted after her.
Pam didn’t remember ever seeing her before.
The telephone rarely rang at the Holsingers’, and so when it rang on Tuesday morning, Danny told his mother: ‘If that’s Joll, tell him I’m not here. Tell him I’ve gone off for a few days.’
‘That moron,’ his mother said.
She picked up the phone. Danny waited, stepping from foot to foot in the kitchen. The way his mother glanced at him then, he knew that it was Jolic on the line. ‘Not here,’ his mother said. ‘Don’t know when he’ll be back. The foreman gave him the rest of the week off, so he’s gone to stay with his auntie up in Sydney. Tell him yourself,’ she said finally, and put down the receiver.
‘You want your head read, hanging around with that moron.’
‘Mum, I’m going around to Megan’s.’
‘Another moron.’
Megan was alone. Danny said, ‘Why don’t we go off together, somewhere new.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Up Cairns way,’ Danny said. ‘Surfers Paradise. One of them.’
‘Just like that. Dump my job, my mum, my friends, and just take off.’
‘Not forever, just, you know, for a while.’
Megan stared at him suspiciously. ‘You in trouble or something?’
‘Me? Nah.’
‘You could have fooled me. Something’s going on and I want to know what.’
‘Nothing, I tell ya.’
‘Is it Boyd Jolic? I bet it is. What’s he got you into?’
Danny chewed his bottom lip. ‘I tell ya, Meeg, he’s mad.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know. What’s he made you do now?’
‘Nothing. But he’s a mad bugger. He’s fire mad for a start.’
Megan’s fingers went to the thin strand of gold at her throat. Danny had given it to her last Sunday. Plain, elegant, classy, except now it felt heavy and grubby, like she had a dog chain around her neck. She took it off. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘Bought it in Myers,’ Danny said, quick as a flash. ‘
Look, if he comes looking for me, tell him you haven’t seen me. Tell him I’ve gone off somewhere.’
She stared at him. ‘Like where?’
‘Give us a break, Meeg. I’m scared of the bastard. I want to stay clear of him for a while.’
‘I don’t like this.’
‘So, what do you reckon? Cairns? Noosa? Surfers?’
‘Danny, I’m not leaving. You go, if you want.’
Danny chewed on his lip again. When he put his arm around her, she pushed it away.
‘Come on, Meeg, just a quick one, before your Mum comes home.’
‘That’s all I’m good for, right?’
‘I tell you what, I got this video we can watch, get us in the mood.’
She frowned. ‘What kind of video?’
‘You’ll see.’
After a few minutes, she pulled away from him and scrabbled for the remote control. ‘That’s disgusting. It’s sick. How could you? How could you think I’d be turned on by stuff like that? God, Danny.’
Even Danny seemed stunned by what he’d seen.
That afternoon, van Alphen told Clara, ‘That’s it, finished. Santa isn’t coming any more.’
The look she gave him told him that he’d just shown his true colours, and as she twisted out of his arms he found himself in a foolish tussle with her, made up of an attempt to embrace and console her on his part, and fury on hers. He wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her. He wanted her to listen to stern reason, give up the cocaine, and find her lifeline in him.
But she shook him off finally and yelled at him, bent forward at the waist, thrusting her hate-filled face at him. ‘You think you’re here to save me, right? Think I’ll melt in your arms. I’d have to be fucking hard up, mate, I can tell you. As a root you’re less than average. So if you can’t get me any more blow, I’m going elsewhere.’
She walked to the curtains and jerked them open. Then she extinguished the incense stick in the dregs of her gin and tonic. The light through the window was harsh on her face, the room; a harsh judgment on what van Alphen had got himself into with her.
He could see the irony. He’d just spent a few days of his spare time in shadowing a local dealer, finally getting lucky when he searched an empty flat the guy had visited twice in a row. He’d found a stash of cocaine and amphetamines hidden above a ceiling batten in the bathroom. He’d flushed away most of it, bagging just enough to replace what he’d removed from the evidence safe. He’d nearly been caught, but the point was he hadn’t been caught, and he’d walked coolly back into that old feeling of being able to take on the world and win.
The chink in the armour was Clara.
‘You don’t need the stuff any more. You need to get straightened out.’
‘What are you, my father? My brother? Both of them fucked me, so what’s the difference?’
He found himself snapping, ‘Grow up.’
‘Oh, that’s a good one. Look who’s talking.’
He struck her, a quick hard cheek slap that rocked back her head and shocked her. She was livid. ‘Just for that, I’m dobbing you in.’
She’d said it before, as if it were a hold she had over him. ‘Yeah, sure.’
‘You’re piss weak. No wonder your wife walked out.’
They were snapping off the insults now. Van Alphen felt pressure building inside his skull. ‘I could kill you,’ he said.
‘You wouldn’t have the guts.’
Boyd Jolic was grabbing some shut-eye when the phone rang. He stumbled through to the kitchen and snatched it up, but the ringing continued and he stared blearily at the handset before he located the source.
His mobile was on the table, next to a greasy plate, a stripped-down Holley carburettor and an oily rag. All of his old practised motions seemed to desert him as he fumbled to find the right button. ‘Yeah?’
‘I need to see you.’
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he muttered.
‘And lovely to hear your voice, too, Boyd. Just what a girl needs after a hard day.’
