by Garry Disher
White tiles, pipes, hoses, a constant trickle of water. The pathologist and her assistant wore green rubber aprons and overshoes, and goggles waiting around their necks to protect their eyes against the bone chips and blood thrown up by the electric saw. The table had a perforated, channelled stainless-steel top, pipes at each corner running down to drains in the industrial-grade linoleum floor. A hose dribbled water as Freya Berg cut into the body. Above her, dazzle-free lamps. Extractor fans hummed in the ceiling, ready to take away the stupefying odour of the stomach contents and internal organs.
Freya said:
'Most fire victims die of smoke inhalation. Their bodies will be intact and recognisable, although some may reveal surface burns, particularly to the hands and face. In these instances the evidence is all there in the lungs. If there is little smoke residue in the lungs, then look for another obvious cause, such as failure of the heart. The most surprising subjects may succumb to heart failure under extreme stress. But this—this one's, shall we say, been cooked.'
Together Freya and her assistant began to turn the body on the cutting table. Two patches of oily white colour in the blackness of the upper arm and the hip stopped them.
The assistant photographed the black flank of the body, and then Freya teased the fabric away with tweezers. 'Ah. Cotton, I believe. A nightdress? T-shirt? She was lying on her side when the flames finally reached her.'
They completed turning the body over. Freya began to cut.
The student assistant grew agitated. 'Epidural haemorrhage, Dr Berg,' she said. 'Bone fractures. Like she's been beaten up.'
The pathologist smiled tolerantly. 'Looks like it, doesn't it? But don't jump to conclusions. Haemorrhaging and bone fractures are one result of extreme heat.'
Challis stepped forward, still holding the Vicks under his nose. 'So you're saying she simply burnt to death.'
'Preliminary finding only, Hal. I haven't finished yet.'
I have,' Challis said, and he pushed through the door to where the air was breathable.
Boyd had come to her in the early hours of the morning, smelling of soot and sweat and smoke, with a kind of snarling hunger for her body. 'We fucked like rabbits.' It was a phrase from twenty years ago, when she was a student, and each new affair started like that, hot and greedy, so you barely paused for breath. She hadn't thought she'd ever find that level of intensity again.
But now it was lunchtime and she had clients to see. Boyd lay sprawled on his stomach. He looked beautiful—if streaked with soot. A nice neat backside, nice legs and a tapering back, but God, the smell—stale sweat, smoke and cum and her own contribution. She'd had to scrub herself in the shower. He'd be gone when she got back tonight. She'd have to wash the sheets and pillowcases and air the house. She had a beautiful house, and the clash between it and what Boyd Jolic represented never failed to puzzle and excite her.
Pam Murphy found the Tank in the canteen. 'I've just seen van Alphen. He wants us to doorknock Quarterhorse Lane. Seems no-one knows anything about the woman who got burnt last night.'
Tankard forked rice into his mouth and chewed con-sideringly. 'But Van knows her.'
'Does he?'
'Yeah. He went round there a few times. Her mailbox got burnt. He knows her.'
'There's knowing and there's knowing.'
'Oh, very deep, Murph. You must come from a family of brains or something.'
'Look, the fact that van Alphen saw her when her mailbox got burnt doesn't mean he knows where she came from or who her family is. That's what we have to find out.'
Tankard scraped up the dregs from his plate. 'I'm sure you're right.'
Pam drove. Beside her, Tankard was racked with yawns.
'I was directing traffic last night. Didn't even go home. Showered and changed at the station. God I'm buggered.'
And I'm not, Pam thought. I worked through the night too, but that doesn't count. 'What do you think?' she asked. 'Was it accidental?'
Tankard shrugged. 'Couldn't say. They reckon it started in the kitchen.'
A short time later, as they turned into Quarterhorse Lane, Pam leaned forward to stare and said, 'What's going on?'
At least a dozen cars were parked along the fenceline on both sides of Quarterhorse Lane, restricting traffic to one narrow strip of corrugated, potholed dirt.
'Gawkers,' said Tankard contemptuously. 'Ghouls.'
