No, this one wouldn’t have been, she amended a moment later. This one would have been special. Wrong, but special.
Not feeling very much better about the situation, she coughed and said, ‘Hal, I’m sorry about Tessa.’
He nodded. ‘You did your best. I’m sorry you got shot.’
She wondered how to put it. ‘You must feel bad.’
‘Of course I do. No one deserves to die like that. She was leaving the job, you know.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Ellen,’ he said, ‘to put it plainly, I was fond of her, I’ll miss her, but there was no future for us.’
And none for us, Ellen told herself.
Twenty minutes later, they were in Safety Beach. Here the wind blew cruelly off the bay, and the mechanic took them into his office, wiping his hands with an oily rag. Greasy thumbprints everywhere, on invoice books, work sheets, the Progress, out-of-date calendars, spare-parts brochures. Ellen was careful not to sit, but she didn’t mind the grime or the odours of oil, grease and petrol. There was something solid and dependable about the mechanic and his garage.
‘I went back through the paperwork,’ he told them. ‘Nora Gent, lives right here in Safety Beach.’
‘What can you tell us about her?’
‘Cheerful, not that old-about thirty?-and always paid her bill on time.’
‘You fitted a yellow door to her car?’
‘That’s right. Hers had rusted through, a cop magnet-no offence-so I found her another door from a wreck.’
‘Which door?’
The mechanic stared at the ceiling and back through the months. ‘Driver’s door,’ he said finally.
‘What else can you tell us about her?’
‘Like what? I can’t see her shooting someone, if that’s what you mean. Lovely girl.’
‘Her job,’ Challis said patiently, ‘boyfriend, brother, husband.’
‘She worked for a travel agent, I know that much, always trying to get me to book a holiday. “I’ll get you a good deal,” she’d say.’
‘Family and friends?’
‘Don’t know, sorry.’
‘You say she stopped coming to you about six months ago. Do you know why?’
‘Wouldn’t have a clue. I have short-term customers and long-term customers. They don’t always tell me what their plans are. But if you want me to hazard a guess, she sold the car and moved away.’
‘Or moved away and took the car with her?’
The mechanic shook his head emphatically. ‘The car’s still around, only she’s no longer driving it.’
Ellen stiffened. ‘Still around?’
‘Yeah. I see it here and there, off and on.’
‘Driving by? Stopping off for fuel?’
‘Just here and there.’
‘Who’s driving it?’
‘Some guy.’
‘Name? Address?’
‘Wouldn’t have a clue, sorry.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Let me see now… Not that old, shaved head, a bit scruffy and overweight.’
‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’
‘That’s about it, sorry.’
‘You’ve been a great help,’ Challis said.
And they drove around to Nora Gent’s address, where a tall Ethiopian woman showed them a small white card on a hallstand inside the front door. On it, in a bold purple hand, was the name Nora Gent and an address in New Zealand.
54
Challis briefed them first thing on Thursday, wearing a dark suit and a black tie. Tessa Kane’s funeral was at ten o’clock, and he was one of the pallbearers. He stood in his customary position at the head of the long table and felt a little disassociated from the room, his detectives, and the investigations. Mugs of tea and coffee steamed around the table; a basket of croissants sat within reaching distance. No sea fret today, just a brisk wind pushing billowy cloud masses across the face of a low, weak sun.
‘Nora Gent,’ he began, ‘aged twenty-seven, now residing in New Zealand. She works for JetAbout Travel and they sent her to their Auckland office six months ago. She owned a 1983 Commodore, off-white with a pale yellow door, but sold it to her cousin before leaving the country. Nathan Gent, twenty-three, ex-Navy, served in the Persian Gulf in 2003, where he lost a finger in an accident. After that he became unstable, and left the Navy. Settled in Dromana, nothing further known about him. Apparently he didn’t get around to registering the car in his name, and in fact let the registration lapse.’
‘Like the super said,’ Scobie muttered, ‘we’re not dealing with brain surgeons. Are we pulling him in?’
Challis nodded. ‘We have warrants for his arrest and to search his house and the car.’
‘Let’s hope he was dumb enough to keep the car.’
Challis rested his hands on the back of his chair and said, ‘The thing is, he may have done a runner. The New Zealand police weren’t able to contact Nora Gent until this morning. I spoke to her by phone a couple of hours ago, got her cousin’s address, and drove past to check it out. No car, curtains drawn, plenty of junk mail crammed in the letterbox.’
Ellen drained her coffee and reached for a croissant, but the movement strained her wound, and she winced and thought better of it. ‘The car bothers me,’ she said, easing back in her seat. ‘It’s not been spotted since the murder, not abandoned, not burnt, so has he driven off in it, made his way to far north Queensland?’
‘If he’s as dumb as we think he is, then yes,’ Scobie said. ‘Maybe he fled in it the same day, then dumped or torched it later on some back road the other side of Mount Isa.’
‘I’ve put out a nationwide alert,’ Challis said. ‘But you’re right, we may never find it.’
‘Or he saw the description in the paper,’ a Mornington DC said, ‘and fitted stolen plates and a door that matched the colour of the car.’
‘That’s possible, too,’ Challis said. ‘But first we need to get inside his house, arrest him if he’s hiding there, and search it and his life from top to bottom.’ He paused. ‘The Navy link needs further investigation.’
They gave him inquiring looks. ‘First,’ he said, ‘both Gent and Lowry served at the Navy base, and may have known each other. Second, several handguns are missing from the Navy armoury. Lowry had motives to kill Janine McQuarrie and Tessa Kane. Did he hire Gent and the shooter? Is the shooter also ex-Navy? Did our shooter buy any of the missing guns? Did Lowry or Gent broker the deal? It’s worth tracking their movements in the Navy, cross-referencing with the dead armourer and anyone who might have left the service under a cloud.’
‘Robert McQuarrie also had motives to kill both women,’ Ellen pointed out, ‘but there’s no Navy link.’
‘He’s still in the frame,’ Challis said, ‘but until new evidence comes to light on him, we dig deeply into Nathan Gent. The shooter hooked up with him somehow.’ He paused. ‘Unfortunately, he’s been on a pension since leaving the Navy, meaning no workmates, and no one knows anything about his social life.’
Ellen was tapping the end of her pen against her teeth. ‘All we seem to be doing is answering the how,’ she said, ‘when we need to answer the why. We still don’t know why Janine was targeted, or even if she was the intended target, and we don’t know if Tessa Kane was murdered by the same man or not.’
Challis nodded. ‘Back to first principles: look long and hard at Janine. At the same time, dig around in Gent’s Navy and civilian activities, and see if we can find a link to our dead armourer.’
55
And there both investigations stalled. A search of Nathan Gent’s house uncovered evidence only of an arid life. No diary or personal letters, no computer, and neighbours who were indifferent and unobservant. Gent seemed to have been entirely jobless and friendless. Of the man himself there was no sign. If he had been the driver, and had gone on the run-as seemed probable, given the empty fridge and the hold on his mail-then he had a pretty unbeatable head start on the police.
There was one recent photograph, but it showed Gent with a full head of hair, and Georgia McQuarrie couldn’t be certain that he was the man she’d seen behind the steering wheel of the Commodore. She was more confident about the likeness generated by Scobie Sutton and Joseph Ovens.