Chain of Evidence Read online

  His father patted his wrist. Im a family solicitor, son, not a lawyer.

  Meg came in with a tray: blueberry muffins, teapot, mugs, milk and sugar. They ate, and presently the old man fell asleep. Challis and Meg chattered. Their father awoke and said, How long are you staying, son?

  Challis didnt know what to say. Until you die? He coughed. Theyve given me a month off, Dad.

  So please dont die after that time?

  Meg rescued him. Be glad hes here, Dad.

  Their father winked. She thinks Im dying.

  Challis barked an uncomfortable laugh.

  Then the old man entered one of the mood swings that had always kept Challis and Meg on their toes. Which way did you come? he demanded.

  Dad, said Meg warningly.

  Challis didnt visit very often, making the two-day car journey from his home on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria to Mawsons Bluff only once every two or three years, generally at Christmas time. He would break the drive in Adelaide or, if hed set out late, in Keith or Bordertown. There had been only two exceptions to that in the past decade: when his mother had died last spring, and when Megs husband had disappeared on a winters day five years earlier. On both occasions, Challis had flown to Adelaide and driven up in a hire car the same day.

  He considered lying now. It was his fathers fierce contention that Challis should always skirt Adelaide and detour via the Barossa Valley, which was beautiful wine-growing country settled by German immigrants in the 1800s. The old mans mother, Lottie Heinrich, had been born there. But Challis couldnt lie to him, and began to describe his route: through Adelaide, up into the wheat and sheep country of the mid-north, and eventually to Mawsons Bluff, in marginal country near the Flinders Ranges.

  His father began to shake his head. If hed had a walking stick hed have thumped it on the floor.

  How often have I told you, he said, avoid Adelaide, go through the Barossa. It saves time and petrol, and its safer.

  It was an old refrain, but it still had the power to churn Challis up inside. He had trouble breathing. He was having an asthma attack. He coughed and gasped, Be back in a sec

  He collected his bag from the hallway and took it through to his old bedroom. The inhalerrarely used these dayswas in a plastic zip case together with his comb, razor, toothbrush and painkillers. He took a hit from the inhaler, eyes closed, holding it in for a few seconds before gently exhaling.

  Miraculous.

  What he couldnt tell his father was that a feeling of wretchedness had settled in him as hed driven the long kilometres home. Hed cut himself off from his family, not been there to help when misfortune had come to them. And so, resolving to do more, hed stopped in Adelaide to consult the South Australia police file on Gavin Hursts disappearance. He couldnt tell his father that hed done that. The old man firmly believed that Gavin had simply left his car at the side of the road five years ago and walked out into the badlands to die. Hed loathed Gavin. Gavin was dead. Enough said. But Meg had evidence that Gavin was still alive, and Challis was determined to discover what had happened to him.

  * * * *

  6

  Kees van Alphen had returned to Waterloo and spread the unwelcome news about Nick Jarretts acquittal. Pam Murphy and John Tankard, coming off duty for the day, were sitting in his office, commiserating with him. It sucks, Sarge, Pam said. She leaned toward his desk. All that hard work down the drain.

  Yeah, Tankard said.

  Pam glanced at her partner. This was possibly the only time in history that she and Tank were in agreement on anything.

  Whod believe it? she asked.

  Yeah, Tankard said again.

  Van Alphen, the lean, wrathful son of Dutch immigrants, leaned his elbows on his desk. What have I told you two over and over again?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Pam muttered. Doesnt make it any better, Sarge.

  Constable, he said warningly.

  Sorry, Sarge.

  She didnt look or feel sorry but sat upright in one of van Alphens hard office chairs. She was twenty-eight, precisely put together, tanned from surfing and toned by jogging and the gym. Her mind was keen, too, shed been told, but shed never quite accepted that, for her father and brothers were university academics and shed been the youngest, a girl, mad about sport, average in the classroom.

  Ive said it before and Ill say it again, van Alphen said, your job is to help put a case together, help get the bastards into a courtroom. Your job is not to convict. Dont take it personally. Its not your fault Jarrett got off.

  We had a good case.

  He had a good lawyer.

  There was silence. Then Ellen Destry was in the doorway, a little breathless. Ive just got back from the city. I suppose youve heard about Nick Jarrett?

  Yeah, growled van Alphen, it stinks.

  Then Ellen was nodding at Pam and Tank. Thanks for your help today.

  Sorry we couldnt find her, Sarge, Tank said.

  I might need you both tomorrow, too, Ellen said, hurrying away again.

  When she was gone, John Tankard leaned forward, lowered his voice. Is she overreacting, Sarge?

  Van Alphen shrugged.

  Pam, feeling a surge of loyalty for Ellen Destry, glared at both men. You guys are incredible. This is a missing kid. What if shes been snatched? Maybe by this paedophile ring.

  Tank turned to her. What paedophile ring?

  On the Peninsula.

  They snatch kids off the street?

  Van Alphen stirred. Guys, its just a rumour. There have been no reports of abductions.

