by Garry Disher
Blight by name and nature. Ellen had heard all of this before, in Challis’s kitchen, so amused herself by glancing around at the others. She saw the recognition in their faces. Avery Blight was based in Sydney, but the police forces in each state-and New Zealand-knew who he was. Blight specialised in armed robberies with violence on banks and payroll vans and had been implicated in two murders, including that of a traffic policeman on the motorway between Sydney and Newcastle.
‘Blight’s married,’ Challis said, ‘but he spent a lot of time at Christina’s flat, which he used as a kind of base whenever he pulled a job: planning, meeting other hard men, storing firearms, even stashing stolen getaway cars in the two parking spaces allocated to Christina. He’s normally hyper-vigilant, but got cocky, assuming that Christina was hooked on him and would never turn him in.’
Ellen knew that it wasn’t unusual for young female lawyers to fall for good-looking crims. She glanced around the room, saw the sour expressions: lawyers were often the enemy, and Christina Traynor’s actions confirmed old prejudices.
‘Then Blight went too far,’ Challis said. ‘A security guard was shot dead when they robbed a payroll van. According to Christina, Blight did it, laughed and boasted about it, so she contacted police and he was arrested.’
‘But too late for the poor guy working security,’ the Mornington detective muttered.
‘Christina was placed in witness protection immediately,’ Challis went on, ‘and moved to a house in Melbourne, where she had armed minders twenty-four hours a day. Blight was tried and convicted largely on her evidence, and after he was jailed she was given a new identity and moved to a secret location. Then in April she came to stay with her godmother, and later flew to London.’
He gazed at them. ‘Not even her parents knew where she was. She would call them from time to time, and sound forlorn, to use her mother’s words, but they didn’t think anything was amiss until recently, when she sounded extra jumpy.’
Ellen thought that she’d better say something. ‘So Christina got wind that Blight was after her?’
‘It seems so. She’s running scared.’
‘How come Witsec weren’t keeping a better eye on her?’
‘Once Blight was convicted and Christina had been set up with a new identity, that was it. They contacted her regularly, and gave her emergency numbers to call, but there was no watch over her as such.’
There was a general shaking of heads in the room. Christina Traynor had been foolish to get involved with a crim like Blight, but she’d done the right thing eventually and now had to spend the rest of her life looking back over her shoulder.
‘If Witsec have finished with her,’ Scobie said, ‘why are they sniffing around here?’
Challis shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose they want to lose a witness, even an ex-witness. And maybe they think Blight has coppers on his payroll, prepared to do his dirty work for him on the outside. And they admitted there’d been stuffups they wanted to atone for. The date of birth on Christina’s new passport doesn’t match that on her driver’s licence, for example, meaning she’s had hassles when presenting documentation to organisations like banks for ID purposes. She’d complained several times, but nothing was done.’
Ellen stirred. ‘She doesn’t need the driver’s licence to fly out of the country.’
‘There’s an alert out for her.’
‘Any point in talking to Blight?’ Scobie asked.
Challis looked weary and sardonic. ‘Assuming the super gives permission and allocates expenses to cover the cost of a trip to Sydney, it’s obvious that Blight will deny everything.’ He shook his head. ‘We keep this local for now, and we keep an open mind. For a start, if Janine was the intended target, we need to know who she’d arranged to meet yesterday.’
Scobie Sutton was dubious. ‘If I were a betting man,’ he announced, ‘I’d put my money on Christina Traynor, and that means we need to know everything we can about Blight: who he might have contacted on the outside, who visited him in prison, who he shared a cell with, anything at all.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Ellen said, realising too late that she was echoing her daughter’s favourite expression, ‘the police and prison service of New South Wales are going to drop everything in order to help us.’
Challis grinned. ‘In an ideal world,’ he said.
She returned the grin.
‘What’s next?’ asked Scobie.
‘Ellen and I will visit Mrs Humphreys. The rest of you, keep digging into Janine McQuarrie. Scobie, I want you to speak to the super’s wife if you can.’
****
23
‘Isolation brings purity and strength,’ Vyner wrote. ‘I am the custodian of the codes.’
