by Garry Disher
‘Who?’
‘Sutton, a dee at Waterloo. Know him?’
Andy didn’t know any of the detectives, or any of the uniforms except John Tankard, his footy coach. He went to the window and glanced out. Salmon Street was quiet, the bay dark and still beyond the mangrove flats. ‘What about him?’
‘His wife works for Community Health, looks in on me and my sister and my mum, but I know she’s a spy. Fucking cow.’
Pacing up and down, beautiful and agitated and stoned out of her brain. ‘Listen,’ she went on, ‘I need some dosh really badly.’
‘Already? What happened to the cash I gave you earlier?’
As if he didn’t know.
She doubled over then straightened, her fists tight against her breasts, beseeching him. ‘Andy, please, can’t we knock over another house?’
‘Not tonight we can’t,’ he said firmly. ‘People are watching TV, tucking the kids into bed. Besides, it’s too soon.’
‘Please, Andy. I’ll pay ya back.’
In the end he scrounged up $100 and she slowed down enough to offer to do him with her mouth, her hands, even her feet if that’s what he wanted. He smiled sadly. ‘It’s okay, Nat. You don’t owe me anything. Listen, we’ll pull another job tomorrow, okay?’
****
‘Where have you been?’ her husband demanded, the moment she set foot in the house.
Ellen removed her scarf and jacket unhurriedly and hung them on a hook beside the back door. She checked the time on her watch, still drawing out her movements: almost 9.30. The interrogation of Robert McQuarrie had taken an hour, the drive back to Waterloo-where she’d dropped Challis-and then home had taken twenty minutes. She was in a severely contestable mood anyway, without her husband setting her off. She’d badly wanted to punish Robert McQuarrie, and didn’t trust her feelings around Challis, which made her mad. And now here was Alan, getting right in her face.
‘Interviewing a subject,’ she said, moving around him.
‘I bet.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she said, stalking by him into the kitchen.
‘You gave you-know-who a lift home, right? What, did he ask you in for a drink? Whip you up something to eat? Or maybe you stopped off somewhere first.’
‘Give it a rest.’
Her dinner, a congealed Thai curry from a can dolloped onto rice, sat mute and unloved on the table. The kitchen-table, benches, sink-was spotless. Ellen knew at once that she was expected to be full of praise and thanks. Instead, she wordlessly slid her plate into the microwave, set the timer and poured herself a glass of wine.
‘So, were you?’
‘Was I what?’
‘Out with Challis,’ said Alan tightly.
‘Yes.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I told you, we interviewed a subject. In Mount Eliza, if you must know.’
There was a pause, and into it Alan said, ‘Did you have to give him a lift home afterwards?’
She enjoyed being obtuse. ‘Who? The subject?’
His jaw and fists went tight, and it occurred to her that he’d hit her if she pushed hard enough. She felt neutral about that right now, as though it were an unimportant hypothesis to be tested one day.
‘Challis,’ he said in his strangled voice.
She gave him a reprieve. ‘He’s got a loan car.’
Unfortunately, she wanted to add.
The microwave beeped and she fetched her plate, which hissed and steamed. Alan watched her eat. She wished he wouldn’t.
‘Like it?’
‘Not bad.’
‘I waited, but got hungry,’ he said innocently, and she reckoned that she was supposed to see him, in her mind’s eye, as boyish, vulnerable and uncomplicated again, the lad she married. She ate. She was ravenous.
‘Saw the news. Still working the McQuarrie murder?’
‘Yes.’
Any contenders?’
‘A few.’
‘So no time off in the near future?’
‘No.’
‘I thought,’ he said, ‘that we could go up to town, spend a night in the Windsor, catch up with Larrayne.’
In and of itself, this sounded like a pretty nice idea to Ellen, but her instincts told her that Alan was proposing it because he wanted to keep her away from Challis and remind her that she had family responsibilities. Wifely responsibilities. And because he didn’t know her, or know her any more, he thought a romantic gesture would deflect her.
