by Garry Disher
Scobie turned to his daughter, who was absorbed with her homework. She liked to do her homework here. The kitchen was at the centre of things. The cheap pine desk in her bedroom wasn’t. He ruffled her hair and kissed her bent neck. She squirmed delightedly before saying ‘Daddy!’ and throwing her arms around him. He couldn’t get enough of that.
‘How was everyone’s day?’
‘Fine,’ his wife muttered.
His had been miserable. That poor, poor child.
Presently Roslyn wandered into the sitting room to watch ‘The Simpsons’. Scobie turned to his wife. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said, his tone a little sharp.
‘I’ve done something stupid.’
‘Such as?’
They kept current bills, letters and junk mail in an old in-tray beside the fridge. Beth took out a brochure. ‘I paid for this,’ she said, her face furiously red. ‘My own money.’
Scobie scanned the brochure. It said Rising Stars Agency in bold type, with a list of the agency’s accomplishments, including modelling contracts in Sydney and New York, and young actors placed in several films and TV shows. ‘I thought it would help our finances if Ros got picked,’ Beth said.
Scobie was pretty blind when it came to his daughter. His coworkers could have told him that-and some did. But even he didn’t think it likely that Roslyn would be hired to model little dresses and tops for the Myer or Pumpkin Patch catalogues, or get picked to play someone’s kid in a TV serial. ‘When was this?’
‘A month ago,’ said Beth in shame.
Scobie dimly recalled it. He’d been embroiled in a murder inquiry at the time, obliging him to spend long hours away from home, and had thought his daughter was having her photograph taken at school. He felt stricken: poor Beth. All she wanted was to help ease the family’s financial situation. But to do it like this! The world must be full of hopeful mothers, he thought, who believed their children photogenic enough to be models and actors. ‘Oh well,’ he said gently, ‘these sorts of things are bound to be a long shot.’
‘It’s not that,’ Beth whispered. ‘They promised they’d deliver the photos within seven days, but it’s been weeks now and they still haven’t arrived. I called the number on the brochure and got a recorded message, “Please check the number and call again”.’
Scobie frowned down at the brochure. No address, not even a post office box. Only a cell phone number.
‘You’ve been conned, sweetheart.’
Beth’s face crumpled. ‘Oh, Scobie, I’m so sorry.’
‘No harm done,’ Scobie said. He’d pass it on to the fraud squad. The guy’s prints might even be on the brochure.
‘You don’t have to go out again, do you?’ Beth said, wringing her hands a little.
Scobie shook his head. ‘I’m staying home all night.’
25
The darkest hours, well past midnight. Inside the ambush house, a roomy weatherboard cottage on a quiet street behind the fitness centre, van Alphen examined the expensive gear, the highly polished floorboards. The owner clearly made good money on the oil rigs. A tasteful place, if you discounted the Harley Davidson pennants and Grand Prix posters-which van Alphen didn’t.
A night spent in silence in an unfamiliar house is a long night. From time to time Kellock and van Alphen took turns to prowl through the dark rooms, but otherwise they were still, and rarely conversed. They pinpointed which floorboards creaked, which leather armchair crepitated under their weight. Van Alphen was a smoker but he couldn’t smoke tonight; Kellock badly wanted a drink. They didn’t touch a light switch, rarely used the torch.
At five minutes to four on the morning of Wednesday, 2 October, van Alphen whispered to Kellock, ‘We have a visitor.’
They waited. They tracked the glow of a torch as it passed one window and then another. Nothing happened for ten minutes. Finally there came the sounds of a window being forced. They were in the sitting room. A short hallway led from it. They moved to the hallway, listened again.
The spare bedroom.
Still they waited, allowing time for the guy-Nick Jarrett? — to boost himself through the window and into the room. They heard a soft thump, as though someone had jumped down onto a carpeted floor. ‘Now,’ whispered van Alphen.
Kellock moved first, a torch in one hand and his.38 Smith and Wesson service revolver in the other. ‘Police, don’t move!’ he shouted. ‘Police, don’t move!’
