by Garry Disher
‘It will still be in the property room,’ he said confidently. ‘I’ll see that it’s returned to you first thing tomorrow. My apologies.’
‘I hope that light fingers haven’t been at work, Mr Challis.’
Fuck you, thought Challis savagely. He immediately made two phone calls. From the first he learned that Janine’s car had been tested for prints but none were found to match those stored on the national computer. Then he called a number at the regional headquarters in Frankston, Superintendent McQuarrie answering on the first ring, saying peevishly, ‘I was just on my way to a meeting.’
‘Sorry, sir, a quick question: when you took Georgia home from the murder scene yesterday, did she have a mobile phone with her?’
‘Not that I recall.’
‘According to your son, Janine had two phones. We only recovered one.’
‘Not to worry,’ McQuarrie said, ‘I’ve seen her office, home and mobile phone records, and there’s nothing on any of them to arouse concern. Nothing dodgy, only business calls and calls to my son’s mobile and work numbers. I’ll fax them through to you, if you don’t have them-though I’d be disappointed if you don’t by now, Hal, I must say. Obtaining phone records is surely basic groundwork in a murder investigation.’
In fact, Challis had requisitioned Janine’s phone records-except those for the second mobile phone, which he hadn’t known existed. He wanted to drive to Frankston immediately and slap his boss about the face, demanding to know whether or not the man considered himself a proper policeman, or even a policeman, or even a man of ordinary decency and common sense.
He forced himself to calm down, but his mind raced. McQuarrie must have gone swiftly to work in getting those phone records, and as a superintendent he had considerably more juice than a humble inspector. But what was he playing at? Was he trying to bury evidence that might damage his son’s good name, his own good name? What if he’d discovered that Janine had been phoning organised crime figures or toy-boys twenty times a day? Would he have revealed that to the investigating officers?
Is he, thought Challis, our killer?
‘Sir, we need the second phone.’
‘Why? I’ve got a record of the calls she made. All innocent.’
‘I need to see the message bank,’ Challis said patiently, ‘the numbers listed in the memory, and the call list for the most recent incoming, outgoing and missed calls.’
‘Well, I haven’t got the damn thing,’ McQuarrie said peevishly. ‘Georgia didn’t have it, I’m sure of that. Perhaps she gave it to Robert.’
‘It was Robert who alerted me to the fact of its existence,’ Challis said, trying to convey that he thought McQuarrie should have done so, too.
‘Well there you are. It was collected at the crime-scene and has either been misplaced or stolen since then. Rosebud officers were the first to attend; have you tried them?’
Fuck off, Challis thought. He double-checked the record of calls made on Janine McQuarrie’s car phone-there were no calls to the police on the morning of her murder, and so Georgia must have used a different phone. Then he spent a fruitless hour tracking down and calling the Rosebud CIU and uniformed officers. They knew nothing of a mobile phone being found with or near the body.
Finally he talked to Georgia.
‘I used Mum’s mobile,’ she told him.
‘Not the one she uses in her car?’
Georgia’s voice went small, almost scared. ‘No, the one in her bag. I’m not supposed to, but I grabbed it when the man started chasing her. Sorry.’
‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ said Challis gently. ‘Can you remember what you did with it afterwards?’
There was a gasp and he pictured her hand flying to her mouth. ‘I left it on the ground!’
‘Where?’
‘In the trees where I hid!’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll find it.’
Challis thought about all of the things that might have damaged the phone since the murder: rain, dew, the chilly air, hungry rats, inquisitive magpies. Just then the fax machine sounded: as promised, McQuarrie was sending through Janine’s phone records. Challis snatched up the sheets, and there was Georgia’s call to 000. He noted the number of the missing mobile phone, then drove to Mrs Humphreys’s house in the late afternoon gloom. The crime-scene crew had packed up and gone, and he walked unimpeded down her driveway. After checking the signal strength of his own phone, he dialled the number for Janine’s. A moment later, very faintly, he heard it ring. A voice inviting him to leave a message cut in before he could isolate the location.
