Under the Cold Bright Lights

by Garry Disher

  ‘You’re thinking the killer had help?’

  ‘Reckon they’d need it.’

  ‘Which would indicate Shirlow pissed off an organised crew,’ Josh Bugg said.

  ‘Or someone with time and nerve and patience,’ Auhl said.

  ‘Speak to the Drug Squad,’ Colfax said, ‘see who was active in the area back then. Also, dig deeper into Shirlow and the girlfriend. Parents, friends, relatives, work colleagues. Work history. The murders mightn’t have anything to do with drugs or organised outfits. An awful lot of elaborate effort was involved. I mean, why not simply shoot the pair of them in their house or wherever and leave them there?’

  She sorted the Mary Peart crime-scene photos into a sequence: distant shots, mid-range, close-ups. ‘Something about this bothers me. Look at the left hand.’

  Mary Peart behind the wheel of her boyfriend’s car at the nature reserve. Her torso blood-soaked. Her head resting against the steering wheel, staring sightlessly down at her knees. Hands in her lap.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘The ring finger of her left hand looks broken. And look at the abrasions,’ Colfax said.

  They passed the photo around. Claire said, ‘She was wearing a ring, someone ripped it off her finger.’

  ‘You could be right,’ Auhl agreed. ‘Valuable?’

  ‘Enough so that two people had to die? Hard to see.’

  ‘So, opportunistic, maybe? She’s dead, the killer sees she’s wearing a nice ring…’

  ‘Or it was special to someone. Like a family heirloom,’ Claire said. ‘What do we know about the Pearts?’

  ‘Nothing much from the original investigation. I don’t think Mascot’s team looked too closely. The parents were dead, that’s all I know.’

  ‘Start from scratch,’ Helen said. ‘The family backgrounds of each kid.’ She fished inside her shirt, pensively adjusted a bra strap. ‘Track down Peart’s sister, see what she has to say, talk to the people who took the girls in when their parents died. And so on.’

  But before Auhl could get started, his phone rang.

  29

  NEVE’S MOTHER, sounding hysterical, launching straight in. ‘What are they saying? We would never defy the court.’

  ‘Hold on, start at the beginning,’ soothed Auhl.

  ‘I phoned your house and someone there gave me your number.’

  ‘Please, Maureen,’ Auhl said, ‘tell me what’s wrong.’

  ‘The police were just here. And Lloyd and that lawyer of his.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘We would never run off with Pia. We’re her grandparents!’

  Wouldn’t be the first time, thought Auhl. ‘Of course not. Just tell me what happened.’

  She took a breath. At last some reason entered her voice. ‘It seems Neve took Pia out of school and they think she’s run off with her and we’re involved.’

  Auhl closed his eyes. ‘Who contacted you first? The police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What exactly did they say?’

  ‘They wanted to know where Neve and Pia were. They even searched the house.’

  ‘Has Neve spoken to you?’

  ‘No. And she’s not answering her phone.’

  ‘The police said she took Pia out of school?’

  ‘They said she assaulted one of the teachers.’

  Auhl was bewildered. A parent collecting a child from school wasn’t uncommon. The teacher tried to stop it? Why?

  Then Auhl thought he knew. Neve in Tiamo’s this morning, texting Pia—she was alerting her daughter: Get ready, I’m coming to fetch you. And maybe, like an idiot, calling Lloyd? Telling him he’d never see his daughter again?

  Lloyd—or his lawyer—would immediately have informed the school. That’s why a teacher had confronted Neve. And Lloyd or his lawyer would have informed the police: She’s unstable: a danger to her daughter.

  Auhl muttered some unconvincing reassurances and ended the call.

  Pascal touched his sleeve. ‘Anything wrong?’

  Auhl explained, she listened, at one point rubbing his back briskly, telling him not to worry. Except that she asked a cop question, one Auhl had already asked himself: ‘She’s not suicidal, is she?’

  Auhl was truthful. ‘I don’t think so.’ He looked squarely at her and added, ‘But she’s not thinking straight.’

  HE DIALLED NEVE’S number. Voicemail. Dialled Pia. Voicemail, her high little voice inviting him to leave a message.

