Challis - 05 - Blood Moon (14 page)

Besides, she wanted to ambush the kid.

Five minutes later, they were in
Moorhouses office, an environment of papery smells and disordered bookshelves
and files, Zara Selkirk saying, I was sick yesterday. I brought a note from my
mother.

Cut the crap, Ellen said. You
wagged school. You went up to the city after school on Monday afternoon,
attended a concert that evening, and spent the night in your familys Southbank
apartment. A days shopping with your mother yesterday, and back home last
night.

Zara Selkirk sulked. Whats it to you?

Im not a truant officer. Im
investigating the assault on the school chaplain.

You cant pin that on me. I wasnt
even here.

But you were at school on Monday.
Yours was the only appointment in his diary.

So?

So tell me about it.

Not fair.

Zara, said the deputy head, the
sooner you answer the sergeants questions the sooner you can return to class.

There was a moment when the girl
seemed almost to weigh these options. Her face cleared and she said, Because
of some stuff that wasnt even my idea I had to like you know, apologise to
some old ... the library lady. Like shes not even a teacher or anything.

Ellen said distinctly, Zara, you
and your friends set up a fake Facebook page that caused immense distress to an
innocent middle-aged woman whos not in a position to defend herself

Well it was a joke. She should
learn to take jokes.

Why did you meet with Mr Roe on
Monday?

He was like the go-between.

He was the mediator between you and
Mrs Richardson?

Zara Selkirk said, Yeah, as though
everything was obvious and why didnt Ellen get it.

But she didnt attend?

Bitch went to a lawyer.

Zara, warned Moorhouse.

The girls face grew drowsy with
satisfaction. Well she is.

Ellen stepped in. What did you and Mr
Roe talk about?

With a twist of her mouth, Zara
Selkirk said, Pervert. He said I should write to her but mainly he was
interested in my tits.

Ellen, remembering what Hal had
discovered about the Roe brothers upbringing, visualised the scene. Lachlan
Roe, forty years old, the Landseer chaplain but an unloved or unlovely man,
waits in his poky office for the only appointment of the day. The Year 12s are
no longer around, theyre off enjoying Schoolies Weeknot that theyd ever
sought his advice or counselling anyway. Its a long morning. All of his
mornings are long. Maybe he wanders the corridors, looking for lost souls, a
staff member perhaps, but no one wants him. He returns to his office and logs
on to a pornography site or his brothers blog or reads and sends e-mails.

Then soon after lunch theres a
knock on his door. Come, he calls, in his smooth, disarming way.

The sixteen-year-old who slips into
his room has the breasts of a woman and the face of a child. The chaplain
notices these things in that order. Shes wearing aspects of the Landseer girls
uniform, a white blouse over a long charcoal skirt, so he cant assess her
legs, but her wrists and hands are soft and plump. He takes in her hair, which
is the kind of blonde that is almost white, her expressive lips and her body
language, which both entices and expresses contempt for him. She doesnt want
to be in the same room with him.

How did he seem to you? said Ellen
now.

Who?

Ellen closed and opened her eyes and
said carefully, What kind of mood was Mr Roe in?

A dirty-old-man mood.

Lachlan Roe is slender, of medium
height, and believes he has an air of boyish charm. Hes the same age as the
childs father but hes not uncool, like most fathers. Hes youthful looking in
his black silk T-shirt and grey linen jacket with the cuffs turned back.

The jacket that later collected
another persons mucus.

He lets Zara wait on his strip of
carpet for a long moment, then loads his face and body with soulful gentleness
and murmurs, Hello, Zara, please take a seat.

Shes a gawkily lovely teenager, and
an old ugliness stirs inside him. There in his sterile office the drowsy
mid-November sun streams in, banding the threadbare carpet, the girls lap and
one forearm, her fine hairs fairly glowing, so that he swallows and coughs
nervously.

Ellen could see it all. Was there
any
specific
thing Mr Roe did or said that made you feel uncomfortable?

You think I attacked him. I told
you, I was at a concert.

I know that. Im trying to get a
feeling for the kind of man Mr Roe was...is.

Zara considered this, looking for
traps. If you think I paid someone to attack him, well I didnt. And my dad
didnt do it, cause hes away.

Zara, what did Mr Roe do and say?

He goes, do my parents know why Im
here? I go, yes, they said I had to apologise to old Merle. He goes, Well,
Zara, they are your parents, one does have a duty to ones parents. Moron.

Zara, said Moorhouse.

Well, its not fair. He said I had
all these unworldly people around me and I was like, defiled by them.

Defiled? What did he mean by that?

I told him it wasnt my idea, the
Facebook thing, it was Amber and Megan. He said purity comes from separating
yourself from defiling influences and was I a lesbian. Pervert.

Ellen thought she was probably
right. What else?

He got this mad look on his face.
He said he could see my future. Drugs, sex, backpacking in Europe and stuff.

Backpacking in Europe?

He was barking mad. He said I would
meet some guy with caramel skin and liquid eyes who would ask me to deliver a
package.

What package?

How should I know? Im supposed to
listen to this guy?

What else? Did he touch you?

Zara shuddered. No way. Just told
me as chaplain he understood the teenage mindset. I said, Yeah, but do you have
any like, formal qualifications?

Ellen and Moorhouse exchanged a
smile. What did he say?

He said, forget further study,
university is too narrowing, forget travel, Ill meet drug couriers and
terrorists. He said its my duty to get married and have children and honour my
parents. You young people come to me with your tight clothes and your
soul-damaging mobile phones, wanting Godless freedoms, Zara said mincingly,
hooking her fingers in quotation marks around the chaplains words.

What then?

