Challis - 05 - Blood Moon

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Blood Moon

[Inspector Challis
05]

By Garry Disher

Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

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1

On
a Tuesday morning in mid-November, late spring, the air outside the bedroom
window warm and pollinated, Adrian Wishart watched his wife urinate. He
happened to be sitting on the end of the bed, dressed, comb tracks in his hair,
tying his shoelaces. She was in the ensuite bathroom, perched naked on the loo,
wearing the long-distance stare that took her so far away from him. She didnt
know she was being observed. She tore off several metres of toilet paper,
patted herself dry, and as the water flushed it all away he came to the doorway
and said constrictedly, Were not made of money.

Ludmilla started and gave him a
hunted look. Sorry.

Folding in on herself, scarcely
moving, she opened the glass door to the shower stall. He rotated his wrist,
tapped his watch face. Im timing you.

Little things, but they cost money.
No one needed a long shower. No woman needed that much toilet paper. No need to
leave a light on when you go into another room. Why shop for groceries three or
four times a week when once would do?

Adrian Wishart watched his wife turn
her shoulders under the lancing water. It darkened her red hair and streamed
down her bodya body a little heavier-looking in the thighs and waist, he
thought. She was doing her daydreaming thing again, so he rapped on the glass
to wake her up. At once she began to work shampoo into her hair.

Wishart slipped out of the ensuite,
out of the bedroom, and made his way to the hallstand where she always stowed
her handbag. Purse, mobile phone, tampons, one toffeeso much for her
dietdiary and a parking receipt that he checked out pretty thoroughly: a
parking station in central Melbourne, maybe from when shed attended that
planning appeals tribunal yesterday. He unlocked her phone, scrolled through
calls made, stored text messages, names in her address book. Nothing caught his
eye. He was running out of time or hed have fired up her laptop and checked her
e-mails, too. Then again, she had a computer at work, and who knew what e-mails
she was getting there.

Her little silver Golf sat in the
carport, behind his Citroen. The odometer read 46,268, meaning that yesterday
shed driven almost 150 kiLornetres. He closed his eyes, working it out. The
round trip between home and her office in Waterloo was only seven kiLornetres.
That meant one thing: instead of driving a shire car up to the appeals tribunal
in the city yesterday, shed driven
her
car.

Their house was on a low hill above
the coastal town of Waterloo. He stared unseeingly across the town to Western
Port Bay and fumed: They were not made of money.

He checked his watch: shed been in
the shower for four minutes. He ran.

Ludmilla was towelling herself, skin
beaten pink by the water, slight but unmistakeable rolls of flesh dimpling here
and there as she flexed and twisted. She was letting herself go. He scooped the
scales out from under the bed, carried them through to the bathroom and snapped
his fingers: On you get.

She swallowed, draped her towel over
the heating rail, and stepped onto the scales. Just over 60 kilos. Two weeks
ago shed been 59.

Wishart burned inside, slow, deep
and consuming. Presently his voice came, a low, dangerous rasp: Youve put on
weight again. I dont like it.

She was like a rabbit in a
spotlight, still, silent and waiting for the bullet.

Have you been having business
lunches?

She shook her head mutely.

Youre getting fat.

She found her voice: Its just the
time of the month.

He said, At lunchtime on Friday I
called you repeatedly. No answer.

Ade, for goodness sake, I was in
Penzance Beach, meeting with the residents association.

He scowled at her. The Penzance
Beach residents association was a bunch of do-gooding retirees intent on
preserving an old house. Your car, or a work car?

Work car.

Good.

They breakfasted together; they did
everything together, at his insistence. She drove to work and he walked through
to the studio and arranged and rearranged his architectural pens, rulers and
drafting paper.

* * * *

2

Meanwhile
in an old farmhouse along a dirt road a few kiLornetres inland of Waterloo, Hal
Challis was saying, Uh oh.

What?

A flaw.

The detective inspector was propped
up on one elbow, playing with his sergeants hair, which was spread over the
pillow mostly, apart from the stray tendrils pasted to her damp neck, temples
and breasts.

I find that most unlikely, she
told him.

Ellen Destry was on her back, her
slender limbs splayed, contentedly. Challis continued to fiddle at her hair
with his free hand but his gaze was restless, taking in her eyes, lips and
lolling breasts. She looked drowsy, but not quite complete. She hadnt finished
with him yet, and that was fine by him. He freed his hand from the tangles and
ran the palm along her flank, across and over her stomach, down to where she
stirred, moist against his fingers.

What flaw? she said unsteadily.

Split ends.

Not in this hair, buster, she
said, punching him.

He rolled onto his back, pulling her
with him, and as he took one of her nipples between his lips the phone rang.
She said Leave it fiercely, but of course he couldnt, and Ellen knew that.
Because he was pinned beneath her, it was she who snatched up the receiver. Destry,
she said, in her clipped, sergeants voice.

