Challis - 05 - Blood Moon (13 page)

I know, she sniffled, squeezing
his hand.

He hugged her affectionately, sprang
to his feet and briskly went about getting himself some breakfast. She envied
the way he could recover from setbacks. Then the news came on, the police still
investigating the assault on the Landseer School chaplain, a car bomb in
Baghdad, some footballer arrested for drunk drivingYour honour, consider the
terrible pressure my client is under, Adrian chortled, making her smile.

Then he patted his lips. Forgot to
say, Im playing squash tonight.

He said it every year. And every
year she said, You are not, mister. Youre taking me out to dinner.

Mock astonished, he jabbed his
chest.
Moi?

Yes, you, Ludmilla said. Inside,
she didnt know whether to laugh or cry.

Completely slipped my mind.

It did not.

It was almost like love. They ate
their breakfast in a warm glow and when Ludmilla next got up to clear a plate
away, she heard the whiplash snap of his fingers. She turned: he was holding up
his coffee mug for a refill.

She fetched the pot. Just as she was
pouring, the phone rang. Ludmilla didnt know who, apart from Carmen and her
mother, would be ringing at this hour. She glanced anxiously at Adrian; he
glanced pointedly at his watch.

She swallowed and picked up the
handset. Hello?

It was Carl Vernon in Penzance
Beach, sounding deeply distressed about the old fishermans cottage on Bluff
Road.

* * * *

17

Elsewhere
in Penzance Beach that Wednesday morning, Pam Murphy was jogging. Like Carl
Vernon, she lived on the bluff above the beach, but hers was a rented
fibro-cement shack and it was several blocks back from any view of the sea,
along a rutted dirt track at the edge of farmland. She didnt know Vernon, and
was only dimly aware of the push to save the fishermans cottage on the cliff
top opposite his house. Still, she loved living in Penzance Beach, loved living
so close to the water, which was only minutes away on foot.

Her route this morning took her
first along the top of the bluff, the flat blue sea and Phillip Island showing
between the dark pines on one side of her, a range of fences, yards and holiday
houses on the othersilent weekenders, expensively curtained and gloomy at this
hour on a weekday morning.

Then she came to a concrete cliff
top bench, signs that warned of unstable edges, and a flight of wooden steps to
the sand below. She pistoned down, then back up, then down again, until her
legs burned and her heart hammered. She was running a marathon soon, and liked
to push herself hard like this. Her body and mind crackling with alertness and
energy, she began to lope along the beach, weaving in and out of the kelp
drifts and exposed reefs at the edge of the water, where the sand was wet and
hard. She passed old people walking dogs, a power-walker, seagulls, sharks
eggs, the carcass of a seal. No dolphins keeping pace with her today, only a
tanker far out on the water, heading for the refinery near Waterloo.

So a morning like most others, but
Pam always noticed the tiny differences between one day and the next. The two
breakwaters along her route were almost covered in sand this morning, for
example, and yesterday thered been no kelp. Had the wind risen last night, the
waters raced? If so, shed slept right through it. And with the blood beating
strongly through her, body zingingly alive, she thought about Andy Cree.

She came to the little stile on the
low plank wall at the bottom of the cliff, stepped over it and was lost in the
ti-trees, their trunks and roots like dark hanks of rope. Dodging to avoid the
traps in her path, all sounds shielded from her, Pam powered up the crooked
track to the cliff top. Finally she burst through the bushes and onto the road.

And stopped in her tracks. She
struggled to take it all in. There was a gap in the vista, but what? Then she
realised: the old fishermans cottage had been flattened. Heavy bulldozers were
growling and scraping among the pines. People were milling about, shouting
angrily, some of them in tears. Eight security guards, beefy, beer-fed thugs
dressed in black, maintained a line of defence between the protesters and the
demolition crew. The latter, wearing hard hats, jeans, work boots and gloves,
were wielding mallets and loading dump bins in concert with the bulldozers.

