by Garry Disher
There was a pause. Hal, Ellen said eventually, could you imagine being watched by a roomful of people while having sex?
Challis couldnt imagine engaging in any kind of herd behaviour. No.
It doesnt turn you on?
No.
How about watching?
Unobserved?
No, watching in a roomful of others.
No. Id still feel watched.
She seemed to sway towards him a little. Thats pretty much how I feel about it, she said.
Then she destroyed the mood. You know what we have to do, dont you?
He turned and looked at her. Talk to Robert.
She shook her head determinedly. Talk to Tessa Kane. And Im coming with you.
Thats not a good idea.
You dont trust her?
Challis didnt, not entirely. Robert can tell us where this took place.
And Tessa Kane can tell us if its the same party that she attended. Of course we dont show her anyones faces, only photos that identify the location. If she does recognise the place, then we start digging, making it clear to her that shell face obstruction charges if she writes about the photos or tries to contact anyone.
You dont like her, do you? Challis said.
Not much.
They stared at each other. If Im there shes going to know its related to the McQuarrie investigation, Challis said.
Then let me question her. Ill say someone found a photo of themselves on the net and were investigating.
Challis sighed. Okay.
* * * *
28
I didnt 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. Shed 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, wont you.
Its possible weve 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 youre 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. Whats 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 youve 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 himselfor 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. Shed recently written an article about a sex party. Ergo, there was a connection between the two.
I have no idea where these were takencertainly not at the party I attended. Are you saying I, or one of my photographers, took these photographs for the Progress?
Were 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 didnt recognise anyone. Are you saying someone recognised me, and thats why Im being targeted? But whats this got to do with these photos?
We dont 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 were looking at a blackmail angle. Youre 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 Destrys frustration. Even so, she smelt a story. Maybe we can help each other.
How?
Tell me more, and Ill make contact with my sex-party people and see if theyll talk to you.
If you didnt attend this party, said Destry, collecting the photographs and slipping them into her briefcase, then theres 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, didnt even look back, but the set of her shoulders and spine said plenty.
Tessa Kanes 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 McQuarries photographs, which hed 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 McQuarries 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 McQuarries mobile phone. We dont know the location. Does anyone recognise the other men?
They shook their heads. Presumably the supers 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 dont want to cause unnecessary harm or embarrassment, and please, I dont want copies of these photographs circulating, and I dont 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 its coincidental? asked Scobie.
Thats 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?
Its 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; hed been about to go home when informed of the briefing.
Yes.
Maybe shes been at it for a while, Scobie went on, and her husbandor whoeverfinally jacked up or discovered her identity.
Its 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 Kanes 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 hed 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.
Maybe she was seen taking the photographs, Scobie said.
These are all candid shots, Ellen replied. No one knows theyre being photographed.
Challis nodded. I shouldnt think that cameras are allowed at these parties. Janine McQuarrie took her mobile phone with her and either no one paid any attention to it, or it was well concealedas you can see, some people are carrying towels and bits and pieces of clothing. Its as if Janine went there with the express intention of taking photographs of certain men in compromising positions. Did she want money? To ruin reputations? To break up relationships?
They all continued to speculate, and Challis watched and listened, occasionally prodding, occasionally demurring. Night had closed in outside the windows, the black wet streets giving back ribbons of red and yellow from headlights and brakelights, and hissing as tyres passed back and forth in the hour leading to dinner and evening TV in warm rooms. He thought of his cold house and shivered.
We need to find out who held this particular party, he said finally, and where and how often, and whether or not they have guest lists. Above all, we need to identify these other three men and ask if anyone has attempted to blackmail them.
What do you mean, anyone? said Scobie.
Maybe Janine had an accomplice.
They slumped at the thought, but continued to brood over the photographs and motives. Assuming someone was blackmailed, Scobie said, hell still be around. The killers he hired might not be, but he will.
Thats assuming that heor shehired the killers, said Challis. Even so, we need to show Georgia head shots of the three men other than her father to see if she recognises the driver or the shooter. He cocked his head to stare at the photographs.
Ellen was watching Challis. But first we talk to Robert.
Challis nodded gloomily. Tonight.
Sooner you than me, Scobie said. The case was a potential career breaker and they all knew it.
Challis ignored him. With any luck, Robert knows who the other three are, and well hit them first thing tomorrow morning.
Everyone was tired, a tiredness encouraged by the revelations, the sluggish heated air and the deepening darkness. Ellen yawned, setting off yawns in the others. After a while they stretched, stirred, tidied their folders and pulled on their coats. Challis thanked them and began to take down the photographs. Again, keep this to yourselves. These people might be pathetic and guilty of bad taste but they havent broken any laws that I know of. Well presume the sex was consensual and no one was under age. Janine McQuarries murder might have nothing to do with these people or the fact that she took their photographs. She might have been titillating herself, or herself and Robert. In other words, we dont want a situation where the rich and powerful suddenly find themselves on the internet or splashed all over the front page.