Challis lay still, watching and
listening. Hes right here, she said, rolling off and handing him the phone.

Challis, he said.

It was the duty sergeant, reporting
a serious assault outside the Villanova Gardens on Trevally Street in Waterloo.
That apartment block opposite the yacht club, sir.

I know it.

Victims in a coma, the duty
sergeant went on. Name of Lachlan Roe.

Mugging? Aggravated burglary?

Dont know, sir. Uniforms took the
initial call. The nextdoor neighbour stepped outside to fetch her newspaper and
saw Mr Roe lying on his front lawn in a pool of blood.

Anyone from CIU there?

Sutton and Murphy.

Scobie Sutton and Pam Murphy were
detective constables on Challiss team. Crime scene officers? Ambulance?

The techs are on their way; the
ambulance has been and gone.

Challis, wondering why hed been
called, rolled his eyes at Ellen, who grinned and waggled her breasts. When he
reached out a hand she ducked away, rose from the bed and padded naked to the
window. He watched appreciatively. Cute ass, he drawled, covering the
receiver with his hand.

She did a little shimmy and opened
the curtains. The morning sun lit her, and the dust motes eddied, and the world
outside the window was vibrant: the chlorophyll, the spring flowers, the
parrots chasing and bobbing.

Challis returned to the phone. So
its all under control.

There was a pause. Finally the duty
sergeant said, It could get delicate. That meant one thing to Challis: the
victim was well known or had connections, and the result would be a headache to
the investigating officers. In what way?

The victims the chaplain at
Landseer.

The Landseer School, a boarding and
day school on the other side of the Peninsula. Not quite as old as Geelong
Grammar, Scotch College or PLC but just as costly and prestigious. Some wealthy
and powerful people sent their kids there, and Challis could picture the media
attention. He glanced at his bedside clock: 6:53. On my way, he said.

He replaced the handset and glanced
again at Ellen, who remained framed in the window. Struck by the particular
configuration of her waist and spine he crossed to her, pressed himself against
her bare backside.

She wriggled. Do we have time?

Certainly not.

* * * *

In
the shower afterwards, Challis outlined what he knew of the assault. The
Landseer School? said Ellen in dismay.

Exactly, Challis said. He watched
the water stream over her breasts, fascinated.

Keep your mind on the job, pal.

Fine, he said, Ill attend at the
assault. He stepped out and started towelling himself, watching as Ellen
wrapped one towel around her head and another around her body.

She gave him a complicated look. And
you want me in the office?

He nodded. If you could follow up
on that sexual assault from Saturday night...

This was delicate territory, there
was the faintest tension between them. He was her boss, they were living
together and it was too soon to know what the fallout would be. But it would
come, sooner or later. It was there in their minds as they dressed, Challis in
a suit today, guessing he would need to make an impression on the media or his boss
later. He knotted his tie, watching Ellen pull on tailored pants, low-heeled
shoes and a charcoal jacket over a vivid white T-shirt, the dark colours an
attractive contrast with the shirt and her pale skin and straw-coloured hair.
It was a familiar outfit to Challis, sensible work wear for a detective who
might sit at a desk one minute and be obliged to trudge through grass to view a
corpse the next, but she still managed to look spruce and intemperate. Her
clever, expressive face caught him watching. What?

Ill never tire of looking at you.

She went a little pink. Ditto.

They breakfasted at a rickety
camping table on the back verandah, where the sun reached them through a
tangled vine heavy with vigorous new growth. Realising that hed forgotten the
jam, Challis returned to the kitchen. He was pretty sure that one jar of quince
remained from the batch hed made back in April, but when he checked the
pantry, he saw that the spices, condiments and tubs of rice and pasta were on
the middle shelves, where hed traditionally stocked jam, honey and Vegemite.
These had been moved to a bottom shelf.

* * * *

3

Challis
and Destry left in separate cars, knowing the job would scatter them as the day
progressed. Ellens new Corolla was bright blue but streaked with dust and mud
like all of the locals cars. Challis followed in his unreliable Triumph. It
had held its secrets firmly for years, but now they were all coming out: rust
patches at the bottoms of the doors and in the footwells, oil leaks, corrosion,
a broken speedo cable, a slipping clutch, a whining differential. And the
shockers were shot: he hit a pothole in his driveway and felt the jarring
through the steering wheel.

He glanced across at his house as he
left the driveway. It was a pretty building, in the Californian-bungalow style,
dating from the Second World War. It sat naturally in the landscape on three
acres of grass, fruit trees and vague scrub, the only neighbours an orchardist
and a vigneron. He liked the seclusion; seclusion was his natural state. But
did it bother Ellen? Until her separation and divorce from Alan Destry shed
lived at Penzance Beach, in a small suburban house right next door to similar
houses, amid people who mowed their lawns, cooked on backyard barbecues,
knocked on the door to ask for a cup of sugar, sometimes played music too
loudly.