He approached the stand of poplars, which were leafless and choked by pittosporums. The latter would have promised a reasonable degree of shelter to Georgia, he supposed. He pressed redial, and this time found the phone, secure inside a small vinyl case deep in a tangle of grass and fallen leaves. He opened the Velcro flap and let the phone slide into his palm. It was a fancy, costly-looking thing; he couldn’t figure out how to work it.
He encountered Ellen Destry in the station carpark, retrieving files from the back seat of the CIU Falcon. ‘Our esteemed leader returns,’ she said. She cocked her head at his loan car. ‘Cool wheels.’
‘It’s a heap of shit.’
She laughed, then said with a slight catch in her voice, ‘So I guess you won’t be needing a lift home tonight.’
Challis gazed critically at the rattletrap Toyota. ‘Too soon to tell.’
They went upstairs to CIU. ‘You busy, Ells?’
‘You know I’m busy. I think you mean, drop everything at once and help me with something tedious.’
‘No one likes a smart-arse. See if you can figure out how to retrieve the numbers and messages stored in this mobile.’
‘Whose is it?’
‘Janine McQuarrie’s.’
‘What makes you think I’d be better at it than you?’
She was in a light, attractive mood. ‘You have a teenage daughter,’ he said, flourishing the mobile at her. ‘I rest my case.’
‘No one likes a smart-arse,’ Ellen said, taking the phone from him. She turned it over, pressed buttons, and gave him a running commentary. ‘Cutting edge. You can use this for calls, SMS, e-mail, video, photography…’
Challis watched her press more buttons, watched her face change as she said, ‘The secret life of Robert and Janine McQuarrie.’
Instead of showing him the tiny screen, she attached the phone to the USB port of her computer, downloaded the contents to her hard drive and made CD copies. ‘Here,’ she said, handing him one of the CDs.
‘What do you want me to do with it?’
‘You’re such a dinosaur. Copy the contents to your hard drive, then print it out.’
She showed him how. What he saw put Janine’s murder in an entirely new light: ten photographs, low-resolution shots of men and women copulating, the women obscured, four of the men in sharp enough detail to be identifiable. Two had flushed, straining, heavy-lidded faces, one man was apparently emotionless, and the fourth was Robert McQuarrie, showing his teeth in a kind of ecstatic snarl.
‘Oh boy,’ said Challis, shifting in his seat. It was a powerful distraction, the snapshots, Ellen’s joshing expertise and physical proximity.
‘We have to assume that Janine downloaded these to her home or office computer,’ Ellen said, ‘or e-mailed them to herself.’
Challis shrugged. The technology was beside the point just now. He told her he was more interested in what had driven Janine McQuarrie to take the photographs, what she’d done with them, and whether or not they’d contributed to her being murdered.
Ellen was with him every step of the way. ‘Blackmail?’
‘Could be.’ He tapped the photographs. ‘But what are we looking at here?’
Ellen snorted, naming and describing a few body parts.
‘Very funny,’ he said, feigning severity. In fact, the mood was electric and precarious.
She sobered and made an effort. ‘Dim lighting,’ she
said.
‘Yes.’
‘A suburban house.’
‘So it’s not a photographic studio or the set of a porn film?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s someone’s house, and they’re not making a film or posing for the camera.’
‘Good. But is it a suburban house that doubles as a brothel?’
‘We’ve both worked Vice in the past, Hal. This is no brothel.’
‘Why not?’ Challis demanded, wanting Ellen to pin it down for him.
‘The body language,’ she said. ‘These people don’t look like pros and their clients. They all seem a little self-conscious. Look here in the background: people standing around watching, and that looks like a bowl of condoms and that looks like a lubricant dispenser. The pictures on the walls, the knick-knacks, the furniture, all point to this being an ordinary house.’
‘I agree.’
‘Do you think the super knew Robert and Janine were attending sex parties?’
