Whispering Death (25 page)

Given that he'd met Mara Niekirk, Challis was mildly curious. There was no answer when he called their home and business numbers. Meanwhile, Tank would be off-duty and asleep, so he called the witness who had reported the intruder.

Audrey Tremaine's voice was elderly, but clear and forceful. ‘Young, old, man, woman—it was too dark, Inspector.'

‘I'm surprised that Mr and Mrs Niekirk didn't report it.'

‘Been in Sydney all week. I called them last night and they said they'd catch the first flight back this morning.'

Challis rang off, ordered a crime-scene van to attend, then went looking for Pam Murphy. ‘Feel like checking out a break-in?'

‘I don't know—after a serial rapist the excitement might be too much for me.'

‘You'll manage.'

They clattered downstairs to the main corridor, encountering the usual crush of civilian collators, support staff and uniformed police, some idling at the water fountain or reading ‘for sale' notices, others banging in and out of doors with equipment or paperwork.

‘I expect we'll be taking your car, boss?'

The rat story had got around. ‘Very funny,' Challis said, making for the front desk to sign out the CIU car. He made his habitual scan of the people in the foyer. No familiar faces this morning, just honest citizens wanting a statutory declaration signed or reporting a missing wallet, but still managing to look shifty, a metamorphosis that afflicts everybody who walks into a police station, Challis thought.

He collected the key, joined Murphy in the car park. ‘You drive.'

She got behind the wheel, he into the passenger seat, watching as she jotted time and date in the logbook, set the trip meter to zero, adjusted the rear-view mirror, turned the ignition key. Then they were on the open road and she was flicking through the traffic without surging or braking, eyes everywhere at once. Her competence was palpable, he could see it in the way her driver training flowed through her body to the car and the road, taking in the world of potential hazards that slipped past her window. If he had a squad of Pam Murphys, his clear-up rate would double.

‘Boss?'

‘Yes?'

‘Are they going to sack you?'

‘Probably not,' he said slowly, as if giving it some thought. ‘I take it you've seen Tuesday's paper?'

‘Yes.'

It seemed clear to Challis that Jack Porteous and the
News-Pictorial
were playing one side against the other. Porteous had quoted Challis last week, to see what the reaction would be. This week he'd quoted senior police bureaucrats. He hadn't sought a reaction from Challis, just gone ahead and printed Force Command's weasel words. ‘Statistics show that in fact…blah, blah, blah.' ‘Changing times and changing priorities mean that policing methods must keep pace and blah, blah, blah.' And an acknowledgment that the pressures of the job did in fact put a strain on the work and domestic lives of certain police, such that they might develop a false perspective…Meaning, Challis thought, that one certain detective inspector was having a meltdown.

‘They're trying to discredit me,' he'd said to Ellen last night.

‘And they'll follow that with ostracism,' she said. ‘That's how it works.'

He said to Pam Murphy now, ‘Look, I embarrassed them, so they're huffing and puffing a bit. It's not as if I went on national television. It's not as if the Melbourne dailies are interested. It's local. But they still need to respond.'

‘They still need to reprimand you?'

Challis slumped in his seat. ‘Somehow or other, they will do that, yes. Wait and see, Murph, wait and see.'

‘If they drive you out, can I have your office?'

‘That's what I like about you Pamela, one hundred and ten per cent support.'

‘But seriously, what can they do?'

‘Who knows?'

‘Demote you?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Put you back in uniform and send you to the outback?'

‘Wouldn't have a clue.'

Pam Murphy wriggled behind the wheel, getting comfortable. ‘Think I'm getting the hang of formal crime-fighting language. “Who knows?” “Maybe.” “Wouldn't have a clue.” If I learn to use these expressions correctly, will it make me a better detective?'

Challis punched her lightly on the upper arm. ‘No one likes a smartarse.' He paused. ‘I understand that you asked the lab to check Muschamp's uniform for pollen traces.'

‘Yes,' she said tensely.

‘Sergeant Schiff was concerned about running over budget.'

‘So you're not going to authorise it, is that what you're saying? Sir?'

‘Settle down, Constable. It was a good call, I signed off on it.'

