by Garry Disher
‘I got clipped by a surfboard, sir.’
He stared at her. ‘You’re kidding me. You surf?’
‘Learning to.’
‘Huh.’
They found Ledwich on a stepladder, erecting a sensor light on the corner of his lockup garage. He climbed down, wiping his hands on an oily rag. ‘You can’t be too careful.’
‘Can’t you?’ Pam said.
If she disliked the look of a man, she’d stare disbelievingly, to rattle him. She saw it work on Ledwich. There was something oily about him.
‘We were wondering, Lance,’ Sutton said, taking out his notebook, ‘whether you wouldn’t mind reconsidering one of the answers you gave me the other day.’
‘Which one?’
‘The one that went: No, I don’t own another motor vehicle.’
Ledwich flushed sullenly. ‘My sister. Stupid bitch.’
‘Why should she get into trouble over you, Lance?’
‘Look, it was unregistered, I’m not allowed to drive for another twelve months, she’s got a good garage, so I thought, why not store it at her place.’
‘Your heart must really be broken.’
‘Why?’
‘Your pride and joy, stolen and trashed like that.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Ledwich said, as though he’d just remembered to grieve for it.
‘You don’t seem too upset, sir,’ Pam said.
‘Well, you know, insurance’ll cover it.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
Ledwich faltered. ‘Won’t they?’
Sutton said, ‘Did you pay someone to do it for you, Lance?’
‘Do what?’
‘Steal and burn your Pajero.’
‘Christ no.’
‘It’s a fair assumption.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘Fibres from the dead girls inside the Pajero, the police checking tyres, only a matter of time before you got caught out. You must’ve been panicking, needed to get rid of the evidence in a hurry.’
‘You’re clutching at straws, mate.’
He was too cocky, as though some of his cares had been laid to rest recently. Pam found the nerve to say, ‘Let’s assume you’re the victim here, Mr Ledwich. Was there anything in particular about your Pajero that might explain why it was stolen, or anything that might help us identify who took it? Accessories, CD player, items left inside it, that kind of thing?’
Ledwich wiped his palms again. ‘No. I got nothing to hide.’
Now, that was an odd response. Pam pushed it: ‘No-one suggested you had, Mr Ledwich.’
‘You lot are acting like you’re more interested in my car than who took it. I mean, Jesus.’
‘He’s wound up,’ Pam said later.
‘Definitely hiding something.’
They questioned the neighbours, then drove to the scene of the aggravated burglary. The Fairmont-traced to an elderly widower in Waterloo-had been towed away. Fire and insurance investigators were there, but not the owners, who were still resting in hospital. Pam walked through the house while Sutton talked to one of the stable hands. The damage was minimal, she realised, some scorching and a patina of soot and smoke, so that, with imagination, she was able to picture the rooms as they’d been before the fire. A vulgar hand had decorated the place. It was as if she were looking at an interior design magazine in a doctor’s waiting room, one fussy room blending into another, so that they seemed oddly familiar to her.
Ellen got in late after a fruitless morning interviewing other names on the sex offenders list. She was surprised to see Rhys Hartnett’s Jeep at the courthouse, and after locking her car, crossed the driveway to find him. He was unloading wall vents. ‘Hi,’ she said, startling him.
‘Hi.’
‘We’ll have to stop meeting like this.’
He frowned and rolled his shoulders, as though she’d come too close and should back off.
‘You should give yourself some time off, Rhys,’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘If I don’t get this job done I’ll miss out on other contracts.’
Ellen realised that she hadn’t accounted for his finishing at the courthouse and going elsewhere. It would leave a hole in her life. She hadn’t discussed the matter further with Alan and Larrayne, but she found herself saying, ‘Speaking of which, I’ve decided to accept your quote.’
He stopped what he was doing and looked at her carefully. ‘That’s okay with your husband?’
‘It’s my money.’
‘Just out of interest, what did the other companies quote?’
She looked down briefly and toed the gravel with her shoe. ‘I didn’t actually approach anyone else.’
