He’d raced down to the Peninsula from the airport, but there was no one at home in the miserable weatherboard ruin that Nathan Gent had been renting for the past few months. Bayview Grove, Dromana, a defeated-looking collection of houses crammed close to each other and the sea nowhere in sight. Vyner, taking care of business, had been waiting for an hour. Had Gent followed up his anonymous call with a visit to the cop shop? Bayview Grove was dead; four vehicles in the past hour: the postman on a 100cc Suzuki, bouncing at low speed over kerbs and driveways, a couple of women strapping toddlers into shiny cheap Korean imports, a guy distributing leaflets and not giving a shit about the No Junk Mail notices.
Vyner gazed again at Gent’s house. A few untidy plants on the front porch, weeds in the overgrown lawn, and no vehicle in the driveway but indications of one: muddy tyre impressions, flattened grass, oil leaks. He’d knocked when he first arrived, checked the meter box, and listened at doors and windows, but clearly Gent wasn’t in. And he hadn’t wanted to spend too much time poking around, for the house was too exposed. The street seemed dead, but it was probably chock-a-block with young mothers behind closed doors. Maybe with all of that post-natal depression they’d not be capable of identifying him, but he didn’t want to chance it.
What was in it for Gent, contacting the police? Money? Get rid of the guilt? Treacherous little prick. Time passed; Vyner dozed.
Gent came home on a pushbike, of all fucking things, shopping bags swinging from the handlebars. Vyner ducked low in his seat, confident that the tinted glass would obscure him. He saw Gent swing into the driveway with a natty flourish, dismount, and prop the bike against the peeling front wall. Then Gent disappeared down the side of the house. Vyner checked the wing mirrors, checked the street ahead and behind, and swung the Falcon into the driveway at low speed and revs. He piled out, ran to the rear of the house, and charged through the door on the back porch just as Gent was about to elbow it closed. The shopping spilled all over the worn linoleum and Gent stumbled backwards and Vyner shot him in the heart with his second silenced Browning automatic.
24
Ellen sat in the CIU Falcon in the carpark behind the station, waiting for Challis to leave the building. She still felt buoyed by the events of the morning. She could have sworn that Challis was going to kiss her at one stage, before those Witsec goons arrived.
She saw the back door swing open and Challis appeared. He wore an overcoat at a time and in a place where men didn’t wear overcoats but brightly coloured jackets of padded down or polar fleece. He was very slightly daggy and she liked that about him. He glanced about the yard for her, and in the second or two it took for him to find the CIU car, and her, his face was in repose, showing the true man underneath: fatigued, a little sad and careworn, his narrow face and hooded eyes faintly prohibitive. Then he smiled and it transformed him.
‘All set?’ she asked, as he got into the passenger seat.
‘Waterloo Motors called as I was leaving,’ he said, buckling his seatbelt.
‘And?’
‘It will take a few days to get the parts they need.’
‘Buy yourself a new car, Hal.’
‘Nothing wrong with my car. The motor’s tired, that’s all,’ Challis said. ‘Like the owner.’
She checked him for a ribald meaning, but as usual Challis was unreadable. Without trying to make it sound too significant, she said, ‘I’m happy to take you to and from work until you get it back.’
He shook his head. ‘They’ll have a courtesy car for me later today.’
His lightness of mood was evaporating. To distract him, Ellen said, ‘Alan wanted to know why you didn’t get a cab to work,’ and watched for his reaction. For reasons that she hadn’t finished thinking through, she wanted Challis to know that her husband was jealous of him.
‘Huh,’ said Challis.
She gave up and they drove in silence to the hospital, Ellen feeling obscurely disappointed. At the hospital they walked into a close, dry heat: guaranteed to make you feel sicker, Ellen thought. A nurse directed them along a pastelly corridor, and they found the owner of 283 Lofty Ridge Road watching morning TV, her face registering a kind of fury. ‘Nothing on but rubbish,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, glaring at them both.
Challis told her. ‘Mrs Humphreys, I need to ask you some questions about your god-daughter.’
Mrs Humphreys aimed the remote at the TV set and the screen gulped and went blank. ‘I wasn’t much help to your man yesterday, and I don’t suppose I’ll be much help now.’
Challis smiled. ‘How are you feeling today?’
‘Sore, but brighter in the head.’
‘You told DC Sutton that Christina stayed with you for a while last April.’
‘That’s right. For about three weeks.’
‘Was it unusual for her to stay with you?’
‘Yes and no. I saw her often when she was little, before the family moved to Sydney, but haven’t seen much of her in recent years. Look, is she in trouble?’
Challis wondered how much to tell her. ‘Not with the police. She hasn’t done anything wrong.’
Mrs Humphreys glanced at him shrewdly, her veiny hands kneading her pale blue hospital blanket. ‘That woman who was shot at my house-do you think they were after Chris instead?’
‘We don’t know for sure. We have to look at all possibilities. Are you certain that Christina went to London?’
‘I got a postcard from her. I recognised the handwriting. Do you think she’ll be safe there?’
‘Yes.’
Mrs Humphreys didn’t seem convinced.
‘How would you describe Christina’s mood?’
‘When she stayed with me? I’ve been going over that in my head all night. At the time, I thought she was nursing a broken heart-you know, some man had dumped her and she wanted to get away for a while. She was moody and sad. Wouldn’t leave the house. But now I’m thinking she might have been more scared than sad.’
‘Did she receive any unusual phone calls? Make any? Have any visitors?’
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘And she left suddenly?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did she seem when she said goodbye?’
‘Elated. Like a weight was off her mind. Bought me a brand-new TV set to say thank you, silly girl.’
‘So she must have left the house at some stage, in order to buy you the TV set and make travel arrangements.’
Mrs Humphreys shook her head. ‘Did it all by phone.’
‘You said she didn’t make any calls.’
‘No funny calls,’ Mrs Humphreys said.
They got no more from the old woman, and Challis asked for her house keys. ‘I’m afraid we need to search it for anything that Christina left behind, or anything that might involve you,’ he said.
‘You’re mad.’
Ellen perched on the bed and reached for a veiny wrist. ‘We won’t pry unnecessarily, or disturb anything. We can get a warrant, but if you gave us your permission…’
Mrs Humphreys gestured impatiently. She seemed tired now. ‘Suit yourselves, but you won’t find anything.’
They were in the hospital carpark, strapping on their seatbelts, when Tessa Kane appeared, tapping on Challis’s window. ‘Hal, Ellen,’ she said.
Ellen replied with a short nod, feeling a quickening of suspicion and resentment. She began to fiddle with her mobile phone, needing to occupy her hands while the other two talked.
‘What brings you here?’ Challis asked.
‘Work.’
‘Mrs Humphreys?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s just had an operation.’
‘I’ll go gently, Hal.’ A pause. ‘Well, mustn’t keep you. Stay in touch.’
That was Ellen’s cue to turn the ignition key abruptly and wheel them out of the carpark. Telling herself to grow up, she breathed in and out and said offhandedly, ‘Hal, do you ever find it hard, knowing what cap to wear?’