by Garry Disher
'Bet on it.'
'Couldn't meet the repayments so Lister told him to put in a marijuana crop.'
'Yes.'
Challis swung back. He felt the interest stirring in him again. 'The Meddler somehow got wind of it, blackmailed them maybe, or was seen poking around, so Lister shot him and his wife.'
'It was more of a Lister kind of shooting than a Munro kind of shooting, if you get me,' Ellen said. 'Carefully staged, etcetera, etcetera.'
'You don't like him, do you?'
'Never did. Not from the very start. I think he's got his son involved in selling and distributing drugs up at the university and probably the local rave scene, kids' parties, that kind of thing. I think he wanted to know what we know so he could stay a step ahead or undermine the opposition. He always struck me as calculating. Munro was more hotheaded. Munro was always going to run off the rails.'
'Did Pam Murphy give Lister anything useful?'
'She says not—or nothing crucial. Says she named a couple of local junkies, that's all. But says that Lister was starting to get nasty, starting to put pressure on her.'
'Is that when she came to see you?'
Ellen nodded.
'And you think Lister killed Kitty too?'
'It makes sense, doesn't it?'
'It does if she was killed because of that photograph.'
'Hal, what if it wasn't just the photograph?'
'Look, Ellen, Kitty is dead now, I feel bad about it but it's not as if there was ever anything between us, despite what you think. So if you think she was bent, please just say so.'
'I never thought you were romantically involved. I never thought that. But I could tell you liked her.'
'Okay, I liked her. But I didn't know much about her, so I don't know why she was murdered. So for Christ's sake, lay out your theories.'
Ellen made a brief face at him, then said, 'Well, we've more or less been over it all before. She was innocently involved. She sold Munro the photograph without knowing what it depicted. Munro told Lister, and it's the kind of thing that festers, and eventually he decides to get rid of her.'
'Strange way to go about it, though, first trying to ram her plane.'
'In some ways, maybe, but it had the same throw-the-police-off-the-scent elements about it as the murder-suicide of the Meddler and his wife. Perhaps he hoped we'd think it was drunken kids joyriding in a stolen car, and waste a lot of time investigating in that direction.'
Challis nodded. 'I see your point. But then she was simply shot. Nothing complicated or ambiguous about that.'
'Opportunistic,' Ellen said.
Challis felt a slow burn inside. He leaned his forearms on the desk. A cloud passed over the face of the sun, darkening his window then flooding it with autumn light again. 'This is how Lister figures it. Munro has gone off the rails. He's out there roaming around with a shotgun, which he's already used on people he hates. So why not pin another death on Munro? He's bound to be shot dead by the police, and if he isn't, who's going to believe that he didn't shoot Kitty?'
Ellen nodded.
'But why?' Challis said. 'That's what it comes down to.'
'The photo.'
'I need more than that. Kitty showed that photo to Munro months ago. Why would Lister fear it now?'
'We've already covered that. Kitty knew what it depicted and blackmailed Munro, who told Lister, or she ripped them off, or she bought into their little racket.'
Not the Kitty I knew, Challis wanted to say. They were silent. Then Ellen said, 'Have we got enough for a warrant to search Lister's place?'
'Not even close.'
'Can we go and talk to him at least?'
Challis reached for his jacket. 'Don't see why not.'
On the way there in the Triumph, Challis said, 'What does the son study?'
'Chemical engineering.'
'Chemical?' Challis said heavily.
He sensed a stillness in Ellen, and went on: 'The father has burns to his face and arms.'
Ellen began to nod her head. 'Lab explosion,' she said. 'But I ran his name past the Drug Squad, and they don't know him.'
'That doesn't mean anything. He was careful, that's all. Just not careful enough with the old Bunsen burners.'
'Bunsen burners,' Ellen said with feeling. 'God, that takes me back.' She sank into her seat and glanced at Challis. 'Ever visited a high school, you know, to give a talk?'
Challis nodded. 'They all smell the same,' he said. 'Sweaty socks, chem lab, hormones.'
