by Garry Disher
‘Hal,’ said Ellen, coming up beside him. The setting sun was warm through the glass, bringing on a drowsy kind of desire in him, and he almost put his arm around her.
‘Find something?’
‘These,’ Ellen said.
She showed him a couple of notebooks. Challis flipped through them, stopping at key phrases here and there. ‘Some kind of anti-government, fundamentalist, Aryan survivalist nutcase?’ he surmised.
Ellen grinned. ‘Can you be more specific?’
‘Doesn’t make him any less dangerous.’
‘No.’
‘Here you are,’ said a voice.
They turned. McQuarrie stood there, brisk, overcoated, slapping fine leather gloves against one palm. Off to a Rotary dinner, guessed Challis sourly.
‘Sir.’
‘I understand you’ve identified the man who shot Janine?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Ellen, stepping forward as if to forestall criticisms the man might want to make. She began to lay it out for him, Vyner’s past and the possible importance of the Navy connection, but he was soon nodding impatiently and finally cut her off. ‘I expect this means my son is now in the clear.’
It was issued as a challenge, not a question. Ellen looked to Challis for guidance, but Challis felt a surge of anger, which went unrecognised by McQuarrie, who went on, ‘You were way off beam there, Hal, admit it. Wasted man-hours, unnecessary-’
The anger built in Challis, the product of weeks of frustration and grief. It was hot and blinding. He had to blink. He said tightly, ‘No one’s in the clear, least of all your son. He was, and is, a logical suspect.’
‘Logical? You dislike my son. There’s no logic involved.’
Ellen coughed. ‘I’ll continue searching,’ she said, and slipped out of the room. The men ignored her. They were facing off rigidly.
‘What have you got against Robert? Is it that he’s successful at what he does?’
Challis felt goaded. He fought it. ‘Identify and eliminate,’ he said. ‘That’s what we do. You know that.’
McQuarrie flushed. He curled his lip. ‘The politics of envy, Hal. My son explained it to me. It’s insidious, spread by people like Tessa Kane, but I have to say I didn’t expect that you would ascribe to-’
Too late he realised that he’d gone too far. ‘No offence,’ he said, taking a step back.
Challis advanced on him, stabbed a forefinger against the man’s softly padded breastbone. ‘She was a better person than you or your son will ever be.’
‘Take it easy.’
‘I will not take it easy. You’ve interfered in this case every step of the way. I’m sick of it. Back off.’
‘All right, all right, you’ve made your point.’
They’d gone well past admitting to a difference in rank, but they’d also talked out their fury. Their chests heaving, they stared at each other. They swallowed. Finally McQuarrie nodded curtly, left, and Challis stood for a while, willing himself to be fully calm again. Then Ellen was there, comfortingly close. ‘Pissing contest over?’ she said, nudging him.
He laughed, and it was a great release. ‘Let’s bring Lowry in again.’
****
It was late, dark and cold in Waterloo. ‘They were ex-Navy, Ray, just like you,’ Challis said, his voice clipped, in a little interview room along the corridor from Kellock’s office.
Ellen took that as her cue to remove photographs from the file in front of her and slide them across the table. ‘Nathan Gent and Trevor Vyner.’
‘Never heard of them. Never met them,’ Lowry said.
‘At one stage, all three of you were serving at the Navy base in Townsville.’
‘So? It’s a huge base.’
‘On duty, off duty, you had plenty of opportunities to meet them.’
Lowry’s legal aid lawyer, who looked about eighteen, gained sufficient nerve to say, ‘My client has answered your question, Sergeant Destry.’
Ellen ignored him. She tapped the photos. ‘They murdered Janine McQuarrie. Gent was the driver, Vyner the shooter. Then Vyner shot Gent, fearing he was a loose cannon, and later still he shot Tessa Kane.’ She looked up. ‘You had a beef with both women, Ray.’
Lowry’s lawyer said, ‘Unless you have hard evidence that my client knew these men, or conspired with them to kill anyone, then I suggest you let him go.’