‘Impossible at the moment,’ she said, draining her wine.
‘You’re owed time off for yesterday. I’ve got Friday off.’
‘Alan, we’re in the middle of a major inquiry.’
‘You and Challis.’
‘And the others, several others.’
He held up his hands placatingly. ‘I just want you to look after yourself, that’s all-not run yourself ragged.’
Yeah, right, Ellen thought.
‘I mean, did you really have to rush off early this morning to pick up his highness? Why didn’t he call for a taxi? Instead, you have to detour all that way and pick him up. Where does he live again?’
Ellen told him without thinking, then checked herself and eyed him closely. But her husband was a plausible man, a good actor, and was absentmindedly flicking through the cane basket of household accounts. God knew what fresh hell he’d find there. She poured herself wine that she didn’t really want but which would occupy her hands and mouth for a while.
****
32
They formed three teams and early on Thursday morning hit the surgeon, the accountant and the funds manager. Six o’clock, no dawn light leaking into the sky yet, houses slumbering or only just stirring; an hour when heads are unclear and lips loose.
Challis and Ellen heard later from Scobie Sutton and the Mornington detectives that the surgeon and the funds manager had displayed plenty of genuine shock, dismay and outrage, so it was clear they hadn’t been tipped off by Robert McQuarrie. After the outrage had come shame and fear. They asked to be understood; they asked that their wives be spared the truth. The surgeon had attended the sex parties with his sister-in-law, the funds manager with his secretary. Their alibis were solid, and they confirmed that yes, they’d received photos of themselves in the post on Monday: no accompanying note, but, like Robert McQuarrie, they’d assumed someone at the Progress had sent the photographs and were fearful of blackmail and media exposure.
The accountant was a different kettle of fish, nothing like Robert McQuarrie, the surgeon or the funds manager. His name was Hayden Coulter and he lived alone in a rammed-earth loft house on a slope above Penzance Beach. The driveway was narrow and the turning circle awkward, so Challis did what he always did in unfamiliar places and unknown circumstances-parked the car so that it faced the road and allowed him and Ellen an unimpeded escape route.
Coulter greeted them at the door wearing a shirt and tie, trousers and carpet slippers. His face was clean and tight from the razor and there were comb tracks in his shower-wet hair. About forty, Challis guessed, and used to playing his cards close to his chest. He regarded them expressionlessly, invited them in out of the cold.
They followed him through to the kitchen, into the odours of fresh coffee and toast.
‘Can I get you something?’
Ellen glanced at Challis and answered for both of them. ‘Coffee, please.’
‘Pull up a pew.’
Coulter poured the coffee and sat across the table from them, precise, contained, watchful, his grey eyes clear and untroubled. He said nothing and betrayed no curiosity or apprehension. He’ll wait us out, Challis thought, sliding a photograph across the table.
‘Is this you, Mr Coulter?’
‘Yes.’
‘What can you tell us about it?’
‘I’m having sex with a woman, on a bed, being watched by other men and women.’
‘Did you receive a copy of this photograph in the mail on Monday?’
<
br /> ‘Yes.’
‘What did you make of that?’
‘I made nothing of it. I have nothing to hide. I cannot and will not be blackmailed.’
‘You received a blackmail demand?’
‘No.’
‘Then how do you know it’s blackmail?’
‘I assume that I’m being softened up for blackmail,’ Coulter said, blowing across the steaming surface of his coffee.
‘You say you can’t and won’t be blackmailed,’ Ellen said. ‘Is that bravado?’
‘I can’t and won’t be blackmailed because I simply don’t care enough,’ Coulter said. ‘So what that I go to sex parties? I have no family who would be shamed if word got out, and my clients certainly wouldn’t care. I represent interests in the horse-racing industry and my reputation with them rests solely on my ability to make and save them money-which I do very successfully.’
Challis disliked the man’s coldness and vanity. ‘Did you build this house yourself?’ he asked, noting Coulter’s work-hardened hands, incongruous against the soft, costly fabric of his shirt.
