‘“Claim” being the operative word.’
‘They support her story.’
Now van Alphen got heated. In the little room where the sergeants got their rest and recreation while in the station, she could smell him, his perspiration and stale aftershave. ‘If there was anything going on,’ he said, ‘it was at the Jarrett bitch’s hands. I know for a fact she was standing over Clode for favours, demanding money, booze and smokes or she’d go to the police and say he’d raped her.’
‘Know for a fact?’
‘Yes.’
‘The fact being that he told you that?’
‘Yes.’
‘What amazing insights you have, Van. So you’re saying paedophiles don’t groom their victims, don’t coerce them into abusive relationships. Maybe you even believe that paedophiles are the victims themselves. The children take charge. Is that what you think?’
Kellock interrupted mildly. ‘It’s not unusual, Ellen. Kids enter these relationships willingly in exchange for gifts, then when they get found out or the supply gets cut off, they claim they were forced into it.’
An unholy alliance, Ellen thought, her gaze shifting from one man to the other. Kellock had flown through the crossword. Van Alphen sipped at a mug of coffee-marked, she noticed, like hers: Our day begins when yours ends. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. In effect, you both let Clode carry on abusing children for another eighteen months.’
‘We talked to Mr Clode,’ said van Alphen, smooth now, his outburst forgotten. ‘Alysha’s story was a complete beatup. I’d look more closely at the Jarrett household if I were you.’
Ellen flashed mentally on the Jarrett household and wondered irrationally who Laurie was sleeping with. She sensed all kinds of murkiness, but not father in bed with daughter. But what of the legions of cousins, brothers, stepbrothers, family friends and uncles?
‘The attack on Clode,’ she said.
Van Alphen shrugged. ‘Could be a simple ag burg, could be Laurie decided to get revenge for the kid’s false claims, could be anything.’
‘Laurie is vengeful,’ Ellen said. ‘I’d watch your backs if I were you.’
‘That prick doesn’t scare us,’ van Alphen said.
‘Is that all, Ellen?’ said Kellock. ‘We’re entitled to unwind without plainclothes coming in and hassling us.’
‘Us against them,’ muttered Ellen.
Van Alphen smiled. ‘That’s what policing’s all about.’
She felt tired and discouraged, and changed the subject. ‘Van, have you found any cold cases of interest?’
‘Still looking,’ he told her.
Chain of Evidence
That evening Ellen told Challis about ForenZics and the DNA cockups.
He was perplexed. ‘Go back a step. You used a private lab?’
She told him about McQuarrie’s cost-cutting measures. ‘I’ll call you back,’ Challis said.
She prowled his sitting room, restlessly scanning his CD collection. One caught her eye: k. d. lang, Hymns of the 49th Parallel. She supposed it made sense: Challis seemed to like female vocalists: Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, even Aretha Franklin. What did it say about the role of music in her own life that her car radio was set to a news station and she owned very few CDs-and they were in storage? Her daughter liked techno, her husband the edgier kind of country music, but her CD purchases had always been random and sporadic. Did that denote a formless mind, or the pressures and anxieties of her professional life? She felt obscurely that she’d hate to disappoint Challis.
With her slender forefinger Ellen flipped out the k. d. lang, removed the disc and played it. The strong, sad voice filled her up. She played two of the songs again: Neil Young’s ‘Helpless’ and Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’.
What was keeping Challis?
Twenty minutes later, he said, ‘I had a word with Freya Berg.’
The government pathologist. ‘And?’
‘Good and bad. She’s lost some highly trained people to ForenZics. They pay a lot more and have better equipped labs. But some of their procedures have been suspect or careless.’
He listed a number of instances. Technicians had transported and stored items of clothing with recently-fired automatic pistols, thus transferring gunshot residue; they had stored victims’ clothing with suspects’, thus transferring blood, semen and fibres; they had handled the evidence from different cases over a period of time without changing their gloves; they had even contaminated new evidence with old. In one notorious instance, the DNA of a 2003 rape victim had been found on the clothing of a 2005 murder victim.
‘Great,’ said Ellen. She paused: ‘Maybe McQuarrie holds shares in ForenZics.’
It was good to hear Challis laugh. It was good to hear his encouragement. She told him about Peter Duyker. ‘He and Clode are close, apparently.’
‘If you can’t get Clode, get Duyker.’
‘That’s exactly what I intend to do.’
She’d called his mobile; now she could hear his father’s house phone ringing in the background. ‘I’d better get that,’ he said.
‘Miss you,’ she said.
33
Challis pocketed his mobile and hurried through to the kitchen before the phone disturbed his father. Then he realised: Ellen had said ‘Miss you.’ Grinning, he answered the phone.
‘Hal,’ said his sister. ‘They think they’ve found Gavin.’
She sounded panicky. It was seven o’clock and stars hung in the sky, a vastness of sky above the plains, clearly visible through the window above the kitchen sink.
‘Where?’
Meg’s voice was tight, barely controlled, as she explained it to him. It was a vivid account: he could see the lonely cemetery and the body coming into view, the latter image coloured by his years as a homicide inspector. He knew what time and certain conditions-water, air, chemicals, earth, and the lack of these-could do to a corpse.
‘How certain is it?’
‘His wallet was in his pocket. And his keys.’
Challis sat at the table. ‘They will still need to carry out a proper identification. Dental records, DNA.’
‘I know. They told me that. Hal, they said he’d been shot in the head and did I know anything about that and where was I when he disappeared.’
Challis straightened. ‘Who are you talking about? Who’s asking these questions?’
‘Two detectives. They came up from Adelaide.’
Homicide Squad, thought Challis. ‘I’ll come over. Is Eve there?’
‘She’s staying the night with a friend. They’re studying together. I haven’t even had time to tell her.’
Challis checked on his father, wondering what to tell him. ‘That was Meg. She-’
‘I didn’t see her today,’ he replied querulously. ‘Why didn’t she come to see me today?’
The voice and manner were fretful. He had good and bad days, good and bad periods every day. Challis sat on the edge of the bed, where the air was stale, close and redolent of age and illness. ‘Dad, they’ve found a body. They think it could be Gavin.’
The eyes turned sharp. ‘Suicide? Out east? He’ll be a skeleton by now.’
Challis touched his father’s frail wrist. ‘Buried, Dad. They suspect foul play.’
The eyes grew sharper. ‘They suspect Meg, you mean.’
‘Possibly. I’m going over there now. I’ll see what I can find out.’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Dad.’
‘I’m coming with you.’
It took Challis thirty minutes to get his father ready. They took the old man’s boxy station wagon, driving in silence, his father leaning forward as though to speed them through the evening to Meg’s house on the other side of the Bluff. It was a ramshackle place, with plenty of small pens and shelters, from when Gavin had rescued orphaned, injured or mistreated animals. The animals were long gone and the garden looked untamed, the spring growth getting away from Meg and Eve. The gravelled turning circle glowed white in the moonlight and the headlights flashed on the lenses of three cars: Meg’s Holden, which was in the carport, a police car and an anonymous white Falcon.