As they approached the ruin, they saw people with cameras. Twice, at least, Pam thought, their van was photographed as it passed along the avenue of cars and turned into the driveway of the burnt house. Tankard wound down his window and shouted, 'Haven't you people got anything better to do?'
'It's a free country.'
Pam wound down her window. 'Move along please, or you'll be arrested for obstruction.'
'Police harassment.'
'Yeah, I love you too,' Pam muttered, following the driveway between small scorched cypress bushes. 'God, they're in here, too.'
Two women were aiming their cameras at a CFA volunteer, who was wearing his full fire-fighting kit. He was grinning, his overalls a streak of vivid yellow against the charred beams and blackened roofing iron.
A man wearing fireproof boots, grey trousers, a white shirt and a hardhat stepped out of the ruin. He was carrying a clipboard. 'It's like the Bourke Street Mall here.' He cast a contemptuous look at the CFA volunteer. 'Bloody cowboys.'
Pam read the ID clipped to the man's belt. He was a fire brigade inspector. 'We'll clear everyone away, sir.'
'Thanks. I actually caught someone nicking souvenirs earlier. This woman, could be your old granny, nicking ceramic dolls from out of the ashes.'
'Sir, did you find anything to tell us who the victim was? Any papers, deed box, wall safe, anything at all?'
'Not a thing,' the fire inspector said.
Going home from work on his trailbike, bumping down Quarterhorse Lane at two o'clock in the arvo for a quick gawk at the house that got burnt, gave Danny an idea. All those cars, all those people with nothing better to do, people he knew . . . Well, if they were here, looking at the burnt house, they weren't home in their own houses, now, were they?
'Was that young Danny Holsinger?'
'It was.'
'Up to no good.'
'Bet on it,' Pam said.
'I'll radio it in, ask the others to keep an eye open.'
Pam turned right, away from the cars of the gawkers, and drove for one third of a kilometre to the next driveway, which took them to a large wooden structure shaped like a pergola. A sign said, 'Tasting Room.'
'Good wine here,' Tankard said.
Pam stared at him. Had he liked the wine or had he simply liked the drinking? A woman came around the side of the building. She wore overalls and carried a small stepladder.
'You've come about the fire?'
'Yes.'
'There's not much I can tell you. We decided to evacuate, just in case. Didn't come back till this morning.'
'Actually, we're after information about the householder,' Pam said.
'You mean Clara?'
'Yes.'
'Poor woman. What a dreadful thing. Was it an accident?'
'We believe so. What can you tell us about her?'
'Not much. In her late twenties, New Zealander. I don't think I ever knew what her surname was, or I've forgotten it if I did know.'
'Friends? Relatives? Anything like that?'
'Can't help you, sorry. She kept to herself.'
The next driveway, at the top of the hill, took them to a large house with a view across Waterloo to the refinery point on the bay. The curtains were drawn in all of the windows and no-one answered when they knocked at the front and back doors. Pam peered through a gap in the lockup garage and saw a newish-looking Mercedes.
Then they heard a tin clatter in the gardening shed and came upon an elderly man pouring petrol into a ride-on mower.
'God, you nearly gave me a heart attack.'
'Do you live here, sir?'
'Me? No. I pop in now and then, do the mowing, watering, check on things. Why? What's up?'
Pam got out her notebook. 'Can you tell me who does live here?'
'Stella Riggs. She's away for a few days.'
Pam noted the details, including a reminder to come back and question Riggs. 'Sir, do you know anything about the fire down the road?'
'Me? Nothing. Should I?'
'A woman called Clara died in it. We're anxious to trace her relatives.'
'Don't know a thing about her.'
'Do you live locally, sir?'
'No.'
Pam looked around pointedly. I don't see a vehicle.'
The old man indicated a rusty bicycle. 'What do you think that is?'
Danny had been seen going over the fence. He was also seen coming back, this time by Sergeant van Alphen and a constable in a divisional van.
'Danny, my son.'
'Shit.'
'Now look what you've gone and done. Perfectly good VCR, and you have to drop it in the dirt.'
