Challis - 04 - Chain of Evidence (9 page)

Ellen bent her head to her notebook
to hide her face. She should have been told all of this. She should have
checked.

Justins not involved, take it from
me. His mates arent, either. Theyve all got kids of their own; were always
in and out of each others houses. Yeah, theyre rough, theyve got tattoos, a
couple have even been done for minor stuff, but theyre not into anything sick.
Its a stranger, I tell ya.

Ellen nodded, closing her notebook,
glancing at the crowded refrigerator, where drawings, cards and photographs
jostled.
Peninsula Plumbing,
the cards read.
Mr Antenna. Waterloo
Motors. Rising Stars Agency.

* * * *

10

The
Seaview Park kids were notorious for surging and flickering about the town like
a dangerous organism, appearing, disappearing, dispersing, merging again. On
Saturday morning they were first spotted forming inside the main entrance to
the estate, eight of them, mostly Jarretts and Jarrett acolytes, aged between
six and eleven; a moment later they were outside it, throwing eggs at passing
cars. They were gone well before the police arrived. So what else is new?
sighed Pam Murphy, taking witness statements from irate motorists in between
doorknocking and handing out flyers.

Over the next hour she tracked them
by their crimes. They lifted packets of LifeSavers from Wallys milk bar and
spray paint from High Street Hardware. All along High Street they went, like
quicksilver, terrorising the law-abiding. T-shirts from Hang Ten Surf Wear,
sunglasses from a rack in the pharmacy, cheap jewellery from a couple of the $2
shops. Their movements were obvious: they were heading straight down High
Street to the parkland on the waterfront, to the dodgem cars, shooting
galleries, Ferris wheel, ghost train, flower, jam and cake displays, pony
rides, outdoor art show, sound stage and food stalls that denoted the annual
spring show in Waterloo. Pam didnt know what theyd do there, but did know
theyd do more than merely gawk or spend any money theyd stolen or cadged. It
wasnt in their nature to
give
to the community but to take. That was
the Jarrett way, and there were plenty of takings at the Waterloo Show.

They had the Show sussed out within
five minutes. The eleven-year-old said, You like it up the arse? to a young
woman pushing a pram. The nine-year-old snatched a purse. The twins pushed and
shoved an old geezer who went red and breathless and an ambulance was called.
They grabbed a fistful of
Have You Seen Katie?
leaflets from Donna
Blasko and dumped them in a rubbish bin. On flowed the estate kids,
untouchable, undetectable until the last moment, which was when their victims
recognised that distinctive estate/Jarrett look, something quick and soulless.

Where you from? they demanded at
one point.

Four kids visiting from Cranbourne,
thirty minutes away. Outsider kids. The Jarretts knew all of the local kids.

Nowhere, the Cranbourne kids said.

Gotta be from somewhere.

Over there, said one of the
Cranbourne kids, meaning a few hundred metres up the road.

Liar.

They crowded the outsiders, poked
and jabbed. Wallets were taken. A knife was pulled, flashed once, leaving a
ribbon of blood. Miraculously, an opening appeared. The Cranbourne kids ran for
their lives. Whooping, the estate kids chased them, herded them, out of the
showgrounds and back up High Street.

Save us! cried the visitors.

Get out, said the local
shopkeepers, recognising the pursuers.

Youths hospitalised, said the next
edition of the local paper.

* * * *

While
that was going on, Alysha Jarrett climbed over the fence at the rear of Neville
Clodes house, trampling the onion weed as it lay limp and dying, and knocked
on his back door. When it opened she stood there wordlessly, looking at but not
seeing the doorsill or his bare feet, the left foot with its birthmark like the
remnant of a wine-red sock, the nails hooked and yellow.

Dont remember inviting you, he
said, smirking.

She said nothing. He made room for
her and she passed him, into the house. She breathed shallowly. He never aired
the place, but that wasnt uncommon in Alyshas experience. She came from
people who kept their doors and windows closed and abhorred the sun. She could
detect cigarettes, alcohol and semen. She knew those smells.

Cant keep away, can you? he said.
She was thirteen and would soon be too old.

She shrugged. She never talked,
never looked him in the face. Never looked at him anywhere if she could help
it. She never used her own hands and mouth on him but pretended they belonged
to someone else. Everything switched off when she came here. In fact she was
never entirely switched on when she was away from here. She floated. She was
unmoored. Her body had nothing to do with her.

Here you go, he said afterwards,
giving her twenty dollars. Sometimes it was smokes, lollies, a bottle of sweet
sherry. At the back door he sniffed, holding a tissue to his nostrils; he often
got a nosebleed from the strain of labouring away at her body. Giving her what
he called a cuddle, he peered out into his yard like a nervy mouse. The coast
is clear, he said, giving her bottom a pat. Hed washed her in the spa. She
felt damp here and there. Alysha floated away with her $20, which she later
spent on pills and went further away in her head.

* * * *

Meanwhile
Tank had the morning off. Hed been slotted for a grid search of Myers Reserve
later in the day, followed by night patrol, so the morning was his one chance
to take delivery of his Mazda. He went by train, getting off one station past
Frankston, where the road that ran parallel to the tracks was used-car heaven,
yards stretching in either direction, plastic flags snapping joyously in the
breeze from the Bay. He set out on foot for Prestige Autos.

It was good to be decisive. Last
weekend hed driven all the way up to Car City, on the Maroondah Highway, and
been told, at more than one yard, Its no good taking this car for a drive
unless you mean to do business today Tank couldnt believe it. How do you
sell cars if you dont let anyone test drive them? The salesmen would gesture
as if they didnt care. Perhaps they didnt. Perhaps there were plenty of
idiots with money to burn. Do I look like a tyre kicker to you?Tank had
demanded. Another indifferent shrug. Dont you want my business? Do you think
Im broke? And theyd said, Are you prepared to do business today, or are you just
looking?

Tank shook his head now at their
stupidity and the obscure shame hed felt. Anyhow, last weekend hed also
stopped off here in Frankston, and in the third caryard visited hed 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, hed 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.

Ill take it, he said, moments
later. As hed told Murph yesterday, hed negotiated the guy down in price by
$5000. What he hadnt told her was hed arranged a loan through the caryards
finance company.

We havent had time to register the
car in Victoria, the guy had said last weekend, its 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?

Lets see, yesterday was Friday.
No, it wasnt yesterday I saw her. I dont work on Fridays. It must have been
Thursday. Or Wednesday.

Pam was door knocking in an area
bounded by Katie Blaskos 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 Blaskos primary school. Short, round, cheery, anxious to
please, denseand, 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?

Im 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
youre 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?

Im 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. Im
wondering, she said, trying to conceal her irritation, if you recognise this
likeness of Katie Blasko precisely because youd encountered her at school
recently, helped her find a library book, perhaps, comforted her because shed
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 didnt know her name was
Katie, this was earlier in the week, so I was surprised when she waved to me.

Pam didnt try to sort through the
account. Her feet and back ached. Shed 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 didnt 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 dont 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.