Challis - 01 - Dragon Man (7 page)

Have a good one, Sarge.

Ellen Destry skirted around the
naval base and on to Waterloo. Murphy seemed lonely. She tried to imagine life
as a uniformed constable again, working with a pair of thugs like van Alphen
and Tankard. I could offer to take her to work in the mornings, she thought.
Then again, it would only complicate things.

She parked her car at the rear of
the police station. It was now seven-fifteen, her normal arrival time for a 8
a.m. start. She stretched the kinks out of her back. There was a gym upstairs.
It would do her good to use it sometimes.

The air-conditioning man pulled in
at the courthouse next door, his Jeep top-heavy with a roof-rack of ladders and
PVC tubes. Ellen noted the name,
Rhys Hartnett,
painted on the side, and
took a moment to watch Hartnett as he got out. She was doing this a lot lately,
watching men, the way they moved.

He caught her at it and winked
across the driveway separating the courthouse from the police station. Another
hot one.

Not even January yet, she agreed.

She watched him prop open the rear
doors of his van. Typical, she remarked. The courthouse is only used once or
twice a week and gets air-conditioning fitted. Were in and out of the police
station twenty-four hours a day and cant even requisition a fan.

He stood back, began to eye the
courthouse windows. Hed lost interest in her.

Well, see you. No doubt youll be
around for a few days.

Couple of weeks, at least.

On an impulse she said, Maybe you
could give me a quote to air-condition my house.

That got his attention. He could
ignore her but not the chance to make another buck or two. Where do you live?

Penzance Beach.

I could drop by sometime. Got a
card?

She closed the gap between them,
stepping over a line of white-painted driveway rocks and straggly low shrubs to
get to him. There were leaves and pods from the flowering gums scattered over
the ground. She registered the snap and buzz of summer heat in the air, and the
smell of the gum trees, and the brine of the nearby sea. She proffered her
card. He was very graceful, movements delicate, voice soft, and the smile was a
real charmer, so no wonder all of her senses were alert.

He looked impressed. Sergeant.
Wheres your uniform?

Im a detective.

No kidding.

Boss
of detectives.

He raised his palm to her. You know
how it is, see a cop and immediately feel guilty about something.

Im flesh and blood, she said, to
give him something to ponder upon, then tapped the card in his hand. I mean it
about the quote. Give me a call.

Will do.

She entered the station and went
immediately to the uniform branch for the previous nights crime reports. A
dozen mailboxes torched, two setting off small fires. Summers here, she
thought. She flipped through the reports. Three burglaries. A tent slashed at
the caravan park. An assault. Three pub brawls. Theft of a car.

Then she logged on to the grid, the
Central Data Entry Bureau, a state-wide database which recorded details of
crimes, who reported them, victims names, who attended, and so on.

There was a knock on the door and
Kellock, the station boss, walked in. As usual, he seemed to regard her with
distaste: after all, she was plainclothes, and a woman. You left me a note
requesting half-a-dozen more uniforms for your door-to-door on the highway.

Thats right.

Its not on, Ellen. The budget wont
cover it.

Sir, were stretched in CIB.

Not my problem, Kellock said.

Kellock was a senior sergeant,
middle-aged and comfortable-looking with his uniform and his rank. I can
stretch it to two uniforms.

Thank you.

Kellock left the room. Ellen logged
off and headed for the stairs, in time to hear Kellock remonstrating with Kees
van Alphen about claiming overtime. All you had to do was get a statement from
her. You cant justify a claim for three hours above your normal load last
night. Van Alphen, she noted, looked exhausted, as if all of his arrogance had
been ground away by the long night, and he wore a dressing on one hand. You
smell of smoke, Van, Kellock said. Go and have a shower.

Ellen climbed the stairs to the
first floor. She glanced out over the car park. Challis wasnt in yet.

* * * *

Challis
woke at seven and lay listening to a conversation between kookaburras in the
nature reserve opposite his house. It sounded like a dispute: sudden eruptions
of name-calling, trailing off into muttered hurt feelings. Then he remembered
last night, and Angelas telephone call, and that Superintendent McQuarrie was
coming down to Waterloo sometime during the day to discuss the implications of
the killers letter.

His mood didnt improve when he
opened his mailbox to fetch the
Age
and discovered that someone had
tried to burn it down during the night.

The exterior was intact, the
interior charred but serviceable. The S-bend chain-link support was blackened.
Challis wiped his fingers and stood regarding the box gloomily. He lived well
back from the road, but still, he was a light sleeper, so it was a wonder he
hadnt heard anything. Enough had happened to him in his life to make him alert
to the sound of a vehicle at night.

A voice called, I see they got you
as well.

It was his neighbour. Hes been
waiting for me, Challis thought. You too?

Mines a milk can, the neighbour
said, but the bastards chucked a burning rag in it just the same. Mrs Gibbs,
around the corner? She found her box in pieces out on the main road.

Ill have a word with the local
station, Challis said. See if they can send a patrol around for the next few
nights.

Appreciated, the neighbour said,
wandering away.

Challis read the
Age
over
toast and coffee. Wednesday, 20 December. A banner across the top of the front
page read: Five shopping days until Christmas.
News
papers dont exist
any more, he thought. Theyve been replaced by lifestyle papers.