Boss, they murmured, filing out good-naturedly.
* * * *
30
At eight oclock that Wednesday evening, almost thirty-six hours after Janine McQuarries murder, Challis and Ellen parked the unmarked Falcon in the street, said No comment to a handful of reporters, and walked up the driveway of an Edwardian house set on a ridge above a rocky cove in Mount Eliza. The house was angled to allow million-dollar views down to Sorrento from one bank of windows and across the Bay to the irregular towers of the city from another, but right now the sea was black, the coastal towns a belt of twinkling lights, the distant city a yellow glow that swallowed the stars.
Meg answered, smiling tiredly in greeting and showing them through to a sitting room with drawn curtains and a heaped log fire burning briskly. Make yourselves comfortable, she said. Roberts in his study. Ill let him know youre here.
She was back a moment later. He wont be long.
She chatted, Challis listening with half an ear, wondering why
Robert McQuarrie was taking so long. Phoning his father to complain?
Or was it a typical and unconscious exercise of power to make them wait? An insult, maybe? This room needs colours and clutter to soften it, he decided, glancing around. It was a vast, starkly white room with plenty of chrome, glass and polished wood everywhere in hard angles.
You dont need to talk to Georgia, do you? Meg asked anxiously. It took me ages to get her to sleep.
Challis shook his head. No.
Then Robert McQuarrie came in like a man burdened with fools, still wearing suit trousers, black shoes and a loosened tie over a pale blue cotton business shirt. Here was the busy tycoon who never rests, not even at home, not even when his wife has just been murdered. I hope youre here with good news, he said.
Challis glanced at Meg, who got the message, and hurried out wordlessly, casting them a shy, relieved smile. A moment later they heard a television in another room, the theme music to the American cop show where the main guy always muttered, Keep me posted.
Well?
Mr McQuarrie, this is a photograph of you having sex with a woman who is not your wife, Challis said.
McQuarrie took the photograph, screwed his eyes shut and rocked on his feet. When his voice came it was hoarse and full of strain. This isnt what you think.
Oh?Ellen demanded. And what do we think?
That Im some kind of, you know...
He couldnt finish and they waited for other reactions. Finally Challis fed him the photographs. The dozen or so photographs weve obtained seem to concentrate on four men. Here are the other three.
I have to sit down.
Would you like a drink?
McQuarrie eyed a glass cabinet, dithered, and poured himself a scotch. Does my father have to know about this?
Challis and Ellen said nothing.
McQuarrie perched stiffly on the edge of an armchair. Please. It would destroy him, destroy my mother.
Challis shrugged and McQuarrie got encouragement from it. You got these from the Kane woman, he said poisonously.
Oh? said Challis. Why do you say that?
McQuarrie curled his upper lip. Im not stupid. She published that article, and hey presto, these photos appear. Your relationship with her is common knowledge. You doing her dirty work, or is she doing yours?
His demeanour seemed to say that Tessa was scum and so therefore was Challis, for consorting with her. Challis tensed, wanting to wipe the mans expression off his face.
McQuarrie saw something in him and paled a little, and swallowed heavily from his glass of scotch. It revived him. Tessa Kanes on the way out, you know. Shes finished. She has no idea of community feeling and should never have been put in charge of a local newspaper.
The bluster can mean two things, Challis thought: that Robert McQuarrie honestly thinks Tessa took the photos and theyre unrelated to the murder of his wife, or hes a guilty man attempting to misdirect us.
Can you tell me where the photos were taken?
McQuarrie shifted uncomfortably. I dont think I should. It doesnt matter where. But I will be having words with them. Opening themselves to a journalist is one thing, allowing photographs to be taken is quite another.
Sir, said Ellen with barely concealed contempt, the longer you hold out on us the more likely it is that these photos are passed around and find their way onto the net, to the media and to your parents. At present its strictly need-to-know and involves only a handful of trusted officers. I cant promise it will stay like that.
You cant bully me, McQuarrie said. He moistened his mouth.
Challis said evenly, I want you to tell usimmediatelywho these other men are and where these photos were taken.
They have a right to privacy...consenting adults...gladly sue you and the Kane woman... Robert McQuarrie muttered, jumping from thought to thought
as his gaze jumped from object to object in the room.
Its not illegal, he went on. We werent doing anything wrong.
Ellen studied him. Doesnt it bother you to know that someone you trusted has been taking candid photographs of you having sex with strangers?