'Chalk, whiteboard markers, tampons, cleaning fluids.'
They came to Carl Lister's gate. Challis pressed the intercom, announced who he was, and some time later both Listers appeared, Skip from around the side of the house, Carl through the front door.
'Interesting,' Challis murmured.
'Think Skip was in the lab? Carl warned him to come out?'
'Possibly. Let's see if Carl will allow us to take a bit of a stroll in the grounds.'
Lister reached the gate ahead of his son and said, 'What can I do for you?' He peered. 'Ellen, hi.'
Then Skip was there. He wouldn't meet their gaze but muttered, 'Hello, Mrs Destry.'
'Hello, Skip.' Challis saw her staring hard at the boy, then heard her say, 'Larrayne would appreciate it if you could give her a call.'
Skip shuffled under the scrutiny, shaping the gravel with the toe of his shoe.
'What can we do for you?' Carl said again.
'Perhaps we could come in and have a quick word?'
'What about? It's just that I've been sweeping leaves— they're all over the back lawn—and then I have to meet a client and I don't really have much time for—'
'It won't take a moment. Better than all of us yelling through the gate at each other,' Ellen said.
Lister exchanged a glance with Skip. 'Put the rake away, son.'
Skip frowned, then his brow cleared and he strolled away with his hands in his pockets toward the rear of the house. But he was too tightly sprung, hurrying a little too much, to pass it off as a casual stroll. Challis watched him go down the side of the house and disappear.
Only then did Lister open the gate for the Triumph. He left it open, as though he didn't expect them to stay long. Challis drove past him and along the driveway, parking outside the front door. He got out, Ellen got out, just as Lister reached them. The chemical smell was stronger here and Lister, apparently conscious of it, said, 'Come in out of the cold. Days are getting chilly, have you noticed?'
'Perhaps we should take a brisk walk,' Ellen said, 'get the circulation going.'
Lister forced a laugh. 'What? And disturb my leaves, all nicely raked into neat piles? No, no, come inside.'
They stepped onto the verandah. The sound when it came was muffled, but clearly an explosion. The ground shook, reaching them as a diminishing shock wave, and Challis ran to the rear of the house in time to see acrid smoke boiling out of a rupture in the dirt. Then there was another explosion and part of a concrete slab tore free from the grass and more smoke poured out.
Lister screamed, 'Skip,’ and began to run. Afterwards Ellen told Challis that there was more heartbreak in the voice than she'd have thought possible.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
'So there's no doubt?' said Scobie on Saturday morning, in the passenger seat this time.
'None,' Challis said. 'Lister confessed, for a start. And the evidence is there, despite the explosion. A pill-pressing machine, buckets full of powder, dye, sinus tablets, you name it.'
'And the kid?'
'Badly burnt, but he'll live, just.'
Sutton shook his head. 'Burns. It's what I fear most, Roslyn pulling a saucepan down on herself, or playing with matches and her clothes catch fire.'
Challis tuned out. Lister, distraught to the point of collapse, and then wracked with guilt, had told them everything yesterday. Yes, he'd been manufacturing amphetamines in an underground laboratory behind the house. Skip had been helping him. He was not proud of that fact. H
e was not a good father. He'd made the kid help him; had brought the kid up in a culture of sly dealing.
Ellen had burst out: 'My daughter loved him.'
Lister had hung his head. 'I know. And I think he was keen on her. But he felt guilty. He—'
Challis broke in. 'Tell us about your burns.'
A lab explosion a few years ago, Lister explained. He'd been living in Sydney then. This time he'd thought he was safer: more know-how, better equipment, Skip's university training.
Then he'd collapsed and they'd had to postpone the questioning.
Later, with a mild sedative under his belt, he'd continued to spill…
Yes, he was a loan shark. If anyone couldn't make the repayments he'd work something out with them, quid pro quo.
'Ian Munro?'
'He put the marijuana crop in for me. Actually, he leapt at the idea. Unstable bugger. I should never—'
'You harvested the crop? Sold it?'