He locked the house and eased the
Triumph over the ruts outside his driveway. He wasnt looking forward to
Christmas. The world assumed that Christmas Day must be lonely for him, and so
set about ensuring that it wouldnt be. Drinks at Ellen Destrys house in the
morning. Lunch with his parents and siblings. Then at six in the evening, when
lunch was barely digested, an early dinner with Angelas parents. There were those
in his family who couldnt understand why hed want to see his parents-in-law,
couldnt understand when he explained that he liked them, and they liked him.
Youre surely not intending . . . ? No, Challis wasnt intending to resume his
life with Angela when and if she was ever released. Then why havent you
divorced her? Ill get around to it, he told them.

He drove on. Christmas Day. With any
luck, someone would find a body and free him from Christmas Day.

Challis was on the road that linked
with the Old Highway when he saw them, two teenage boys carrying fishing rods,
buckets, a net and tackle boxes. His neighbours trout-dam poachers? But the
trout dam was in the opposite direction. Maybe they were after the fish in
someone elses dam or lake or creek. They
looked
guilty, whatever their
purpose, keeping close under the roadside gums and pines, keeping their faces
averted as he went by. Challis mentally flicked his fingers. Saltmarsh, that
was their name. They were cousins.

He reached Waterloo at
eight-fifteen. The town looked dewy and clean. He parked the Triumph at the
rear of the station and climbed the stairs to the incident room.

* * * *

At
ten oclock an elderly couple entered the station and said, Constable Murphy
told us to come in.

Did she indeed.

She came by last night. She calls
on us every week.

The desk sergeant nodded. The
station had a register of elderly citizens, old single men and women, and
married couples, who were checked on from time to time by the uniformed
constables.

And why did Constable Murphy tell
you to come into the station?

Weve been robbed.

When the desk sergeant had the
details he took them through to an interview room to make a statement. Its
CIBs case now, he said. Someone will be with you shortly.

The man who came in a few minutes
later was tall and gangly, with protuberant eyes and long, bony hands. Im
Detective Constable Scobie Sutton. A woman robbed you? Can you describe her?

The husband, his white hair badly
combed, stains on his cardigan, said, She was New Australian.

His wife was sharper. You great
galoot. She leaned toward Sutton. He means she looked a bit exotic. Darkish
skin, wearing bright clothes, lots of goldrings, earrings, bracelets, neck
chains. But she wasnt foreign. She was Australian, judging by her accent.

How old, would you say?

Hard to tell. Forty-odd?

You said she came in and offered to
bless your house.

The old woman said, Ask him, ask
the genius. He let her in. I was in the garden.

Sutton turned to the old man, who
said, I couldnt see the harm. She said it would bring financial reward. Its
not easy, being on a pension.

Mad. Cracked in the head, his wife
said.

This woman told me, the old man
continued stubbornly, that whatever she blessed would multiply to our
advantage. She said the house was cursed. She could see black smoke coming off
it, and it needed cleansing.

Did she ask you for payment?

A donation. I gave her a dollar.

You great galoot.

A dollar, Sutton said. He looked
incensed for a moment, as if hed been asked to get a cat out of a tree. And
then what happened?

The phone rang. I was at the front
door, but the phones down the passage, in the kitchen. I was only gone a
minute.

She was alone, this woman?

Had a child with her. Couldnt tell
if it was a boy or a girl. Cute little thing.

Sutton nodded. The woman would
engage the occupants usually elderly men and womenwhile the child slipped
away unnoticed to hunt out wallets, watches and jewellery. Or, while the
occupants went to fetch the child something to eat or drink, the woman would
rob them.

But this time the woman hadnt
needed to stage a distraction. The phone had done it for her. And when you
came back . . . ?

They were gone, the old man said. I
waited, but

Fool.

but they didnt come back.

What was taken?

My purse, the old woman said. I
always leave it on the hallstand, along with my keys, gloves and hat. Forty
dollars and some loose change, my Myer charge card, Medicare card, pension
card, some other odds and ends.

Sutton scribbled down the details. Only
the purse, or the keys as well?

The keys as well.

Better get your locks changed.

Oh dear.

The old man said, Her eyes, thats
what I remember. She knew things. She looked right through you.

* * * *

Jane
Gideon was almost forty-eight hours old, and still no body. The trail was
growing cold. Challis re-read the file on Kymbly Abbott, talked to the VAA
operator who had taken Jane Gideons emergency call, and began telephoning
numbers from a rolodex that had been next to the telephone in Gideons flat.

One small piece of information: at
eleven oclock he took a call from a woman who claimed that she had seen Kymbly
Abbott on the night of the twelfth.

Can you be sure of the date?

My wedding anniversary. My husband
and I were coming home from the city.

Did he see her, too?

A laugh. He was asleep in the car.
I was driving. Another laugh. But I hadnt been drinking. Or not much.

Challis responded to the warmth in
her voice. Can you tell me what Miss Abbott was doing when you saw her?

Poor thing, she was sitting in the
kerb at the intersection, sticking out her thumb whenever a car went by.

This is the intersection at the
start of the highway?

Yes.

You didnt see anyone stop for her?
No vehicle that stood out in any way?

Im afraid not, no. The woman
paused. There was anguish in her voice. I wish Id stopped for her, seen that
she was all right, but I live only a block from the intersection, and last
month a pack of young girls her age mugged me at an automatic teller machine.

I understand, Challis said. Youre
sure it was her?

I saw her quite clearly, and the
clothes she was wearing match the description in the paper.

Is there a reason why you waited
until now to contact us?