Challis shrugged. ‘Could explain why he’s been obstructive and interventionist.’
There was a pause. ‘Hal,’ Ellen said eventually, ‘could you imagine being watched by a roomful of people while having sex?’
Challis couldn’t imagine engaging in any kind of herd behaviour. ‘No.’
‘It doesn’t turn you on?’
‘No.’
‘How about watching?’
‘Unobserved?’
‘No, watching in a roomful of others.’
‘No. I’d still feel watched.’
She seemed to sway towards him a little. ‘That’s pretty much how I feel about it,’ she said.
Then she destroyed the mood. ‘You know what we have to do, don’t you?’
He turned and looked at her. ‘Talk to Robert.’
She shook her head determinedly. ‘Talk to Tessa Kane. And I’m coming with you.’
‘That’s not a good idea.’
‘You don’t trust her?’
Challis didn’t, not entirely. ‘Robert can tell us where this took place.’
‘And Tessa Kane can tell us if it’s the same party that she attended. Of course we don’t show her anyone’s faces, only photos that identify the location. If she does recognise the place, then we start digging, making it clear to her that she’ll face obstruction charges if she writes about the photos or tries to contact anyone.’
‘You don’t like her, do you?’ Challis said.
‘Not much.’
They stared at each other. ‘If I’m there she’s going to know it’s related to the McQuarrie investigation,’ Challis said.
‘Then let me question her. I’ll say someone found a photo of themselves on the net and we’re investigating.’
Challis sighed. ‘Okay.’
****
28
‘I didn’t expect the big guns,’ Tessa Kane said, puzzled to see Ellen Destry ushered into her office, late that Wednesday afternoon.
‘Meaning what?’ said Ellen curtly.
Hello, thought Tessa, the claws are out. She’d often wondered if the other woman had been jealous of her relationship with Hal Challis or troubled for professional reasons. Plenty of cops disliked and distrusted the media. It would be fun to let Destry stew a little, she thought, and said, ‘Say hello to Hal for me, won’t you.’
‘It’s possible we’ve got our wires crossed, Ms Kane,’ Destry said coldly.
Keeping her manner blithe, Tessa gestured for the other woman to sit, then returned to her swivel chair and swivelled in it, smiling across her overcrowded desk. ‘I assume you’re here about my tyres?’
‘Your tyres.’
‘Someone slashed them this afternoon.’
Destry cocked her head alertly. Tessa, irritated to be on the receiving end of a CIU interrogation, with its evasions and games, snarled, ‘Cut the crap, sergeant. What’s this about?’
Ellen Destry leaned forward, looking pleased with herself. ‘It could very well be about your slashed tyres.’
Tessa said nothing.
‘Been up to something, have we?’ the Destry woman continued. ‘Stepping on toes?’
‘You tell me.’
‘I understand you’ve had hate mail, anonymous phone calls, a rock through your window, and now this. Maybe you offended one of your swingers.’
Tessa went very still, her mind racing, her skin tingling. Her article on the sex-party scene had been heavy on atmosphere, mood and human interest, without in any way describing people or place. No one reading it could possibly have identified himself-or herself. She waited. Destry would show her hand soon.
And she did, fanning half a dozen grainy photo enlargements across her desk. ‘Do you recognise anything?’
Tessa looked. The quality was poor: dim lighting, amorphous shapes, no faces. ‘No.’
‘Look at the background,’ Destry snapped. ‘Furniture, light fittings, curtains, bedspreads, paintings on the walls.’ She paused. ‘Or maybe you recognise the odd hairy backside or sagging tit.’
Tessa knew where this was going. The photographs had been taken at a sex party. She’d recently written an article about a sex party. Ergo, there was a connection between the two.
‘I have no idea where these were taken-certainly not at the party I attended. Are you saying I, or one of my photographers, took these photographs for the Progress?’
‘We’re not saying that at all.’
‘Then what have they got to do with me?’
‘How many parties did you attend?’