A retired forklift driver lived next door. Owing to his years of shift work at the oil depot on Westernport Bay, he often woke at four in the morning. He heard Kellock’s shout. ‘I heard it twice,’ he told investigators, in the days and weeks that followed.
‘And then?’
‘Nothing for a while, then I heard a couple of shots.’
‘Two shots?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long after the shouted warning?’
‘Hard to say, really. Could have been two minutes, could have been five.’
So much for Scobie Sutton’s vow to stay in all night. He got the call, beating the ambulance, in fact. Kellock and van Alphen met him at the door. He’d always been intimidated by them. They were big men, in size and in the way they carried themselves, and had always treated him with faintly amused contempt, as though he were not a man, as though decent men, churchgoing men, were a joke. It couldn’t be contempt though, could it? What sorts of upbringings had they had? What values had their parents instilled in them? Scobie couldn’t work them out and was afraid, as they stood there in the doorway, not letting him in.
Somehow he found the nerve to say, ‘Unusual for a sergeant and a senior sergeant to be on a stakeout together.’
Kellock made a wide, lazy gesture, snideness in his sleepy eyes.
‘Staff shortages, Scobe old son. Plus I had uniforms watching three other houses.’
Scobie swallowed. ‘Can I come in?’
Both men pantomimed are-we-stopping-you? Scobie edged past them, then paused, looking at Kellock’s arm. ‘You’ve cut yourself.’
‘Defensive wounds,’ van Alphen said matter-of-factly. He was right behind Scobie, practically breathing in his ear. ‘The little cunt pulled a knife on him, didn’t he, Kel?’
‘Yep.’
‘Who shot him?’ Scobie said, backing away from them.
‘I did,’ Kellock said.
‘Where is he?’
‘Along here.’
They took him to the spare bedroom. Nick Jarrett had apparently stumbled backwards, collided with the bed, and then fallen crookedly beside it. He wore overalls and had been shot twice in the chest. Gloved hands, his left clutching a knife. ‘Good riddance, eh, Scobe?’ said Kellock, crowding him there in the doorway.
‘What happened?’
‘Told you, he pulled a knife.’
Scobie said stupidly, ‘That one?’
‘No, a huge Japanese samurai sword that we put back over the fireplace. Of course that fucking knife.’
‘I have to be sure,’ said Scobie defensively. ‘So, he cut you?’
‘No, he gave me a haircut,’ said Kellock, clutching a handkerchief to his forearm.
‘Kel,’ admonished van Alphen mildly.
‘Sorry. Sorry, Scobie.’
Scobie didn’t believe it. ‘Can I see?’
Kellock proffered his arm. Three shallow cuts, parallel to the watchstrap. ‘Defensive wounds.’
Too shallow, too neatly arranged, for that. Scobie swallowed again. ‘That’s what your report will say?’
‘Why? You think I’m lying, Detective Constable Sutton?’
‘I’m just here to note what was said and done, that’s all,’ Scobie said.
‘Mate, you’re a real character.’
They were creeping him out. He heard a vehicle arriving, a heavy motor. ‘That will be the ambulance,’ he said, relieved.
He was gone about a minute, greeting the ambulance crew and showing them to the body. Soon the little room was crowded, and Scobie’s view of the body obscured. �
��Weak pulse,’ one of the paramedics said. ‘We have to get him to the hospital pronto.’
Scobie saw van Alphen and Kellock exchange a complicated glance. Were they relieved? Worried? He couldn’t say.
‘I need to bag the knife,’ Scobie said, pushing through to Nick Jarrett’s body, taking an evidence bag from his jacket pocket. He paused. He could have sworn the knife had been in Jarrett’s left hand. He could have sworn that Jarrett had been wearing gloves. Jarrett gasped then, drawing a painful, rattling breath. His hands fluttered.
‘Mate,’ an ambulance officer said, elbowing Scobie, ‘we have to get him out, now.’
Scobie bagged the knife wordlessly, using his last few seconds to run his gaze over Jarrett. There was a cut above one eyebrow, signs of swelling on one cheek.
‘Mate?’
‘Okay, okay, just remove his overalls first.’
