‘It’s just my nerves at the moment,’ she said. ‘I’m not what you’d call a user. I used to smoke a bit of dope, do a line or two of coke, but that was years ago. I was hardly twenty. I’m clean now. It’s just, I’m so jittery, so bloody scared at night, if I had some dope or coke I think it would help straighten out my nerves.’
He was silent. She began to trace circles on his stomach with her tongue. He was so sensitive! She heard him groan as she took him in her mouth. She knew what she was doing, but even so there was a part of her that was immersing herself in physical pleasure and comfort. She lost herself for a while.
When he was finished, she wriggled to get close to his body, working her mouth to clear the thick saltiness away.
She heard the rumble of his voice in her ear: ‘I could get you what you want.’
She was very still. ‘Come again?’
‘Some grass, if that’s what you want. A couple of grams of coke maybe.’
She sat up and said earnestly, ‘That’s really all I want, Van. I don’t need much. How-’
‘Don’t ask. And if you repeat any of this, I’ll deny it.’
She moved away from him. ‘Don’t be like that. Don’t get angry with me.’
He pulled her against him. ‘Sorry.’
‘I’d never dob you in.’
‘Sorry, Clara, honestly, forget I said it.’
‘I mean, we’d both go down, Van. Ruin both our lives.’
‘Exactly.’
‘When?’ she said. ‘When can you get the stuff?’
‘I’ll come around some time tonight.’
‘What about your wife?’
‘Her?’ He laughed. ‘We separated long ago.’
She realised that she knew nothing about him. ‘Kids?’
‘One. I don’t see her any more.’
McQuarrie turned up that afternoon. ‘This letter, Hal. Any joy?’
‘We’re looking for a Canon printer, but the technicians doubt that the actual printer can be identified.’
McQuarrie swivelled in his chair. He seemed to be mulling over the dimensions of the incident room and the aptitude of Challis and his detectives. Wall map, half-a-dozen desks, files, telephones, computers, and three officers, heads well down because the super was in the room.
‘Two murders, with the likelihood of a third to come.’
‘More than two, sir, if he’s hot a local and done this kind of thing before. There’s a series up around Newcastle we’re looking at.’
‘I’m tempted to bring in the Homicide Squad, Hal.’
There were times when Challis used McQuarrie’s first name. Usually during social occasions. This wasn’t a social occasion, but McQuarrie’s voice had been tinged with doubt, as if he saw the case ballooning out of control- Challis’s, his, the force’s in general. He was a politician, essentially. He wanted reassurance, so Challis said, confidently, ‘That’s not strictly necessary at this stage, Mark.’
McQuarrie looked around helplessly. ‘You’ve got enough support?’
‘No. I could do with more detectives. See if you can get them assigned from two or three different stations so that no-one’s left short-staffed. I’ve already requisitioned more desks, phones and computers.’
McQuarrie sighed. ‘Fair enough. But the minute-’
‘The minute it threatens to fall apart, I’ll let you know.’
‘I mean, this isn’t exactly a case of a husband doing in his wife, Hal. This is different. This is big. I had the London Daily Telegraph on the line last night.’
Challis, to amuse himself, said, ‘What did you tell them?’
‘Oh, it was well under control, and nothing like the Belanglo Forest killings. I hope I said the right thing.’
‘Sir, we’ve got some solid forensic evidence with Jane Gideon. Tyre tracks in the mud, so we have some idea of the kind of vehicle we’re looking for. Apart from the blow to the head, her death resembles Kymbly Abbott’s. I think we can rule out coincidence. We’re putting warnings over the media. With any luck, our man’s supply will run out.’
McQuarrie screwed his mouth up. ‘Nice way of putting it.’
‘To him, sir, young women are a source of supply, they’re not real.’
‘Point taken.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes.’ McQuarrie got to his feet. He tilted back his head. ‘Listen up, everybody.’
Ellen Destry threw down her pen. What did the fool want now? She had work to do. Ledwich had taken up most of the morning, and she was still waiting for the forensic technicians to identify the brand of tyre from the plaster casts they’d taken. So far, all they could tell her was that it was an off-road tyre, only slightly worn-ten, maybe fifteen thousand k’s-and distinctive because it had a round shoulder and a very deep tread. No other distinguishing marks, such as chips, burrs or uneven wear in the rubber. ‘But find me the tyre, and I’ll see if I can match it,’ the technicians said. ‘Yeah, sure, piece of cake,’ she’d told them. As for the cast matching the tyres on Lance Ledwich’s Volvo, that seemed very unlikely, even to her untrained eye. Quite a different ‘footprint’, as the technicians put it. She really was not inclined to listen to some crap or other from McQuarrie.
She looked up to see that McQuarrie was watching her, waiting for her to pay attention. ‘First, I want to say that I think you’re doing a fine job under difficult circumstances. For that reason, I will arrange for extra detectives to be assigned to the case from Rosebud and Mornington. Sergeant Destry, you will continue to be in charge on the ground, answerable to Inspector Challis.’
She gave him a tight little smile. He washed his palms together. ‘Now, clearly this is the work of one man. Our priorities are to find him before he kills again. Equally, we need to provide a safe environment here on the Peninsula. We also need to find the vehicle used to dump Jane Gideon’s body. Finally, we need to think about the mindset of the person behind these killings.’
Mindset, Ellen thought. God.
‘Similarities between the victims,’ McQuarrie went on. ‘Differences. Did they know one another.’
Now he’s telling us how to do our job, Ellen thought.
‘Kymbly Abbott, Jane Gideon,’ McQuarrie went on. He shook his head and laughed, and it was a laugh that went wrong, even as he uttered it and said, ‘Kymbly. Where do these people get their names from?’
No-one shared the laughter. He was speaking ill of the dead. Meanwhile Ellen Destry felt herself blush, for she’d named her daughter Larrayne, not Lorraine, so what did that say about her? McQuarrie was a prick.
It was with relief that she went to her car at the end of the day and was able to snatch a moment with Rhys Hartnett. She wasn’t sure, but there was something there, in the way he looked at her. ‘Are we still on for twelve o’clock Saturday?’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘If you like, stay on and have some lunch with us,’ she said.
Challis worked until six-thirty that evening. As he was leaving the station, the prison called. Apparently his wife had tried to saw across her wrists with a plastic knife and had written a note that said, ‘Forgive me.’ They’d assumed that the note was for him. Maybe it was. Challis had long forgiven her, he was past making judgments about her, and had even told himself that she wasn’t his responsibility any more, but it was always him they called whenever she went off the rails. The call depressed him. He slumped back in his chair and stared at the wall maps.
Then the front desk buzzed him. ‘Tessa Kane to see you, sir.’
He put his hand to his forehead briefly. ‘Show her up.’
He stepped into the corridor and waited. He was alone on the first floor. When Tessa appeared with a young
