Challis - 04 - Chain of Evidence (14 page)

Sure, they both said.

* * * *

That
evening Ellen Destry called him. He felt a strange relief, realising that hed
been waiting. There was no reason why they should call each other regularly, or
turns about, but he had opened that possibility when hed called her on Friday.

Her mood was flat. Is Katie Blasko
getting to you?

Yes.

Tell me.

I cant help feeling that Ive
fumbled the ball. I let myself be blinded by her dysfunctional family, when I
should have been concentrating on harm from
outside
it.

In most cases it is internal,
Challis said. He found himself telling her about Gavin Hurst, and the effects
on Eve.

Ellen grunted. Like the poet said,
your parents fuck you up. Larrayne is so prickly with me these days. She
paused. And when Im old and infirm, the poor thing will feel obliged to look
after me or maybe not. Sorry, Hal, insensitive of me, given your current
situation.

He laughed. He wasnt offended. A
comfortable silence settled around them. Whats your next step?

Tomorrow we re-enact Katies bike
ride home from school.

Challis experienced a sudden and
intense mental flash of Waterloo and the flat streets near the mangrove flats.
He could almost smell them. Then it occurred to him that for a long time after
hed left Mawsons Bluff hed smelt dust, wheat and sheep. Home is where the
nose is, he thought.

It might trigger something.

A lot of false leads, probably.

* * * *

17

Monday.

Ellen started the day with Donna
Blasko and Justin Pedder, who seemed confused about Katies bike (It was a
blue bike. No, it was purple. It had a basket on the handlebars. No, that
was her old bike.). Sighing, she drove to the bike shop in High Street and
borrowed a purple bike and helmet. The bike shop used to be Caf Laconic, and a
jeans-and-T-shirt shop before that, so she guessed it would be selling
something else this time next year. Ellen missed Caf Laconic. You couldnt get
decent coffee anywhere in Waterloo now.

As she was wheeling the bike to her
car, a voice said, Need a hand?

She turned. Laurie Jarrett, with two
teenage boys. Being Jarretts, the boys knew who she was, and smirked. The smirk
said, We won, you lost.

Hows it feel, copper? sneered one
of the boys.

Laurie surprised her. He thumped the
back of the boys head, not hard, and said, A bit of respect, okay?

Ow!
sulked the boy.

Ellen glanced at Jarrett, trying to
read him. Despite herself, she was compelled by his looks. She was fascinated
by the shapeliness of his hands and head, unnoticed by her before. He was
dressed neatly and, unlike the other malesand femalesof his clan, he didnt
carry scars or tattoos. He wasnt overweight. He didnt smell like a brewery.
His eyes were clear. No giveaway facial tics or hand tremors. Shed heard he
was a charmer. He lived with two women, sisters, apparently. There was also a
daughter, Alysha, twelve or thirteen, with learning difficulties, whom Jarrett
doted on.

Help you with the bike? he said
again.

Why not? She watched him stow it in
her car.

Present for your kid? he asked.

For a re-enactment, she said. Katie
Blasko, her route home from school. Youve got a large network: pass the word
around.

He nodded abruptly and left, the
boys trailing him.

What had all that been about?

She returned to the station. By late
morning shed obtained reports of three recent abduction attempts on the
Peninsula. In June a middle-aged man had tried to lure a ten-year-old boy into
his car in Frankston South. Two months earlier, a young man grabbed the arm of
an eight-year-old girl who was riding her bike to school in Mornington. And during
the January school holidays, a nine-year-old boy had been lured out of his
front yard by two young men, who had then been chased off by a neighbour.

No worthwhile descriptions. No trace
evidence.

The long day passed. At 3 pm, she
met Scobie and his daughter outside the gates of Katie Blaskos primary school.
A dozen uniformed police were there, too, an open jeep fitted with a
public-address system, and plenty of media. Scattered among the spectators and
the media pack were plain-clothed officers, who would video and photograph the
onlookers.

