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  ‘We’re in the process of following several leads,’ Challis said flatly.

  ‘What does that mean, “in the process?” The processes of the Victoria Police don’t withstand much scrutiny, in my opinion.’

  Challis had sympathy with some of Hindmarsh’s publicly expressed criticism of the police. Surely when you chose to be a police officer you were making a profoundly simple vow to yourself and the world to be one of the good guys? Challis knew all the arguments-that most police officers were honest and hardworking, but a handful were bound to burn out, err or act dishonestly because they were only human, the work was nasty enough to turn anyone’s mind, and like all large organisations the force was open to nepotism and inefficiency-but he thought there was a limit to how far you could push that line. He was capable of turning a blind eye, even of tweaking legalities a little, so long as justice was served and no one got hurt, but he was beginning to believe that only a kind of cultural rottenness in the police force explained the growing instances of bullying, cronyism, sexism, racial thuggery, homophobia and resistance to change. Not to mention plain old criminal activity. Sure, Ollie Hindmarsh liked to use these instances to political advantage, but they were real, not beat-ups.

  Not that Challis would ever say any of this. Wishing McQuarrie were not so gutless, he gazed steadily at Hindmarsh, fixing on the man’s fierce, hooked face.

  It was the face of an outraged but boozy prophet. Hindmarsh, big and barrelly, fifty years old and a womanising ex-league footballer and Army veteran, was an anachronism in a world of sleek lawyers and publicists. He’d been known to fiddle his expense account, assault reporters and photographers, and harass the young women who worked for him. A union basher, a hawk in military matters and suspicious of immigrants, he was the kind of stern father figure that most Australians-despite their veneer of cheery individualism and non-compliance-yearned for.

  And there were plenty of men like Hindmarsh around. Challis met them from time to time, and had a pretty fair understanding of what formed them. They were often born into money, but not necessarily love and intimacy. They’d be sent to exclusive boys-only boarding schools which filled that void with a competitive and repressive masculinity, and where the few women they ever saw had teaching, nursing or servant roles. No wonder they went on to become aggressive and autocratic CEOs and politicians, driven to succeed but also aloof, insecure and blinkered.

  Challis himself had had two encounters with Hindmarsh. He was sitting in a Qantas jet one Monday morning, about to fly to Sydney to extradite a woman wanted for murder, when Ollie boarded. He’d delayed taking his seat at the head of the plane and remained standing for several long minutes, so that everyone saw and recognised him. And during a charity dinner in the Waterloo town hall a month later, Challis had gone looking for the men’s room in a warren of corridors and found Ollie screaming into the face of a waiter: ‘Do you know who I am? I’ve half a mind to grab you and run you against a wall, you scumbag. You’re an absolute joke.’ Hindmarsh was red-faced, his veins popping, spittle flying. It seemed reasonable to assume that hotel staff, airport clerks and chauffeurs around the country had received the same treatment over the years.

  The guy was also Mr Everywhere. Challis kept finding Ollie’s publicity leaflets in his letterbox, two or three photographs of the man on every fold-turning a sod for another housing estate, singing to a roomful of pensioners, cutting a ribbon, introducing a chaplain to a school community.

  ‘Perhaps we should sit, Mr Hindmarsh,’ Challis said now, taking charge.

  That threw both men for a moment, but Challis sat and they followed. Hindmarsh made an effort. ‘Look, we’re reasonable men here and-’

  Challis cut him off. He dealt out the photocopied e-mail and blog pages one by one across the heavy table. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is a provocative and racist e-mail forwarded to Lachlan Roe by his brother, Dirk. Lachlan then forwarded it to others.’

  He glanced at Hindmarsh and McQuarrie. He had their attention. ‘And these pages’-he stabbed them with a forefinger-’are taken from a blog called the Roe Report. It is viciously racist, to the extent that it breaches racial vilification statutes. Criminal charges may be laid. The material appears to have been written and posted by Dirk Roe, with contributions from Lachlan Roe. Dirk Roe is the manager of your electoral office, Mr Hindmarsh, am I correct?’ Challis didn’t give the man a chance to answer. ‘And Lachlan Roe was appointed chaplain of Landseer with your support? One of my best detectives has spent the morning at the school. She assures me that Roe is deeply disliked there, by staff and students. I have also learned that Lachlan Roe heads a…fringe religious sect.’