With an apologetic glance at
Moorhouse, Zara Selkirk said, I cleared out, sorry.

He didnt raise the issue of your
apology to Mrs Richardson?

He said, I am the elect, like he
was God or Jesus or something. I was a bit scared, actually. He was so weird.

Did you tell anyone about the
session?

Zara looked away. No.

No one?

Like, who would believe me? Zara
said.

* * * *

19

The
morning passed. Pam Murphy followed up on a handful of residents complaints
that probably stemmed from schoolies exuberanceused condoms on the front lawn
of a house opposite the foreshore tents, a parked car sideswiped in the same
area, the shoplifting of Bolle sunglasses from HangTenbut mostly she was
waiting for CIU to empty.

Finally Challis left to interview
Dirk Roes office colleagues and the members of Lachlan Roes congregation, and
Scobie Sutton headed out to track down a ride-on mower. The poor guy looked
wretched.

Still, there was always a lot of
traffic on the first floor, uniforms coming and going with paperwork that
demanded attention, the stations new sergeant and senior sergeant keeping an
eye on things, the IT geek returning with Lachlan Roes laptop, someone from
the canteen taking lunch orders... Pam ordered a tuna salad, and she thanked
the sergeant for letting her have Tank and Cree as backup that night, during
the eclipse, but mostly she kept her head down and waited.

When it was quiet, she logged on to
the Law Enforcement Database. Strict protocols were in place for using LED, and
she was breaking most of them, but the image of this mornings wilful destruction
wouldnt leave her alone and soon she had Hugh Ebelings details on the screen.
The man whod torn down Somerland just so he could dominate the ridge and the
sky above Penzance Beach was forty-two years old, a property developer, married
to Mia, aged forty. Mia was a senior executive with Lotto Link, a Swiss company
that had recently acquired licences to sell scratch cards and install poker
machines in Victorian pubs and clubs. So, not short of a dollar. No children.

They lived in Brightonpronounced Brahton,
Pam believed, by the nipped, tucked and Botoxed men and women who lived there.
Presumably Penzance Beach would be their weekend residence. Two houses overlooking
the water, lucky devils.

They owned a Range Rover, a Maserati
and BMW. Hugh had lost two points for speeding, Mia nine. Various parking
infringements. No criminal record for either person but Hugh had been sued by a
consortium of clients for building on a flood plain in northern New South
Wales, and Mia was a discharged bankrupt.

But casual dishonesty and steering
close to the wind were probably not unusual in the nouveau riche circles the
Ebelings moved in. Pam continued her search, and by way of links to the
Age
and
Brighton Argus
newspapers and a residents action group, discovered that
numerous well-established trees on the roadway between the Ebelings Brighton
house and the waters of the bay had been chopped down or poisoned. The Ebelings
had expressed outrage at the destruction, but it was widely believed that theyd
ordered it, wanting a sea view from their top windows.

Finally, Mias cousin was Justice
Stephen Marlowe of the states planning appeals tribunal. You might as well
give up, Pam thought, throwing down her pen in disgust. Youre never going to
beat the bastards.

* * * *

Scobie
Sutton drove to a dealer in second-hand farm machinery in Cranbourne and found
the stolen ride-on mower. He knew the dealer was vaguely bent, but he was too
deeply fatigued and discouraged to pursue that angle. Instead, he said, Can
you give me a name?

I can give you a numberplate.

Which belonged to a van owned by
Laurie Jarrett on the Seaview Park estate in Waterloo. Jarrett was well known
to the police.

After that he drove to the hospital
and there was his wife, at the bedside of Lachlan Roe. Sweetheart, come home
please, we need you.

He hasnt moved. He hasnt said
anything.

They looked at Roes pinched,
bruised face, the bandages swaddling his head. Sweetheart, let the nurses do
their job.

Ive been talking to him non-stop,
Beth wailed. Not a flicker.

Come home. Youre tired. You need
to sleep. Its Ross concert tonight. Please, Beth.

Full moon tonight, said Beth in
her new, wild-eyed way.

Ross concert tonight, said Scobie
firmly, feeling that his heart would break.

She came eventually, as though
drugged with something you could never measure or trace.

* * * *

After
viewing the bulldozed remains of Somerland with Carl Vernon, Ludmilla Wishart
returned to Planning East and made a flurry of phone calls. Yes, the minister
had received the emergency application to protect Somerland, but hadnt
intended to act on it until Friday, after hed had further advice and
consultation. His minder said that the minister wished to convey his deepest
regrets, but the demolition had, on the face of it, proceeded lawfully, thank
you, goodbye.

Then the calls began. A journalist
from the local paper. Distressed Penzance Beach residents. And anonymous
callers, abusive callers, placing her in the pockets of wealthy developers. Im
not! she insisted, but these were not people who were interested in debating
the point.

In fact, she was pretty sure who had
tipped off the Ebelings. Shed gathered plenty of evidence over the past weeks
and months, but when and how she should use it, she didnt quite know.

She also fielded calls and e-mails
from Adrian. Nothing unusual about that. Sometimes he contacted her several
times a day; had done so for the past three years, ever since they got married.
This morning the calls came every thirty minutes, always beginning, Its me:
where are you?

And shed say, In my office.

Given that he always seemed to know
when she hadnt been in her office, she found this question puzzling. The
morning progressed. At one point she stood in a corner of the window and peered
out. The planning office sat with Centrelink, the Neighbourhood House and a
childcare centre opposite a small park, and there was her husband, at a park
bench with his laptop. The fact that he was sending her e-mails meant that he
was piggybacking on someones wireless network. Her heart began its arrhythmic
palpitations and soon she was on her back gulping for air, one hand over her
chest until the scary beat evened out, until she was a normal person.