Chain of Evidence ic-4

by Garry Disher

  Tank shook his head now at their stupidity and the obscure shame he’d felt. Anyhow, last weekend he’d also stopped off here in Frankston, and in the third caryard visited he’d found the Mazda. Sleek lines, as new, Yokohama tyres, the paint still glossy and unmarked. The guy there had no problem with Tank taking the car for a burn: ‘Go for your life, mate,’ he’d said. Luckily, the freeway was close by, and Tank was able to really test the car. In the blink of an eye he was doing 140 km/h on the straight. Effortlessly. The car sat straight and true, braked well, the exhaust snarling so sweetly it got him in the pit of the stomach. Tank, being canny, had even run a fridge magnet all over the bodywork. Not a trace of filler anywhere.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ he said, moments later. As he’d told Murph yesterday, he’d negotiated the guy down in price by $5000. What he hadn’t told her was he’d arranged a loan through the caryard’s finance company.

  ‘We haven’t had time to register the car in Victoria,’ the guy had said last weekend, ‘it’s only just come in, but the Northern Territory registration is still current, so you can drive it around.’

  ‘No problemo,’ Tank had said. All he needed to do was get a roadworthy certificate from Waterloo Motors, then register the car at the VicRoads office in Waterloo.

  He strolled into Prestige Autos now, and there she was, gleaming in the sun.

  11

  The long day passed. At 3.30 that Saturday afternoon, Pam Murphy uncovered a lead. Given that her detective training was due to start on Monday, this was possibly her last act as a uniformed constable. Katie Blasko had been missing for forty-eight hours.

  ‘This was when?’ she asked the woman in Snapper Way.

  ‘After school.’

  ‘On Thursday?’

  ‘I think it was Thursday.’

  Pam gazed at the woman, said politely, ‘Could it have been yesterday?’

  ‘Let’s see, yesterday was Friday. No, it wasn’t yesterday I saw her. I don’t work on Fridays. It must have been Thursday. Or Wednesday.’

  Pam was door knocking in an area bounded by Katie Blasko’s house, her school, Trevally Street and the Waterloo foreshore. Some of the houses were fibro-cement or weatherboard holiday and weekender shacks owned by city people, but most were brick veneer houses dating from the 1960s and ‘70s, their old-fashioned rose gardens pointing to leathery retirees who walked their dogs on the nearby beach and collected sea weed for fertiliser, and their bicycles, plastic toys and glossy four-wheel-drives pointing to young families who probably had no cash to spare after paying off their gadget, car and home loans. Pam met many women aged around sixty that afternoon, and many aged around thirty, like this woman, Sharon Elliott, the library aide at Katie Blasko’s primary school. Short, round, cheery, anxious to please, dense-and, Pam decided, blind as a bat without her glasses.

  ‘If you could tell me where you saw her, it might help jog your memory.’

  ‘Near the shops.’

  ‘In High Street?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Elliott said, as though that should have been obvious to Pam. ‘Of course, I do my main shopping at the Safeway, but if I run out of bread or whatever I nip across to the corner shop.’ She pointed vaguely. ‘You pay more, but if I drove over to Safeway every time I wanted bread or milk, what I spent on fuel would outweigh the money I saved.’

  Pam felt her eyes glazing over. ‘And you bought something in the corner shop last Thursday?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure. No. Wait. Yes, it was Thursday. I needed the latest Trading Post. I placed an ad to sell a mattress, and wanted to see if it had appeared.’

  Pam knew that the Trading Post was published every Thursday. She beamed. The air was briny from the sea, the afternoon sun benign. The Peninsula had erupted with flowers, too, drawing the bees. It was a lazy, pleasure-laden Saturday in spring, and you were apt to forget that children could be abducted or murdered regardless of the season.

  ‘Good,’ said Pam encouragingly. ‘And you’re sure this was the girl?’

  They examined the flyer again. ‘It looks like the girl I saw.’

  ‘Do you know her? Have you taught her?’

  ‘I’m just an aide at the school. Almost five hundred children go there. I know quite a few by sight and many by name.’

  ‘Yes, but did you ever have anything to do with this girl?’ Pam asked, wanting to beat the woman around the head with a damp fish.

  Sharon Elliot gazed at her blankly. ‘What do you mean?’

