by Garry Disher
* * * *
36
But at the Sea Breeze Apartments they were told that Josh Brownlee had checked out.
‘After breakfast,’ the manager said, desultorily watering a row of rosebushes at the rear of the building. He wore a wife-beater singlet, tight shorts and a beer gut.
‘Damn,’ said Ellen.
‘Paid through till Sunday, too,’ the manager said.
Pam, feeling nasty, said, ‘If you’d care to give me the refund, I’ll be sure he gets it.’
The manager backed away agitatedly, cigarette bobbing amid the bristles around his mouth. ‘Can’t do it. Regulations.’
Ellen fixed him with the lenses of her dark glasses. ‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘Dunno. Home?’
The motel building and grounds were better tended than the manager. It was quiet here at the rear, cool, leafy the air smelling of freshly watered garden beds. Seagulls called out, and on the foreshore road at the front of the building a pair of joggers chuffed by but, otherwise, this corner of the world was asleep. Ellen glanced at all the curtained windows: schoolies inside, unlikely to stir before noon.
‘I have his home address,’ Pam said as they returned to the car. Here on the street the sun was beating on glass and metal, softening the tarry road.
‘Where?’
‘Oliver’s Hill.’
They drove off in the hot car, Ellen steering along the foreshore and out onto the Frankston road while Pam searched the street directory. Although Oliver’s Hill was part of the depressed bayside suburb of Frankston, it was above it literally and sociologically, with big houses that looked out over the bay and down on the struggle below. There was no underemployment on Oliver’s Hill, no fast-food obesity or here-today-and-gone-tomorrow kinds of commerce.
‘Should we call first?’
Ellen shook her head. ‘We don’t want him to run again. We also don’t want the parents thinking about a lawyer before we get there.’
At Somerville she headed down Eramosa Road to the freeway and then up and over a spine of hills to the Nepean Highway, which skirted Oliver’s Hill. Pam directed her to an exit before the road began its plummet into the main part of Frankston. As Ellen wound through the hillside streets she found herself gazing keenly at the houses on either side. Where had it come from, this sudden interest in where and how other people lived?
Their destination was a 1960s brick house on three levels to account for the steepness of the block. Nothing redeemed it apart from its size and the vast blue haze or the bay’s curving waters, which could be glimpsed between a pair of ghost gums. ‘I don’t see his car,’ Pam said as they got out.
There was only a white Holden, parked in a carport attached to the upper level of the house. No sign of Josh’s little boulevard racer in the driveway or on the street. They stepped through a small gate and along a flagstone path to a solid wooden door with a small triangle of gold glass set in it. Ellen couldn’t work the place out. This was the main entrance, but did it lead to the main living areas? In any other house, this would be the back door. She rang the bell. A woman dressed in paint-flecked sleeveless overalls and a singlet top opened the door. She took one look at them and seemed to know. ‘Is this about Josh?’
There was paint over her hands, fine dots of it on her face and in her hair. ‘Yes.’
She sagged briefly against the door. ‘I’m Sue Brownlee. You’d better come in. My husband’s here.’
She took them along a corridor of partly-open bedroom doors to a kind of landing arranged with sofas and a flat screen TV, then down a flight of steps to a sitting room, which Ellen guessed made up the middle level of the house. The air was dense and heavy with paint odours. The man standing there was dressed in a fine suit, crisp white shirt, a blue and gold tie. He looked as wretched and tense as his wife but came forward decisively and stuck out his hand. ‘Clive Brownlee. Sue called me at work. I just got here.’
All four of them were posed on a nondescript carpet. Ellen looked inquiringly at the man’s wife, who said, ‘I asked Clive to come home because Josh burst in all upset and then went out again. I wasn’t expecting him till Sunday.’ She paused. ‘I was painting the laundry. It’s my day off.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘He acted so upset,’ Sue Brownlee said.
They were frozen there, the parents apparently unable or unwilling to think clearly. ‘Perhaps if we all had a cup of tea?’ said Ellen gently.
Relieved, the Brownlees led Pam and Ellen to the kitchen, which was like an annexe to the middle floor of the house. They sat on stools on either side of a high bench. Clive Brownlee filled the kettle, his wife rummaged for cups. The kitchen, like the other parts of the house that Ellen had walked through, was faintly worn and out of date, and she chided herself for assuming that Josh Brownlee came from a background like Zara Selkirk’s. All they had in common was the Landseer School. Zara Selkirk came from real money, the kind that was offhand, almost unthinking, while the Brownlees, it seemed, spent most of theirs on school fees and the mortgage. Theirs was the anxious, struggling face of the middle-class.
‘Did Josh say what he was upset about?’ Pam said.
Sue Brownlee’s hand went to her neck, her long, paint-flecked fingers stroking it. ‘I asked what was wrong and he grabbed my neck and shook me. He said: “No one’s paid enough.” He scared me.’