  Tank ignored him. So, if Katie Blasko was abducted, it could have been by someone from outside the area, not a local, not part of this ring.

  We dont know that there is a ring, Tank, van Alphen said. Just drop it, okay?

  Tank looked at Pam. Maybe someone with a holiday house down here?

  Who knows? she said, wondering why he was so fired up.

  Drop it, okay? van Alphen said sharply. Back to business. We need a car on the estate. The Jarretts could get rowdy.

  Pam and Tank stirred. Were off duty, Sarge.

  Were short-staffed, van Alphen countered. He leaned toward Pam and said, almost nastily, Do you good, some ordinary police work before you go off to holiday camp.

  She flushed. She hadnt told Tank yet. Tank went on full alert, his chair creaking under his agitated weight as he turned to her. What holiday camp?

  Pam gestured. Just some training thing I enrolled for.

  What training thing?

  Criminal investigation procedures, stuff like that.

  Tank wasnt buying it. His overheated face got hotter. Detective training? Youre becoming a dee?

  His tone said, Youre leaving me behind?

  Probably wont lead to anything, Pam said. No vacancies.

  Bull shit, said John Tankard, spittle flying. Youve got bloody Destry mentoring you. Youve been brown-nosing for years, dont deny it.

  Can it, Tank.

  Children, children, van Alphen said.

  * * * *

  DC Scobie Sutton had given Ellen Destry an update, and now he was heading across town to the Community House on Seaview Park estate. His wife volunteered there. Beth had once worked there, paid by the shire, but then the bastards had retrenched her. Sacked her in order to come in under budget, the budget blowing out because the shires various managers had voted they be outfitted with a fleet of Ford Territories, one of the thirstiest four-wheel-drives on the market. Meanwhile Beth and Scobie were down to one car, a tired Magna station wagon. They couldnt afford to run two cars now, so Scobie was forever running his wife and daughter around the Peninsula, trying to fit in Roslyns school and social activities, his wifes volunteering and his own CIU work. Scobie Sutton felt a kind of low-level indignation these days. Until his wifes sacking hed been like most decent churchgoing folk and never thought about social justice issues.

  A different kind of indignation took him on a detour into the blighted part of Seaview Park where the Jarretts live
d. News of Nick Jarretts acquittal had been all over the station and Scobie just wanted to sit and stare for a moment, as if that might cure him. He idled at the kerb: there were three cars crowding the patch of dirt that passed as the Jarretts front lawn, and he could feel the percussive force of a sound system at full volume. The Jarretts were celebrating. That usually meant escalating noise, violence and calls to 000.

  A couple of neighbours came out to stare at Scobie with mingled appeal and reproach. The Jarretts had made their lives a living hell, and what good had the police ever been?

  The Jarretts had once lived in Cranbourne, but their Housing Commission house had burnt to the groundsuspected arson, probably payback by someone theyd cheatedand the Commission had relocated them to Seaview Park estate, in Waterloo, which had no view of the sea and no park, only a hundred cheap houses elbow to elbow along bewilderingly curved streets or huddled together in blind culs-de-sac. This was a region of older cars, weedy front yards behind a range of mismatched fences, washing lines visible in back yards, and the occasional Australian flag hanging limply from a stubby pole. Families struggled on the Seaview, but it was generally an honest struggle. Unemployment was high, and the police were often called, but most residents did not rely on welfare or attract the attention of the authorities.

  Unlike the Jarretts. At last count there were twelve of them, an extended clan that included cousins, live-in girlfriends and boyfriends, half brothers and sisters, the odd uncle or grandmother. Scobie had never been able to sort them out. If they worked, it was at this and that. The children were more often shoplifting than attending school. Sons and husbands would disappear for a stretch of jail time and come home to find someone else in their beds. Ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, remembering some old insult or unpaid debt, would come around with a carload of mates to smash windows and kneecaps. Neighbours were burgled; there were drunken and drug-crazed arguments and brawls; hotted-up, unroadworthy cars performed burnouts in the narrow streets and ploughed over lawns, fences and letterboxes. Scobie had once been called out when a boyfriend or husband, making an access visit to his kids, had been attacked by his ex-wife, whod come storming out of the house with her new bloke and proceeded to bash the guy and his car with steel bars, the kids screaming, Dont kill my dad, dont kill my dad. Which didnt mean the kids were little angels. In fact, they scared Scobie the most. They were knowing and cold, and if not the sexual playthings of the adults, or addicts, they surely witnessed the adults having sex or out of their skulls on booze or speed.

  All in all, you didnt dare meet the eye of a Jarrett: you crossed the street or stayed indoors if a Jarrett was around. You didnt complain: It was never proven but theyd firebombed the house of a woman whod got up a petition against them.

  It hadnt taken long for public opinion on the estate to turn against the police. Scobie was sympathetic. The Jarretts should have been evicted long ago, but the Waterloo cop shop was understaffed, like many on the Peninsula, the Jarretts were cunning, and the younger constables found excuses to respond late, or not at all, to callouts to the Jarrett house. Meanwhile the Housing Commission bureaucrats lived in the city, not on the estate, and liked to say that they worked for a government that stood for the battlers in society. In their view the Jarretts paid their rent (more or less), hadnt trashed the house much), and were a struggling family deserving of charity, not criticism, from those who were luckier than they were. Besides, it was argued, the Commissions resources were stretched to the limit.