  Not for the first time, Pam realised that suspects and witnesses alike looked for traps behind your questions. They anticipated, evaded, lied, glossed the picture, told you what they thought you wanted to know, or got needlessly defensive. Or they were stupid. ‘I’m wondering,’ she said, trying to conceal her irritation, ‘if you recognise this likeness of Katie Blasko precisely because you’d encountered her at school recently, helped her find a library book, perhaps, comforted her because she’d been crying about something, or because you saw her outside the corner shop between three-thirty and four this past Thursday afternoon.’

  ‘Both,’ said Sharon Elliott promptly.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘She was a bit noisy during quiet reading. Mrs Sanders had the Preps that session so I was taking the Grade 6s, and had to ask Katie to keep the noise down, except I didn’t know her name was Katie, this was earlier in the week, so I was surprised when she waved to me.’

  Pam didn’t try to sort through the account. Her feet and back ached. She’d welcome a cup of tea or coffee, but Sharon Elliott was keeping her there on the front verandah, beside potted plants that were leaking water onto the decking. Above her the roofing iron flexed in the heat. ‘She waved to you?’

  ‘Like this,’ said Sharon Elliott, gesturing.

  ‘Was it a cheerful wave? Did she smile? Or might it have been a gesture of some kind?’

  ‘A gesture?’

  Pam didn’t want to lead this witness, but really, the woman was dense. ‘A beseeching gesture, for example, as if she needed help.’

  Sharon Elliott gave her a blank look. ‘I don’t know. It was just a wave.’

  ‘Did you get a good look at the driver?’

  ‘No. I just assumed it was her dad.’

  ‘But it was a man?’

  ‘I think so. It could have been her mother.’

  Did teachers’ aides ever become teachers, Pam wondered. She waited a beat and said, ‘What can you tell me about the vehicle.’

  ‘It was just a car.’

  ‘A car? I thought you said it was a van?’

  The woman’s face crumpled. ‘Car, van, I don’t really know much about that kind of thing. My husband’s the driver in the family.’

  ‘Let’s see,’ said Pam, glancing up and down the street. ‘Was it the shape of that silver vehicle over there?’

  A bulky four-wheel-drive. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Like that blue one?’

  An old Nissan sedan. ‘Now that I think about it I’m sure it wasn’t small like that or have a lot of windows and big wheels like that silver one. More of a boxier shape.’

  A van or a panel van, thought Pam. ‘Colour?’

  ‘Oh, now, white, I think.’

  ‘And what time did you see this vehicle?’

  ‘After school.’

  ‘Yes, but three-fifteen, three-thirty, quarter to four?’

  ‘Before four, anyway.’

  ‘And we’re not talking about separate things here, you’re saying the vehicle and the girl who waved at you are part of the same incident?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Sharon Elliott.

  Pam made a note.

  ‘She might have been saying “Help me”,’ said Sharon Elliott into the pause.

  As Sergeant Destry had mentioned at last night’s briefing, witnesses often save the best till last. And not because they’re artful or mischievous, either. ‘“Help me”?’

  ‘I can see her mouth saying it.’

  ‘We may need to speak to you ag
ain, Mrs Elliott.’

  ‘Glad to help.’

  12

  At five that afternoon, Tank and the team finished the grid search of Myers Reserve. Tank showered and changed in the station locker room, and then slipped away to the car park behind KFC, where the producer of ‘Evening Update’ slipped him an envelope containing $500. Tank had hoped for more than $500 but the ‘Evening Update’ producer-bearded guy, lots of white teeth and a hint of makeup- reckoned there would be more dosh down the track, depending on the quality of the information that Tank could pass on. Tank put it into perspective: $500 was a year’s registration on his new car. The cash was burning a hole in his pocket, though, Saturday night, Waterloo Show, the district humming. Too bad he was on duty. Could have been having a glass of suds with his mates.

  He went home and crashed for a couple of hours. At eight o’clock he returned to the station, yawning his head off, and logged on for his solo patrol.