‘Did he say who hasn’t paid, or what they haven’t paid for?’
The parents exchanged a glance. ‘He takes drugs,’ Clive Brownlee said finally. ‘They affect his mood. He imagines things. He can get quite violent sometimes.’
His wife said tensely, ‘Please, what’s he done?’
Ellen ignored the question. ‘Did your son stay here long before going out again? Did he unpack, for example, or repack?’
‘What’s he done?’
Ellen said evenly, ‘We wish to question him in connection with an assault.’
‘Oh, God. Who?’
‘A man named Lachlan Roe. It’s been in the news, but does the name mean anything to you other than that?’
The Brownlees stared at each other, making connections. ‘The Landseer chaplain.’
‘Yes,’ Pam said. ‘Josh was a Landseer student?’
‘He finished last year. A day kid, not a boarder. He caught the school bus at the end of the street.’
Clive Brownlee passed around cups of tea. Ellen had no intention of drinking hers but was merely marking time. ‘What was Josh’s involvement with Mr Roe?’
Something deep and desolate lies behind this, she thought, watching the Brownlees. And perhaps not recently, given that Josh no longer attended the school.
The father choked the words out. ‘Our other son, Michael, was also at Landseer. He committed suicide halfway through last year.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ellen said.
‘It hit Josh hard. He feels responsible, you know, the older brother.’
‘Is that when he started taking drugs?’ Pam asked gently.
Brownlee’s hands were resting palm up, empty and vulnerable on the table. He leaned toward her. ‘It’s as if he feels he should have made a better job of looking after Mike.’
Pam glanced at Ellen. They got to their feet. ‘Was the chaplain involved in some way?’
The parents, raw and baffled, failed to reply.
‘Do you know where Josh might have gone when he left here?’
The parents exchanged a look. ‘When he’s cross with us he goes to his Uncle Ray’s.’
‘And where’s that?’
‘Ray trains horses. He’s got a place in Skye.’
Farmland, northeast of Frankston. ‘Perhaps you could call him,’ Ellen suggested.
There was a kitchen phone, but Josh’s father left the room, knocking into a chair and the doorjamb as his body began to let him down. Soon they could hear his voice in another part of the house. There was an exclamation, then silence, and then he was in the doorway,
looking shocked.
‘He was there, but he left. He’s got Ray’s shotgun.’
Pam said authoritatively to Ellen, ‘Let me drive, Sarge.’
* * * *
37
‘It could be argued,’ said Challis carefully, as though he didn’t fully agree himself, ‘that you have a motive for murder.’
That roused them out of their sleepy disdain, Hugh Ebeling, Mia Ebeling, their lawyer, Marcus Delarue.
‘Inspector,’ drawled Delarue. ‘Watch your mouth.’
He wore a charcoal grey suit, white shirt, silvery blue tie and highly polished shoes. He was the kind of lawyer who always looks clean and precise, as though groomed by valets before every appointment. He was also bloodless—pale hair, pale skin. He wasn’t the kind of lawyer who sails in the Whitsundays and stands around a racetrack. But his eyes were lawyers’ eyes, sharp and focused.
‘You tell him, Marcus,’ Hugh Ebeling said.
They were in the developer’s Italianate house in Brighton, Ebeling choosing his home over his downtown Melbourne office for this meeting with Challis. Perhaps he’s afraid that tongues will wag, Challis thought. Perhaps he wants to impress or intimidate me. Fat chance: in Challis’s view, seafront Brighton was for drug lords seeking respectability and judges and business tycoons who were losing it. Their wives liked to shop. Their children, abandoned at exclusive boarding schools, rose to take their places.
‘Perhaps you could both start by telling me your movements on Wednesday afternoon and evening,’ Challis said.
He looked at them; he didn’t look at the lawyer. Hugh Ebeling wore casual trousers and a polo shirt, a tall, boyish-looking man with the confidence of a bullying prefect. He’d be a man for sailing and watching the horses run. Mia Ebeling was a leggy blonde, the blondness a little desiccated now that she was in her early forties. She wore tailored jeans, a scoop-necked shirt and an air of regal outrage, as though Challis had neglected to use the tradesmen’s entrance.
‘My clients were here in the city,’ Delarue said.
Challis ignored him. ‘Mr Ebeling?’
‘In my office. Arrived as usual at seven-thirty and left at six.’
‘Did you go straight home after work?’
‘No, I met a client for drinks at the Windsor.’
‘I’ll need to confirm that.’
There was a huge walnut coffee table on the vast Afghan rug between Challis and the others. Delarue plucked a sheet of paper from his briefcase and slid it across the table to Challis. ‘Names and phone numbers.’
Challis nodded his thanks and said, ‘Mrs Ebeling?’
Bored now, she said, ‘I was with my personal trainer all morning.’