He stood back while it was done. Finally Jarrett was carried out to the ambulance, which tore away, sounding the siren once it had reached the main road.
‘We’ve got a situation,’ Scobie said.
‘No we don’t,’ said van Alphen emphatically.
Scobie trembled and his voice wouldn’t come. There were procedures to follow. But van Alphen and Kellock were his police colleagues. At the same time, he didn’t exactly mourn Jarrett, who was a killer, a man prone to violence. Scobie didn’t doubt that a tox screen would show large amounts of speed in Jarrett’s system. Jarrett would have been volatile, vicious and unpredictable, so it could have happened as described by van Alphen and Kellock.
‘Headquarters will have to look into this.’
‘We know that.’
‘There will be a coronial inquest.’
‘In about a year’s time,’ Kellock said. ‘A lot can happen in that time.’
‘Boss, I need to bag your weapon,’ Scobie said, his voice not holding up. ‘I also need the outer clothing of both of you.’
‘Well, sure,’ said Kellock, not moving.
‘I have to do this by the book,’ gabbled Scobie.
‘Wouldn’t have it any other way.’
‘I have a couple of forensic suits in the back of my car.’
‘Not a problem.’
Van Alphen and Kellock said nothing more but stared at him. He could feel their eyes at his back as he left the house.
One hour later, dawn light streaking the horizon, Scobie called in at McDonald’s for breakfast, a guilty Big Mac with fries because his nerves were shot. Then he called the hospital, learning that Nick Jarrett had died in the ambulance, and finally called Ellen to report the shooting- a clumsy conversation on his part, he felt. Finally he drove up to the city and delivered the knife, gloves, bagged clothing and.38 to the ForenZics lab, arriving as the doors opened for the day. A guy called Riggs, young, abrupt, irritable, took custody of the evidence, the irritation growing as he removed the items one by one. ‘Jesus, pal.’
‘What?’
‘Cross contamination.’
‘I was rushed,’ said Scobie, feeling sulky. ‘It’s clear enough what happened.’
‘Not to me. Gunshot residue and blood evidence are easily transferred. You’ve got the clothing of several people here.’
‘Three: two police officers and the victim, a burglar.’
‘Oh, well that’s all right, then,’ said Riggs snidely.
‘One officer was slashed with the knife. He then shot the burglar.’
‘Don’t you have procedures for collecting evidence? My findings will be meaningless.’
Scobie felt like weeping. None of this was his fault. ‘Please see what you can do.’
26
When Ellen arrived at work that morning she found people congregated in corridors and doorways, whispering, murmuring. It was partly elation, partly awe, partly apprehension about the fallout that would follow now, not only for Kellock and van Alphen but for all of them. Nobody was very sorry about Jarrett. Some were almost pleased that he’d been shot dead, although they could not have done it themselves. Feelings were complicated, uneven, hard to pin down.
She walked past Kellock’s office. The door was open. He beckoned her in, saying, ‘You heard?’
‘Yes.’
He looked exhausted. ‘Van and I have been limited to desk duties until it’s sorted out.’
Ellen nodded. It was to be expected.
‘But feel free to call on us if you need help with the Blasko investigation.’
Ellen blinked. ‘Really?’
‘No problem,’ said Kellock evenly.
Scobie was waiting for her upstairs. He hadn’t shaved; his thinning hair was awry. ‘Ellen,’ he said, relieved.
She took him into her office. He wouldn’t sit but paced in agitation. She waited, eventually prompting him: ‘The Jarrett shooting.’
He continued to pace.
‘Scobie!’
He jumped. ‘What?’
‘It’s clean, right?’
He was silent for some time. ‘I got there about five this morning.’
‘And?’
‘I was tired. I wasn’t taking everything in.’
Ellen closed her eyes, opened them again. ‘Are you saying there are anomalies?’
He considered that. ‘There’s an explanation for everything.’
‘You did it by the book, Scobie, tell me you did it by the book.’
He sat finally. He twisted in his seat. ‘I can explain.’
The explanation was disjointed, and at the end of it she said, ‘Was the knife Jarrett’s?’