  The long night unspooled. First up was a radio call: would he respond to an agitated citizen, 245 Bream Street, who’d phoned in a complaint, not making much sense. Bream Street-plenty of marine names in Waterloo, owing to the fishing industry in Westernport Bay-hugged the mangrove flats and was one of the main routes into the foreshore area, where the Ferris wheel revolved prettily and overweight families gorged on popcorn and fairy floss. John Tankard was overweight, too, but despised it in the common herd. He pulled up outside number 245, a featureless brick veneer from the 1950s. Just down the road from it was a police presence, plenty of lights and traffic cones glowing in the dark: a booze bus and a roadworthy checking station. We cops can be pricks sometimes, Tank thought, grinning. The local citizenry out for a good time at the Show, and bang, they’re breathalysed and a roadworthy infringement notice is stuck onto the windscreen of the family rust bucket. He knocked on the door of245.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Constable Tankard, ma am. You called the station?’

  ‘I can’t go out.’

  She was about sixty, fierce and aggrieved on the other side of her screen door. ‘Sorry?’ said Tank.

  She came out and pointed. ‘Look.’

  He followed her finger, which was quivering at the booze bus and the constables flitting about in the misty evening light. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t say “what”. Where are your manners? Why do they have to set up so close?’

  He understood finally. ‘Have you been drinking, madam?’ he asked, trying hard to keep the grin out of his voice.

  ‘How dare you. I’m teetotal.’

  ‘Then you have nothing to worry about from a breath test.’

  ‘My car,’ the woman said.

  There was a new Corolla in the driveway. ‘Are you sure it’s unroadworthy? Looks new to me.’

  ‘Not fair,’ sulked the woman.

  Tank pushed back his uniform cap. ‘Tyres?’

  ‘That’s a new car. It’s not fair.’

  ‘You have nothing to worry about.’

  ‘But I love to drive down to the Show. Too far for me to walk.’

  ‘Then drive,’ said Tank irritably.

  ‘But they’ll make me unroadworthy.’

  John Tankard made the necessary leap and nodded slowly. ‘It’s not their job to make you drunk or unroadworthy. If you’re neither then they’ll let you through.’

  She was sceptical. ‘What if there’s a quota?’

  ‘Doesn’t happen,’ said Tank emphatically. He cocked his head. ‘I think that’s my car radio. Sounds urgent.’

  He peeled out of Bream Street, reporting to base that he’d resolved the matter. On through the night he roamed, a lone ranger and liking it, issuing warnings, taking in the occasional abusive drunk or cokehead. He always checked them for concealed weapons or drugs before bundling them into the divisional van, always checked the cage for discarded drugs afterwards. At one point he answered a call to Blockbuster Video and nabbed a guy well known to the Waterloo police for a string of offences proven and suspected. The guy had four new-release DVDs stuck inside his underdaks, and, enjoying himself hugely, began admitting to all kinds of shit-rape, assault, burglary- before Tank could read him his rights. Tank knew how it would go: once in the interview room and cautioned, he’d clam up, not even admit to his name or even to being in a police station.

  And Joe Public thinks we’re corrupt or incompetent? Fuck Joe Public.

  Finally there were the pull-overs. Typically you had kids in a lowered or hotted up Falcon or Holden, driving erratically, going too fast, not wearing seatbelts, music too loud, tossing a can or a butt out on the street, busted tail light, etcetera, etcetera. Some of the Waterloo police cars were fitted with an MDT, a moving data terminal, meaning you could get a rapid readout of a vehicle owner’s address, licence status and criminal history, but Tank’s divvy van was your basic model, cracked and faded plastics, stained upholstery and an odour suggestive of takeaway food, sweat and poor digestion, and so he was supposed to radio in the registration details and wait for a response before approaching a driver. But radio traffic was heavy that night, so he compromised, radioing in the registration request and approaching the driver before the answer came back. He usually had an answer in less than four minutes.

  There was always plenty of movement in a pulled-over vehicle. It was as if the occupants were in a dark street, fucking in the back seat, but when it was a pull-over you could be sure they were getting rid of evidence, tucking joints, speed or ecstasy under the seat cushions. Or pulling out a weapon. John Tankard always had butterflies in his stomach, waiting for that to happen. That’s why you approached from the rear, your hand on the butt of your.38. You didn’t want to see a back window winding down. You didn’t want a door opening. You didn’t want a driver getting out.

