Challis - 04 - Chain of Evidence (45 page)

The proprietor of Korean Salvage was
not happy. He didnt like it that a cop had something over him. Sure, he had
something over the cop, but he preferred it when it had just been him, his
mechanics and the Jarrett kids who stole cars for them.

The paperworks solid, okay? he
said sourly. VIN number, engine number, chassis number, it all belongs to a
legit car. It all checks out.

Cool, said Tank.

It wasnt cool, but that was the
price of doing business in this town, apparently. The proprietor of Korean
Salvage watched the beefy young cop get behind the wheel of the Mazda and peel
out of the shed. Burning a bit of oil. Maybe the engine was knackered. He took
some comfort from that.

* * * *

Ellen
worked until late evening. She drove home under a scudding moon, the shadows
tricky, especially when she came to the tree canopy over Challiss rain-slicked
road. But shed driven this road at this time of the night ever since the Katie
Blasko kidnapping, and was familiar with the bends, the contours, the gaps
between the roadside trees particularly the gap where a stock gate had been
set in Challiss front fence. The gate, never used now, dated from an earlier
era, when the house had been part of a working farm. She liked to glance
through the gap: Challiss house was set on a gentle slope, and she found it
reassuring to look up and see the floor lamps glowing behind the sitting-room
curtains, lights that shed left on that morning to welcome herself home.

This time she saw a shape slip past
one of the windows.

Ellen did not vary her pace but
continued along the road, up and over the hill, past the farm with the barking
dogs, letting the sound of her car apparently dwindle into the distance. She
drove for a kilometre, and then pulled into the driveway of a hobby farm. The
owner, a Melbourne accountant, was never there during the week.

She went back to Challiss on foot,
avoiding the loose gravel of the road, which would announce her presence and
fill her own ears with distracting sounds. Instead, she headed overland,
trotting carefully through grassy paddocks, vaulting over the wire fences,
until she came to the rear of the house. Behind her was another slope and
another hobby farm, several hundred metres away and also empty tonight.

From here she was slightly elevated
and could look down on the back of Challiss house. His rear boundary was
another wire fence. She paused for a while, listening. Her eyes were accustomed
to the darkness now and she was alert for all sounds and movements. She waited
for ten minutes before she saw Kellock. A brief, chancy beam of moonlight
caught him, just as she was about to advance on the house. It was not so much
his face as his stance, his bulky alertness, that she recognised. He watched
and waited, and so did she, for a solid hour. He was patient, she was patient.
She could smell him, she realised, an amalgam of aftershave and perspiration.
Did he sense her? Her perfume, this mornings scented shampoo and conditioner?
He gave no sign of it. She was distracted by thoughts of Challis then. How
would she characterise his smell? Clean, undisguised. There wasnt much in the
way of scented soaps in his bathroom. No old aftershave containers. Skulking
like this in the nighttime and its shadows was arousing her.

Kellock broke first. One moment he
was there and the next he was gone. Ellen shrank deeper into the grass and
waited, just in case he was flanking her. She thought about the blood on Sashas
collar. Of course it was Kellocks, and of course hed got it when Sasha bit
him. But a defence lawyer would have a field day with that evidence. Hed cite
the discredited lab work and Scobie Suttons balls-up at the scene of the
Jarrett shooting, and propose another scenario: My client is in charge of the
Waterloo police station. Naturally he keeps abreast of all its functions and
activities. He patted the dog when it was brought in to the station on its way
to the lab. The dog bit him. There is nothing sinister in his blood being found
on the collar.

Ellen tensed. She heard a motorbike
fire up in the distance. It revved once or twice, idled, and then howled away.
Shed wondered how Kellock had got here, and now she knew. She slipped inside
the house, gathered together a change of clothing and spent the night in the
Sanctuary Motor Inn, up in the hills northeast of Melbourne, where she paid
cash and used a false name.

* * * *

59

She
drove to work on Wednesday wondering if shed be able to control her face. Shed
had plenty of practice over the years, hiding her reactions and feelings from
the men around herhiding attraction and repulsionbut shed never had to hide
something as monumental as the information she held in her head.

She used the front door, feeling
almost sick, expecting to encounter Kellock.

But Kellock wasnt in his office. No
one had seen him, and he hadnt called in. What did that mean? Had the lab,
apologetic, contacted him to say theyd found his DNA on the dogs collar but
it was all a mistake? Ellen had expressly told Riggs not to inform Kellock, but
Kellock had cronies everywhere. All kinds of paperwork crossed his desk. Was he
out there somewhere, getting rid of evidence? Were his mates covering their
tracks?

And so she was predisposed to find
significance in anything Scobie Sutton did. When she walked into the incident
room and saw him hunched covertly over his desk phone, she was immediately
suspicious. When hed completed the call, she asked, Everything okay, Scobie?

He looked hunted, a little sulky,
and went very red. Just the wife.

Then Pam arrived. She wore tan
slacks and a white T-shirt under a crumpled cotton jacket. Her hair was pulled
back severely from her face. She looked scrubbed, athletic, ready for action.
They worked in silence and the morning passed, empty coffee cups accumulating.
Ellen put Scobie to work watching videotapes from the closed-circuit security
cameras; she and Pam read documents. Then, when Scobie and Pam went out to buy
pastries for morning tea, she pressed the redial button on Scobies phone.

Grace Duyker speaking.

This is Sergeant Ellen Destry, of
the Waterloo police station

The woman cut her off. Are you
taking his side? Is that it? Now
Im
the ogre?

Im sorry?

Look, hes a nice guy and
everything, but its inappropriate. Im happily married.
Hes
married. I
swear I never encouraged him, but hes got it into his head that I

Thinking rapidly, Ellen said, I
think he understands that now.