‘I did.’
‘Impressive.’
Coulter said nothing, aiming for a prohibitive silence.
Ellen drained her coffee. ‘Have you any idea who sent you the photographs?’
‘Janine McQuarrie. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You think I killed her?’
‘Did you?’
Coulter looked bored. ‘Why? What would be the point?’
‘She threatened your reputation.’
‘Perhaps you weren’t listening: I don’t care about my reputation.’
‘The photos-or Janine herself-were a threat in other ways.’
‘I’ve never met the woman.’
‘She was murdered not far from here,’ Challis said. ‘Was she coming to see you?’
‘No. I wasn’t here anyway, but in my office in Mornington and needless to say I can prove it. But perhaps she was on her way here with more photographs.’
It occurred to Challis then that if Janine was murdered because she’d attempted to blackmail someone, wouldn’t that someone want to search her home and office for all copies of the photographs? Yet neither place had been broken into. On the other hand, Robert presumably had access to the keys.
As if reading his thoughts, Coulter said, ‘Did she have copies with her when she was shot?’
Never let them ask the questions. ‘How did you know that Janine McQuarrie took your photograph?’
‘I saw her do it.’
‘With what?’
‘Her mobile phone. Look, I go to these sex parties to look at faces and responses. Everyone else watches the sex. I saw her, I saw what she was doing. It amused me-though I was surprised to get photos in the mail. I assumed she was taking photos to meet some kind of basic and boring erotic need.’
‘Did anyone else see her?’ Ellen asked. Challis could see tension in her jaw, meaning that she loathed Coulter.
‘Possibly, but that’s your job, isn’t it? I can just see it: the police going in heavy-handed, knocking on forty or fifty doors, throwing a scare into people who until then thought their grubby secret lives were safe from scrutiny, and they’re all going to deny knowing anything about Janine McQuarrie and her pathetic photographs.’
‘You’re the one who’s pathetic,’ Ellen said.
Coulter grinned to know that he’d goaded her and Challis saw at last, behind the cool faзade, an empty man.
‘Mr Coulter, you say your clients are in the horse-racing industry.’
‘Yes, and I daresay some of them are dishonest, and a handful know the type of men who will shoot someone dead for a few thousand bucks.’
‘Do you know such men?’
‘If I do, they haven’t announced themselves to me.’
‘Do you hear whispers?’
‘I’ve heard whispers all my life. Am I going to inform? No?’
‘But you might know who to go to if you wanted someone shot dead?’.
‘I might, but I don’t. I don’t care enough about anything to want anyone dead. I can’t raise the emotional heat. There’s nothing I want to preserve, no gain I want to make. The woman could have published my photo on the net, for all I care. Now if that’s all, I have an appointment at a stable in Mornington in thirty minutes.’
‘Early,’ Challis observed.
‘Horse-racing people are early people,’ Coulter said.
That’s how it’s going to be between us, Challis thought. No confession or clear signs of guilt. Just a hard slog through Coulter’s past and present.
****
33
Robert McQuarrie and the other men had identified the settings of Janine McQuarrie’s photographs as two bedrooms in a house in the old part of Mornington, where solid dwellings sat on leafy streets a short walk away from the park, the beaches and Main Street. Ellen drove, slowing at one point to indicate a low-slung modern building that had gone to seed: drifts of paper and cellophane caught in the fence, untended grass, peeling paint, playground equipment growing a patina of rust and mould. ‘That was a heartbreaker,’ she said.
She didn’t need to explain. A childcare centre; allegations of sexual abuse against the husband and wife who ran the place; no charges laid after a fruitless investigation. But the case remained open.
‘And a hundred metres further on we have the Wavells and their wholesome sex parties,’ she continued.
Anton and Laura Wavell, aged in their early forties, and both at home at 8.45 on a Thursday morning. ‘We work from home,’ Anton explained, showing them into the sitting room. He was a thin, gingery, nondescript man with long pale fingers that fluttered from his belt to his mouth to his neck.
