by Garry Disher
I see. And how did that happen?'
'She let this gypsy into the house.'
Mrs Stokes opened her arms. 'How was I to know she was going to rob the place? She didn't take much. I didn't even know she took the backpack till I saw the TV. I turn to Megan and I says, "That's like yours." Then she tells me hers has been nicked. Not my fault.'
'It is,' Megan said.
'Shut up, both of you. Megan, listen to me, do you think it's possible that Danny stole the backpack from someone and gave it to you?'
He watched her. After a while, she began to nod her head. 'That's why I didn't report it when it got stolen from me, especially I didn't tell Mum, you can see what she's like. Danny, you know, he likes to give me things. I don't know how he can afford half the stuff he gives me, unless he nicks it first.' She looked up and said bravely, I want him to make a new start. He's got to stop nicking things.'
Challis encountered Ellen Destry in the corridor, carrying her car keys. She looked dishevelled, her mood distracted. He stopped and said softly, 'How's things?'
"What do you think?'
He took her arm. 'This will cheer you up.' He urged her toward the interview rooms.
She twisted away. 'Hal, I've got things to do. Phone calls. Has Scobie checked in yet? I want to keep an eye on the search. A million things.'
'We're interviewing Danny Holsinger again.'
'I'm more interested in finding Larrayne than who killed Clara Macris.'
'Bear with me. I can tie him to the backpack.'
'A backpack. Like I said, there must be dozens of them around.'
'He stole this particular one. The label had been removed, either by him or before he stole it, I've yet to discover.'
She closed her eyes. 'I pray to God this is it.'
'Danny, did you remove the label after you stole the backpack, or had it already been removed?'
'I didn't steal it, Mr Challis. Sergeant Destry here knows I didn't.'
'I know no such thing, Danny.'
'You believed me when you and that Pam Murphy had me in here.'
I don't believe you now.'
'I bought it fair and square at one of them seconds shops.'
'Prove it. Show us the receipt.'
'Paperwork. I don't generally hang on to stuff like that.'
Challis leaned forward. 'Danny, I'm not interested in your bullshit. I'll let you in on a secret, shall I? That backpack? It belonged to Kymbly Abbott.'
'Who?'
He seemed to be genuinely puzzled. 'She was raped and murdered a couple of weeks before Christmas,' Challis said. 'Don't you read the papers, watch the news?'
'I don't know their names,' Danny muttered.
'That sounds about right,' Ellen said. They're just meat to you, right? You rape them, kill them, dump their bodies. Who cares what their names are?'
His voice cracked, failing on the high notes. 'I didn't kill nobody.'
'We have to solve this case, Danny,' Challis said. 'You're the best lead we've got.'
'I can prove I didn't kill them'
'Got an alibi, have you? Boyd Jolic? Who's going to believe him? Megan? She was at the front desk just now, making a statement. It starts, "Daniel Holsinger is a liar and a thief and likes to watch illegal porn," and goes downhill from there.'
Danny looked stricken. 'She never.'
'You've got no friends, Danny. No-one's going to alibi you. No-one's going to shed any tears when we shut you away. Three life terms, you're going to get.'
Ellen leaned forward and Challis saw how hard it was for her to say: 'Four life terms. You see, Danny, my daughter's gone missing, and right now I'm as inclined to throw the book at you as at anyone else. Never hurt a copper, Danny, didn't any of your scumbag mates ever teach you that?'
He shot back in his chair. 'I never touched your kid. I swear.'
Challis said softly, 'The backpack, Danny.'
He slumped in his chair. 'It's like you said, I took it. This house up near Frankston.'
Challis stopped him. 'Danny, you're officially still under caution. I'm going to tape this, okay? Do you want a lawyer present?'
'No.'
'For the benefit of the tape, Mr Holsinger has admitted stealing a black leather backpack from a house near Frankston. Danny, to continue, did you cut the label out?'
'It was already cut out, like you see in seconds shops sometimes.'
'Did you steal anything else from this house?'
'Might of. I forget. Cash and that.'
'Where did you find the backpack?'
