Challis - 03 - Snapshot Read online

  Ellen entered the kitchen and found her husband at the kitchen table, in uniform, eating breakfast, wound hard with frustration and grievances. Have you seen the power bill?

  She hadnt. Shed dumped it unopened and forgotten in the little cane bowl beside the phone at the end of the kitchen bench, where all the bills and junk mail ended up. She poured muesli and soymilk into a bowl. How much is it for?

  Only almost double what it was for the same period last year, Alan said.

  He actually grabbed a fistful of bills and credit card statements and shook them at her. With just the two of us living here I thought our costs would decrease, he said.

  He was a solid man, close to being fleshy from all those hours spent sitting in a patrol car. Hed been transferred to the Accident Investigation Squad recently, but for many years before that had worked Traffic. He always tanned up a little over summer, looked healthier, but in winter his gingery fairness went a shade too pale, an unhealthy paleness. Not for the first time, Ellen wondered why she stayed with him, for theirs had long been a loveless marriage. And what did he get out of it? The sex was perfunctory, they didnt nourish one another and they always bickered. It would be easy for them to separate, now that Larrayne no longer lived at home or depended on them.

  But it would destroy him if she left. Hed be helpless and hopeless. That was no reason for staying with him, but it made the first step towards leaving him difficult.

  He narrowed his pouchy eyes as she sat opposite him with her muesli and a mug of coffee. Have you ever left the heater switched on during the day?

  She had, two or three or maybe a dozen times this winter. No, she said emphatically.

  Liar. Then he was doubtful. Maybe its the meter, giving a false reading.

  It has been a cold winter so far, she said, and, as if to reinforce the observation, the foghorns boomed from Westernport Bay.

  So?

  I think we should install central heating.

  Weve been through this.

  We? Theres no we, Ellen thought. And if Im serious about leaving him, why am I thinking about installing central heating? Is it because Im assuming Ill get the house? Whoa, she thought, youre getting ahead of yourself.

  Another thing, Alan said, sometimes you sit there with the heater on and a window open. How stupid is that? Its like trying to heat not only the room but also the rest of Australia.

  Central heating.

  No.

  A stupid, futile, demeaning squabble, symptomatic of her husbands simple but dangerous failings and grievances, which boiled down to two things: hed failed his sergeants exam, and his wife had been fast-tracked because she was a woman.

  The phone rang and Alan sprang for it, listened, said curtly. Shes got a morning off, sorry, and banged the handset down.

  Who was it?

  Challis.

  Jesus, Alan.

  Ellen picked up the phone and dialled Challiss mobile. Hal, Im sorry

  He cut her off, telling her that the supers daughter-in-law had been murdered and outlining the circumstances. Ill set up an incident room and brief everyone at lunchtime. Meanwhile I need you to sniff around Bayside Counselling: get a feel for Janine McQuarrie and the people she worked with, see if her diary or calendar tell you anything about her movements today.

  Ill take Scobie with me.

  If hes finished in court.

  * * * *

  6

  Scobie Sutton stifled a yawn; he was sitting in the Frankston Magistrates Court, a thin man with the look of a mournful preacher. Heather Cobb was appearing this morning on drugs charges and Scobie, whod arrested her, was there to ensure that she wouldnt go to jail.

  It had started two weeks ago, when hed been called to a Waterloo primary school. At show-and-tell that morning Sherry Cobb, barely nine years old, had presented the class with a marijuana plant in a plastic pot. Scobies interview with the child, and subsequent visit to her home, had uncovered a typical story of poverty, addiction and neglect. There were five children in the Cobb family, ranging in age from three to eighteen; father in jail; mother an alcoholic. They lived in a two-bedroom weatherboard shack between the railway line and a timber yard.

  Now, in the Frankston Magistrates Court, Scobie glanced at Natalie Cobb. She was the eighteen-year-old, in Year 12, wagging school today to provide moral support for her mother. When hed first gone to question Heather Cobb, Natalie had been there, dressed in a tracksuit and slumped in front of the TV. She was a fine looking young woman, but it was two oclock in the afternoon and she should have been at school. Today she looked not eighteen but twenty-eight, and as poisedin her best clothes, not her school uniformas any of the young female lawyers you saw around the Magistrates Court. Natalie smiled at her mother, then gave Scobie a complicated look.

  Complicated girl, Scobie thought.

  The cases droned by, and then it was Heathers turn. As expected, the magistrate let her off with a caution. While I accept that you didnt grow the plant, Mrs Cobb, you nevertheless allowed your premises to be used for the cultivation of marijuana.

  Heather, dressed in a thin summer dress and ragged parka, glanced worriedly at Scobie through pouchy eyes. He smiled at her, nodded, and mouthed the word sorry to her across the courtroom.

  Heather brightened, brushed a greasy comma of hair away from her eyes, and looked confidently at the magistrate. She told him how sorry she was, it would never happen again, the man whod grown the plants was a bully and shed been scared of him, but he was in prison in Brisbane now, and no way was she going to let him back into her life.