  Next, Chateau Auhl. Bec answered; he told her what had happened.

  ‘Check their rooms, will you, sweetheart?’

  Bec came back. ‘It looks like a lot of their stuff is missing. Clothes, toiletries.’

  ‘Okay, thanks. Let me know if she calls or shows up.’ Auhl paused. ‘Did she say anything to you?’

  ‘I was at the shop all morning. I didn’t see her.’

  *

  BACK IN THE OFFICE, he called Georgina Towne.

  ‘This is bad, Alan,’ she said.

  ‘What’s she looking at? Abduction?’

  ‘Worst case scenario? Definitely. Look, can you put out some feelers? Friends, family, is she travelling by car? Has she bought tickets to Timbuktu? I’ll do what I can, but a custodial sentence is definitely on the cards. Even if she’s not prosecuted for abduction, the Family Court might want to lock her up on the grounds of non-compliance.’

  ‘Let me know if she contacts you,’ Auhl said.

  But the line had gone dead. Auhl checked his phone for messages, sent another text, read reports dispiritedly.

  Finally Neve called him, her voice and mood muted. ‘Don’t be cross with me. Did you get my note?’

  ‘What note?’

  ‘I left a note on the table.’

  ‘Neve, I’ve been at work. Come back, will you, please? Everyone’s worried. Your poor parents have been hassled, I’m probably next on the list. Let Georgina deal with it. She’s a good lawyer, she’ll fight for you. But the longer you stay away, the harder it’s going to be.’

  Auhl could hear traffic in the background, a truck grinding through the gears. A hill? A traffic light somewhere? ‘Where the hell are you?’

  ‘Somewhere.’

  Auhl took a breath. ‘Please, Neve, don’t do anything stupid.’

  She began to cry.

  ‘Neve, come back, go home, go to your parents’. I’ll join you later and we’ll sort something out.’

  ‘I’m sorry about the kitty money.’

  The Neve and Pia Fanning Emergency Fund. ‘That’s okay.’

  ‘And I promise to look after your car.’

  She’d taken his car? Christ, it hadn’t occurred to him to ask Bec to check. ‘Neve, think about it.’

  She shrieked the words. ‘I have thought about it!’

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid. Just come back and we’ll talk later.’

  Claire was watching him, sympathetic, reading his panic and powerlessness.

  ‘Please, Neve.’

  ‘There’s no alternative.’

  ‘Neve.’

  ‘I phoned Lloyd and gave him a real earful, and he said I was mad and he’d prove it in court and I’d never see her again.’

  Auhl felt no satisfaction in knowing he’d guessed right. ‘Neve, the police are involved.’

  ‘Just a road trip, okay? I’ll leave your car somewhere safe.’

  When she was gone, he sat staring at his phone. Claire Pascal looked at him sadly. ‘And?’

  He told her. She shook her head. He called Neve again, sent texts: Please go home and Don’t be rash and We’ll work something out.

  FOUR-FORTY-FIVE. Helen Colfax called him into her office.

  ‘Close the door,’ she said, before he was barely over the threshold. ‘Sit,’ when he’d closed it.

  He sat. She watched him. ‘Alan, I’ve just been on the receiving end of the mother of all tongue-lashings.’

  ‘About?’

  A rasping chill in her voice now. ‘Don’t piss
me about, Alan, please.’

  Auhl waited, clenched tight.

  His boss said, ‘Your friend with the custody woes…’

  Auhl’s mind raced. ‘Okay…’

  ‘Did you abet her? That’s the question being asked. Did you put this woman up to snatching her kid?’

  ‘Come on, boss.’

  ‘She used your car.’

  Feeling disloyal, Auhl said, ‘I didn’t give her permission to take it.’

  Colfax leaned over the desk, her upper body inclined towards him, her shoulders straining a collarless pink striped shirt. ‘So, theft of a car, child abduction and assault.’ She sat back, folded her arms. ‘Suicidal?’

  ‘I just spoke to her. She didn’t sound it. I don’t think she’s suicidal.’

  Colfax exploded. ‘Christ, Alan, where is she? Did you tell her to come in?’

  ‘Yes, I told her. And I have no idea where she is.’