Danny smirked. 'Get this—behind them panel things around the bath. I was in this other house once? Accidentally kicked the bath? The side falls off and there's a couple of rifles in there. Now when I do over a house, that's the first place I look'
'We might need the address of that particular house, Danny, said Challis dryly. But he felt the old familiar tingle of the hunt. This had to be Kymbly Abbott's backpack. It was a souvenir, but not one that could be kept in plain sight.
Ellen got to her feet. 'You're going to show us where, Danny, now.''
Challis held up a hand. 'Just one more minute. Danny, you've been questioned about an aggravated burglary on a house near the racecourse, the subsequent theft and arson of a Mitsubishi Pajero, and the arson murder of Clara Macris in Quarterhorse Lane. You denied all knowledge of these crimes. Would you care to reconsider your position?'
Danny dropped his head. 'The ag burg was me.'
'And the other man involved?'
'Boyd Jolic'
'What about Mr Oliver?'
'Hal, come on,' Ellen said. She was frantic, stepping from foot to foot.
Challis held up his hand. 'Danny?'
'Craig come and pick us up after Joll burnt the Pajero.'
'You admit to stealing it after the aggravated burglary?'
'Me and Joll. It was all Toll's idea.'
'And the pornographic video?'
'I didn't know what was on it.'
'Danny, I'm only interested in where you got it.'
'It was in the Pajero. There was this cardboard box in the back, half a dozen videos, so I pinched one.'
'Good. Now, were you also involved in a traffic incident with a white Mercedes sedan driven by a woman driver that same afternoon? On Coolart Road? Whilst in the Pajero?'
'Yes.' ' '
'Explain what happened.'
'This bird cuts Joll off, gives him the finger. So he follows her home. He was that mad, said he was going to come back and sort her out.'
'What did you take him to mean by that?'
I don't know. He's a mad bugger. He tried to get me to go with him.'
'To do what?'
'Sort her out.'
'Kill her? Burn her house down?'
'He didn't say. But I wasn't surprised when I heard about the fire. Look, he's bad news. Scares the shit out of me. You got to put him away.'
In the corridor, Ellen spat, 'Precious seconds, Hal, precious seconds.'
'Exactly,' Challis said.
TWENTY-SIX
Danny took them to a tract of housing that backed on to bushland between Frankston and Baxter. Challis and Ellen were in the lead car with Danny, Challis driving. Scobie Sutton and three uniformed officers were in the second car.
'Okay, Danny, show us the house.'
His pinched face screwed up in worry. 'They all look the same.'
It was true. Small brick houses with tiled roofs, all about thirty years old. Native trees lined the streets. There were no front fences. The cars in the driveways or on the nature strips indicated modest incomes and aspirations. Challis slowed the car for a knot of teenagers playing cricket. Otherwise the streets were deserted.
He turned, completing the block, and started on the next. Then another.
Finally Danny said, 'It was sort of like that one.'
'Like that one, or was it that one?'
'That one.'
Over-long grass and weeds, white pebble-dashed wa
lls and glazed tiles set it apart from the other houses, but only just. 'What do you recognise about it?'
I dunno. The walls, kind of thing. Plus that thing on the roof.'
A satellite dish.
'Okay, let's go.'
Fifteen minutes later, Challis said, 'How sure are you?'
'Fairly sure. It was night time.'
'Danny, this house is unoccupied. It's been like that for some time.'
In fact, Challis had found a To-Let sign lying in the grass.
'Wasn't when I broke in.'
'Then you must have broken into a different house.'
Challis glanced at Ellen. Her face had fallen into lines of frustration and extreme anxiety. She blinked, letting the tears splash. 'He's got a new base. He could be anywhere.'
Challis took Sutton aside. 'Check with the neighbours. And see if you can get an after-hours number for the agency handling the lease. We need to know who owns the place, who last rented it, forwarding address, etcetera '
'Right.'
Challis looked at the sky. It was almost dark. He could see the bluish flicker of television sets in a couple of houses. There was a glow on the horizon, the lights of Melbourne.