‘To set your mind at rest,’ he said, ‘the reason why I’ve always got work is because I quote low.’
‘I can give you a cash deposit,’ she said. ‘Would that help?’
‘Help me with the tax man.’ He held up both hands. ‘Whoops, forget I said that.’
‘We all have hassles with the tax man, Rhys.’
‘Yep. Look, a deposit won’t be necessary. Pay me at the end.’
Ellen thought: What a stupid conversation. He must think I’m stupid. It’s because we don’t know each other. We stand here out in the open when we should be in a quiet corner somewhere.
‘What do you say to lunch in the pub?’ she said, careful to keep it light.
He looked at her for a long moment, then glanced at the ground. ‘Now?’
‘Give me ten minutes.’
‘See you then,’ he said.
Pam Murphy came back with Scobie Sutton to find John Tankard waiting for her in the passenger seat of the divisional van.
‘Sucking up to CIB, Pammy?’
She ignored him and drove the van to the Sunday market in the car park opposite the Waterloo tennis courts. There had never been reports of stolen goods on sale, but still the police were obliged to make a walk-through of the market. Pam parked the van under a gum tree and got out, leaving Tankard sprawled in the passenger seat. In the old days, before the leaflet campaign, he would have been in the car park measuring tyre-tread thicknesses, slapping roadworthy infringement notices on windscreens, generally hassling the natives. Not now. Too much palpable hatred in the air whenever he showed his face in public.
She saw Danny Holsinger and edged toward him. Danny and his mother operated a stall every Sunday, selling crocheted shawls and doilies, woven string holders for hanging plants, slip-on covers for hot-water bottles, teapot cosies and other fussy pink things that no-one had much use for, certainly not on a hot Sunday morning.
When the mother was out of earshot, Pam said, ‘Happy new year for tomorrow, Danny.’
Surprised, he said, ‘Yeah.’
‘There was an ag burg near the racecourse yesterday. Rather a nasty one. What’s the word?’
Danny looked edgy. Then again, he’d always looked edgy around teachers, policemen, priests, anyone with any authority over him. ‘I’m not into that.’
‘I didn’t say you were. You’re a loner, Danny. But have you heard any whispers around the place? We’re looking for two men, one big, the other about your size. They stole a Pajero. Torched it some time last night, over by the highway.’
‘Wasn’t me.’
‘Danny, relax. Just keep your ear to the ground, okay?’
Then the mother returned with an armful of fussy cot blankets from the boot of her car, so Pam wandered through to the organic produce stall, thinking she might buy some tomatoes. Next to it was a donut van. She stopped, bought a couple for John Tankard.
She returned to the divisional van, winding her way among the remaining stalls. Where did they get their stuff, all that junk, half of it old, half of it brand new and made of cheap metal and plastic in China somewhere? Toys. Tools. Household gadgets. She couldn’t see anyone in Waterloo arranging a buying trip to China. So it had to be bankrupt stock, sold at auction, except the handmade stuff, the jams and doilies and coloured bead jewellery.
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Tankard hadn’t moved. ‘Hungry?’
He opened his eyes. ‘Murph. You’re a doll.’
Pam belted herself in, started the engine, eyeing him sadly. ‘That is not a pleasant sight.’
His mouth full, sugar on his chin, he asked, ‘Where to now?’
‘That Pajero,’ Pam said.
‘What the fuck for? Leave it to CIB.’
‘CIB think something smells wrong.’
‘Big-deal detective, on the case.’
Pam ignored him. Ginger had been so sweet this morning. He’d taken her back to his house and gently massaged a strange, foul-smelling cream into her jaw. Said it was pawpaw extract and would work wonders. She was still waiting.
They rode in silence, until Tankard stiffened like a hunting dog. ‘Check that. Broken tail light.’
That was pretty typical, Pam thought. Lonely road, solitary, vulnerable motorist. ‘Leave it, Tank.’
‘Yeah, well, we all know about you, soft on the locals.’