  She means it, too, Scobie thought.

  Outside afterwards, Heather Cobb trembled as her tensions eased. Mr Sutton, I dont know how to thank you.

  Thats okay, Scobie said. It was a good result.

  The magistrate listened to your recommendations, Natalie said. You swung it for us. Thanks, she said, and pecked him on the cheek.

  He blushed. My wife knows you. The youth club on the estate?

  Natalie looked guarded. Mrs Sutton, the social worker? Shes your wife?

  Damn, Scobie thought. I should have kept my big trap shut. If Natalie refuses to work with Beth as a result, Ill have set back community relations and all of my wifes good work.

  A small van pulled into the kerb, the driver tooting. Got to go, Natalie said. See ya, Mr Sutton. See ya, Mum.

  Boyfriend, Heather Cobb said, watching the van peel away.

  Somehow Scobie didnt think the boyfriend was taking Natalie back to school. His mobile rang. It was Ellen Destry. You finished?

  Yes.

  I need you back here, she said, but didnt explain.

  Come on, he said to Heather, Ill give you a lift home.

  * * * *

  7

  Tessa Kane had heard about the murder at 9.45 a.m., a call from an ambulance officer, one of her many contacts. Shed immediately rung Hal Challis, but he was apparently out of the station and not answering his mobile phoneor not to her, at any rate. Ellen Destry and Scobie Sutton werent available. And nobody else at the Waterloo police station would talk to her. She felt frantic for thirty minutes, then asked herself what the point was. She published a weekly paper: the dailies would have all the scoops on this story, and shed have to be content with an overview in next Tuesdays edition, when no doubt the case would be long closed.

  And then, at 11 a.m., Challis returned her call, suggesting they meet for coffee. Five minutes later she was walking down High Street to Cafe Laconic, where she sat at a window table, looking out at the canopied, unoccupied footpath tables, a public phone booth and a plane tree. There had been a dense fog all morning, but it had lifted here on High Street, as if burnt off by human endeavour. Tessa drew her coat tighter around her shoulders and glanced at the corkboard on the adjacent wall: this weeks program at the drive-in cinema in Dromana, a couple of garage salesshe loved garage salesa scattering of business cards and a federal election poster eighteen months out of date.

  Then a waiter was sta
nding there, looking appreciatively at her legs, stockinged today, slim and dark under a skirt. She normally wore jeans or trousers, but liked to dress up on Tuesdays, publication day.

  What can I get you?

  She smiled. Nothing just yet, thanks. Im waiting for a friend.

  Fair enough, the waiter said, and went behind the counter again, a slab of jarrah fronted by corrugated iron. There was wood and iron everywhere, she noticed, her eyes alighting on the election poster again. Her vote had made no difference back then. She came from a family of Labor voters, but Labor had long ago sold out on the things that mattered to her: social justice issues and an independent foreign policy. Back when Labor first showed signs of decline, shed voted Communist a few times, to register her protest, but Communism was a spent force. Now she voted Green, for the Greens actually held values and beliefs, unlike Labor. Shed probably call herself Red-Green, like the political movement in Germany, favouring both social justice reforms and green reforms. Unfortunately the Greens were widely seen as tree-huggersand indeed there were plenty for whom that was as far as their beliefs extended. Shed never vote Liberal or Democrat, and would never again vote Labor, the party whose ex-prime ministers were now millionaires, its ex-senators and ministers into tax evasion and cozying up to the richest men in Australia.

  She was sitting there getting quietly steamed up when the lean frame of Hal Challis passed by the window. Theirs was a complicated relationship. Theyd been lovers for a while, things fading away rather than ending convincingly. Now she saw him at press conferences and at times like this, when they exchanged information.

  Not that it mattered any more, but she wondered if he felt free of his wife yet. Angela Challis was dead, but that didnt mean she was dead in Challiss heart. It had been a huge story at the time, for Challiss wife had started an affair with another policeman, the pair of them luring Challis to a lonely rendezvous on a back road one night, intending to kill him. The attempt had failed and Challiss wife had been jailed for conspiracy to murder. But instead of divorcing her, washing his hands of her, Challis had felt obscurely responsible, as if hed failed Angela, driven her to taking drastic action. Hed gradually stopped loving herso he saidbut for years had let her call and write to him from prison, let her talk out her guilt and regret. Move on, Hal, people had said, and God knows Tessa herself had said it often enough, but hed not moved on, and whenever she was with him hed seemed disengaged, sad.

  And then last year Angela Challis had killed herself in the prison infirmary. Tessa had taken heart. Shed not rushed Challis, not jumped for joy, but been patient, kind and commiserative. Where had that got her? Exactly nowhere. Challis had grown more disconnected, as though the guilt he felt had not disappeared but compounded itself. Eventually shed stopped seeing him, stopped waiting, but for a long while the whole business had been a permanent ache inside her, composed of loss and emptiness.