Roslyn Sutton resembled Katie Blasko
in colouring, height and build. Ellen crouched beside her. Roslyn looked very
pleased with herself. An unappealing child, Ellen had often thought. She smiled
stiffly. All set?

Roslyn immediately planted her foot
on the pedal and hunched her shoulders as though to speed away. Steady on, not
yet, darling, her father said.

Ellen didnt think she could bear to
see all of Scobies doting love just then, pouring out, and avoided his eye.
She smiled at Roslyn again. The kids dont get out until 3.15. Wait until we
hear the bell, then a while longer for them to appear with their bags. Katie
was neither early nor late leaving school last Thursday, so well allow time
for half the kids to be picked up or start walking or riding home before
you
set off, okay?

Uh huh.

Your role is very important. Were
very proud of you.

Roslyn Sutton knew it. She couldnt
mask it.

Ride slowly, Ellen said. Apparently
Katie rode slowly, too, but we also need time for people to watch you, and
perhaps remember something. Okay?

Yes.

At 3.23, the caravan set out, Ellen
standing in the Jeep with the microphone. Several times during the forty
minutes that followed, she repeated the same message: A child has gone missing.
Her name is Katie Blasko and shes ten years old. We are re-enacting her ride
home from school last Thursday afternoon. Did you see Katie on that day or any
other day, either alone or in the company of someone? Did she deviate from her
routine or route in any way? Any help you can give us, however trivial it might
seem, could be vital in finding her. You may approach any of our officers or
phone the Waterloo police station.

People wanted to be helpful. In the
days that followed, they flooded Ellen with useless information.

* * * *

Operation
Calling Cardso-called because their burglar liked to leave an unflushed turd
at the scene of every break-incame together quickly for Kellock and van
Alphen. Of course, they could have obtained DNA from the calling card and
matched it to Nick Jarrett, but youd have to be keen. Besides, in seven of the
eight burglaries so far, the owners had come home, traced the offending odour
to its source, and flushed the evidence away, feeling doubly violated.

So van Alphen and Kellock used a
time-honoured method: while CIU and most of the uniforms were out looking for
the missing kid, they put the hard word on some of their informants. This led
them to Ivan Henniker, who had a speed habit, the speed produced in a fortified
laboratory by the Yanqui motorcycle gang and distributed by members of the
Jarrett family in the Waterloo area. Henniker feared the Jarretts and wanted to
be free of them, but he also needed access to a ready supply. A dilemma, but van
Alphen and Kellock helped him to resolve it. Surprising how effective a
telephone book can be, in a soundless, windowless back room.

Your girlfriend works in Waterloo
Travel?

Yes, sobbed Henniker. A jumpy,
scrawny guy, limp hair owing to the speed hed run through his system over the
years.

She gives you a list of names and
addresses of whos away on holiday? So we should be arresting her, too?

No! No, dont do that. Shes got
this little notebook computer.

Brings her work home with her.

I access it when shes taking a
shower, said Henniker.

Lovely guy, said van Alphen to
Kellock.

A real prince.

Henniker flushed. Do you want the
details, or not?

Fire away.

Shes got this file, travel
insurance, of people away on holiday.

And you pass on names and addresses
to the Jarretts.

Yeah. Theyll kill me for this.

Not unless we kill you first, said
Kellock. Who in the Jarrett clan?

Nick.

Van Alphen and Kellock beamed at
each other.

Heres what we want you to do, van
Alphen said, proceeding to lay it out for Henniker.

Nick will kill me, said Henniker
miserably. Hes a mad bastard. They all are.

Well protect you, van Alphen said
unconvincingly.

* * * *

18

Why
do I do it to myself? wondered Pam Murphy late that afternoon.

Tests, exams and formal challenges
of any kind always made her anxious. So why had she applied to do this course?

