‘It’s a theory,’ Ellen said. ‘See you back at the ranch.’
She started the car. Scobie promptly settled into yarning mode. ‘Remember I was talking about Natalie Cobb yesterday?’
Ellen had been cooped up with him for hours, and forced herself to mutter, ‘Yes.’
‘Well, Beth went to see the Cobbs after work yesterday. She told me something interesting. She arrived just as Natalie was slipping her mother some money. She said it was clear Natalie hadn’t been to school all day. I myself saw her being picked up outside the courthouse by her boyfriend, and I guess she spent the day with him.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Ellen said, and then thought she should make an effort. ‘Doing what with the boyfriend?’
‘Well, that’s the question.’
‘Is the boyfriend known to us?’
‘Don’t know. Don’t know who he is.’
‘Be worth finding out.’
‘True.’
There was a blessed silence and then he said, ‘Today was mad hair day.’
Ellen’s mind raced, but not for long. He’s talking about his bloody daughter again.
‘If it’s mad hair day, or wear-what-you-like day, we have to get Ros up at least half an hour earlier than usual. She gets in a real knot about it, poor little thing. “Do I look stupid in this?” “Are you sure it’s mad hair day?” “You’re doing it all wrong.” And so on and so forth.’
The Suttons’ only child was a pale, wispy eight-year-old. ‘Uh-huh,’ said Ellen.
‘Maths, that’s another thing that makes her anxious.’
I should be so lucky, Ellen thought. To break up the litany, she said, ‘You spoke to the super’s wife?’
Scobie groaned. ‘Oh god.’
‘Bad, huh?’
‘She had plenty to say, but nothing to say, if you know what I mean.’
Ellen nodded. ‘Janine was married to her son, and was therefore a paragon of virtue.’
‘That about covers it,’ Scobie said.
Meanwhile Andy Asche was driving past the secondary college in Waterloo. Lunchtime, and Natalie, hanging around the front gate, gave him a nod, their signal that she was still intending to slip away from school during an afternoon lesson break and meet him around the corner.
This afternoon they were hitting a house in Penzance Beach. Andy had a head full of potential targets. He worked part-time for the shire, in a job that took him all over the Peninsula. Last month, for example, he’d spent two days delivering the new-style recycling bins to every house in Penzance Beach. At other times he might accompany the property valuation surveyor, going around to every property noting improvements and taking measurements for the next hike in shire rates. Or he drove around back roads, marking for attention ditches and culverts that were clogged with sand, twigs and pine needles.
Whatever, he had a lot of facts at his fingertips. Such and such a house is always empty during the day. Another is only occupied on weekends, a third only in summer. This street’s no good: there’s always some busybody in her garden or staring out of her window. That street is full of barking dogs. There’s a top-of-the-range security system in this house; there’s no security system in that house, despite the sticker in the window.
Penzance Beach was always a good earner. A few locals lived there permanently, but mostly it consisted of beach shacks, which looked humble but were owned by wealthy city people who liked to come down on weekends or school holidays and maintain the level of comfort they’d grown accustomed to in the city: top quality TVs, VCRs, DVDs, microwaves, sports equipment, clothes, even mobile phones, cash and Walkmans left lying around in kids’ bedrooms. Wealth made teenagers indifferent to wealth. Andy Asche’s mother would have tanned his hide if he’d been as careless with his possessions.
27
Challis had put in requests for assistance from the police and prison services in New South Wales after the morning’s briefing, but when nothing had transpired by lunch time, he grabbed a sandwich from the canteen and checked his pigeonhole. The top circular read, Where circumstances and protocol allow, Victoria Police and civilian staff members will use both sides of a sheet of paper rather than two sheets. He almost crumpled it up and tossed it into the bin, but the circular’s reverse side was blank, so he did the right thing and took it upstairs with him, to be used for making rough notes.
Then Waterloo Motors called to say that his loan car was ready. He shrugged on his coat and left the station through the rear door to avoid the reporters camped outside the front door. Waterloo Motors was choked with cars awaiting service or repairs or to be collected by their owners. He picked out his loan car quickly, a rusted-out Toyota, with mag wheels, a fluffy steering wheel and the words ‘Waterloo Motors’ pasted all over it. He collected the keys and drove it back to the station, enduring the blokey jibes of a few car-mad constables.
By mid afternoon some preliminary information had come in from New South Wales. Blight’s prison visitors consisted of his parents, wife, brothers and two men who’d once driven cabs for him. He’d shared a cell only once, with a man who was still incarcerated. Since then he’d been in a single cell in a segregated block.
What next? Fly to Sydney and interview every one of Blight’s visitors, every inmate in the prison? A sheer waste of time, and Challis couldn’t see McQuarrie giving budget approval.
Meanwhile he wasn’t ruling out Janine McQuarrie as the intended victim-or not entirely-but was prompted to close certain avenues related to her case by a bleating phone call from Robert McQuarrie: ‘When are the police going to release my wife’s body?’
‘Should be in the next day or two,’ Challis said, making a note to check with the pathologist.
‘There’s also the car and her mobile phones. Surely you’ve finished checking them for evidence?’
A little chill crept over Challis’s skin. Why the hurry? What was so important about these possessions ahead of the welfare of his daughter? ‘These things take time in a murder investigation, sir,’ he said.
McQuarrie said nothing but Challis could feel the man’s irritation and impatience. ‘You said “phones”? I understood that there was only one phone,’ he said, searching through the files on his desk for the crime-scene inventory.
‘Two phones: one that she uses-used-hands free in the car, and another that she carried around with her.’
Challis found the inventory. There was only one mobile phone listed, clip-mounted to the dash of the car. He’d assumed that was the phone Georgia had used to call 000. Had she used the second one instead? If so, where was it?
‘It will still be in the property room,’ he said confidently. ‘I’ll see that it’s returned to you first thing tomorrow. My apologies.’
‘I hope that light fingers haven’t been at work, Mr Challis.’
Fuck you, thought Challis savagely. He immediately made two phone calls. From the first he learned that Janine’s car had been tested for prints but none were found to match those stored on the national computer. Then he called a number at the regional headquarters in Frankston, Superintendent McQuarrie answering on the first ring, saying peevishly, ‘I was just on my way to a meeting.’
‘Sorry, sir, a quick question: when you took Georgia home from the murder scene yesterday, did she have a mobile phone with her?’
‘Not that I recall.’
‘According to your son, Janine had two phones. We only recovered one.’
‘Not to worry,’ McQuarrie said, ‘I’ve seen her office, home and mobile phone records, and there’s nothing on any of them to arouse concern. Nothing dodgy, only business calls and calls to my son’s mobile and work numbers. I’ll fax them through to you, if you don’t have them-though I’d be disappointed if you don’t by now, Hal, I must say. Obtaining phone records is surely basic groundwork in a murder investigation.’
In fact, Challis had requisitioned Janine’s phone records-except those for the second mobile phone, which he hadn’t known existed. He wanted to drive to Frankston immediately and slap his boss about the face, demanding to know whether or not the man considered himself a proper policeman, or even a policeman, or even a man of ordinary decency and common sense.