I dont want to get him into
trouble. I dont want him to get
me
into trouble.

You have my assurance on that,
Ellen said.

Pam and Scobie came in, Scobies
gaze going straight to Ellen on his phone. He looked as though he might burst
into tears, but Ellen said pitilessly, feeling like a stern aunt, I was just
informing Grace Duyker that she can rely on us to be discreet. Scobie, youll
endorse that?

Ellen, he muttered, head down,
while Pam cocked her head and said nothing.

Ellen watched him and pondered. His
mortification was genuine: she should trust him. Still, she withheld that. She
wanted a stronger indication that he could be trusted.

It came just before lunch. Ellen
walked down High Street to the delicatessen, bought three smoked salmon and
avocado rolls, and came back to find Pam and Scobie side by side in the
incident room, deeply absorbed. She stood back to watch and listen for a couple
of minutes, trying to read Sutton. He was explaining the progress and lack of progress
in the Katie Blasko case. Pam was asking him questionsbut she, also, was
trying to read him, Ellen realised. She watched them sift through the
statements, photographs and other documentary evidence, Scobie gesturing once
or twice as if overwhelmed by the workload. He hadnt spotted Ellen yet. A ton
of stuff to go through, he said. Just look at it all: CCTV footage, parking
and speeding fines, witness statements to check again. He glanced at Pam,
trying for humour. I bet you wish you were back in a patrol car.

No thanks, Scobe, she said
brightly. She peered at the sheet of paper in her hand. Rising Stars Agency,
she read. Whats this?

Scobie almost broke then. He told
Pam about Duykers scam, his voice catching as if he couldnt comprehend the
evil that Duyker represented. My own daughter could have been his next victim.

Pam was watching Ellen over his
shoulder. They communicated silently, instinctively, and Pam said, Oh, hi,
Sarge.

Scobie turned. Sorry. I was just
catching Pam up on some things.

Scobie, Ellen said, theres
something you should know.

* * * *

It
took her ten minutes. He was shocked, now and then glancing uneasily at the
door, as though Kellock might materialise there.

Scobie, keep your cool.

I cant.

Yes you can. Youll have to.

They ate lunch hurriedly, and then
resumed work, Scobie throwing himself into it, as if work might cure his fear
and agitation, and punish him because hed felt desire for another woman and
been naive about human wickedness.

And he found salvation of a kind. I
think Ive got something, he said two hours later. Duyker gave us a cash
register receipt to prove he wasnt in Waterloo between three and four on the
Thursday Katie was abducted?

Correct. A big newsagency in the
city.

Duyker wasnt there, Scobie said,
leaning forward and tapping the monitor screen, but Neville Clode was. Ive
got him picking discarded receipts off the floor inside the main door of the
newsagency that same afternoon. Five-thirty, to be precise.

Pam and Ellen joined him. That
devious little shit, Pam said.

They watched Clode peruse the
receipts and dump all but one into a bin. Model citizen, muttered Ellen. Back
it up, Scobie, to around three-thirty, then roll it forward to five-thirty. We
need to double check that neither Clode nor Duyker were there between those
times.

Scobie complied. It took a while. Nope,
he reported.

Okay, lets pick both of them up.
Duyker first.

They crossed the Peninsula in a CIU
Falcon, Scobie directing while Pam drove, flicking the wheel expertly, her
pacing and anticipation giving them a smooth ride. Ellen closed her eyes in the
back seat and let Scobie twitch and prattle on in the passenger seat.

Finally the car slowed. Ellen opened
her eyes. His vans here, Pam said.

Scobie, go around the back, said
Ellen. Pam, you come with me.

She knocked on Duykers door and the
fact that it swung open, and the air was saturated with the odour of blood and
the buzzing of springtime flies, told her that she was too late, Kellock had
got here ahead of her and taken care of a loose end.

* * * *

60

She
went into action. Scobie, head back to Waterloo, grab a couple of uniforms for
backup, and arrest Clode.

Will do.

When he was gone, she made a series
of calls, first arranging an all-points apprehension order on Kellock: air, sea
and ferry ports, bus terminals, train stations. Then she called Challis. She
didnt need his advice; she wanted to hear his voice, thats all. But his
mobile was switched off or out of range, and had been since yesterday. Finally
she called Force Command headquarters and asked for a team of armed response
police. There was a pause when she said who the target was.

One of ours? You sure?

Perfectly sure. Armed and
dangerous. Hes already shot one man dead.

Another pause. Where exactly are
you?

Ellen gave directions.

Take a while to get there. Hour and
a half, maybe.

I realise that.

Meanwhile dont do anything rash.

I wont, Ellen said, immediately
taking Pam with her to Gideon House to hunt for Kellock. Theyd barely reached
the outskirts of Mornington when her mobile rang and Superintendent McQuarrie was
barking at her.

Tell me this is all a bad joke,
Sergeant Destry.

No, sir.

Armed response officers? A warrant
for his arrest? What the hell is going on?

Ellen had to go carefully here.
Everyone knew that the super used Kellock for information and influence, but
did the relationship go deeper than that? She didnt say anything about the
paedophile ring, or police involvement, but merely said that Kellock was
apparently unhinged and had shot dead a witness.

I hope you know what youre doing.

There had been a time when Ellen
might have said So do I to herself, but not any more. I do, sir, she said
with some force.

McQuarrie muttered and broke the
call.

Gideon House came into view, set one
block back from the Mornington seafront in an overgrown garden. Once a gracious
residence, and later a boarding house, it now sheltered street kids and the
homeless with funding from the shire and the state government. It looked
run-down, and Ellen wondered if the Kellocks were siphoning the upkeep funds
into their own pockets, along with abusing the kids in their care.