He returned to the car. 'Okay, Danny, we're taking you home.'
'Home?'
Ellen snarled, 'Your home for the next little while, unless you get bail, you useless piece of shit.'
Danny sniffed. He sniffed all the way out of the little estate, as Challis took wrong turnings and found himself in dead-end streets and on streets that wound back on themselves like the entrails of a complicated organism. Danny might have kept on sniffing as Challis finally found a street that would take them on to the highway if he hadn't gone tense and pointed and said, 'There. That's the house.'
It was like the other in most details, except that the grass was short, and there was a signboard advertising a business name hammered into the grass, and a Jeep bearing the same sign parked in the driveway. Trees and dense shrubbery screened the house from the neighbours.
I remember the sign,' Danny said.
Rhys Hartnett, Air-Conditioning Specialist.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Challis parked farther along the street and radioed for Sutton and his team. When they arrived he directed one man to stand watch over the Jeep, and Sutton and the other men he directed to the yard at the rear. 'Scobie, you wait by the back door. Put one man at either corner, so he can watch for movement at any of the windows along the sides of the house. Ellen and I will take the front.'
He turned back to the car. 'Danny, give me your wrist, please. I hate to do this, but . . .'
He cuffed the thin, unresisting wrist to the roof handle above the door. 'Not too tight?'
Danny's eyes gleamed. 'You're going after him?'
'Yes, Danny, we are.'
'I'll watch.'
'You do that.'
Challis turned away. Ellen Destry was beside herself, marking time on the footpath, wanting to talk, wanting to act. She kicked the tyres on the Jeep. Even in the half-light, Challis could see that they were worn, mismatched. 'These aren't Cooper tyres.'
Ellen's face was twisted with something like shame. 'Hal, I think Hartnett saw me unloading the tyre casts we made at the reservoir. He probably replaced the Coopers with second- hand tyres later the same day.' She looked away. 'If he's killed her, I'll never forgive myself.'
There was no point in getting angry with her. Challis took her arm. 'Are you ready?'
'Am I ever.'
They approached the front door. Dogs were barking in the nearby yards. Challis slapped a mosquito away from his cheek. He could hear the irregular splash and rustle of someone hand-watering a garden bed at the house on the right. Ellen raised her knuckles and knocked.
A voice said, 'Excuse me. You're the police?'
Challis crossed swiftly to the border of trees and shrubs 'Yes.'
'You after the air-conditioning bloke?'
'What can you tell me about him, sir?'
'We were talking just now. When he saw your car slow down, he went barging over my back fence.'
Hence the barking dogs, Challis thought. 'Can you show me where?'
The man pointed. I got the feeling he was heading for the reserve.'
Challis ran to the footpath. The reserve was a dark mass in the lowering light of evening. He thumbed the transmit button on his radio. 'Scobie, is the back door unlocked?'
'Yes, boss.'
'Send a man in. Tell him to open the front door for Ellen. They'll stay and search the house. You and the others come with me. He's on foot, gone into scrubland.'
Ellen made a frantic search of the house, then gathered herself and searched again. She kept bumping into the uniformed constable. It was a small house. There was nothing ostensibly wrong about the man who lived in it. He owned a television set, a stereo, a handful of books. His habits were tidy. There was nothing freakish about the lighting, the wallpaper, the items in his cupboards and drawers. There was no pornography, there were no implements of cruelty. There was no body, alive or dead, or signs that one had ever been there.
But the house spoke of an inflexible life. No clutter, no dust, no sign that an ordinary person sprawled there at the end of the day. For just a moment, Ellen caught a sense of Rhys Hartnett, his rigidity and his hatred of disorder.
And, for what it was worth, there was a computer, and a Canon printer.
She remembered the bath. She levered off the side panels. Nothing.
Only an odour of dampness.
But he'd kept one souvenir, Kymbly Abbott's backpack. Had he kept others? Or had he ceased to do that after Danny had broken in?
'The ceiling, Sarge?'
There was a manhole. They positioned the hall table under it and she watched the constable haul himself through the narrow gap. She heard the roof beams creak. She heard a sneeze.