‘Trevor Vyner,’ Challis said. ‘Ex-Navy, served two terms for fraud and burglary in New South Wales in 2003.’
‘So?’
‘Some Browning pistols went missing from the Navy armoury. The armourer was your mate. Did Vyner get those pistols direct from him or did you broker the deal?’
‘My client doesn’t know anything about missing guns or these murders,’ the lawyer said. ‘He left the Navy some time ago and is now a respected businessman.’
Challis said nothing but simply stared at Lowry. They had Vyner’s print on the car and he’d sent a pair of Vyner’s walking shoes to the lab, hoping the traces of vegetable matter in the treads would link Vyner to the shallow grave in Myers Reserve. But proving that Lowry had hired Vyner was not going to be so easy. There were no e-mails or phone records to link the three men to each other. Then again, Lowry had a shop full of mobile phones.
That’s when a uniformed sergeant entered the little room and motioned Challis to join him in the corridor. ‘Sorry, Hal, but we’ve got a woman at the front desk who claims her husband ordered the McQuarrie and Kane murders.’
****
62
‘Is he still at the detention centre?’ Challis asked.
Lottie Mead shook her head. ‘Probably at home,’ she said. ‘Charlie’s generally home by six.’
‘Does he know you’re here?’
‘No! And you mustn’t tell him, not until he’s locked up!’
They were in the victim suite because the interview rooms were being used and they couldn’t question a potential witness amid the files and wall displays of the incident room. Challis was leaning against the wall in his habitual pose, Ellen was perched on the edge of a straightbacked chair, and Lottie Mead sat jittery and scowling at one end of the room’s ugly sofa.
Ellen reached out and touched the other woman’s knee reassuringly. ‘You’re safe here, Mrs Mead.’
Lottie Mead, wearing jeans, boots and an expensive costly-looking jacket, stared glumly at her feet, then up. Challis studied her, recalling the civic function at which she’d given nothing away but allowed Charlie to do all the talking. She had narrow features, tightly compressed, as if she’d never revealed many emotions and was unused to it now. ‘You don’t know what he’s like. You got shot because of him,’ she said, and made as if to touch Ellen.
Challis watched and listened. Lottie’s South African accent was strong: she’s Afrikaner South African, he guessed, not English, poorly educated, unconfident around powerful people. She looked demoralised, and he wondered if Charlie Mead had kept her subjugated. Yet she must have found a spark of courage and will, enough to seek help from Janine McQuarrie-who typically had given her poor advice and false courage.
‘Why didn’t you contact us sooner? Another woman died.’
‘I was scared.’
‘Scared,’ Challis said flatly.
‘Hal,’ Ellen said warningly.
‘Really scared,’ Lottie Mead said, looking at the floor again. ‘I thought he’d find out and kill me.’ Her cheeks were damp when she raised her head. ‘But at the same time, he’s so arrogant he believes I’m too scared to cross him.’
Challis’s mind was racing, imagining this woman’s life with Mead, a man who ruled her thoughts and actions. ‘Tell us again about Janine McQuarrie. Your name’s not on her client list.’
‘I used my maiden name. Charlotte Strydom.’
Challis looked. The name was there. He found the case notes and leafed through them. ‘You started seeing her only a few weeks ago.’
‘Yes.’
The notes were typically cryptic a
nd dashed off: abbreviations, simple words and phrases followed by question marks, virtually unreadable handwriting. ‘What sort of counselling were you seeking from her?’
‘My marriage was unhappy.’
As he often did with interview subjects, Challis let scoffing and doubt rule his features. He waited. Lottie Mead said, ‘Charlie’s being sent to manage a prison in Canada. I want to stay here.’
Challis continued to stare at her, wondering where this was going. Lottie Mead shifted about on the sofa. ‘I was scared.’
‘Scared of how he’d react if you said you didn’t want to go with him?’
Mead’s wife looked astounded that Challis could be so naive. ‘Scared he’d kill me.’
