Challis - 04 - Chain of Evidence

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Chain of Evidence

[Inspector Challis 04]

By Garry Disher

Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

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1

Down
here in Victoria he was the Rising Stars Agency, but hed been Catwalk Casting
up in New South Wales, and Model Miss Promotions in Queensland before that.
Pete Duyker figured that he had another three months on the Peninsula before
the cops and the Supreme Court caught up with him again, obliging him to move
on.

Gorgeous, he said, firing off a
few shots with the Nikon that had no film in it but was bulky and
professional-looking, and emitted all of the expected clicks and whirs. For his
other work he was strictly digital.

The mother simpered. Yeth, she
said, reminding Pete of that old Carry On movie, the doctor with his stethoscope
saying Big breaths and the tarty teenager in his consulting room saying, Yeth,
and Im only thixteen. He fired off a few more shots of the womans
five-year-old. The brats lank hair scarcely shifted in the breeze on the top
of Arthurs Seat, the waters of the bay and the curve of the Peninsula
spreading dramatically behind her, the smog-hazed towers of Melbourne faintly
visible to the northwest. Just gorgeous, he reiterated, snapping away.

She wasnt gorgeous. That didnt
matter. Plenty of them
were
gorgeous, and had factored in to his plans
over the years. This one had skinny legs, knobbly knees, crooked teeth and a
ghastly pink gingham outfit. It hadnt taken Pete very long to figure out that
a mothers love is blind, her ambition for her youngster boundless.

Golden, Pete said now, fitting a
wide-angle lens from one of his camera bags, the bag satisfyingly battered and
worn, a working photographers gear. That last shot was golden.

The mother beamed, a bony anorexic
in skin-tight jeans, brilliant white T-shirt, huge, smoky shades and
high-heeled sandals, her nod to the springtime balminess here on the Peninsula.
Hers was the ugly face of motherhood, the greed naked. She was seeing a
portfolio of flattering shots of her kid and the television work that would
flow from it, all for a once-only, up-front charge of $395 plus a $75
registration fee. In about a weeks time shed start to get antsy and call his
mobile, but Pete had several mobile phones, all of them untraceable clones and
throwaways.

He looked at his watch. Hed led her
to believe that he had to rush back to Melbourne now, to update a clients
portfolio, the kid who played little Bethany in that Channel 10 soap, A Twist
in Time.

Youll hear from me by next Friday,
he lied.

Thankth, said the mother as the
kid scratched her calf and Pete Duyker drove off in his white Tarago van,
erasing them from his mind.

The time was 2.45, a Thursday
afternoon in late September. The primary school in Waterloo got out at 3.15, so
he was cutting it fine. There was always Friday, and the weekend, but the
latter was risky, and besides, the impulse was on him now, fine and urgent, so
it had to be today.

He drove on, heading across to the
Westernport side of the Peninsula, winding through townships and farmland, many
of the hillsides terraced with vineyards and orchards. Not entirely unspoilt,
he thought, spotting an ugly great faux-Tuscan mansion, and here and there
whole stands of gum trees looked dead. Pete racked his brains: dieback it was
called. Some kind of disease. But the thought didnt dent his equilibrium, not
on such a clear, still day, the air perfumed and the Peninsula giddy with
springtime growth all around him: orchard blossom, weeds, tall grass going to
seed beside the road, the bottlebrush flowering.

He reached the coastal plain and
soon he was in Waterloo. Pete was a bit of a sociologist. He liked to get the
feel of a place before he went active, and he already knew Waterloo to be a
town of extremes: rich and poor, urban and rural, privileged and disadvantaged.
You didnt see the wealthy very often. They lived in converted farmhouses or
architectural nightmares a few kilometres outside town or on bluffs overlooking
the bay. The poor lived in small brick and weatherboard houses behind the towns
couple of shopping streets, and in newer but still depressing housing estates
on the towns perimeter. You didnt see the poor buying ride-on mowers, reins
and bridles, lucerne hay or $30 bottles of the local pinot noir: they ate at
McDonalds, bought Christmas presents in the $2 shops, drove huge old
inefficient V8s. They didnt cycle, jog or attend the gym but presented to the
local surgeries with long-untreated illnesses brought on by bad diets, alcohol
and drug abuse, or injuries from hard physical labour in the nearby refinery or
on some rich guys boutique vineyard. They were the extremes. There were a lot
of people who ticked over nicely, thank you, because the state or local
governments employed them, or because rich and poor alike depended on them.

Earlier in the week Pete had driven
into town via the road that skirted the mangrove flats, but today he drove
right through the centre of Waterloo, slowly down High Street, reflecting,
spotting changes and tendencies, making connections. He wouldnt mind betting
the new gourmet deli might flourish, but wasnt surprised to see For Sale signs
in the camping and electronic shops, not with a new K-Mart in the next block.
It made him mad, briefly. His instincts were to support the little man.

He drove on, passing a couple of
pharmacies, a health food shop, bakery, ANZ bank, travel agency, Salvation Army
op-shop, the library and shire offices, and finally High Street opened onto the
foreshore reserve: extensively treed parkland, picnic tables, skateboard ramps,
a belt of mangroves skirting the bay, and an area given over to the annual
Waterloo Show, not busy today but all of the rides and sideshows would be in
full swing on the weekend.