'I can explain. The heads need cleaning and I was just taking it around to—'
Van Alphen punched him, not hard, but enough to make him reconsider his position. 'What was that, Danny? I didn't quite catch that.'
Tears came unbidden to Danny's eyes and he saw it was true, what they said about van Alphen. 'Don't hit me no more. I want to see Constable Murphy.'
'What do you want to see her for?'
'She'll give me immunity.'
'That's a big word for a squidgy little shit like you. And I doubt it, somehow.'
They took Danny to the station and charged him. But the Pam Murphy chick wasn't in the station, so Danny said, 'I want to call my lawyer.'
Nunn was quick off the mark. There in ten minutes. Danny couldn't believe it. She demanded time alone with him, and as soon as the door was shut she said, 'You're a fuckup, aren't you, Danny, eh?'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
Danny looked at her hotly. Thinks she's so good, all dolled up in her tight skirt and jacket, briefcase, hair looking like its been washed and brushed for hours, smelling like a bottle of perfume's fallen all over her, nasty superior look on her face. 'You got no right to call me names.'
'I've got every right. As your lawyer, I've got every right. What did you think you were doing? Broad daylight. You've got a good job. Can't you be satisfied with that? I can't go spending all my time bailing you out of trouble.'
Fucking stuck-up bitch. Who did she think she was? 'So, am I getting out or aren't I?'
'Mate,' Marion Nunn said, 'quite frankly I can't get you out of here quick enough. You can't be trusted to keep your gob shut.'
Now, what was that supposed to mean? Still, better out than in.
Challis picked up the ringing phone and snapped off his name. It was six o'clock and he wanted to go home. 'Challis.'
'It's Freya. Got a minute?'
Challis sat back in his office chair and stared at the ceiling. 'This sounds like bad news.'
'It is.'
'I'm all ears.'
'The lungs. Fresh and pink inside.'
Challis put his feet up on the edge of his desk. 'You're saying she'd stopped breathing before the fire started.'
'I am.'
'Heart?'
'The heart was fine. But you know those bone fractures, and the bleeding?'
'How will I ever forget.'
'Well, most were due to the extreme heat, but not all. She'd been bashed around first. Beaten to death, in other words.'
Challis said goodbye and stared at the wall. After a while, he called the Progress and told Tessa Kane, 'You might want to stop the presses.'
And wondered at his motives.
TWENTY
Ellen was late on Thursday morning. Challis's Triumph was already in the car park, Scobie Sutton's station wagon, cars she recognised as belonging to the seconded officers from Rosebud and Mornington.
She found Rhys slicing open the tape around a small box with a pocket knife. He smiled, then immediately sobered and touched her forearm. 'Are you all right?'
She'd been crying for half of the night. 'Just tired.'
'Tell me.'
His big hands were on her shoulders. She looked away, blinking hard. 'It's nothing, Rhys. I'm okay.'
She felt his fingers relax and finally release her. He turned away. 'Fair enough. None of my business.'
In a way, it was. She tugged him back and searched his face. She wanted to be able to say that she'd had the most godawful row with her husband, that her husband felt scared and threatened, and had accused her of being fast-tracked because she was a woman, of splashing her money about on air-conditioning just to show him up, and of fucking the man she'd hired to install it. But all she said to Rhys Hartnett was, 'Things are a bit tense at home, that's all.' She paused. 'Look, Rhys, I don't know how to say this—I'm sorry, but we won't be having aircon fitted after all. It's ... the time's not right.'
He jerked away from her. 'I didn't like being the focus of your husband's dislike anyway. Or your daughter's.'
'Oh, Rhys, it's not that, it's—' 'I'm not stupid.'
She watched his face, then said, as firmly as she could, 'I'm very sorry.'
He looked away and stood there, stiff and chafing. 'It happens.'
'You won't be out of pocket?'
'It's summer. People always want aircon.'
'That's good.'
His shapely fingers took a small calibrated instrument from the box. 'I'll be finished here this morning. Just have to mount a few of these thermostats and I'm done.'
