Challis - 04 - Chain of Evidence (5 page)

My boy, the old man said.

Overcome, Challis crossed the short
distance, knelt, and hugged his father. A hand beat feebly on his back. Thats
enough, thats enough, Im not dead yet.

Challis stood back, blinking. His
father wasnt easily comforted. He was too powerful for that. Sorry to see you
like this, Dad.

His father gave him a ghastly smile.
It happens to all of us.

Challis returned the smile.

Ill make tea, Meg said, and
presently began to bang around in the kitchen. Domesticity settled over the
house. Challis and his father talked. Challis even held a papery old hand for a
while, until his father gently removed it. They had never been ones to embrace.
They had never kissed.

So, what are the bad guys up to in
your neck of the woods?

Challis went very still, calculating
madly. Was this the lead up to a confrontation? His father had always said, Youve
got a good brain. Why the hell did you go into the police? Challis thought he
understood: Murray Challis had been born in the 1920s and seen his family
suffer during the Great Depression. The Second World War had been his way out.
Hed met educated men in the Air Force. Education was the key. It didnt matter
that his son had completed a bachelor degree at night school in recent years:
it was the fact that his son hadnt done anything with it but remained in the
police force. Your average criminal is stupid, was the refrain. He brings
you down to his level. He certainly doesnt elevate you.

Yes, but putting him in jail, and
getting justice for the victim, elevates me, Challis would reply.

He could feel his asthma starting
up. He found himself telling his father about a lawyer hed arrested a month
earlier. The man had a cocaine habit. Hed stolen two million dollars from
clients whod invested their life savings with him. Picked him up boarding a
plane to Bangkok, said Challis challengingly.

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
lived. 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.