‘We offer IT support,’ Laura explained. ‘System upgrades, data recovery, website design, virus eradication. So, if you ever have any problems…’
She’s drumming up business, Challis thought, even as she suspects why we’re here. He eyed the Wavells. He’d stopped being surprised by the resemblances that husbands and wives developed to each other: like her husband, Laura Wavell was gingery. She sported rampant freckles on a broad face, and coarse red hair tamed by large clips.
‘Would you like to see?’ she asked, indicating a closed door at the end of the room.
There was something desperate about the question, as though Challis and Ellen might think better of the Wavells if shown a room devoted to cutting-edge technology and evidence of plain, everyday hard work. In Challis’s experience, guilt was never very far from the surface when it came to the sexual proclivities of ordinary people. Only hardened paedophiles never showed a conscience or remorse. The Wavells were probably close to protesting sulkily and fearfully that they were only helping others have a bit of fun. Challis had no moral opinion one way or the other about the sex parties: he didn’t care what the participants did; he only cared when someone stopped playing the game.
‘Another time,’ he said, and sat in a pillowy sofa, obliging the others to sit. There was a plasma widescreen TV in one corner of the room, a small bar, a scatter of Ikea easychairs, bright rugs and cushions, track lighting on the walls and ceiling. With the wintry sun picking up dust motes and finger smears, the room held a less than tepid erotic charge. He distributed Janine McQuarrie’s photographs over the surface of a coffee table that had been constructed from recycled floorboards in the form of a low, wide box with a pair of shallow push-pull drawers. ‘These were taken in two of your bedrooms last Saturday night.’
For some time there was silence. Anton’s hands were busy and he swallowed; Laura straightened her back, slanted her knees to one side, and folded her hands in her narrow lap.
‘We did nothing wrong,’ she said.
‘We certainly didn’t take these photos,’ Anton said. ‘Search the place if you like. No hidden cameras.’
‘Cameras are strictly forbidden.’
‘Against etiquette.’
‘Oh, etiquette,’ Ellen said, and Challis saw som
ething dangerous in her face and voice. Ellen in full flight could be something to see. It even produced results from time to time.
‘We have standards,’ Anton said.
‘Standards,’ said Ellen flatly.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know these men?’
‘They come to our occasions.’
‘Occasions. That’s a good one,’ Ellen said. ‘I’ll see if I can occasion my husband tonight, if he’s not too tired.’
Anton flushed. ‘I can read you like a book. You think there’s something smutty about our parties because you yourself think sex is a smutty thing. It’s not.’
‘I love a bit of smut,’ Ellen said. ‘Hal?’
‘Me too,’ Challis said carefully, wondering if her fury came from disappointment with him. He’d wanted her yesterday, and the day before that, and she’d picked up on it. He hadn’t acted: had she wanted him to?
He placed a photograph of Janine McQuarrie on the coffee table, the studio portrait taken for Bayside Counselling Services. ‘Do you know this woman?’
They peered with dutiful frowns. ‘She’s been here.’
‘Been to the sex parties?’
‘Yes,’ Anton said stiffly.
‘One of the wives,’ Laura said, as if to stress legitimacy.
Ellen leaned forward and with great sharpness and concentration said, ‘She was murdered two days ago, almost to the hour.’
They knew. Janine’s likeness had been plastered all over the TV news and daily press. ‘I fail to see what that has to do with us,’ Anton said.
‘Don’t you?’
‘No.’
‘She took these photos at one of your parties and now she’s dead.’
A pause. ‘She took them? How?’
‘Mobile phone.’
The Wavells shifted about as if kicking themselves for not anticipating that, for not policing it.
‘But why?’ Laura asked.
Ellen ignored her. ‘Tell me more about these orgies of yours,’ she said in her dangerous, reckless way.
‘They’re not orgies! Tell her, Anton.’