Then his face appeared. 'Nothing, Sarge.' He sneezed again.
'Come on down. We need to know if he owns or rents another house somewhere.'
'We haven't searched the shed, Sarge. And he might own a lockup somewhere, for his equipment and that.'
Tear her hair out, that's what she wanted to do. Her hands itched to hurt her own body.
'Shed, first.'
It was a gardening and tool shed. A rake, a fork, a shovel and a small pick were propped handle-first inside a tall wooden box in one corner. Lengths of dowelling rested across the beams above their heads. Extensive shelving had been erected around three of the walls. Ellen picked up a plastic honey tub. It was full of screws. The fourth wall was hung with hammers, chisels, screwdrivers and wrenches. The spanners were in a toolbox on the floor. She guessed that there would be more tools in the Jeep.
She grabbed the constable. 'We haven't checked his van.'
It was careless of her. Hartnett might have doubled back and escaped in it. And there were good reasons why it should have been searched first.
All of the doors were locked. Ellen sent the constable to search for the keys, while she walked around and around the vehicle, tugging on handles and attempting to peer through the darkened windows. A mobile hell, she thought, and began to cry. He'd snatched Larrayne over ten hours earlier. If he was true to form, her daughter was dead by now. She had to expect that, face that. She tugged on the rear door handles again.
The Jeep seemed to give an answering shake, so minute that she almost didn't register it. She didn't trust her senses. It could have been the plates of the earth shifting a little, far away, far beneath her, registering as a tiny shake here, in this driveway.
The constable returned, waving keys. 'In a basket on the kitchen bench,' he said proudly. He stopped, looked toward the reserve. 'They've brought in the chopper.'
Ellen snatched the keys from him. She wasn't interested in anything but getting the doors open.
The rear compartment, once so familiar to her, a small, friendly, masculine place that spoke of Rhys Hartnett's clever hands and efficiency, now seeme
d to be composed of sharp metal corners and the coldness of metal. Shelves, brackets, tools, offcuts of aluminium, electrical flex, drawers, a large, padlocked cabinet along one side of the tray.
A muffled knock. Another hint of rocking.
They registered it together. The constable fumbled the keys out of the door and searched for the smaller keys on the ring. Ellen made to snatch the keys from him. They performed a small, foolish dance, a playground grabbing contest, before the constable relinquished the keys to her.
The cabinet door swung upwards. Larrayne lay cramped on her side and wrapped in a blanket of thin, high-density foam. Her wrists and ankles had been taped together. There was a strip of tape over her mouth. Her eyes were wide and afraid, and then they began to blink away the tears and she began to thrash her body, thrash it until they'd pulled her out and cut her free.
Challis felt his chest tighten. His mouth tasted sour and his breathing came in tight, strained shudders that barely sustained him. Asthma. He flashed on his childhood. The evenings had always been the worst time. He'd want to run and climb and charge about, anything to avoid bed, anything to fill up the minutes before he was called inside, anything to stay outside, and the attacks would come, so bad sometimes that his panicked parents had called for an ambulance. But that was childhood. He had a more recent memory, of a small town, his wife, the other constable, the affair between them burning unnoticed by him until the anonymous call that had lured him to a patch of trees along a moonless back road. The shots. He'd taken one in the arm, a sleeve-plucking flesh wound. He'd circled around and he'd shot the man who'd wanted him out of the way. Challis stopped now, one hand resting against the trunk of a tree. His breathing rattled and wheezed. So much for silence, he thought.
There were men on the way. 'Fifteen minutes,' according to the duty sergeant in Frankston. And a helicopter with a searchlight.
Hartnett had a lead of two minutes. He knew his way through the reserve, presumably. Challis hadn't sent a car around to the bottom edge of the reserve. There were simply no roads to it. So, all four of them—himself, Sutton, the two constables—were floundering in the twilight, only two torches between them.
He thumbed his radio. 'Anything?'
The replies came: 'No, boss.'
'Everyone keep still a minute, and listen.'
