by Garry Disher
They were probably taken the Saturday before last. Of course, its possible that
McQuarrie gestured irritably. I dont mean thatwhen did you find them?
Late yesterday afternoon.
You didnt think to tell me sooner?
We didnt want to cause any unnecessary distress.
McQuarrie watched him in apparent disbelief, but then switched tack. I heard all about your raids this morning.
His spies. The men in the photographs, Challis said.
You didnt raid Robert?
We interviewed him last night.
And?
Each man received a copy of his photograph in Mondays mail.
Janine was blackmailing them? One of them killed her? I take it she took the photos?
We cant be sure.
I can, said McQuarrie emphatically.
Sir, said Challis, did you suspect something was going on?
McQuarries faade slipped. He looked bewildered, pushing his fingers back through his hair and looking about wildly as if for deliverance. There was always something about her that wasnt quite right. Something missing. The wife and I did our best to make her welcome, make her one of the family, but Janine seemed to resent us, despise us. She was quite critical. I dont know what it was: jealousy, perhaps? She had quite a sharp tongue, often reducing my wife to tears. She had nothing good to say about anybody.
His glance settled on Challis helplessly. My wifes not to hear about any of this. You cant show these photos to anybody. How many have seen them so far?
Only the members of my team.
Do you vouch for each and every one of them?
Yes.
McQuarrie turned self-protectively nasty. If our friends in the media learn about these photographs, Ill know where to look.
Challis knew how to play at this game. Sir, he said, tapping Robert McQuarries photograph, apparently this has been going on for some time.
McQuarrie flushed angrily. Im sure she drove him to it. She was a cold little bitch. I bet it was all her idea.
Neither she nor your son gave you any indication that this was a part of their private lives?
Of course not.
But you had niggling doubts about Janine, thought Challis, and when she was murdered they hardened into suspicions. You feared the reasons why she was murdered would reflect badly on you and your son, and this accounts for your apparent obstructiveness and lack of sympathy.
We dont know why she took the photos or who else might have been involved, he said.
Are you saying my sons involved? He was in Sydney when she was shot. Hes in the damn photos, for Gods sake. Are you suggesting he and Janine were in this together and his photos a smokescreen? Are you saying hes next?
No, Challis said, remembering Roberts reactions the night before.
Meanwhile McQuarrie was gaining momentum. Are you saying I had prior knowledge of all this? That I killed Janine to save our reputations?
Did you, sir? said Challis mildly.
Dont be absurd, said McQuarrie, pitching about in his chair. I resent the implication. Do you honestly think I wanted to bring all this down on myself?
Challis didnt. In fact, if the shooting was related to the photographs, then why hadnt the killer searched Janines house and office for further copies? Sir, I have to ask, but did Janine ever approach you, or your wife, with overt or veiled threats or attempts to blackmail you?
Absolutely not. Shed know Id never have paid up and Id have had her in handcuffs quick smart.
McQuarrie had possibly never carried or used handcuffs. And theres no indication that she blackmailed these men, Challis said, pointing to the photographs. We dont know why she chose them, took their photos or sent copies to them.
McQuarrie said softly, But its a hell of a motive for murder, Hal.
It is indeed.
She could have been at it for months, years.
Challis had thought of that. Yes.
Was she in it alone? Maybe theres a lover we dont know about.
Were keeping it in mind, sir.
McQuarrie seemed to want to tear at his sparse hair again. Who else knows? How are we going to keep a lid on it? Im relying on you, Hal.
* * * *
39
Meanwhile, Andy Asche was back in Waterloo.
When the Toyota had finally stopped rolling, hed found himself upside down and half strangled in his seatbelt. Hed released himself, remembering Natalie, but couldnt find her anywhere. She must have climbed out and scarpered.
So hed run like hell through grass, bracken and cow shit, dodging around old apple trees, and vaulted a fence, darting into a dense wooded area. Damp in there, leeches probably, mosquitoes in summertime, rotten logs mossy green everywhere, gaunt dead trees, thriving pittosporum. Then out the other side, coming upon a road Penzance Beach Road, he realisedcarrying a fair bit of traffic at this time of the day. Hed ducked back into the trees and considered his options.
Hitchhike?
Hell no. It could take him an hour to get a ride, and the cops would be all over him before then. He remained in the shadows, beneath dripping trees, and finally saw a kid aged about fifteen come riding down a muddy driveway opposite. Saw the kid park his bike in the hedge at the entrance to the propertya winery, according to a wooden signand wait at the side of the road with a gym bag. One minute later, this woman in a Mitsubishi people-mover picks him up, the kid high-fiving it with other kids in the back.
Off to footy training. Maybe Ill be tackling that same kid at footy next Saturday morning, Andy thought, ducking across when the road was clear, jumping onto the bike, cramming the helmet on his head and pedalling away as fast as he could.
Cool bike, too. Lightweight, snappy gears.
Pity about the van and contents, he thought. Maybe I should get out of housebreaking, get into nicking bikes.