‘One.’
‘Where?’
‘Rye. Miles from here.’
‘Did you recognise anyone?’
‘Like who?’
‘Just answer the question, please, Tess.’
She hated being called Tess right then. ‘I didn’t recognise anyone. Are you saying someone recognised me, and that’s why I’m being targeted? But what’s this got to do with these photos?’
‘We don’t know that your tyres being slashed has anything to do with these photographs,’ Ellen Destry said. ‘But someone found a photo of himself on the net, part of a series of photos including these, and we’re looking at a blackmail angle. You’re our first obvious point of contact. We need names of those you talked to at the party, and the names of the people who organised it.’
‘Sorry, no can do. Confidentiality issues,’ said Tessa automatically, with a sweet, empty smile.
‘We can get a warrant.’
‘Good, you do that, sergeant.’
It was good to see Destry’s frustration. Even so, she smelt a story. ‘Maybe we can help each other.’
‘How?’
‘Tell me more, and I’ll make contact with my sex-party people and see if they’ll talk to you.’
‘If you didn’t attend this party,’ said Destry, collecting the photographs and slipping them into her briefcase, ‘then there’s no reason to talk to them. As I understand it, there are many such parties in operation.’
Tessa waited until the other woman was going out the door. ‘Tell me, sergeant, was Janine McQuarrie involved in the sex party scene?’
Destry said nothing, didn’t even look back, but the set of her shoulders and spine said plenty.
Tessa Kane’s investigative instincts began to kick in.
****
29
Challis waited at the door to the incident room, smiling tiredly, waiting for the jokes to subside, as Scobie and the others filed in one by one and spotted the enlargements of Janine McQuarrie’s photographs, which he’d arranged on the display board. Ellen came in last, her movements tight and brisk.
‘Sorry to keep you late,’ he said, turning to the display board. ‘This-’ he pointed ‘-is Superintendent McQuarrie’s son, Robert, husband of our murder victim,’
There were sardonic looks and murmurs, mostly jocular, and Scobie asked who had taken the photos, and where.
‘Ellen and I found them stored on Janine McQuarrie’s mobile phone. We don’t know the loca
tion. Does anyone recognise the other men?’
They shook their heads. ‘Presumably the super’s son will know,’ Scobie said. He paused. ‘Are you going to tell him, boss?’
‘Tell the son, yes,’ said Challis. ‘Tell the super? Not yet. I don’t want to cause unnecessary harm or embarrassment, and please, I don’t want copies of these photographs circulating, and I don’t want anyone outside this room knowing that we have them.’
Ellen cut in, apparently still prickly with him: ‘But we have shown select copies to Tessa Kane to see if she recognised the location. She says not. Needless to say, the inspector and I will be talking to Robert McQuarrie this evening.’
‘So it’s coincidental?’ asked Scobie.
‘That’s still to be investigated,’ Ellen said, with a glance at Challis.
‘You think Janine McQuarrie was blackmailing people?’ a Mornington detective asked. ‘Blackmailed the wrong person?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Challis. ‘We know she could be censorious and vindictive.’
‘Blackmailed her own husband?’
‘Could be.’
‘Maybe she was followed by one of her blackmail victims yesterday,’ Scobie suggested. He had a scarf around his scrawny neck; he’d been about to go home when informed of the briefing.
‘Yes.’
‘Maybe she’s been at it for a while,’ Scobie went on, ‘and her husband-or whoever-finally jacked up or discovered her identity.’
‘It’s also possible,’ said Ellen heatedly, ‘that she was getting more and more miserable in her marriage to a man who dragged her along to sex parties. Maybe he made her have sex with his mates and she didn’t like it. Then she read Tessa Kane’s article and decided to take advantage of the fact that everyone was talking about it.’
One of the Mornington detectives cast her a sardonic look, as though to say he’d expect a female detective to speculate about feelings like this. ‘Or she got jealous of Robert for having sex with other women,’ he said, and Ellen flushed.