Shed been up since 5 am, when shed
showered, had breakfast, packed, and driven to the training facility, a
converted youth camp in the foothills outside Melbourne. Prefabricated huts, a
gym, swimming pool, running track, classrooms, dining hall and firing range.
The morning had been aimed at seeing how fit they were. Pam, placed in the top
five of her last three triathlons, had made it through without raising a sweat.
The afternoon had involved a mock conflict-resolution scenario, which shed
stuffed up. This evening there would be a seminar. All in all, a testing regime
of physical and intellectual activities aimed at sorting the wheat from the
chaff. Two candidates had dropped out already.

Pam groaned, feeling stiff and sore.
She was lying on a hard, monastic bed in a narrow room with flimsy walls. A guy
in each of the adjacent rooms, and she wouldnt mind betting that both were
snorers. Not many female candidates.

The second week might be better.
They would attend further courses at the police academy in Glen Waverley,
followed by a final week at Command Headquarters in the city. There had been
other two-, three- and four-week courses over the past year, and this was the
last round. If she graduated shed be entitled to apply for detective
positions.

If she graduated.

She lay there, needing a shower but
too sore and tired to move, and thought about the pressures faced by your
average cop, wondering why she stuck it out. Tests, exams, even promotions and
transfersall stress inducing. Malicious civilian complaints, which always had
to be investigated and blotted your record. Giving court evidence, especially
being cross-examined by snide, flash defence barristers.

And the day-to-day aggravations. Two
weekends ago she and John Tankard had picked up a drunken thirteen-year-old
girl at three in the morning, driven her home, and been screamed at by the
parents for interfering in the familys affairs. This year alone shed
attended five fatalities on the freewayalcohol, drugs and speeding. Earlier in
the year shed arrested three teenagers from the Seaview Park estate whod gone
out armed with knives and machetesJust in case we get attacked by the
Jarretts. A month before that shed helped social workers remove three
children aged under ten from a house in Seaview Park, the children starving and
showing signs of years of abuse. Theyd kicked and screamed: I want my mum, I
want my dad.

Her bedside alarm sounded. She had
an hour free to study before dinner and the evening seminar. Stretching,
groaning, she told herself to see the following days as an opportunity to learn
rather than be found wanting for what she didnt know or couldnt achieve. She
took her little transistor radio with her into the shower, turned it to the 6
pm news.

The water gushed, drowning out the
first item.

* * * *

John
Tankard was feeling a lot better that Monday. Good sleep last night, new car,
Pam Murphy not around to bust his chops, an early finish time. He still burned
inside, reliving that night on the back road behind the estate, but sensed that
Kellock and van Alphen had a plan in mind.

He finished work at 3 pm, then shot
up to Berwick in time to pick his little sister up from school. Nat was full of
awe, running her hand over the duco of his new car. Cool, she said. She was
skinny where he was fat, olive-skinned where he was fair, quick and darting
where he was slow. He hated to think of strangers laying their hands on her.

He took her for a spin. She bubbled
over, madly waving at her mates. He felt protective. He felt helpless. How
could you have sex with a kid? How sick was that?

On the way back he sent a text
message to the woman he knew only as Terri, confirming drinks in the Chaos Bar
at 6 pm. Hed met her through an on-line dating service. She sounded hot in her
e-mails and text messages, her voice over the phone low, pleasantly husky. Shed
sent photos: dark hair, humorous eyes, perhaps a tad round-faced but that often
spelt big tits. In just a couple of hours, his laughing gear around a glass of
ale, hed know one way or the other.

You could get lucky and score on a
first date. You were desperate, the chick was desperate (thats why you were
using a dating service, right?), so hitting the mattress was the logical
outcome. But Tank had a secret weapon. Hed read on the Internet how attraction
and desire boiled down to the odours released by the body. A bloke
subconsciously picks up the scent when a woman is ready to mate. Women are
turned on by something virile in a guys perspiration. Testosterone?
Pheromones? Something like that. Or maybe hed misunderstood the whole thing,
the technical side of it, the long words.