Murphy subsided. ‘Sorry, it's just that she got a bit pissed off with me, said pollen is pollen, it might indicate he was at one of the crime scenes but not that he did anything.'

‘Murph, it was a good call. That's how cases are built, one plank at a time. Or grain.'

She nodded. The car rode with the sun behind it. ‘So, tell me, why are we investigating a break-in?'

‘The Niekirks cropped up in another case recently.'

Challis told Murphy about the Bristol Beaufighter, its questionable provenance and seizure by the government. She laughed. ‘Who'd call an old plane “whispering death”? They all sound like lawnmowers.'

‘I've noticed this about you, Constable Murphy: you have absolutely no regard for heritage values.'

‘That's right. So these people, the Niekirks, would have a house full of expensive art and antiques?'

‘I guess so.'

‘I'd better add that to my list of crime-fighting terms: “I guess so.”'

‘Next left,' said Challis. ‘Look for a sign saying “Lindisfarne”.'

Pam Murphy made the turn onto Goddard Road, hand over hand on the steering wheel, her upper body leaning with the motion, and in that brief moment Challis saw her collar gape, saw a fading love bite. Who? The car shuddered on dust corrugations and pebbles pinged inside the wheel arches. Then the sign and a pair of massive gateposts.

Pam turned in, through to a big house on the other side of a cypress hedge. Eyeing it, Challis said, ‘You might call it ugly.'

‘But pretentious.'

‘…And yet so much worse inside.'

A crime scene van was parked on the driveway, two young men beside it, wearing bulky blue oversuits and white overshoes, aluminium equipment cases in their gloved hands. Confronting them was a man dressed in a short woollen coat over black trousers and leather shoes, while, closer to the house, a young woman whom Challis recognised as the nanny was unbuckling a child from the rear seat of a big BMW. Standing back, watching the confrontation, was Mara Niekirk, carrying a purse and an open-topped bag. Soft toys, disposable nappies, the edge of a blanket.

Challis and Murphy approached, Challis calling, ‘Is there a problem?'

The man swung around. Tall, fair, late forties, handsome in a blockish, retired-footballer way. A bony nose, sleepless eyes, a crooked front tooth. ‘Who the hell are you?'

Challis gave his name, Murphy's name, and shot out his hand. ‘You must be Mr Niekirk. We're sorry to hear about the break-in.'

The anger evaporated, but Niekirk was tense. ‘Not much of a break-in. Intruder, that's all. No need for this lot—' he gestured at the crime scene officers ‘—to trample over everything.'

Sometimes it helped to play one person off against another. ‘Hello, Mrs Niekirk.' Challis smiled past the man's shoulder. ‘I'm sorry we have to meet in unfortunate circumstances again.'

A tight smile. ‘Except that last time you didn't tell me you were a policeman.'

Challis made an apologetic gesture. ‘I was there strictly as a civilian.'

Warren Niekirk was frowning, a step behind the conversation. ‘You two know each other?'

His wife explained, and he turned to Challis with an expression of frustration. ‘I bought that plane fair and square and—'

Challis didn't want to get into it. ‘I'm sorry, both of you, but I'm afraid we do need to investigate. A report was made, and the police were called to your house, and someone was seen exiting through the front door, carrying a bag of some kind. We'll dust for prints, have a quick look around, and be out of your hair in no time.'

‘I've looked,' Warren Niekirk said. ‘Nothing was stolen or broken.'

Mara Niekirk gave her husband a complicated glance, then turned to Challis and said, ‘We have no objections.'

‘We'll be quick. Perhaps you could both walk us through the house first, show us to where you keep your valuables.'

Then the nanny was standing there hand-in-hand with the child, looking on avidly. Mara Niekirk, her face and voice tight, said, ‘Tayla, please, she's been cooped up in a plane. Why don't you take her over there to play for a while.'

‘Sorry, Mrs Niekirk, of course.'

The nanny wheeled around and trotted with the child towards a distant swing set.

‘Hasn't the sense she was born with,' Mara Niekirk said apologetically.

‘Uh huh,' said Challis. ‘Shall we go inside?'

‘If you think it will do any good.'