  Hindmarsh patted his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some remained. He coughed. ‘I happen to believe in the fundamental decency of his platform. The fact remains-’

  Finally, McQuarrie stirred. ‘The fact remains, Mr Hindmarsh, that you employed one racist and assisted another,’ he said, his voice starting with a squeak but gaining in strength. ‘One would like to see how that plays out in the media.’

  ‘You little shit,’ growled Hindmarsh. ‘I’ve a good mind-’

  Challis had never seen McQuarrie so firm and dignified. ‘My officers and I are not vindictive. We don’t play games. We don’t play politics. It hardly needs to be said that Dirk Roe’s blog is public property. There’s a very good chance that members of the media already know about it.’

  Hindmarsh opened and closed his mouth. ‘Fucking Dirk, fucking stupid little…’

  McQuarrie tipped back his chin. He didn’t like the language. ‘Will that be all?’

  Hindmarsh nodded. He looked lost.

  ****

  When the man was gone Challis said, ‘Thanks, sir.’

  But the honeymoon, if that’s what it had been, was short-lived. The superintendent gestured dismissively, as if he’d forgotten Hindmarsh already, and said, ‘Certain things have come to my attention.’

  Ellen, thought Challis.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Are you…How do I put this…Are you and Sergeant Destry…?’

  ‘In a relationship sir, yes.’

  McQuarrie blinked. Some of the irritation faded. ‘Hal…’

  Challis waited.

  ‘You work together, man.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘In the same unit, the same police station.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Surely you see the pitfalls…’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘For a very good reason, there are regulations.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Hell of a mess,’ McQuarrie looked away, then back at Challis. ‘You could be accused of undue influence. Of bias and favouritism. What do your colleagues think? Or the constables who have to answer to you both? And what happens if events in your “relationship” spill over into your day-to-day police work? It’s not on, inspector.’

  Challis had thought of all these things and more, but said nothing. There was something in McQuarrie’s manner, if not his words, to indicate that the man wasn’t being his usual autocratic, blowhard self. He was beginning to sense that McQuarrie wanted to find a palatable solution rather than punish or reprimand. It can’t be that he’s a romantic, Challis thought. No. Maybe he’s developed a streak of humanity though-or vulnerability.

  The super had a lot to thank Ellen Destry for, at any rate. When Challis had been away last month, she had uncovered a paedophile ring with links to the senior sergeant at this very police station, a man whom McQuarrie had entrusted to be his eyes and ears. That man was dead now, but only after murdering another policeman at Waterloo. It was evident at the time that McQuarrie hadn’t believed Ellen was up to the job.

  And he owes me a debt, thought Challis. I tracked down his daughter-in-law’s killer.

  He wants to do the right thing by us.

  ‘For God’s sake, Hal, is it serious? I mean, do you intend to marry?’

  Challis wanted to laugh. ‘Too soon to say, sir.’

/>   McQuarrie shook his head and the late afternoon sunlight angled in, picking out dust motes in the air and streaks on the window glass. ‘I’ve been giving it some thought, Hal.’

  ‘Sir, I have, too, but it’s all so recent and-’

  ‘In the old days, one of you would have been posted to Outer Woop-Woop. It would have been nipped in the bud.’

  Challis waited.

  Suddenly the superintendent sprang to his feet. ‘Leave it with me,’ he said, and left the building.

  ****

  13

  It had been a long, dull Tuesday for Ellen Destry. By 4 p.m. she’d finished questioning staff and students at Landseer and was driving to the Mount Eliza home of Zara Selkirk, the Year 11 girl who’d been Lachlan Roe’s only appointment the previous day. Winding roads took her to a couple of acres at the highest point of the town, to a house and terraced grounds on a slope that faced south along a curve of Port Phillip Bay. Here the hills folded in and out, giving an impression of privacy to the people who could afford the land and the views.