He pedalled hard for thirty minutes, down to Penzance Beach, where he met the bike path that meandered across to Waterloo. Here there were always cyclists, so hed not attract attention. Twenty minutes later, he was home, thinking that he could give the bike to Natalies brothers, see the looks on their faces. As for Natalie, she must have hitched out, left him behind, the bitch. He had to admire that. Its what he would have done.
But none of this would have happened if she hadnt insisted they pull another job. She was fast becoming a liability. If the pressure hadnt been on, he might have spotted that they were robbing a cops house. Photos, commendations, an old uniform hanging in the wardrobe.
Thinking hed better delete the files hed swiped from the guys laptop, Andy switched on his PC.
* * * *
Back at the accident scene, Pam Murphy was standing at the broken fence, watching the crime-scene technicians dust the van for prints and take casts of the tyre tracks. The sarge was a few metres away, pocketing her phone after talking to Challis. Alan Destry called out from the other side of the road. Oi, Constable Murphy, over here, please.
Pam stiffened. She saw him cast a half gloating look at his wife, then jerk his head and say, Straight away, Constable. I havent got all day.
Alan, the sarge said warningly.
Its okay, Sarge, Pam said, not wanting to get in the middle of a marital row.
Dont let him bully you, Ellen murmured, okay?
Okay, Sarge.
Pam crossed the road to where Alan Destry stood with his rump against a police car. He opened his notebook. And hows my wifes little pal today?
Pam eyed him warily, wondering about the undercurrents. And was she Ellen Destrys pal? Hardly. The sarge was fifteen years older, senior in rank, a detective, and married with children. Mentor might be a better word.
Did he expect a response? Did she address him as sir?after all, he was only a senior constable.
He folded his arms across his chest. Do you know what my job is?
Accident Investigation Squad.
Correct. I was in Traffic for years, drove pursuit cars, manned booze buses, taught defens
ive driving techniques, and coordinated high-speed chases as a pursuit controller. Theres nothing I dont know about driving a motorcar. Nothing you can put over on me.
So, a challenge. Pam frowned as if puzzled by his choice of words. I dont understand.
Oh, yes you do. Do you realise therell be an inquest? The state coroner will be involved, possibly the Ethical Standards Department?
The Ethicals? Why them?
That depends on you, how you answer my questions, how your partner answers my questions, and on what I learn about your conduct during the pursuit.
Pam stood very still, watched, and waited. She wanted to swallow. Maybe Lottie Mead had reported the stone incident after all.
Everything suggests high speed, Alan Destry said.
The Toyota, not the police, Pam flashed back.
Destry cocked his head disbelievingly, a solid, arrogant-looking man with cropped hair. If the Toyota was driving at high speedsup to 130 kilometres an hour, according to John Tankardthen how come you witnessed the accident?
We were not pursuing, Pam said, we were following.
Following at high speeds, said Ellen Destrys husband, and spooking the other driver.
It wasnt like that.
Write it up and submit it before the end of the day. Ive got tomorrow off, so expect a formal debriefing next Monday.
Formal debriefing.
Yes. What did you expect?
* * * *
Andy Asche was in a hurry. He had to get to the post office before five. Wearing latex gloves to screen his fingerprints, he loaded his printer with paper fresh from a new packet, clicked on the photo array that hed transferred from the stolen laptop to his computer, clicked on the four thumbnails that clearly showed the faces of four men, and clicked print, making multiple copies.
The photos rolled out of the printer and he collated them into five bundles, which he slipped into five express-post envelopes. Before sealing the envelopes he typed up a letter, big font, plenty of bold, and printed out a copy to add to four of the envelopes. He typed a different letter for the fifth envelope. Finally he tore up the highway to Frankston, where no one knew him, and lodged the envelopes at the main post office.
* * * *
With darkness settling over the mangrove flats beside her house, and feeling cocooned by her fleecy tracksuit and the warmth of her slow combustion fire, Tessa Kane continued to search the net, a glass of wine at hand. Last evening s Google search had been useful for consolidating the readily accessible information on Charlie Mead and ANZCORthe bland public facebut now she was refining her search parameters, concentrating on the period before Mead and his wife came to Australia. Shed also made dozens of local and international phone calls since yesterday, speaking to men and women whod once studied with, taught, worked alongside or served under either of the Meads.
At first, the results seemed promising. The deeper she dug, the more Charlie Meads profile blurred at the edges. She found several Charlie Meads, or variations of the one. There had been a time in the 1970s and 80safter hed served with the security forces in Zimbabwe and later worked as a security consultant in South Africawhen Mead frequently changed addresses, but she could not discover why. To avoid creditors? There was also a question mark over his service record: certainly hed served in the South African military, but had he ever been a highly trained commando with SAS connections, as hed claimed? Later still hed worked for a security company in the UK that specialised in surveillance, firearms training, bodyguards for travelling businessmen, and negotiating in hostage and kidnap situations. He was sacked in 1986 after South African authorities had interrogated him regarding an attempt to provide arms and mercenaries to insurgents in the Seychelles. In the early 1990s hed joined ANZCOR and risen through the ranks.
Apart from references to a position held in the South African public service, shed found almost nothing on Lottie Mead.