He closed his notebook and settled deeper into the driver’s seat of the Falcon he’d stolen from the carpark at Moorabbin airport. Mid morning now, a chill in the air, the weak wintry sun barely reaching him through the windscreen. He could run the heater, but didn’t want to draw attention to himself. You don’t necessarily notice a parked car, but you do if there’s someone seated inside it, starting the engine every five or ten minutes.
He’d raced down to the Peninsula from the airport, but there was no one at home in the miserable weatherboard ruin that Nathan Gent had been renting for the past few months. Bayview Grove, Dromana, a defeated-looking collection of houses crammed close to each other and the sea nowhere in sight. Vyner, taking care of business, had been waiting for an hour. Had Gent followed up his anonymous call with a visit to the cop shop? Bayview Grove was dead; four vehicles in the past hour: the postman on a 100cc Suzuki, bouncing at low speed over kerbs and driveways, a couple of women strapping toddlers into shiny cheap Korean imports, a guy distributing leaflets and not giving a shit about the No Junk Mail notices.
Vyner gazed again at Gent’s house. A few untidy plants on the front porch, weeds in the overgrown lawn, and no vehicle in the driveway but indications of one: muddy tyre impressions, flattened grass, oil leaks. He’d knocked when he first arrived, checked the meter box, and listened at doors and windows, but clearly Gent wasn’t in. And he hadn’t wanted to spend too much time poking around, for the house was too exposed. The street seemed dead, but it was probably chock-a-block with young mothers behind closed doors. Maybe with all of that post-natal depression they’d not be capable of identifying him, but he didn’t want to chance it.
What was in it for Gent, contacting the police? Money? Get rid of the guilt? Treacherous little prick. Time passed; Vyner dozed.
Gent came home on a pushbike, of all fucking things, shopping bags swinging from the handlebars. Vyner ducked low in his seat, confident that the tinted glass would obscure him. He saw Gent swing into the driveway with a natty flourish, dismount, and prop the bike against the peeling front wall. Then Gent disappeared down the side of the house. Vyner checked the wing mirrors, checked the street ahead and behind, and swung the Falcon into the driveway at low speed and revs. He piled out, ran to the rear of the house, and charged through the door on the back porch just as Gent was about to elbow it closed. The shopping spilled all over the worn linoleum and Gent stumbled backwards and Vyner shot him in the heart with his second silenced Browning automatic.
****
24
Ellen sat in the CIU Falcon in the carpark behind the station, waiting for Challis to leave the building. She still felt buoyed by the events of the morning. She could have sworn that Challis was going to kiss her at one stage, before those Witsec goons arrived.
She saw the back door swing open and Challis appeared. He wore an overcoat at a time and in a place where men didn’t wear overcoats but brightly coloured jackets of padded down or polar fleece. He was very slightly daggy and she liked that about him. He glanced about the yard for her, and in the second or two it took for him to find the CIU car, and her, his face was in repose, showing the true man underneath: fatigued, a little sad and careworn, his narrow face and hooded eyes faintly prohibitive. Then he smiled and
it transformed him.
‘All set?’ she asked, as he got into the passenger seat.
‘Waterloo Motors called as I was leaving,’ he said, buckling his seatbelt.
‘And?’
‘It will take a few days to get the parts they need.’
‘Buy yourself a new car, Hal.’
‘Nothing wrong with my car. The motor’s tired, that’s all,’ Challis said. ‘Like the owner.’
She checked him for a ribald meaning, but as usual Challis was unreadable. Without trying to make it sound too significant, she said, ‘I’m happy to take you to and from work until you get it back.’
He shook his head. ‘They’ll have a courtesy car for me later today.’
His lightness of mood was evaporating. To distract him, Ellen said, ‘Alan wanted to know why you didn’t get a cab to work,’ and watched for his reaction. For reasons that she hadn’t finished thinking through, she wanted Challis to know that her husband was jealous of him.
‘Huh,’ said Challis.