‘Kill you,’ said Challis disbelievingly. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had used a major investigation to make false accusations against a spouse.
‘You don’t know what he’s like! He has to get his own way. He hates to be crossed. It was bad enough that I was seeing Janine, but telling him I wouldn’t be going to Canada with him, well, he’s not the kind of man to take it lying down.’ She paused. ‘He’d make it look like an accident.’
Challis and Ellen exchanged doubtful glances. ‘So you saw Janine McQuarrie for advice. Did you tell her of your specific fears concerning your husband?’
‘Some.’
‘Some. Did she tell you to leave him?’
‘Yes.’
Challis watched Lottie Mead for a moment. The next question was obvious: ‘Did Mrs McQuarrie then confront your husband?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you ask her to?’
‘God no! That would be a death wish.’
Challis nodded. Janine had acted true to form. But would a reasonable man respond by hiring a hitman to kill her? Would an treasonable man, for that matter? So far, all that he and Ellen had was another situation similar to Raymond Lowry’s, and there were bound to be still others.
‘So you think he killed Janine because you’d gone to her and she’d confronted him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he say or do anything to you?’
‘He hit me.’
‘Is that all?’
‘He told me to stop seeing Janine.’
‘And did you?’
Lottie Mead sneered a little. She was an unappealing woman. ‘You don’t know my husband. Of course I did, and she was dead a few days later.’
‘Did he tell you he was going to have her killed?’
‘He didn’t have to. He didn’t care what I thought or knew. He knows I’m scared of him.’
‘Yet you had the courage to see Janine, and now you’ve come to us.’
Lottie Mead shrugged. Ellen leaned into the gap between them. ‘We need more, Mrs Mead. You’re not making a strong case.’ She paused. ‘Forgive me for asking this, but have you and your husband been attending sex parties?’
Lottie Mead straightened in shock, which became outrage. ‘How dare you. Certainly not.’
‘Janine McQuarrie and Tessa Kane were murdered by the same man-you say under orders from your husband. The only thing we can find that links both women is the sex-party scene.’
‘No, absolutely not,’ said Lottie Mead, shaking her head violently. ‘Charlie had them shot, but not because of that!
‘What, then?’ said Challis. ‘Spit it out, for God’s sake.’
Lottie flushed. She examined her bony hands sulkily. ‘They both knew things-’ she muttered ‘-or Charlie thought they did.’ She looked up. ‘Don’t you see? I went to Janine to talk about my feelings, Charlie thought I went to her to talk about facts. That’s why he killed her. And Tessa Kane.’
‘What facts?’
Lottie Mead was absorbed with her hands again. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘I think it does,’ said Ellen harshly. ‘We will talk to your husband eventually-we’ll have to-but we’ve also talked to other husbands just like him, who’d been challenged by Mrs McQuarrie. What makes your husband so special?’
Lottie Mead remained stubbornly uncommunicative, and Challis, watching her closely, realised that she was more calculating than bewildered or afraid, as though she had things to hide. The murder of Tessa Kane suddenly made sense. He remembered her file on the Meads-there had been many gaps and question marks. Had she uncovered information that she’d not yet recorded?
‘Tessa Kane was writing a story on you and your husband,’ he said. ‘Is there something you’re not telling us?’
Lottie Mead was glumly mute. They waited, watching her. The little bar fridge switched on and whirred softly. The room seemed cloying suddenly. ‘It happened a long time ago, in South Africa.’
They gazed at her without expression. ‘The apartheid era,’ she said eventually.
‘And?’
‘Me and Charlie worked for the government.’
She explained haltingly. It was a story of the interrogation, torture and summary execution of black leaders, for which her husband had displayed a certain proficiency. He’d almost been outed during the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but friends had covered up for him. ‘It was a long time ago, everyone’s changed now, but he didn’t want it made public’
‘What was your role back then?’
‘I was in a different department,’ said Lottie Mead, not meeting their gaze.
