Anyway, that was Tessa’s two-dollar analysis. She thought all of these things in the time it took for him to spot her, smile, cross the room and kiss her cheek. He pulled out a chair and sat. Their knees banged together; they moved apart politely, almost automatically.
‘This is a privilege,’ she said, ‘morning coffee with you in a trendy cafe.’
‘As trendy as Waterloo gets, anyway.’
She studied his face. ‘You look tired.’
‘It’s a nasty one,’ he said, and told her all he knew. She made notes, trying not to be distracted when his sleeve rode up, revealing a bony wrist and a centimetre of crisp white shirt. Normally she hated white shirts, but Challis was suited to them, with his leanness, and the olive cast of his skin.
‘What happens next?’
‘We speak to the child.’
‘Could I speak to her?’
Challis said tiredly, ‘McQuarrie would never allow it. She’s too young, and he doesn’t like you.’
She smiled ruefully. McQuarrie had friends in Rotary, local businessmen who didn’t want a local newspaper that was left-wing and edited by a woman.
‘But you won’t keep me out of the loop, Hal?’
He shook his head.
‘Of course, you might solve it this afternoon,’ she muttered, ‘and this time next week it will be stale news and no good to me.’
He gave her a twisted grin. ‘So write another story like the one on well-mannered and well-run suburban orgies, where there’s no time imperative.’
‘Yeah, yeah, rub it in.’
‘People look at me oddly, kind of smirkingly,’ Challis said, ‘as if I’m still involved with you and we’re always having kinky sex.’
‘Poor you.’ She stared at him challengingly. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what it was like?’
He shook his head. ‘Your article pretty much covered it. Apart from a mild titillation, it left me unmoved. And it’s hardly a police matter, not unless any of the players are underage.’
She sighed. ‘I’ve had so much crank mail, my head’s spinning. Distribution’s up, but advertising is down.’
‘Crank mail in addition to the other stuff?’
By ‘other stuff he meant a string of hate mail she’d been receiving for the past few months, along with anonymous phone calls and hang-ups, messages in soap smeared across her windscreen, and on one occasion a rock heaved through the glass panel of her front door. It all seemed to be the work of one man, who called her a bitch and said she’d get what was coming to her, one day soon. There hadn’t been much that the police could do about it.
‘It will all blow over eventually,’ she said.
‘What else are you working on?’
‘The detention centre.’
‘But isn’t it being phased out?’
Tessa shrugged. Very few asylum seekers were left in the Waterloo centre. Most of the detainees now incarcerated there had breached or overstayed their visas, and were quickly processed and repatriated. But Tessa, in her role as editor of the Progress, had been critical of the centre from the outset, in the face of massive local apathy, and wanted one last shot at Charlie Mead, the manager. ‘There are still abuses there, Hal.’
She paused. ‘It looks like I’ll be moving on.’
He looked at her quizzically. ‘Moving on?’
‘They’re pulling the plug on me. The sex-party story was the last straw.’
She explained. Challis knew some of the details. The Progress was owned by a wealthy man who had a social conscience and tolerated Tessa’s stance on most issues. What Challis didn’t know was the man also leaned towards the Christian right and was furious with her for attending the sex party and writing about it. ‘I’ve got three months of my contract left.’
Challis squeezed her hand and let it go. ‘You’ll be missed,’ he said.
‘I’ll be missed, or you’ll miss me? Which is it, Hal?’
‘Both.’
She sighed. ‘I thought about you the other day. I was out at the airfield doing a story and had a peek at your Dragon, hoping to find you working on the engine or something.’
Neither the plane nor its restoration had meant much to her, when she was seeing Challis, but they’d clearly meant something to him, and his obsession with such an arcane interest had been oddly appealing at the time.
‘I’m thinking of selling it.’
‘No! Why?’
‘I haven’t worked on it since Kitty was shot. It feels like bad luck.’
‘Hal, I’ve never heard you talk like that before.’
‘I’ll take up golf with McQuarrie instead,’ he said.
He grinned, but didn’t mean the grin and she didn’t return it.
Then he was on his feet and planting a kiss beside her ear. ‘I’d better get back,’ he said.
When he was gone, she stayed in Cafe Laconic for a while, checking messages on her mobile phone. Then, on a whim, she tried the detention centre again, and twenty seconds later, against all odds, was put through to Charlie Mead, who for months had been ‘unavailable’. ‘How did you get this number?’ he demanded.
She frowned. ‘Your secretary switched me through.’
‘She’s a temp, stupid cow. What can I do for you?’
‘Now that the centre is winding back its operations, I thought it would be a good time to run a survey article.’
‘The usual crap? Riots, self-mutilation, bullying guards?’
‘Well, you were never available to give me the other point of view, Mr Mead,’ Tessa said carefully.
‘Sure, why not, one-thirty this afternoon.’
Unbelievable. Tessa returned to her office, forgetting all about Challis.
8
Ellen and Scobie were in Mount Eliza, where Bayside Counselling Services occupied a new but nondescript two-storey building in the main street. The bistro and the delicatessen on either side of it might have been lifted from one of the lifestyle magazines, and were inhabited, so far as Ellen could tell, by people who’d stepped from the pages of a lifestyle magazine. She wondered if they ever made independent decisions, and said so.
‘Sorry?’ said Scobie.
‘Never mind,’ Ellen said. Scobie Sutton liked to think the best of people. There wasn’t a sour bone in his body.
They went in, finding an unoccupied reception desk. Ellen picked up a glossy brochure and showed it to Scobie: Janine McQuarrie was a good-looking woman, if surfaces counted for anything. The face in the brochure was contained and humourless.
Just then a man approached the reception desk, looking furious. He was about fifty, balding and as neat as a pin. Ellen disliked him immediately. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she began.
‘Yes?’ he snapped. He didn’t meet her gaze but addressed a point several centimetres above her head.
‘We need to see-’
‘Make an appointment-when our esteemed receptionist returns from wherever she is.’
‘It’s important,’ Ellen said. ‘We need to see someone in authority.’
‘And you are?’
They showed their warrant cards. ‘Well, I’m Dominic O’Brien, one of the senior partners,’ the man said, still refusing-or unable-to make eye contact.
‘Mr O’Brien, I’m afraid I have some bad news. Your colleague, Janine McQuarrie, was found murdered in Penzance North earlier this morning.’
There was a moment of silence, a throat-clearing cough, and O’Brien said, ‘Sorry? Who did you say you were? What are you saying?’
Ellen repeated herself. O’Brien’s voice gained in strength and passion. ‘And you thought you’d just bowl up and drop this little bombshell on me?’
Oh God. Ellen said gently, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr O’Brien, of course you’re right, but there’s no easy way to break this kind of news, and we need to act swiftly. Do you know why Mrs McQuarrie was in Penzance North this morning?’
‘No idea.’
‘Was she seeing a client? I understand that she was a psychologist, a counsellor.’
‘She was. Are you suggesting one of her clients murdered her?’
‘I don’t know. Do you think that might have happened?’
‘You’d better come into my office,’ O’Brien said.