  Shed known that he was struggling. Back when theyd slept together Challis had too often scurried off home afterwards, or the next morning, as if he had to clear his head. He seemed to want her, then feel crowded, compounded by a desire not to hurt her or lead her on.

  Anyway, that was Tessas two-dollar analysis. She thought all of these things in the time it took for him to spot her, smile, cross the room and kiss her cheek. He pulled out a chair and sat. Their knees banged together; they moved apart politely, almost automatically.

  This is a privilege, she said, morning coffee with you in a trendy cafe.

  As trendy as Waterloo gets, anyway.

  She studied his face. You look tired.

  Its a nasty one, he said, and told her all he knew. She made notes, trying not to be distracted when his sleeve rode up, revealing a bony wrist and a centimetre of crisp white shirt. Normally she hated white shirts, but Challis was suited to them, with his leanness, and the olive cast of his skin.

  What happens next?

  We speak to the child.

  Could I speak to her?

  Challis said tiredly, McQuarrie would never allow it. Shes too young, and he doesnt like you.

  She smiled ruefully. McQuarrie had friends in Rotary, local businessmen who didnt want a local newspaper that was left-wing and edited by a woman.

  But you wont keep me out of the loop, Hal?

  He shook his head.

  Of course, you might solve it this afternoon, she muttered, and this time next week it will be stale news and no good to me.

  He gave her a twisted grin. So write another story like the one on well-mannered and well-run suburban orgies, where theres no time imperative.

  Yeah, yeah, rub it in.

  People look at me oddly, kind of smirkingly, Challis said, as if Im still involved with you and were always having kinky sex.

  Poor you. She stared at him challengingly. Arent you going to ask me what it was like?

  He shook his head. Your article pretty much covered it. Apart from a mild titillation, it left me unmoved. And its hardly a police matter, not unless any of the players are underage.

  She sighed. Ive had so much crank mail, my heads spinning. Distributions up, but advertising is down.

  Crank mail in addition to the other stuff?

  By other stuff he meant a string of hate mail shed been receiving for the past few months, along with anonymous phone calls and hang-ups, messages in soap smeared across her windscreen, and on one occasion a rock heaved through the glass panel of her front door. It all seemed to be the work of one man, who called her a bitch and said shed get what was coming to her, one day soon. There hadnt been much that the police could do about it.

  It will all blow over eventually, she said.

  What else are you working on?

  The detention centre.

  But isnt it being phased out?

  Tessa shrugged. Very few asylum seekers were left in the Waterloo centre. Most of the detainees now incarcerated there had breached or overstayed their visas, and were quickly processed and repatriated. But Tessa, in her role as editor of the Progress, had been critical of the centre from the outset, in the face of massive local apathy, and wanted one last shot at Charlie Mead, the manager. There are still abuses there, Hal.

  She paused. It looks like Ill be moving on.

  He looked at her quizzically. Moving on?

  Theyre pulling the plug on me. The sex-party story was the last straw.

  She explained. Challis knew some of the details. The Progress was owned by a wealthy man who had a social conscience and tolerated Tessas stance on most issues. What Challis didnt know was the man also leaned towards the Christian right and was furious with her for attending the sex party and writing about it. Ive got three months of my contract left.

  Challis squeezed her hand and let it go. Youll be missed, he said.

  Ill be missed, or youll miss me? Which is it, Hal?

  Both.

  She sighed. I thought about you the other day. I was out at the airfield doing a story and had a peek at your Dragon, hoping to find you working on the engine or something.

  Neither the plane nor its restoration had meant much to her, when she was seeing Challis, but theyd clearly meant something to him, and his obsession with such an arcane interest had been oddly appealing at the time.

  Im thinking of selling it.

  No! Why?

  I havent worked on it since Kitty was shot. It feels like bad luck.

  Hal, Ive never heard you talk like that before.

  Ill take up golf with McQuarrie instead, he said.

  He grinned, but didnt mean the grin and she didnt return it.

  Then he was on his feet and planting a kiss beside her ear. Id better get back, he said.

  When he was gone, she stayed in Cafe Laconic for a while, checking messages on her mobile phone. Then, on a whim, she tried the detention centre again, and twenty seconds later, against all odds, was put through to Charlie Mead, who for months had been unavailable. How did you get this number? he demanded.

  She frowned. Your secretary swi
tched me through.

  Shes a temp, stupid cow. What can I do for you?

  Now that the centre is winding back its operations, I thought it would be a good time to run a survey article.

  The usual crap? Riots, self-mutilation, bullying guards?

  Well, you were never available to give me the other point of view, Mr Mead, Tessa said carefully.

  Sure, why not, one-thirty this afternoon.

  Unbelievable. Tessa returned to her office, forgetting all about Challis.