  She shook her head, collapsed against her seat back again. ‘The fact remains you’re in the shit, Alan. She was living in your house—were you sleeping with her?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘She was living in your house and your car was used and you attended her court appearances and apparently you and she fetched the daughter from her husband’s house without permission recently.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ snarled Auhl.

  ‘That’s how it’s going down, you know that.’ Colfax checked her watch. ‘Professional Standards want a word with you in five. They may or may not suspend you, who knows. If they don’t, I want you working Slab Man, twenty-four seven. No more interruptions.’ ‘Boss.’

  A PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS officer named Inger Reed grilled Auhl for half an hour. Feeling obscurely ashamed, as though he were saving his own skin and throwing Neve to the wolves, he showed Reed the texts he’d sent since lunchtime. ‘It all came as a shock to me.’

  Reed, stony-faced, let him fret and babble for some time, until a transfiguring smile lit up her face. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist. Mrs Fanning has already admitted she took your car without your knowledge.’

  So you thought you’d have some fun at my expense, thought Auhl. ‘You’ve got her? She’s under arrest?’

  Reed shook her head. ‘She called to explain.’

  ‘Called the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘After the disturbance at the school.’

  ‘But she’s still out there somewhere?’

  ‘I was hoping you might tell me where she is.’

  ‘I have no idea. Look, I don’t want her charged with car theft.’

  ‘She’s in enough trouble,’ agreed Reed. ‘But your insurance company might not be so understanding.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Briefly, she side-swiped a teacher’s car.’ Held up her hand: ‘Minor damage, no one hurt. But how well do you know her? Is she suicidal?’

  Auhl shifted uncomfortably. ‘Everyone keeps asking me that. I wouldn’t say so.’

  Reed changed tack. ‘I put it to you that you were in a relationship with Mrs Fanning. Do you have anything to say in regard to that matter?’

  Fuck’s sake, he thought. ‘It’s not true.’

  ‘You were seen attending Family Court in support of Mrs Fanning.’

  Information that probably came from the husband or his lawyer, thought Auhl. ‘Nothing should be read into that. I was there as a friend.’

  They stared at each other, Reed expressionless, Auhl trying to match her. Then Reed said, ‘What’s it like, coming back after retirement? Finding yourself on the back foot?’

  ‘Do I have anything to say in regard to that matter?’ asked Auhl. ‘No.’

  Reed gave him a crooked, humourless grin.

  ‘You need to be looking at the husband,’ Auhl said.

  ‘Not me, I’m Professional Standards,’ Reed said.

  AUHL RETURNED TO his desk, finding the others gone for the day. Claire had left a note: friends were taking her to dinner, she’d be late. So Auhl dragged himself home, and checked Doss Down before doing anything else. The bed was stripped, sheets and pillow cases in a neat pile. The wardrobe and drawers mostly empty. No luggage. Checked the garage: no car. Checked the kitty: no money.

  He prepared and ate a pesto desultorily, and was slurping wine, chasing a pasta spiral up the side of his bowl, when he noticed the envelope. It was at the end of the table, amid the permanent netherworld of bills, receipts, flyers and takeout menus. Pink, unstamped, addressed to him.

  Perhaps it had been propped against the radio and one of the tenants had knocked it down, tossed it with the stuff Auhl rarely got around to sorting. He reached for it and, recognising Neve Fanning’s handwriting, her broad, immature loops, felt a return of his dread.

  ‘Dear Alan,’ she had written.

  You are the kindest, most supportive man I have ever known. It’s been a privilege. You stood by me. You gave me hope. You were there for me. But now I have to do the rest alone. I wish you happiness. You deserve to find someone. You need to break out on your own. With the deepest love and regard, Neve.

  She’s giving me relationship advice? thought Auhl.

  Unbelievable.

  30

  THURSDAY MORNING, Auhl breakfasting glumly in the backyard. Shafts of early sunlight striped the wrought iron table and chairs, showing up dust and old winter mould. Bees in the jasmine that choked the back fence. The pavers leading from kitchen door to alleyway gate were green, cracked. Someone had thrown a Hungry Jack’s bag over the fence. And the certain knowledge that Lloyd Fanning would be given sole custody of his daughter, and his wife would go to jail.