  Did they have a fleet of brand-new, fuel guzzling four-wheel-drives too? wondered Scobie.

  If Nick Jarrett had been convicted, he thought, we could have made a start on dismantling the whole clan. Pursued charges against the others, found decent homes for the kids, weakened Laurie Jarretts power base.

  Now theyd have to start all over again.

  Just then a marked patrol car pulled up behind him and tooted. He glanced in the mirror: Pam Murphy and John Tankard, here to watch the Jarrett house. Scobie waved and drove on to the Community Centre and there was his wife. Hello, love, she said, taking him away from all of the badness for a while.

  * * * *

  On the other side of Waterloo, Ellen Destry was asking Donna Blasko how she was coping.

  Im a wreck, Donna told her, all this coming and going.

  It must be hard, Ellen said. Have you thought any more about where Katie might have gone?

  Donna shook her head. Weve both been out searching.

  Yeah, said Justin Pedder, doing your job for you.

  Ellen ignored him. No ones seen anything? Heard anything?

  Donna shook her head. Maybe Katies trying to ride her bike to my mothers place.

  Ellen went very still. Bike. Why was she only just learning about a bike? Why hadnt it occurred to her that there would be a bike? Katie rides to school?

  Yeah.

  Can you describe the bike for me?

  Just a bike.

  A Malvern Star, said Justin. Gears, a pannier. I keep it in good nick for her.

  And Katie would have been riding her bike when she left school yesterday?

  Yes.

  Did she also have a helmet? A school bag?

  Donna nodded wretchedly. We looked everywhere. She can be a bit careless sometimes, you know how kids are, shes coming home from school and meets a friend and just dumps her stuff on the ground while she has a play, then comes home empty-handed. But no way would she leave her Tamagotchi on the footpath, it was her favourite thing in the whole world.

  * * * *

  Two streets away, Sasha was home. A cross between a Shi-Tzu and a Silky Terrier, with a squashed-in face and adenoidal breathing, Sasha was small, guileless and hairy. She didnt discriminate between humans, for all humans adored her. She sought them out. She sought warmth human and sun. When shed jumped into the Tarago van yesterday, it wasnt the first time shed done something like that. Last year shed travelled all over the Peninsula in the back of an electricians van, asleep under the guys spare overalls. When called on his mobile phone by Sashas owner, hed sworn black and blue that Sasha wasnt with him. The poor owner had gone out of his mind looking for Sasha, phoning the dog pound, the RSPCA, all the vets in the local phone book. Then, at the end of a long day, hed received a sheepish call from the electrician: Got your dog here, mate. Sorry.

  Everyone knew the story, and so, when an elderly woman who lived on Trevally Street saw Sasha jump out of an unfamiliar white van that Friday afternoon, she smiled indulgently and watched Sasha race home. The stories she could tell if she could talk, thought the old woman fondly. What adventures has she had this time?

  If Sasha had been able to talk, she might have revealed that she hadnt been fed for twenty-four hours. She also hadnt been loved for twenty-four hours. Her instincts had told her to cuddle up to the child, but the child had been asleep for most of the time. At one point Sasha had bared her teeth in protection of the child, had even drawn blood, and been kicked clear across the room for her pains.

  * * * *

  7

  Sitting in the patrol car outside the Jarrett house, John Tankard was thinking about life after Pam Murphy.

  He felt betrayed. Sure, he knew that hed often rubbed her up the wrong way, and she hadnt appreciated his clumsy attempts to get her to sleep with him over the years, but hed always counted her as an ally, one of the gang, us against themthem being ordinary citizens, crooks and senior police officers.

  Now she was leaving him behind, stepping over a line that would take her into the ranks of the enemy. He didnt know if he could work with anyone else. Would a new partner put up with his bullshit, or report him? Would a new partner watch his back? Console him when things got a bit rough, personally speaking?

  He shifted in his seat, half closed his eyes and gazed at the Jarretts wreck of a house. Three cars crowded the front yard: a rusting Toyota twin-cab, a little black Subaru and a lowered silver Mercedes with smoky windows. Just then, four Jarrett kids came out, boys, one of them saunteri
ng over to the front gate, where he turned and swiftly dropped his jeans. Pale, skinny shanks. Tank was furious. We can arrest him for that.

  Murphy said wearily, Leave it, Tank.

  Yeah, well, said Tank uselessly.

  Who at Waterloo did he like and trust apart from Pam? Some of the other constables were okay, guys you could have a beer with, but they came and they went. The plain-clothed crew, like Challis, Destry and Sutton, were a bit up themselves. Kellock and van Alphen were okay, old-school coppers crippled by the kinds of procedures and regulations that made it hard to do your job properly. Yeah, John Tankard had plenty of time for Kellock and van Alphen.