Tessa felt frustrated. The facts were sparse, and although theyd required a little digging, were on public record, and didnt point to anything obviously criminal or corrupt. What was the point in publishing an expose if there was nothing to expose? Sure, Mead had probably cut corners all his life and his values were non-existent or deplorable, but in the current political climate, which admired cowboys, Mead was bound to have powerful supporters and be seen as a man who got things done.
There was one last strategy she could try. Reaching for the phone, she began to hire private detectives in South Africa, England and the US.
* * * *
Ellen arrived home that evening to find Alan watching a DVD: a war movie, no surprise there. She almost went straight out again. Have you eaten?
He gestured with the remote control, his gaze on the screen. Yep.
So she heated leftovers and ate at the kitchen table. Usually Sunday night was movie night, but Alan had a day off tomorrow. Ellen had treasured Sundays when Larrayne had still lived at home. Theyd eat pizza, fish and chips, or cheese on toast, plates on their laps, in front of the box, watching a good movie, like Emma, Sense and Sensibility or Love, Actually. Sometimes Alan watched with them, but it had to be an action movie for him to last the distance, and the only ones that Ellen and Larrayne could stand to watch were old James Bond and Indiana Jones movies, or action movies with a bit of class, like Heat. Or Titanic, which hed endured more for Kate Winslets tits and the ship turning arse up than the characters and storyline.
Now, with Larrayne living in the city, Ellen felt a sense of loss. Larrayne seemed to lurk in the corners of the house, the corners of Ellens gaze. Ellens widowed mother had suffered the same thing: I keep catching glimpses of your dad, shed say. Not his ghost, I dont mean that. The particular way he held the newspaper or walked through a door or put the dishes away. Well, Ellen kept glimpsing Larrayne here and there, and even missed those quirks of Larraynes that had driven her nuts at the time, like the way she would never stay put when cleaning her teeth but wander out of the bathroom and up and down the hall and in and out of rooms, electric toothbrush buzzing in the corner of her mouth.
Ellen picked at her food, seeing the dead horse and rider, the overturned van. Was Larrayne very vulnerable now?away from home for the first time; drugs everywhere; evening lectures and a long walk home across a shadowy campus and down dark streets; getting attached to an axe murderer disguised as Mr Right; or even getting her heart broken, which was bound to happen sooner or later.
And so she phoned, several times. No answer. Larrayne, and her housemates, were out.
For the evening? The whole night?
Where?
Doing what?
With whom?
The old who, what, where, when and why of police work.
And all the while she was trying to tell herself that she would leave her husband on her own terms and not because Challis existed.
* * * *
40
Challis spent most of Friday morning in CIU. It was proving to be difficult to get fast or accurate information from Witsec or the New South Wales prison service. Meanwhile, according to the findings of the DCs on loan from Mornington, Hayden Coulter was guilty of no more than massaging the books of his clients. Nothing solid tied himor any of the other men in the photographsto Janine McQuarries murder. Several people, including a racehorse owner, a trainer and a groom, alibied Coulter; various secretaries, receptionists and work colleagues alibied the other men. Finally, the investigation had not turned up a secret lover for Janine, and Challis could only suppose that shed seemed happy to Meg because shed thought of a way to stick it to her husband. The anonymous caller hadnt called back.
He checked with Scobie Sutton, who was manipulating the images stored on Janines mobile phone into simple head-and-shoulders shots of Coulter, the surgeon and the funds manager, and which Challis would later show to Georgia McQuarrie. Scobie was hunched in front of his monitor, his whole body revealing distaste for the task, as though he feared hed be soiled. Not for the first time, Challis wondered if the man was too sens
itive and moralistic for the job. He said nothing and returned to his cubicle, wondering how Ellen was doing. She was out, following up on forensic evidence found at the murder and accident scenes, and talking to anyone who might have met or seen Christina Traynor.
Challis poured another mug of coffee and turned on his radio for the 10 a.m. news. First up was another young Australian arrested for attempting to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia, followed by an account of yesterdays inquest, in which a Navy public relations officer, responding to a question regarding cadets and drug abuse, said that the Navys position was one of zero tolerance. Challiss mind drifted. What would his parents make of the story? He often found himself measuring the world against them. He was the late-in-life child of a father whod been a World War II RAAF navigator and a mother whod been an Army nurse. Not much drug use back then, he didnt suppose, apart from alcohol and tobaccoand a bit of cocaine and heroin amongst inner-city bohemians. The two world wars had also established a simple set of values: Australians were defined as brave, practical, resourceful, egalitarian, clean-living and loyal to their mates. Conservative governments and the popular press continued to hold that view, but Challis thought that things had changed. Bravery, loyalty, egalitarianism, patriotism and a fine young mind in a fine young body were media images trotted out to suit sixty-five-year-old politicians, sports commentators and shock-jock talkback radio hosts who kept one eye on their ratings and another on their sponsors kickbacks. Outmoded, irrelevant concepts that bore little relation to the real world. Drugs belonged now; the old Australia didnt. Drugs had made crime more prevalent, vicious and unpredictable, too, making Challiss job harder, but no one wanted to know about that.