Challis braked and switched off the engine. His father fumbled with the door catch, dropping his cane between his seat and the door. ‘Let me help you, Dad.’
Before he could do that, Meg was there, opening the door. ‘Dad, you shouldn’t have come out.’ She glanced reprovingly at Challis across the roof of the car as if to say, Are you trying to hasten his death? Challis shrugged.
They went into the house, to the shabby but homely sitting room, where three men waited. All three stood politely, the local man, Sergeant Wurfel, saying, ‘Hello, Mr Challis.’
Challis’s father gestured impatiently and turned to the other men, who were hard and suited, but weary looking, aged in their forties. Challis recognised the type: they were dedicated, hard working, cynical and exhausted. They weren’t about to take anything at face value. They also knew that you start looking close to home when it’s a homicide.
They stepped forward expressionlessly and shook hands with Challis and his father, announcing their names as Stormare and Nixon.
Stormare was dark-haired, Nixon carroty and pale. Challis needed to get something out of the way immediately. ‘Did my sister tell you that I’m-‘
‘An inspector in the Victoria Police? Sergeant Wurfel told us,’ Stormare said.
‘May I ask what you have?’
They gave him their flat looks. Nixon jerked his head. ‘Let’s talk in the kitchen.’ He glanced at Wurfel. ‘You stay here.’
Wurfel flushed but nodded.
Challis followed them into the kitchen. Here the three men stood tensely for a moment before sitting, mutually untrusting, around the little table. Cooking odours lingered: a garlicky sauce, guessed Challis.
‘According to Sergeant Wurfel, you’ve been asking questions about your brother-in-law.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s my brother-in-law,’ said Challis with some heat. ‘My father is dying, my sister and my niece haven’t been able to get on with their lives because they didn’t know if Gavin was alive or dead. Wouldn’t you want answers?’
He wasn’t reaching them. He knew he wouldn’t. Like them, he always treated these situations with an unimpressed mind.
‘We don’t want you meddling in this.’
‘At least tell me copper to copper about the body.’
Nixon shrugged. ‘Fair enough. It was found in a garbage bag, which slowed decomposition. Not a pretty sight. Pretty much a soupy sludge.’
Challis nodded. He knew exactly what the body would have looked like. ‘What forensics do you have?’
‘We’ll try to get prints off the bag, but don’t hold your breath,’ Stormare said.
‘We’ve sifted the soil,’ said Nixon. ‘Nothing.’
They stared at him. ‘That’s all we can tell you.’
‘What did the autopsy reveal?’
‘We’re not at liberty to say.’
‘But he was shot. My sister told me he’d been shot in the head.’
‘We can confirm that, yes.’
Both men were watching him almost challengingly, as if to say: We know our job, pal.
‘If there’s any way I can help…’ said Challis.
‘You can’t,’ said Nixon flatly.
‘My sister didn’t do it,’ Challis said. ‘Nor did my father.’
They gave their empty smiles and said nothing. They all returned to the sitting room, where Wurfel sat awkwardly on a stiff-backed chair and Meg and her father shared a sofa, holding hands. Meg looked washed out. The old man looked mulish. ‘Dad,’ she said warningly.
He shook her off. ‘So it’s not suicide.’
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Stormare said indifferently.
The old man smarted at his tone. ‘Gavin made enemies. He wasn’t himself at the end.’
‘Is that so?’
‘He rubbed several farmers up the wrong way. He came down hard on anyone who wasn’t treating his sheep or horses or dogs right.’
‘Mrs Hurst, do you own a gun?’
Meg’s hand flew to her heart. ‘No. Of course not.’
‘Surely your husband owned one, to shoot dangerous animals, put sick and injured ones out of their misery.’
She frowned. ‘Now that you mention it, he did. A little.22 rifle.’
‘It was found in his car,’ muttered the old man.
‘It was?’ said Meg. ‘What happened to it?’
‘I handed it in to be destroyed.’
‘You didn’t tell me that.’
Challis was watching Nixon and Stormare, who were in turn watching the exchange. His sister and his father were asking some of the questions they wanted to ask and getting the answers they wanted to hear. Stormare turned to Wurfel. ‘Dig up the paperwork.’
‘Sure.’
‘Do you have a bullet,’ asked Challis, ‘or fragments?’
Stormare ignored him. ‘Are there any other firearms in the family?’
‘No,’ snarled the old man, ‘but this is a farming area. Rifles and shotguns all over the place.’ ’
‘We’ll be sure to look into it,’ Nixon said, giving a smart clap of his hands as if to say, Time you went home now.
‘You treat my daughter with the respect she deserves. All these years she thought he was alive.’
‘Dad,’ said Meg.
‘Find the person who sent her those letters and you’ll find your killer.’
The Adelaide detectives went very still. Challis watched their minds working even as they gave nothing away.
‘Letters?’ said Nixon.
Wurfel coughed. ‘I was going to tell you. It’s in the Misper file.’
‘Dad,’ said Meg, ‘how did you know? Did Mum tell you?’
He gestured impatiently. ‘Doesn’t matter. Tell them.’
Meg turned to Nixon and Stormare. ‘I thought it was Gavin, mocking me, trying to hurt me. Magazine subscriptions, memberships, credit card applications. I thought it was Gavin.’ She swallowed. ‘Even a subscription to Playboy. That was the hardest to take. We hadn’t exactly been intimate for some time.’
The old man rocked a little and closed his eyes.
‘Did you keep any of them?’ said Stormare.
‘No.’
Both detectives turned to Challis with the kinds of clever, assessing smiles that he’d given over the years. ‘I don’t suppose you saw any of this mail?’
‘No. But look at her. Look at the hurt.’
They sighed. ‘Perhaps you could come to the station and make a statement, Mrs Hurst. Tomorrow morning, nine sharp.’
Meg glanced anxiously at Challis. ‘Can my brother come with me?’
‘No.’
Challis’s father made some phone calls when the police had left. A lawyer friend from a nearby town agreed to accompany Meg the next morning. The family’s dentist confirmed that he’d been asked for Gavin’s dental X-rays. The effort exhausted the old man, and soon he was slumped in his chair, apparently asleep. By now it was 10 pm.
Meg glanced at Challis, the tension tight in her face. ‘First Dad to contend with, now this.’
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about.’
‘I didn’t kill him.’
‘I know you didn’t. I mean, why would you?’
It was a rhetorical question, but Meg looked away and Challis felt his heart thump. ‘Meg?’
‘He was going to divorce me.’
‘And?’
‘He was going to rewrite his will, leaving everything to the RSPCA and sell this house.’
Challis knew that people had murdered for less compelling reasons. ‘Sounds weak to me, sis.’
‘But they’ll investigate and think that’s why I killed him. I mean, not that I did kill him.’
Challis placed his arm around her. ‘Come and sit down and tell me about it.’
They talked for an hour, murmurs punctuated by their father’s snores and heart-stopping silences when he didn’t seem to breathe at all. As Meg told it, Gavin had been subject to violent mood swings for almost two years. Sometimes he was manically happy, but was more often depressed and angry. The mistreatment of animals distressed him deeply, he accused Meg of being unfaithful to him, he became protective and narrow as Eve’s body matured after puberty, and he often threatened suicide. ‘Threatening to divorce me, sell the house and cut us out of the will was typical of what he was like at the time he disappeared. I mean, was killed.’