She gave up and they drove in silence to the hospital, Ellen feeling obscurely disappointed. At the hospital they walked into a close, dry heat: guaranteed to make you feel sicker, Ellen thought. A nurse directed them along a pastelly corridor, and they found the owner of 283 Lofty Ridge Road watching morning TV, her face registering a kind of fury. ‘Nothing on but rubbish,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, glaring at them both.
Challis told her. ‘Mrs Humphreys, I need to ask you some questions about your god-daughter.’
Mrs Humphreys aimed the remote at the TV set and the screen gulped and went blank. ‘I wasn’t much help to your man yesterday, and I don’t suppose I’ll be much help now.’
Challis smiled. ‘How are you feeling today?’
‘Sore, but brighter in the head.’
‘You told DC Sutton that Christina stayed with you for a while last April.’
‘That’s right. For about three weeks.’
‘Was it unusual for her to stay with you?’
‘Yes and no. I saw her often when she was little, before the family moved to Sydney, but haven’t seen much of her in recent years. Look, is she in trouble?’
Challis wondered how much to tell her. ‘Not with the police. She hasn’t done anything wrong.’
Mrs Humphreys glanced at him shrewdly, her veiny hands kneading her pale blue hospital blanket. ‘That woman who was shot at my house-do you think they were after Chris instead?’
‘We don’t know for sure. We have to look at all possibilities. Are you certain that Christina went to London?’
‘I got a postcard from her. I recognised the handwriting. Do you think she’ll be safe there?’
‘Yes.’
Mrs Humphreys didn’t seem convinced.
‘How would you describe Christina’s mood?’
‘When she stayed with me? I’ve been going over that in my head all night. At the time, I thought she was nursing a broken heart-you know, some man had dumped her and she wanted to get away for a while. She was moody and sad. Wouldn’t leave the house. But now I’m thinking she might have been more scared than sad.’
‘Did she receive any unusual phone calls? Make any? Have any visitors?’
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘And she left suddenly?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did she seem when she said goodbye?’
‘Elated. Like a weight was off her mind. Bought me a brand-new TV set to say thank you, silly girl.’
‘So she must have left the house at some stage, in order to buy you the TV set and make travel arrangements.’
Mrs Humphreys shook her head. ‘Did it all by phone.’
‘You said she didn’t make any calls.’
‘No funny calls,’ Mrs Humphreys said.
They got no more from the old woman, and Challis asked for her house keys. ‘I’m afraid we need to search it for anything that Christina left behind, or anything that might involve you,’ he said.
‘You’re mad.’
Ellen perched on the bed and reached for a veiny wrist. ‘We won’t pry unnecessarily, or disturb anything. We can get a warrant, but if you gave us your permission…’
Mrs Humphreys gestured impatiently. She seemed tired now. ‘Suit yourselves, but you won’t find anything.’
****
They were in the hospital carpark, strapping on their seatbelts, when Tessa Kane appeared, tapping on Challis’s window. ‘Hal, Ellen,’ she said.
Ellen replied with a short nod, feeling a quickening of suspicion and resentment. She began to fiddle with her mobile phone, needing to occupy her hands while the other two talked.
‘What brings you here?’ Challis asked.
‘Work.’
‘Mrs Humphreys?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s just had an operation.’
‘I’ll go gently, Hal.’ A pause. ‘Well, mustn’t keep you. Stay in touch.’
That was Ellen’s cue to turn the ignition key abruptly and wheel them out of the carpark. Telling herself to grow up, she breathed in and out and said offhandedly, ‘Hal, do you ever find it hard, knowing what cap to wear?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know, the cop who’s a source, and the cop who’s involved personally.’
She couldn’t look at him but sensed that he was looking fully at her. Presently he said, ‘I was involved with Tessa Kane. I’m not any more.’
Said coolly, so she gestured with one hand, saying, ‘Sorry, don’t mean to pry.’
She thought he’d leave it, but he treated her question seriously, ‘It was complicated sometimes. There were issues of confidentiality, and I know half the station disapproved-but that’s not why we broke up.’