Scobie stared at the carpet, then lifted his sorrowing face. She heard the fretfulness as he asked: ‘Was he left or right handed? Was he or wasn’t he wearing gloves? I went back there just now: the carpet’s been shampooed already.’
Ellen watched him.
‘I got a bad vibe, Ellen,’ he said, not meeting her gaze.
She wondered if he’d ever uttered the word ‘vibe’ aloud before. It didn’t sound right in his mouth. ‘What kind of knife was it?’
‘Generic kitchen knife. Could have come from anywhere. Could have come from the house.’
‘He always wore gloves?’
‘According to the collators, yes. His girlfriend wouldn’t confirm or deny. Nor would his family.’
An image of Laurie Jarrett came to Ellen. She coughed. ‘God, Scobie, I don’t want a dirty shooting.’
‘It’s not yours to worry about,’ Scobie said sourly. ‘It was a uniformed operation, and the police shooting board will be stepping in.’
‘Still.’
Into the pause that followed, Scobie said softly, ‘They threatened me.’
‘Who? The Jarretts?’
‘Van Alphen and Kellock.’
‘They’re just a bit macho, that’s all. They like to intimidate.’
‘It was more than that. When I arrived just now, Kellock said, “How’s that daughter of yours going?” A clear threat.’
‘Doesn’t sound like one.’
‘You weren’t there,’ Scobie muttered.
Ellen had barely started work when a call came from the front desk: Laurie Jarrett was in the foyer, angry, distraught. ‘He wants to see you, Sarge.’
‘Me? The stakeout was a uniformed operation, not CIU.’
‘He says his nephew was set up, ambushed. He’ll only speak to you.’
‘Put him in a conference room. Have a uniform outside the door.’
‘Sarge.’
Wondering what she’d done to earn Laurie Jarrett’s regard, Ellen went downstairs, a part of her thinking that Nick Jarrett had got what he deserved, another part hoping it had been a clean shooting.
She found the patriarch of the Jarrett clan in the foyer conference room, two nervous constables standing beside his chair. He’d come storming into the station, according to the officers on the front desk, but now looked calm and unreadable. ‘Thanks for seeing me,’ he murmured.
Ellen got down to business. ‘You’re saying the police set your nephe
w up?’
‘I know they did,’ Jarrett said.
The man’s low tone and steady demeanour spelt barely concealed fury. ‘We’re sorry for your loss, Mr Jarrett, but-’
‘You cunts set him up and bushwhacked him.’
Ellen flushed. ‘Mr Jarrett, I know you’re upset, but I find your language offensive.’
‘So charge me.’
It was 9 am. She’d brought her coffee mug with her and toyed with it now, idly noticing the words printed across it: Our day begins when yours ends. She looked up; Laurie Jarrett was staring at her bleakly across the conference room table. ‘I want a face-to-face with the officers who shot Nick,’ he said.
‘There’s no way that’s going to happen.’
‘I want a full inquiry.’
‘All police shootings are rigorously examined,’ she said.
He snorted. ‘Words.’
‘Like I said, the shooting will be-’
‘You’ve always had it in for my nephew. You’ve had it in for all of us.’
She wasn’t going to take that lying down. ‘Our officers are called to your house at least once a fortnight, Laurie. Legal searches of the cars and bedrooms of your sons, stepsons and nephews have regularly uncovered drugs and stolen goods. The younger kids are caught shoplifting almost weekly. You yourself have a record for burglary and assault. Did we fit you up for all of those crimes and charges? I don’t think so.’
‘This time,’ he snarled, stabbing the table top with a slender finger, ‘this time you did.’
Ellen shifted uncomfortably, compelled by his looks again. She didn’t want to admit that it was a form of attraction. In response, something shifted in his gaze. He’d sensed the alteration in her body, and almost but not quite smiled. Then, to her astonishment, his eyes filled with tears.
‘It wasn’t a clean shooting.’
‘Laurie, he attacked two officers with a knife.’
A kitchen knife, possibly from a set found in the kitchen of the house. Ellen made a mental note: how did Nick Jarrett enter the house? Which rooms did he enter before being accosted? Did he go to the kitchen?