  Claire Pascal stepped from the house and blinked at the sun. ‘Christ,’ she muttered.

  Marginally cheered, Auhl said sweetly, ‘Hard night?’

  ‘Could say that.’

  She sat with him in the sun, not fully awake. She reached down for Cynthia, who wriggled to the ground, tail twitching. ‘All right, suit yourself, cat.’ She gave herself a little shake. ‘Anything from Neve or Pia?’

  Auhl shook his head.

  More glum silence. They stared at nothing.

  Claire said, ‘Alan?’

  A tone in her voice. Auhl said, ‘You’re going to move back in with your husband.’

  ‘How did you know? Anyway, yes. My friends think I’m mad.’

  ‘If it’s worth trying, it’s worth trying.’

  ‘But if the timing’s bad, what with the business with Neve and Pia…’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Auhl said.

  ‘I’ll stay till the weekend, if that’s okay.’

  With the back door open, they both heard pounding at the front door. The knocker rapping like hailstones.

  It was an official kind of knock; Auhl felt it in his bones. They want me for Neill.

  ‘Stay there.’

  He walked softly along the hallway to his room and peeked around the edge of the curtain. A police car and an unmarked, double-parked outside the house. Two bored uniforms on the footpath. Two suits waiting for someone to answer the knock.

  He rejoined Claire, who asked, ‘They looking for Neve?’

  Of course. That was the logical explanation. The pounding started again. ‘Wish me luck.’

  He trotted down the hallway again, opened the front door. ‘Sorry, I was in the kitchen. Can I help you?’

  A heavyset detective, the other the size of a jockey, and they looked Auhl up and down: Auhl in shorts and a sweaty T-shirt, yet to shower and shave. The little one said: ‘You are?’

  ‘I know who I am. Who are you and what do you want?’

  ‘Are you Alan Auhl?’ the stocky one said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does a Mrs Neve Fanning live here?’

  ‘Yes, but she’s not—’

  The jockey waved a paper in Auhl’s face. ‘We have a warrant to search these premises, so if you’ll—’

  Auhl blocked him. ‘Don’t get in my face, oka
y? If you’ve done your homework you’ll know I’m also a police member. A bit of fucking respect.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on,’ the stocky one said.

  ‘Let’s start again. Tell me why you wish to search my house.’

  ‘We have reason to believe that Mrs Neve Fanning and her daughter Pia are hiding on these premises. All right? That respectful enough for you?’

  THE LITTLE ONE WAS Fenwick, the stocky one Logan, and they were tired, about to come off nightshift and disinclined to give favours. But Logan, seeing Auhl’s bewilderment, unbent sufficiently to explain.

  ‘We know about the court case. We know she pinched your car. But we do have to cover all bases.’

  ‘In case I’m hiding mother and daughter under the bed.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Any sign of my car? Numberplate recognition?’

  ‘It went out on the Tullamarine Freeway yesterday afternoon. Heading for Sydney? Who knows. The thing is, last night it came back, then disappeared.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘So we do need to search these premises. Let us have a quick squiz and we’ll be out of your hair.’

  ‘I want to examine the warrant.’

  Logan handed it to Auhl. ‘Knock yourself out.’

  Auhl looked and said, ‘I’m challenging this. Tenants live here. They have their own rooms or suites of rooms and lead lives independent of me and the other tenants. You are not searching their rooms. If you’re smart, you won’t even wake them. If you give me a hard time on this, I’m getting in a lawyer and I’ll tie you up in front of a bad-tempered magistrate until way past your knock-off time.’

  ‘Fucksake,’ breathed Fenwick.

  But Logan said, ‘Have it your way, hot shot. So where can we look?’

  ‘The public areas, like the kitchen, laundry, sitting room. My room if you like. Mrs Fanning’s room. The yard, the garage.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  They bustled in and halted when they saw Claire. ‘And you are?’

  ‘A work colleague who happens to rent a room here,’ Claire said.

  ‘I bet.’

  Claire curled her lip but let it go. She stood at the door of the spare room and gestured. ‘Why don’t you two sweethearts start here, so I can get ready for work?’