‘Did you tell Janine McQuarrie about your husband’s past?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Challis was tiring of her evasions. ‘Did you tell Tessa Kane?’
‘No, I wouldn’t let her in the door.’
‘Did Ms Kane challenge your husband?’
‘She might have done. He doesn’t tell me anything,’ Lottie said. She paused. ‘Are you going to arrest him?’
‘We’ll talk to him,’ said Challis cautiously.
‘He’ll get away with it, he always does.’
‘We know the identities of the killers. Do the names Trevor Vyner and Nathan Gent mean anything to you?’
‘I’ve never heard of them, but Charlie was in charge of a prison before this. He would have met all types, including killers for hire.’
‘We can check,’ Challis said. He passed her photographs of Vyner and Gent. ‘You might not know the names, but do you know the faces?’
She froze over Vyner’s photograph. ‘He was at the house this afternoon, looking for Charlie!’ Her eyes danced, excited and alarmed. ‘He looked angry.’
‘What did you tell him?’
Lottie Mead put her hand to her mouth, appalled with herself. ‘I told him to come back at six!’
****
63
Vyner had got there around 4 p.m., the appointed hour, a little curious, a little wary, but with a buzz on, too, looking forward to this next job, and getting his $ 15,000. Curious because Lottie was normally super cautious, avoiding face-to-face contact, and wary because she was mad and dangerous, and he didn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.
A huge house with trees, deep hedges and a gravelled driveway, the tyres of his stolen Magna crunching down it with a sound that spelt status, seclusion and success. The Brisbane house, where she’d been living when he was pruning her roses, on day release from her husband’s jail-rehabilitation through gardenings-had been a lot humbler. She was ambitious, old Lottie. Charlie Mead might never have been promoted from deputy manager of the prison if the manager hadn’t encountered an armed ‘burglar’ one night. Vyner had got five grand from Lottie for that one. Then no word from her for three years, and suddenly she’d needed him again.
He parked the Magna and knocked on the heavy front door, a door weighted with significance, like the fresh, clean, crisp gravel of the driveway. Lottie answered, he offered her an old-time’s-sake grin, but she wasn’t having it. ‘You’re late.’
‘It’s a long way down here. Plus the traffic’
She peered past him at the Magna, opened her mouth, thought better of it and ushered him inside. ‘It can’t be trace
d to me,’ he assured her.
‘Trevor, it’s bright yellow.’
He followed her through to a sitting room, where vast leather sofas faced off across a busy Turkish rug on polished boards. A fire crackled, faintly smoky. There were African masks, shields, spears and art on all of the walls. Vyner had lived most of his life confined, personal gear at a minimum, and hated the room at first sight. ‘Who’s the target this time?’ he asked.
‘My husband.’
He was shocked. ‘Charlie?’
Uh oh, he’d set her off. Her face transformed itself in an eyeblink, from timid mouse to feral cat, and she began to pace and snarl, little fists tight. ‘After all I’ve done for him.’
‘I know,’ said Vyner commiseratively, but without a clue.
She whirled on him. ‘He’d be nothing without me, and how does he repay me? Says he’s going to dump me for someone else.’
Things made sense now. ‘Janine McQuarrie?’ Vyner asked, double-checking.
‘Who do you think?’ said Lottie. ‘And she wasn’t even a good therapist.’
‘Charlie needed therapy?’ Vyner asked. The idea amazed him.
‘Don’t be stupid. I was checking her out.’
‘Ah. So how did Charlie-’
‘He met her at the detention centre a couple of months ago. She was relieving for another therapist who had the flu.’
Vyner nodded. Why a bunch of ragheads and sand niggers should need therapy, he didn’t know.
‘I’ve been with him twenty years, and he wants to leave me for someone he’s known only a few weeks!’ Lottie said. She paused. ‘Five minutes with her and I knew she was incompetent, but love is blind, right, Trevor?’
‘Right,’ said Vyner stoutly. He looked around, locating all of the potential weapons in the room: poker, spears, vases, lamp, a wooden chair at a writing desk.