‘Ahhh,’ he said, rolling on to his back and flinging an arm across his eyes, ‘it’s been a hell of a couple of days. Two of my constables arrested some rich prat two nights ago, now the mother’s making waves, complaining to the superintendent.’
‘Plus that girl being found murdered.’
‘Plus that.’
They fell silent, began to caress each other. Afterwards, heartbeat and blood flow ebbing pleasantly, he propped himself on one elbow and with the tips of his fingers began to trace her breasts and stomach and the glorious hollows inside her thighs. ‘Incredible skin,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t be part Maori, would you?’
Her body seemed to alter under his gaze, recoiling, shutting him out. ‘Here we go,’ she said. ‘It had to come, sooner or later.’
‘What?’
‘Does it make a difference who or what I am?’
‘Of course not. I just asked-’
‘You like a bit of black meat, is that it? Or maybe you’re disgusted but can’t help yourself? Or are you trying to break it off with me?’
‘I only said-’
‘Just you remember where the coke came from, big boy. Hurt me again, insult me, get me into trouble, and I’ll spill everything so fast you won’t know what hit you. “Cop steals drugs for girlfriend,” I can see it now.’
‘Jesus, I only said-’
‘I’m flesh and blood, aren’t I, like you? I got feelings?’
‘Of course.’
‘I deserve respect.’
‘I respect you.’
‘Well don’t say anything insulting to me again. Don’t even think it. I especially don’t want to hear anything about Maoris or New Zealand or anything about my past, okay?’
‘Sure.’
She pushed down on his head. ‘Do me with your tongue. That’s it… that’s it…’
She was slippery ground, but sex was firm ground, and van Alphen threw himself into it. He heard, through the dampish slap of her inner thighs against his ears, a sound like pleasure and pain.
At four o’clock, just as John Tankard was finishing a cup of tea in the staff canteen before going on patrol with Pam Murphy, someone called, ‘Hey, Tank, bad luck, mate.’
‘Yeah, thanks.’
‘Dropping the charges, what bastards.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘So, did you get to screw old Cindy, or what?’
John Tankard propelled the other man across the room, forearm to the throat, flattening him against the wall. ‘You arsehole.’
‘Chill out, Tank. He was only joking.’
‘Yeah, let him go, Tank. Look, we’re all on your side. They think if they’ve got money they can get away with anything. It’s not right. We’re on your side. So let him go.’
Tankard released his colleague. It wasn’t often-ever? — that the others were on his side.
Challis picked up the phone and heard Tessa Kane say, ‘Hal, I thought I’d ring now to wish you Merry Christmas. I’ll be with my family all day tomorrow.’
There was a touch of desolation in her voice. Was her life like his? He breathed out heavily. ‘Have a happy day.’
‘Thank you.’
Then her voice dropped, taking on slow, lonely tones. ‘You should have called.’
Challis waited, then said carefully, ‘I was going to.’
‘I wish you hadn’t left like that.’
They were silent. Eventually Challis said softly, ‘I’d better go. I’d like to see you again soon.’
‘Wait! I heard you arrested-’
Challis put the phone down. Arrested Lady Bastian’s son, she was going to say, and apparently there were questions all over the arrest, but that wasn’t his problem.
He glanced at his watch. Six-thirty. He decided against going home and then coming back again, and walked down High Street to the Fish Bar, a bistro between the shire offices and the jetty. From the window he could see the open ground that the town had set aside for fairs and carnivals. Tonight: Carols by Candlelight. Late January: the Westernport Festival. Anzac Day: dawn service.
He liked eating alone. He often had no choice but to eat alone, but he did like it, most of the time. Tonight it would have been better to have dined with someone, for he felt peaceful and relaxed for the first time in a while- which owed a lot to the fact that it was Christmas Eve and the town-even the police station all that day-was in a slowed-down mood, everyone benign and full of good intentions.
At eight o’clock he paid his bill, and as he was standing, waiting, folding his credit card receipt into his pocket, he saw Scobie Sutton’s car draw into the kerb on the other side of the road. The grassy area near the little bandstand was filling rapidly. Sutton and his wife and daughter got out of the car, carrying blankets and hymn books. The child was sleepy. Challis watched them join the crowd. Someone gave them candles from a cardboard box, and they settled on to their blankets. But Challis didn’t join them when the carol singing began. He might have, and been welcomed, but he found a corner of the crowd where he could sing and not be expected to talk.
Eleven
Challis woke at six on Christmas morning and desolation flooded him. He hadn’t expected to feel this way. He’d thought he was above all that. He remembered what he’d read somewhere-if you’re depressed, go for a long walk-and swung immediately out of bed and hunted for his Nike gardening shoes, a T-shirt and an old pair of shorts.
He walked for an hour. As the bad feeling lifted, he found himself listening to the birds. He could swear he was hearing bellbirds, the first in his five years on the Peninsula. The world was still and silent, and he was alone and light-footed in it, this morning. He took deep breaths. Yellow-breasted robins watched him and a thrush sang high in the canopy of branches above his head. There were creatures scratching in the bracken. Only a plastic shopping bag caught in a blackberry cane spoiled the morning for him-that, and the realisation that he’d been depressed but wasn’t now, yet might be again as the day developed.
At nine-thirty he left the house. Ellen Destry and her husband and daughter lived in a cedar house on stilts in an airless pocket between ti-trees and a small, humped hill at Penzance Beach. The house looked like-and had been, before the Destrys bought it-someone’s holiday house. And nothing- not even the new shrubs and herbs and fruit trees, or the fresh paint job and the hanging plants-would alter that. Three cars in the driveway, three out on the street. Challis groaned. He wasn’t ready for a crowd. He mostly preferred solitariness yet worked in an occupation that demanded permanent sociality.
Alan Destry came to the door. ‘Hal. Come in, come in, Merry Christmas.’
Ellen’s husband wore an air of grievance. He was a constable, attached to the Traffic Division in the Outer Eastern zone, married to a fast-tracking CIB detective. That’s how Ellen had explained it to Challis once, at the pub, when she wanted to stay and drink and not go home. ‘Merry Christmas yourself,’ Challis said, offering his hand.
At that moment a light plane passed overhead, following the shoreline. Distracted, Challis looked up. Twin-
