the market. Pam parked the van under a gum tree and got out, leaving Tankard sprawled in the passenger seat. In the old days, before the leaflet campaign, he would have been in the car park measuring tyre-tread thicknesses, slapping roadworthy infringement notices on windscreens, generally hassling the natives. Not now. Too much palpable hatred in the air whenever he showed his face in public.
She saw Danny Holsinger and edged toward him. Danny and his mother operated a stall every Sunday, selling crocheted shawls and doilies, woven string holders for hanging plants, slip-on covers for hot-water bottles, teapot cosies and other fussy pink things that no-one had much use for, certainly not on a hot Sunday morning.
When the mother was out of earshot, Pam said, ‘Happy new year for tomorrow, Danny.’
Surprised, he said, ‘Yeah.’
‘There was an ag burg near the racecourse yesterday. Rather a nasty one. What’s the word?’
Danny looked edgy. Then again, he’d always looked edgy around teachers, policemen, priests, anyone with any authority over him. ‘I’m not into that.’
‘I didn’t say you were. You’re a loner, Danny. But have you heard any whispers around the place? We’re looking for two men, one big, the other about your size. They stole a Pajero. Torched it some time last night, over by the highway.’
‘Wasn’t me.’
‘Danny, relax. Just keep your ear to the ground, okay?’
Then the mother returned with an armful of fussy cot blankets from the boot of her car, so Pam wandered through to the organic produce stall, thinking she might buy some tomatoes. Next to it was a donut van. She stopped, bought a couple for John Tankard.
She returned to the divisional van, winding her way among the remaining stalls. Where did they get their stuff, all that junk, half of it old, half of it brand new and made of cheap metal and plastic in China somewhere? Toys. Tools. Household gadgets. She couldn’t see anyone in Waterloo arranging a buying trip to China. So it had to be bankrupt stock, sold at auction, except the handmade stuff, the jams and doilies and coloured bead jewellery.
Tankard hadn’t moved. ‘Hungry?’
He opened his eyes. ‘Murph. You’re a doll.’
Pam belted herself in, started the engine, eyeing him sadly. ‘That is not a pleasant sight.’
His mouth full, sugar on his chin, he asked, ‘Where to now?’
‘That Pajero,’ Pam said.
‘What the fuck for? Leave it to CIB.’
‘CIB think something smells wrong.’
‘Big-deal detective, on the case.’
Pam ignored him. Ginger had been so sweet this morning. He’d taken her back to his house and gently massaged a strange, foul-smelling cream into her jaw. Said it was pawpaw extract and would work wonders. She was still waiting.
They rode in silence, until Tankard stiffened like a hunting dog. ‘Check that. Broken tail light.’
That was pretty typical, Pam thought. Lonely road, solitary, vulnerable motorist. ‘Leave it, Tank.’
‘Yeah, well, we all know about you, soft on the locals.’
Pam ignored him. Tankard went on: ‘You know what your problem is? You’re a snob.’
‘First I’m soft on the locals, now I’m a snob. Which is it?’
‘Never see you down the pub. You don’t mix. What are ya?’
‘I’m not you, Tank, that’s all that matters. You want the world to be like you, and frankly that is a terrible thought.’
The Pajero site was easy to find, a smallish patch of blackened grass and scorched trees and fence posts. A farmer coming home from the pub after a cricket match late the previous night had seen the blaze and put it out with the fire extinguisher he kept in his car.
There was a white sedan parked nearby. A man in a short-sleeved shirt was taking photographs. Pam approached him, saying, ‘May I ask what you’re doing, sir?’
The man straightened. He was about forty, calm and unhurried-looking. ‘Insurance,’ he said.
Pam nodded, then looked at the burnt grass. ‘Where’s the vehicle?’
‘Carted off to the police garage about-’ the man looked at his watch ‘-half an hour ago. I’d given it the once- over. Now I’m checking the scene.’
They stood together musingly. Bracken, blackberry thickets, rye grass and gum trees hugged both sides of the road, but here there was only an area of ash the size of a room, dotted with lumps of molten glass and plastic, some remnants of the electrical circuitry and four fine wire sculptures that were all that remained of the tyres. Scattered around the perimeter were bottles, drink cans and cigarette packets, as though whoever had torched the Pajero had stood there gloating.
‘We get a couple of these a month,’ the insurance investigator said. ‘It’s become a copycat thing.’
‘And a summer thing,’ Pam said.
‘Yeah, the general madness.’
On an impulse, Pam collected the newer-looking cans, bottles and cigarette packets, picking them up with the end of her pen and stuffing them into a large plastic evidence sack. She paused. Was that the guts of a car phone?
‘You’re fucking mad,’ John Tankard said when Pam was behind the wheel again. ‘You want to give yourself a rest or you’ll get a promotion.’
Danny discovered, as the day progressed, that his fingers were all thumbs. He dropped coins, couldn’t open paper bags, spilt the thermos coffee over one of his mother’s tea cosies, there on the trestle table, just as someone was about to buy it.
‘What the hell’s got into you?’
‘Sorry, Mum.’
‘Look, take yourself off for a walk, get out of me hair.’
‘Sorry, Mum.’
He took her advice and walked along the bicycle path. The truth was, his nerves were shot to pieces. That stunt of Jolic’s yesterday, bashing those people, then following that sheila in her Mercedes just because she gave him the finger. The way he kept shouting, ‘I’ll kill the cunt, I’ll kill the cunt,’ spit flying around inside the Pajero. The way he just drove and drove after that, for hours, risking discovery but not giving a damn, he was so worked up.
Culminating in Jolic parking on a back road and using the Pajero’s car phone to call one of his heavy mates to come and fetch them.
Danny hadn’t understood. They’d waited there on that dirt road, Jolic a massive dark shape in the dim light of the moon, and he’d asked, ‘Why can’t we just dump it near home and walk the rest of the way?’
‘Because,’ Jolic had said.
Danny soon understood. When the mate, Craig Oliver, arrived in his panel van with a few tinnies from the pub, Jolic torched the Pajero. They stood there, the three of them, watching it burn.
And now that young copper, turning up like she knew something.
No wonder his nerves were shot.
McQuarrie came by at five o’clock, bidding them a happy new year and suggesting a brief brainstorming of the case. More of a brainbashing than a brainstorming, Challis thought, as the clock on the wall showed five-thirty, six, six-thirty. Sunday evening, New Year’s Eve, he could see how thoroughly demoralised everyone was. As soon as McQuarrie had left the room, he tiptoed comically to the door, stuck his head into the corridor, looked left and right, pulled back into the room and shut the door, his face a pantomime of subversive intent. Good, they were laughing, relaxing.
‘I know you’ve all got families to go to,’ he said, ‘but if anyone wants to stay on for a quick meal, pasta, a glass or two of red, it’s my shout.’