  Ellen parked and pressed the doorbell of a vast loft house, the roof pitched at sixty degrees, two huge dormers above her head.

  ‘Yeah?’

  A girl, no more than fourteen years old; wearing the Toorak uniform, not Landseer. Ellen introduced herself and said, ‘Are you Zara?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But Zara lives here? Zara Selkirk?’

  The girl shrugged.

  ‘May I speak to her?’

  After a second, or a year, the girl replied, ‘She’s not here.’

  The little interrogation continued like that. Eventually Ellen understood that the girl was Chelsea Hooper, Zara’s stepsister. Chelsea hated Zara, hated her stepmother. There were at least three reasons for that: one, the stepmother was an evil witch; two, the stepmother liked to fly to the snowfields of Europe and the States with Chelsea’s father and leave the kids to flounder; three, the stepmother had taken Zara, but not Chelsea, to see Delta Goodrem perform in the city last night.

  ‘We have an apartment in Southbank,’ Chelsea explained.

  Hating the rich, Ellen said, ‘So Zara and her mother stayed in your city apartment last night rather than drive back here to Mount Eliza?’

  Chelsea gave the question a great deal of thought. ‘Yep.’

  ‘When will they be back?’

  Chelsea shrugged.

  Ellen turned to go. Behind her the girl said, ‘Is this about the chaplain?’

  Ellen faced her again, tingling. ‘You knew that Zara had an appointment to see him yesterday?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Ellen tried to tread delicately around this. ‘Did Zara confide in you about why she wanted to see him?’

  ‘Wanted? That’s a laugh. She had to see him. It was part of her punishment.’

  ‘Punishment.’

  ‘Like that was going to work,’ said Chelsea scornfully.

  ****

  On the other side of the Peninsula, Josh Brownlee was drunk. He’d started drinking after that encounter in the surf shop, and hadn’t stopped, except to do some ice. That little slag, shouting about rape so everyone could hear.

  Who the fuck was she? Bitch.

  As soon as he’d left the shop he’d ditched the chick he was with, dumped her back at her motel. A whiner. Too clingy. The type you screw once and then can’t get rid of. Fuck that. Josh drove straight around to the beer garden of the Fiddlers Creek pub and got steadily wasted.

  The afternoon had passed hazily by and now it was almost five o’clock. Why the fuck had he come back to Waterloo, this shit hole? Last year was different, a lot of shit happening, the Year 12 exams plus family shit, a lot to forget. Getting wasted with his mates had made sense. They couldn’t afford the Gold Coast, but Luke’s dad had a holiday house near Waterloo, which was better than nothing. Now it was like a year later, his mates had moved on and he was no longer a schoolie. In fact, he kept getting sideways glances from this year’s schoolies. What are you doing here, loser? Did you have to repeat Year 12 at another school?

  And this morning he gets called a rapist in public.

  Josh thought back to last year, pissed the whole time, dope, ice and GHB. The sex. There’d been chicks from Grover Hall, St Helen’s, Mount Eliza Girls’ Grammar…that skank Virginia, any excuse to show her tits, the Virgin’ part of her name long redundant. Who else? That chick. Tori Walker. Walker the Stalker, from Banbury College, fuck her and she’d fall in love with you.

  It hadn’t taken Josh and the guys long to realise that it was better to hook up with the local slags, state school desperadoes from Waterloo and Two Bays secondary, hoping to snare themselves a rich private-school guy. Josh and his mates would do those dogs behind some secluded sand dune, bury their knickers in the sand, piss off out of there while they were too drunk or high to notice. Who were they going to complain to? They’d never seen you before, didn’t know who you were or what school you went to.

  It wasn’t like that this year.

  Josh kept drinking, becoming steadily blacker inside.

  ****

  John Tankard, off duty now, was also sitting in the Fiddlers Creek beer garden. He gazed around at the patrons, wondering if he’d spot anyone he’d put away, and saw Josh Brownlee getting drunker and drunker. Schoolie prat, he thought idly. He turned to scowl at Andy Cree. It was Cree’s turn to walk across to the veranda bar and bring back a round, but the guy was still glued to his mobile phone, checking messages, sending messages, his bony thumbs flying over the keypad. Furthermore, he was drinking chardonnay.