A long time since you were a girl, Jolic thought, as he scratched his stomach, his back. He began to contort, his fingers searching under his T-shirt, reaching high, between the shoulderblades. ‘When do you want to see me?’
‘Now. Tonight. Whenever.’
The itch relieved, he looked across the room at a Country Fire Authority poster on the wall above his sofa: WILDFIRES: WILL YOU SURVIVE? ‘Can’t tonight,’ he said.
‘Why, have you had a better offer?’
‘Unfinished business,’ Jolic said, but told her later in the week, and cut her off.
He liked to keep her eager.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon. He might as well stay up, now that he was up. Work out a plan of action, given that he’d be on his own tonight, that little prick Danny wimping out on him.
Tessa Kane was out all day, and didn’t open her office mail until five o’clock. There was only one item. She knew at once who it was from: the same block capitals, the same kind of envelope.
She weighed the envelope down with a stapler while she opened the flap with a letter opener. Then, pinching the envelope by one corner, she teased the letter out with the blade, and found that she was thinking of Challis. She was doing this for Challis, keeping her prints off.
The letter read:
Hit a brick wall, have you? Put me in the too hard basket?
Big mistake, fuckers.
Am I resting-or am I feeling the itch again? That’s what you should be asking yourselfs. People don’t care about burglars or the spoilt rich. They want to know if it’s safe for their daughters to go out alone.
Tessa laughed. She’d put his nose out of joint. He wanted to be back on page one.
She lifted the phone.
Damn. Challis had left, according to the receptionist. Wouldn’t be in again until the morning. She looked up his home number, made to dial, and hovered.
The phone was ringing when Challis got in that evening.
‘Hal.’
‘Hello, Ange,’ he said.
He looked at his watch. Seven. Surely they should all be in their cells by now?
‘Hal, I had to hear your voice.’
‘How are you, Ange?’
‘Don’t be like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Standoffish. Shutting me out.’
‘Look, Ange, I’m tired, I’ve only just this minute stepped in the door. I’m talking on the hall phone, briefcase in one hand. Let me take this call in the kitchen, okay?’
‘You’re always just walking in the door.’
‘Ange-’
‘I wish I could see your place. I keep trying to visualise it. I-’
Challis went to the kitchen. He tried to spin out the fixing of a drink and a sandwich, but she was still there when he lifted the handset from the cradle above the cutting bench.
‘I’m back.’
‘It hasn’t been a good day for me.’
‘I didn’t expect to hear from you at this hour, Ange.’
His wife replied brightly, like a child just home from school: ‘I’m in the play! We’ve been rehearsing this evening.’
She told him about it. He thought about his killer on the Old Peninsula Highway, and he thought about Tessa Kane. He’d hoped it might be her, when he’d heard the phone, ringing to repair the damage.
Or was that up to him?
Either way, he wanted to hear her low growl in his ear.
Clara had driven to Frankston after van Alphen left her, where she scored a small amount of coke from an islander kid who called her ‘sister’. The quantity was small but the price was high, and he’d offered her a better deal on heroin, said it was pure and there was plenty of it around, but she told him she wasn’t touching that stuff. Then two cops on bicycle patrol, looking like jet-streamed insects, had come pedalling down the mall, and the islander kid had scarpered and she’d turned on her heel and ducked into the closest shop. It had NEW YEAR SPECIALS! pa
sted across the window and sold computers. She’d never been in a computer shop in her life before. She said, ‘Just browsing,’ and when she looked at the equipment and the vividly coloured boxes on the shelves, she felt scared, ignorant, ignored, left behind in life, and couldn’t wait to get out of there. She went straight to her car and did three lines of coke, and felt so high she didn’t want to risk driving home but took a taxi instead. The good thing about Witness Protection, there was a little money there from time to time if she ever needed it.
So now she had a pleasant buzz on, but it would wear off pretty soon. She knew she’d want to score again, but she could hardly go back to Frankston at this hour of the night, one-thirty in the morning. Besides, she’d left her car there.
Then the background sounds of the night seemed to alter in her consciousness and one of them clarified as a tyre crush on gravel outside of her window. She was just formulating an adage from her old days, ‘Never get involved with a copper,’ when glass smashed somewhere at the rear of the house.
Eighteen
It was a night of hot northerlies, hotter where they passed over the flaming roof timbers. Sparks streamed from the burning house, and some alighted here and there in long grass that had not been slashed despite a request from the shire inspectors. The small fierce firefronts became one, consuming the grass, and then treetops caught, and one eucalyptus after another exploded in the nature reserve between the burning house and the orchard, which bordered the winery on the northern boundary fence and a horse stud at the rear. The orchardist heard his dogs before he was fully awake and able to separate the smell of the smoke from his dreams and the fact that his dogs were agitated. In the stables beyond his eastern boundary fence, horses were panicking, waking the stud manager and his wife. They stepped outside and saw the firefront, rolling as hungrily as a tidal wave upon a sleeping coastline. Evacuate. Evacuate.
It was too hot to sleep. And too noisy. Penzance Beach had swelled by the hundreds, it seemed-families who’d come to their beach shacks for four weeks, people camping, people looking for parties to crash. Pam found herself thinking of Ginger. If she had the nerve, if he lived just down the street instead of farther around the coast, she’d sneak down and tapon his bedroom window. She stood on the decking of her rented house, sniffing the wind.