Lister had shaken his head. 'Burnt it to the ground as soon as that aerial photograph showed up.'
'Is that why Janet Casement had to die? She was a loose end? Why wait so long?'
'I was going to ignore it but it kept niggling at me. Plus Munro was getting more and more unstable and I thought if he got himself arrested for punching someone from the shire or whatever, then the cops might start sniffing around.'
'You would have been better off killing Munro than Janet Casement.'
'You can say that again.'
'So why try to ram her plane? Why not just shoot her to begin with?'
'I wanted it to look like an accident. I mean, like maybe a drunk or someone stoned was responsible. Less suspicious that way.'
'It turned out to be very suspicious,' Challis told him. 'From my point of view, anyway. Who drove? You? Munro?'
'Munro didn't know anything about it. No, it was me.'
'Taking a risk,' said Ellen flatly.
Lister shrugged. 'I was going to hire a junkie, but that would've been a greater risk.'
'When that failed,' Challis said, 'you told Munro to shoot her. Or was that you?'
Lister had shaken his head, looking puzzled. 'Wasn't me, I'm telling you that now. Must've been Munro, mustn't it? I mean, he shot his lawyer, even told me he was going to do it, and I tried to talk him out of it. He might have shot that other couple as well, and the Casement woman, but I don't really know. He never mentioned them, and I never put him up to any shooting.'
'Oh, that's convenient,' Ellen said. 'You cough up to the lesser charge, an attempt on someone's life, but not to being a party to an actual killing. Having second thoughts, are you? Starting to regret spilling your guts the moment your son is almost killed, trying to claw back some lost ground now, is that right? You disgust me, Carl.'
And Carl Lister had turned a damp, distressed face to her and said, 'I know I do. You should throw away the key. But I don't know anything about the shootings, none of them.'
'And that's where we stand,' Challis said now, Scobie beside him in the passenger seat.
'I wonder how Ellen's kid is taking it,' Scobie said. He sat with one finger inside a street directory and was ducking his long, narrow head to peer up at passing street signs.
'Not good, apparently,' Challis said. 'That's why Ellen's taken the day off.'
'Think of the misery that guy's caused.'
'Lister, or the son?'
'Lister, mainly.'
'Where were you on Easter Saturday?' Challis had asked him.
Lister cocked his head. 'You're talking about the beach, right? When I saw that reporter at Munro's place the other day, I thought I recognised her. We went to the beach to collect a shipment of sinus tablets—brought down from Queensland by boat, it's safer that way than by road. Didn't count on the storm.'
Then Ellen asked him about Pam Murphy. Lister had waved it away. 'She didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.'
'She came to me and reported the blackmail.'
'So?'
'So I don't want you using it in any way. It won't help in your defence, it'll only make things worse for you if we call it attempting to blackmail a police officer.'
Lister had shrugged. 'I've got nothing against her. Water under the bridge.' He went on without a change of pace: 'I feel shithouse about Skip, can't you see that? I want to get things off my chest.'
Ellen had stared at him in disbelief. 'Constable Murphy is going to sell her car and pay back the loan.'
Lister rubbed his face violently, clearly fatigued now. 'I suppose it will come in handy. Legal fees. Hospital expenses.'
'You disgust me,' Ellen had said.
Challis didn't say any of this to Scobie Sutton now. Sutton wouldn't blab or use it in any way, but the Pam Murphy business should stay buried.
'Here we are,' Sutton said, 'next street on your right.'
They'd taken the Peninsula Freeway to Frankston, then cut across to the Nepean Highway, which hugged the bay one street back from the water, glimpsed now and then down the side streets. It was a cheerless, red-tile stretch of the city, despite the water: flat, sun-baked, a sameness to the houses relieved only by ugly Italianate villas, their terracotta tiles and white plaster columns glaring in the autumn sunlight.
Challis turned right, across traffic and into a narrow street that dropped away in a curve of 1950s triple-fronted brick veneers. Number 40 was in cream brick, the lawn parched, a Mazda bubble car in the carport at the side.
'Someone's home,' Sutton murmured.