Pam ignored him. Tankard went on: ‘You know what your problem is? You’re a snob.’
‘First I’m soft on the locals, now I’m a snob. Which is it?’
‘Never see you down the pub. You don’t mix. What are ya?’
‘I’m not you, Tank, that’s all that matters. You want the world to be like you, and frankly that is a terrible thought.’
The Pajero site was easy to find, a smallish patch of blackened grass and scorched trees and fence posts. A farmer coming home from the pub after a cricket match late the previous night had seen the blaze and put it out with the fire extinguisher he kept in his car.
There was a white sedan parked nearby. A man in a short-sleeved shirt was taking photographs. Pam approached him, saying, ‘May I ask what you’re doing, sir?’
The man straightened. He was about forty, calm and unhurried-looking. ‘Insurance,’ he said.
Pam nodded, then looked at the burnt grass. ‘Where’s the vehicle?’
‘Carted off to the police garage about-’ the man looked at his watch ‘-half an hour ago. I’d given it the once-over. Now I’m checking the scene.’
They stood together musingly. Bracken, blackberry thickets, rye grass and gum trees hugged both sides of the road, but here there was only an area of ash the size of a room, dotted with lumps of molten glass and plastic, some remnants of the electrical circuitry and four fine wire sculptures that were all that remained of the tyres. Scattered around the perimeter were bottles, drink cans and cigarette packets, as though whoever had torched the Pajero had stood there gloating.
‘We get a couple of these a month,’ the insurance investigator said. ‘It’s become a copycat thing.’
‘And a summer thing,’ Pam said.
‘Yeah, the general madness.’
On an impulse, Pam collected the newer-looking cans, bottles and cigarette packets, picking them up with the end of her pen and stuffing them into a large plastic evidence sack. She paused. Was that the guts of a car phone?
‘You’re fucking mad,’ John Tankard said when Pam was behind the wheel again. ‘You want to give yourself a rest or you’ll get a promotion.’
Danny discovered, as the day progressed, that his fingers were all thumbs. He dropped coins, couldn’t open paper bags, spilt the thermos coffee over one of his mother’s tea cosies, there on the trestle table, just as someone was about to buy it.
‘What the hell’s got into you?’
‘Sorry, Mum.’
‘Look, take yourself off for a walk, get out of me hair.’
‘Sorry, Mum.’
He took her advice and walked along the bicycle path. The truth was, his nerves were shot to pieces. That stunt of Jolic’s yesterday, bashing those people, then following that sheila in her Mercedes just because she gave him the finger. The way he kept shouting, ‘I’ll kill the cunt, I’ll kill the cunt,’ spit flying around inside the Pajero. The way he just drove and drove after that, for hours, risking discovery but not giving a damn, he was so worked up.
Culminating in Jolic parking on a back road and using the Pajero’s car phone to call one of his heavy mates to come and fetch them.
Danny hadn’t understood. They’d waited there on that dirt road, Jolic a massive dark shape in the dim light of the moon, and he’d asked, ‘Why can’t we just dump it near home and walk the rest of the way?’
‘Because,’ Jolic had said.
Danny soon understood. When the mate, Craig Oliver, arrived in his panel van with a few tinnies from the pub, Jolic torched the Pajero. They stood there, the three of them, watching it burn.
And now that young copper, turning up like she knew something.
No wonder his nerves were shot.
McQuarrie came by at five o’clock, bidding them a happy new year and suggesting a brief brainstorming of the case. More of a brainbashing than a brainstorming, Challis thought, as the clock on the wall showed five-thirty, six, six-thirty. Sunday evening, New Year’s Eve, he could see how thoroughly demoralised everyone was. As soon as McQuarrie had left the room, he tiptoed comically to the door, stuck his head into the corridor, looked left and right, pulled back into the room and shut the door, his face a pantomime of subversive intent. Good, they were laughing, relaxing.
‘I know you’ve all got families to go to,’ he said, ‘but if anyone wants to stay on for a quick meal, pasta, a glass or two of red, it’s my shout.’
