The desk sergeant nodded. The station had a register of elderly citizens, old single men and women, and married couples, who were checked on from time to time by the uniformed constables.
‘And why did Constable Murphy tell you to come into the station?’
‘We’ve been robbed.’
When the desk sergeant had the details he took them through to an interview room to make a statement. ‘It’s CIB’s case now,’ he said. ‘Someone will be with you shortly.’
The man who came in a few minutes later was tall and gangly, with protuberant eyes and long, bony hands. ‘I’m Detective Constable Scobie Sutton. A woman robbed you? Can you describe her?’
The husband, his white hair badly combed, stains on his cardigan, said, ‘She was New Australian.’
His wife was sharper. ‘You great galoot.’ She leaned toward Sutton. ‘He means she looked a bit exotic. Darkish skin, wearing bright clothes, lots of gold-rings, earrings, bracelets, neck chains. But she wasn’t foreign. She was Australian, judging by her accent.’
‘How old, would you say?’
‘Hard to tell. Forty-odd?’
‘You said she came in and offered to bless your house.’
The old woman said, ‘Ask him, ask the genius. He let her in. I was in the garden.’
Sutton turned to the old man, who said, ‘I couldn’t see the harm. She said it would bring financial reward. It’s not easy, being on a pension.’
‘Mad. Cracked in the head,’ his wife said.
‘This woman told me,’ the old man continued stubbornly, ‘that whatever she blessed would multiply to our advantage. She said the house was cursed. She could see black smoke coming off it, and it needed cleansing.’
‘Did she ask you for payment?’
‘A donation. I gave her a dollar.’
‘You great galoot.’
‘A dollar,’ Sutton said. He looked incensed for a moment, as if he’d been asked to get a cat out of a tree. ‘And then what happened?’
‘The phone rang. I was at the front door, but the phone’s down the passage, in the kitchen. I was only gone a minute.’
‘She was alone, this woman?’
‘Had a child with her. Couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. Cute little thing.’
Sutton nodded. The woman would engage the occupants- usually elderly men and women-while the child slipped away unnoticed to hunt out wallets, watches and jewellery. Or, while the occupants went to fetch the child something to eat or drink, the woman would rob them.
But this time the woman hadn’t needed to stage a distraction. The phone had done it for her. ‘And when you came back…?’
‘They were gone,’ the old man said. ‘I waited, but-’
‘Fool.’
‘-but they didn’t come back.’
‘What was taken?’
‘My purse,’ the old woman said. ‘I always leave it on the hallstand, along with my keys, gloves and hat. Forty dollars and some loose change, my Myer charge card, Medicare card, pension card, some other odds and ends.’
Sutton scribbled down the details. ‘Only the purse, or the keys as well?’
‘The keys as well.’
‘Better get your locks changed.’
‘Oh dear.’
The old man said, ‘Her eyes, that’s what I remember. She knew things. She looked right through you.’
Jane Gideon was almost forty-eight hours old, and still no body. The trail was growing cold. Challis re-read the file on Kymbly Abbott, talked to the VAA operator who had taken Jane Gideon’s emergency call, and began telephoning numbers from a rolodex that had been next to the telephone in Gideon’s flat.
One small piece of information: at eleven o’clock he took a call from a woman who claimed that she had seen Kymbly Abbott on the night of the twelfth.
‘Can you be sure of the date?’
‘My wedding anniversary. My husband and I were coming home from the city.’
‘Did he see her, too?’
A laugh. ‘He was asleep in the car. I was driving.’ Another laugh. ‘But I hadn’t been drinking. Or not much.’
Challis responded to the warmth in her voice. ‘Can you tell me what Miss Abbott was doing when you saw her?’
‘Poor thing, she was sitting in the kerb at the intersection, sticking out her thumb whenever a car went by.’
‘This is the intersection at the start of the highway?’
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t see anyone stop for her? No vehicle that stood out in any way?’
‘I’m afraid not, no.’ The woman paused. There was anguish in her voice. ‘I wish I’d stopped for her, seen that she was all right, but I live only a block from the intersection, and last month a pack of young girls her age mugged me at an automatic teller machine.’
‘I understand,’ Challis said. ‘You’re sure it was her?’
‘I saw her quite clearly, and the clothes she was wearing match the description in the paper.’
‘Is there a reason why you waited until now to contact us?’
‘I didn’t connect it with anything until I saw the story about the latest case.’
‘All right, thank you,’ Challis said. He took down her details and filed them on computer.
He worked steadily through the morning, hearing the background hum of voices and keyboards. At twelve- thirty he asked Ellen Destry to have lunch with him, aware that the encounter with Tessa Kane still rankled with her. ‘Something simple,’ he said.
‘I know a place that does good rolls.’
‘Suits me.’
They wandered down High Street. A carolling loudspeaker blasted them from the doorway of the $2 Bargains shop. All of the shop windows were frosted and hung with silver and gold tinsel. The bargains shop was very busy; the others only moderately so. Here and there Challis saw signs begging him to support his local trader, and he guessed there’d be a few closures in the new year. But not at $2 Bargains.
‘Done your shopping?’
‘Not yet. I know what will happen: at the last minute I’ll buy Alan some T-shirts and wine, and Larrayne some T-shirts and CD vouchers. Same as last year, and the year before. It’s depressing. You?’
‘No. Frankly, Christmas makes me anxious. So many people have so much riding on it that you feel somehow responsible for their happiness.’
She glanced at him worriedly. ‘You’re still coming for drinks on Christmas morning, aren’t you?’
He stopped and touched her arm. ‘Sure. I didn’t mean you when I said that.’
They walked on. Challis felt a sudden small surge of pleasure. The town was struggling, and there was a killer circling it, but it felt good to be walking along a sunny street with Ellen Destry and to see the shops and the people shopping for Christmas. There was a general good will in the air. ‘It’s strange,’ he said, ‘but I need to do things like this occasionally, to remind myself I’m just a working hack like everyone else, not a copper and therefore separate from them.’
She understood. She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and with a bounce in her step steered him past the butcher and into the health-food shop.
There were two middle-aged women waiting to be served ahead of them. Challis found himself listening to their conversation with the young woman behind the counter.