Challis gave a faint headshake of irritation. He wouldn't have come all this way without checking that fact first.
Louise Cook was about forty, with shapeless carroty hair and the dry, lined face of a chain smoker. She had a smoker's cough and took them into her sitting room as if desperate for the relief of her armchair and nearby coffee table and ashtray.
But then she struggled to her feet again, saying breathlessly, 'Tea? Coffee?'
'Nothing thanks,' Challis said firmly. He didn't want to stay here for long, and saw her sit back relievedly and give him an expectant look.
'You want to know about Trevor?'
'You went to England with him in 1999.'
'That's right.'
'But you came back and he stayed on.'
'Yes. He was from London originally, but I'm from here, and I got homesick. Plus it was so cold and expensive in London.'
'Did you stay in touch?'
'Off and on. It was a fairly amicable split. No grand passion or anything.'
'What can you tell me about Billings, the man who took over Trevor's rental agreement for the St Kilda house?'
'He was a nasty piece of work. All I wanted when I got back to Australia was a room for a while, till I was on my feet again, kind of thing. Bastard shut the door in my face.'
'Before then. When you and Trevor Hubble first met him, before you went to London.'
'Trev and I had this carpet cleaning business. That's how we met Billings. We got talking, got friendly, he and Trev both came from the same part of London so they had stuff in common, and in the end he invested in our business so we could afford to go to England. He retained financial control, kind of thing.'
'What happened to the business?'
Cook gestured. 'You tell me. We wrote to him from England but he never replied. Then when I came back and tried to see him, he slammed the door in my face.'
'But he was friendly at the start and gave you money?'
'More or less, yeah. It was all legal.'
'I'm not interested in the financial aspects, or not as such,' Challis said. 'Tell me more about Billings.'
'Well, like I said, he was friendly, generous, offered to look after the business for us. I know Trev left a lot of paperwork with him.'
'What kind?'
'Banking matters and stuff like that. Documents. For safekeeping, kind of thing.' She gestured at Scobie Sutton. 'What's his story? Doesn't he speak? Is he your boss or something?'
Sutton, who'd found o
ut about the active accounts and bills in Hubble's name, gave her a tired smile and said, 'When did you last see Mr Hubble?'
'I told you, when I said goodbye in London.'
'But you stayed in touch after that?'
'Couple of letters,' she muttered. 'Couple of phone calls. He didn't seem very happy.'
'With your leaving him?'
'No, well, maybe, but mainly he was unhappy living in London again. Too expensive, couldn't get a decent job, couldn't start up in business, had no family left, no friends to speak of.'
Now Challis knew why no one reported him missing in either country. 'So he came back to Australia?'
She shrugged, which seemed to aggravate her cough. They waited until she'd finished, half concerned that she might die in the meantime, for the coughing fit left her washed out.
'All I know is, he said he thought he'd come back here and take up where he'd left off.'
'Cleaning carpets?'
'I suppose.'
'Did he tell Billings to expect him?'
She shrugged. 'I suppose so.'
'What about you? Didn't you want to be part of the business again?'
'It wasn't like I'd put money into it. Plus Trevor and I were finished, and the chemicals used to give me a rash, and I'd met someone else.' She seemed to incline her head toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms. 'We live together. He's at work now. He's never met Trevor or Billings, in case you want to question him.'
Challis shook his head. He leaned forward. 'So it's probable that Trevor told Billings he was returning to Australia.'
She barely shrugged.
'Have you got a photo of Trevor Hubble?'
'Somewhere.'
'And anything he might have handled, like a photo album, a book…'
She frowned. 'I'll have a look, but what's this about? What's he done?'
'Nothing that we know of.'
'But it sounds like you need his fingerprints. That plus a photo…'
'Identification purposes,' Scobie said.
She stared at him and finally said, 'You found a body.'
Challis said gently, 'Yes. In the bay.'
She got excited now, jerking in her chair, coughing, which left her red-faced and gasping. 'Billings had a boat.'
'Did he now?'
'Go and arrest the bastard.'