They gazed at the courthouse. 'I'll miss seeing you around the place,' she said.
'Yeah, well . . . ,' he said.
'Look, I feel terrible.' She fished in her wallet. 'Here's a hundred dollars. You spent hours measuring up the house, doing costings, all for nothing. Call it a kill fee.'
He stared at the money. She knew at once that she'd been graceless, and wanted the ground to swallow her up.
Challis nodded at Ellen Destry and waited for her to sit down. He'd called an emergency briefing, and the incident room was crowded with his CIB officers and all available uniformed sergeants and senior constables.
He stood. 'We're not downgrading the abduction inquiry, but, until further evidence or leads come in, we can't do much more than follow through on what we already have. Meanwhile, our fire in Quarterhorse Lane. As you know, it's now officially a murder investigation.'
He pointed to a photograph pinned to the wall; the body was revealed as a glistening smudge. 'The victim was one Clara Macris. It appears that she was bashed to death before the fire started. As for the fire, it was intentional but constructed to appear accidental, by someone who knew what he was doing. Was he trying to conceal the fact that it was a murder? Was he getting a kick out of lighting the fire? In any event, we'll have to follow up the suggestion in today's Progress that we have a firebug on our hands.'
Challis saw amused and knowing grins. They know about me and Tessa Kane, he thought. He went on:
'I want you to look again at any fire we've had recently. That rash of mailboxes, for example; that Pajero, the attempted torching of that house over near the racecourse. Is our firebug also a burglar? Is he escalating? Are there any nutters fighting fires in the local CFA units? Check with the Arson Squad. Have any known pyromaniacs settled in the district? Sergeant Destry will brief you further on who will do what.
'Now, the dead woman. Clara Macris. That's about all we know about her. Her neighbours say she kept to herself. We've still to talk to shopkeepers, bank tellers, anyone else who may have come into contact with her. Apparently she had a New Zealand accent, but we don't know how long she'd been in this country. It may have been years. New Zealand police have been contacted to see whether or not she had a record. We do know she moved into the area about eighteen months ago. Was she renting, or did she buy? I want someone to check that out. Did she go to the pub regularly? Play sport? Travel? Check the lo
cal travel agents. Someone else can look at her mail as it comes in.
'Meanwhile, her car is missing. See if it's been reported stolen, found abandoned, impounded or taken somewhere to be repaired.
'See if she ever took taxis anywhere.
'All of this is necessary because we don't know who she is, and the fire destroyed any personal papers that might have told us.
'Now, let's keep an open mind on this. Maybe our firebug isn't responsible. Someone else, someone she knew, was let in—or broke in, it's impossible to tell, given that the house was destroyed—and killed her. Why did he kill her?—assuming it was a man, and I don't want you necessarily making that assumption. Was he a burglar, caught in the act? In which case, this incident relates closely to our latest aggravated burglary—except that Clara Macris clearly wasn't wealthy and this one happened at night.
'Or was it someone she knew, friend, relative or lover, and they had a disagreement over something? We badly need to know something about her personal life. Van, you were investigating officer when her mailbox was burnt. Can you tell us anything?'
The question, the way it was posed, the switch from the general to the particular, seemed to silence the room and draw everyone's attention on to Kees van Alphen. His lean, pale face coloured. He opened and closed his mouth, then coughed, then recovered completely and said, 'She was pretty close-lipped, Inspector.'
'You didn't meet anyone else there? She didn't talk about herself?'
'Not to me.'
'Your officers have been questioning the neighbours. Have they turned up anything?'
'Nothing. One neighbour, a Stella Riggs, is still away, returning tomorrow.'
'We'll need to speak to her. We need to cover a lot of ground very quickly, so I want you to go out in pairs, one uniform, one CIB, asking questions wherever Clara Macris might have gone.
'Now, let's brainstorm a little. Let's say the killer wasn't a family member or an intimate, and wasn't our firebug. We have a house on a quiet back road. Who and what, in terms of people and vehicles, might we expect to see on it? Scobie, do the honours.'