Pete passed the Show, making for the
far end of the reserve, where he parked beside a toilet block that hed scouted
out earlier in the week: grimy brick, odiferous, no disguising what it was. He
went in, checked that he was alone, and changed into a grey wig, grey paste-on
moustache, white lab coat and black horn rims with clear lenses. Then he drove
to Trevally Street and parked where the sunlight through the plane trees cast
transfiguring patterns over himself and his van. He wasnt a smoker, but had
been known to toss other mens cigarette butts at a scene, to throw off the
cops.

Now Pete waited. He waited by the
vans open door, a clipboard in his hand. Time passed. Maybe she had detention,
or after-school care, or was dawdling on the playground. He walked to the
corner and back. Surely shed be along soon, dreamily pumping the pedals of her
bike, helmet crooked on her gleaming curls, backpack bumping against her downy
spine.

Of course, she might not come, but
twice now hed watched her take this detour after school. Rather than ride
straight home she had made her way along Trevally and down to the waterfront
reserve, to the magic of the Waterloo Show, with its dodgem cars, Ferris wheel,
the Mad Mouse ride, the Ghost Train, fairy floss on a stick. The Show was a
magnet to all kinds of kids, but Pete had chosen only one kid. He paced up and
down, the van door partly open, listening to the bees in some nearby roses.

But then she appeared. Just as hed
imagined. He stood and waited as she approached.

Finally she was upon him and he
stepped into her path, saying, Your mum was taken ill. She wants me to take
you to her.

She gave him a doubting frown, and
quite rightly, too, but his lab coat spelt doctor, nurse or ambulance officer,
and he was counting on her natural impulse to be at her mothers side. Its
all right, he said, glancing both ways along the street, hop in. If
necessary, hed show her the fish-gutting knife.

She dismounted prettily from the
bike and her slender fingers played at her arched throat, undoing the buckle of
her helmet. Pete was overcome. When she got into a fluster with the helmet, her
backpack and a small electronic toy she had hanging from a strap around her
neck, he itched to help her get untangled.

Would you like a drink? he said,
when she was buckled into the seatbelt and bike, bag and helmet were on board.
Theyd both forgotten the toy, which lay on the grassy verge alongside a
crooked brick fence. Lemonade, he explained, shaking an old sports drink
bottle. Do you like lemonade?

She took the bottle. He watched the
motions of her throat. Thirsty girl, he said approvingly.

He started the engine. He could see
that she would start to fret before the Temazepam took effect. Shed want to
know where her mother was and where he was taking her.

But, astoundingly, that didnt happen
this time. Oh, what a cute puppy, she gushed.

Puppy? What puppy? Pete followed her
gaze, and sure enough, some mutt of a dog lay curled on the old sleeping bag he
kept in the back, one drowsy eye on the girl. It beat its tail sleepily, gave a
shuddering sigh.

Must have jumped in when my back was
turned, Pete thought. He assessed things rapidly. If he ejected the dog now, hed
upset the girl. The dog would ease the girls mind. Ergo...

Where are you taking me?

To see your mum.

Frown. But she went up to
Melbourne, the kid said, as if shed only just remembered it. To the races.
Shell be back late.

She had an accident on the freeway,
Pete said.

The girl didnt buy it. Let me out,
she mumbled, already feeling the Temazepam.

They were clear of the leafy grove
by now and on the access road, with cars, kids wobbling home on their bikes and
a knot of people yarning and eating ice creams at the bench seats outside the
only corner shop in this part of Waterloo. Pete concentrated. The girl, fading
rapidly, turned heavy eyes to her side window and mouthed Help me at Mrs
Elliott, the library aide at her school, who had stopped by for a litre of
milk. Mrs Elliott gave her a cheery wave and disappeared, and soon Pete had,
too.

That was Thursday.

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2

Friday
was Sergeant Ellen Destrys first morning stretched out in Inspector Hal
Challiss bed. Challis wasnt in the bed, but she lay there convinced that some
trace or imprint of him lingered.

Six oclock, according to the
bedside clock, and sufficiently light outside for her customary walk, but to
hell with that. She closed her eyes, giving herself up to daydreams and
fugitive sensations, and the real world retreated. Challiss house was an
old-style Californian bungalow on two acres of grass along a dirt back road a
few kilometres inland of Waterloo, and hed asked her to mow the grass while he
was away, for the spring growth was particularly rampant this year, but the
mowing could wait. The final summations in the Supreme Court trial of Nick
Jarrett were expected later, but not until early afternoon. And so Ellen Destry
lay there, barely moving.

The next thing she knew it was 8.30
and she was awakening from a dream-filled, stupefying sleep. Her limbs were
heavy, head dense, and surroundings alien. She groaned. When she moved it was
sluggishly, and she couldnt figure out how to adjust the shower temperature.
She dozed under the stream of water, and then remembered that Challiss house
ran on rainwater, not mains water, so she cut the shower short. Stop the
world, I want to get off, she said to the misted mirror. Her neck wound looked
raw and nasty, even though it had happened months ago, a graze from a hired
killers 9 mm Browning.