It was implacable, unstoppable. It
was noisy, dusty and shocking to witness. Pam felt tears spring to her eyes and
she crossed the road to join the protesters.

One man detached himself from the
group. He was bony, grey-haired but fit looking, and Pam recognised him as
someone she saw walking along the beach from time to time. He clearly knew her,
for he said, in a clear, booming voice, Youre a police officer, right?

Pam nodded. Whats happening? she
said, even though she knew it was a dumb question.

Shed always liked the old house.
She passed it every morning when she burst through from the beach below. She
thought of it as part of the old Penzance Beach, a pretty house amid the
million-dollar architectural wet dreams on either side of it, which were
constructed of smoky glass, corrugated iron and tropical rainforest timbers and
referred to as our beach shack by the Melbourne stockbrokers and cocaine
lawyers who owned them.

Cant you stop it? the man said,
clutching her wrist.

She removed it gently. A bit late
for that, Mr...

Carl Vernon, he said. Please, do
something.

Pam weighed her options. The
demolition was well advanced and well organised. She was one lonely copper. She
didnt know the facts.

Perhaps they have permission, she
said lamely.

Permission! The house was unique!
It was classified by the National Trust yesterday!

That was enough to go on with. Pam
strode toward the site, Vernon beside her, saying, They have no right. There
was an emergency application for heritage protection lodged with the planning
minister.

They reached the security cordon. Wait
here, please, Pam said, and she made to step between two of the guards, men
built like concrete slabs, no necks, shaven skulls. In its sweet, blind way,
the state government had allowed the security industry to regulate itself, with
the result that many security guards had criminal records and a penchant for
methamphetamine-fuelled rage. Knowing that, Pam wasnt intimidated by these
jokers. Im a police officer, she said levelly, looking each man in the eye. If
you lay one finger on me, Ill fuck you up for good.

They blinked. She passed through to
another thickset man, who wore the hard, unimpressed face of work-site bosses
the world over. One foot propped on a pile of fence palings, he was watching a
bulldozer tip rubble into a skip. Pam was astonished to see a mattress complete
with a woollen underlay go tumbling in, followed by a refrigerator and a
microwave. Then another dozer roared in: a splintered wardrobe, a dusty rug,
shards of glass, corrugated roofing iron, a woollen overcoat.

The foreman gave her a quizzical
look and spat unhurriedly at her feet. How did you get in here?

Im a police officer.

Watching her wordlessly, he fished a
sheet of paper from his shirt pocket. It was warm from his body, almost moist.
She scanned it: a demolition permit.

But as I understand it, she said,
returning the document, the house was classified by the National Trust
yesterday.

But
not protected,
the
foreman said. Besides, the Trust is weak as piss. A hobby for the idle rich.

He looked as though he were about to
give an explosive lecture on the subject but thought better of it. Look, a
call came in last night, flatten the place first thing this morning. I checked
out the legal situation, me and my boys are in the clear.

Pam was disgusted. You couldnt
even empty the rooms first? she asked, shouting above the sounds of the
bulldozers as a scoop of planks and a leather armchair were tipped into the
skip.

The foreman snarled, Because of
those loonies he pointed to the protestersit had to be done this way.
People like that, nothing better to do... he finished, shaking his head.

Whats going up in its place?

Fucked if I know, the man said,
looking pointedly at the houses on either side, monstrosities that blocked the
sun.

Whos developing it? Who called
you?

Thats confidential information.

Dispirited by the waste, greed and
contempt, Pam crossed the road to where Vernon had rejoined the protesters. Theres
nothing I can do. Sorry.

Arrest them, a woman said, tears
in her eyes.

They have a valid demolition
permit.

Thats not the point. We were under
the impression that the Ebelings valued the house.

The Ebelings?

Hugh Ebeling and his wife.