  And then, at about 1 am-the Showgrounds, the video joint and the restaurants long since closed, little kids and their mums and dads tucked up in their beds, High Street deserted, just an occasional bleary car making its way homewards-John Tankard took a last call from the dispatcher: unknown suspects had been seen climbing over a back fence, not on Seaview Park estate itself but one of the leafy crescents across the road from the estate, there where the outskirts of Waterloo faced farmland, there where no streetlights burned. Rain clouds had built up, shredding the moon; shards of glass glittered in the roadside grasses; the wind came in low from the distant mudflats. A road junction, broad, dark, and empty but for a black WRX idling on the verge, brake lights hard and red in the night. Tank could see the little Subaru throbbing. It was a popular car with your boy racers and drug dealers. He pulled in hard behind it, called in the plate number, and got out. He could smell the sea, and the Subaru’s exhaust. Suddenly the driver cut the engine and now Tank heard the moaning empty wind, a ticking engine block, the faint static of the radio in the van far behind him as he approached the car, static speaking no doubt of crimes and misery in far-off corners of the lonely stretches of the night.

  He reached the rear passenger door, leaned forward and tapped on the driver’s window, straightened again. The window whined down a crack. ‘Your licence and registration papers, please, sir,’ said Tank.

  ‘Why?’

  A hoon’s voice, pumped up, sour and uncooperative. ‘Why?’ repeated Tank. He could think of a million reasons why. Because you’re out here in the middle of nowhere. Because you’re a young dickhead yet you can afford this car. Because Pam Murphy gets to be a detective and I’m stuck driving a stinking divvy van. Because causing people grief is about the only thing that makes me feel better. He didn’t hear the other car until it was too late.

  The tyres alerted him, gently crunching the gravel at the side of the road. He swung around: a silver Mercedes, not new, running only on sidelights, came purring in from the intersecting road. Lowered, alloy wheels, smoky glass all around. It stopped and waited, and then Tank wasn’t surprised when all of the doors opened. He began to back away from the Subaru. He backed right up to the divvy van and sped away from there, try
ing to swallow. Sometimes there was weird shit going on at night and he was better off out of it.

  The dispatcher’s voice cut in then. ‘The registered owner of the Subaru is a Trent Jarrett of Seaview Park estate.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ muttered Tank.

  And the guy driving the Merc had been the killer, Nick Jarrett.

  John Tankard went home and didn’t sleep.

  13

  One thousand kilometres northwest of Waterloo, Hal Challis had spent a long Saturday caring for his father. He felt inadequate to the task. At the same time, he couldn’t concentrate fully. Being ‘home’ again had put him into a dreamlike state, brought on by old familiar objects-like his mother’s jacket.

  It was heavy cotton, faded navy, with a cracked leather collar, still hanging on a peg by the back door, and, in his mind’s eye, Challis could see his mother on one of her solitary rambles. He’d quite forgotten that she liked to do that, yet she had always done it, right through his childhood and adolescence. He’d taken it for granted back then. It had simply been his mother out walking. Now he wondered if it had signified more than that. She’d been a big-city girl. Had she been lonely out here? Had she yearned for more? People had always said that Challis resembled her-olive colouring, dark hair, narrow face-but had they also meant character? His mother tended to be silent, watchful and withholding. She’d tolerated Gavin for Meg’s sake. She’d adored Eve. She hadn’t judged or prodded Challis. She’d stood up to the old man’s nonsense. The coat brought a lump to his throat.

  To throw off the dreaminess, he began to make notes about his brother-in-law. Gavin Hurst had suffered extreme mood swings in the months leading up to his disappearance. He’d become paranoid, argumentative, suspicious and belligerent. RSPCA regional headquarters had received dozens of complaints. Then his car had been found abandoned in dry country several kilometres east of the Bluff. Suicide, that was the general verdict, but, four months later, Meg had begun to receive unusual mail. National Geographic arrived, followed by an invoice for the subscription. She complained, and was faxed the subscription form, filled out in her name. An Internet service provider sent her a free modem, part of the two-year package deal she’d ‘signed’ for. She received catalogues, mail-order goods, book club samples, and applications for life insurance policies naming her husband as beneficiary. Challis had to ask himself: Was Meg capable of setting something like this up-maybe with the old man’s help? Or had Gavin staged his disappearance, then begun to taunt her out of malice?