Broke up. He’d actually said it. ‘Hal, it’s okay, I had no right…’
‘Forget it,’ Challis said, making an effort. ‘Let’s turn the old girl’s place over.’
They reached the house on Lofty Ridge to find crime-scene technicians still at work, widening their search of the grounds, taking new photographs, making further sketches. ‘Oh hell,’ Challis said, darting out of the car and approaching one of the technicians, A moment later he was back, grinning at her ruefully. ‘See that oil stain? That’s where I parked the Triumph last night.’
Ellen gazed at him, experiencing a sudden insight into his solitariness. She found herself squeezing his hand. He laughed, and a kind of current sprang between them, opening them to possibilities. Ellen followed him into the house giddily.
He almost spoilt it then, saying, ‘If there’s anything here, you’ll find it.’
She was alarmed. What did he mean? Did he mean that he knew she had light fingers, or that he valued her ability to find hiding places? She tried to read him. After a while she told herself there were no undercurrents in his observation.
They began the search. A preliminary run through the house yielded nothing but a postcard under a fridge magnet. Postmarked London, it depicted Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and a barge on the River Thames. It was signed ‘Chris’ at the bottom of a couple of short sentences that said nothing about Christina Traynor’s state of mind, whereabouts or intentions.
Ellen was thorough, but also intensely aware of Challis. They seemed to perform a kind of dance, almost touching, colliding and glancing away from each other, only to be drawn together again. They were both aware of it but said nothing. It wouldn’t do. She tried to shake off the feelings even as she welcomed them. ‘Anything?’ he said at one point, his voice rasping. She didn’t trust her own voice. ‘Nothing,’ she said.
They parted again and she made a more thorough search, looking under framed pictures for wall safes, kicking skirting boards for tell-tale hiding places, checking cupboards, drawers, photo albums, wardrobes and the laundry basket. It was fruitless: there were no indications of where the old woman’s goddaughter was now, or that she’d been the intended victim, or even that she’d ever been in residence.
‘Oh, Christ,’ he muttered, glancing past her through the window.
She followed his gaze. Superintendent McQuarrie’s Mercedes had pulled up at the yellow tape. The super got out with Georgia McQuarrie, who held a small bouquet of flowers, and together they approached the tape, ducked under it and made for the chalked area where Janine had died. Ellen watched curiously. The officer in charge of the crime-scene technicians seemed to argue with McQuarrie, before shrugging and stepping back to allow Georgia to place the flowers on the ground. Then McQuarrie and his granddaughter ducked back under the tape again and stood watching for a while, Georgia absorbed by the technician who was sketching.
Suddenly Challis was leaving the kitchen. Ellen watched, hearing him call, ‘Sir, a moment?’
‘Not now, Inspector,’ McQuarrie said, bundling Georgia into the big Mercedes and driving away.
Ellen locked the house and joined Challis at the CIU car. The mood gone, the magic irretrievable, they travelled in silence. Then Challis’s mobile phone rang. He listened attentively, switched off and glanced at Ellen. ‘That was Scobie. A woman called Connie Rinehart from Upper Penzance just called the station. She had an appointment with Janine McQuarrie yesterday morning, nine-thirty, about the time that Janine was shot.’
****
25
On the other side of the Peninsula, John Tankard was saying, ‘Look, about yesterday, I’m really sorry I made a grab at you.’
Pam Murphy, deeply bored, said, ‘Forget it.’
They were in the little Mazda, patrolling the area between Mount Martha and Rosebud. Week Two of the Drive Safe campaign and that was two weeks too long. Pam had long exhausted topics of conversation with Tankard, the modern sports car doesn’t necessarily offer much in the way of driving thrills, and safe and courteous drivers were few and far between. She’d much rather be out catching bad guys. Meanwhile, after what happened yesterday, she had to put herself on full alert in case Tank groped her again, or, worse, wanted a cuddle and forgiveness. Was he losing it? Could she rely on him if they did meet a bad guy? She watched from the corner of her eye as he twisted his large trunk and meaty legs to get comfortable in the passenger seat. He was too big for the tiny car, exacerbated this morning by soreness and stiffness brought on by football training.