  Wanker.

  Just then Cree’s senses registered the full malign force of John Tankard’s scrutiny. He crooked an eyebrow. ‘Got a problem?’

  ‘Got a thirst,’ Tank said.

  Cree gave him the once-over and the message was plain: You drink too much and it’s made you fat. But then he said, ‘Check this out,’ and passed Tank his mobile phone.

  ‘Still got a thirst,’ Tank said.

  ‘Keep your panties on,’ Cree said, getting to his feet and weaving away between the metal tables.

  Tank turned his attention to the guy’s phone, peering at the little screen: Christ, a digital image of a schoolie passed out on the lawn in front of the shire offices. Tank poked inexpertly at the keys, wondering what other photos Cree had taken, and came to a Holden he’d last seen wrapped around a tree two weeks ago. Then Cree was back with their drinks, saying in a mock, true-Aussie voice, ‘Here you go, buddy, wrap your tonsils around this.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Not on a first date, John.’

  Tank knew it would be a mistake to respond. If it came to a battle of words, Cree would win.

  ****

  Scobie Sutton went home knowing that he’d better talk to his wife about the wickedness of Dirk and Lachlan Roe. Beth was his special love, and she was his heartache. He knew the pain, bewilderment and sense of injustice that drove her, but didn’t know how to make her feel better.

  Beth felt things too keenly, that was the problem. She’d worked with the shire’s disadvantaged families and kids for many years, and when she came home in the evenings would relate some of the awful things she’d seen or heard about, her voice low, tragic, desolate, insinuating itself into Scobie’s head. Poor Ros: ‘Mum!’ she’d say, ‘talk about something happy!’

  And then a budget-conscious finance manager had sacked Beth, which really pulled the rug out from under her feet. Scobie suspected that she was deeply depressed-tinged with mania. Since last Friday she’d been fired up about saving the schoolies from sex and drugs, and had been seen at the Chillout Zone, distributing leaflets. Not from the Uniting Church-the Suttons’ church-but the damn First Ascensionists.

  Scobie was losing her, and he couldn’t bear it.

  Tossing his keys into a bowl on the little hallway table, he walked through to the kitchen and knew at once that the house was empty, the air was so stale and unlived in. He swallowed and searched the place an
yway, sitting room, dining room, three bedrooms, carport and weedy front and back gardens, seeing, with new eyes, the neglect, the dust, the unwashed dishes, the unmade beds. He wanted his wife back.

  Her desk was a card table in the spare bedroom. It was a loveless room, with a single bed, bare walls and a cheap white wardrobe. Beth’s crackpot leaflets were stacked neatly with other literature on the coverlet of the bed and on the floor. The family’s computer took up most of the desk. Beside it was a manila folder containing a stack of e-mails that Beth had printed out, and there at the very top Scobie saw the one that Challis had practically shaken in his face that morning. There were annotations in the margins, green ink, in Beth’s big, childlike hand: My darling husband, some important information for you to think about.

  Feeling an overflowing pool of sadness, Scobie knuckled his eyes. But crying didn’t solve anything. He washed the dishes, made the beds, compiled a shopping list. Soon it was 5.30 p.m. Normally Roslyn was home from school by four, but she’d joined the choir and they were rehearsing for tomorrow night’s school concert. She wouldn’t be home before six. That gave him time to shop and have it out with his wife.

  But would Beth even listen? That was the question.

  Scobie drove to the supermarket, quietly fracturing inside. Last night when he’d kissed his daughter goodnight she’d clung to him, hadn’t wanted to let go.

  ‘I have bad dreams,’ she said.

  He’d nuzzled the crown of her head. ‘What about?’

  ‘Someone’s going to let a bomb off on my bus.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart.’

  He rocked her for a while, her flannel pyjamas faintly stale, reminding him that if he didn’t do the laundry these days, it didn’t get done.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What if you get shot?’