They entered the house. Challis found himself walking through a series of sterile rooms. It was as if the decorators had looked at a set of plans and phoned in some suggestions. Not even the presence of a child had softened the place. He could feel the hand of absolute control at work, admonishing, whisking away crumbs, allocating chores.

Meanwhile the Niekirks were looking about keenly: at walls and shelves, into drawers and cabinets.

‘Nothing's missing.'

‘No damage anywhere.'

Then the bedrooms, and Challis realised that husband and wife slept apart. ‘You had something hanging on that wall,' he said, in Mara Niekirk's bedroom.

An empty hook. ‘Oh, that? We're always hanging and rehanging things. I don't like static decorations, do you? I'm still wondering what to hang there.'

Then they were back on the veranda. ‘What about small items? Jewellery, iPods?'

‘As far as I can tell, nothing was taken,' Mara Niekirk said.

‘Even so, my officers will need to dust for prints.'

The last straw for Warren Niekirk. ‘Is that really necessary? Whoever it was would have worn gloves, and they were disturbed before they could take anything.'

Ignoring him, Challis said, ‘The back door is down this way, I believe?'

He led the way around the veranda, glancing at windows and doors, glancing up, leaving eddies of frustration in his wake. Reaching the alarm box, he asked, ‘Does this bench belong here?'

With an air of reluctance, Mara Niekirk said, ‘Well spotted. It used to be over there.' She pointed to a spot further along the veranda.

‘Dust it,' Challis told the crime scene technicians. ‘Dust the alarm box, the front door and the most likely interior surfaces.'

‘Oh for God's sake,' Warren Niekirk said. ‘That'll take hours.'

39

It did take hours. When the Niekirks were alone again and Tayla was somewhere in the house, doing whatever it was that nannies did, Mara Niekirk slapped her husband's face. ‘Are you out of your tiny mind?'

He screwed up his handsome features in concentration, but the question defeated him. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Mister Lord of the Manor, antagonising the cops. Do you want them to suspect us of something?'

‘But you said yourself the Arkley might be a fake,' said Warren, sulky and aggrieved, ‘and that inspector guy noticed straight off the Klee was missing. What, do you
want
them poking their noses in?'

Mara closed her eyes, rocking with pain. The Klee. A twenty-first birthday present from Grandfather Krasnov and her most treasured possession. She knuckled away the tears and fed the rage. ‘Wouldn't
normal
people want the police to investigate if they'd been burgled? Moron.'

They were in the kitchen, the coffee pot bubbling. Mara had been dying for coffee all morning but no way was she going to make any while the cops were present, obliging her to offer them some. She especially hated the young detective, Murphy. She had that lithe, sporty look Warren liked. I bet she wears a jogging bra and white Bonds, thought Mara. I bet she drinks after-work beers with her male colleagues, and she calls them ‘mate'.

‘Something happened here,' she continued. ‘There was a break-in. Witnesses, a formal report. The police
have
to investigate, it's what they do. And what
we
do is play the role of victims. But no, you have to antagonise them.'

A gorgeous fuckwit, her husband. It always felt good giving him a tongue-lashing, and God knows she'd done it often enough over the years. Mara's eyes filled with tears again, pain and rage. Late morning, and she wondered if coffee was going to do the trick. What she needed was a stiff drink.

Thinking about it further, she saw one central reason why the police had made a big deal of the break-in: Warren and his damn plane. He'd tried to play the big shot wheeler-dealer, and where had it got them? Unwelcome attention not only from the Federal Government but now also a local police inspector. Of course the man was going to prick up his ears when he heard the name ‘Niekirk' again. Otherwise the break-in wouldn't have attracted much police attention at all.

She scowled at her husband. Be careful what you wish for, she told herself, for the millionth time. She'd wished, five years earlier, for a good-looking hunk to hang on her arm, and that's exactly what she'd got—but God, the brains of a gnat.

She paused. What had Warren wished for, back when he was courting her? Her family connections, a whiff of the arts? He should have stuck to real estate and sleeping with teenage girls. He had absolutely no eye for quality, only cheap effects. For example, she'd slaved to create a garden that would be visited by tourists, talked about, photographed for the glossy magazines, and did he know the name of a single plant?