‘What did you know about the Toyota and its occupants?’ demanded the Ethicals guy.
‘The vehicle had been reported stolen. A young man was driving, but we don’t know who else, if anyone, was with him.’
‘A young man driving. Young men tend to take risks with their driving. Did you factor that in before giving chase?’
‘A short-duration chase, sir. After that we merely followed at a distance.’
‘Have you had training in high-speed pursuits?’ the Ethicals guy asked.
‘Yes, sir, when I was based in the city.’
‘This wasn’t your first high-speed chase?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Did any of the other pursuits you’ve been involved in come to grief?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Are you a risk taker?’
Pam thought long and hard. ‘I do what’s necessary to catch the bad guys, sir,’ she said, and wondered if she’d lifted the line from a bad movie.
Then the unimaginable, after the atmosphere that had been cooked up in the past few minutes: the Ethicals guy nodded, gave her a brief smile, and closed his file. ‘I too have heard the D24 recording. I think we need not detain Constable-’
‘You were pursuing the Toyota,’ Alan Destry cut in, red in the face.
He was like one of her father’s old vinyl records, stuck in a groove. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘until the pursuit was formally abandoned, when I dropped speed and merely continued along in the same direction as the Toyota. The tape will show that. Blame the driver of the Toyota, not me.’
‘We would if we could find him,’ the Ethicals guy said.
‘Prints, sir?’
‘Plenty, but they’re not on file anywhere.’
Why couldn’t Alan Destry have told her that? She pondered the matter, almost forgetting that she was a witness rather than an investigator. ‘Unfortunately I didn’t see his face clearly,’ she told the man from Ethical Standards. ‘However, Sergeant Ellen Destry and DC Scobie Sutton have been working on a series of break-ins on the Peninsula, and-’
‘Fine, thank you, that will be all,’ Alan Destry said.
A few things were coming together in Scobie Sutton’s head: Andy Asche’s cutting edge computer gear, his job with the shire council, Natalie Cobb’s poise, and finally, her disappearance-after the accident. Telling Ellen that he was following up on the burglaries, in particular the theft of Challis’s laptop, he drove around to Andy Asche’s flat late that afternoon and pounded on the door. No answer. He went through Asche’s rubbish bin and bagged a couple of bottles and cans and a strip of cellophane wrapping.
Meanwhile, Vyner was writing in his notebook: I have been reborn in white light and perfect joy. I am prepared for the Great Catastrophe.
Having followed the taxi that had collected Tessa Kane from her home that morning, he was now parked where he could watch the editorial offices of the Waterloo Progress. What a one-horse town. Yeah, there were cars, buildings and streetlights, but he could feel the open paddocks at his back. Much more of this and he’d suffer a bad case of urban withdrawal.
He shifted to get comfortable. This time he was in a stolen Camry station wagon. The Camry was just right for the environs, the carpark of the Pizza Hut. No one was going to question his right to be there, no one was even going to notice.
He tucked the notebook into his jacket pocket, wishing the Kane woman would hurry up and finish work for the day. He’d watched her set out on foot with an older guy this morning, shadowed her to the cop shop, of all places, and then back again, alone this time. Normally he’d want to follow her for a few days, get an idea of her movements, but the order was quite clear: hit her immediately.
48
At 8 p.m. Ellen sat alone in CIU, unwilling to go home. She’d finished adding some recent findings to the case narrative, noting that Janine McQuarrie’s finances showed no debts or unusual amounts in or out over the past twelve months. In fact, Janine had died a relatively wealthy woman, with savings, shares and insurance bonds worth $300,000. But Robert was also wealthy, so murder for gain was out. Also, there had been nothing on her computers or in her e-mails and ordinary post to indicate a lover or anyone or anything shady or hidden-apart from the photographs she’d taken with her mobile phone, of course.
Finally, with the assistance of the murdered woman’s husband, sister and business partners, and the super’s wife, Ellen had identified everyone who’d attended the Janine’s funeral as being a work colleague, friend or relative-which meant only that no strangers had been present, not that the murderer hadn’t been. She’d also shown photographs of Raymond Lowry to Georgia McQuarrie, who’d shaken her head and said, ‘I haven’t seen him before.’
So, Ellen had put in a good day’s work, but still she didn’t want to go home yet. There were two reasons for that, one unfortunately related to the other but greatly outweighing it-at least in her mind.
First, earlier that day she’d encountered her husband on the ground floor, accompanied by a guy from Ethical Standards. They’d completed questioning Pam Murphy and John Tankard, and Alan had been looking pretty pleased with himself. She’d had to let him peck her on the cheek, and then he’d invited her for canteen coffee. By then she’d collected herself, and declined, to which Alan had said, ‘Hal baby’s got you on the run, has he?’-suspicion and frustration not far under the surface of his grin.
So she couldn’t face him just now.
Second, Hal Challis was taking Tessa Kane out to dinner tonight.
Ostensibly it was to say thank you on behalf of the police, for bringing them Joe Ovens, but Ellen was reading more than that into it. Challis and Kane had been lovers once-no reason why they couldn’t or wouldn’t be again, even if only once more, tonight, for old time’s sake, or simple lust’s sake. They were unencumbered, weren’t they?-unlike me, Ellen thought, gazing at the little array of family snaps on her desk, Larrayne as a toddler and later a teenager, Alan when he was young and worth loving.
And so she was keyed up this evening, her imagination on fire. It was like being eighteen or nineteen years old again, burning to know what her boyfriend was up to. Her feelings were juvenile, but they were powerful.
So powerful that they drove her to stow the photograph of Alan into her bottom drawer and then begin to prowl the dark streets in her car.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Tessa Kane, buttering her dinner roll. ‘I thought you wanted to thank me for bringing you Joe Ovens. Instead, you’re as thankful as a wet week.’
Challis had wanted to thank Tessa with this dinner, had wanted to set the universe right a little. But that was before his talk with McQuarrie this afternoon. He toyed with his food, wondering how to begin. They were in a Mornington bistro, one of the few open on a chilly Monday evening in winter. A scattering of other diners, a vaguely Mediterranean decor and menu. Tessa looked fatigued: the pressure of getting copy ready for tomorrow’s edition. To Challis, all of the kitchen sounds were jarring, the soft lighting too sombre, the room offering no refuge from McQuarrie’s news or even the sleety wind and the blackness beyond the windows.
‘You’re holding out on something,’ he said.
She went very still. ‘I am?’
‘According to McQuarrie,’ Challis said, ‘you’re in possession of certain photographs.’
‘Robert told you?’
‘His father.’
‘Ah. And he sent you to warn me off.’
‘This is not about him, it’s about your professional relationship with me in particular and my hard-working officers in general.’
She looked at him with her head on one side. ‘Hal, listen to yourself.’ Then she narrowed her eyes. ‘Robert was sent copies, too, wasn’t he? A blackmail demand?’