Of course you were, thought Challis. He caught a gleam in Delarue’s eyes. The guy knows what I’m thinking, Challis thought, wanting to share a grin with him.
‘And then?’
She said, in a kind of fury, ‘I had lunch with a friend—’ here Delarue slid another name and phone number to Challis ‘—and we spent the afternoon in this very room, preparing for a charity auction on Saturday.’
Her husband leaned his gangly trunk forward, ropy tanned forearms on his knees. ‘And after that my wife took a taxi to my office and we had dinner at a restaurant in Flinders Lane.’
Challis nodded, jotting the details in his notebook.
The lawyer said precisely, ‘In other words, inspector, my clients were not down on the Mornington Peninsula at the time of the murder.’
Yeah, but they could have hired somebody, Challis wanted to say, knowing that Delarue wanted him to say it. He glanced at the husband and said, ‘Who tipped you off?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Inspector, please.’
‘You had a demolition permit for a house called Somerland in Penzance Beach, but—’
‘A perfectly valid permit!’
‘—but the National Trust, the local residents and Mrs—’
‘Morons,’ muttered Ebeling. ‘Anti-progress, the lot of them.’
‘Pathetic little people with pathetic little lives,’ said Mia.
Their lawyer was looking on in interest. Challis said, ‘These same pathetic little people were pursuing an emergency application for heritage protection from the State Government. You knew that. You knew you had to act fast. Apparently you were lucky to find a demolition firm that could do the job on short notice.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘You were tipped off by someone,’ Challis said. ‘You had a day at most in which to act.’
‘Bullshit,’ Ebeling said, glancing irritably at his lawyer.
‘The National Trust classified the house on Tuesday,’ Challis said, ‘and it was flattened in just a few minutes on Wednesday.’
Delarue said, ‘Let us be clear on this. Mr and Mrs Ebeling had a valid permit to demolish the existing structure?’
‘Yes.’
‘And there was no overriding order in place stopping them from doing that? No interim heritage amendment from the planning minister?’
‘No.’
‘Then my clients acted lawfully.’
The clients beamed at Challis. It chilled him a little, the shared emptiness. He decided to needle them. ‘They acted unethically,’ he said. ‘They don’t care about preserving the heritage of Penzance Beach, or forging good relations with the people who live there. They’re not even interested in replacing the house they demolished with a building that might sit harmoniously with the surroundings. All they want is to erect a monstrosity that stands as a monument to their egos.’
The outrage was almost comical. Ebeling’s jaw dropped and he said, ‘Marcus, do we have to listen to this?’ and his wife said, ‘Awful little man,’ spitting the words out.
There was tiny gleam of enjoyment in Delarue’s eyes, but he said, ‘You’re editorialising, Inspector. Tut tut.’
Challis shook his head. ‘The fact is, Mrs Wishart was an impediment to your clients in three ways. One, she was trying to stop the demolition from going ahead. Two, she knew the identity of the shire employee who was bribed by your clients—’
‘Bullshit,’ shouted Ebeling, his veneer slipping, a man who’d turn nasty when crossed.
‘—and three, as a kind of fallback position in case the existing house was demolished, she’d implemented delays to the planning process for the house your clients wish to erect on the site,’ continued Challis. He referred to his notes: ‘A five-bedroom house on three levels, with extensive decking and a reflection pool. Like I said, a monument.’
‘You want to think about your tone, you miserable little pen-pusher,’ said Mia Ebeling. ‘I intend to lodge an official complaint.’
‘That’s your prerogative,’ said Challis.
They all sat and looked at each other. Challis realised that the Ebelings and their lawyer didn’t think his accusation required an answer. He decided to keep pushing. ‘Owing to Mrs Wishart’s actions, you’re not allowed to start building until you meet with the objectors and settle your differences with them. You might find yourselves returning to the Development Assessments Committee for months, even years. You must have been very angry with her.’
‘Meddlesome bitch,’ said Mia Ebeling.
‘Mia, please,’ the lawyer said.
‘Well she was.’
Call him old fashioned, but Challis tended to believe that women were by nature warm, nurturing and conciliatory. If mean, vicious and sly, it was to cope in a mans world. But Mia Ebeling was probably mean, vicious and sly all on her own. ‘So, good riddance?’ he suggested.
‘My clients have solid alibis,’ said the lawyer hastily. ‘They are very distressed about the death of Mrs Wishart, but were not in any way involved and will vigorously challenge any further attempts to implicate them in this awful crime.’
‘Well put,’ said Challis.
* * * *
38
Then Challis drove from the Ebelings’ house in bayside Brighton to the centre of the city, where h
e prowled around for thirty minutes before finding a public carpark with a vacancy. Five minutes later he was in the foyer of the state’s planning appeals tribunal, where the marble, the steel, the glass and the attitudes were cool, verging on cold—like the judge’s aide standing before him.
‘The judge is overseas,’ she said.