He watched them uncoil. All but a couple reached for the phones to call home, some of them arguing, others pleading and apologetic. By seven o’clock they were seated in the bistro overlooking the marina. They were noisy, their way of shaking off McQuarrie and cruel deaths and life’s mischances. Challis felt some of his tightness relax. He knew that at the end of it his detectives would be a little more united and work together a little better. There was also the reminder that they were not so very different from other wage-earners, entitled to a night out with one another and the boss.
At one point, Ellen Destry roared in his ear, ‘When are you taking me flying again?’
‘Any time you like.’
‘I was not popular at home afterwards.’
‘Why?’
‘Alan thinks he’s losing me.’
‘Losing you to me?’
‘Losing me in general,’ Ellen said.
After a silence, she said, leaning close to his ear, ‘Hal, did you ever cheat on your wife?’
Challis swung away from her, hooking one eyebrow. ‘Ellie, I seem to recall it was the other way around.’
Too late, she realised what she’d said. ‘Good one, Ellen. Hypothetically speaking, Hal-’ that rolled nicely off the tongue ‘-speaking hypothetically now, do you think in most couples there is a temptation to stray?’ She shook herself, attempting to focus on him. ‘Hypothetically speaking.’
‘You’re pissed, Ellie.’
She swayed back. ‘So what if I am? I’m entitled.’
‘Of course you are.’
‘I started at lunchtime.’ She poked his chest. ‘One day we’ll see you sozzled.’
‘How about now?’ Challis said, and felt himself grin and slide down in his chair.
Pam Murphy felt herself snap awake with the answer there clearly before her. She’d not been reminded of magazine photographs when she toured the burnt house, but of actual photographs, laid out on a shop counter. She closed her eyes again, mentally putting a case together. She’d take it to Sergeant Destry; with any luck she’d be allowed in on the arrest. Sleep didn’t come again. When the dawn light began to leak into her room, she left the house and walked down through the dunes to the beach, where the water and the wide world were still, and she felt herself tingling, like a hunter.
Seventeen
Monday, 1 January. When Pam Murphy came on duty, she went straight to Sergeant Destry with the crime-scene photos and said, ‘Sarge, I think Marion Nunn was behind that aggravated burglary.’
Destry stared at her for a long, half-amused moment. ‘There’s not
hing I’d like better than to put Marion Nunn away, but you’re going to have to convince me first.’
‘Well, the other day John Tankard and I were called to a photo developing shop because the manager was worried about some photos he’d just developed. They were interior and exterior shots of a house, and the customer was Marion Nunn. Later when I walked through the ag burg house, it seemed somehow familiar. Last night, I twigged.’
‘What’s Marion Nunn got to do with the house?’
‘Her firm’s selling it, Sarge. There’s an auction sign on the front fence. No-one’s going to question it if her firm’s selling their place for them and she’s there taking photos that they think will be used in advertising.’
‘If they’re not used for advertising, what are they used for?’
‘I think Marion Nunn has an accomplice. She gives him the photographs, and he uses them to plan how he’ll commit the burglary.’
‘What did the photos look like?’
‘Not the kind you’d normally take if you were trying to sell a house. There were shots of the back door, the windows, interior shots of glass cabinets with her reflection in the glass, the alarm system, etcetera, etcetera.’
‘Maybe a junior in her office took them, that’s why they looked amateurish.’
‘Marion Nunn dropped them off for developing, Sarge.’
‘But it’s not proof that she took them. And wouldn’t the owners have been suspicious of the sorts of shots she was taking?’
‘I checked the date in my notebook. When the photographs were dropped off for developing, the owners had already been in Bali for four days. If she was selling the house for them, she’d have had a key.’
‘Okay, let’s say for argument’s sake that Marion Nunn was behind it. Who does she give the photos to?’
‘Someone she’s defended in the past.’
‘Maybe. Let me do some checking, talk it over with Inspector Challis.’
‘So you think I’ve got something, Sarge?’