Pam had never heard of them. Im
very sorry, Im as heartsick as you are, but its a civil, not a police matter.
I suggest you take it up with the shire.

That made the teary woman angry. The
shire? Dont you think its significant that the house was heritage listed
yesterday, and demolished by the Ebelings today, just before an emergency
protection order could be granted? They were tipped off by someone on the
inside.

Are you reporting a crime?

The woman looked flustered. Carl
Vernon took charge, thanking Pam and speaking calming words to the men and
women who milled about helplessly. He said, as Pam began her slow jog toward
home, If we can prove anything, will you look into it?

Pam waved, her way of saying yes.
She was tired, hungry, needed a coffee. She jogged past the site; already the
guards were piling into two black Range Rovers with tinted windows, the demolition
workers beginning to load the bulldozers onto semitrailers.

Thirty minutes later, Pam returned,
driving past on her way to work, hair damp, coffee and porridge sitting
comfortably in her belly. The site was empty. She braked cautiously: no it wasnt.
Some of the locals were fishing around in the rubbish skips, retrieving
electrical goods, furniture, clothing and books.

Good luck to them. She tried to
figure out what kind of person would authorise and abet the bulldozing of that
pretty little house and saw only a terrible barrenness.

She drove away slowly. She saw Carl
Vernon outside a nearby cottage, beside a silver Golf, talking to a young woman
with red hair. At the bottom of the hill she braked suddenly for a red Citroen.
She tracked it as it passed, seeing it slip into the shadows beneath a plane tree
near the crest and remain there.

Pam Murphy shrugged, accelerated and
headed to the police station in Waterloo, where she parked in a corner of the
yard, away from the bird-shit gums. She entered by the rear doors, using her
swipe card, collected a sheaf of circulars and memos from her pigeonhole, and
climbed the stairs to CIU. She had things to do.

She was bemused to find that shed
beaten the others to work: usually she was late. Thinking she should mark the
occasion by brewing the coffee, Pam wandered into the tearoom and stared
doubtfully at the coffee machine that Challis had installed. The boss loved his
coffee. Never drank instant. Made terrific coffee, too, and had shown her how
to load the machine, but now all of that information had vanished into thin
air.

Challis saved her from making a fool
of herself. He came easily up the stairs, looking fresh and benign, as though
hed had a good shag this morning. Perhaps he had: living with Sergeant Destry
seemed to be doing him good. He would never be called Laughing Boy by the
troopshis face saw to that, with its narrow planes, dark cast and air of
permanent scepticismbut he was lighter on his feet these days, burned more
slowly, as if a great weight had been removed from his shoulders.

They stood about for a while,
waiting for the coffee to brew. She told him about the bulldozed house, about
the man named Hugh Ebeling and his contemptuous act, but Challis was
distracted. Ebeling, he murmured. Dont know anything about the guy.

There was a way of finding out,
though. All Pam needed was for Challis and the others to leave the building for
an hour or two.

* * * *

18

While
Challis and Murphy drank their coffee that Wednesday morning, Ellen Destry was
standing in the grounds of the Landseer School with the deputy head, watching
as buses, BMWs and Range Rovers pulled in, unloaded and pulled out again. She
saw one Chinese face and one Indian, but the school community was pretty much a
monoculture. The Landseer School for Blonde Children, she thought.

Thats Zara, Moorhouse said,
pointing suddenly.

Tall, fair, faintly voluptuous,
gloriously self-absorbed. Ellen began to move, saying from the corner of her
mouth, Ill need you to sit in while I interview her.

Id have insisted anyway,
Moorhouse said.

Ellen nodded. It was playing out as
she wanted it to play out. It would look bad if she questioned Zara Selkirk
without an appropriate adult present. Moorhouse had status but was not, it seemed,
in thrall to the money, power and prestige that surrounded the school; and the
school was a better environment for Ellens purposes than Zaras home, where
she might find herself obstructed by a parent or a lawyer.